Dear Reader,
Thank-you for visiting www.makeyourownherstory.org, an interactive website in which users build the content in response to creative tasks or Chapters.
This project is a collaborative endeavour between each and every contributor to the site. It presents the spaces and overlaps between where an individuals politics, perspective, hopes and ideology lie and where anothers begin.
We live in difficult times. This is particularly true for those of us who are dedicated to finding and creating spaces for political and personal creative expression. We hope that this space provides a means to articulate some of those individual reflections and understandings of the world. By presenting these understandings in the social arena we believe they can influence, inspire, be built upon, agreed with, challenged, responded to, laughed at, sung along to - even cried over.
As the branches of this site grow and develop, we, as we hope our users are, are constantly absorbing and developing new ideas and means of expressing them. For instance, when receiving a suggested chapter (chapter 10), we take great pleasure in receiving and participating in a new mode of creative expression. Or, when we learn of an amazing read that a recently founded book club are enjoying (chapter 2), we are inspired to read it also. Or, when encountering the thoughtful and moving display of a remembrance plaque, paying homage to a woman forgotten (chapter 4), we can reflect on our role as women in society and begin to formulate our hopes and ideas for the future.
The many thoughts, feelings and reflections of women all over the world, from all ages, cultures, backgrounds and belief, create a landscape bigger than any one of us. The cumulative effect of these beautiful and diverse contributions culminate, for us, in a positive and celebratory re-affirmation of feminism and femininity.
And so we borrow a term from the late 60s when, as part of a feminist critique of conventional historiography, women began to use the word Herstory. This term refers directly to history (or his-story), but instead is written from a womans perspective, recognising and emphasising the role of women, or things told from a womans point of view. By saying Herstory, we challenge the universal story of history to include the unheard voices of women. We want to celebrate those voices, in whatever way we can.
The Make Your Own Herstory Project argues the case for placing creativity and reflection at the heart of political and personal development. For us, this is not a question, but a necessity. Creativity provides a powerful means of exploring the complex inter-relations between politics, personal development, art and life in order that we can all more closely examine our own essential humanity which in the past has been called the greatest art of all - the art of living.
We therefore offer Make Your Own Herstory as a small step on our journey towards new, enlightened understandings of what it means to be a woman living in the world right now, in all of its complexity, diversity, multiplicity and
brilliance.
Please enjoy browsing through or contributing to this wonderful document.
Many thanks,
The Make Your Own Herstory Team.
