Women's Liberation Birth Control Project Meeting
New York City, May 8, 2006

Women's Liberation Birth Control Project Meeting*

Monday May 8th from 6:30-8:30 PM

Join us to plan local and national initiatives to force the FDA to put the Morning-After Pill over-the-counter, like it is in 38 other countries around the world.

Anarchafeminist Manifesto

8 March, International Women's Day, is a specially relevant day to remember the Anarchafeminist Manifesto.

The origin of the Anarchafeminist Manifesto is in Norway. The Anarchafeminist Manifesto is the summary of the feminist political program unanimously agreed upon by the third congress of the Anarchist Federation of Norway, 1–7 of June 1982. The manifesto was first published in Norwegian in Folkebladet (IJA) no 1 1983 pp. 4–5. Soon after the "Manifesto" was published in CRIFA-Bulletin no 44 mars–avril 1983 in French (p. 12) and English (p. 13). Later on the French version was used as the basis for a translation to English that was published on the Internet. The "Manifesto" is also translated to other languages.

Anarchafeminst greetings from Anna Quist, co-writer of the "Anarchafeminst Manifesto." Translated from French (Bulletin C.R.I.F.A. No 44 mars–avril 1983 p. 12).

All over the world most women have no rights whatsoever to decide upon important matters which concern their lives. Women suffer from oppressions of two kinds: 1) the general social oppression of the people, and 2) secondly sexism — oppression and discrimination because of their sex.

There are five main forms of oppression:

— Ideological oppression, brainwash by certain cultural traditions, religion, advertising and propaganda. Manipulation with concepts and play upon women's feelings and susceptibilities. Widespread patriarchal and authoritarian attitudes and capitalistic mentality in all areas.

— State oppression, hierarchical forms of organization with command lines downwards from the top in most interpersonal relations, also in the so-called private life.

— Economic exploitation and repression, as a consumer and a worker in the home and in low-salary women's jobs.

— Violence, under the auspices of the society as well as in the private sphere — indirectly when there is coercion because of lack of alternatives and direct physical violence.

— Lack of organization, tyranny of the structurelessness which pulverizes responsibility and creates weakness and inactivity.

These factors work together and contribute simultaneously to sustain each other in a vicious circle. There is no panacea to break the circle, but it isn't unbreakable.

Anarcha-feminism is a matter of consciousness. The consciousness which puts guardians off work. The principles of a liberating society thus stand perfectly clear to us.

Anarcha-feminism means women's independence and freedom on an equal footing with men. A social organization and a social life where no-one is superior or inferior to anyone and everybody is coordinate, women as well as men. This goes for all levels of social life, also the private sphere.

Anarcha-feminism implies that women themselves decide and take care of their own matters, individually in personal matters, and together with other women in matters which concern several women. In matters which concern both sexes essentially and concretely women and men shall decide on an equal footing.

Women must have self-decision over their own bodies, and all matters concerning contraception and childbirth are to be decided upon by women themselves.

It must be fought both individually and collectively against male domination, attitudes of ownership and control over women, against repressive laws and for women's economic and social autonomy and independence.

Crisis centers, day care centers, study and discussion groups, women's culture activities etc. must be established, and be run under womens's own direction.

The traditional patriarchal nuclear family should be replaced by free associations between men and women based on equal right to decide for both parts and with respect for the individual person's autonomy and integrity.

Sex-stereotyping in education, media and at the place of work must be abolished. Radical sharing of the work by the sexes in ordinary jobs, domestic life and education is a suitable mean.

The structure of working life must be radically changed, with more part-time work and flat organized cooperation at home as well as in society. The difference between men's work and women's work must be abolished. Nursing and taking care of the children must concern men just as much as women.

Female power and female prime ministers will neither lead the majority of women to their ends nor abolish oppression. Marxist and bourgeoisie feminists are misleading the fight for women's liberation. For most women it is not going to be any feminism without anarchism. In other words, anarcha-feminism does not stand for female power or female prime ministers, it stands for organization without power and without prime ministers.

The double oppression of women demands a double fight and double organizing: on the one hand in feminist federations, on the other hand in the organizations of anarchists. The anarcha-feminists form a junction in this double organizing.

A serious anarchism must also be feminist otherwise it is a question of patriarchal half-anarchism and not real anarchism. It is the task of the anarcha-feminists to secure the feminist feature in anarchism. There will be no anarchism without feminism.

An essential point in anarcha-feminism is that the changes must begin today, not tomorrow or after the revolution. The revolution shall be permanent. We must start today by seeing through the oppression in the daily life and do something to break the pattern here and now.

We must act autonomously, without delegating to any leaders the right to decide what we wish and what we shall do: we must make decisions all by ourselves in personal matters, together with other women in pure female matters, and together with the male fellows in common matters.

petra writes:

Take Back the Mic!

International Women's Day

Monday March 6 through Sunday March 12, 2006

CKLN 88.1FM to Focus on the Achievements and Struggles of Women in Week-Long SPECIAL PROGRAMMING, streaming here. Check out the schedule (hit "click here" in second sentence for the week's schedule)

CKLN 81.1 FM, the campus-community radio station based at Ryerson University, is hosting special programming to commemorate and celebrate International Women’s Day.

Our programming features a Live Broadcast of the International Women’s Day Rally, March and Fair beginning Saturday March 11 at 10am. The IWD Fair will be held on the main floor of the Student Campus Centre of Ryerson University at 55 Gould Street, the new facility that is also home to CKLN. We look forward to an energizing day with many guests dropping their two cents on the past, present and future of the feminist movement.

“One thing that’s new this year is blocks of programs focused on particular themes,” says CKLN IWD co-ordinator Sharmeen Khan. “Monday March 6 features the voices of First Nations women from 5–10pm.

On Wednesday morning we get up early for discussion on women and labour at home and abroad, from 6am to 11am. Wednesday afternoon and evening we focus on women’s bodies as sites of celebration and struggle, with a diverse line-up of guests talking about menstruation, environmental toxins, the impacts of poverty on health, transsexual and transgender identities, sex workers and their partners, and women’s boxing.”

Program director Tim May adds “International Women’s Day special programming creates space for women artists to showcase their work on our popular and unique music shows.

Look forward to female indie-rockers on Tuesday afternoon, 2:30-5pm; “String Sisters” featuring women bluegrass artists on Wednesday’s Radio Boogie, 10pm to midnight; and a look at women and jazz with a special feature on Etta James on Tien Providence’s “The Jazz Zone” on Friday between 7and 11am.”

On Thursday March 9, CKLN teams up with sex shop “Come as You Are” to present an art show with the work of former CKLN programmer Wendy Maxwell, known as Queen Nzinga. A refugee from Costa Rica, she was arrested on an immigration warrant at last year’s International Women’s Day Fair after seven years in Canada.

Her subsequent deportation focused attention on the precarious life of non-status people. The show runs all month. The opening, which includes a film screening of d’bi young’s “Blood”, is scheduled for 7–10pm. That’s at 701 Queen Street West in Toronto.

Plan your listening schedule NOW....visit www.ckln.fm and hit 'click here' to get to the schedule

For more information, please contact

Sharmeen Khan, IWD Co-ordinator (416) 979-5251 Email: iwd@ckln.fm

altar_magazine writes:

"Body, The Value of Women" Screening
New York City, Dec. 11, 2005

Altar Magazine presents... FREE NYC

December 11th 6pm

Stain (766 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211)

Altar Magazine is organizing it's first Free NYC event on December 11th at 6pm at Stain by screening the film BODY: The Value of Women, a
documentary by Shereen Noon that addresses the issues of body image and self-esteem in the United States, exposing the levels of self-hatred imposed by our culture and the media. It reveals the specific creative machinations of artificial images that reinforce negative body image and low self-esteem, and shows what women can do to feel whole and accepting of themselves.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

"The Post (Liberal) Feminist Condition"

Anonymous Comrade

“They’ll throw the book at you in court. She’s the mother-the female. She’s got the tits. They’ll crush you.” — Sandor Himmelstein in Herzog by Saul Bellow.

The narrative of Bellow’s novel depicts a middle-aged philosophy professor, Moses Herzog, unluckily in love and on the edge descending into mental illness. Two broken marriages and estranged children; he feels the latter estrangement as death. Escaping from the pain into the arms of women he uses for sex, objectified he then begins to despise them. Though he remains conflicted on whether or not to remarry to a new lover, he withdraws yet again on a holiday. Catching a train from New York to the sea side, or rather lakeside, he reminisces upon his married life and the break up with Madeleine.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Coming Up Short:
Young Women & Global Women

New York City, Nov. 5 & 13, 2005

Tickets are almost gone for these two film events so get them while you can!

November 5th 6:30PM

COMING UP SHORT: Young Women
Featuring...

GROWING UP FAST (Joanna Lipper)
This documentary follows a group of teen parents through their last months of high school, as they share their personal stories and discuss the difficult decisions, challenges and responsibilities they face. While highlighting the difficulties of teen pregnancy and parenthood, this film also shows the strength, courage, resilience, spirit and self-awareness of these adolescents, and charts their rise to meet the challenge of
supporting their families while simultaneously working to graduate from high school with the help of tutoring and daycare. Filmmaker will be in attendance.

WHY GET MARRIED? (Anne Stirling)
This documentary is evocative and thought-provoking, taking a look at the institution of marriage, how it differs in Canada and the US, and whether it is our nature to want to be in couples or in marriage. The film evolved from a series of interviews spanning three years and two widely flung and disparate settings. Singles, gays, marrieds, divorced, never-marrieds, wedding planners and marriage experts - no one was safe from the
provocative interrogator determined to find the answers to her questions.

November 13th 6:30PM

COMING UP SHORT: Global Women
Featuring...

WHEN THE STORM CAME (Shilpi Gupta)
When the Storm Came is a short documentary profiling Kunnan Pushpora, a village in Indian-Administered Kashmir. Through evocative interviews, the film reconstructs the night of February 23, 1991, when villagers say they were victims of a mass rape at the hands of Indian security forces. When the Storm Came tells the intimate story of a few of the victims and depicts the impact the rape continues to have on the community over a decade later. The film culminates with a stark reminder of the
universality of rape as a 'weapon' in conflict across the globe,
persisting throughout time.

SADAA E ZAN (Renee Bergan)
Filmed in March 2002, Sadaa E Zan collects the voices of several Afghan women living in Kabul, Afghanistan and Northern Pakistan. In a land where 50% of women are widows and nearly everyone has lost a family member, these brave women of all ages, recount their struggles and victories from living under twenty three years of war. From the Soviet invasion to the Civil War to the extremist Taliban, women were always the first victims. With the Taliban now gone, Afghanistan finally finds itself with the possibility of peace. But will it last? This, they believe, is in the hands of the international community. Finally, these women have a way to voice their concerns.

These film screenings will be held at the Pioneer Theater (155 E. 3rd St at Avenue A). Tickets are $9 and everyone who attends will receive a gift bag full of prizes from our sponsors worth over $50. Space is limited. To buy tickets, go to:
November 5th: http://www.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=38405
November 13th: http://www.tix.com/Event.asp?Event=37528

Annual Review of Critical Psychology 4 - "Feminisms and Activisms"

The fourth issue of Annual Review of Critical Psychology is hot off the print! A dedicated issue, on ‘Feminisms and Activisms’, it fosters a large international collection of articles as well as poetry, art work and interactive media, with contributions spanning the academic / activist divide in different national contexts including Brazil, Italy, South Africa, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Venezuela, Catalunya, Germany and the UK, in multiple, challenging and original ways. The production of the journal as a collaborative project is represented in the diversity of the
editorial team - Barbara Biglia from Catalunya/Italy, Jude Clark from South Africa/UK, Johanna Motzkau from Germany /UK and Alexandra Zavos from Greece/UK – who have collated a wide range of resources to illustrate the many possible yet different discourses and practices available or claimed by and for feminist and critical social mobilizations.

As a taster check the table of contents at the end of this message. So, get a copy (or a few!) and be part of the exciting and cutting edge debates! For individual subscribers it costs only £10 (€15; $18) and includes a free CD rom with art pieces, images of actions, music, and a conceptual multimedia map of activist research projects… And, we will post you the issue for free!

Mr and Mr and Mrs and Mrs

James Davidson, London Review of Books

Reviewing:

The Friend by Alan Bray

Chicago, 380 pp, £28.00

In 1913, Turkish workmen restoring the Mosque of the Arabs in Istanbul uncovered the floor of a Dominican church. Among the gravestones was a particularly striking one in grey-white marble with pink and blue veins. Two helmets with slits for eyes faced each other, like a pair of beaky dolphins about, clangingly, to kiss: ‘Tomb Slab of an English Couple’, the label in Istanbul’s Archaeological Museum says.

The couple were illustrious knights of the royal chamber of Richard II, Sir William Neville and Sir John Clanvowe, ‘the Castor and Pollux of the Lollard movement’, as the medieval historian Bruce McFarlane called them. Neville died just four days after Clanvowe, the inscription records, in October 1391. The Westminster Chronicle fills in the details. Following the death of Clanvowe, ‘for whom his love was no less than for himself’, Neville starved himself to death. Beneath the helmets their shields lean on each other, indicating the position of the bodies beneath. Their coats-of-arms are identical, half-Neville, half-Clanvowe, a blend called ‘impalement’, used to show the arms of a married couple, with Neville’s saltire on the husband’s half, Clanvowe’s bearing on that of the wife. Well, not quite. There are two impaled shields rather than the usual one, indicating a mutual exchange of arms, a double dubbing, so to speak.

Trans Politics, Social Change, and Justice Conference

New York City, May 6th–7th, 2005

Hundreds of activists working for equal rights for transgender people will
gather at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) in New York City from
May 6-7, 2005 for a major national conference, "Trans Politics, Social Change
and Justice."

StephNJ writes
Feminism and gender binaries

Feminists have often been accused of reinforcing gender binaries. When women-exclusive events take place, when an emphasis is placed on women’s issues, or even when the word “woman” is used, people from all over the political spectrum, including some feminists, denounce the event as holding us back by reinforcing the idea that women and men are inherently different. I have heard this argument from feminists a lot lately and find some basic problems with it, so I’d like to address this claim that an event exclusive to women reinforces gender stereotypes and is thus counterproductive.