Reimagining Women & Power

If women aren't perceived to be within the structures of power, is it power that we need to redefine?

For centuries, power has been synonymous with men, forms of “masculine” power and narratives of domination that tend towards binary thinking and oppressive hierarchies. As long as women are silenced in public spaces, erased from collective memory and alienated from positions of authority, these paradigms prevail. For too many people, it has become difficult to imagine beyond the dominant narratives, and many women also struggle, at times, to build confidence in our sense of the world, our knowledge and our power.

It is easy to believe that the destructive narratives, systems and practices that are embedded in our everyday lives are inevitable or impossible to change. But power has not always operated this way, and women have not always and everywhere been powerless and oppressed. Ancient history and culture demonstrate very different paradigms, and we can see this resurface across history and cultures through the world. As long as there have been attempts to silence and oppress, there has been collective and personal resistance. Women-led movements have emerged globally, presenting alternative visions for society, ways of being and relating that draw from ancestral histories and life-supporting principles.

We will explore how reclaiming and re-imagining power can mean radically challenging the construction of power in society as a whole, making way for new ideas and ways of relating to emerge and take root.