Women Over Dinner Makes History

by Sofia Platti

On December 9th, Women Over Dinner (WOD) hosted its very first dinner in a prison at the Taconic Correctional Facility. On that same day, 100 women around the world hosted dinners in solidarity with the incarcerated women at Taconic.

The desire of WOD is to live in a world where the inestimable and inherent power of Woman is not just remembered, but expressed. Freely. Openly. Intimately. This extends to all women everywhere. 
This is my account from the night:

“Are you Sofia?” three of the six women in green asked as I pulled my chair out to sit. They looked at me with raw and pure hunger in a way that was so relieving. “Yes, I am,” I shared back and met them with the same raw hunger. There was something different about this table and it wasn’t just that it was my first time in a prison.

As I looked around the table, each woman emanated warmth and love in a way that felt both so familiar and so foreign. I couldn’t help but think about how beautiful each of the women were in a way that surprised me and yet felt so right – and this was before we even introduced ourselves.

I was raised in an upper middle class neighborhood surrounded by almost all white people and attended private Catholic school. Prison or any institution of its kind was never in my consciousness, I would only ever see it in movies or TV shows and it felt cold and dark. There was this harsh feeling of it being a place where you would go if you were,“bad.” But what I thought was also considered bad was raw emotion, experiences that I felt I needed to explore in secret, deviating from the known path. And I’ve spent the last 10 years of my adult life reconciling this projection in myself.

“What do you do? Tell us everything!” One of the women asked not but one second after my backside hit the chair, with her bright look of wonder and awe. We had spent the entire day transforming the prison cafeteria room into a beautiful fine-dining experience for the women. Off-white tablecloths with bright yellow flowers and green spruce, dark red curtains lining the walls of the cafeteria, the set up felt almost as magical as this moment. The women who worked at the prison were just as touched as the participants. Throughout the whole day, there were tears, laughter and celebration. The warmth of the correctional officers, and all the women that worked in the facility surprised me too.

After an incredible intro from the women who are responsible for the event shared about the 100 Women Over Dinners that happened on the same day globally in solidarity with the incarcerated women – the women at my table turned to me to say “YOU DIDN’T TELL US ABOUT THIS – AND THAT’S THE BEST PART!” What I loved most is that they couldn’t hide what they thought or how they were feeling. The raw emotion was all right there front and center.

Before finding this work, in my externally beautiful life I had worked so hard to curate, I was 27 years old and could not get past this gnawing feeling of something missing. It was a deep enough feeling that no amount of Instagram likes or fancy travel destinations could fill and that was worrying because those were my go-to places to feel valued, to feel important.

I led our table through the series of questions that is the signature of a Women Over Dinner, questions that are meant to elicit a deeper connection to ourselves and each other. As we went around sharing our responses to each question it struck me – the something missing was right here in the place I thought to avoid. Where emotions, experiences and the unknown were all welcomed.

One woman shared about how she felt jealous of her son’s new step mother because she was the one taking care of him while she was incarcerated. She spoke about how she used to feel so much pride that she had never been imprisoned, pride and superiority, and here she was now in the place she swore she would never end up while another woman raised her son. She described the pain, guilt and insecurity she felt and though I am not a mother and I am not incarcerated, I related to every part of her story. That to me, is the power of women connecting. Women come together from all walks of life and we find similarities, we can find beauty in the pain, and we can relate to and love all women.

I was raised to think climbing the economic, career, social ladder would bring me happiness, and prison was in the opposite direction of that, it was the bottom — and here I was at the bottom feeling more myself in every possible way. Now, I do think it’s possible to be free in prison, and out, and I think it’s possible to be imprisoned outside the walls— and the feeling in that room and at my table . . . I felt like I was being welcomed home. And this home wasn’t a physical space, though the table we sat at felt beautiful and warm, but this was a feeling of home that was women connecting from the interior, from power and from remembering that we are the jewel. 

On January 12th, we will host a global virtual dinner via zoom. I invite each of you to join us at the “table,” to learn more about our vision and to have the experience of being welcomed home. Home to yourself, home to connection with other women

Sofia Platti is one of the leaders of the Women Over Dinner initiative and is currently Head of Fundaising.