Concerned Citizen

The Kristin Perkins Interview

To some people, feminism is a charged word synonymous conflict and confrontation. To others, feminism is a simple statement of the discrepancy between the way women and men are treated in our society; any conflict in this case is in the eye of the beholder. Kristin Perkins is an example of a college student that chose to identify with a local feminist movement after seeing examples of the unfair treatment of women in society, specifically in our own community.

Recently there was a web movement on twitter called #YesAllWomen that allowed women to tell stories about how they personally have been mistreated in society because of their gender. This movement was followed by #YesEvenMormonWomen which had specific relevance to communities like the one at BYU. These statements used social media to add a personal voice to the larger issue at hand. All of the stories are different, but the underlying ideology is the same: Women are not receiving fair and equal treatment in our society when compared to their male counterparts and because of this many women are subject to abuse, discrimination, and objectification. Each and every woman has a voice to be heard and a story to tell. Campaigns like this one allow for the individual to be strengthened by the collective in opening up a larger social dialogue on the issue.

           As Kristin shared in our audio report, first we need to bring awareness to this problem in our own community. It is not just something that happens in another part of the nation or world, gender discrimination can be found in our everyday lives so far as we are able to identify it. She is doing so by helping develop the “YesAllWomen” devised theatre project. This play takes real stories from local women and puts them in the form of a production in order to communicate to a larger audience while still retaining the personal aspect of the experience that is so valuable. Projects like these help us change our community by forcing people to go outside the comfort of the commonly adopted perspective and face the inconvenient reality that exists at their doorstep. As Arlene Goldbard said, it is healthy to confront the old order of things and just because it has always been done, does not mean it should be perpetuated. Person by person, change can come about so far as we act on what we have learned rather than rely on the convenience of the past.