A few weeks ago i attended a music festival called Riot Fest held in Humboldt park. It is a three day long music festival in September primarily presenting bands and musicians who are considered part of the rock genre. This year Riot Fest was doing something different than they had done any of the other years. They were having a panel with two girls from the band Pussy Riot to discuss feminism.
Pussy Riot is an all girl punk band based in Moscow. On February 21st 2012 the band performed in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The performance was a protest directed at the Orthodox Church leaders support for Putin during the election. On August 17th, 2012 three of the members of the band were convicted of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" and were all sentenced to two years in prison.
The two women could not speak English very well but their translator managed to keep up with them. They spoke about how lucky we are to live in America where we have the right to stand up for what we believe in and that they are happy to see that women have rights here. After riot fest they were headed off to Harvard to do a speech there about gender equality and their own experiences. It was amazing to see two people believe in something and work for something as hard as they are. Even though they were unjustly convicted they have not stopped preaching about the equality for women in their country. The equality for women is a issue everywhere. But, knowing there are brave women all over the world working for the goal shows change isn't far away.
Love the story and so jealous that you got to go to Riot Fest. The courageous act of these women is very inspirational as I could imagine, just listening to their struggles would be enough to light my own fire. It's very sad that the monumental strides that people in this world make are quickly shot down by things such as religion and skewed views of individuals.
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