Over the last week, the hashtag #yesallwomen has been all over my Facebook and Twitter feed. In part a reaction to the misogynistic message of the shooter Elliot Rodger in Isla Vista, the hashtag has created an opportunity for women to express the reasons why it’s tough sometimes to be a woman in the world. Here’s an article with more information: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/05/the-power-of-yesallwomen.html
This social media conversation tapped a line directly to my feminist rage veins. There are a lot of problems in this here world, and when you are sensitive to them, sometimes you get so mad you just feel like you are going to explode. One of the most valuable things yoga has taught me is that every emotion is important and has a lesson, including rage and anger. If you look these emotions right in their piercing fire eyes, you can acknowledge them for what they are and work with them mindfully, rather than, say, directing them at other people. It’s difficult to feel so deeply angry, but not at any particular person. The structures that support violence against women also support violence and oppression of men and other genders. Feminism, for me, anyway, is that which fights against these structures, not the fallible humans who are often unconsciously perpetuating them (including my own self, at times, of course!).
So where to direct this powerful flow of rage? To education, of course. To creating a story that can contain the intangible things I am so angry with. To create a vocabulary so that the structures that oppress us can become visible, so we can see them and work with them or reject them rather than mindlessly following their script.
This is why I wanted to create Yoga for Feminists. It’s starting as a workshop I’m leading in June, where we will take a look at some of the history, philosophy, and mythologies of yoga. Some of these classic structures come from a patriarchal and class-oriented history (for a long time, only upper caste “Brahmin” men were allowed to practice yoga, and lower castes were not allowed to learn or speak Sanskrit), and as Western women have taken on the practice of yoga as a monolithic thing, we are unconsciously filtering it through our religious and cultural values, and when we look at it as purely a path to peace, with no agenda, no critical thinking needed, we sometimes unconsciously support patriarchal and class structures as they work here in the West (lots of yoga advertising features young, thin, white women in exorbitantly expensive tiny pants).
The simple practice of looking at a thing through a critical lens and discussing it can illuminate the whole thing for us, and, in my opinion, tap into some of the aspects of yoga that are, I feel, innately empowering and potentially revolutionary simply because of the mindfulness and connection to the body that it can cultivate.
What I really want to know is what you think about all this. I’ll be offering some information and a yoga practice that feels feminist to me, but I’d love to know how you feel, what your experiences have been like, and what you think a feminist yoga looks like.
June 21st, 2:00-5:00pm, $35 at East Side Yoga, 1707 Grant St. Preregister here: http://eastsideyoga.ca/node/1164
All levels of practice and all genders are welcome.