It’s difficult for women at every stage of becoming a musician.  There’s not enough role models, and the female musicians who are visible are usually airbrushed and pouting on the covers of magazines and album covers,  making young girls feel that they have to sexualise themselves to get anywhere.  If they do make it in to the local music shop they can expect to be patronised by the male staff, and then when they form a band, they end up forever playing lower down the bill while male bands headline.

The purpose of this project is to highlight the amount of sexist crap the average female-identified musician has to go through, by letting them tell their own stories.  We’re still looking for musicians (of all genders) to interview, so if you’re interested, get in touch!

http://shesprettygoodforagirl.blogspot.co.uk/

DIY Discussions is back with a vengeance in June & July! We’re still working out the details of all the fun stuff we’ll be doing and chatting about, but in the meantime get these dates in your diaries.. Also contact us if you have some ideas you’d like to share!

Please note the following CHANGE OF DATE! Wednesday 27th June 7.30pm onwards, please email us for the location: Join us to share skills on DIY tattooing (Stick ‘n’ Poke) and give each other summer haircuts. We will be discussing “Survivor’s in Solidarity with Prison Abolition” a project started by an anarcha-feminist group in the Philippines and contributing to a zine they are putting together. More info here.

14th, 15th, 16th July, time to be confirmed: We will be holding our July discussion at the Coal Action Scotland action camp “Take Back the Land” we don’t know exactly which evening it will be held on yet, but most likely it will be the 14th, 15th or 16th. We’ll confirm this nearer the time so keep an eye out for that. What we hope to be doing at the camp is skill-sharing camp based skills like how to make a fire – from chopping wood with different types of axes to lighting the fire. We’ll also hold a discussion on overcoming machismo and including feminist voices in direct action situations.  More info on the camp, what it’s all about and how to get to it here.

As always everyone is welcome to these events and we look forward to meeting you. Bring what you hope to find!

More general info on DIY discussions here

Thursday, June 21, 2012 7:30pm until 10:00pm

Another fabulous evening of chuckles galore and quite frankly, unrestrained and unladylike laughter with top women comedians and compere Sian Bevan, The Megaphone Choir, Susie, McCabe, Viv Gee, Larah Bross and special guests.

All welcome!

Venue: Edinburgh City Football Club
7 Baxters Place, Edinburgh
7.30 – 10pm
£5/4
FRENCH FANCIES! Free BAD TASTE RAFFLE! ZINES! ANTIMACASSARS! DOILEYS!
Tix on the door – to reserve call Fiona on 0131 557 5869

Also, if you would like to help organise a social, event, meeting, action or whatever! Contact us and we’ll get back to you so we can organise something together!

Challenging Convictions: Survivors of Sexual Assault/Domestic Violence Writing in Solidarity with Prison Abolition.

Like much prison abolition work, the call for this anthology comes from frustration and hope: frustration with organizers against sexual assault and domestic violence who treat the police as a universally available and as a good solution; frustration with prison abolitionists who only use domestic violence and rape as provocative examples; and, frustration with academic discussions that use only distanced third-person case studies and statistics to talk about sexual violence and the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). But, this project also shares the hope and worth of working toward building communities without prisons and without sexual violence. Most importantly, it is anchored in the belief that resisting prisons, domestic violence, and sexual assault are inseparable.

Organizers of this anthology want to hear from survivors in conversation with prison abolition struggles. We are interested in receiving submissions from survivors who are/have been imprisoned, and survivors who have not. Both those survivors who have sought police intervention, as well as those who haven’t, are encouraged to submit. We are looking for personal essays and creative non-fiction from fellow survivors who are interested in discussing their unique needs in anti-violence work and prison abolitionism.

Discussions of sexual assault, domestic violence, police violence, prejudice within courts, and imprisonment cannot be separated from experiences of privilege and marginalization. Overwhelmingly people who are perceived to be white, straight, able-bodied, normatively masculine, settlers who are legal residents/citizens, and/or financially stable are less likely to experience violence, while also less likely to encounter the criminal injustice system than those who are not accorded the privileges associated with these positions. At the same time, sexual assault and domestic violence support centers and shelters are often designed with certain privileges assumed. We are especially interested in contributions that explore how experiences of race, ability, gender, citizenship, sexuality, or class inform your understandings of, or interactions with cops, prisons, and sexual assault/domestic violence support.

Potential topics:
1.What does justice look like to you?
2. Perspectives on police and prisons as a default response to sexual assault
3. What do you want people in the prison abolition movement with no first hand experiences of survivorship to know?
4. How did you overcome depression/feelings of futility when dealing with these systems?
5. Critical reflections on why the legal system has or has not felt like an option for you
6. Perspectives on the cops/PIC participating in rape culture
7.Restorative justice and other methods for responding to sexual violence outside of the PIC? (if you are a settler be conscious of appropriations of indigenous methods)
8. How have you felt about conversations you have had about the PIC?
9. How sexual assault inside and outside of the PIC is treated by organizers against sexual assault, domestic violence, and the PIC
10. Police and prison guards as triggers
11. Responding to sexual assault and domestic violence when communities were not there for you
12. What the legal system offers survivors and what it does not
13· Rants at manarchists, the writers/directors of televised cop dramas, and communities that let you down
14· Survivor shaming for reporting and for not reporting to police

Please submit first-person accounts, critical reflections, essays, and creative non-fiction to survivorsinsoli@gmail.com by JUNE 15, 2012 with “Submission” as the subject line.

Please:
One submission per person;
English language (we are happy to work with authors who may need assistance writing in English);
Pseudonyms welcomed, as are name changes in the written piece.

If you are passing this on to someone without computer access:
We accept scans of hand written letters (please include contact info for the author);
Contact us if you require a mailing address.

Early submissions are encouraged. First time authors encouraged.

If you have questions, we welcome emails to survivorsinsoli@gmail.com with “Question” in the subject line. We are looking for both shorter pieces of writing and longer pieces, but if your piece is more than 20 pages consider sending us an email to run the idea by us.

Please attach a short biography that you are comfortable sharing with the editors (200 word max.). This is not about your credentials, but getting to know you and where you are coming from. All information you provide will be kept confidential.

About selection and editing: Submissions will be reviewed by a group of readers who will consider if and how each written piece could contribute to the finished project. Each piece will be read by at least two readers who will contribute to the decision to accept/reject/edit the piece. Some of us working on this project have been made to feel alone as both survivors and abolitionists. Some of us have managed to carve spaces within these communities. Now we are looking to open the conversation and hear from people we have never met, who have struggled to practice politics in a rape culture and police state. We believe that the needs of survivors matter in these movements, and we don’t need someone else to speak for us or about us as case studies and numbers. We want to hear from you.

For more information please visit: http://survivorsinsoli.blogspot.com/

Deutsch: http://survivorsinsoli.blogspot.com/p/deutsch.html


Espanol: http://survivorsinsoli.blogspot.com/p/espanol.html

Polski: http://survivorsinsoli.blogspot.de/p/jezyk-polski.html

Please distribute widely.

–
Challenging Conviction:
Survivors in Solidarity with Prison Abolition
survivorsinsoli.blogspot.com
survivorsinsoli@gmail.com

Date: Thursday 24th May
Time: 7.30pm
Location: 62 Marchmont road, Edinburgh
Researcher: Vanessa
Discussion: Sexism in Language

NOTE:  bring a laptop if you’ve got one!  As part of the discussion, we’re going to explore how sexism in our language and culture has been changing over time using this online linguistic corpus (just type in any words you want and it’ll show you how often those words appeared in google’s massive collection of books since 1800).  We’ll have enough laptops there for the break-out groups to use, but the more the merrier!

Reading:  Feminist meanings and the (de)politicization of the lexicon, by Susan Ehrlich and Ruth King.

Just read from the beginning through the end of page 64.
And optionally, the next section entitled “feminist linguistic innovations”.

To join the group please email betweenthelines.readinggroup@gmail.com

Date: Thursday 10th May
Time: 7.30pm
Location: 62 Marchmont road, Edinburgh
Researcher: Arielle
Debate: POLYAMORY
Readings:

The next topic is “Vegetarianism and feminism”, introduced by Lemor.

Readings are  the sections entitled “Virility, meat eating, and the politics of meat” and”The absent referent”, from the arcticle “Why feminist-vegan now?” by Carol J. Adams (in the journal “Feminism and Psychology” available here

http://ethik.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user_upload/inst_ethik_wiss_dialog/Adams__C._2010._Why_fem_vegan_in_femin_-pscho_302.full.pdf

For more details email us!