The Cards
In what ways is power present within you? What do you fear about this power?
What do you crave? How does it stabilise / ground you?
Who and what holds your power accountable?
When has a dominant oral language/body language/jargon/professional speak made you feel insecure in that space or that you do not belong?
Write about it.
When has language made you feel seen and heard?
What are three things that really confuse/enrage/ sadden you about the larger labour system in which your work/profession exists?
Can you think of a time when you felt like your feminist practice may have harmed someone?
How close or how far removed they are from you/your context?
Looking back, how could you have disrupted or prevented this harm before it even began?
How has harming someone (or being complicit in harm) changed you?
Using language as an entry point, map a space you know well (an organization, a public space, a relationship). What expressions (linguistic / physical), cultural codes, and communication practices shape who is at the centre of this space, and who is farther away from the centre?
What does this tell you about the hierarchies and dynamics of this space? Where do you sit?
Whose labour does your career/ feminist organization sit/rest on?
Whose time do we value, whose time is flexible and expected to infinitely expand and whose bodies are pushed beyond their limits to meet organisational objectives?
When have you felt that an aspect of your identity was tokenized, commodified, weaponized or glorified for 'representation'?
What parts of you were amplified and what were reduced? What story does this tell you about the parts of yourself this world needs more of?
How might have you played a part in this?
Recall a time when you observed a dissonance between what your organization says, and what your organisation does. Write about it.
What is one word/phrase that you hear often in your profession but secretly find uncomfortable, dishonest, or unclear?
If one of the more privileged aspects of your identity changed (e.g., race, gender identity, class/socio-economic status, passport, cultural/social capital, location, etc.), how will that shift your experience of care, opportunity, success, and career?
How can you center this knowledge in your professional practice?
