Regaining hope in Rojava: ‘Way beyond Feminism as we Know it’.


Rojda Felat

from JO MAGPIE at  open democracy  with thanks
This is a revolution in consciousness, not only in politics, and it has transformed the lives of countless women and men for generations to come.

Sometime in early February, I was excited to receive an invitation to participate in a women’s delegation to Rojava, the de-facto autonomous Kurdish majority region in northern Syria. The delegation was open to women journalists, activists and lawyers, and would be timed to coincide with International Women’s Day.

I arranged to go with two people I hadn’t met before: Ali, a friend of a friend, and Kimmie who I had interviewed over Skype for my book about female hitchhikers. She had already hitchhiked all around West Africa solo and had been blogging about Kurdish and Middle-Eastern issues recently, so she seemed like a good candidate for an adventure. None of us had any idea what to expect, not really. But we are all very open, flexible, and up for a challenge… continues below.. Continue reading “Regaining hope in Rojava: ‘Way beyond Feminism as we Know it’.”

How ‘Femvertising’ debases Feminism to Sell Stuff

We sold feminism to the masses, and now it means nothingfemvertising

Girl Power—whatever that means.

by  Marcie Bianco  from qz.com/with thanks

These days, feminism is on fleek. Touted by everyone from Dove to Barbie to Taylor Swift, consumer capitalism has made feminism sexy, fun, cool—and remarkably easy to claim as your own. But the price tag has been the meaning of the movement itself.equinox_activist-e1452033891346
Bitch magazine cofounder Andi Zeisler describes this phenomenon as “marketplace feminism.” “Marketplace feminism is in many ways about just branding feminism as an identity that everyone can and should consume,” she writes in her new book We Were Feminists Once: From Riot Grrrl to CoverGirl, the Buying and Selling of a Political Movement.

  • ‘Women empowerment’ is just another fad that a lot of brands are cashing into. The agenda is always to exploit the consumer’s psyche and sell more. Let’s not kid ourselves that a soap brand or a diamond manufacturer actually cares about women’s (or any other group’s) issues.

Continue reading “How ‘Femvertising’ debases Feminism to Sell Stuff”

EMMA GOLDMAN A * G R A P H I C * N O V E L * I N * P R O G R E S S

from Emma: graphic novel by David Lester

EG-profile-speaking-close-up-WEB

This graphic novel about Emma Goldman tells the stories of two women – anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman, one of history’s greatest orators and Dorothy Rogers, an obscure younger radical lost to history, but a key figure in Emma’s last turbulent year in Canada. Despite a shared melancholy, they fight to save a man’s life from certain death in the final poignant act of Emma’s 50 years as a revolutionary.

This true-life, epic story is interwoven in the fictional context of Helen, the writer, and Henry, the artist, as they create this graphic novel on the lives of Emma and Dorothy.

 Below is an excerpt from my graphic novel about Emma Goldman.
Drawings were created using a combination of watercolour pencil, pen and acrylics.
from Emma: graphic novel by David Lester

01-EG-spread

 

02-EG-spread Continue reading “EMMA GOLDMAN A * G R A P H I C * N O V E L * I N * P R O G R E S S”

Anarcha Feminism is being Truly Anti-Authoritarian

anarchist feminist

Anarcha-Feminism   by Ruby Flick

This is my favorite writing about being a woman involved with anarchism based on my 33 years of experience. What has been put in bold are my own favorite passages that I have seen so clearly for so long. 

For too long anarchist feminists have been labeled as the ‘ladies auxiliary of male bomb throwers’. The misconception and manipulation of both feminists and anarchist principles and practice have resulted in the use of sensationalist and ridiculing tactics by the state and its spokespeople.

This has not only polarised the general populace from potentially liberation concepts but has also polarised anarchists from feminists. In the past and more so recently there has been a uniting of these beliefs and Peggy Korneggers article; ‘Anarchism; the Feminist Connection’ goes so far as to say that the two genres of thought are inextricable tied although the connection has not been consciously articulated by feminists very often.feminists

Kornegger agrues that feminism’s  “emphasis on the small group as a basic organisational unit, on the personal as political, on anti- authoritarianism and on spontaneous direct action was essentially anarchism”. Continue reading “Anarcha Feminism is being Truly Anti-Authoritarian”

Feminist Womens’ Refuge Occupation ‘Tina Martins’ threatened with eviction

Belo Horizonte (Brazil): The feminist squat Tina Martins is threatened with eviction

from squat.net with thanks:     On March 8th, the feminist movement Olga Benário squatted an empty building in the center of Belo Horizonte, with the hope of turning it into a crisis shelter for female victims of violence. Since then, the building is occupied as a place of living for dozens of women, and holds every day gatherings, assemblies, culturals and political events. It also works as a self-managed crisis shelter: a psychological and medical reception center for more or less 200 women who are homeless or victims of violence. Continue reading “Feminist Womens’ Refuge Occupation ‘Tina Martins’ threatened with eviction”

Occupied Centre ‘the Female Dragon’ under attack


la dragonaLa Dragona..the Female Dragon is the only Occupied Autonomous Social Centre that’s part of a cemetery… But it is very much alive, since 2008 resisting all attacks and setting the social and political scene in Elipa Barrio alight with it’s fiery breath.jornadas-de-sexualidad-colectivoalia1

Now the Council say they want the abandoned historic mansion back to make it a museum.. To fill it with DEAD THINGS.

In reality the authorities are still furious.. that an open Social Centre can work well for years and years.. outside their control, ignoring all their rules and regulations and police, seeking no grants, deciding all by open assembly, making no profits, creating a small FREE SPACE where creativity Cartel-Fiesta-F202explodes like the beans in Spring.. and worst of all.. demonstrating that anarchist ideas can work.

Only last week the classic Occupied Center ‘La Morada’ was evicted by the police with no eviction order and 32 arrests.

Below we translate the Communique from the female Dragon Collective and assembly which appeared on Twitter  Continue reading “Occupied Centre ‘the Female Dragon’ under attack”

Women smash up Newspaper with hammers for Misogynist Policy

if I had a hammer

Toulouse: ‘Naked, drunk or isolated, we are not prey…’

Via ContraInfo…    La Dépèche is a big regional newspaper from the South West of France 

La Dépèche isn’t an un-attackable fortress. All big companies have their weaknesses, its for us to be inventive, cunning and insightful enough, to find them. La Dépèche Intéractive is a subsidiary of La Dépèche group. This is enough for us to make them a target.

The reasons to hurt the media are uncountable. It’s even a widespread discourse of those who understood that the public opinion will never be our friend. This attack is a reaction to the publication of an article promoting the idea that “we, women” create the circumstance for our aggressors, in not embodying the desires of man’s model wrought, that want us to be silent, submissive, obedient and an object of consumption.

anarcha feministThe hammers that this time aimed for windows – like they can aim for heads – arm our rage towards all those who reinforce this rape culture. This action is more of a stride in the never-ending path of our freedom from all oppressions.

We clearly never repeat it enough; sexual assaults are not the isolated act of a dangerous individual who watches from an alley-way corner – but actually – if not a weapon, its often the threats and the correctional punishment, for all women who have taken part in rebellion in their life, or simply searching to exit the cage that is patriarchy. And its always the reflection of a world that envisages women as objects to submit.

The media instrumentalises us to distil fear, in creating a need for security which should be urgently met, with ever more control over our lives, cameras, DNA profiling. They don’t seek to protect us, this discourse is to lure us in, to increase their domination.

We don’t want to delegate our protection, but try to organise to defend ourselves, and attacking is one way to do that.

To imply, as Jean Cohadon did in his article, that alcohol and drugs are recurring problems with women – that can’t be dissociated from sexual violence and other aggressions that they are subject to – is holding their legs open whilst tormentors do their business. This mediocre newspaper, passionate about various facts and police operations, is one of the thousands of unpunished accomplices that nobody dreams, or dares, to attack. La Dépèche publish their article in their infamous rag, this is another.affiche-fete-v2-pas-lourde-ad890

Amongst women, we’re organising, so that one day we not only take on windows and walls, but also the people that hide behind them, who are the subject of our hatred. We want them to be in fear, so they know that their actions won’t pass without a response. We want them to think of all the pissed off women who watch them from an alley-way corner, who one day dream of thrusting a hammer into their hearts. They want us to be responsible for the horrors that they make us suffer, we want the fear to change sides.

This action is dedicated to all pissed off women, we hope that it warms your hearts.

So that actions multiply against the patriarchy!

At your hammers… Ready? Go!arton1031-786e1

signed: Some Furious Women

  EN FRANCAIS ICI…original in French   https://iaata.info/Apres-midi-et-soiree-d-autodefense-feministe-1212.html


note: Many more Direct Actions are continuing In Toulouse and throughout France as the uprising continues, centred round the Nuit Debout movement and resistance to the neo-liberal slave Loi du Travail…


in Spanish…

Francia – Destrozadas a martillazos las vidrieras del periódico por publicar artículos misóginos

Recojo de Contra Info y difundo el siguiente comunicado reivindicando los sabotajes a unas oficinas del medio burgués La Depeche por parte de un grupo de mujeres que firmaron la acción como“Algunas mujeres rabiosas” y que golpearon a esta sede rompiendo sus cristales a martillazos por haber publicado un artículo misógino donde se culpaba a las mujeres de las violaciones y de otras agresiones sufridas por ellas cotidianamente.———————————————–——————–-

La Depeche no es una fortaleza inexpugnable. Todos los grupos principales tienen sus debilidades, a nosotras de ser bastante inventivas, listas y bastante perspicaces para encontrarlas. La Depeche Interactiva es una rama del grupo Depeche. Esto es suficiente para que sea un objetivo.

Las razones para dañar a los medios de comunicación son innumerables. Incluso es más bien un discurso común entre aquell@s que han entendido que la opinión pública nunca será nuestra amiga. Este ataque es una reacción a la publicación de un artículo propagando la idea de que “nosotras mujeres” estamos creando las condiciones de nuestras agresiones, no incorporando el modelo en forma por los deseos de los hombres, que nos quiere silenciosas, sumisas, obedientes, y objeto de consumo.

Los martillos que esta vez apuntaron los escaparates -ya que podrían apuntar a las cabezas- arman nuestra rabia hacia todxs aquellxs que fortalecen la cultura de la violación. Esta acción es un paso hacia adelante en el camino sin fin de nuestra liberación de toda opresión. Obviamente, nunca repetimos lo suficiente, la violación no es el acto aislado de un individuo peligroso que acecharía su presa en la esquina de un callejón, sino un arma, a menudo la amenaza y el castigo correctivo para todas las mujeres que hicieron de la rebelión su vida o que simplemente buscan de salir de la jaula del patriarcado. Y siempre es un reflejo de un mundo que considera a las mujeres como objetos destinados a servir.images

Los medios nos están instrumentalizando para destilar el miedo, creando una necesidad de seguridad a la que tuviéramos que responder, en emergencia, para obtener más y más control sobre nuestras vidas, cámaras, registros de ADN. No tratan de protegernos, este discurso es un señuelo para aumentar su dominio.

No queremos delegar nuestra protección, sino que intentamos organizarnos para defendernos, y el ataque es una manera de hacerlo.

Dar a entender, al igual que lo hace Jean Cohadon en su artículo, que el alcohol y las drogas son problemas recurrentes de las mujeres, los cuales no pueden ser separados de las violaciones y otras agresiones a las que están sujetas, es mantener sus piernas abiertas mientras que los verdugos están haciendo sus asuntos. Este pobre periodista, apasionado por las noticias de crónica y las intervenciones policiales, y miles de cómplices suyos impunes, a los cuales nadie piensa, o se atreve a atacar. La Depeche, publicando su artículo en su infame trapo, es un cómplice demás.

Nos organizamos, entre mujeres, para que un día no ataquemos sólo a los escaparates y a las paredes, sino a las personas escondidas detrás, y son aquellas personas que son objeto de nuestro odio. Queremos que tengan miedo, que sepan que sus comportamientos no quedará sin respuesta. Queremos que piensen en todas estas mujeres rabiosas que les acechan en la esquina de un callejón, y que sueñen en un día en el que les golpeemos con un martillo en el corazón. Quieren hacernos responsables de los horrores que nos hacen sufrir, queremos que el miedo cambie de bando.feminist

Esta acción está dedicada a todas las mujeres enojadas, esperamos así calentar vuestros corazones.

¡Que las acciones contra el patriarcado se multipliquen!
¡En sus martillos… listas… fuera!

Algunas mujeres rabiosas