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.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
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
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