Motivation For Change
My name is Elena (21) and I am going to take you on the journey of the Grensverleggers Safe Campus project with several blogs about my experiences. Sometimes, I will also connect these experiences to my research on sexual street harassment. More on this later.
Last Grensverleggers weekend we were with 44 young people, coming from all corners of the world (not just the Netherlands!). In total, they formed 8 different project groups, who set up their own project in 10 weeks. At the end of the first training day, all project groups presented their ideas. As diverse as the young people, so many variations of ideas. Where one will tackle stress, the other project groups will tackle consent, masculinity, mental health and much more!
The first training weekend was all about getting acquainted, community building and exploring themes. One of the methods we used to explore the theme of gender was ' the man box' and ' the woman flower.' Daring indeed, but it was rewarded. Everyone participated and "the man box" and "the woman flower" were filled in no time. For this task we had to divide into two groups. On the left side were those who identified themselves as men and on the right side were those who identified themselves as women. The male group was given a sheet of paper depicting 'the man box' and the female group was given a sheet of paper depicting 'the woman flower'. Everyone in the group was asked what views they have been taught in society. The stereotypes about masculinity and. Femininity thus appeared on paper. The stereotypes were then discussed with the whole group. We were quiet to listen and loud to share our insights.
The second training day stood we had a workshop on Deep Democracy, inclusive decision-making. How do we make choices for ourselves? And how do we make choices with each other? And then immediately set to work on everyone's own projects. The workshops gave us inspiration, making it a creative breeding ground for new ideas. We saw this in the presentations at the end of the day. During these presentations, each project group had two minutes to pitch their idea to the other groups. There was also room for questions and compliments. These presentations were inspiring because everyone had such beautiful, creative, and diverse ideas.
The conversations that took place this weekend are so important and are still too often missing from the political debate. I also notice this when I do research on sexual street harassment. This form of street harassment will become punishable in the Netherlands with the new Sexual Offenses Act. It is a step forward. A contribution to the solution. But it is certainly not the whole solution. To solve sexual street harassment, a form of gender-based violence, we need to do something about the gender inequality, sexism and role patterns ingrained in Dutch culture. These conversations that we have during the first training weekend of the training weekend, are so important that they also need to be had by policy makers, legislators and enforcers. So that it doesn't just stick only to an article of law.
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