Thursday 11 April 2013

100 Deeds



Hello everyone

We are Jenny & Sarah & we wanted to welcome you to 100 Deeds! 100 Deeds is a project which came out of a conversation about the word ‘feminism’ and what that means to people.

We wanted to create a project which in someway marked the 100 year anniversary of the Emily Wilding Davisons protest at Epsom Derby (4th June 1913) in which she stepped in front of a horse whilst protesting for women’s right to vote. It’s an iconic moment in British history – I don’t know about any other girls but I grew up knowing that I should vote before knowing anything about politics, simply because somebody had died for my right to. I think the both of us have a complicated response to Emily’s action – we’re not sure if it was heroic, or an act of terrorism. We’re not even sure if Emily did this on purpose.

What we do think is that there’s something in the Women’s Social Political Union slogan ‘Deeds Not Words’; we think that actions do often speak louder than words. We also think that opinions around gender quality are complex and diverse. Possibly 1 action cannot sum up what the feminism means to us now, but maybe 100 actions might get close.

So we’re asking people to do something really simple – to do a deed which promotes or represents what feminism means to you (don’t just talk about it) and then share it with us ... (see the image above for one of the first submissions)… We will share our findings online & in a showing at People’s History Museum. Anyone can get involved & become a modern history maker – take a look here: 100deeds.co.uk