Letter from Sarah Avrin, Unlocked & Loaded Founder & Curator

Through my work and personal interests, I have been lucky enough to have my own small hand in opening dialogue on gender, equality & feminism, and (hopefully) helping to create positive change for the community. Something that always stands out to me is the way people usually seem either bold & proud or flinch a bit when the word FEMINISM comes up. I realized that there are so many personal definitions for this “ism” and that they are rarely book learned. So often an overwhelmingly negative or positive experience is what informs individuals idea of the word.

Storytelling through personal experience is one of the most intimate and universal ways that people have communicated throughout history, whether it’s a song, poem, a child’s bedtime story or just brunch talk with a close friend. I love learning about a person through their stories and wanted to capture the stories of some brilliant people that live in a cross-section of my life about their experiences with and without Feminism. I want Unlocked & Loaded to offer a safe space, reaching people who are less comfortable engaging in dialogue about Feminism, and hope reading it enhances future experiences for those who do.