On Friday evening, December 6, during International Committee Meeting (ICM) of SCI, “Gender under the glass” workshop took place. 10 participants and volunteers of ICM joined the workshop where they could exchange knowledge and experiences related to gender, feminism and inter-sectionalism.

The trainer used  Bell Hooks’s book “Feminist theory:margin to center” from 1984 as a way to get into the topic, by splitting it in equal parts so each participant could read a part of it. After in a plenary session, everyone shared their impressions on what they have read. For many, it was a first approach of a theory book about feminism and gender.

Here’s some reflection : “This book was writing in 1984 and it’s so actual, it’s frustrating “, I want to highlight a sentence “money can buy you a great deal of distant” this sentence is relevant for gender but also for volunteering, “when I read my pages, I understand the fight of the Afro-American women but I also connect to the speeches of the liberal women who are pointed out by the author”, “We can see the different of view into the intersectionality :black people, history, white people, class, race”, and so on.

After the discussion in the plenary, the trainer ask to everyone what’s their vision of intersectionality: “to build a link with men”, “can’t separate economy and sexism, feminism is link to capitalism critical”, “interconnection”, “inclusion of everybody”, “power sharing”, “not only about men and women”.

To finish this activity, the participant moved on a barometer reacting to 3 sentences: “We need education to understand gender”, “volunteering can be used as a tool to understand better gender”, “SCI should make its activities more inclusive”.

At the end, the trainer presented Gender Blender – SCI Working group toolkit and recommendations to include gender into work camp.

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The event took place during the International Committee Meeting (ICM) of Service Civil International (SCI), on Friday, December 6, 2019, near Bennekom, The Netherlands. 10 people from different countries participated in the workshop.