I’m passionate about life again! Maybe it’s partly due to the weather but the main reason for the re-ignition of this old flame is Caitlin Moran, Eve Ensler and my new attitude. Continue reading to find out how these incredible ladies changed my life.
I recently decided to take control of my life and instead of mulling over decisions to the point of insanity I now follow my gut. I don’t give myself time to think things over because that usually results in a “safe” decision. “I can’t really afford it” is one of my common excuses. This new attitude started with my decision to leave Japan. This should have been a difficult decision to make but it really wasn’t. I guess I thought that if I could make a major life decision such as to leave the place I had called home for the passed five years than I could make any subsequent decisions easily.
The momentum that this new approach had given my life is incredible. I’m regaining passion for a lot of things that life has to offer, music is one of them but also my passion for justice and equality.
Many of you know that last month I organized a reading of The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler for V-Day Tokyo 2013. For those of you who don’t know what TVM or V-Day are I encourage you to Google it right now! Stop reading this and find out about V-Day.
Every time I’ve organized a charity event I’m always so impressed with the spirit and generosity of the people. It really makes me feel good about bringing people together and creating awareness. TVM was the most stressful event I’ve organized to date but also the most rewarding. Vspot.org have a lot of requirements for the events you organize so I had to adhere to their rules but also adjust to Japanese culture and business etiquette. This was my first time dealing directly with a Japanese owned and operated venue so at times it was difficult to get my point across but they were very helpful and were willing to meet me half way throughout the entire process. This was only a small part of what made V-Day Tokyo memorable and special to me.
Through only word of mouth and a couple of posts on this blog I was able to find an amazing group of ladies willing to help bring awareness and create a dialogue about women’s issues here in Tokyo, Japan. Many of the ladies I had never met before, most of them had never been involved in TVM before and a few told me that they would not have read had I not been the one organizing it. Each woman brought her own unique energy to the readings resulting in a perfect show. The turn out was amazing and I ended up with a tremendous amount of clothing (and money) to donate to our beneficiary.
Somewhere during the last five years I lost my feminine pride or maybe I lost it before that. But the closer it came to V-Day, the more passionate I felt about the issues we were discussing and more importantly about being a woman. In the midst of organizing and preparing for V-Day, I stumbled across a copy of “How to Be a Woman” by Caitlin Moran (synchronicity perhaps?). Finally I found a book about women that I could relate to. To me the book is the modern definition of feminism and Caitlin nails it on the head.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed Morans book, it wasn’t until I sat down to talk with one of the TVM readers when I finally remembered how enraged I used to get when hearing about violence against women, gender inequality or hate and inequality in general. This shit used to fuckin’ piss me off! I would yell at the television and curse the ground that rapists walk on. There was a time when I would cry uncontrollably and turn away from a movie depicting a rape scene or even eluding to it. It all came flooding back to me and reignited my feminist flame. I can wear that label with pride now because I understand it. I used to think of feminists in the same way as many others; bra-burning, man-hating lesbians. If you cut out all the crap and negative stereotypes that surround the word “feminist” you get down to what it really means, EQUALITY. And who doesn’t want equality?
I want equality for everyone.
