End of Year Reflections: 4 Takeaways for 2025
It’s been a heavy year.
As 2024 winds down, we’ve been thinking a lot about all that has been lost. We carry a great deal of grief, rage, and despair in our hearts. We’ve also been thinking of the strength and power of our collective, of coming together, and of the importance of holding each other tighter than ever before.
This year has served as a reminder that the lines and boundaries between our work and personal lives are not as defined as we may think: everything is political. We’ve given up any attempt at trying to go on as if times are normal, and instead, we feel a strong calling to hold space for all the messy and beautiful ways in which our humanity is being tested.
As we head into 2025, here are 4 key takeaways we want to leave you with.
Illustration by Liu Liu
1/ “Allyship” must be redefined.
This year, we’ve been grappling a lot with the concept of allyship, something that for us is a bit flawed. In social justice and movement building spaces in particular, allyship has come to be an outdated and performative term, used selectively, and without accountability.
An ally’s privilege allows them to determine when, where, and how they perform their allyship, prioritizing their comfort over taking necessary risks for others. Yet, the more uncomfortable the topic, the more pertinent it is that we engage with it. And the more privilege one has, the more crucial it is to leverage it to stay a stance against injustice, everywhere.
This quote by Bettina Love from her book We want to do more than survive really sums up our feelings: "Allies know all the language, they’ve read all the books, they come to the meeting with all the terms. To be a co-conspirator is to take risks for somebody. To put something on the line. When you’re using your privilege, use it. And I’m not just talking about white folks, I’m talking about cisgender folks. Use it for Trans folks. Use it for Queer folk. Put something on the line. Take a risk."
A lot of people are not ready or willing to put something on the line. We need new language that demands action and accountability as we continue to fight for collective liberation.
2/ We need to pay attention to our bodies.
Our bodies tell us a lot. We often say things like “listen to your gut” or “trust your intuition”, but we don’t get taught that everything we need to know lives inside of us.
Reading Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands revealed a great deal about how trauma is held in the body, moving from one body to another, and across generations. The biggest learning has been that healing trauma therefore, must also begin with the body.
We’ve been paying more attention to our body lately: what is it telling us at any given moment? How does it naturally respond to its environment? How does it contort itself to ensure safety? If you’re a racialized woman, your body likely holds many complex and often contradictory sensations, grief and loss, but also power and agency.
Paying attention has become a lifeline for us. It’s allowed us to name what’s going on inside, without judgment, but with mindfulness. This has helped us better understand ourselves, making room for our bodies to both grieve and heal.
3/ The antidote to despair is action.
Every so often, we fall into a dark cave of despair. There is no light there, only darkness, isolation, and helplessness. In previous years, we’ve tried to combat this with self-care, rest, and positivity.
And sometimes these tactics have worked, but this year it hasn’t been enough. The truth is, we don’t believe we can self-care our way out of social inequities.
What has helped is action. For us, action means organizing, writing, and designing with and for our communities. But it's also the everyday conversations we have with other women, feminists, and activists. It’s finding like-minded people who you can collaborate with, vent to, and show up for.
When we act, the cave becomes irrelevant. It’s not about us anymore, or our despair and hopelessness. Our attention is drawn to everything that lies outside: the people and our fight for liberation. In these challenging times, it’s become more clear that our collective resistance is the most productive way to fight feelings of despair.
4/ Different spaces require different modes of confrontation.
Growing up Iranian, Muslim, and female in post 9/11 Canada, staying out of politics was never an option. We’ve almost always had to be confrontational about our stance. That’s nothing new. But this past year has asked us to dig even deeper, and think about the different spaces we enter and the ways in which we engage in conversation.
We’ve been thinking about Loretta J. Ross’s concept of calling someone out versus calling them in. Ross points to how when we call people out, we immediately put them on the defensive. In contrast, by calling them in, we’re engaging in dialogue but still holding them and ourselves accountable.
This year has taught us the importance of both. That in some places, it’s crucial to call people and systems out – loud and clear! But in other instances, calling people in, and approaching with curiosity has opened up space for transformative dialogue.
What has 2024 taught you? What are some lessons and takeaways you will be taking into the new year with you?