In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

London Flashmob Protest Against Violence Against Women

For any readers in London, I thought that this was pretty damn cool:

You’ve seen the massed crowds dancing in adverts. You’ve seen the people freezing at train stations and the giant pillow fights. Now you are invited to take part in something subtler and hopefully more meaningful.

In London, this Saturday 13th of June ‘The FemaleArtCollective’ will pay respect to ALL women who have been victims of violence and demand it stops.

Men are also invited and encouraged to participate. Violence against women and the way it is treated publicly have social repercussions for both genders.

You are asked to turn up at Mitre Square- EC3A (a site where a woman was murdered).

Please bring an item of your choice, 
a ribbon, flower, candle, photo, poem… and place it on the bench and the flower bed that will be marked at the site to create a one off memorial.

Then you are invited to pay a 1 minute silence and leave the site.

This is event will run from 12 to 12.30 pm.

The action will be recorded and shown as part of a mix-media art piece which addresses issues to do with violence against women. These include the lack of respect with which the victims and these events are treated, the glamorization of violence by the media, and the invisibility and the denial of the fear and the taboo.

The FemaleArtCollective has been created by four female London based artists.

If you are interested in participating please just come along. For further information send an email tothe_art_flashmob@yahoo.co.uk

Please, pass this information on. Thanks!!

Map Link

If you’re able to make it out, do!

via the F-Word

Feministing Party TOMORROW!

I’ll be there, and so should you. It’s their five-year anniversary, and they have a great line-up for the event, including:

The famous and fabulous Mr. Showbiz, Murray Hill!
Awesome indie band, BoySkout
Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls camper band, Saffire
DJ Tikka Masala will be bringing us some great hip hop beats
A special guest appearance by the amazing Kathleen Hanna of Le Tigre and Bikini Kill!

Buy your tickets here.

SPEAK! Listening Party in Long Beach, CA!

Remember that awesome CD that’s out right now? The spoken word collection that features the work of BFP, Black Amazon, Little Light, and so many others? The one that combines personal history and movement making in truly inspiring ways? If you live in or around Long Beach, CA and haven’t heard it yet, now’s your chance! On Sunday, June 14th, Petit Poussin, Christine, and I will be hosting a listening party from 2-5. As we listen to the CD, you’ll be able to participate in discussion and respond by making your own media, whether it’s visual art, handwritten text, a zine, blogging or twittering, or whatever combination of the above you can come up with. Afterwards, we’ll sit down to a potluck dinner. CDs will be available for sale – remember that all proceeds go towards getting single mothers to the Allied Media Conference next month.

Address available upon RSVP. A quick warning for people with allergies: a friendly medium-haired cat will be present.

RSVP to modernmitzvot at yahoo com or ppoussin at gmail com!

Help Send Single Mothers to the Allied Media Conference

The Allied Media Conference, which is about “[sharing] tools and tactics for transforming our communities through media-based organizing,” is being held this July. I’ve never been, but I know that it’s a really important event to a whole lot of womanists, feminists and radical women of color.

And I’ve just learned through BFP’s blog that the AMC needs a lot of money to help ensure that single mothers, who so often get left out of conference events, will be able to attend and participate. She writes:

Why do we need single mamis at this conference?

It’s funny you should ask. Mamis of color are leaders in creating media that services the communities most in need radical media justice. They’ve created zines, blog communities, news papers, radio shows. They write and speak with children on their hips, on their breasts, and with the most limited resources possible. They can make a meeting happen with three people in three different cities, one car, and an awesome white dude. They don’t leave their neighbors behind because it’s a car with four seats, they make more seats in the car.

This is leadership. Single mamis of color are the leaders of the media justice movement, and I really am not sure why or how we would have a conference if they weren’t there.

So they need your help getting these women there in July. Click here to contribute by buying a SPEAK! CD. The CD itself includes all kinds of amazing stuff.  And the suggested donation amount is $12, but you can also choose to donate more than that — as much as your heart desires and your wallet will allow.

Go, now, donate! And then put the call out on your blog, your twitter, facebook, whatever it is you use, and get the people you know to do the same.

cross-posted at the Curvature

Living Liberally 2009

Living Liberally, the umbrella organization that sponsors Drinking Liberally, Laughing Liberally, Reading Liberally, Eating Liberally, etc etc is holding its annual fundraiser on May 30th. Air America’s Sam Seder is the master of ceremonies, and honorees include Media Matters of America, the Honorable Scott Stringer, and Jack and Jill Politics.

It’s going to be a great event, and hopefully you can make it. Living Liberally does great work bringing progressives together around the country — their Drinking Liberally events attract thousands of particpants in nearly every major city and a whole bunch of smaller ones, and they’ve done an incredible job at linking liberals up with other liberals. For those of us who love politics and who crave some interaction with other politically engaged progressives, Living Liberally has been a life-saver.

But like other non-profits, Living Liberally has been hit hard by the recession. So even if you can’t come, please consider donating. They operate on a shoe-string budget and still manage to do incredible work, so every dollar you give will be well-spent.

You can buy tickets, donate, and learn more about the event here. I already bought my ticket, so I hope to see some of you there!

CLEAN Carwash!

We’re still at it!

Image description: Protesters in orange T-shirts reading PJA picket outside of a carwash.
Image description: Protesters in orange T-shirts reading "PJA" picket outside of a carwash.

This Sunday, May 3rd, the CLEAN Carwash Campaign and Progressive Jewish Alliance will be picketing the Vermont Hand Wash at 1666 N. Vermont Avenue from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Although no carwash in Los Angeles can be described as “good,” the owners of the Vermont Hand Wash in Los Feliz are among the worst in the industry. By protesting the Vermont Hand Wash, we hope to send a message to other carwashes throughout the city. For more information, visit cleancarwashla.org.

Please repost or link to this message on your blog, or forward this to any Los Angeles residents you might know.

Also, please leave a comment if you or someone you know plans to attend. Thanks!

In Honor of Fair Pay Day

Re-posting this awesome guest-post by Sarah Jaffe. Sarah has another fair pay post up today — head over there and read it. Here’s Sarah:

So our economy is falling apart, right? And the government keeps bailing out these massive financial firms while talking Very Sternly to the auto company CEOs about how they need to restructure and cut costs. Of course, the number one cost CEOs and reporters love to talk about is the “labor cost,” all the while nicely avoiding mentioning that “labor cost” is what real people make in wages and other benefits.

Unions, in other words, are a convenient bogeyman, yet they do and have done more to improve the living standards of American workers than anything else. And 44% of union workers are women. According to the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

“If the share of women in unions continues to grow at the same rate as it has over the last 25 years, women will be the majority of the unionized workforce by 2020.”

There’s a bill in Congress right now that you’ve probably heard of called the Employee Free Choice Act. Briefly, the bill would allow three things: it would allow workers to form a union simply by signing a card—the so-called “card check” provision; it would provide binding arbitration for employers and workers when they cannot agree on a contract; and it would strengthen penalties against employers who seek to intimidate workers trying to form a union.

And I believe it should be a feminist issue.

Read More…Read More…

Columbia/Barnard Take Back the Night March

On the night of Thursday April 16th, there will be a Take Back the Night March held in New York City.  One of the event’s coordinators, Robin, said in her email to me that the march is “an empowering event for both men and women, survivors, co-survivors and allies,” and it looks like efforts have been made to make the event as accessible as possible.

Information below:

COLUMBIA/BARNARD TAKE BACK THE NIGHT

April 16th, 2009
March starts at 9pm, Barnard Gates (117th & Broadway, NYC)
Speakout starts at 11pm, LeFrak Gym, Barnard College

“Tonight is a night of survival, in the most active sense of the word”

The mission of Take Back the Night March and Speakout is to break the silence about sexual violence by inviting the Morningside Heights community to gather together, as survivors, allies, family, friends, neighbors and strangers, to support each other and protest the violence that affects all of us. The march is an opportunity to re-claim the streets of New York City, the neighborhood of Morningside Heights, and the Columbia campus as safe spaces. After the march, we host a Speakout, during which community members speak anonymously about their experiences. The march is wheelchair accessible. Free childcare will be provided. ASL signer will be present during pre-march rally.

For more information contact TBTN.at.Columbia@gmail.com

If you’re able to make it out, please do!

A Feministe Bloggers Meet Up

Okay, so as you’ll notice we’re missing quite a few (read: a majority) of us, so sadly WAM! was far from a full meet up of Feministe bloggers — oh, how I wish!  But, all the same, after nearly a year of blogging here, it was totally awesome getting to finally meet both Jill and Jack in person.  They are, I must say, just as great and fun in “real life” as they are online, if not more so.  Seriously.  I absolutely adored them.

WAM! was a chance for me to meet all kinds of awesome feminist bloggers and activists in person for the first time.  I got to hang out with one of my best Twitter pals, Sally.  I got to finally meet my co-panelists from the conference, Marcella Chester, Ashley Burczak, and Ashwini Hardikar.  I got a hug from Latoya Peterson, discussed favorite Beatles albums with Julia Serano (!), sat next to Samhita Mukhopadhyay in a panel, and met Miriam Perez, Veronica Arreola, (my YMY editor!) Jaclyn Friedman, Deanna Zandt, and so many others who I’m sure I’m horribly forgetting.

I wish I had gotten to spend more time with all of them, but really, who can ask for more than that?  Thanks to everyone who attended for a truly great time.  And an even bigger thanks to WAM! and the blog readers who donated to the fund that made it possible for me to go!