Women Literary Events

The Sydney Writers festival is coming up - they've just released their schedule of events. I always scan looking for feminist and women's (perhaps even mothering - hardly likely) events.

I'm finding their picture a little confusing. I know their theme is private vs public, but the picture of a woman with her eyes and mouth blanked like in the photos of people who are naked and abused is confronting. Maybe not in the way they intended. I'm not comfortable with it. I guess they were going for 'edgey'. I'm calling it 'distasteful'.

Anyway, here's what they're offering this year.

The Feminist Supremacy? With Kathy Lette, Tara Moss, Emily McGuire, Catherine Deveny and Julia Baird.

http://www.swf.org.au/component/option,com_events/Itemid,124/agid,3114/task,view_detail/


Girl Trouble, about chic lit, with Toni Jordan, Kathy Lette and Gretel Killeen.

http://www.swf.org.au/component/option,com_events/Itemid,124/agid,3083/task,view_detail/

Women on Top, workshop with Toni Jordan

http://www.swf.org.au/component/option,com_events/Itemid,124/agid,2928/task,view_detail/

Subject and Self: Muslim Women Writers Talk, with Randa Abdel-Fattah, Nasrin Mahoutchi-Hosaini, Eugenia Flynn, Samah Hadid

http://www.swf.org.au/component/option,com_events/Itemid,124/agid,3058/task,view_detail/

With My Body, Nikky Gemmell

http://www.swf.org.au/component/option,com_events/Itemid,124/agid,3089/task,view_detail/

Now, I'm not saying I'm going to all these. Or any. I'm a bit ennuied with literary talks and writers' festivals. I realised years ago that they are marketplaces for selling books, not ideas. They are places for people with disposable time and income to gather tales for their dinner parties. They don't actually change anything. (Silly me...)

Also, The Hoopla is holding a literary lunch to support the Stella Prize, a new award for women's writing.

http://thestellaprize.com.au/

See Monia Dux on why we need to support women's writing here:

http://thehoopla.com.au/hoopla-stella-lunch/?cpg=2

I pretty much only read women's writing these days.

But of course, I'm hoping that anyone interested in these events will be attending the Mama Wordsmiths event on Mothers Day at the Tap Gallery, which is the final event of the Mamapalooza Sydney festival, and which I'm hosting.

Feminist edition of Granta magazine

The latest edition of Granta 115 - The F Word, has all female contributors. You can read some of the pieces online here. (A poem by Sharon Olds included.)

http://www.granta.com/Magazine/115


The Guardian has a podcast of interviews with Tea Obreht, who won The Orange Prize with her novel TheTiger's Wife, and the other finalists, as well as the editor of Granta. About literature and feminism. It goes for about 30 minutes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/audio/2011/jun/10/tea-obreht-ann-patchett-feminism-podcast


Also, this piece about VS Naipaul having a go at female writers. Cheer as you read the comments. Avoid if you have had enough of men being dicks.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jun/02/vs-naipaul-jane-austen-women-writers

Advocacy and Agency

I have received a notice about an upcoming conference by MIRCI in Toronto on Motherhood Activism, Advocacy, Agency. I receive these kinds of notices quite frequently. The reason I want to share this one is because I was struck by the range of titles the speakers at the conference have written. And by the kind of work women are doing - advocacy work that is important. I'm finding it reassuring and inspiring that women are doing this work. So here is the list of Confirmed Keynote Speakers:

Cindy Sheehan, Peace and Social Justice Advocate

Gayle Brandeis, National Staff, CODEPINK: Women for Peace

Tara Brettholtz, President, Mothers and More

Deborah Byrd, Lafayette College, co-editor of Teaching Against the Isms

Cheli English-Figaro, President Emerita of Mocha Moms, Inc.

Rachel Epstein, Coordinator, Sherbourne Health Centre's LGBTQ Parenting Network

Robbie Davis-Floyd, University of Texas, Austin, author of Birth as an American Rite of Passage

Ariel Gore, founding editor of Hip Mama

Fiona J. Green, University of Winnipeg, author of Feminist Mothering in Theory and Practice, 1985-1995

Diana Gustafson, Memorial University, author of Unbecoming Mothers

Pat Gowens, founder of Welfare Warriors, editor of Mother Warriors Voice.

Erika Horwitz, author of Mothers' Resistance to the Western Dominant Discourse on Mothering

Amber Kinser, East Tennessee State University, author of Motherhood and Feminism

Jeanette Corbiere Lavell, President, Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC)

D. Memee Lavell-Harvard, President, Ontario Native Women's Association (ONWA)

D. Lynn O'Brien Hallstein, Boston University, author of White Feminists and Contemporary Maternity

Andrea O'Reilly, York University, Founder/Director, MIRCI

Karen Shain, Policy Director, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children

Wow. So, on International Women's Day, I want to say thankyou to all the women who are doing this kind of work.

And to all the people who work in agencies that provide microloans, train community health workers, dig wells, distribute mosquito nets and other work in developing countries - thankyou.

I'll end with some quotes distributed by MIRCI on International Women's Day.


"[Mama]...maintained traditional family values and still worked toward change. I have come to realize that I can be a mother, educator, wife, feminist - each identity not exclusive of the other but impacting on each other and on my development as a woman."
- Karen Diaz, Author



"Empower women and you will see a decrease in poverty, illiteracy, disease and violence."
- Michaelle Jean, Journalist; Stateswoman



"Feminism's agenda is basic: It asks that women not be forced to 'choose' between public justice and private happiness."

- Susan Faludi, Journalist; Author



"A free race cannot be born of slave mothers."

- Margaret Sanger, Nurse; Activist


For facts and figures about gender inequality, click here:

http://www.unicef.org/gender/index_factsandfigures.html

Honoured feminists disassociate themselves from the f word

In SMH today - a piece by Nina Funnell.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/leading-women-lay-off-the-fword-but-are-we-better-served-without-it-20110209-1amy3.html?comments=19#comments

This year, to coincide with the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, the Australian Postal Corporation printed four stamps commemorating the contributions of four feminist "trailblazers", Germaine Greer, Anne Summers, Eva Cox and Elizabeth Evatt.


Only here is the peculiar thing. During the lunch to launch the stamp, the word feminism was not uttered once. Zero. Zip. Niente....

Afterwards I spoke to Greer to get her thoughts on it all. "Feminism?" she queried. "Oh it's such an old fashioned word anyway." Cox and Summers went one step further, describing the word as both traditionalist and conservative.

"To be honest, I am not - and never have been - hung up on the word 'feminism','' says Summers. ''I never used it when I was young because feminism was seen as very conservative and backward-looking then. Today's young women have a similarly disdainful attitude. They see feminism as old-fashioned - just as we did when we were the same age. To me, what matters is that women (and men) support women's equality and all that is needed to achieve that. It's what we think and how we act that really matters."

Cox adds that feminism was an extremely conservative term and so "was not the term preferred by many '70s activists who used the term women's liberation [which was considered far more radical]".

Um, I'm sure I've seen and heard these women at feminist conferences. I'm sure I've heard them use the word amongst other feminists. What is going on here?

While I do understand that walking the walk is more important than talking the talk, and that the word has negative connotations that cause young women to not identify a feminist, I also don't understand why these older, active women want to distance themselves from the word. Did they have a meeting and agree on this?