Activism and emotional burnout Feminist activism in BFI became a constant practice of self-reflection, weaning myself off of the caustic habits instilled in me by a patriarchal society while searching for feminist alternatives to life (living + being) in self-organization.
HOW CAN WE AVOID BECOMING TRAPPED I N THE ETERNAL DRAMATIC TRIANGLE OF AGGRESSOR, VICTIMS, RESCUER WITH OUR LIVES TRAPPED CIRCLING THESE THREE ROLES? Coming into feminist activism became a process of rethinking of work processes as well. Knowing that control, domination and violence are cyclical in nature, I was worried about how to avoid reproducing violence and dominance against ourselves. How can we build our relationships with friends, romantic partners and colleagues without falling into the patterns of domination and violence? How can we avoid becoming trapped in the eternal dramatic triangle of aggressor, victims, rescuer with our lives trapped circling these three roles? I tried to find answers to these questions by engaging in feminist activism. I learned from the experiences of other feminist activists who documented their experiences, and this inspired me to look for alternative approaches to collaboration. To start with, I wanted to unpack the idea of women’s work. For my entire life, I
Saadat never really realized how much the work done by women was ignored and undervalued. The domestic work in my family was almost always done by women and was completely unnoticed by everyone else including me. Of course, the men in the family also had chores, but they were often outside in the yard or fields, but their work was more visible, more praised and sometimes paid. From an early age, I was taught that women must do the cleaning, cooking and other household chores. Even mentioning the idea that we could swap roles or share work equally among family members would simply end in an argument. Nothing would change. Everything would just fall back into the same old patterns. I was programmed by this so-called tradition and often failed to share credit with other women regardless of their contributions to me throughout my life. Conversely, I would ignore the women that had helped me while I invested my time and energy in other girls and women. As always, women’s work remained invisible and unrecognized. I have also noticed this trend in our society. The contributions of the women’s and feminist movements towards the advancement of women’s rights is often devalued, which has allowed for the spread of ridiculous myths about men advancing women’s rights. It was as if everyone else was striving and achieving progress except for us. Women’s work remained invisible in activism just as it did at home. 53
