Dear curious reader:
Welcome to The F* Banter!
We are really happy to have you here with us. We know the internet offers a massive amount of interesting articles and cute panda videos, so we appreciate your precious attention time devoted to reading our latest banter.
In case you are curious about the history and nature of this blog, we wrote a “short” editorial introduction. If you want to jump straight to the content, don’t let us stop you.
Happy reading and hopefully see you soon,
With love,
T + F
Let’s start at the beginning: what is The F* Banter?
Thoughts on how feminism and gender studies can be great tools to grasp and understand the shit that happens around us and, ultimately, how it affects us. We are convinced that, if used appropriately, it can even heal old patriarchy-inflicted wounds. We believe that, if we share, we maximise the beautiful human capability to relate. But we don’t promise anything. We are not magicians, just blog editors. So it’s up to you.
Why are we doing this?
Feminism became a tool to understand and analyse a lot of the shit that happens around us.
It also helps us -somehow- to heal by connecting individual experiences to a much wider context. To see that a lot of our problems and suffering are not individual, but systemic, is a crucial leap forward. Ultimately, like many great feminists before us, this is our attempt to make the personal political.
We want to share personal stories on how feminism and gender studies — in all its complexity and diversity– has helped us see the world in a different light. For us, Feminism felt like wearing glasses after years of headaches and bumps in the head. We finally started seeing things clearly and stop blaming ourselves for tripping over what was in front of us.
Feminism is not a word that defines us as a brand. We would like to define it as an analytical toolkit that can enable greater understanding, open greater spaces for our voices to be heard, unleashing our personalities to be seen independently and uniquely.
So we have banters, more specifically, Feminist Banters, and this is what we offer you here; the F*Banter! Fabulous, Feminist, Fierce –and until not long ago– Forbidden [Fucking] banter. It is through simple banter that reality becomes bearable, even lighter. It is through banter that forces usually unite and re-ignite. We believe these banters shape conversations and not only have the capability to connect us, but to empower us.
Who are we?
We rant, we reflect, we hug, we comment and respond. We are intense, sensitive beings endowed with brains, feelings and… well, an internet connection. So we want to share experiences and expand the conversations that affect us all. We want to discuss them, challenge them, make them yours as well as ours.
How did we get here?
After a recurring series of feminist conversations and rants, we realised we actually had a lot to say. OK granted, there are already thousands and thousands of people with things to say on these topics, but guess what? All voices should be heard! So we decided to join the conversation and add our owns. The louder, the prouder, the better.
We are doing this mostly for ourselves, to keep healing and maybe even understand a bit better the screwed up world we live in. We are also doing it as a fun and interesting way to keep in touch, as we live in different continents and tele-transportation is not yet a thing.
Also, doing things together is much easier and better than doing them alone, and that’s a proven fact. One day we both realised we had been wanting to share our stories, but felt intimidated and wary of starting solo.
So The F* Banter! was born out of a great friendship, with the hope that our stories, our thoughts and ideas can inspire you to keep learning about feminism and gender studies, and how you can use it as a tool to heal as well.
The F*Banter! is an open platform. Take it, leave it, jump on it as you feel. We are open to contributions and welcome different perspectives on how feminism and gender studies help you deal with the shit that happens around and to us.
So, ready to banter?
With even more love,
F+T
