If I am completely honest, I wasn’t sure what to write about today. Do I continue to write about feminism, as if nothing has happened? As if the world is the same today as it was 2 weeks ago, or even 5 days ago? And after a lot of thought, I decided to write about all of this at once, today, to address it, and then keep focused on our mission. I have checked and patriarchy survival rate in a pandemic is a 100% so I am afraid our efforts are still needed.

A lot of people have reached out (thanks!) to ask how we are doing, Chris and I and the kids, but also us as The Feminist Shop. What is the situation, what are the plans… so I want to make this post an honest and real one and fill you in with our situation in these crazy times.

I wake up every morning and I have 5 minutes of complete normality, that means 5 minutes in which I really hate having been woken up by our 2 tiny humans. 5 minutes of a very fast journey through the 7 steps of grief about the fact that they are already up, and the day has already started even if I am exhausted. 5 minutes of disbelief, denial, bargaining, guilt, anger, depression, and acceptance/hope. That is normal, I am ok with that because it has been like that for over 3 years now. Then it hits. We live in a new normal. I am not going to lie, anxiety hits too. Then the other feelings.

I am experiencing soooo many feelings. The fear, the community, the responsibility, the connections, the uncertainty, the hope, the excitement about all the things that can be done, the shock, the gratitude. I have them all together, in me, and they are heavy… they seem to take a lot of space in my chest and sometimes they are released in the shape of tears, I believe it’s cos of the lack of room for all them inside. I am enjoying things that I used to take for granted, I am feeling extremely lucky and inspired to do more and better and I am longing the quietness once the fear goes away, once people have mental space to talk and do other things rather than obsess about this.

My sister is a doctor in Spain, the most dedicated, calm and logical doctor ever, I trust her with my life. And hearing her speaking about this makes me realise the importance and gravity of it all, makes me very conscious about the importance of each of us doing our part, avoiding shortcuts, protecting the most vulnerable ones. We ALL need to act as if we were already infected and were protecting the rest, not as individuals not scared of getting the virus. In our conversations we talk about the importance of adding to the cause and not subtracting from it, she as a doctor, me as a mum and a business owner.

So that is what we are planning to do in this uncertain time ahead, we are going to work twice as hard, bringing other topics of conversations, giving space in the blog to other voices, continuing with the newsletters, the interviews, and the social media shares, bringing new exciting products, connecting. Do you want to know what is in the pipeline? It seems a bit ambitious but a big to-do list is keeping my days full of excitement rather than anxiety, so bear with me:

-      Podcast
We have recorded the first episode and hope to have 4 ready before going officially live! I can’t wait to welcome you all to our conversations about feminism, to our chats with other people about what is for them, their journey and their recommendations. Yes, Chris and I will be drinking in each of them, but when you have guests in the house (virtually) it seems rude not to.

-      YouTube channel
I have chosen to write this one in the list so I am kept accountable even if I am dreading it! I am thinking about doing “ask Virginia” videos, in which armed with feminism and sarcasm I will solve some of the life queries people ask me. I will start with (anonymous, don’t worry!) friends and family past examples, but hopefully, you can send me yours and we will figure out a feminist perspective of it all. I am not saying that I have all the answers, but I also don’t shut up, so we might find some sense in the middle of it all!

-      Finish my second Mika & Lolo book
Spoiler alert, while I am oversharing, this book will be about consent (in a kid-friendly way, don’t worry!). I am super excited about it and my illustrator is already on board. Can’t wait to see the end result and share it!

-      More languages for the first Mika & Lolo
The Chinese-English one is already translated and almost ready to go (what a random first one, especially in this climate) and Italian-English too…(do you see a pattern? I swear they were already in production when this started). I am now scared of translating it into more languages in case I provoke a catastrophe in the country of origin but I really want to have at least French and German too). I need to figure out how to do these extra languages on a print on demand basis because we don’t have the means to print lots at the minute.

-      A non-fiction book for adults
I am determined to write a book about “Educating every kid in a world of gender stereotypes” with some personal experiences, some of the research I conducted when going to schools and some of the amazing research that is out there. Examples, challenges, and trusted information. I can’t wait!

-      The Feminist Shop Community on Facebook

Yesterday I thought about what we could do, what is that we have to offer to make this all better, and what was helping me the most. It all came back to the community! So we have opened a Facebook group to share ideas, debates and more during these weird times. I know I would like to use this time to connect to more like-minded people and learn from them, to have a book club, to do film nights, to share a feminist playlist with, to contact when I need to talk about feminist issues and people around me just want to talk about COVID19.
I want this group to be a community, in which we all have ideas and make the most of it. So please join and give and take as much as you want!

-      Collaborations

In this time, more than ever, we want to hear and reach more people we can collaborate with. People that want to write a post or being interviewed, to have a collaboration to design our cool F, with associations to see if we can do something together, I want to see how we can use The Feminist Shop to build something bigger and better, for everyone.

I hope you are feeling my vibe and excitement, my smile behind the computer, I hope you can see my anxiety getting smaller because there is no time for it when we are changing the world, and our small ethical business, from our home office. I hope you have acceptance and see the positives and I really hope you keep being part of our journey. We want to be here for you. We know it is a hard time to buy and to sell, and that is ok. We want to be your place to go for content, for company and recommendations. We want to remind you that with or without lockdown feminism is not going anywhere, and neither are we!