Women's Self Injury Helpline

From the website 

How we help with self injury

Self injury Support (formerly Bristol Crisis Service for Women) is a national organisation that supports girls and women affected by self-injury or self-harm.

We have carried out extensive research with women who self-injure, and through our work we have developed a deep understanding of the reasons individuals harm themselves and of the things they may find helpful or supportive.

We also have wide experience of the concerns and needs of workers in different settings and disciplines, and in developing good working practice.

Women's Self Injury Helpline  number 0808 800 8088

website

http://www.selfinjurysupport.org.uk/womens-self-injury-helpline-0808-800-8088 

Twitter - @sisupportorguk

Text - Text 07800 472908 for support

Reporting harassment on public transport.

I saw a post on Facebook that asked about what to din a situation that involved a man on a bus staring 
lecherously at women. There were some of the responses.


You can text British Transport Police on 61016

 Ask  perpetrators  "Why?" (It's quite a powerful word as it requires them to consider or explain their actions. If they disagree, correct them and persist.) 

You OK, sis ? - which involves going up to a woman who is clearly being harassed and and asking her if she's OK, just to let her know she is supported

Protest against cuts in 'Violence Against Women' services - Manchester 10 Dec

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/

Rachel Mann- Dazzling Darkness

To follow up from the previous post on the Dazzling Darkness event. Interesting discussion about finding meaning and G-d in darkness and a journey through self exploration and choosing between two rights and sometimes two wrongs. Rachel talks about her options and her all too human struggles which make her work universal.

Here is an audio recording of the event today. Rachel read out excepts from her book and a few of her poems.

click here to hear the recording

A big thank you to Reverend Rachel Mann for sharing her work with us and to all those who attended the event and participated.

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. 

Here is a link to her  website

Troubling Gender: The Question of Multiple Identities

Reminder - The deadline for abstracts for Troubling Gender: The Question of Multiple Identities, a one-day interactive conference at the on the topic of intersectional feminism, is 24th February 2013.

We are also very excited to announce the keynote speakers for the conference:

Dr. Bridget Byrne (University of Manchester), who is known for her work on the politics and culture of social class, ‘racial’ and gendered identities. In 2006, Byrne authored ‘White lives: the interplay of ‘race’, class and gender in everyday life’ which was based on her earlier research into the construction of white identity in Britain.

Professor Avtar Brah (Birkbeck, University of London), the author of the influential ‘Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities’ which offered a new approach to the study of ‘difference’ and ‘commonality’ within the context of feminism and anti-racism. More recently, Brah co-wrote the article, ‘Ain’t I A Woman? Revisiting Intersectionality’ with Professor Ann Phoenix, which explored the intersections of gender, ‘race’ and sexuality with social class and argued that studying these intersections allows a more complex and dynamic understanding than a focus on social class alone.

In addition to the paper sessions, we will also be running workshops addressing issues of gender and age, neo-colonialisms and transnationalism, and the identity politics of research, as well as a roundtable discussion. Registration for the conference will open at the beginning of March. The cost will be £5 - £8 on a sliding scale. This includes lunch and a post-conference drinks reception.

The Conference is on Friday 24th May at the University of Sheffield. For more information, visit: http://troublinggender.wordpress.com/

Dialogue around Female Genital Mutilation

Thoughts on Lisa Wade's paper  DEFINING GENDERED OPPRESSION IN U.S. NEWSPAPERS The Strategic Value of “Female Genital Mutilation” 

This are some of the thoughts Calum Walker had on this paper and his discussion with Lisa Wade. Calum has an interesting blog (on the history of emotions ) here is the link   http://scotinexile.blogspot.co.uk//

I guess it makes sense for me to write from the perspective of a journalist who tries to cover issues like FGM on occasion, and agreeing entirely with Lisa’s assertions of what happens, I hope I can shine a little light on why such things happen.

 

I suspect many of the reporters might consider themselves socially progressive and keen to see their work as contributing to a debate on a subject that does not get much airtime and so therefore they see themselves as good journos for just raising the issue in the national or even regional media and might be quite shocked to see their work analysed in such terms.

 

Many would suggest that they did not see such contextualising (ie putting in the parallels with western examples of oppression/mutilation etc) as directly pertinent to the story, and in the brutal confines of limited space they may have a point. However, the concept of ‘what is the story?’ itself often requires challenging and that is something journalism prefers not to do, citing practical matters as ways of not having to address such things more profoundly. Journalism and the media can be quite unforgiving environments for making mistakes and this can lead to a conservatism in approaching the format or structure of what is considered news.

 

Sadly very few writers and editors or NGO activists will have read Edward Said’s ‘Orientalism’ and understood how crucial it is to avoid exoticising the other and lazily relying upon NGO’s as the new ‘experts’ to guide them through such things which means they do not have to examine the foreign and see how it might relate to issues in their own society, because they consider themselves the neutral or good norm by which other cultures fall short.

 

Lisa herself said in an email to me: “Despite the differences between what the journalists said and what they quoted the activists saying, in other forums some of the (especially early Western) activists did very much take a "exemplarist" tone.  So I think the journalists were mostly parroting the activists they were most exposed to.  I suspect they were also trying to be sensationalistic and, in this case, what got eyeballs to read their story also felt beneficial to the cause.  I did interview a couple, but this is mostly my sense of what was going on.”

 

Another level to that relationship in practice is the relationship of journalist to editor. Often a journo (often, though not always a freelancer who relies upon the editor for commissions) will write a piece and then have to edit/rewrite to better suit the needs of space and tone of the publication and sensibility of the editor, which can be fickle and not always considered. This then means the editor is keen to hype and sensationalise a story in order to make it ‘stronger’.

 

Editors would tend to describe in terms of making the narrative more powerful, simpler and clearer for the reader to understand but context is often the first thing to go in this quest for what they consider is a more clear story. Activists then see the finished piece and try to feed such styles as they see that as a way to raise awareness, which is an alternate currency in NGO circles as it often translates into cash when fundraising. It’s been quite interesting speaking to NGO activists over the last 15 years or so. It’s purely subjective on my part but it seems like there is less and less railing against how something is reported and a greater willingness to engage with the media on the media’s terms rather than by trying to improve the terms by which a debate or issue is reported.

 

But that then becomes a sensationalising loop which picks up bad habits so it comes as no surprise that lack of wider cultural context is quickly sacrificed if indeed it was there in the first place…

FRRG - Film analysis Girl With a Dragon Tattoo.

Since we usually read papers why don't we analyse a film this time. 'The girl with the dragon tattoo' by Stieg Larsson (Swedish version with subtitles) created quite a stir when released in English.

It will be nice to analyse the film and look at the way it treats gendered violence in Sweden and how violence against women isn't dependent on nationality. The movies/books also looks at ideas of human trafficking it will be interesting to look at that aspect too.

Refreshments will be provided.

MMU only has the the DVD for the first film if you have the other two could we borrow them? Thank you. 

Date: 7th February 2013

Time: 4:00 pm

Venue: Elizabeth Gaskell Campus M13 0JA

Women's Health Conference Manchester 7th March, 2012

If you would like to attend please register at www.thebha.org.uk/womenshealth or contact the BHA HIV and Sexual Health Prevention Team on 0845 450 4247. Places are limited.

For more information please do not hesitate to contact BHA.

A discussion on Gloria Anzaldua's book

We discussed  "movimientos de rebeldía y las culturas que traicionan" the second chapter in  Gloria Anzaldua's  book Borderland / La frontera: the new mestiza

Click here to hear an audio recording of the discussion.


Comments and critiques are welcome. 

Psychology of Women's Section annual conference call for papers

The annual POWS Conference is looking for abstracts here is a link to the website.

http://pows.bps.org.uk/pows/conference/conference_home.cfm

Bursaries for the conference are available too. 

Women in Prison: Sisters in Chains

25th January will be the protest and speak out in support of women prisoners in the US and the UK. It will take place outside Holloway Prison in London and if you'd be able to go, just go the facebook event page, sign yourself up and hitch a ride - or whatever it takes!

However, as a sister Bia Aziz in the Black Feminists group also told us:

Two-thirds of women in UK prisons are in for non-violent offences and the “criminalisation of survival”: shoplifting, non-payment of fines, sex work, offences linked to drug addiction and so-called benefit fraud – unlike well-paid bankers who steal from the public, women living in poverty get prison....

Women of colour are the fastest growing sector in the prison population and are three times more likely to get a prison sentence than white women. Immigrant women who are alone in the UK are often deprived of what families provide and suffer the agonies of separation.

Which raises the question. For those of us who think with our hands and feet, what is it that we can do to help ourselves. I do not speak for everyone in the FRRG, but in case I raise any concerns about the flavour of this new blog, please note I am not a great theorist nor am I very well read and I will never pretend to be. But the more of the world I see around me, as I see how easily we are pushed around by the vagaries of economic policy and trade indexes (look how a recession has left many of our social initiatives having to fight with each other and go cap in hand begging for scraps from local councils), I start to wonder: what is it that we can do?

This is all the more true for us women of colour who are as ever affected disproportionately. What can we do for our sisters and our daughters? How can we strengthen ourselves?

If you hold classes perhaps in practical skills or self esteem - do you need volunteers? Regular donations? A spare room? I am naive, I don't know the world, but as far as I can see, it is time for us to use the ingenuity that we have allowed to be crushed by our culture of consumerist capitalism that has reduced and disabled us, we liberated women of the 21st century!

The event can be found here.