|
creating
something fucking better | 20.2.08 A
movement of sexual abuse survivors who go fuck things up...
because they have
the bloody knuckles to do it. I'm
doing some research into grrrl zines and have been reading about teenage girls
writing their experiences of rape, incest, harassment and assault. My
first reaction is physiological. My heart pounds, water comes into my eyes, i
feel this woosy rush to my head. The second is that some imaginary or real string
goes from my heart to theirs, snakes its way off the pages, disappears out the
door. then i picture us sitting next to each other, our eyes cast down. and then
we lift up our heads, we take each other by the hand and we fucking scream. A
long time ago i made a pledge to myself that i would do something with my own
pain, connect the dots, and never again feel silenced or ashamed about instances
of assault and abuse in my own life. i nearly made myself find a brick, write
my promise around it, and keep it safe- something heavy and cold that i would
have to drag from house to house, city to city to remind me of all the work that
has to be done. i think this is something that means the most to me in this world.
this is the thing i want to do, to be, to make happen. to fucking do something
that can jump right into that spot. right after it happened. to take you in my
arms, to fix you food, to keep you sane, and to fucking tell you that nothing
was your fault. I
can't even convey the feelings i have about how someone can treat someone like
they weren't even there. weren't even under them as they fuck or suck or carve.
that they vanish them with a few simple acts. I
think survivors learn how to become ghosts, they learn to get by, but sometimes
they can't get out of a cycle, for whatever reasons. but
ghosts turn into excellent fighters. you get a gang of ghosts together, all raged
up about what has been done, and there's a fucking fury. i
think i'm ready to spit down any and every instance of fucked up behavior that
i come across. even if i get punched out. i have zero tolerance. Right
now i'll try and do things with the resources i have to hand. I'm not focusing
on the pieces of ape shit. i'm focusing on the girls/guys who live through this.
If i can help with one piece of validation, one piece of fucking sense that can
show kids like us that you don't have to die. you don't have to fucking comply
to boy's desire when you are growing up girl. you don't have to fucking ignore
your heart and your fear and act like some model girlfriend. and
how that extends to everything in your life. because you are beautiful and strong
and there are ape shits all around who will try and stomp that into the ground.
this isn't about victim mentality. this is about changing the codes and the expectations
and the norms that say that you have to die to survive in this game. This
is about creating something fucking better.
How
to… Start a Ladyfest | 21.12.07 Ladyfests
bring girl-friendly, creative, fun things back into your community, and change
your town forever (at least that's what it feels like). A Ladyfest can be an art
show, music gigs, film screenings, workshops, club nights, dance- offs, or a gigantic
festival mish mash - anything that serves as an elaborate ruse to showcase the
women you adore and the politics you endorse. In
a bid to help keep this network growing and evolving - and because I want to come
to your Ladyfest next year - here are some secrets from the Ladyfest Brighton
05 contingent. This
is how we did it: STEAL
FROM EVERYONE
Including Ladyfest. There's a wealth of information already
out there, so go to www.ladyfest.org and rip off press releases, sponsorship packs,
submission forms, and what nots. And remember to scam free photocopying from your
school or office at all times. START
EARLY
Depending on the size of your Ladyfest, give yourself about a year
to organise. Aim to host a fundraiser a month - not only to raise money, but also
to get that Ladyfest name out there and lure in fresh volunteers. Research your
funding opportunities early and make sure you note the deadlines (Awards for All,
Maypole Fund, the Feminist Review Trust, and Student Unions are all good bets).
For most funding bodies you'll need to show a bank statement, two signatories,
and a constitution. A constitution is basically a document saying how the group
runs and how you manage your finances (feel free to copy ours, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ladyfestbrighton/files/).
Most funders take 6-8 weeks to come to a decision, so plan ahead (and remember
the power of the blag!). Realistically,
you'll get down to the nitty gritty about three months before the festival - so
no need to panic (!). Have regular-ish meetings and then go weekly closer to the
time. Remember that loads of people will want to get involved with your festival;
they just need to know about it. Leave a paper trail around town advertising your
meetings and events, and appeal to different groups and ages for a good range
of experiences. One of the best things about organising a Ladyfest is that you
learn a bunch of skills and make a heap of new friends. WRITE
A MISSION STATEMENT (and stick to it)
This will take a few meetings, but
get something written down reflecting the aims and ethos of the group. This comes
in handy when making collective decisions (like having something concrete about
resisting multinationals when it comes to refusing sponsorship from Levis, something
LFB did!). A mission statement also helps you decide the direction of your Ladyfest
(will you be British focused? Or international? Community-based? Or Ladyfest DIY
independent?) ASK
FOR HELP
Previous Ladyfesters are gems for giving advice. Check out the
minutes on their Ladyfest website or email and ask organisers how they did it.
It's simpler than you think and they are usually gagging to help (Ladyfest veterans
like to return time and time again to the scene of the crime). GET
PEOPLE TO DO THINGS
Sometimes it's easier not to set up sub-committees
(music, film, etc). Instead, collectively inspire individuals to do specific things
(doesn't 'collectively inspire' sound like a euphuism!). Take minutes at meetings
and make sure there's a 'list of things to do' in place for the next meet. If
people don't do what they say they will, listen to them and see if they need help.
Keep communication channels open, and remember that the group has final responsibility,
not individuals. If something isn't happening, address it, re-delegate it, or
ditch it. BOOK
VENUES EARLY
Find a time that doesn't clash with anything major and set
your dates. Venues get booked pretty quickly, so nip in there and get the best
ones early. You won't have to pay for them till nearer the time, and if anything
does go wrong, you can cancel the booking. Think about having your festival a
week before or after another Ladyfest- that way there's the possibility of sharing
band and music costs through a 'ladyfest tour'. DECIDE
HOW YOU'LL HANDLE YOUR MONEY
You can become a company limited by guarantee
(which means no one is responsible fiscally if things go tits up) or you can be
a non-profit community group and get an ethical Co-Op Community Direct Plus account
(all the services are free, you have a chance to get money from their community
fund, and there's coffee on the house whenever you go into the branch).  Decide
how you are going to pay for people. One way of doing this is:
~ Offering music
performers a flat fee of £50 and a free day pass (you'll probably have to
pay fees for headline bands, but also try and negotiate)
~ Cover other people's
travel expenses and give them a free day pass (like workshop instructors, spoken
word, etc)
~ Accommodate as many people as possible on floor space/ start a
Ladyfest squat
~ Offer everyone involved free food and refreshments
MAKE
A BUDGET
This can be painstaking (but fun if, like me, you're a bit of
a numbers geek). Budgets are essential for funding applications and to get an
idea of how much cash you'll need to raise. Check out www.funderfinder.org.uk/freeware.php
for genius free software that helps you come up with budgets and funding proposals. For
a five-day festival, Ladyfest Brighton had a loose budget of around £8,000-
£10,000. This also included a zine library which was sourced after the fest
in collaboration with the local LGBT youth group. We
raised about £6,000 in funding bids and cake sales. The extra dosh came
from ticket sales, merchandise and donations (an e-bay action of signed band t-shirts
went down a treat!). Create a paypal account and put it on your website, we got
a few stray donations that way. GET
A LOGO
Think of Ladyfest as your own anti-brand. Get a good logo and use
it for flyers, headed paper, street stencilling, merchandise, and press releases.
LFB decided not to use any depictions of women in our logo- not only as it's too
obvious in terms of the 'lady' aspect, but it can also be prescriptive in terms
of showing just one type of woman and/or body type. Instead, we had logos of the
Brighton Pavilion which we used on official stuff, and a cool scribbly typewriters
and seagulls for merch. DECIDE
ON YOUR ETHICS
Have far will you take this? Having an ethical sponsorship
policy? Only using fair trade goods for refreshments? To be ethical doesn't have
to be expensive; approach companies like the Co-Op for donations and 'in-kind'
support (stuff they give you for free in return for recognition as a Ladyfest
supporter). They might come up trumps with yummy fair trade chocolates, tea and
coffee. Don't forget your local anarchist group- they might run a vegan café
for you with skipped food, or even start up a Ladyfest squat to house people. HAVE
A GREAT TIME
There'll be times when you think you're mad for organising
a Ladyfest, but the friendships and skill-sharing coming out of it makes it totally
worth it. Ladyfest will start off a whole new chain of events in your life, and
each Ladyfest helps make our UK DIY feminist scene more closely knitted and productive.
You might find you just can't stop afterwards- see the Bakery, Independent Heroines,
and Localkids for Ladyfesters still on the move. Get
in touch if you have any specific questions! rchidgeyATgooglemail.com
Class:
the last feminist taboo? | 16.12.07 Welcome
to a rant about class. A
friend told me something the other day that's still reverberating around my mind.
At Greenham Common peace camp - where women lost possessions and jobs as long-term
protesters against cruise missiles - a middle-class woman asked the finance team
for a holiday as she was stressed. A working class woman asked for waterproof
trousers as she was wet and cold. The first woman got her holiday; the second
woman had to make do.  As
my friend put it, "I think class shows in how much space people take in conversations,
how much people share money and resources [middle class people are much more likely
to ask for money or help, or say they haven't enough to give]. Middle class people
tend to not hear working class people's contributions and form cliques with each
other."
Recognising
your class privilege is like recognising you're breathing; it's so natural, so
engrained, that it can be difficult to fathom. But class privilege - including
greater access to resources, time and money; more confidence in speaking and putting
forward ideas; more recognition for ideas and willingness to take leadership positions
- slinks into feminist groups and often goes unmasked, usually because it isn't
explicitly recognised or there's no context to challenge it. Class
is pretty invisible in young feminism; no one really knows what it is anymore.
Before the second would war it was simpler- recognising the 'has and has nots'.
With post-war prosperity, boon and recession years, increased immigration, the
rise in higher education (tempered by the loss of it being free under New Labour),
and the increasing feminisation of the service industry (with the migration of
factory labour to cheaper off-shore work houses) - it's hard to know who's who
in social and economic class. Most of the time, if you're a feminist, you're probably
in middle or upper class company anyway. In
the mid-1990s clashes between different classed women were noted at a Philadelphia
Riot Grrrl Convention, where about 50 young women attended a workshop on class
oppression. As reported in the feminist journal Off Our Backs, the situation was
pretty tense. Some upper-middle class girls talked about the guilt they felt coming
from a family with money. Working class women attempted to steer the discussion
back to thinking about class oppression, not privilege. This was met defensively: "A
few more self-identified upper-middle and middle class grrrls responded by explaining
the circumstances of their background as a sort of disclaimer of responsibility
for their being privileged: their parents had "worked their way up",
and so it was okay for them to have money. Some of the self-identified working-class
grrrls replied that the concept of working one's way up is demeaning because it
implies that people who haven't done just that aren't working hard enough. They
added that their parents had worked just as hard but that societal and economic
structure kept a lot of people from getting off welfare/or out of the working
class."  Let's
break it down: class is a social and economic position; at the bare bones it's
about wealth. The government has a fancy chart where you can figure out your class
profile (the NS-SEC, National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification).
But
it's more than money or job position. It's education, culture, the way you are
recognised or not. It's about subtle levels of opportunity, expectations and aspirations.
It's about who controls representation and the production of knowledge, and who
gets paid well/compensated for the work that they do. It really is about who,
historically, has the resources, time, money and inclination to document their
activism and publish their writing. Full-time
students, rightly, figure low on the NS-SEC, often finding themselves saddled
with large debts on graduating (which, with the pay gap, will take women longer
to pay off). Some women who go on to higher education witness this class divide
from both sides: through their education they possess upward mobility and circulate
in middle-upper class circles; from their background they have internalised the
values, cultures and set-backs of their working class roots. It can be a pretty
strange place to occupy for a socially mobile feminist, being critical of both
classes and disproportionately at home in neither. (Academia
may well remain a lonely place for working class women to enter; a recent Sutton
Trust report indicates that whilst 44% of young people from the richest fifth
of the population go to university, only 10% from the 'bottom' fifth make it into
the corridors of power). What
does class privilege mean for feminism? Without any understanding of class relations
we fail to speak to the concerns, priorities, experiences and expertise of women
who come from poorer backgrounds, often those more interested in "survival"
issues than cultural issues. (We also fail to speak as working class feminists).
Absorbing the mainstream version of feminism, the full participation of working
class women has also been obscured from our historical memory. Coming
from a working class family, I'm just beginning my "click" moment about
class-consciousness and class shame/pride. (I'm looking forward to casting a critical
eye over BBC 2's 'White season' about white working class identity this winter).
To help figure things out I'm hoping to put together a compilation zine about
class, including submissions and artwork from people of all backgrounds. Get in
touch if you wanna contribute something, and let's start to collectively unpeel
this last feminist taboo. End of rant. rchidgeyATgooglemail.com
How
to get along (have facilitation guidelines) |
6.12.07 The
Feminist Activist Forum is a group with high ambitions. It aims to forge intergenerational
connections, support dialogue between feminists from different groups and positions,
and introduce discussions about trans-inclusion into the mix. Seven
months into the group's history, and things got really messy on the e-list as
women argued passionately over whether 'women only spaces' included women who
were born biologically male and live as trans-women (or trans-men who still have
close ties with radical women's communities). This
was in the context of the Reclaim the Night March and previous assumptions that
the event was women-born-women only (the march, it turned out, was trans-inclusive,
but this perhaps wasn't made explicit in all the publicity). In
the FAF camp, some women left the list and many felt shocked and hurt that a group
designed to bring activists together seemed to crumble at the first hurdle. Some
felt that the notion of women-only safe space was under attack. It
did feel confusing. And it also highlighted the need to take a step back, to think
about our commonalities, and to try and draw up collective guidelines for how
to deal with conflict resolution. At
the Manchester FAF meeting last weekend, discussion was given over to 'women only
spaces' and how FAF could move forward on these issues. These are some of the
conclusions drawn from the discussions: For
every event and action, clarity is needed over the meaning of 'women only spaces'. Points
of commonality between groups, networks and individuals need to be established.
For example, the recognition that women are placed at a structural disadvantage
in patriarchal societies, even if feminists disagree on what forms 'women' takes.
Diplomacy
is needed on both sides, or all sides, of the debate in order to counter the 'fight
impulse' that arises when these issues are discussed. It is important not to foreground
a particular point of view but to allow for genuine debate to occur in order to
reach common points of alliance. An awareness of how the tone of the debate can
exclude people is also needed. Trans
and queer phobia can/should be challenged Spaces
are needed to focus on how a group communicates and to allow for debate about
how debate happens! The creation of a facilitation group may help with building
the conditions for careful and diplomatic conflict resolution.
Sometimes
it does feel that feminist activism can be bogged down in details- tedious consensus-based
meetings, logger-heads, melt downs, and personality clashes. But in my experience
of the FAF debates, and the determination of the group as a whole to re-establish
areas of coalition, there seems to be a genuine- and hard-fought- gain which will
hopefully only add to the strength of the group in the future. From the FAF meeting
a new anti-rape working group has also emerged.
The
risk of feminism
| 28.11.07
I've
just finished writing an article on race and feminism for my friend Humey's zine,
Race Revolt. Cribbed from Winifred Breines' historical study of US feminism, The
Trouble Between Us: An Uneasy History of White and Black Women in the Feminist
Movement (Oxford University Press, 2006), the essay plots a mini-history of race
intentions between activist women, from the 1960s' SNCC to the 1980s Coalition
for Women's Safety. It was inspiring but also kind of daunting- to realise how
little I know about feminist pasts and the long-standing work of black women in
liberation movements, and to think about the failed experiences of anti-racist
women. This reading highlighted how activism must be strengthened by an understanding
of what came before - we often hear the, well-based, mantra that Western feminist
movements are predominately 'white and middle class' (we might level that criticism
at different feminist currents evolving in the UK right now). But many of us rarely
grapple with the story behind it: why, how, to what consequence?  It
made me think of the risks of feminism - and there are many, depending on who
you are, what you're up to, and what context you're coming from. In particular
I'm thinking about the risk of coalition work, which Terese discusses in Race
Revolt #1 in reference to Ladyfests and Bernice Johnson Reagon's essay "Coalition
politics: Turning the century". Writing in 1982, Johnson Reagon declared:
"Coalition work is not work done in your home. Coalition work has to be done
in the streets. And it is some of the most dangerous work you can do. And you
shouldn't look for comfort…Today whenever women gather together, it is not
necessarily nurturing. It is coalition building." To order a copy of Race
Revolt, or contribute to future issues, contact Humaira at racerevoltATriseup.net
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