Catherina
Catherina's JournalSisterspace 35th Anniversary Details Announced (Maryland this year)
I want to go!
The women's festival to host a tea dance at ICandy in anticipating of the popular three-day weekend
by Natalie Hope McDonald on 2/29/2012 at 9:34AM
SisterSpace Weekend, one of the longest-running womens festivals in the country, may not be kicking off its three days of art, music and education until Sept. 7, but the organizers are sponsoring a fundraiser next month The Lavender Menace: A Womens Tea Dance on March 31 (5 9 p.m.) at ICandy where revelers will have a chance to support the cause and have a little fun with other like-minded lesbian feminists.
SisterSpace Weekend is one of the longest running womens festivals in the country and this year its celebrating its 35th anniversary. Beginning with only a small group of women converging for what was then called the Lesbian Feminist Weekend in the Pocono Mountains in 1977 for mostly self-defense workshops, the festival now attracts hundreds of women annually to hear female musicians, attend workshops, swim, hike and connect with each other. This year the festival will feature such performers as Voices of Africa and comedian Mimi Gonzalez (we met her in Provincetown a few years ago at the since defunct Vixen).
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Womens music festivals rose to their heights in the 1970s as a welcomed alternative to the bars, coffeehouses and protest marches of the time. Over the years, the event grew and it wasnt until the late 1990s that the current location was settled upon at Camp Ramblewood in Darlington, MD., just a short distance from the Susquehanna River. A few of this years sponsors include Giampolo Law Group, Mazzoni Center, Tabu, Tavern on Camac and Janet L. Gold.
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For this anniversary year, SisterSpace is planning a series of events to reconnect with women who have been a part of the organizations history and invite new women to join. I hope all women who have been a part of our past and those who want to be part of our future plan to attend the weekend to help us continue the tradition and celebrate a very special 35 years, says Jordan Pascucci, president of SisterSpace. Tickets go on sale in May and prices are on a sliding scale based on income and desired accommodations.
The Lavender Menace: A Womens Tea Dance, March 31, 5 9 p.m., iCandy, 254 S. 12th St., 888-294-1110.
http://blogs.phillymag.com/gphilly/2012/02/29/sisterspace-35th-anniversary-details-announced/
Details
Welcome to 2012, SisterSpace friends! This year is going to be big - its our 35th anniversary, and weve got lots of surprises in store. If youve never been, read on to find out more about the SisterSpace Weekend; if youre an old pro, scroll down to find out how you can get involved.
What Is It?
Since its beginnings as a feminist self-defense retreat in the 1970s, the SisterSpace Weekend has been a place where lesbians of every stripe and their female friends have gathered to create community, exchange ideas, learn from each other, forge new friendships, and just relax.
For so many, the lure of the Weekend is the opportunity to spend 3 glorious days completely immersed in women-only space - and the passion, enthusiasm and camaraderie the Weekend inspires is what keeps us strong and coming back year after year. Youll walk away with a renewed appreciation for lesbian culture and a deep desire for more!
If youve never been, wed love for you to join us - and if youre a veteran, we look forward to seeing you again!
Where Is It?
Camp Ramblewood is a beautifully rustic and private camp located in rural Darlington, Maryland. Its incredibly easy to get to - I-95 is just minutes away, and we run frequent shuttles to and from the Amtrak station in nearby Aberdeen. The cabins include beds and feature complete bath and shower facilities - but if youd prefer to bring a tent, there are plenty of places to camp. Space for RV camping is available, too.
The camp is accessible, and boasts a full-sized Olympic pool, among other amenities. The majestic Susquehanna river is just a short hike away, and there are plenty of scenic trails that will lead you there.
What Goes On?
Each years agenda is like a living, breathing thing - evolving and taking shape up until the moment the Weekend opens. Heres what you can look forward to:
Live Music: Each year we bring together a stellar lineup of established and up-and-coming artists to entertain and inspire you. On both Friday and Saturday nights, and at our Day Stage on Saturday afternoon, you can kick back and enjoy some of the finest performances youll ever hear.
Workshops: The Weekend offers a complete array of workshops on subjects that are important to us, such as sexuality, spirituality, feminism, intergenerational issues, creativity, and more. Our workshop schedule is participant generated, so we invite you to share your knowledge and passion while you learn from others.
Socialize: From our welcome pool party on Friday afternoon to our dance party on Saturday night, the opportunities to mingle and meet new people are numerous.
Exert yourself: The camp boasts athletic facilities including tennis and basketball courts, softball fields, a ropes course, and more - and a full schedule of athletic activities, both planned and spontaneous, will allow you to fully indulge your inner athlete.
Creativity: The Arts Space has the stuff you need to explore your creative side. Attend a creative workshop, or come and play on your own.
Shopping: Our merchants and craftswomen will be ready with a wide variety of unique and beautiful items for you to take home as the perfect gift or your new favorite treasure.
How much does it cost? How do I register?
Registration is based on a sliding scale fee - in other words, more if you can, less if you cant. For complete information, join our mailing list to be notified the moment that registration opens (early May, 2012), or scroll down to find out how you can get involved right now.
One more thing...
The SisterSpace Weekend is produced by SisterSpace of the Delaware Valley - a nonprofit organization based in Philadelphia, PA. The event is planned, produced, and staffed entirely by unpaid volunteers. Even if you cant join us this year, please consider making a donation to help us keep the Weekend rolling for years to come. Thanks!
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More details here http://www.sisterspace.org/2012.html
No One Will Protect You: The Suffolk County “Cross-Dressing” Ban
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Students in Suffolk County, VA may not be so lucky after next month. That school district will be taking a vote in March to determine whether theyll be implementing a new dress code, one which bans clothing not in keeping with a students gender to the extent that it causes a disruption and/or distracts others from the education process or poses a health or safety concern, according to this article. To be clear, they dont mean safety concern in the sense that the clothing is covered in spikes, or made of asbestos, and thus could be hazardous to the student wearing it or to passersby. They mean that, if a student gets beaten up for dressing weird, the clothingnot, say, the bullyis to blame.
I have so, so many concerns about this proposal, but lets just get the obvious one out of the way first: This new dress code is horribly transphobic. A student who is biologically male but identifies as a girl would be risking punishment for wearing girl clothes, even though she is dressed in a manner in keeping with her gender. Trans students will therefore have to choose between conforming to a gendered manner of dress that doesnt fit their self-imageessentially, going to school in a costume every dayor facing whatever consequences the schools deem appropriate for violating the dress code.
The fact that this new rule would almost certainly be enforced in a way that conflates sex with gender and reifies cissexism is the most immediately troubling thing about it, to be sure. But you know what, when youre given a cornucopia of fuckery this abundant, why stop there? Lets dig deeper!
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So this new dress code will punish trans kids, and specifically transfeminine kids, and in so doing will perpetuate a culture of sexism and cissexism, but if it keeps our children safe from the horrors of teen bullying, wont it all be worth it? The proponents of the new dress code are trying to spin it as a move to protect queer and trans kids from being picked on by their peers, which sounds like a noble goal is really just so much victim-blaming with a slightly spiffier hairdo. Wait, lets do this in pop quiz form:
Q: Whose job is it to protect children from bullying?
A. Teachers and administrators, by making it clear that bullying is never acceptable and will result in punishment.
B. Bullies, by showing self-control and choosing more positive ways of expressing themselves.
C. Victims, by not being so weird, gross, and/or freaky.
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Read the rest: http://tigerbeatdown.com/2012/02/27/no-one-will-protect-you-the-suffolk-county-cross-dressing-ban/#more-4463
Disgusted.
Homeless mom sentenced to 5 years in prison for “stealing” son’s education
Published: FEBRUARY 28, 2012
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I can barely believe Im having to type this sentence again. In a post just last year, I wrote about a woman in Ohio who was convicted of lying about where she lived in order to get her daughters into a better school district and was sentenced to 10 days in county jail, three years of probation, community service, and payment of up to $30,000 in back tuition she could be required to pay the school. At the time, I (morbidly) joked that Im surprised they didnt hit her with life in prison and tattoo Thug Life on her upper stomach.
Now, a year later, the same twisted logic and interpersonal and systemic racism has landed another mother in jail for the simple crime of wanting her child to access public education.
Tanya McDowell was living as a homeless woman when she was arrested for sending her five year old son to a school district where she- surprise- didnt have a permanent residence. Ms. McDowell has said that she only wanted a better education for her child. Despite a change.org petition that has generated over 15, 600 signatures asking for the charges to be dropped against her, she was just sentenced to 5 years in prison after pleading guilty in the case.
As Ive mentioned previously, this story really hits home for me because my OWN mother did this for me, driving 30 minutes each way to school and back during a tough time of transition for my family. But because my mother is white, and we werent homeless, or some other inexplicable reason, she didnt have to go to jail for her crime of fiercely loving her only child.
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http://feministing.com/2012/02/28/homeless-mom-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-for-stealing-sons-education/#more-44975
America, you astound me and not in a good way these days.
Other than DU, where do you get your Feminist news and information?
I'll post mine but please share
I read these at least once a week
http://tigerbeatdown.com/
http://pandagon.net
http://feministing.com/
http://www.feministlawprofessors.com/
http://www.racialicious.com/
http://bitchmagazine.org/
http://www.womanist-musings.com/
And then there's everything and anything by bell hooks and Sunera Thobani
The radical anti-insurance plan the right has concocted
Health Care
I was on NPR's "On Point" this morning, debating a lying-through-her-teeth anti-choicer (seriously, she claimed as often as she could that post-ejaculation contraception was "abortion", an evidence-free claim whose only purpose it to muddy the waters) named Anna Franzonello, and needless to say, it was interesting. You can listen to it here; I was on for about twenty minutes. What was interesting was watching the evolution of the demands based in facetious claims of "religious liberty". Since Obama has made it so that Catholic hospitals and univerisities don't actually have to cover their employees' birth control (though they do get to enjoy the cost savings as if they did!), the argument that forcing employers to directly cover it is a violation of religious liberty is off the table. So instead, the argument has now evolved into claiming that your employer has a right to step in and prevent you from dealing directly with your insurance company to get birth control coverage. That right is justified by the fact that the employer's money was used as part of your benefits package to pay for your insurance.
I dealt with this directly, arguing that your employer doesn't own you. That's what the argument about Taco Bell owners refusing to include contraception in their health care plans is about, whether or not an employer maintains the right to control your compensation package after you earned it. I see no difference in an employer telling you that a health care package you earned can't be used for birth control because of his moral beliefs than an employer telling you that you can't buy condoms with your own money because of his moral beliefs. Once they sign the check, either to you directly or to a service provider that processes your benefits, they should not be allowed to control the money as an attempt to control you.
But when I hung up, I realized that what she was claiming was even more radical that that. She said specifically that even with the Obama compromise, it's a problem, because while Catholic universities and hospitals may not pay directly for your contraception coverage (it comes out of the insurance company's profits, in sum), because they give any money at all to the insurance company, they should have complete veto power over what it covers.
If you step back and think about that, it's a far more radical assertion than even the Stupak amendment, which argued that any person in the entire health care system should, because a dollar that was once in their pocket is floating around in the system, have veto power over your abortion being covered. In this case, they're saying that anyone in the system anywhere should be able to veto any coverage they claim offends their morals. This is about more than the Taco Bell owner functionally fining their own employees for fucking. Franzonello was claiming that the Taco Bell owner, having paid an insurance company, should have veto power over not just his health care plan, but over any money the insurance company spends, since his money is in there, rubbing shoulders with those less pure dollars. That means that, as far as Franzonello was concerned, not only should the Taco Bell owner be able to veto contraception coverage for his direct employees, but for every single employee of every other company that contracts with the same insurance company. So the Taco Bell owner can force you, the H&R Block employee, to pay for your own contraception because you both are insured through Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and the Taco Bell employee doesn't want a dollar that was once in his pocket to ever circulate through the system and go towards your contraception, or else Jesus will cry.
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Read the rest, along with 72 comments here: http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/the-radical-anti-insurance-plan-the-right-has-concocted
I am an angry Feminist. And I dare anyone tell me there is something wrong with that.
(I wish OPs automatically crossposted between FG and here, this is a repost)another fine rant I wish I could copy in full
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And I want to scream in frustration: INTERSECTIONALITY FAIL! This is not how we Stop Street Harassment. For some of us, the racism, the transphobia, the homophobia, the classism cannot be separated from the sexism. They are all tragically interconnected to one another. But I should be less angry. And if some random dude in the street harasses me, I should perhaps pause and ask Are you bothering me because of racism or because of sexism? Can you, fine dude, please elaborate on the root cause of your aggression?. And yes, I am angry that this is supposedly done as part of my movement, that this is supposedly done on my behalf. But I am even more angry by the fact that merely complaining about this lack of intersectional lens would label me angry and difficult and it would put me at risk of ostracism.
I also happen to be angry with myself. Mostly at my inability to shut up. I am fully aware that it would make things easier for me. Just avert my eyes and pretend I havent seen this or that. Just pretend that this or that hasnt happened. Just go with the flow and accept that both within and outside this feminism I call mine there will be failures. That we live in a world where inequalities are a matter of fact, they happen and I should perhaps redirect this anger towards fixing those that are within my reach. But I cant, because, see above: moral imperative, etc. Which, in turn, makes me fully aware of the fact that my anger can easily become sanctimony because there is such a small threshold that separates the two. I want to think that this pain I feel inside, the tears I hardly hold when I am angry are what separates me from the sanctimony. But if I am to be intellectually honest, which I also try to be, I need to acknowledge the risk. That moment when the anger transforms in a faux sense of moral superiority.
And so I examine this anger, not necessarily because I do not want to feel it but because I need to understand it. I ponder on the stigmas associated with it, how they have been used as a means to silence those who voice it. I remember the tone arguments, the stereotype of the angry, hysterical, screaming Latina, the way every time a person dares speak about their frustrations, people can be dismissive on the basis of anger and irrationality. As if the reasons why we are angry were less legitimate because we articulate from a place of passion. Because yes, I am deeply passionate about my and our survival. But I also want more than merely surviving. I want us to thrive, I want us to have real choices and not just those the system we live in deems to be appropriate. I want us to be fulfilled and dare I say it, I want happiness to be a legitimate, if elusive goal. And how could I not be angry when I see all of this denied, taken away, available only to those born in the right places, with the right bodies, with the acceptable genders and sexualities. How could I not react with passion and with fury?
This Ive heard so many times: loca, bitch, puta; you are an embarrassment, nos haces pasar verguenza; all those words that have been hurled at me every time I was angry and I spoke. I raised my voice. I was compelled to say something but my wrath obscured reason and because of that, I gave others a justification to ignore me. Ive had enough of that. If anger is all we have left then anger will be the expression of my politics. This frustration I experience because so many rights we have gained are slowly being taken away from us; because we have to witness how States perpetuate policies of oppression, how people are divided in categories of humanity, how men like Dominique Strauss Kahn are in charge of the administration of peoples lives and how his actions and the current allegations speak of his entitlement to the bodies of the women who are already objectified and abused on the basis of their ethnicity, and how we are forced to endure it all and pretend it was a choice. I cannot dismiss this anger I also feel right now by the lack of intersectionality within our movement which compels me to denounce it, even if it is at the expense of my own reputation. This anger that drives me to consciousness and to action is, right now, all I have.
I AM AN ANGRY FEMINIST. And I dare anyone tell me there is something wrong with that.
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2012/02/22/when-anger-is-all-i-have-and-why-anger-is-my-feminist-stand/#more-4435
I am an angry Feminist. And I dare anyone tell me there is something wrong with that.
another fine rant I wish I could copy in full
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And I want to scream in frustration: INTERSECTIONALITY FAIL! This is not how we Stop Street Harassment. For some of us, the racism, the transphobia, the homophobia, the classism cannot be separated from the sexism. They are all tragically interconnected to one another. But I should be less angry. And if some random dude in the street harasses me, I should perhaps pause and ask Are you bothering me because of racism or because of sexism? Can you, fine dude, please elaborate on the root cause of your aggression?. And yes, I am angry that this is supposedly done as part of my movement, that this is supposedly done on my behalf. But I am even more angry by the fact that merely complaining about this lack of intersectional lens would label me angry and difficult and it would put me at risk of ostracism.
I also happen to be angry with myself. Mostly at my inability to shut up. I am fully aware that it would make things easier for me. Just avert my eyes and pretend I havent seen this or that. Just pretend that this or that hasnt happened. Just go with the flow and accept that both within and outside this feminism I call mine there will be failures. That we live in a world where inequalities are a matter of fact, they happen and I should perhaps redirect this anger towards fixing those that are within my reach. But I cant, because, see above: moral imperative, etc. Which, in turn, makes me fully aware of the fact that my anger can easily become sanctimony because there is such a small threshold that separates the two. I want to think that this pain I feel inside, the tears I hardly hold when I am angry are what separates me from the sanctimony. But if I am to be intellectually honest, which I also try to be, I need to acknowledge the risk. That moment when the anger transforms in a faux sense of moral superiority.
And so I examine this anger, not necessarily because I do not want to feel it but because I need to understand it. I ponder on the stigmas associated with it, how they have been used as a means to silence those who voice it. I remember the tone arguments, the stereotype of the angry, hysterical, screaming Latina, the way every time a person dares speak about their frustrations, people can be dismissive on the basis of anger and irrationality. As if the reasons why we are angry were less legitimate because we articulate from a place of passion. Because yes, I am deeply passionate about my and our survival. But I also want more than merely surviving. I want us to thrive, I want us to have real choices and not just those the system we live in deems to be appropriate. I want us to be fulfilled and dare I say it, I want happiness to be a legitimate, if elusive goal. And how could I not be angry when I see all of this denied, taken away, available only to those born in the right places, with the right bodies, with the acceptable genders and sexualities. How could I not react with passion and with fury?
This Ive heard so many times: loca, bitch, puta; you are an embarrassment, nos haces pasar verguenza; all those words that have been hurled at me every time I was angry and I spoke. I raised my voice. I was compelled to say something but my wrath obscured reason and because of that, I gave others a justification to ignore me. Ive had enough of that. If anger is all we have left then anger will be the expression of my politics. This frustration I experience because so many rights we have gained are slowly being taken away from us; because we have to witness how States perpetuate policies of oppression, how people are divided in categories of humanity, how men like Dominique Strauss Kahn are in charge of the administration of peoples lives and how his actions and the current allegations speak of his entitlement to the bodies of the women who are already objectified and abused on the basis of their ethnicity, and how we are forced to endure it all and pretend it was a choice. I cannot dismiss this anger I also feel right now by the lack of intersectionality within our movement which compels me to denounce it, even if it is at the expense of my own reputation. This anger that drives me to consciousness and to action is, right now, all I have.
I AM AN ANGRY FEMINIST. And I dare anyone tell me there is something wrong with that.
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2012/02/22/when-anger-is-all-i-have-and-why-anger-is-my-feminist-stand/#more-4435
Slutwalk, Slurs, and Why Feminism Still Has Race Issues
Disclosure: I've used the Lennon quote that "woman is the nigger of the world" several times. I'm Bi-racial with a really thick skin and, because of the sentiment of the song, never gave it a second thought. Now I'm hearing from sisters that they find it extremely offensive. So first, an apology is in order and I apologize if I ever offended anyone here with that quote. My world is so colorless that I honestly didn't see but now I feel like this poor White feminist, who was photographed holding a sign that read "Woman is the nigger of the world" at Slutwalk.
I'm still not sure how I feel about it because I think sometime's you have to look past words and not let them divide us. I still like the Lennon/Ono song and still agree with its sentiment. On the other hand, I understand the outrage many Black women feel because, well this sister explained it really well
The whole incident is very sad and was what prompted the rant My Feminism Will Be Intersectional Or It Will Be Bullshit!
So here goes:
by LATOYA PETERSON
Woman is not the nigger of the world.
John Lennon is not the final authority on whether its ok to use the term nigger.
Quoting black men from the 60s is not a valid defense against critiques from black women, black feminists, and our allies today.
The term nigger is not in the past.
The term nigger has not, and has never been, a term that can be equally applied to everyone.
Arguing that black people dont have a monopoly on the term nigger is just fucking disgusting. You want it that bad? Really?
Over on Facebook, the woman posing with the infamous Slutwalk NYC photo (and the woman who created the sign) defended themselves. The short version of their statements: It was wrong to use the word nigger, but the song is true! Heres the convo:
Read the convo here: http://www.racialicious.com/2011/10/06/slutwalk-slurs-and-why-feminism-still-has-race-issues/
This entire month is turning out to be one long, rich, learning experience and very rewarding too, despite all the pain. If you read the convo, it's a fascinating eye-opener.
There must be something in the water, or maybe it's the moon causing all these explosions in our world. I think the universe is telling us to get our shit together quick because we're gonna need each other strong real soon.
My Feminism Will Be Intersectional Or It Will Be Bullshit!
Look what popped into my Outlook yesterday. This rant was so good, I wish I'd written it.
MY FEMINISM WILL BE INTERSECTIONAL OR IT WILL BE BULLSHIT!
Now picture this: me screaming the above. Angry. VERY ANGRY as a matter of fact. Screaming this at my computer screen. Screaming it at nobody and everybody. At you. You, person I might have never heard from who might have not even commented on this blog or any of the other publications where I can be regularly found scribbling my discombobulated ideas. Even though we never met before, I AM ACTUALLY, SCREAMING AT YOU RIGHT NOW. MY FEMINISM WILL BE INTERSECTIONAL OR IT WILL BE BULLSHIT!. And I am screaming this because I want to convince you, I want to get it through you that this is not a choice or an abstract concept or an intellectual exercise. I am not screaming because well, you know, I just discovered intersectionality and OMG SO COOL GUYS. YOU NEED TO READ THIS. No. My feminism NEEDS to be intersectional because as a South American, as a Latina, as someone who knows certain parts of the Global South intimately by virtue of being a Southerner, as an immigrant living in Europe, as a woman, I am in the middle of what I like to call the shit puff pastry. The shit puff pastry is every layer of fuck that goes on above me, below me, by my sides, all around me. And in this metaphorical puff pastry with multiple layers of excrement, I am the dulce de leche that is supposed to make it palatable so that someone else, more specifically the kyriarchy, can eat me.
And heres the thing: while I am screaming at you, I am also asking, nay, DEMANDING that you scream with me. And I am asking that you become as angry as I have been this past week. Because without anger and without righteous indignation and without the deep, relentless demand for change, my feminism, YOUR feminism, everyones feminism will fail. It will be bullshit.
This past week Ive been screaming this a lot. Because I like to play connecting the dots (s.e. smith ipse dixit) as a matter of political practice. I play connecting the dots even though sometimes I might not get a properly outlined landscape but the equivalent of what my 1 year old niece playing with a bunch of sharpies on the coffee table would produce. Which is to say, sometimes, the pictures I draw when I connect dots might not make sense or might be inaccurate or might have missed a few dots to be totally accurate. But I am willing to pay the price of not making sense sometimes if I do eventually get it right. I would rather sometimes come across as far fetched than miss the landscape that the shit puff pastry provides. And these past few days Ive been playing connect the dots more often than usual. Hence my anger. Hence my disappointment with feminism. FEMINISM! I AM DEEPLY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU. To the point that I even considered ditching the label altogether. And if that happened, I would use a new label that pretty much sums up my politics: Flame-throwerism. Wherein I set feminism on fire and with its ashes I fill my cats kitty litter box and let them pee on it. Thats how angry Ive been at feminism this week. Kitty litter levels of outrage.
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Layer five of this weeks shit puff pastry
I am hurting. Like real, physical pain on the right side of my torso. Its been going on for a few days and I have no idea whats causing it. I do know its gotten worse since I have been letting out all of this anger. I hurt even more so while I was researching my last post about the corporate profits behind the business of undocumented immigrants. Obviously this is not evident in the post itself but I spent days reading accounts of abuses perpetrated on immigrant bodies. I also saw the trailer to this film which Eli recommended in one of the comments. And I cried, when one of the Ethiopian women spoke of her abuse in the hands of smugglers and how she connected it with the European Unions complicity. She had been raped in the name of my safety. Because I am a legal resident in a European country, I have to acknowledge that the State, on my behalf, deemed it acceptable that this body was abused. And I am also hurting because even though I put a lot of effort into that piece, nobody seemed to care much about it. AND YOU FUCKING SHOULD. Not because I wrote it, fuck that, no. But because all of that is done IN YOUR NAME. Because if you are a legal resident in a Western country, the State is actively abusing these people on your behalf. These immigrant, non White bodies are treated as worthless because YOU HAVE ALLOWED YOUR STATE TO DO THIS. And yet, few people seemed to connect to the piece or even find it worthy.
I do not give a damn that I wrote it. Moreover, I hereby give you permission to use my words as yours. Do not credit me if you do not feel like it. Use the words in that piece to discuss the subject. Tell people you wrote it if you need to. BUT IF YOU CALL YOURSELF A FEMINIST AND YOU DO NOT CARE THAT SOME WOMEN ARE GIVING BIRTH IN INHUMAN CONDITIONS AND THEIR CHILDREN ARE UNDER SUCH GRIEF THAT THEY HAVE SEWN THEIR LIPS TOGETHER THEN I AM NOT PART OF YOUR MOVEMENT. And if you cannot actively unpack your share of responsibility in these actions, which are happening right in your backyard, then one of us cannot call herself a feminist.
And if you cannot see how this issue is so deeply interconnected with all of the above, with racism, with violence on WoC, with rape culture, with colonialism, with our disdain for people from the Global South, with whose bodies are deemed human and whose are not (and as such, unrapeable), with institutionalized violence, with wars waged by our Nations on the countries where these people come from if you cannot see all of this as part of the same landscape, as part of the same gigantic, oppressive shit puff pastry, then maybe I should not call myself a feminist. Maybe, indeed, throwing flames in the direction of feminism is all I have left.
http://tigerbeatdown.com/2011/10/10/my-feminism-will-be-intersectional-or-it-will-be-bullshit/
(Dear hosts, I quoted 6 paragraphs but the author is so fine with this being reproduced, she doesn't care about copyright, doesn't even want credit and doesn't even care if people say they wrote it themselves. It's in the 5th paragraph.)
It's called Miz Seabeyond's Blues cuz she scratches out my head when I was ailing
This could as easily have been called Miz Redqueen's Blues, or so many other names, but Seabeyond is the one whose raw pain ripped my heart apart last night.
Here's where we are now. If you don't have time, skip this video, it's not that important. The only important points are that the minister's hug and the letter Glover sends are an open invitation to everyone who felt excluded before.
I know we can move on because the only reason we had this fight is because we're all THAT strong. There's no shame in any of it. So we aired out a little dirty laundry and the circus tickets sold out quick. Bid deal.
This is my song to Miz Seabeyond, my sistah in pain against injustice because I wish I could wave a magic wand over her raw pain and make it go away.
I've learned a lot over the years from the strong second wavers here and just wanted to say thank you. With love. And that I hope people like me can continue to learn with you in sisterhood.
So here's to Seabeond, Redqueen, and all the other people who were hurt, to all of us so we can keep growing and learning together cuz
they scratched out my head when I was ailing and more importantly, "we sho ain't got a whole lot of time".
So let me tell you something sistah, we're two of a kind
Sister, you've been on my mind
Sister, we're two of a kind
So, sister, I'm keepin' my eye on you.
I betcha think I don't know nothin'
But singin' the blues, oh, sister,
Have I got news for you, I'm something,
I hope you think that you're something too
Scufflin', I been up that lonesome road
And I seen alot of suns going down
Oh, but trust me,
No-o low life's gonna run me around.
So let me tell you something Sister,
Remember your name, No twister
Gonna steal your stuff away, my sister,
We sho' ain't got a whole lot of time,
So-o-o shake your shimmy Sister,
'Cause honey the 'shug' is feelin' fine.
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Name: CatherinaGender: Female
Member since: Mon Mar 3, 2008, 03:08 PM
Number of posts: 35,568