Soft Edges Manifesta

Image in pic: 'Mountainscape', digital collage by Rachel Biffin

I wrote a manifesta in October 2022 whilst doing a year-long feminist business and copywriting course with Kelly Diels. It’s her feminist take on the terms manifesto/philosophy. 

Soft Edges is the title of my manifesta. It encompasses what I stand for in my work, and life.

The term came to me four-odd years ago as a sign. Literally a sign warning of soft edges around the side of the road work ahead. 

All sorts of ideas immediately sprang to mind from the combination of these two words. I thought, what a good name for a lingerie company or an eighties rock band. But in a grander way, these two words felt like a way to label the contradictions, the juxtapositions, the push and pull of life, and creativity, everyday.

This name speaks to the deeper motivations, and inspirations of my work, yet is broad enough to encompass ideas like calm spaces and the work of so many artists, thinkers, and doers I want to celebrate here every week.

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Manifesta:

I believe in soft Edges.

That is, approaching the edge, the threshold, the boundary, but in a soft way. There exists an edge, but with softness mediating it, it’s not harmful but generative.

We, as humans, need contrast, push-pull, opposition, in order to thrive. Too much though, and we’re overstretched and can lose our center. Too little, stagnancy and fogginess set in.

I believe that:

We need to feel the edges but not be on edge. 

We need softness but not stagnancy and fogginess. 

We need contrasts but not binaries. 

We need oppositional pull but not fracturing.

We need both the hardware and the software.

IN BUSINESS:

I support businesses to feel their soft edge again after it’s been overstretched like a rubber band. I help them create brilliant brands that hold tension, that are a container for their precious efforts. 

I ask, what can we do to make your work generative, sustainable, and rich? 

What gems are hidden in the soft middle that could be brought to the fore, to the healthy edge? 

 I believe every gender should be paid equally.

As a white woman born into privilege, it is my work to check my biases and use the good fortune being born into this position to help others who are not. 

When I see injustice and it is safe to do so, I will speak up. I will advocate for people who don’t have the means to advocate for themselves. 

I don’t work with businesses or people that: 

• Maintain sexist or racist business practices

• Under pay staff (when I hire contractors to help, I hire for their skills, not how little they charge)

• Overwork staff 

• Are anti-science 

• Are militant about natural alternatives always being better

• Keep quiet (when bravery is called for)

• Sell products and services that promote thinness and ableism

• Use bombastic marketing that crowds out critical thinking and debate

• Bury their head in the sand in order to maintain the status-quo (e.g. them staying in the up-power position)

• Will put profit first over care of the environment 

• Are disrespectful to animals.

CONNECTION:

I take a 360 approach, a whole ecosystem approach to work. That means respecting mine and my fellow human’s boundaries, time, and rest.

I continue to build justice practices into my work. That means if I identify ethical blind spots or work I am not trained in, I’ll seek out professionals with marginalised identities who have an expertise in the field.  

I work to abolish within my body of work and the way I work with clients cultural appropriation, perfectionism, and binary thinking.

I don’t believe in the No pain, no gain mentality. I believe in No pain, No pain instead. 

I don’t support grin and bare it mentality. It freezes us, blocking momentum and action. And I’m all about action and analysis, not the other way around. I believe that it’s in-the-doing you find things out and it's how you get informed. Then you analyze and digest and that gives you a whole other layer of information making the next move more informed.

ON LANGUAGE:

I believe naming and labels around gender identity can be used as an affirmation or a form of oppression depending on the source and intent. 

Affirming : when the person decides and owns their naming. Oppressive : when people are given a name under duress or without their consent

I am here to support and affirm all genders, all humans in their diverse forms.

Till next week,

Rachel