One journey in Gender Enders 2.0 - Coma-Ruga
Gender Enders was a Training Course that took place in Coma-Ruga, Spain. We talked and learned about different genders, feminism and explored our own identity.
We kicked off the day with a fast-paced workshop on exploring different forms of violence - sexual, social, economical, psychological, and symbolic violence. Through fruitful discussions we learned of many different realities and how violence can be (and is) present around us and can often get overlooked or even worse - we may be a part of it without even realizing it. Lots of examples were brought up and explored as we dug deeper to understand these inequality issues and the best ways to tackle them. To follow up we engaged in an exciting role-playing activity - we simulated our participation in European Parliament forming 5 groups (parties) with the underlying task to propose new laws/legislations that directly tackle the aforementioned forms of violence. Parties introduced the following ideas (titles):
- Empathy courses in schools.
- Regulation of hate speech in social media.
- Obligation to inform about systemic domestic abuse/violence if in possession of such information.
- Comprehensive approach to eradicate sexual violence in the member states of EU
- Eradicating discrimination in the workplace.
All of the proposals were discussed in the simulation and put on a vote later on. It was a great way not only to strengthen our comprehension of the topic but also put our ability to define specific and realistic actions to a test. As a result, we concluded the 2 phase session with 4 out of 5 proposals considered to be effective in combating the aforementioned forms of violence.
We created a manifesto for the demonstration of what we planned about the feminism and LGBT+ community. We wrote paragraphs of what are the main problems of LGBT+ and different gender policies. In the paragraphs, we showed clear what are the most important problems and solutions of each community. With this activity, we could learn how to prepare for any demonstration and how can we stand for ourselves. The second part of the day, the most interesting part for me (Balazs) was the presentation and talk about the drag queens. We know now what is exactly the drag culture. It is one of the arts. Anybody can be a drag (not necessarily to be transgender), also a cisgender person. We saw how many types of drag is exist and how many different ways are there to express yourself. In the end, we could try to be a drag with a lot of accessories. During the night we had a fun drag show where we danced and laughed a lot. With all of the activities, we improved our skills to how to work in a group. Between the activities, we danced a bit and played some funny games, which made us happy. The day was very interesting and joyful.
In the final part of the day each of us had to represent himself with a drawing and around the drawing, we had to answer some personal questions, such as:
"What did you learn today?"
“How will you use what you have learned today in your life?"
"What supported you?" Etc. etc.
And finally, we shared it all with their appetite group.
it was a nice experience that gave us the opportunity to dedicate a moment to ourselves, rethinking how the activities of the day and what we learn can change us and enrich our knowledge in some way.
