Feminist festivals: Women, art and empowerment in PP
ORGANISED by a group of local and expat women, this weekend Cambodia will host its first feminist arts festival, as the three day Phnom Fem Fest (PFF) begins on Friday celebrating and empowering women, and creating positive discourse on women’s rights and gender equality in the Kingdom.
The Vagina Monologues – exploring the mystery, humour, pain, power, wisdom, outrage and excitement in women’s experiences – will be the centre piece of this year’s inaugural PFF.
The play, considered a pioneering piece of feminist arts and culture, has been translated into 46 languages and now, for the first time, the two monologues will be presented in Khmer.
All profits from the Vagina Monologues – performed by community amateur dramatics theatre group the Phnom Penh Players – will go directly to non-profit local human rights NGO Early Years Behind Bars, an organisation supporting women, mothers and children in Cambodian prisons.
“We have translated two of the monologues into Khmer for the first time and it will be performed by local actors,” says Shauna O Mahony, one of PFF’s
“Because of the festival’s proximity to Valentine’s Day we will be launching an awareness campaign promoting women’s rights and sexual consent by distributing 1000 heart shaped balloons with the PFF logo and festival details around the city. This will also become part of a larger social media campaign,” O Mahony said.
Every year, the V-Day Spotlight campaign brings attention to a particular group of women experiencing elevated levels of violence and socio-political marginalisation globally. These Spotlights aim to raise awareness for issues the women face and aid community groups working to address them.
V-Day’s 2018-2019 Spotlight, created in collaboration with formerly incarcerated women and activists, will focus on Women in Prisons, Jails and Detention.
The fourth-wave feminist movement has dominated Western headlines throughout 2018, sparked by the seminal #metoo movement that started as a backlash against the everyday experiences of sexual harassment experienced by women around the globe.
In the past decade Cambodia has seen an increase of feminist voices and a nascent movement emerge through prominent figures trailblazing the way for contemporary Khmer women.