Signal Boosting: spruik your social justice events in July-August

Events posted so far:

SlutWalks continue around the globe – check out the SlutWalk Toronto website which is keeping tabs on the Satellite Slutwalks.

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This post is open to any social justice activist to spruik any upcoming event/activism outreach: protests, vigils, petitions, fundraisers, film nights, book launches, festivals etc.

Guidelines:
1. Please include links to websites with full details (Facebook pages are fine).
2. Keep your plug brief! Date/place/time name of event and 100-200 word summary, please.
(2a. if your event is already being well plugged elsewhere, please be extra-brief!)
3. Please confine the plugs on this post to events occurring in July and August 2011 only. I’ll do another post next month.
(3a. Exception made for books/films launched any time and still available for purchase. Keep on plugging them so that people still hear about them if they missed out on the launch.)
4. “Nothing About Us Without Us”. If an event is challenged by others for lacking inclusion/actively marginalising groups being discussed at the event, the event will be reviewed and subsequently the promotional comment may be deleted. e.g. events centering transphobic opinions without balance from trans voices, or centering whorephobic opinions without balance from sex worker voices, will not stand.
5. The place to complain about these guidelines is on the Complaints page, NOT on this signal-boost post.

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Signal Boosting: spruik your social justice events in June-July

A bit late this month – apologies.

Events posted so far:

SlutWalks continue around the globe – check out the SlutWalk Toronto website which is keeping tabs on the Satellite Slutwalks.

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This post is open to any social justice activist to spruik any upcoming event/activism outreach: protests, vigils, petitions, fundraisers, film nights, book launches, festivals etc.

Guidelines:
1. Please include links to websites with full details (Facebook pages are fine).
2. Keep your plug brief! Date/place/time name of event and 100-200 word summary, please.
(2a. if your event is already being well plugged elsewhere, please be extra-brief!)
3. Please confine the plugs on this post to events occurring in June and Julyl 2011 only. I’ll do another post next month.
(3a. Exception made for books/films launched any time and still available for purchase. Keep on plugging them so that people still hear about them if they missed out on the launch.)
4. “Nothing About Us Without Us”. If an event is challenged by others for lacking inclusion/actively marginalising groups being discussed at the event, the event will be reviewed and subsequently the promotional comment may be deleted. e.g. events centering transphobic opinions without balance from trans voices, or centering whorephobic opinions without balance from sex worker voices, will not stand.
5. The place to complain about these guidelines is on the Complaints page, NOT on this signal-boost post.

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This June spruiking post is brought to you by the recently published novel Last Chance Cafe by Liz Byrski:

The novel centres on a group of older women asking themselves questions about the personal and political lives – past, present and future – negotiating their own feminist journeys while both mentoring and learning from younger women undergoing their own.

With aching empathy, Liz Byrski assembles a fallible cast of characters who are asking the questions we ask ourselves. What does it mean to grow older? Are we brave enough to free ourselves from the pressure to stay young? And is there ever a stage in life when we can just be ourselves?

Signal Boosting: spruik your social justice events in May

Events posted so far:

Saturday, May 7th is Boston’s Slutwalk

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This post is open to any social justice activist to spruik any upcoming event/activism outreach: protests, vigils, petitions, fundraisers, film nights, book launches, festivals etc.

Guidelines:
1. Please include links to websites with full details (Facebook pages are fine).
2. Keep your plug brief! Date/place/time name of event and 100-200 word summary, please.
(2a. if your event is already being well plugged elsewhere, please be extra-brief!)
3. Please confine the plugs on this post to events occurring in May and June 2011 only. I’ll do another post next month.
(3a. Exception made for books/films launched any time and still available for purchase. Keep on plugging them so that people still hear about them if they missed out on the launch.)
4. “Nothing About Us Without Us”. If an event is challenged by others for lacking inclusion/actively marginalising groups being discussed at the event, the event will be reviewed and subsequently the promotional comment may be deleted. e.g. events centering transphobic opinions without balance from trans voices, or centering whorephobic opinions without balance from sex worker voices, will not stand.
5. The place to complain about these guidelines is on the Complaints page, NOT on this signal-boost post.

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Feminism FOR REAL: Deconstructing the academic industrial complex of feminism

This May spruiking post is brought to you by the recently published anthology Feminism FOR REAL: Deconstructing the academic industrial complex of feminism, edited by Jessica Yee.

When feminism itself becomes its own form of oppression, what do we have to say about it? Western notions of polite discourse are not the norm for all of us, and just because we’ve got some new and hot language lately in equity-seeking movements like feminism — such as “intersectionality” — to use in our talk, it doesn’t necessarily make things change in our walk (i.e. actually being anti-racist).

Confronting the sometimes uncomfortable questions feminism has made us ask about what’s going on FOR REAL paved the many paths that brought the contributors of this book together to share their sometimes uncomfortable truths, not just about feminism, but about who they are and where they are coming from.

Call for submissions: sexual violence survivor stories/poetry/artwork etc

From the Souls Speak Out “About” page:

Soulspeakout.org was born out of the need for a safe space for survivors to tell their stories. Our original intent was to start a zine to distribute at local women’s shelters and support centers. However, this site has the potential to reach many more. We hope that you are able to use it as a safe space to reach out to other survivors or just have your voice heard.

This space is designed to be a healing, empowering and inspiring space for survivors of all ages, genders, sexualities, abilities, nationalities, cultural and social identities.

Feel free to contact us at any time as you explore and make this space your own.

Best wishes to Elisha, Maria, and Stefana as they build this safe space.  They’ve already made a strong start with their Resources page, so check them out and maybe submit your survivor story, if you feel it would help you or others to have it shared.

Focus On: Dating while Feminist

Amanda Hess has a great interview with Jaclyn Friedman about sex and the single feminist:

Fucking while feminist presents a peculiar set of challenges for the pro-sex single. How do you talk rape culture on a first date while still managing to get laid once in a while? How do you find the feminist guy who won’t self-flagellate to the point of unfuckability? How do you avoid dying alone, basically? Friedman agreed to talk to me about establishing a feminist fucking litmus test, the art of locating non-douchey sex partners online, and the secret perks of fucking a feminist.

JF: Right now my basic litmus test is this: Is he interested in feminist issues when I bring them up? And can he talk about them in ways that express curiosity and engagement and respect, instead of defensiveness or dismissiveness or attachment to stereotypes? If we can talk about this stuff in ways that are interesting and productive, I can work with it most of the time.

Help out Heretical

Heretical is the annual magazine of the Women’s Collective at UQ (University of Queensland). This year it might not appear unless there is some rapid assistance from the broad feminist community. They simply don’t have enough submissions, and time is running out, largely because the collective’s time has been spent coping with hostility and harassment on campus targeting women’s groups and also LGBTQ groups.

The Women’s Room was recently vandalised:

From UQ-Women's Collective (click for many more pictures of damage)

If you are a blogger who is happy for a post or two of yours to appear in the magazine, please leave a note in the comment below with a valid email address, and I can pass your contact details on to the member of the UQ collective who contacted me regarding this. This is very very very late notice I’m afraid. Please help if you can.

Cross-posted at Hoyden About Town

Action Alert: Women for Women International needs help

From my inbox:

Friends, help Women for Women International with your vote for our Members Project “Help Women and Children Survivors of War Rebuild”. With your support it could share in $2.5 million in funding from American Express. We need to get into the Top 25 projects by September 1 so please nominate this project for potential funding, go to Help Women and Children Survivors of War Rebuild.

Please click the link to the project and click Nominate. If you do not have an American Express website login, just click “Guest Member” provide a little information and you can then Nominate and vote.

Please show your support with a Click and Share this with as many friends as possible. We need at least 500 more votes in the next week to be in the running.

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