Georgia Germani, University of the Arts London Socialist Students
I have been a member of the Socialist Party for about two months now, having signed my membership form in front of Buckingham Palace at the end of a postal workers’ rally in December. I became involved with the party after joining my university’s Socialist Students society at the beginning of the academic term.
I had been engaged with politics since my teens but have become far more active in the last two years, particularly after Sarah Everard’s murder in 2021. As a young woman and feminist living very near to where Sarah went missing in Brixton, I was rocked by the event. It filled me with a rage and sadness I hadn’t felt before.
I tried to channel this anger by becoming active in the protests that followed her murder, particularly after it was revealed that she was murdered by a serving Metropolitan Police officer. This led to me being in attendance at the vigil that was held for Sarah at Clapham Common, when the police eventually turned violent towards us. I witnessed an aggression towards the mourning women around me that I knew the police used on the public regularly, but had never witnessed so closely. I would never have expected such violence and callousness from them considering who Sarah’s murderer was.
The anger that I felt as a result led me to reading more about the real role of the police, as well as the real reasons for why misogyny and violence against women is so prevalent in our society. It quickly became clearer and clearer to me that this violence was not inevitable or natural, and that capitalism was at the centre of women’s oppression.
In taking part in many of the ‘Kill the Bill’ protests that came about just after Sarah’s murder, I understood how the fight for women’s emancipation was interwoven with every other fight against oppression – whether the fight against racism, the fight for LGBTQ+ rights or the fight for climate action.
The way in which the Kill the Bill protests brought together all of these different struggles illustrated to me so clearly how the fight for liberation has to mean fighting against capitalism.
After many months of feeling disillusioned and angry, I decided that I did not want to feel angry and helpless anymore. I wanted to find a community of people who I could feel energised and emboldened by, who I could learn from and actively work with to build an alternative. I now know that I have found this community with the Socialist Party.
