Event: Transnational Feminisms Conference, Manchester Dec 4/5th

30Oct09

Date: 4-5 December 2009 (with associated activities on 6 December)
Location: University of Manchester

*** REGISTRATION NOW OPEN ***

Keynote Speakers:
Dr. Anne-Marie Fortier (Lancaster University)
Prof. Gabriele Griffin (University of York)
Dr. Amrit Wilson (Royal Holloway)

Register by Oct 23 for Early Bird discount.  Scroll down to the bottom of the page to download the registration form and information about accommodation.

Drawing on the impact of postcolonial feminism and its enactments, this conference will examine how women are affected by political systems in a global climate, how feminism translates and moves across borders, and how feminism can be utilised as a methodology for understanding the transnational context.

Here the transnational is understood to be a complication of notions of the ‘elsewhere’, highlighting the challenges of fluidity, movement and instability whilst also paying close attention to locatedness. This is a feminism that is engaged with the woman-as-subject without making universalising claims regarding women’s experience; it both considers how gender operates and critiques categorisation. The aim of the conference is to share research on transnational feminisms between students, academics, artists and activists and to promote discussion on these themes and on future strategies/ research. An important element of the conference is that it involves participants and as such there will be workshops, a history walk and ample opportunity for debate.

Plus:
Exhibitions, Film Screenings, History Walk, Performance Evening and Workshops
Including Outwrite Magazine, Suzie ‘Ze’ Martins, Yalini Dream, ‘Abortion Democracy’ (Sarah
Diehl), ‘Performing the Border’ (Ursula Biemann), Dominique Tessier, Women Asylum
Seekers Together, and more…

Check website for updates, registration forms and accommodation information:
http://www.arts.manchester.ac.uk/sage/transnationalfeminisms/

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Event: National Pensioners Convention Women’s Committee

20Oct09

Date: 09 November 2009
Time: 2-5pm
Venue: TUC, Great Russell St, London
Cost: Free

A special half-day conference will explore: personal accounts, the ‘retirement cliff edge’, the state pension age, and the demise of final salary pension schemes.
How to book: The event is free but booking is essential. To register, email info@npcuk.org or call 020 7553 6510

H/T Women’s Resource Centre

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Contribute: Lap Dancing – Lobby a Peer Today

19Oct09

Proposals to license lap dancing clubs in the same way as sex shops is about to be debated in the Lords. We have until 3rd November to make sure the Lords adopt our proposals to make licensing compulsory, not voluntary, for local authorities and to make sure venues are not exempt if they hold lap dancing less than once a month!

Get Lobbying ! Send our model letter to one, or more (!), of the key peers we have targetted below.

o Lord Bilmoria
o Baroness Neuberger
o Baroness Northover
o Lord Norton
o Baroness Uddin
o Baroness Wilkins
o Baroness Grundy
o Baroness Flathers
o Baroness Goudie
o Lord Hylton
o Baroness Jay
o Lord Listowel
o Baroness Ludford

Use our online model letter here. Please add any personal experiences of lap dancing venues and send to any of the peers listed below:

Filed under: Action, Activism, Body Image, Contribute, Equality, Policy, Politics, Porn, Prostitution   |  Leave a Comment

Event: Proactively Polishing Your Profile – to Move Beyond the Boys Club

19Oct09

Date: Friday 30th October 2009
Time: 10am to 4.30pm
Address: womenintechnology offices, 114 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JH
Cost: £213 + VAT (This price includes a copy of the book ‘Beyond the Boys Club’).

The most successful women working in male-dominated fields know that you can’t win the game if you’re not willing to play the game. These same women understand that the best way to change the game – and make it work for them – is as a key player, not as an outsider.

In this daytime workshop, Beyond the Boys’ Club author and executive coach, Dr. Suzanne Doyle-Morris will take a interactive approach to look at how career progression, especially in male dominated fields, is a blend of aptitude and attitude, manoeuvrability, understanding office politics, coupled with self awareness and confidence. Women who get ahead are those who make key decision makers aware of their wins. When you work with men you have to learn how to play the game and get comfortable raising your profile the way they do. We need to learn how to play with the boys in order to move beyond the boys club. We should take the best of what they can teach us whilst maintaining a sense of our own integrity, individuality and independence.

This course will help you:
• Develop self-promotion skills to increase professional visibility.
• Identify strategies for career enhancement according to your values and current options.
• Improve ability to influence others and develop effective relationships.
• Increase visibility for achievements in ways that are individually authentic

If you would like more information please go to: www.womenintechnology.co.uk/proactively-polishing-your-profile where you can also download the booking form.

If you are interested in attending this course or have any questions, please contact Sarah Lilley at slilley@womenin.co.uk or on 020 7422 9213 – many thanks!

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Contribute: Keep the Special Trafficking Unit ePetition

13Oct09

Mary Honeyball MEP is the Labour representative in the European Parliament for London. She is the Labour spokesperson for women’s rights in Europe as she sits on the Women’s Rights and Gender Equality Committee. She is also the Group Coordinator of the Parliament’s Culture Committee, which also legislates on issues surrounding sporting events such as the Olympics.

She is the petition sponsor Keep the Special Trafficking Unit ePetition asking the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Paul Stephenson, to retain its dedicated specialist unit dedicated to combating the crime of human trafficking.

Filed under: Action, Activism, Contribute, England, Politics, Trafficking, Violence Against Women   |  Leave a Comment

Contribute: Protest Against No Recourse To Public Funds

12Oct09

Amnesty International UK is organising a mass lobby of parliament on 4 November 2009 to lobby MPs at Westminster on the No Recourse to Public Funds Rule.

Many women come to the UK, often legally, in the hope of improving their lives. They may come on temporary work permits, student visas or spousal visas. Some women come to the UK to marry. The ‘no recourse to public funds’ rule says that a woman in this position – even if she’s married to a British citizen – is not entitled to certain state benefits, including housing benefit and income support.

But these are the benefits a woman must be able to claim to get a place in a refuge if she needs to escape violence. As a result, many newly-married women in the UK are trapped in violent marriages and even if they do muster the courage to seek help from the authorities, they are simply turned away.

The UK government has taken significant steps to address violence against women – particularly domestic violence. In its paper on domestic violence ‘Safety and Justice’, the Home Office recognised that support and accommodation to victims of domestic violence was ‘life saving and critical’. So the UK government knows it is in the wrong when it fails to protect women arriving in the UK

We believe that the government position puts the UK in breach of international human rights standards to which it has signed up. The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) says clearly that states must respect, protect and fulfil all women’s human rights, regardless of immigration status or any other factor.

What are we doing about this?

Amnesty International UK has joined its voice with the voices of these women, the refuge workers and the many black and minority ethnic women’s groups who have been campaigning and lobbying for years on this subject. We are all calling on the UK government to:

• Allow refuges the funds they need to protection from violence to all
  women suffering abuse.
• Provide for an exemption to the ‘no recourse’ rule to ensure women
  are not forced to remain with a violent partner.
• Develop an integrated strategy for violence against women so as to
  minimise the chance of policy contradictions undermining women’s
  rights.

See the Women’s Resource Centres extensive list of possible actions.

Filed under: Action, Activism, Asylum Aid, BME, Domestic Violence, Equality, Policy, Politics, Rape Crisis, Violence Against Women   |  Leave a Comment

Event: Launch of the Olive Morris Collection 21.10.09

12Oct09

Date: Wednesday 21 October 2009
Time: 7pm
Location: Brixton Library, London

After many months of research and interviewing those who knew Olive, the Remembering Olive Collective and Lambeth Archives are proud to be launching a public archive dedicated to Olive Morris and the different groups and campaigns she was part of. The collection includes Olive’s personal papers deposited by Liz Obi and over 20 oral history interviews. It will be permanently hosted at Lambeth Archives.

The event speakers include Jon Newman (Lambeth Archives), Yana Morris (Olive’s sister), Mike McColgan (Olive’s partner), a presentation about Olive’s life and the materials included in the Olive Morris Collection by Dr. Kimberly Springer (ROC member), and a performance by award-winning poet Dorothea Smartt.

The oral history and cataloguing project and the production of a publication that will be launched early in 2010, has been generously funded by an award from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The project has been supported by Lambeth Archives and Gasworks. The project’s advisers and partners also include the Black Cultural Archives, Brixton Library, Lambeth Women’s Project and the British Library.

BOOKING ESSENTIAL: For information or to book tickets please contact Sonia McKenzie on 020 7926 1075 or email blackhistorymonth@lambeth.gov.uk

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Event: Influencing Local Decisions 13.10.09

12Oct09

Date: Tuesday 13th October
Time: 9.30 – 1pm
Location: The Council House, Victoria Square, Birmingham B1 1BB

Influencing Local Decisions is a workshop for women – and in particular
Black and Minority Ethnic women. The aim is the look at how you can
influence the decisions that affect your community and neighbourhood. We
will be finding out about local governance is changing in Birmingham;
learning what works. and developing tactics for gaining influence in local
decisions.

The workshop will be led by Hannah Worth and Paul Slatter from Chamberlain Forum and is part of the WAITS (Women Acting in Today’s Society) Women Making Change programme which is supported by the Big Lottery Fund. It is also part of Local Democracy Week in Birmingham which is supported by BeBirmingham and Birmingham City Council.

Places are free, but numbers are limited. To book a place at the workshop
please call Rani Johal at WAITS on 0121 440 1443 or email
ranijohal@waitsaction.org

Filed under: Action, BME, Economy, Policy, Politics   |  Leave a Comment

Contribute: BBC Looking for Female Perspective on Documentary about the Web

08Oct09

The BBC has launched an open-source project to produce a 4-part documentary series about the web, to mark its upcoming 20th birthday. http://www.bbc.co.uk/digitalrevolution/.

To really help shape the production as well as show a female audience that women are contributing to the web (technologically, economically and socially), women need to get involved. Otherwise our contributions over the last 20 years of the web are at risk of being over-looked and going uncredited. Go to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/digitalrevolution/ to join the debate, or if you’d like to follow them on Twitter, the BBC Digital Revolution team are here: @bbcdigrev

H/T Women in Technology

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Event: Proactively Polishing Your Profile – to Move Beyond the Boys Club

03Oct09

Date: Friday 30th October 2009
Time: 10am to 4.30pm
Address: womenintechnology offices, 114 Middlesex Street, London, E1 7JH
Cost: £213 + VAT (This price includes a copy of the book ‘Beyond the Boys Club’).

In this evening workshop, Beyond the Boys’ Club author and executive coach, Dr. Suzanne Doyle-Morris will take a interactive approach to look at how career progression, especially in male dominated fields, is a blend of aptitude and attitude, manoeuvrability, understanding office politics, coupled with self awareness and confidence. Women who get ahead are those who make key decision makers aware of their wins. When you work with men you have to learn how to play the game and get comfortable raising your profile the way they do.  We need to learn how to play with the boys in order to move beyond the boys club.  We should take the best of what they can teach us whilst maintaining a sense of our own integrity, individuality and independence.

This course will help you:
• Develop self-promotion skills to increase professional visibility.
• Identify strategies for career enhancement according to your values and current options.
• Improve ability to influence others and develop effective relationships.
• Increase visibility for achievements in ways that are individually authentic

If you would like more information please go to: www.womenintechnology.co.uk/proactively-polishing-your-profile where you can also download the booking form.

If you are interested in attending this course or have any questions, please contact Sarah Lilley at slilley@womenin.co.uk or on 020 7422 9213 – many thanks!

Filed under: England, Equality, Events, Technology, Work   |  Leave a Comment