SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This short personal essay focuses on the possibility of passing feminist thought and action from one generation to another within a family. Inspired by Carrie Mae Weems’ Kitchen Table Series , I imagine a roundtable with my matrilineal ancestors. I examine the question of what constitutes feminisms and whether my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother considered themselves feminists in a place where it is not always easy to be a feminist: former Yugoslavia and its diaspora. I argue that the stories about my ancestors that I heard growing up made me a feminist and, alongside my readings and activism, shaped my understanding of feminisms, even when my ancestors themselves might not have considered themselves feminists.