Wom*n’s Honi Editorial

We are pretty proud of this edition of Honi Soit. The Sydney University Wom*n’s Collective has been a site of feminist activism for decades, but it has not always been the most inclusive space for people of diverse, intersecting oppressions. People on this campus have felt explicitly excluded by the collective and its politics. With this history in mind, we are proud to present an edition that makes clear how varied the experiences of women, trans and non-binary people are. There are articles that cover experiences of gender, sexuality, race, class and age, amongst a myriad of other subjects. This edition makes clear that feminism should not seek to represent one experience of “womanhood” or strive for a uniform “sisterhood”, that our role as feminists is not sin- gularly to destroy patriarchy.

All this said, intersectionality is a difficult, ongoing process that is never complete. We know that this edition is not perfect, we know that perfection is impossible. We also know that our Collective isn’t perfect and that there are surely people who feel excluded from it. Accepting that reality, but constantly working to change it as best we can is what activism should be about. More than anything, the Wom*n’s Collective is a radical space for learning via the sharing political ideas and experiences. We hope that this edition of Honi Soit can serve the same purpose: educating its readers on the irresolvable tensions and complexities, the myriad of questions, that are inherent to a critical, intersectional

feminism. We would like to thank the people who shared their experiences and thoughts with us, we recognise that this was a use of your emotional labour and time, both of which are rarely acknowledged regarding women, trans and non binary people. We par- ticularly recognise that writing these pieces can be emotionally taxing and triggering when recounting trauma or difficult personal experiences. Moreover, we recognise that the capacity of people in our collective differs and there is no obligation on them to edu- cate us or the wider student body about their experiences. In this vein we’d like to thank and congratulate the Indigenous people who contributed and put together Indigenous Honi last week which we are humbled to follow with our autonomous edition.

As you read this edition know that you should never expect to be educated on the expe- riences of those who are more oppressed than you. Take the things you learn from this paper on board and share them with those around you so that it is not a woman of col- our, or a trans person or a survivor/victim of trauma who must instead exert their energy to fight structures of oppression. We all have a responsibility in this collective project of destroying kyriarchy, particularly those of us who benefit from it.

xoxo WoCo