Feminist Party!

The Women Up North ‘Afterparty’. I’m making a feminist playlist so any suggestions will be gratefully received!

Women Up North Timetable

Here the timetable for all the workshops at Women up North so you can plan your day, sadly I can see loads of clashes, but that’s just cos I want to go to everything!

Room >	Hall	Arts and crafts space on stage:	Room 2 (Holds 40)	Room 3 (Holds 20)	Room 5 (Holds 14)	Creche/Room4     (1-4:30 pm only)
10-10:30	Registration/drinks
10:30-11	Welcome! Talks on Rape crisis movement and Adrienne Rich		xxxxxxxxxxxxx	xxxxxxxxxxxxxx	xxxxxxxxxxxxx	xxxxxxxxxxxxx
11-12 Workshop 1	Women in pop culture (Nic & Jen)	Feminist Bunting & Origami cranes	Xxxxxxxxxxxxx	Women In sport (Jiff & Gussy)	Sexuality (Dona)	Xxxxxxxxxxxxx
12-1 Workshop 2	Singing  for all- (Margaret)	Feminist Bunting & Origami cranes	xxxxxxxxxxxxx	Eating &Diet Industry (Heather)	Surviving sexual abuse (Julie)	xxxxxxxxxxxxx
1-1:45	Lunch		Lunch	Lunch	Lunch	Creche opens
1:45-2pm	Wast  Nightingales Choir	Feminist Bunting & Origami cranes	xxxxxxxxxxx	xxxxxxxxxxxxx	xxxxxxxxxxxxx	Creche
2-3pm Workshop 3	African Dance- Afrocats	Feminist Bunting & Origami cranes	Anger, Justice &Revenge- (Kate M)	Veganism as feminist issue- (Helen)	Black Women’s space (Sam)	Creche
3-4pm	Self-defence (Jiff)	Feminist Bunting & Origami cranes	Bike maintenance- Bloomers	Womb for Rent- (Adi)	Working class women’s space (JC &KM)	Creche
4-4:30pm	Closing comments, evaluations and What now? Announcements		xxxxxxxxxxxxx	xxxxxxxxxxxxx	xxxxxxxxxxxxx	Creche

More Women Up North Information

A new workshop has now been added to the programme- Bike Maintenance (which is pretty great if like me you have a broken bike in the hall, although I might need it before June). We also have some uploaded some Workshop descriptions to the page and many more will follow as well as a timetable to the day, so you can get planning ahead. Some pretty great raffle prizes have been secured, if you like personal training and socks that is. If you would like to use the creche please get in touch but it’s not a problem if you want to turn up on the day.

And remember to spread the Word.

April Meeting

A bit last minute but this month’s meeting is set for this Saturday (14th) as usual 2-4 at Friends Meeting House on Mount Street.  We will be discussing MFN groundrules and consensus decision making and an update on Women Up North and Object Campaigning. Then we’ll probably go to the pub for informal socialising (the best bit).

And remember for information on Women Up North click on the above tab.

March Meeting

March’s meeting will be on Saturday 10th March from 1400-1600, the meeting will be about Object campaigning in Manchester, Women Up North and Reclaim the Night planning. There will also be a chance to sell feminist books and DVDs to raise funds for Women Up North.

Manchester Feminist Network will also be at Manchester town hall for the International Women’s Day event on Sunday 4th , where we will be running a workshop on objectification. This will be after attending the Million Women Rise March in London on Saturday 3rd. International Women’s Week is a very busy time for feminists.

Women Up North 2012

This years feminist gathering has been confirmed for Saturday 9th June 2012 from 10:30-16:30 at the Friends Meeting House.

There will be many workshops including Women & Sport, Drumming, Women, Anger, Justice &Revenge, Black women’s space, Self-defence, Women & Pop culture, Feminist issues in surrogacy, Working class womens space, Eating & the Diet industry, Arts and Crafts, Veganism as a feminist issue. There will also be Food, Stalls and an evening soiree with music, poetry & dancing.
Put the date in your diaries now and watch this space for more details!

February Meeting

The next Manchester Feminist Network Meeting will be on the 11th Feb, from 1400 to 1600 at the Friends Meeting House on Mount Street. The first half of the meeting meeting will be a singing workshop, however do not worry as the focus will not be on musical ability. Moira Hill (who will be leading the singing) believes that everyone can sing and should have fun while doing so. Moira is a singing teacher who runs several choirs in Manchester, one women only. The second half of the meeting will be feedback from the Women Up North and Reclaim the Night planning meeting, hopefully by this time we will have set a date for the events and have an idea of the workshops at Women Up North. There will be a chance for people to raise any other issues which are likely to include the opening of the strip club on Deansgate and International Women’s Day.

In order to raise funds for Women Up North we are asking if women can bring unwanted books, dvds etc (preferably with a prowoman take) to meetings so we can have a little bookshop at the end of each meeting.

MFN in 2011

Last March I did a summary of everything that Manchester Feminist Network had achieved and at our last meeting we discussed all the things we had done since. Below is a brief summary the year if you want to look further back here’s a link to the previous post  http://manchesterfeministnetwork.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/history-of-manchester-feminist-network/.

In March 2011, MFN attended the International Women’s Day at Manchester Town Hall, we had a stall which provided a great opportunity to network and talk to other feminists in Manchester. It was also the day of MFN’s first ever workshop about what feminism is.

May 7th was the date of MFNs biggest undertaking which was the Feminist Gathering- Women Up North. This was a day of  workshops and discussions followed by a feminist disco. As the day was such an enjoyable experience for everyone who attended, a good chance to meet some great women and learn more about feminism, MFN have a decided that we will be putting a similar event this year. When we have further details, they’ll be put up here.

In the summer months we also took part in the Manchester SlutWalk, went to UK Feminista conference, supported the Mother’s Against Violence march and went on stealth stickering pub crawl and karaoke.

In August MFN went our first holiday to Horton Women’s Holiday centre where we climbed Pen-y-Ghent, learned self defence and drank lots of whiskey. Horton is a great place for women to relax and have a holiday, find out more here http://www.hortonwhc.org.uk/.

October was the Playboy Protest which really raised MFNs profile in the press and also gave our members a chance to discuss the issues surrounding playboy and the objectification of women with the general public. Watch a video of the demo here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aim8WDYB0n8, also please post some positive comments, trolling can get you down.

As a joint venture with Million Women Rise, MFN also put on a screening of Pray the Devil back to Hell a film about the success and struggle of Liberian women. There will be more MWR film screenings, look out for the details.

At the end of the year we put on some very popular sexual health discussions which were very well attended, and taught us all lots about things we don’t generally want to discuss or to seem ignorant about.

The best things that have come out of Manchester Feminist Network in 2011 are the growth of the group, recruiting new passionate and intelligent feminists, networking with other feminist groups and our increased presence in the press.

Next Meeting

The next meeting will be next Saturday, 14th Jan, 1400-1600 at the Friends Meeting House on Mount Street. The subject of the meeting will be  a Review of 2011, Feminist New Year’s Resolutions and Planning for this year. Things already in the pipeline are planning a Reclaim the Night march and another Women Up North event (Feminist Gathering) so it’ll be a really good meeting for new women to attend as they will be able to see what we have done and it’ll be a good opportunity to contribute your ideas. As always the meeting will be followed by a trip to the pub, which is a good opportunity to vent your frustration from living in this patriarchal world.

Sexual Health Discussions

In last months meeting there wasn’t enough time to discuss to all the aspects of womens health that MFN members wished to therefore the next meeting on the 12th November will be discussing additional areas of this topic. Some issues were touched on in the meeting however there will also be time to raise new topics. Here is a roundup of the topics discussed in last meeting, the meeting started with members writing what sex means to them; as was a large variation in the responses this is something that is likely to be discussed in the next meeting.

Our feminist doctor then talked us through the anatomical parts of the female organs, which as a former biology student I was surprised at what I didn’t quite understand. I remember that when I was at school I used to find looking at these diagrams really hard as I felt so disgusted by them, but I think from understanding my body (internally and externally) I’ve found it a lot easier to cope with. I think this is partly that when studying biology I felt forced to look at my body in a scientific and anatomical way which I found hard as I could feel all these things inside me and to look at myself in this way felt like I was trivialising it. The fact the female body is looked at in this way is probably due to the fact that scientists and doctors tended to be male in the past and could only understand the female body in a detached way. So basically just another string in patriarchys bow and finding an environment where you can talk about women’s health is very rare and important.

As I am under 25 I have never had or been offered a smear test and until this discussion I only had a vague idea of what they were. http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Cervical-screening-test/Pages/Introduction.aspx for more information its probably best to look at this nhs link. It also seemed that many people who had had smear tests didn’t really know what they were and were confused as to whether or not they had had smear tests or just STI tests. People were also unfamiliar with the equipment used, which does look very scary, a bit like a plastic duck head, I think it’s really shocking that so many women aren’t told much about an invasive process that they are having. As the process is incredibly invasive members of the group also wanted to discuss the possibility of alternative testing methods for sexual abuse survivors, sadly there don’t seem to be many. The only option is a self testing kit which can only tell you if you are at high risk of ovarian cancer however if you are found to be at risk you will still need further testing which is clearly problematic, the tests are also expensive.

Next meeting we will discussing, libido- the perceived difference in men and women, which is another way of reinforcing gender stereotypes. An MFN member also wanted to talk about cystitis as she had a severe case and this wasn’t taken seriously and it seems to be something that women have to suffer with in silence. Other topics will be vaginal health in ageing and rectal health

Meeting is Saturday 12th November, Friends Meeting House 1400-1630 there will also be an opportunity to discuss other topics and future MFN activities.