The Third International Congress on Islamic Feminism has been announced by Junta Islàmica Catalana (Catalonian Islamic Board) and will take place in Barcelona, 24th-27th October 2008.
For more information go to:
http://www.feminismeislamic.org/eng/
Check out the sceptic blog, written mostly by women, Skepchick. It’s quite interesting. I heard about it on the Skeptics Guide to the Universe podcast (Rebecca from Skepchick is on the Skeptics’ Guide).
I have just finished reading a great book: The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages? by Deborah Cameron. Many years ago I started to read Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray and I didn’t get too far into it - I thought it was the biggest load of rubbish I had ever come across. I couldn’t believe then and I still can’t believe now just how popular it is. When I heard about the Myth of Mars and Venus (I heard the author interviewed on the radio) I couldn’t wait to read it and it didn’t disappoint me in any way. The Myth of Mars and Venus is a short, easy-to-read book that explores the claims made in many popular books about the supposed ‘natural’ communication styles of men and women by examining what was said about men and women’s natural communication styles 100-200 years ago in Britain and compares them with other cultures now to show how these ideas really differ culture to culture and across time. Its main focus though, is the scientific studies that are used to back up claims in a lot of popular books out there (Men are from Mars…, Why Men Don’t Iron, and others) about the supposedly natural ways the sexes communicate and how they are very different and so lead to problems between the sexes. When Cameron actually looked at the original studies, she often found the gender differences had been greatly exagerated, or that there really weren’t any gender differences like what have been reported. She also found some widely-reported claims (like the one that women say three times as many words as men each day) to be totally fabricated and not based on any evidence (and studies into how much men and women talk usually find that men talk more than women).
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I just read on the F Word about an interview on the Today program (on BBC Radio 4) with Conservative David Willets about a Tory plan for an apprenticeship program to make working class men ‘more mariageable’. Yes, that’s right. Oh, the classism of the UK.
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| July 31, 2008 | ||
| 6:30 pm | to | 9:30 pm |
From the UK Feminist Action Yahoo Group:
After 8 months of fortnightly meetings, the members of the London Profeminist Men’s Group have decided that we would like to start a brand new gender discussion group open to people of all genders. For us, the men-only experience has been very positive, especially in terms of deconstructing our role in patriarchy as oppressors, understanding how we got to become men, mutual support and raising our consciousness. The men’s group will continue to meet, probably on the weeks in between the gender inclusive meetings, but we felt strongly about trying to achieve similar results in a mixed environment. At this point we feel we’d like to create:
· A constructive dialogue between people of all genders which has a clearly feminist perspective.· A group which takes the feminist principle “the personal is political” seriously and aims to create a space where we can talk openly about our own experiences of gender, of being oppressed and of perpetuating oppression, and not be afraid to be ourselves.
· An opportunity to learn from each other’s lives and to support each other’s struggles.The possibilities for this group are pretty much endless, so why not get involved and help shape what the group will do and how it will work.
Please do get in contact if you’re interested (newfeministgroupfor allgenders@ googlemail. com) and come along to our first meeting at the London Action Resource Centre (LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, E1 1ES) on the 31st July at 6:30pm. Oh, and tell all your friends!
From the BBC:
Will an ‘untouchable’ become India’s next prime minister?
The way a number of Indian opposition parties are rallying around Mayawati, a Dalit or ‘untouchable’ icon, and touting her as a future prime minister must be gladdening the hearts of 160 million members of the community she represents.
The 52-year-old daughter of a government clerk who grew up in a shanty town in the capital, Delhi, has emerged as the pivot of a fledgling “third front” in Indian politics.
From the BBC:
Three residents of the Greek island of Lesbos have lost an attempt to ban the use of the word “lesbian” to describe gay women.
The residents argued that using the term in reference to gay women insulted their identity.
But an Athens court ruled there was no justification for their contention that they felt slighted, saying the word did not define the islanders’ identity.
Australian Story is a popular television program on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) that tells stories about both public figures and unknown people in Australia. It recently did a story on the Queensland Premier Anna Bligh. An unashamed feminist, Anna Bligh now leads one of Australia’s most conservative states. It was great to see her background in student politics, setting up Women’s House in Brisbane (a feminist-collective-run women’s refuge), and how her and partner Greg gave Bligh’s mother’s first name to their sons as family name as neither Greg nor Anna were close to their fathers (whose last names they shared).
In all of Australia’s 6 states there have only been two female premiers (Carmen Lawrence in Western Australia, Joan Kirner for Victoria). What I didn’t know before watching Australian Story was that Lawrence and Kirner both inherited the leadership (as did Anna Bligh) but then lost the next state election. So, if Labor win the next Queensland election then she will be the first woman to win a state election as leader. Unfortunately for her, Labor has been in power in Queensland for ten years, so we’ll have to watch and see what happens. Check out the story.
| August 16, 2008 | ||
| 1:00 pm | to | 5:00 pm |
1-5pm Saturday August 16, 2008
@ the Arbour Youth Centre
100 Shandy Street, London E1 4ST
(Stepney Green or Mile End Tube stop)
Workshop on:
–>Why prisons don’t make our communities safer
–>The social costs of prisons for women, transfolk and queers
–>Building links between feminist / queer / trans anti-violence work and prison abolition
–>Drawing connections between prison abolition and other social justice struggles, such as border activism and immigration detention, anti-racism and anti-colonial struggles, antipoverty and homelessness work, resistance to the “war on terror”, ending psychiatric abuse, fair wages for workers & fighting corporate irresponsibility
–>Alternatives to punishment and imprisonment
–>How to build communities without prisons
For more info and to register, e-mail: SLAMBLE.81@gmail.com
(advance registration is not required but encouraged)
(from the UK Feminist Action Yahoo Group)
I just read on ABC News Online that the Hungarian Pride parade yesterday (July 6) was attacked by far-right extremists who threw eggs, stones, petrol-bombs and firecrackers at parade participants and the police:
Hungarian riot police used water cannons and tear gas overnight to stop far-right extremists from throwing petrol bombs and breaking up the annual gay parade in the capital Budapest.
Hundreds of far-right demonstrators threw petrol bombs and stones at the police as the police tried to separate them from the participants of the Gay Pride march.
They also threw eggs and firecrackers at people in the parade.
Riot police detained 45 people, police spokeswoman Eva Tafferner said.
Ambulance workers and police said at least eight people were wounded in the clashes, including two policemen.
…
Although homosexuality was legalised in eastern Europe after the collapse of communism, same-sex couples rarely display their affection publicly and gay parades have sparked scorn and violence in several other countries in the region.
As I was getting the tube into central London on Saturday morning to attend the London Pride parade, I read a magazine article about the many Eastern European countries whose Pride parades/marches are disrupted by violence. Queer people in a lot of these countries are really discriminated against and a lot of them only decriminalised homosexuality/enacted antidiscrimination laws when it was a condition of joining the EU. So I really felt strongly about the political importance of Pride parades and marches and I even got teary and emotional during the parade. It was great to see people representing a large array of organisations: unions, emergency services, political parties, religious groups, youth groups, older groups, social and sporting groups. I think it’s good to show people that there are lesbians, bisexuals, gays, transgender people in all areas of the community and they shouldn’t be ashamed and they shouldn’t suffer from discrimination. In fact, they should be proud of who they are! Yay for Pride! And as is usual with these kinds of events, there were a lot of people selling rainbow flags and other merchandise with rainbows on it but there was also a pink version of the UK flag being sold! I hate blind patriotism so I didn’t like those flags much.
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