Bring Back Our Girls- Manchester Prayer Service

NWG invites you to our servcie to pray for young women and girls globally. Young women and girls are being used as weapons of war and conflict. Let us pray together to end such violence and inhumane behaviour against women and girls globally.#BBOGManchester #BringBackOurGirls

What does it mean to be trans* gender?

I must say I don't understand the issue fully but I am aware that it is still classified as a mental disorder. Being labelled with a mental illness is an unpleasant experience. It also is the only way somebody can transition. Hate crime, misunderstanding and misconceptions about the issue have isolated people in the community. Through this event we hope activists in this field can share their experiences with us. 

National Preoccupations and Art or Why Aliens Don't Come to India

Sonia Soans, a researcher at MMU, will be giving a talk on Indian comics and how they reflect the concerns of the society that produced them. Looking at the Amar Chitra Katha series in particular, her talk will deal with the way that Indian comics reflect stereotypical ideas about the distant past and contemporary anxieties.

Venue - Room G35 in the new business school. The room has disability access and accessible restrooms. http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/travel/allsaints/Parking around the area is usually free from 6.00 pm onwards.

Follow us on Twitter @SoniaSoanspsy  & @MancsterCon

The event is free we need to know approximately how many people are coming. 

click here for tickets

Meeting in January

Hi All to follow up from Diane's blog post here are the details of the next meeting in January. See you at the next meeting.

Here's a link to the reading http://tinyurl.com/despentes-kingkongtheory

Text for January session

From Diane Ofili, the newest member  [ and by the looks of it the biggest gobshite]

Hello, this is the link to the next reading session in January 2014 : bit.ly/1c5pbro .It should lead an excerpt of  'The King Kong Theory' by Virginie DesPentes. The phrase that hits home  is 'I am more King Kong than Kate Moss'. It resonates with me as I have always taken pride in certain traits , like my directness and tallness, that are not necessarily 'feminine'. It in no way makes me value my womanhood any less , in spite of the bullshit  others have tried to brainwash me with.Can masculine and feminine identities happily co-exist within the same person ? Does accepting our manly sides [should we have any ] mean relinquishing our more girly ones or do they in fact compliment each other ?

Just out of interest have any of you heard of a book called 'Is there anything good about men ?' by Roy Baumeister . It would be interesting to see how male-centric texts or points of view intersect with the discussions of the group. Anyway I hope you enjoy the excerpt., I look forward to seeing you gals early next year !


All the best
Diane

CINZIA ARRUZZA - In Manchester

DANGEROUS LIAISONS!

THE MARRIAGES AND DIVORCES OF MARXISM AND FEMINISM

Wednesday 29 January 2014, 6pm

Friends Meeting House,
6 Mount St, Manchester M2 5NS

CINZIA ARRUZZA

Cinzia Arruzza, Italian revolutionary socialist feminist, activist and academic, member of the Fourth International, currently at the New School for Social Research in New York, is author of the 2013 book Dangerous Liaisons: The Marriages and Divorces of Marxism and Feminism. The book runs through debates over links between Marxism and feminism ranging from the Russian and Chinese revolutions and the rise of Stalinism to the second wave feminist conceptualisation of gender as class relation and then to recognition-based politics and queer theory.

This meeting is co-sponsored by organisations working together in Manchester: Socialist Resistance, AntiCapitalist Initiative, and International Socialist Network. It continues an urgent debate within the revolutionary left at the Beyond the Fragments event in Manchester about the role of feminism in our politics.

There will be a reading group focussing on the four chapters of the book in the lead up to Cinzia’s visit. To be involved in that reading group, and to get the book for £7.00, contact Ian at discourseunit@gmail.com

19th November Meeting - Sara Ahmed

FIRST MEETING OF ACADEMIC YEAR 2013 – 2014

FEMINIST RESEARCH READING GROUP

FIRST MEETING OF ACADEMIC YEAR 2013 – 2014

Date: Tuesday 15 October

Time: 3.30 – 5pm

Venue: Didsbury Campus, Behrens 0.2

Reading: Chapter 1 – Social Abjection, taken from Tyler, I. (2013) Revolting Subjects: Social Abjection and Resistance in Neo-Liberal Britain

For a copy of the reading,

please contact us through the blog

Follow us on Facebook

Twitter: #FRRG

Related Events

11 November – Sand Bar – Screening of 15 Park Avenue

A film about a woman’s struggle through mental illness in India. Followed by discussion. The film is being screened as part of the Trauma film club’s mental health season. This is also an Asylum magazine event. http://www.hssr.mmu.ac.uk/trauma/november-2013-ruminations-on-madness/

Racialising emotional labour and emotionalising racialised labour: Anger, fear and shame in social welfare by Yasmin Gunaratnam & Gail Lewis

It has been a while since we met up. How about we meet up next on 5th June from  4 pm – 6pm 

Room number -  Birley 0.2  Didsbury Campus

We are now based in Disbury Campus http://www2.mmu.ac.uk/travel/didsbury/

The paper  for this session is - Racialising emotional labour and emotionalising racialised labour: Anger, fear and shame in social welfare by Yasmin Gunaratnam & Gail Lewis. 

If you need a copy of the paper send me an email. 

If you have any papers/book chapters you would like to discuss do send them to us. 

St Dymphna Seminars

The St Dymphna Seminars was created in 2012 to provide a safe and open environment for those with an interest in mental health to  discuss issues relating to practice and experience. Inspired by the models of community care in traditions established at Gheel, the seminars aim to educate and reveal aspects of living with mental illness and perspectives on predominant models and treatments that are rarely shared. It is hoped that these seminars will also provide an arena for conflicting stances to witness the reality behind the ideology.

Here is t link to the website. 

http://theswordandfettereddevil.wordpress.com/about/

The Discrimination and Abuse of Trans* Women

"In spite of a more understanding & diverse world, often supported by robust equality legislation, Trans Women are still too often marginalised, discriminated against, excluded from services and from female spaces, at a much greater incidence than the general female population. They are too often denied services, excluded, abused, violently attacked and even murdered. ( At least one a day around the world) Our discussion today will introduce the basics of Trans Awareness, the incidents and causes of discrimination, the abuse & violence this community regularly suffers and the consequent devastating effect on individuals.We will also discuss how this unacceptable behaviour can be changed and suggest some actions for improving the acceptance and respect for all Trans* women. Although we are focusing on Women today, Trans Men, particularly at the start of their transition suffer equally from abuse, attack and murder."

Interesting discussion tonight. Here is a link to the recording of the event click here.  Some of the issues that came up were of sexuality, of how trans* women and men are thought of as asexual or their sexuality is not adequately understood, which problematises  the definition of homosexuality. 

The link between gender and sexuality was also explored and also how one's awareness of gender is formed earlier than one's idea of sexual orientation.  What are your thoughts? would love to hear from you. 

Rachel Mann- Dazzling Darkness

Dazzling Darkness  is a true story about searching for one's authentic self in the company of the Living God. Rachel Mann has died many 'deaths' in the process, not the least of which was a change of sex, as well as coming to terms with chronic illness and disability.

Through these experiences she has discovered that darkness is as much a positive place as a negative one, inhabited by the Living God – the Dark God, the Hidden God. This is the God many of us, because we try to make our lives safe and comfortable, are too afraid to meet. This is the God who is most alive in those things we commonly associate with the Dark – failure, loss and brokenness.

The Christian church has legitimated certain ways of talking about God – male, fatherly, monarchical and so on. Many believe these descriptors tell the exhaustive truth about God. In accepting the complexity of her sexuality and identity, Rachel Mann has been able to explore with a greater freedom what God might look like to an 'unconventional creature' like her.

Rachel Mann is a Church of England priest and is Resident Poet at Manchester Cathedral. Her work – on rock music, poetry and theology – has been widely published in magazines, anthologies and newsprint