I had a really lovely day out with my friend N.
The plan was to meet up at Pimlico tube station, I was on time but N had missed his train so was going to be late. No probem. I walked to the TATE, spent the time in the members bar having a cup of tea. We chatted on WhatsApp until he went underground. I sent him a picture of me in my lovely summer dress and new necklace joking so you recognise me.
I wanted to use the pic as an avatar, but it would not upload. Never mind. When he arrived we went to see the Sargent exhibition, I had seen it last week, but enjoyed it just as much as last time maybe more as I was with N. I also wanted to see the women in revolt exhibition, not so much art as a history lesson of the women's lib movements of the 70's and 80's. It was hard going, after, I asked N what India was like for his mother and interestingly he said that it was quite progressive in the cities, his mother became an accountant.
Looking at this exhibition, that documented how hard it was for women back then and I had lived through it with the male privilege that they did not have kinda made me think I was a fraud. Not of being a women now but not being a woman then. It was very thought provoking.
A couple of subjects covered is coming back after the hard fought rights seemed to have been won. The big one is abortion. In the US in particular and "coming to a country near me soon" is the removal of women's right to abortion, to have control of their own bodies and not dictated to by men. Worst still the number of women that agree with it too. I may be a new woman but I do not understand that.
The other is free contraception. In the UK this is still easy to get, but if I am not wrong, although there is still a legal right to contraception is there not a movement to restrict it by the religious right in the US?
What is so obvious was the lack of social media in the day. Pamphlets duplicated and handed out, hand printed and distributed magazines. None of which were that apparent unless you knew, same for Gay rights and the totally unheard of transsexualism (a word of the day)
Where would I have been if I had been born a girl (as much as I had always dreamed of being) brought up in the 60's and 70's. I hope I would still have gone to university and still read physics after all that was where I met my first wife.
I would hope too that I would have been radical. After all I am as radical as I can be today. But the powers that be have the upper hand here with the threat of being held in a male prison if arrested for breach of the peace, a catch all for stopping protest.
Ok enough of the heavy stuff, after the gallery we took the tube back one stop to Victoria and had a super meal at ZIZZI's (Italian) had pizza and a long talk before heading home.
Hugs
Jessica
Xxx