The time has come, the walrus said.
This semester was truly inspiring. I can not say enough about what the collective has done for the New Paltz community and the individuals who make up that community as a whole. These past couple of months presented a lot of challenges for the women involved in the collective I know, including overwhelming feelings, family problems and health issues- personal issues that sometimes seem like the feelings of hardship will never cease. But I can speak from personal experience to say that it is in those moments of activism- in facilitating positive change and seeing the benefits reaped in not just your own personal development but in those around you- helps beyond words can express.
With that said, I would like to post a poem by Marge Piercy that was given to the students in my Practicum for Women's Studies class by Professor Nancy Schniedewind (a lovely and inspirational powerful woman.) Marge Piercy wrote Women on the Edge of Time... which is a novel about a woman who is presented an option for a world view based on independence and collective empowerment, a more anarchist based state of being, read it if you can. It really sums up my thoughts on activism and how everyone's personal experiences, if shown to the greater community, can be immensely positive for the group as a whole.
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bounding like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck and move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.
Have a great end of the semester, and thank you for being beautiful.
Ellie
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Sunday, November 22, 2009
The Hanger Project
Amplify has created what they have called The Hanger Project, made to spread awareness about the restrictions anti-choice legislators are trying to put on abortion through the health care reform bill.Join The Hanger Project, and learn about how you can help fight against politicians in Washington attempting to take away our legal right to have an abortion. Download and print the Hanger Project's awesome flyers and hang them on wire hangers around your town or on your campus. I think we could get many more people to join our fight, but first we need to educate them on what is happening. Awareness is key.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
November 5th thoughts
November 5, 2009
The Feminist Collective is by far the most beautiful space I have ever been a part of.
We are activist feminists.
We are human beings.
We are women who love (and I know there's some men out there too).
Tonight, at our meeting, some of us shared our feelings that primarily had to do with how to really run a collective in the best way possible. I think this happens in every collective after some time has passed and there have been many collectives throughout herstory before us. The discussion started due to having a lack of time at one of our events with the feeling of being rushed, which lead to some more thought and discussion about how the collective has been functioning in the past weeks.
Ultimately, this is our collective, our space to have a voice, and to do something about our thoughts, feelings, and OUR WORLD, NOT SOMEBODY ELSE'S...not the world of a suffocating patriarchy, or corporate America, or a nation at war, a silencing academic administration, a sexist and homophobic/heterosexist media, government, etc...not a world of racist or classist, or ageist policies and stagnant thinking....we're here to be heard, to listen to one another, to do something about it, and tonight we were working on it.
We've been getting a lot done: The Red Tent Event (to share our stories about menstruation and share knowledge about alternative menstruation products, alternative healing methods, and exposing some of the information about how toxic products like tampons are for a woman's body primarily because of pesticides and bleach), and we have been doing the consciousness raising groups and Speak-Out for abortion, we cosponsored an event with the African Women's Alliance about domestic violence....
With planning our events in the past weeks, we looked straight towards the political (which is awesome) but the personal became a little less visible. Tonight some of us came back together and shared what we've been feeling about how things have been running from the inside-out. I think this breakdown and then building back up of our mission and intentions is a good thing. I think it's important to document this to show that it happens. How many collectives have honestly documented the inner workings of their space?
And at the end of the reconfiguring, revibing, and rejuvenating...I find that:
Our very existence is a liberating action and beyond that, I believe that we'll create some even more serious change. How can we not?
We're living through so much. We see sex, and art, and beautiful bodies. We see rape, and battered faces, and a constant critique imposed on us for how to be the right kind of a woman. We see love, brilliance, and safety. We see hatred. We know that we're hardly ever safe. We see tired smiles. We see reality. We hear that we're not good enough. We're told to manipulate and mutilate our bodies, to lose control in so many ways. The list goes on and we see both sides. We've tasted safety, self love,...we see, we hear, we think, we know, we keep listening, we keep learning, we continue to know more, and we recognise more. We can't stop thinking, learning, loving....We are present and we're ready....”rebel girls trying to change the world”
^That quote is from a poem I like called Soldier. I stumbled upon it from this website a while back: http://allecto.wordpress.com/category/poetry-is-not-a-luxury/
The Feminist Collective is by far the most beautiful space I have ever been a part of.
We are activist feminists.
We are human beings.
We are women who love (and I know there's some men out there too).
Tonight, at our meeting, some of us shared our feelings that primarily had to do with how to really run a collective in the best way possible. I think this happens in every collective after some time has passed and there have been many collectives throughout herstory before us. The discussion started due to having a lack of time at one of our events with the feeling of being rushed, which lead to some more thought and discussion about how the collective has been functioning in the past weeks.
Ultimately, this is our collective, our space to have a voice, and to do something about our thoughts, feelings, and OUR WORLD, NOT SOMEBODY ELSE'S...not the world of a suffocating patriarchy, or corporate America, or a nation at war, a silencing academic administration, a sexist and homophobic/heterosexist media, government, etc...not a world of racist or classist, or ageist policies and stagnant thinking....we're here to be heard, to listen to one another, to do something about it, and tonight we were working on it.
We've been getting a lot done: The Red Tent Event (to share our stories about menstruation and share knowledge about alternative menstruation products, alternative healing methods, and exposing some of the information about how toxic products like tampons are for a woman's body primarily because of pesticides and bleach), and we have been doing the consciousness raising groups and Speak-Out for abortion, we cosponsored an event with the African Women's Alliance about domestic violence....
With planning our events in the past weeks, we looked straight towards the political (which is awesome) but the personal became a little less visible. Tonight some of us came back together and shared what we've been feeling about how things have been running from the inside-out. I think this breakdown and then building back up of our mission and intentions is a good thing. I think it's important to document this to show that it happens. How many collectives have honestly documented the inner workings of their space?
And at the end of the reconfiguring, revibing, and rejuvenating...I find that:
Our very existence is a liberating action and beyond that, I believe that we'll create some even more serious change. How can we not?
We're living through so much. We see sex, and art, and beautiful bodies. We see rape, and battered faces, and a constant critique imposed on us for how to be the right kind of a woman. We see love, brilliance, and safety. We see hatred. We know that we're hardly ever safe. We see tired smiles. We see reality. We hear that we're not good enough. We're told to manipulate and mutilate our bodies, to lose control in so many ways. The list goes on and we see both sides. We've tasted safety, self love,...we see, we hear, we think, we know, we keep listening, we keep learning, we continue to know more, and we recognise more. We can't stop thinking, learning, loving....We are present and we're ready....”rebel girls trying to change the world”
^That quote is from a poem I like called Soldier. I stumbled upon it from this website a while back: http://allecto.wordpress.com/category/poetry-is-not-a-luxury/
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Red Tent & Radical Menstruation
Hi Everyone!
Don't Forget our Red Tent Event is on Wednesday October 28th! 6pm in the SUB MPR.
Check out Fear of a Crimson Planet: Information on Radical Menstruation.
Don't Forget our Red Tent Event is on Wednesday October 28th! 6pm in the SUB MPR.
Check out Fear of a Crimson Planet: Information on Radical Menstruation.
Zines!
Love zines? Me too! Here is a place where you can print free zines including Cindy Crabb's wonderful Learning Good Consent zine! Check it out!
http://zinelibrary.info/
Enjoy!
http://zinelibrary.info/
Enjoy!
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Consciousness Raising Dates and Info
Hello Feminists!
Don't forget to come to our Consciousness Raising sessions!
Monday October 26 (SUB 418) 8pm
Friday November 6 (SUB 418) 7pm
Monday November 9 (SUB 402) 6pm
During Friday's meeting with Professor Kesselman we talked about what consciousness raising means. She gave us an article to read which will help us to better understand the process of consciousness raising. The article can be found in the Women Images text book. You can also click on this link which will take you to a longer version: A Radical Weapon
Or you can read it below!
Enjoy!
Sam
Kathie Sarachild
THE IDEA
To be able to understand what feminist consciousness-raising is all about, it is important to remember that it began as a program among women who all considered themselves radicals.
Before we go any further, let's examine the word "radical." It is a word that is often used to suggest extremist, but actually it doesn't mean that. The dictionary says radical means root, coming from the Latin word for root. And that is what we meant by calling ourselves radicals. We were interested in getting to the roots of problems in society. You might say we wanted to pull up weeds in the garden by their roots, not just pick off the leaves at the top to make things look good momentarily. Women's Liberation was started by women who considered themsleves radicals in this sense.
Our aim in forming a women's liberation group was to start a mass movement of women to put an end to the barriers of segregation and discrimination based on sex. We knew radical thinking and radical action would be necessary to do this. We also believed it necessary to form Women's Liberation groups which excluded men from their meetings.
In order to have a radical approach, to get to the root, it seemed logical that we had to study the situation of women, not just take random action. How best to do this came up in the women's liberation group I was in -- New York Radical Women, one of the first in the country -- shortly after the group had formed. We were planning our first public action and wandered into a discussion about what to do next. One woman in the group, Ann Forer, spoke up: "I think we have a lot more to do just in the area of raising our consciousness," she said. "Raising consciousness?" I wondered what she meant by that. I'd never heard it applied to women before.
"I've only begun thinking about women as an oppressed group," she continued, "and each day, I'm still learning more about it -- my consciousness gets higher."
Now I didn't consider that I had just started thinking about the oppression of women. In fact, I thought of myself as having done lots of thinking about it for quite a while, and lots of reading too. But then Ann went on to give an example of something she'd noticed that turned out to be a deeper way of seeing it for me, too.
"I think a lot about being attractive," Ann said. "People don't find the real self of a woman attractive." And then she went on to give some examples. And I just sat there listening to her describe all the false ways women have to act: playing dumb, always being agreeable, always being nice, not to mention what we had to do to our bodies, with the clothes and shoes we wore, the diets we had to go through, going blind not wearing glasses, all because men didn't find our real selves, our human freedom, our basic humanity "attractive." And I realized I still could learn a lot about how to understand and describe the particular oppression of women in ways that could reach other women in the way this had just reached me. The whole group was moved as I was, and we decided on the spot that what we needed -- in the words Ann used -- was to "raise our consciousness some more."
At the next meeting there was an argument in the group about how to do this. One woman -- Peggy Dobbins -- said that what she wanted to do was make a very intensive study of all the literature on the question of whether there really were any biological differences between men and women. I found myself angered by that idea.
"I think it would be a waste of time," I said. "For every scientific study we quote, the opposition can find their scientific studies to quote. Besides, the question is what we want to be, what we think we are, not what some authorities in the name of science are arguing over what we are. It is scientifically impossible to tell what the biological differences are between men and women -- if there are any besides the obvious physical ones -- until all the social and political factors applying to men and women are equal. Everything we have to know, have to prove, we can get from the realities of our own lives. For instance, on the subject of women's intelligence. We know from our own experience that women play dumb for men because, if we're too smart, men won't like us. I know, because I've done it. We've all done it. Therefore, we can simply deduce that women are smarter than men are aware of, and that there are a lot of women around who are a lot smarter than they look and smarter than anybody but themsleves and maybe a few of their friends know."
In the end the group decided to raise its consciousness by studying women's lives by topics like childhood, jobs, motherhood, etc. We'd do any outside reading we wanted to and thought was important. But our starting point for discussion, as well as our test of the accuracy of what any of the books said, would be the actual experience we had in these areas. One of the questions, suggested by Ann Forer, we would bring at all times to our studies would be -- who and what has an interest in maintaining the oppression in our lives. The kind of actions the groups should engage in, at this point, we decided -- acting upon an idea of Carol Hanisch, another woman in the group -- would be consciousness-raising actions ... actions brought to the public for the specific purpose of challenging old ideas and raising new ones, the very same issues of feminism we were studying ourselves. Our role was not to be a "service organization," we decided, nor a large "membership organization." What we were talking about being was, in effect, Carol explained, a "zap" action, political agitation and education group something like what the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (S.N.C.C.) had been. We would be the first to dare to say and do the undareable, what women really felt and wanted. The first job now was to raise awareness and understanding, our own and others -- awareness that would prompt people to organize and to act on a mass scale.
The decision to emphasize our own feelings and experiences as women and to test all generalizations and reading we did by our own experience was actually the scientific method of research. We were in effect repeating the 17th century challenge to science to scholasticism: "study nature, not books," and put all theories to the test of living practice and action. It was also a method of radical organizing tested by other revolutions. We were applying to women and to ourselves as women's liberation organizers the practice a number of us had learned as organizers in the civil rights movement in the South in the early 1960's.
Consciousness-raising -- studying the whole gamut of women's lives, starting with the full reality of one's own -- would also be a way of keeping the movement radical by preventing it from getting sidetracked into single issue reforms and single issue organizing. It would be a way of carrying theory about women further than it had ever been carried before, as the groundwork for achieving a radical solution for women as yet attained nowhere.
It seemed clear that knowing how our own lives related to the general condition of women would make us better fighters on behalf of women as a whole. We felt that all women would have to see the fight of women as their own, not as something just to help "other women," that they would have to see this truth about their own lives before they would fight in a radical way for anyone. "Go fight your own oppressors," Stokely Carmichael had said to the white civil rights workers when the black power movement began. "You don't get radicalized fighting other people's battles," as Beverly Jones put it in the pioneering essay "Toward A Female Liberation Movement."
Don't forget to come to our Consciousness Raising sessions!
Monday October 26 (SUB 418) 8pm
Friday November 6 (SUB 418) 7pm
Monday November 9 (SUB 402) 6pm
During Friday's meeting with Professor Kesselman we talked about what consciousness raising means. She gave us an article to read which will help us to better understand the process of consciousness raising. The article can be found in the Women Images text book. You can also click on this link which will take you to a longer version: A Radical Weapon
Or you can read it below!
Enjoy!
Sam
Kathie Sarachild
THE IDEA
To be able to understand what feminist consciousness-raising is all about, it is important to remember that it began as a program among women who all considered themselves radicals.
Before we go any further, let's examine the word "radical." It is a word that is often used to suggest extremist, but actually it doesn't mean that. The dictionary says radical means root, coming from the Latin word for root. And that is what we meant by calling ourselves radicals. We were interested in getting to the roots of problems in society. You might say we wanted to pull up weeds in the garden by their roots, not just pick off the leaves at the top to make things look good momentarily. Women's Liberation was started by women who considered themsleves radicals in this sense.
Our aim in forming a women's liberation group was to start a mass movement of women to put an end to the barriers of segregation and discrimination based on sex. We knew radical thinking and radical action would be necessary to do this. We also believed it necessary to form Women's Liberation groups which excluded men from their meetings.
In order to have a radical approach, to get to the root, it seemed logical that we had to study the situation of women, not just take random action. How best to do this came up in the women's liberation group I was in -- New York Radical Women, one of the first in the country -- shortly after the group had formed. We were planning our first public action and wandered into a discussion about what to do next. One woman in the group, Ann Forer, spoke up: "I think we have a lot more to do just in the area of raising our consciousness," she said. "Raising consciousness?" I wondered what she meant by that. I'd never heard it applied to women before.
"I've only begun thinking about women as an oppressed group," she continued, "and each day, I'm still learning more about it -- my consciousness gets higher."
Now I didn't consider that I had just started thinking about the oppression of women. In fact, I thought of myself as having done lots of thinking about it for quite a while, and lots of reading too. But then Ann went on to give an example of something she'd noticed that turned out to be a deeper way of seeing it for me, too.
"I think a lot about being attractive," Ann said. "People don't find the real self of a woman attractive." And then she went on to give some examples. And I just sat there listening to her describe all the false ways women have to act: playing dumb, always being agreeable, always being nice, not to mention what we had to do to our bodies, with the clothes and shoes we wore, the diets we had to go through, going blind not wearing glasses, all because men didn't find our real selves, our human freedom, our basic humanity "attractive." And I realized I still could learn a lot about how to understand and describe the particular oppression of women in ways that could reach other women in the way this had just reached me. The whole group was moved as I was, and we decided on the spot that what we needed -- in the words Ann used -- was to "raise our consciousness some more."
At the next meeting there was an argument in the group about how to do this. One woman -- Peggy Dobbins -- said that what she wanted to do was make a very intensive study of all the literature on the question of whether there really were any biological differences between men and women. I found myself angered by that idea.
"I think it would be a waste of time," I said. "For every scientific study we quote, the opposition can find their scientific studies to quote. Besides, the question is what we want to be, what we think we are, not what some authorities in the name of science are arguing over what we are. It is scientifically impossible to tell what the biological differences are between men and women -- if there are any besides the obvious physical ones -- until all the social and political factors applying to men and women are equal. Everything we have to know, have to prove, we can get from the realities of our own lives. For instance, on the subject of women's intelligence. We know from our own experience that women play dumb for men because, if we're too smart, men won't like us. I know, because I've done it. We've all done it. Therefore, we can simply deduce that women are smarter than men are aware of, and that there are a lot of women around who are a lot smarter than they look and smarter than anybody but themsleves and maybe a few of their friends know."
In the end the group decided to raise its consciousness by studying women's lives by topics like childhood, jobs, motherhood, etc. We'd do any outside reading we wanted to and thought was important. But our starting point for discussion, as well as our test of the accuracy of what any of the books said, would be the actual experience we had in these areas. One of the questions, suggested by Ann Forer, we would bring at all times to our studies would be -- who and what has an interest in maintaining the oppression in our lives. The kind of actions the groups should engage in, at this point, we decided -- acting upon an idea of Carol Hanisch, another woman in the group -- would be consciousness-raising actions ... actions brought to the public for the specific purpose of challenging old ideas and raising new ones, the very same issues of feminism we were studying ourselves. Our role was not to be a "service organization," we decided, nor a large "membership organization." What we were talking about being was, in effect, Carol explained, a "zap" action, political agitation and education group something like what the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (S.N.C.C.) had been. We would be the first to dare to say and do the undareable, what women really felt and wanted. The first job now was to raise awareness and understanding, our own and others -- awareness that would prompt people to organize and to act on a mass scale.
The decision to emphasize our own feelings and experiences as women and to test all generalizations and reading we did by our own experience was actually the scientific method of research. We were in effect repeating the 17th century challenge to science to scholasticism: "study nature, not books," and put all theories to the test of living practice and action. It was also a method of radical organizing tested by other revolutions. We were applying to women and to ourselves as women's liberation organizers the practice a number of us had learned as organizers in the civil rights movement in the South in the early 1960's.
Consciousness-raising -- studying the whole gamut of women's lives, starting with the full reality of one's own -- would also be a way of keeping the movement radical by preventing it from getting sidetracked into single issue reforms and single issue organizing. It would be a way of carrying theory about women further than it had ever been carried before, as the groundwork for achieving a radical solution for women as yet attained nowhere.
It seemed clear that knowing how our own lives related to the general condition of women would make us better fighters on behalf of women as a whole. We felt that all women would have to see the fight of women as their own, not as something just to help "other women," that they would have to see this truth about their own lives before they would fight in a radical way for anyone. "Go fight your own oppressors," Stokely Carmichael had said to the white civil rights workers when the black power movement began. "You don't get radicalized fighting other people's battles," as Beverly Jones put it in the pioneering essay "Toward A Female Liberation Movement."
Monday, October 19, 2009
Anti-War Rally, Kingston
Below is the video of the speech I gave on behalf of the Feminist Collective at the anti-war rally this past Saturday, October 17th. Donna Goodman's introduction is not in the video, but she introduced me as a member of the Collective. I included most, if not all, of the suggestions those of you gave, but I did have to follow the topic of youth and war pretty strictly since there were so many other speakers.
The day went really, really well. It was a very small turnout, which was expected. But the energy was great. Personally, speaking was an amazing experience, and I was able to network with other activists in the Hudson Valley. Many of the people I met were interested in our Collective participating in the anti-war movement. I know we have other priorities, but I would really like to see this happen, even in small ways. One man I met would like for us to make contributions to a Woodstock peace and justice newspaper. I don't think our contributions have to be strictly about war, either. Right now, I am determined to try and actualize a student movement on our campus. Perhaps that's something we can discuss and brainstorm at our meetings?
much love -
Claire
The day went really, really well. It was a very small turnout, which was expected. But the energy was great. Personally, speaking was an amazing experience, and I was able to network with other activists in the Hudson Valley. Many of the people I met were interested in our Collective participating in the anti-war movement. I know we have other priorities, but I would really like to see this happen, even in small ways. One man I met would like for us to make contributions to a Woodstock peace and justice newspaper. I don't think our contributions have to be strictly about war, either. Right now, I am determined to try and actualize a student movement on our campus. Perhaps that's something we can discuss and brainstorm at our meetings?
much love -
Claire
Monday, October 12, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Abortion Speak Out Discussion and Film Viewing
Hello Feminists,
I took notes on our discussion of the abortion speak out and The Coat Hanger Project (held on Wednesday, 9/23), and I thought I'd post them here so we can all review them. The ideas about an abortion speak out discussed prior to the meeting on Wednesday include providing drop boxes for women to anonymously share their stories of abortion. The plan was then to have these stories read by others so that the women who wrote them would remain anonymous, but our e-mail address would also be provided on the boxes so that anyone who wanted to share their own stories could. The speak out would be held in an open space (perhaps the quad) so that women's voices, anonymous or not, could be heard. The goal behind this plan was to eliminate the shame associated with abortion; having the stories read out load, out in the open, and not behind closed doors would be empowering.
The responses to this plan included such:
> Would women's thoughts on abortion be shared, or only women's experiences? We discussed the possibility of thoughts detracting from the goal of voicing experiences. We do not want this to become a political debate. And the politics of abortion has a tendency to silence women with abortion experiences.
> With an open forum there is the risk of right-to-life protesters.
> Should we use security? And would the security have the authority to silence protesters?
> We discussed two goals: create a space for women to speak about their experiences and raising awareness about abortion within the outside community.
> Amy Kesselman thought the telling of personal stories would eliminate the shame associated with abortion, but was concerned that telling the stories anonymously would perpetuate that shame.
> Some thought the sequence for the event should include showing the film The Coat Hanger Project, holding the speak out, and then convening indoors, in a safe space, for discussion.
> Some briefly mentioned the need for permission to leave drop boxes in the dorms, and having speakers, other than those of us sharing stories, at the event.
There will be separate meetings with Amy Kesselman for anyone interested in being on the committee for this project.
If I left out anything, or if anything I posted here is incorrect, please comment!
And also, let's use this blog as a venue for further discussion of this project.
Love, Claire
I took notes on our discussion of the abortion speak out and The Coat Hanger Project (held on Wednesday, 9/23), and I thought I'd post them here so we can all review them. The ideas about an abortion speak out discussed prior to the meeting on Wednesday include providing drop boxes for women to anonymously share their stories of abortion. The plan was then to have these stories read by others so that the women who wrote them would remain anonymous, but our e-mail address would also be provided on the boxes so that anyone who wanted to share their own stories could. The speak out would be held in an open space (perhaps the quad) so that women's voices, anonymous or not, could be heard. The goal behind this plan was to eliminate the shame associated with abortion; having the stories read out load, out in the open, and not behind closed doors would be empowering.
The responses to this plan included such:
> Would women's thoughts on abortion be shared, or only women's experiences? We discussed the possibility of thoughts detracting from the goal of voicing experiences. We do not want this to become a political debate. And the politics of abortion has a tendency to silence women with abortion experiences.
> With an open forum there is the risk of right-to-life protesters.
> Should we use security? And would the security have the authority to silence protesters?
> We discussed two goals: create a space for women to speak about their experiences and raising awareness about abortion within the outside community.
> Amy Kesselman thought the telling of personal stories would eliminate the shame associated with abortion, but was concerned that telling the stories anonymously would perpetuate that shame.
> Some thought the sequence for the event should include showing the film The Coat Hanger Project, holding the speak out, and then convening indoors, in a safe space, for discussion.
> Some briefly mentioned the need for permission to leave drop boxes in the dorms, and having speakers, other than those of us sharing stories, at the event.
There will be separate meetings with Amy Kesselman for anyone interested in being on the committee for this project.
If I left out anything, or if anything I posted here is incorrect, please comment!
And also, let's use this blog as a venue for further discussion of this project.
Love, Claire
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Isabel Allende
Isabel Allende is an amazing writer from Chile, one of her more famous novels being The House Of The Spirits. This is a speech she gave to TED, and is definitely one I, at least, refer to a lot as defining my own feminist ideals. I recommend it with the utmost enthusiasm to everyone.
I was also thinking--maybe we can have some sort of reading group? It sounds super cheesy and maybe no one will go for it, but my idea was perhaps we can gather a collection of written pieces and read them together, and discuss what they mean to us as feminists. It's kind of like a book club and it might be more appropriate for a separate meeting altogether, but it's just an idea. Works could include poetry, novels, newspaper clippings, etc. Would anyone be interested in that?
-Lyndsay
I was also thinking--maybe we can have some sort of reading group? It sounds super cheesy and maybe no one will go for it, but my idea was perhaps we can gather a collection of written pieces and read them together, and discuss what they mean to us as feminists. It's kind of like a book club and it might be more appropriate for a separate meeting altogether, but it's just an idea. Works could include poetry, novels, newspaper clippings, etc. Would anyone be interested in that?
-Lyndsay
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Documentary viewings
Here's the intro to the movie I mentioned during the last meeting, Soldiers in the Army of God. It's an HBO documentary about violence carried out by the anti-abortion movement. Take a look, and see if you might want to organize a viewing of it (I have it on DVD):
Also, I found a trailer for The Coat Hanger Project on YouTube, so you can watch that as well to better understand what the film is about.
Also, I found a trailer for The Coat Hanger Project on YouTube, so you can watch that as well to better understand what the film is about.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
So feminists, as I promised to myself, I am making the first textual contribution to our blog. (Thank you Sam for creating this and posting all of the pictures!) As I expressed this evening, I am determined to see through the documentation of this collective. I am so glad all of you are behind this and have introduced additional ways in which we can record our experience (ex. taking minutes for each meeting, etc.). While this fervent drive of mine for documentation is fairly recent, I am hooked. I see our videos, blogs, notes, etc. as not only useful to future generations of feminists, but extremely useful to ourselves. To reflect on the evidence of what we've accomplished together will give us a sense of being a part of a movement; and recognizing ourselves as part of something whole will give us personal strength as activists.
I want to say that I have hardly ever been involved in anything "extracurricular" before my involvement with NPFC, partially because no organization has ever quite been so in-line with my values, and mostly because I have never felt like I had a voice. (I believe many of you share the same experience.) As women, and as activists, and simply human beings with ideas and emotions, we all know the importance of speaking up, and I want to thank you all for collectively creating an environment conducive of us all to do so.
I have a really great feeling about this semester. I have a great feeling about our potential as a collective to make change in our communities. And I cannot speak for everyone, but I can say for myself that NPFC has already encouraged change in my personal life. I feel very fortunate to have found a space in which I am surrounded by such bright, compassionate, and driven individuals. And I'd guess we all feel the same.
I am truly excited and inspired by the thought of future women's studies students, feminists, and activists alike, reading this blog and seeing the evidence of a woman's movement, of community, of voices, and finding in our writings the assurance that feminism was never dead. We are not post-feminism. We are feminism. We have the control. And though certainly I wish for all of the oppressions in this world to vanish, I think it will always be important, whether in times of peace and equality, or war and injustice, for women to come together. Because we do have a past that can never be ignored, especially while we're busy creating the future.
So as a last hurrah to this very mushy gushy entry of mine, I'd like to propose a cyber-toast to the 2009 Fall Semester of the New Paltz Feminist Collective. Here's to our brains and our hearts. Here's to our ability to come together in common experience and common passion and common hope. Here's to change in ourselves, in our small spheres, and in the world. Here's to the women who came before us. Here's to the women of the future. Here's to us!
with much love-
Claire
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