Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts

5.03.2013

Typical Girls

I've run a night called Typical Girls on-and-off since 2010-ish, playing women fronted music and organising gigs to showcase women in bands. I started it in Sheffield and I've been thinking about finally organising a Typical Girls night in Manchester for a while so I'm ridiculously excited. There are a few of us organising it this time and we've had an amazing response from other people wanting to get involved too. We'll have bands and a zine stall and other lovely things and will hopefully raise some money for Rape Crisis.


3.04.2013

MMU FemLib society

The MMU FemLib society is starting to properly take shape, we've got some really exciting plans for the next couple of weeks and months. Currently thinking about visiting exhibitions, running workshops and outreach sessions as a society. Really exciting, especially since we're the only political society that exists within the Student Union!

logo I made this afternoon

our glorious flyers by myself and Hebe

2.22.2013

Reclaim the Night

Will actually write things here later but for now here's a picture of our amazing banner from Reclaim the Night yesterday.

2.14.2013

More Reclaim the Night things

I helped to organise a placard making workshop for Reclaim the Night with the beginnings of an MMU Feminist society yesterday. Here are some photos that Hebe took of things we came up with! 



We've started making a huge banner as well which should look marvellous. We also talked about creating a writing wall in the union where people could add their thoughts / experiences of sexual harassment and related issues.

2.12.2013

Reclaim the Night Placards

I went to a banner/placard making workshop for Reclaim the Night tonight and now I feel super motivated / inspired / all that good stuff. I ended up making loads and getting super carried away, I'm going to make some more tomorrow with women from MMU as well.

one of my placards
Reclaim the Night  is a women-led march pushing for justice for rape survivors and denouncing all types of sexual violence and street harassment. I went to the 2012 Reclaim the Night which was really good but I'm trying to become more actively involved in it this year because it's a cause I feel incredibly passionate about.

2.06.2013

Cristy C. Road and News From Nowhere

Yesterday I got the urge to just jump on a train and land somewhere that wasn't Manchester so I spent an afternoon wandering the streets of Liverpool.

After a few hours wandering I discovered News from Nowhere, a radical, workers co-operative bookshop at the top of Bold Street. They stocked books on a huge range of interesting and important topics from political to personal and back again. I really wish there was somewhere like this in Manchester!


I was super excited to see that they also stocked a large amount of zines on a wide variety of different topics. Most of exciting of all though, was the selection of awesome graphic novels that you probably wouldn't find in most other comic book shops. Amongst the graphic novels I found Spit and Passion by Cristy C. Road. I'd come across Road's work before but had never read any of her books.

Spit and Passion covers Road's early teen years growing up as a working class, Cuban, queer girl raised by her Catholic family in Florida in the early nineties. Her art isn't something I would usually be drawn to but after a few pages I was totally sucked in by it. It suited her story perfectly and I now absolutely love it. It also seemed like more of an illustrated memoir than a graphic novel  but it worked incredibly well. 


It was a really awesome read and made me feel both angry (in a good way!) and inspired. In short this book gave me all the feels.

I also bought Twigs and Apples #6 which I'm really looking forward to reading, it has such a gorgeous cover! I might do a post about some of my favourite zines soon, who knows.

Twigs and Apples 6

1.25.2013

Women and Comics

For my Contextualising Practice summative essay I've chosen to write about 'Feminism and the Fairy Tale', looking at the portrayal of women in traditional folk tales. After spending the last couple of months actively looking for graphic novels / comics either written by / aimed at women or with a female protagonist, I have decided to research this further with the possibility of discussing some of these issues in my essay. I borrowed From Girls to Grrrlz: A History of ♀ Comics from Teens to Zines by Trina Robbins from the library this week as a first point of reference, and I'm aiming to read Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics by Hillary L. Chute afterwards. The culture of comics, especially the more mainstream titles / publishers has always seemed been incredibly male dominated both in terms of producers of comics and the consumers and I would like to explore the various reasons behind this.