Intro:The reason why I always want to study feminism is that I believe women have great power and potential ,but they have not been fully accepted and utilized, the world is controlled by man, they set the rules and tell woman what is right what is wrong ,what is beauty and what is ugly, after many years of women movement ,feminism are gradually growing in some countries and achieved success to some extent ,but it is not enough, we still have a long way to go.
At the beginning of my project ,my research is more about the male’s bullying in aesthetic area ,but during a journey in the independent study time , some personal experience (rob, sexual harassment)had totally changed the direction of research. I have realized that because of the physical disparity between men and women ,we can hardly be equal ,even we work hard ,study hard ,we can be a financially independent ,spiritual independent modern women ,but when a man’s fist hits us, woman can only suffer . safety is the basic right as human being , but women is still facing gender-based violence today which has been a global crisis in the world since the pandemic(2021),and i believe that is the most urgent thing we should cope with immediately.
Question:After a series of investigations ,I redefined my research question as -How can i help to ensure women’s safety based on the physical disparity between man and woman?I wish I can do something to improve the terrible situation.
Research Methodology :Then I used a range of research approaches to gather data and test ideas ,including observation ,internet research ,social media research ,archive research ,online survey, interview ,and experimental .First of all ,i went to many museums or art galleries to see different artworks related to feminism and observed peoples reaction,for example ,Feminine power-the divine to the demonic in the British Museum.Secondly ,i did a lot of recommended reading,like The second sex ,A room of one’s own and read many articles on the internet which give me a more comprehensive understanding of feminism and the state of Woman’s safety issue .Thirdly ,an online survey was design to ascertain the participants,More than 185 people involved to this survey, and 11 peoples shared that they experienced the similar gender-based violence,at the same time, i also did an offline interview in Wembley which located in the northwest of London and been considered a dangerous area.Last but not least ,I emailed to two women organizations(UK Woman and Forward)to apply to be a volunteer ,this could be a good chance for me to go deeper into the research.
Intervention: In addition ,two interventions was created to test my idea.The first one is an offline performance art ,a short , delicate,young Asian girl took a luggage and worn a black coat with poster and slogan(Please don’t hurt me when I walk alone) pined on it ,walking alone on the street in the outside of St.Pancras International station in London which have a mix of people. The results shows that male’s curiosity about a young girl are more than females,many man noticed my coat and two of them are even got very close to watch it，by contrast ,women always keep a proper distance.
The second one is an online campaign ,i registered an account on two influential platforms, the one is Redbook(Chinese Instagram and 80% user are educated females), another one is Weibo(Chinese Twitter),I also updated two blogs about feminism and woman’s safety issue, stakeholders could share their experience or advice in this place .The reason I created this intervention is that when I collected data on the internet ,I found that we don’t even have a unofficially ,non-profit women organization in China ,and which proved the underdeveloped of feminism in my country.
Audience: My stakeholder are mainly related to Chinese females who also are the user of the two platforms, as well as the man ,woman charities ,woman organizations in London.
Strengths and weakness:The strengths of my project is that I have abundant resources to use in London,like different woman charities and organizations ,the development of Feminism in Western countries is far ahead of the east countries , i can learn a lot from them ,what more ,the free and open atmosphere is good for launching campaigns,by comparison,feminism in China is still a relatively sensitive topic and not welcome by man,unfamiliar to woman ,that is the biggest challenge for me ,i might face a lot of incomprehension and criticize.
Concluding: As for me ,with the in-depth study f project, Ido learned a lot from it ,firstly ,i gained a lot of knowledge about different female culture and history .Secondly ,i contacted many related people and initially established a network of relationships, their experience and suggestions is really helpful to my research . The most important is that I am getting to know myself better as a woman, my desire ,my passion, my power, and I am so happy to be able to make a little change to this world.
Reference:
1.Woolf, V. (1929). A Room Of One’s Own. Hogarth Press.
2.De Beauvoir, S. (1949). The Second Sex. Vintage Classics.
3.Hannam, J. (2016). Feminism. Taylor & Francis.
4.Tong, R. and Fernandes, T. (2017). Feminist thought : a more comprehensive introduction. New York, Ny: Westview Press.
5.上野千鶴子, 1948- Author. Chizuko Ueno, Zou, Y. and Xue, M. (2020b). 父权制与资本主义 / Fu quan zhi yu zi ben zhu yi. 浙江大学出版社, Hang Zhou: Zhe Jiang Da Xue Chu Ban She.
6.Caroline Criado Perez (2019). Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men. S.L.: Vintage.
7.Frith, H. (2001). Young Women, Feminism and the Future: Dialogues and Discoveries. Feminism & Psychology, 11(2), pp.147–151.
8.Andrews, M. (2006). I. Breaking Down Barriers: Feminism, Politics and Psychology. Feminism & Psychology, 16(1), pp.13–17. doi:10.1177/0959-353506060814.
9.Feminisms and Social Media A Special Issue of Feminism & Psychology. (2016). Feminism & Psychology, 26(1), pp.128–129. doi:10.1177/0959353516631672.
10.Calder-Dawe, O. and Gavey, N. (2016). Jekyll and Hyde revisited: Young people’s constructions of feminism, feminists and the practice of ‘reasonable feminism’. Feminism & Psychology, 26(4), pp.487–507. doi:10.1177/0959353516660993.
11.Duggan, M. (2019). Reflections on the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme (England and Wales). Journal of Gender-Based Violence. doi:10.1332/239868019×1553858480933.
12.London City Hall. (2018). Women’s Night Safety Charter. [online] Available at: https://www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/arts-and-culture/24-hour-london/womens-night-safety-charter.
13.Sky News. (n.d.). The Great Debate: Are women safe on our streets? The key facts. [online] Available at: https://news.sky.com/story/the-great-debate-are-women-safe-on-our-streets-the-key-facts-12423256.
14.SafetyDetectives. (2021). Research: Women’s Safety Around the World. [online] Available at: https://www.safetydetectives.com/blog/womens-safety-research/#review-1 [Accessed 31 Aug. 2022].
15.Birmingham City University. (n.d.). Women’s Safety Movement. [online] Available at: https://www.bcu.ac.uk/english/news/blog/womens-safety-movement [Accessed 31 Aug. 2022].