From Sexual Ambiguities

Feminism For Freaks

At its best, feminism offers an emancipatory potential from gendered oppression, inequality, and violence. At its worst, however, feminism can work to simply affirm the rights of middle-class, heterosexual, white women, and exclude the voices of already-marginalised groups such as women of colour, trans* women, sex workers and so on.

Like Derrida’s democracy, a truly liberatory feminism is mostly a feminism to come. Not un-coincidentally, those marginalised groups of women are often demonised by the dominant culture, rendered as monstrous, simultaneously invisible and hyper-visible, compelling and threatening, desirable and disgusting–and forever denied a voice ofour own. The question of if and how monstrosity can be reclaimed or re-worked is a vexed one for feminists.

We therefore invite proposals that affirm the voices of socially excluded people, that seek to create new and exciting knowledge and address themselves to feminist theory and activism or the wider culture, on such topics including, but not limited to:
* Monstrous bodies and identities
* Social marginalisation and exclusions (for instance, borders, walls,and immigration laws, and the silencing of voices such as those of women of colour and transgendered people)
* Liberation/transformation/organisation
* sex work
* queer sexualities and genders
* BDSM
* Visible signs of difference (Muslim women wearing the veil, disabled bodies etc)
* religion and spirituality
* freaks in popular culture, body modification etc
* fat positivity

Academic, non-fiction and creative work will be considered–the call is broad, and we’re willing to accommodate new and interesting work by freaks of all kinds. Please submit abstracts of up to 250 words and a short bio by May 31st to estrangedcognition@hotmail.com and suzanmanuel@gmail.com

*Note – Given that some contributors may not feel safe or comfortable telling their stories in the public sphere, submissions under pseudonyms will be accepted.

If you haven’t subscribed to make/shift magazine, you are truly letting a happy pill slip right through your fingers. Saddle up for the most respectable, exciting, and edgy feminist publication in print.

Do yourself a favor while you enjoy the warming temps of Spring, grab your make/shift mag, a patch of grassy park, and daydream feminist action.

The Iss. 4 (due out in Fall ’08) will be my first issue as one of the editorsl! Reason #2 to get a subscription!

It’s like my very own infomercial.

I’m selling a priceless gem – the hope and creative energy that fills a room with history, respect, love, and vision.

If you haven’t caught on by now, I’m really trying to organize my life right now – writing, deadlines, travels – and still get my posts up about this weekend at WAM. There’s an incredible amount of conversation that took place this weekend and I’m working on a long post about that.

Until then, let this whet your beak a bit – I made a little snippet of the session I led with Nadia, Lex, and BA – We B(e)lo(n)g: Womyn of Color and Online Feminism. In honor of the amazing voices that shared so much, from the bottom of my Pinay feminist heart, Thank You. In our session each womyn spoke a wish, a wish for a world in where She could see herself live, flourish, speak, dance, be angry, in love, and witness justice. These wishes were honored and some even came true right in that room!

I tell ya – the power of radical wishing…

See the flick here on YouTube or here at Fem Watch.

Contigo,
Sudy

I just dropped off Nadia at the airport and have so much to blog about this weekend, I’m jotting down my notes so I don’t forget everything.

I’m going for a long walk right now with Adonis for some much needed exercise and quality time with beloved. The weekend was inspiring and energizing and thought-provoking.

SO much more to come…

Contigo.

It’s not easy hosting brilliant feminist thinkers in one apartment. Adonis and I welcomed BFP, Nadia, Lex, and Jess Hoffman from Make/Shift into our humble abode and are trying to keep up with everyone’s energy.

This morning, we were cutting it a bit close as I drove like a mad womyn through the crowded streets of Boston to get BFP to her 11am session. We arrived at 10:54am and I ran through the parking lot to make it in time for the opening talks. The speech BFP gave can be found on her blog. There’s no way to sum up the injustices that are happening on our borders and how womyn are being abused, beated, mocked, and torn away from their children. But, the panel was really terrific and shed light on an issue that cannot be denied as a womyn’s issue. Including myself in this vow, for those who ignore the violence at the border done to migrant womyn, it is erroneous to claim one is a feminist or engages in feminist discourse. These continuous infractures of human rights on US soil is a feminist issue. Period.

The Radical Womyn of Color Bloggers’ Caucus had a few bumpy spots, to say the least. Our room was double booked and we got booted to another building. By the time we got settled and going, we only had 30 minutes left of a one hours session. Nonetheless, those 30 minutes were filled with question, passion, and struggle. What amazes me most about deep conversations with womyn of color is how different we are, how contrasting our opinions can be, but somehow it stays streamlined and flows with the utmost respect and understanding.

The second session was the one I originally proposed, “We B(e)lo(n)g: Womyn of Color and Online Feminism. The space that we created was filled with incredible voices and generous minds who spoke gratitude, wishes, and vision for a world of healing, belief, and justice. I wasn’t sure how the session was going to go, but I know that there was one moment that I will never forget for the rest of my life.

After the session, I was catching up with Adele Nieves about her rocking book proposal for which she has worked her patooty off. A young womyn, maybe 19 or 20, stood quietly behind me and tapped me on the shoulder. I turned and recognized her fresh eyes and smile – a radiant participant in the session I just helped convene. She threw her arms around me and whispered into my ear, “Thank you. I have to go, but thank you.” When I pulled back to see her face, she skittered off and left before I could ask her name.

That moment will likely fill me for many days to come. A simple, conventional gesture turned miraculous offering, an embrace of thanksgiving gave me a clarity that can only come with such a young person. What I helped create helped someone else. I don’t know how, why, or to what depth. But, a stranger’s embrace healed any pain I had felt that week and any anxiety I had about the presentation. I touched one.

And she thanked me.

I was left to ponder Gloria Anzaldua. This young womyn and her fierce Thank You reminded me exaclty how I felt when I read Gloria Anzaldua for the first time. I was overcome not only by her power, but what came out of me because of her honesty. I became a better human because of her work.

I’d like to think that perhaps, in a small way, I helped someone else today too.

Contigo,
Sudy

Reflections at the beginning of WAM – my peminist (Pinay feminism) daydreaming.

The truth is about feminism is the same truth about media: we trap ourselves when we soley focus on our individual liberation. Feminism is not a concept or an assumption I make because a few womyn say so. Feminism is the question, the deepest question of all curiosities that rises and falls to the beat of the unanswered, “Are we free?”

This Pinay, this peminist says No.

We will never be free if we continue along a capitalist ideology that exhorts a pro-wealth, mass production/distribution model of media. We will never be able to hear anything beyond the roar of machinery and the sound wind of money. Freedom has been distorted so that womyn and men alike believe that telling two separate, engendered stories on the same page is equality. Or that once we are paid for our labor as media makers, our work has been brought full circle. The growth and immediate gratification model plagues every social ill we can name and every significant corporate mongor.

The truth about feminism is that we cannot imagine the road to change if it comes back in exclusive dividends. It is meant for the freedom of others who are not here, who have died in vain, in violence, in secrecy, in the dark, and in fear. Feminism, until it thwarts itself from the clutches of materialistic greed, will never liberate anyone. It will succeed in a half-mast victory for a few handfuls of women who’ll erroneously assume the battle was well-fought and won.

Here’s an update as to what I am reading these days….

Powerful and personal….

Charged

Poetics

Video Inspiration

Politics of Baby-Wearing

Presidential Thoughts

On Loving Bint…