EVENT: WomenCentre Kirklees, raising awareness of FGM, Fri 8th Nov 2013, Huddersfield

From email:

Please find attached an event on raising awareness of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). This has been organised by WomenCentre Kirklees and the ‘Women Together’ project.

Friday 8th November 2013 – 10.00 – 15.30 – The Mission, Huddersfield

All details on attached flyer and booking form.

Also, along with the event the ‘Women Together’ project is launching its book around the narratives of asylum seeking and refugee women who have been affected by gender violence.

Please circulate around your contacts.

The event has got limited places so please book early to avoid disappointment.

Regards,

Melody

Huddersfield
Tel: 01484 450866
Email redacted.

WomenCentre, Calderdale and Kirklees
WomenCentre Ltd, 23 Silver Street, Halifax, HX1 1JN
Company Number 6084795, Charity Number 1118366

PETITION: #losetheladsmags

It’s time for shops to Lose the Lads’ Mags

Today it’s no longer acceptable to have ‘girly calendars’ on office walls. Why? Because they create a sexist and degrading environment for female employees and customers. So why, then, do supermarkets and newsagents still think it’s OK to expose staff and customers to degrading, pornographic lads’ mags – the modern day equivalent of ‘girly calendars’ – in their stores?

A woman who works in Tesco told us, “I hate that Tesco sells these mags and papers like the Sun and the Star. In the store I work in there is a laddish culture and I don’t think having these magazines help that…”

Lads’ mags portray women as dehumanised sex objects. There is extensive evidence this fuels sexist attitudes and behaviours and creates a conducive context for violence against women.

We’ve also obtained brand new legal advice showing that shops selling lads mags’ – like WH Smith and Tesco – are potentially breaching equality legislation. Stocking and displaying lads’ mags and papers with Page 3-style front cover images can constitute sex discrimination or sexual harassment under the Equality Act. Employees could take legal action on this basis and, where the magazine is visibly on display, customers could also have a claim. Legally as well as ethically, lads’ mags are well past their sell-by date.

That’s why we’re joining with Object, Women’s Aid, End Violence Against Women and many others to tell shops to lose the lads’ mags.

Sign the petition and ask shops to lose the lads’ mags!

As is the case with ‘girly calendars’, people shouldn’t have to see sexist, degrading lads’ mags when they are going about their work or doing their shopping.

Sign the petition today.

ACTION: “Call to arms”: Women take on BBC over failure to get female experts on air (thewomensroom.org.uk)

This is important and I urge to you sign up.

A new website dedicated to media-friendly female experts has been launched in the wake of an embarrassing failure by the BBC to find a woman analyst to debate breast cancer treatment on Radio 4.

John Humphrys, presenter of the Today programme, was reduced during an on-air discussion last week to asking a male contributor to imagine that he was a woman because no female experts had been available. Caroline Criado-Perez, a freelance journalist and blogger, immediately took to Twitter and found several female experts within minutes. “Again and again, the BBC doesn’t try hard enough,” she said. “Seemingly, it doesn’t think fair representation is particularly important.” This weekend Criado-Perez, 28, is overseeing the official launch of thewomensroom.org.uk. She and her co-founder, Catherine Smith, hope the website will become a constantly expanding register of women who have personal experiences to relate and relevant expertise. A trial run last week, as Women Unite, was an immediate success as more than 40 women signed up in 48 hours, with expertise in standup comedy, entrepreneurship, new media, personal finance, domestic violence, trade unions and feminism. Criado-Perez and Smith hope that female virtuosos of engineering, motor racing, science, maths, medicine and bridge building will eventually come forward or be nominated.

[Read more: guardian and find the link to sign up here.]

EVENT: Reclaim the Night 2012, 24th November, London

Women’s march against rape and all forms of violence against women. Take back the capital and put your feet on the streets for women on Reclaim the Night 2012. Join with thousands of women to shout a loud NO to rape and male violence against women and demand justice for survivors. Be there – for your friends, your sisters, your daughters, your colleagues, yourself; be there for all the women that can’t. See you at RTN 12. www.reclaimthenight.org

[Read more: Reclaim the Night 2012]

EVENT: Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp (8th – 11th July, 2011)

*Aldermaston Women’s Peace Camp * invite you to *Long Weekend Camp

When: Starting at noon on Friday 8th July and ending at noon on Monday 11 July.

Where: “Dingly Dell”, outside AWE Aldermaston, (opposite Young’s Industrial
Estate) near Tadley, Berkshire.

How to get there: see http://www.aldermaston.net/camp/visit

Welcoming, relaxed and inclusive skills sharing and discussion that will nurture and inform us in our daily resistance to violence in all its forms; weapons, cuts to services, violence against women, destruction of the earth’s resources.

An extended weekend of women only non-violent discussion and activity,
including:

-A large banner that we make over the weekend which maps our thoughts and
discussions and that all women can contribute to

Discussions
-Why women only?
-Women’s Non-violence
-Inclusive action – looking at the common hierarchies of arrest
and not arrest and the criminalisation of resistance and how we can find
ways to address these issues.

Practical workshops
– tripod -everyone climbs
– dancing (with extreme ironing)
– blockading

Both Saturday and Sunday will include practical workshops and discussions
Please contact us if your group would like to contribute to the weekend
programme, or to any particular workshop.

Please bring vegetarian/vegan food to share and cook.
If you don’t want to camp, please let us know, and we can provide
information about local accommodation.

This is a women only event.
Further information will be sent out after 12 June or contact
info@aldermaston.net

EVENT: Leeds SlutWalk (Saturday 23rd July 2011)

Saturday July 23rd – 1200 – 1500

Meet at Victoria Gardens in front of the art gallery, Leeds. You may have heard of the success of the recent Slutwalk marches that are happening across the world! We are organising a march in Leeds for the 23rd July and we really hope you can join us! Please invite all your friends to march and rally and confront the rape culture that we live in.

With the rape conviction rate stuck at a shocking 6% (of reported rapes), 1 in 10 survivors never engaging with the criminal justice system and rape survivor survices being cut left right and centre now is the time to stand together and protest against the shameful victim blaming. It’s amazing that the comments of one ridiculous police officer in Toronto (who told students that if women wanted to avoid being raped they should “avoid dressing like sluts) can spark off a global movement. Lets celebrate the birth of a response to survivor/victim blaming, stand together and say that rape is NEVER the fault of the victim/survivor. For those on FaceBook here’s a link to the FB group https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=140250409386868

EVENT: Huddersfield Feminist Collective at Manchester Slutwalk

Slutwalk (1)Here’s a couple of shots from when some of us took part in the Manchester Slutwalk on Friday 10 June.

Another Slutwalk is currently being planned for Leeds – look out for them on Twitter if you want to get involved.

[Thanks to Pictures In The Cloud for letting us reuse the pics here!]

Slutwalk (2)

EVENT: Million Mothers March/ Million Women Rise (Sunday 31st July 2011)

Dear Manchester Wimmin Rising,

Planning for the Million Mothers March (MMM) is now fully underway. The date for the 2011 event is Sunday 31st July 2011. The theme this year is the EveryChild Matters outcome “Be Safe.” After the success of the 2009 event and last year’s 2010 “Be Health” theme the committee are once again hard at work planning the programme.

Mothers Against Violence and Million Women Rise will be working together to raise money for the Million Mothers March and the Million Women Rise March on 3.3.12.

We are looking for volunteers to help us do a street collection in Manchester on 29.7.11 and 31.7.11 at the march.

Please contact Patsy Mckie, Mother Against Violence (office@mavuk.org, 0161 2268134)

or

Louise Bond, Million Women Rise (jpluy@hotmail.com, 07872015114) if
you would like to be involved

Please see the following websites for more information:

www.millionwomenrise.com

http://mavuk.org/2011/05/28/million-mothers-march-31st-july-2011/

Together we will end violence!

**

*We are at a threshold. We are going to see change. If we can create
the vision in our heart, it will spread. As women of wisdom we cannot be
divided. As bringers of light, we have no choice but to join
together.*

Agness Baker Pilgrim – http://www.grandmotherscouncil.org/

EVENT: Zine Fest! Women’s Library, London (Saturday 24th June 2011)

*ZINE FEST 2011*

*Saturday 25th June 2011, 12pm-4pm, Free*

*The Women’s Library, 25 Old Castle Street, London*

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=182937295088674

Hey everyone,

So ZineFest is super nearly here! This Saturday we’ve got a great
programme of events lined up – including comic making, stencilling, zine tours,
stalls, exhibitions, crafting, a discussion on survivor zines, and a panel
on feminist media and memory- including speakers from Race Revolt,
Shocking Pink magazine, Sheba Press, and More Crackers Please. For more info
see, http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/thewomenslibrary/whats-on/events/zine-fest-2011.cfm

Please help spread the word!

HELP: Sexism zine

honkHey everyone,

At yesterday’s Sunday Social (which was wonderful, by the way), some of us decided it would be good to create a zine (a DIY magazine/booklet) on the theme of sexism. We want to highlight all the little (and not-so-little) sexisms that surround us every day – the aim is producing something that we can hand out to people in the street to make people go ‘oh yeah!’ and realise that the fight for gender equality is far from over.

We want *all sorts* of submissions, and we reckon everyone has something they can offer. How about…

  • A rant about something that annoys you
  • A graffiti-ed magazine cover
  • A poem or song
  • A book or film review
  • Statistics you find shocking
  • Photography, drawing or painting
  • Good news stories about feminist successes

….or anything else that you think can help to convey the message. These are just ideas to get you thinking.

You can submit entries by email or post – the zine will probably be A5-sized so bear that in mind (though we can scan and re-size anything that’s too big).

Help us to make people sit up and realise what kind of a world we’re living in.

Cheers!!

Email info@feministcollective.org.uk