It DOES matter!

On Saturday I was lucky enough to see an exhibition „Music and Liberation” in one of the independent galleries – Space Station Sixty-Five in London. It was the last day of this exposition so I was more than happy that I had a chance to go there and learn more about women’s liberation music-making in the UK in the 70s and 80s.

The exhibition showed how feminists used music as an activist tool to fight with the social and political system regarding stereotypes of women’s social roles, which were mostly based on being a housewife. For me, a person behind the Iron Curtain, this piece of the British history was very interesting. In Poland during this time people, regardless of their gender, fought with communism, therefore this particular kind of movement wasn’t very popular there.

Different kinds of exhibits from the private collections were showcased in the Space Station Sixty-Five, these included the posters, songbooks, t-shirts, instruments, books, notes, diaries, pictures, fliers, button badges and of course the music which was played. It was an unique event, which gave me an opportunity to touch the piece of history which let us – women – be at the stage we are now.

Many times we completely forget that we can live, work and enjoy our lives only because somebody fought for these before. Without this kind of movement, women could still only sing “The lament of housewives”. It is the same with regards to every single part of our lives, including the human, worker or children’s rights.

In all decades and centuries a lot of activists struggled against the reality to create better lives for them, their children, their loved ones, and for humans generally. The system or even other members of the public, who didn’t see and understand the sense of these fights tried to stop or ban them, but the fighters were undeterred. They heard thousands of times: “just give it up; it doesn’t matter as you are unable to change anything!” And maybe they suffered too much but it was worthy enough as they built better conditions for us.

Therefore, even if we feel sometimes that we are powerless, we shouldn’t give our beliefs up as it does matter if we struggle for them or not. Even if our actions aren’t spectacular and don’t make any difference now, they create the future.

I read a story once. It was about a man who walked on the seaside during a low tide and threw jellyfish, which were lying on the sea shore, into the water. He met another man who doubtfully looked at him and said: “Man, what are you doing? There are thousands of jellyfish here! You are unable to rescue them all so give this stupid idea up as it doesn’t matter!” The first man patiently picked up the next jellyfish and said whilst throwing it into the sea: “It DOES matter for this one”.