Continuing on with my series of posts for International Women’s day this week. We’ve had feminist books for children and female entrepreneurs that live in my local area so far this week. Today I am interviewing Virginia who is the founder of The Feminist Shop. A great place for t-shirts, book, items and gifts that support this important issue.

I am writing from London, still buzzing from the event in The House of Lords yesterday. Being surrounded by a group of women always has that effect on me.

I hope one day I'll get an award for just being an entrepreneur, without gender specification, but in the meantime, I celebrate enormously these ones because I support the spaces and visibility that are deliberately given to women in an effort to shine light on a problem. These awards are the result of a problem, they respond to a bad reality, but they are very much needed.

A Belfast entreprenuer who is currently enrolled within our valued partner, Ulster Bank's Accelerator Programme, has been announced as one of the best in the country!
 
Virginia Mendez was listed in F:Entrepreneur’s #ialso100 Top 100 campaign, which is a list of the top 100 female entrepreneurs in the UK.
 
Virginia is the founder of The Feminist Shop, an online shop and destination for empowering feminist content; she has been making waves since launching the business in 2019 and has now been recognised as one of the most inspirational female entrepreneurs in the UK.

Yena Belfast | Entrepreneur Networking Event | Virginia Mendez Founder of the Feminist

Period poverty is one of those topics that you can't unsee once you realise it's there, but it's surprisingly easy to be oblivious about it until that moment. I know I was oblivious.

I distinctly remember the feeling of empathy and slight guilt about my own privilege when I first read about it. How had I never thought, when talking about women's issues, when talking about homeless problems, when being upset about refugees, war disasters, or climate catastrophes - that in the middle of it all there would be periods, making it worse. Making it more difficult for those who are in the midst of those existing hardships.

Creating an ethical brand and destination to fuel your feminism. Info, resources, NGOs, books, gifts and apparel. Help us spread the F word!

If you had told me (or my friends, or my family) 10 years ago that I was going to create The Feminist Shop out of a need to spread the F word and challenge society's norms, I (and they) would have laughed in your face.

Even if you had told me that I would consider myself a feminist, instead of a strong advocate against the whole concept itself, I wouldn't have believed it. And if I am completely honest I can't remember when or how it changed, it has been an ongoing process and not a single lightbulb moment.

We can’t have feminism without men being on board. And we wouldn’t even if we could. There is not a war between genders, but there is a society that separates us and puts us into narrow boxes. The truth is that, as suffocating as any box can be, men’s boxes are comfier than those of women.

We want everyone to escape these boxes, we don’t want to switch them, or enlarge ones by narrowing others. We want them gone. We want equal opportunities and rights. But we can only do that by acknowledging what the situation really is and how different the realities are.