More Rollins College Diaries

It’s been nearly 2 weeks since I returned to the Guerrilla Girls on Tour headquarters from Rollins College… and I have finally recovered from the high of feminism-gone-wild, otherwise known as the Veteran Feminists of America celebration. I’ll spoil the ending by saying that our last night there, the night of our performance, we opened our dressing room door and there stood Gloria Steinem – larger than life and by that time a familiar presence to us, Ms. Steinem floated into the room and apologized for interrupting our warm-up – she needed as place to wait for her ride to the airport. At every meeting Gloria – as she insisted everyone call her - was incredibly gracious, engaged, and well, down right awesome. We all flew high during the show - truly a performance of a life-time, blessed by the goddess herself.

Now back to the beginning. We left New York on a warm late-October morning and landed in Orlando FL amongst a sea of families headed to Disney World. After a short drive to Winter Park, we met up with Gail, of the Winter Park Institute, and settled into our home-away-from-home, a condo tucked away on a ‘quiet’ street, right next to the train tracks - more on that in a bit.

It had been a while since I was in the south and the Spanish moss and technicolor palms calmed my senses immediately. We had a fun and energetic theater workshop with the students our third day there. They were open and ready to try anything - movement, vocalizing, games, and tons of improvisation followed. Then, on to a poster-making workshop the following day - talk about a group that needed nearly no guidance. They gathered, shared ideas, broke into groups, and collaborated through 3, sometimes 4, drafts of their ideas, refining their message into ready-to-go campaigns.

We participated in a panel discussion on sexual violence and gender equality the next evening of our residency. This was interesting and highlighted several things. First, the need to have a more clearly defined topic - sexual violence and equity were perhaps too broad. Second, know your audience. I have seen this a lot - a women’s center brings in speakers who are prepared to talk to students but the audience is full of advocates looking for more information. And so the group feels talked down to but people don’t really know how to say ‘OK - let’s get to the level 2 or 3 version of this talk.’ Third, a major sticking point in ‘rape education’ still seemed to be the presumed ‘yes’ and so girls need (apparently) to learn to use the ‘hard no’. Which, while frustrating is also a policy issue, as some campuses have rules that promote consensual - must hear a ‘yes’ - sex and this campus has no such policy.

Finally we are back to the show - and what a show it was! Nearly 30 minutes longer than usual because so many people were happily sharing, participating, chanting with us, hugging us, and willing to share their own stories, up-coming events, experiences, hot flashes :), and voices. Whew! Thanks Rollins for a memorable trip...I'm signing off for now...

xxx,

Eva Le Gallienne

Aphra's Rollins College Diary Part I

The past week we have been in residence at Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida as part of their fabulous Winter Park Institute which brings together “leading scholars and artists not simply to give a lecture or performance, but to engage and share time and ideas with our students…” http://www.rollins.edu/wpi/

Gloria Steinem asks the Veteran Feminists of America in the audience to stand up and take a bow!

During the week we led workshops in combining activism and art and ended it all with a performance of “Feminists Are Funny” in Tiedtke Hall on October 29th. All of our activities coincide with the celebration of the 45^th anniversary of the modern feminist movement and there are many important feminists here including Gloria Steinem, NOW President Terry O’Neill, Eleanor Pam and congresswoman Patricia Schroeder.

It was wonderful to feel like you were in the thick of feminism, going from feminist workshop to feminist group dinners to speeches, panels and informal chats. There are old and young feminists here, new and seasoned feminists; angry and happy feminists all sharing, questioning and hugging each other.

Poster Workshop

Some of my memories of the week include a young theatre student asking us: “You are an activist theatre company? Isn’t that, like, old?”

Poster workshop themes

During the panel discussion we found that some professors do not want to identify as feminists. That some students fit into clear gender stereotypes while most do not. That the mandatory freshman orientation play that trains students on how to address date rape and sexual violence on campus was not booked this year. That the hot line number for anyone who has been sexually assaulted on campus is incorrect on the flyers. That those flyers can’t be put up because there are no flyers allowed on campus. That a film crew wanted to shoot here but said it didn’t look like a college campus because there were no flyers anywhere. That some students put up flyers anyway. That some feminists are comfortable jumping down anyone’s throat who attempts to disempower them. That this readiness to stand up for the feminist cause is a good thing but can also be a bad thing because it can keep us from engaging in productive dialogue. That this lack of dialogue makes feminism feel stagnant. That wearing our gorilla masks around Halloween makes people think we are just adult trick or treaters. More about our performance of “Feminists Are Funny” in part 2.