FC2k17
What is Feminist Challenge 2k17?
FC2k17 is a newsletter, delivered weekly on Mondays. The newsletter will contain the challenge for the week, context if needed, a donation button and an incredibly brief survey regarding completion of the previous week’s challenge.
The newsletter will be disseminated from a dedicated email account for this project. Feel free to email this account with questions, concerns and feedback. I am simultaneously recruiting volunteers to engage participants in conversation and can connect you with them by email if you’d like to carry the conversation further than the end of the week.
FC2k17 is a competition. I will publish leaderboards and rankings periodically by email. Rankings are based on participation and extra credit opportunities. There will be a majestic prize at the end of the year.
Who is it for?
Feminist Challenge 2k17 is open to all genders, but the challenges are specifically designed for cisgender men. If anything, I would expect FC2k17 to be boring for women and for trans and non-binary people, and for those who have extensively investigated gender.
What’s the point?
The point of Feminist Challenge 2k17 is to encourage men to approach empathy with women by building their own personal testimonies of awkwardness, inconvenience and pain. The belief behind this is that performance can add a different level of appreciation above intellectual understanding. The more men fully appreciate the feminist call to equality, the better our society will be.
The point is to use the structure of a newsletter and a responsive team of volunteers to make a large project like this sustainable and meaningful. The belief behind this is that if a large project isn't broken up into chunks with an understood timeline and if there's no graceful accountability, the project does not have as good of a chance of being completed.
The point is also to have some fun.
Does it cost money?
FC2k17 is meant to be as accessible as possible. I will not tell you, for example, to buy heels. The challenges that ask you to spend money often simulate instances where women almost always front the cost, such as buying tampons.
Signing up itself doesn't cost anything. I want as many people to participate as possible, and money gets in the way of that. This will take a some work on my part and you can support that work by donating if you feel like it. Some of the money you donate will go to a women’s-issue non-profit that y’all will research and vote on for one of the challenges! But ultimately, I am not doing this for money and also appreciate non-monetary forms of support such as email feedback if you find the project useful.
Who runs FC2k17?
Lydia, your friendly neighborhood feminist. Hi.
What do volunteers do?
I'm currently seeking volunteers who would like to donate time and energy towards engaging participants in discussion over email, kind of like a pen-pal would. I am particularly looking for volunteers who are feminist, who are patient with uncomfortable conversations and who respond to email within at least 6 days of receiving it. I do not expect the time commitment to be more than a couple hours a month. Volunteers will make this project amazing. Please sign up on the right hand side of the sign-up page. Thank you!
RECAP: What FC2k17 is and what it isn’t:
It is a set of challenges to mimic challenges women face in society. It is not a set of challenges to take feminist action. You will not be told to go to a protest, for example. You will only be working on yourself.
It is a challenge centered around women. It is not focused on how men can or should act. What you decide to do with what you learn and how it impacts your identity as a man is totally up to you.
It is an attempt to recreate experiences of a large number of women in the United States. It is not, and could never be, a representation of all women’s experiences.
It is primarily designed for cis men who want to understand more about expectations placed on women in our society. This is not drag for cis men and this is not the same thing as understanding the expectations placed on trans or non-binary people in our society. (I would love to share any insights I have from running this project with trans and non-binary people interested in leading challenge year projects of their design.)
It is for men who want to participate. I am not here to convince you to do the challenge. If your friend sent this link to you and you don’t want to do this, don't.
READY?