Hold me accountable
I just self-committed to another BIG dream.
I had dinner with my 14 year old neighbour and her mum the other day. I love talking to teenagers, I find the conversations fascinating, a lot of their experiences so similar to the ones I lived at that age. I find myself smiling while remembering all those raw feelings, I also find myself full of anger when I see that they too have to go through things that they shouldn’t have to, that we shouldn’t have had to, or our mothers, or our grannys, and so on and on. Rites of passage that I don’t want for any of us.
I love to give them advice as I would to my old self, knowing I have some extra cards up my sleeves, that I have seen it before. I love receiving advice from those that have been where I am, the un-judgmental look of “getting it”, and the joy of avoiding the dead-end road that they discovered while navigating it before.
I love the collective experiences of womanhood, but also the differences, the beauty of not being a monolith. I like it all, the “I see you” and the “tell me more”.
And when I was telling all this to a group of friends, this new dream just materialised. It almost appeared in front of us as if it had always been there, just without the clear shape that it has now.
I want to create a festival, an intergenerational and intersectional festival to celebrate womanhood. The things that makes us the same and the things that make it all diverse and nuanced.
I want girls and women from age 10 to age 90, together for a day. Exploring all the feelings. Experiencing the hope, the frustration, the joy, the inspiration, the togetherness.
I want panels on motherhood with a woman childfree by choice, and an adoptive mother, and someone that couldn’t be mother, or someone that had one and someone that had 6, someone that had an abortion, someone that had a miscarriage. I want to hear them talking about the weight of society in their journey, about the learnings they got on their way, about the joys and difficulties. I want the last question to be “What would you tell the young girls in the audience today, what would you have loved to know back then?”
I want a panel on queerness. With a butch lesbian, and a really feminine one tired to hear that “she doesn’t look like it” and a trans woman, a non binary folk, a trans man if he wants to come, a bisexual woman, an asexual one, maybe even a straight one! I want them to talk about their experiences understanding who they are in a world full of stereotypes and heteronormativity. I want to hear about the society that they want for themselves and for everyone in the audience, about what they need from us all to make it true. I want the last question to be “What would you tell the young girls in the audience today, what would you have loved to know back then?”
And I want those teenagers to be on a stage, telling us their stories. I want them to ask the audience questions and for us to reply via an app on the big screen. I want them to share with us what is important to them, how we can help them navigate all of this. I want us to listen, to nod enthusiastically, to feel proud, to hold them, to learn from them.
And I want someone telling us all about hormones, and why our cycles are our super powers if understood correctly. And I want to hear about perimenopause too. And also about POCS. And to swear about a system that keeps us ignorant and let us down. Swearing will be allowed, in case you don’t want to bring your daughters.
And I want panels about intersectionality, with different intersections represented, in which we get to understand our own privilege and we are told how to do better and we shut the fuck up instead of being defensive. We listen while we are told why and how sometimes white women, straight women, body able women, neurotypical women, young women, thin women… are part of the problem. How we hold the systems that we benefit from, how we shout #notall like men do to us. I want us to commit to change and do better.
And I want a 13 year old and a 83 year old interviewing each other. Meeting for the first time on stage, with the curiosity and fascination of wanting to know more. And all of us to be witnesses of that magic.
And I want a way to create mentorship relationships, in which everyone has to teach and learn one thing from each other. And the minimal age difference is 20 years.
And I want artistic workshops. Maybe collective visual art, or a creative writing activity.
And I want face paints and feminist stand up, the joint laughter inundating the room.
And at the end of the day a disco! Moving to awesome songs that empowered and made us dance through the last decades. Maybe a collective playlist that we build together, maybe one that people can listen to forever, and dance and feel empowered remembering the day of the best festival, and their conversations with 15 year olds and how that 92 year old had some moves.
I am so excited about this, and I am already visualising spreadsheets with funding opportunities, and focus groups to find out what every group wants, and volunteeers, and I wonder how much would it be to rent the biggest venue in Belfast because we want lots of us together. I am smiling and typing fast. I hope you feel it too.
This is happening in late September 2025. Hold me accountable.
What an absolutely fantastic idea and vision for the future! I can't wait to get involved and make a real impact when the time comes. I’d be thrilled to contribute to the visual art aspect—it's my specialty! Women need to have grand dreams and ambitious careers! 🥰
Count me in. I’ll hold you and help you too.
I’ve so much to say and contribute to this event 🥰