Nine Perrard

Dismissed Narratives is a project that began with conversations that seemed important to me – that needed to be heard.

It is no longer just about feminism, but about the unique dialogue that springs from telling and listening. Dismissed Narratives shouts out loud what you are thinking quietly, and dares to direct your attention.

For several years I have been preaching the necessity of feminism – fighting the stigma, exploring its links with politics, economics, and socio-cultural behaviours. I am among those who reject essentialist theories in favour of social constructivism; who think that all behaviour is constructed, who believe in nurture over nature. Above all, I am among those who create culture.

I have learned many things through the lens of feminism; about gender, masculinity, disability, and systemic racism. I have learned about depression, marriage, so-called 'women's diseases', sexuality, and language. I read a lot, but mostly I had conversations. I talked to people who had things to say, things I had never heard or paid attention to. I have quietly integrated into 'safe spaces', where people who suffer from discrimination can express themselves; to read the stories of exhausted, frightened, outraged people, who speak freely about hundreds of subjects – from love to toxic relationships, from precariousness to rape, from accessibility to ecology.

I read the stories of beaten, fat, disabled, depressed, racialised, objectified, strong, powerful, beautiful, united womxn. The more I talked to my friends, relatives, and their friends, the more I felt a pressing need for a platform, free from toxic responses, to share and publish these testimonials. I wanted conversations founded on fact rather than theory.