Before I moved to London, I bookmarked a ton of amazing things I wanted to do. I had plans to see all the tourist sites, all the off-beat sites, travel all Iaround the city, the country, get to know everything like the back of my hand…
And then class started and most of my energy went into
1) Getting to class
2) Keeping up in class
3) Figuring out how to feed myself before and after class.
And so, it wasn’t until several weeks into my stay that I managed to check off one tour I had been so excited about since I stumbled across it on AirBnB: The Feminist Tour of London.
This experience is hosted by Child.org, a nonprofit working to end childhood poverty and inequality - these tours are one way they raise money. They currently offer tours in Edinburgh, London, and surrounding areas, including Revolting London: Rebels and Retribution, The Remarkable Women of Oxford, and Queen and Rebel: Edinburgh’s Fierce Women. After my experience with the Feminist Tour of London, I wouldn’t hesitate to take any of their other tour options.
Our tour was based around female statues in London, but once we arrived at each landmark we were treated to a mini history class about the subject, time period, political happenings, and so on. I consider myself fairly well-read on feminist issues and found myself learning so many new things. Plus, our tour guide Zoe was so passionate and engaging that everything felt realer to life for me. Zoe did an especially good job of making sure that stories and voices that have historically been ignored featured prominently in this tour. I was constantly getting a subtle check on my privileged perspective as I learned about women and struggles that had been completely missing from my history class growing up.
Probably equally as cool as the subject material was the experience of the group setting. My particular tour consisted of myself (late-20s), another woman my age from the States, and a trio of British, Canadian, and American besties who were around my mother's age. Knowing that we were all interpreting this info through different experiences but we're all equally engaged in the material was a really powerful feeling.
I'm not going to give away too many details here because 1) you should go on the tour yourself (post-quarantine) and experience it all and 2) I'm only going to do a half-assed Jon of describing everything and it really won't do the experience justice. However, I will be sharing some pics and tidbits on my Instagram page (@quietkindblog) so pop on over there if you're looking for a little more!