2/27-2/28 Scholar & Feminist Conference: Action on Education

. Scholar & Feminist Conference: Action on Education

 http://bcrw.barnard.edu
Friday, February 27 – Saturday, February 28, 2015
 . Che Gossett — Love and Flames: Legacies of Black Queer & Prison Abolitionist Solidarity w/ Palestinian Struggle
Wednesday, February 11, 12 PM
 . Body Undone: A Salon in Honor of Christina Crosby
Tuesday, March 10, 6:30 PM
 . Without Cover of the Law: Writing the History of Enslaved Women
Tuesday, March 24, 6:30 PM
 . Jamaica Kincaid and Tiphanie Yanique – Caribbean Feminisms on the Page
Thursday, April 16, 6:30 PM
 . Rachel Eisendrath – A History of the Ugly
Thursday, April 23, 12 PM
 . Why Sex? Why Gender?: Activist Research for the 21st Century
Friday, May 1, 10 AM – 6:30 PM

Subject: Spring Semester at BCRW
From: Barnard Center for Research on Women <bcrw@barnard.edu
BCRW invites you to join us this spring as we celebrate the 15-year tenure of Janet Jakobsen as the Center’s Director. As always, we have an engaging slate of events, including our 40th annual Scholar & Feminist conference, a two day event engaging feminist frameworks on education. This semester will also feature panels, lectures, and salons that take up take up issues of disability and chronic pain, queer solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, the history of ‘the ugly,’ Caribbean literary traditions, and the history of enslaved women. Our spring events will conclude with a symposium on activist research for social justice in honor of Janet Jakobsen’s triumphant leadership of BCRW.

You can keep track of all the latest at our website, which includes event videos, educational resources, publications, podcasts, and other materials.

Creating the World: How to Foster Creative Community

Creating the World: How to Foster Creative Community
An Online Revolutionary Conversations with Gwen Lowenheim and David Belmont

March 13-April 10*

Registration: $135; Student/Retired: $75; Low Income: $50

*Conversation is asynchronous  — participants are in different time zones, and read/post messages on their own schedule.

Click here to register

Once the almost exclusive domain of artists and the academy, the public discourse on creativity is now filled with the voices of community organizers, entrepreneurs, educators, therapists and others exploring what creativity is and how people develop as creative agents of social change. In this online creative conversation led by educator and community organizer Gwen Lowenheim and musician/composer David Belmont we will look at how the latest discoveries in creativity, play, music, visual arts, theatre and improvisation can inspire creative community and social change.

Injustice: It’s Not Just Us- Panel Discussion, Manhattan Young Democrats

MYD Panel Discussion — Injustice: It’s Not Just Us
Tuesday, January 20, 2015 at 7pm
The National Black Theatre, 2031 Fifth Avenue
Following the recent events in Ferguson and Staten Island, we will provide an opportunity to learn about what we can do to tackle racial injustice from well versed experts in politics, social and criminal justice. Confirmed Panelists:
  • Dr. Christina Greer, Professor of Political Science at Fordham University, author of Black Ethnics and Political Commentator
  • Michael Skolnik, Political Director for Russell Simmons, Justice League Board Member and President of GlobalGrind.com
  • Linda Sarsour, Executive Director of the Arab American Association of New York and Civil Rights Advocate

Additional Panelists to be Announced! RSVP here.

Women’s Therapy Center Inst. Presents Indwelling: Living in a Female Body

Honoree and guest speaker Danielle Sheypuk, Ph.D. Expert, media commentator, disability-rights advocate and fashion model, Dr. Danielle Sheypuk is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in the problems of dating, relationships, intimacy and sexuality, particularly among members of the disabled community. Wheelchair-dependent since childhood, Dr. Sheypuk has acquired special insights into the challenges facing the community, both in the everyday physical world as well as in the areas of mental, emotional and interpersonal well-being.
In her innovative private practice, which uses Skype-based therapy sessions specifically for people with disabilities, she treats a variety of mental health issues, with a special focus in the areas of dating, relationships and sexuality. For more information, visit http://daniellesheypuk.com/skype-therapy

–News from ENDANGERED BODIES NY. In March, 2011, The WTCI convened an international summit – Endangered Species: Preserving The Female Body. Out of that, the Endangered Bodies Campaign was launched- partnering with like-minded body positive organizations (now in 8 different countries) who are engaged in the the same fight to free women’s/girls’ bodies from commodification and objectification.

–For the last 30 years, The WTCI has offered a Speakout, a time honored traditional forum for women to find their individual voice and share experiences, allowing the personal story of each woman to be heard, dignified, and transformed by our coming together.

Register

Saturday, March 7, 2015
1:00pm-3:00pm
Friends Meeting House
15 Rutherford Place @ East 15th St. between 2nd and 3rd Aves
(a short walk fr/Union Square) Registration: $30 / students, $20
Send-A-Sister Donation $25
All are welcome and underwritten tickets are available. Contact wtcinyc@mac.com

The International Conference on Masculinities in NYC

Kimmel Masculinity Conference 2014

Conference site

 

 

 

Paradigm Shift NYC Presents “HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY” Screening & Discussion with Therese Shechter, Filmmaker of “I Was A Teenage Feminist”, Abiola Abrams, Author

1:15:15 How To Lose Your Virginity Screening:Discussion Presented by Paradigm Shift NYC

LIMITED SEATING / Buy Discount Tickets Online!  

Thursday, Jan. 15, 2015
6:00 PM, doors open 5:30 
The Tank- 151 W. 46th St. (b/t 6th & 7th Ave) 8th Floor, NYC- elevator/wheelchair access.  Subway: N,R,Q to 49th St. or B,D,F,M to Rockefeller Center.  After the Tank, join us for drinks @ Quinn’s, 356 W. 44th St. 2nd Fl (b/t 8th & 9th)

FACEBOOK INVITE

CO-SPONSORS Trixie Films    Women Make Movies   City Headshots

Sponsor logos How to Lose Your Virginity

 

 

 

PARTNERS:  Bella Abzug Leadership Institute, Body Typed Film Project, Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities at Sony Brook University, FeministingGetBullish.com, Incite PicturesMan QuestionManhattan Young Democrats, New York Women in Film & TelevisionNOW Young Feminists & Allies, RiseupSoapbox Inc.The Feminist Press, WAM!Women’s Therapy Centre Institute

Sample post: 1/15 “How To Lose Your Virginity” Screening/Discussion with Therese Shechter, Filmmaker & Abiola Abrams, Author “The Sacred Bombshell Handbook of Self Love” https://www.facebook.com/events/365547780297548
TWEET!
1/15 How to Lose Your Virginity Screening/Discussion, Filmmaker @trixiefilms @abiolatv @PShiftNYC @virginitymovie bit.ly/1B3l1KJ

HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY

What if all we had to lose were our virginity myths?
A trixie films production

It has launched both purity balls and porn franchises, defines a young woman’s morality–but has no medical definition. Enter the magical world of virginity, where a white wedding dress can restore a woman’s innocence and replacement hymens can be purchased online.

This eye-opening and irreverent documentary explores why female virginity is still so valued in our hypersexualized society. Traveling through the worlds of religion, history, pop culture and $30 internet hymens, the film reveals the myths and misogyny behind a rite of passage that everyone thinks about but few truly understand.

Filmmaker Therese Shechter uses her own path out of virginity to explore why our sex-crazed society cherishes this so-called precious gift. Along the way, we meet sex educators, virginity auctioneers, abstinence advocates, and young men and women who bare their tales of doing it—or not doing it.

THERESE SHECHTER (Director/Producer/Writer) deftly fuses humor-spiked, personal narrative with grass roots activism and new media, most recently as the writer and director of the 2013 documentary HOW TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY. The film has appeared on television and in film festivals in the US and all over the world. She also curates the film’s online interactive project, THE V-CARD DIARIES, a crowed-sourced collection of over 200 stories of ‘sexual debuts and deferrals’ which was recently on exhibit at The Kinsey Institute.

Shechter was a panelist at Harvard’s “Rethinking VirginIty” conference, and frequently speaks at college campuses on virginity, feminism and sexuality. Her work has been covered by Elle, Salon, The Atlantic, Feministing, Forbes, The Guardian, The Jakarta Globe and CBC’s Q, among others. She herself has written for the Chicago Tribune, Talking Points Memo, Nerve and IndieWire’s Women & Hollywood.

Shechter’s first feature documentary, the award-winning I WAS A TEENAGE FEMINIST (2005), has screened from Stockholm to Delhi to Rio and at Serbia’s first-ever Women’s Film Festival. Her short documentary HOW I LEARNED TO SPEAK TURKISH (2006) won a Documentary Jury Prize at the Atlanta Film Festival, and her short film #SLUTWALKNYC premiered at the Hampton’s International Film Festival in 2013.

ABIOLA ABRAMS, AUTHOR & SELF LOVE COACH

Abiola Abrams, the author of the award-winning “Sacred Bombshell Handbook of Self-Love,” is known for giving bold and empowering advice on networks from MTV to the Discovery Channel. In addition to being an in-demand inspirational speaker, transformational coach, multi-platform author, and ESSENCE advice columnist, Abiola writes and broadcasts about the heart-centered lifestyle, reclaiming your personal power, and answering your calling.

Whether you call her America’s Self-Love Coach, the Midwife for Your Inner Life, or a modern day conjure woman, it’s time to become who we were born to be, and Abiola has the tools to help us get there. Our mothers had Dear Abby and we have Dear Abiola. She’s the Olivia Pope of your personal life. Consider it handled with her personal power process that breaks through fear and the inner voices that keep us playing small.

Martynka Wawrzyniak at Envoy Enterprises: The Consumptive Gaze — Heather Saunders

Martynka Wawrzyniak at Envoy Enterprises: The Consumptive Gaze

 

Well before literature popularized the approach of doing something radical for a year (living Biblically, cooking Julia Child’s recipes, etc.), there was Taiwanese, New York-based performance artist, Tehching Hsieh. In the 1970s and 1980s, he made five one-year performances, such as being tied to another artist with an 8-foot rope but never touching. An excerpt from the statement for his inaugural performance, in which he went into solitary confinement in a small room for twelve months, reads, “I shall have food every day.”

 

Fast forward to 2013, when Martynka Wawrzyniak began recording what she ate every day for a year. Wawrzyniak, who was born the year Hsieh’s first year-long performance wrapped up, is a New York-based Polish artist represented by Envoy Enterprises. In Feed (September 7–October 12), her fourth solo exhibition at the Lower East Side gallery in New York, she exhibited the documentation of her diet.

 

The burden of conceptual art is that it begs the question, “Is this art?” For instance, if I weren’t an artist, I might protest that I once recorded what I ate for a year to pin down food allergies, while an artist friend keeps similar records to ensure she allows three days between consuming the same ingredient, to keep old food intolerances at bay. The difference is that for Wawrzyniak, food is fodder for art:  installation, sculpture, two-dimensional work, and a bookwork comprised the show. The latter, displayed at the entrance of the gallery, contained photographs of the white cloth napkins she used to wipe her mouth after each dinner, paired with a list of ingredients. I actually wretched when I read in the press release that it was billed as an unconventional cookbook. However, displayed as it was—open to a random page—it read more as neutral, innocuous photographic documentation of the napkins that were stitched into an installation nearby. The cloth gloves beside the book acted as a link to archives and in turn, the documentary impulse. The dinner napkins, save for their stains, are identical, meaning that the artist used them rather than restaurant linens when she ate out. Granted, archiving in the traditional sense (where materials accumulate organically from actual use, as opposed to a collection being created purposefully) would have involved stealing napkins and contending with mismatched linens. Ultimately, it means that form was privileged over authenticity, throwing a wrench in the project of documentation. At the same time, Wawrzyniak tapped into the au courant tendency to post culinary images on social media, which is all about contrivance…and oversharing.

 

There was a definite push/pull experience in the show. The aforementioned napkins, which were stitched together and hung floor to ceiling in a spiral formation, are white—as are the framed paper napkins used to wipe her mouth after ingesting a daily green energy drink. Both arguably symbolize cleanliness or purity in Western culture. Yet the paper napkins hung in calendar formation—doubling as a modernist grid—resemble toilet paper, with their mossy green smears  marking a point in the digestive process. The hanging napkins, meanwhile, are somewhat free-flowing and the breeze of passersby could probably make what amounts to dirty laundry come uncomfortably close to the viewer.

 

I’m unsure whether I was supposed to walk through the spiral, but there was no sign of gallery staff to advise. It made for a surreal experience, as if I were intruding in someone’s personal experience. Evidently, the experience was intended to be social, as the artist describes her sharing of this body of work as functioning like a daily dinner party. The smears repelled more than enticed, though, compromising the reciprocation of enthusiasm. There was also no hint of the social experience at the time any of these meals were eaten. There was no indication of whether these meals were consumed alone, on dates, with friends, or at a rapid clip after feeding offspring. I did not perceive the frenzy of, say, artist Mary Kelly trying to make sense of parenting as she documented the development of her son, complete with stained nappies as art-artifacts. Food can be a deeply personal experience (or the expression ‘you are what you eat’ wouldn’t exist, nor would Margaret Atwood’s 1969 novel about food aversion, The Edible Woman) but the motivation for Wawrzyniak’s year-long endeavour remains elusive.

 

Where the personal did seem to creep in was in the two sculptures. Casts of the inside of her mouth and the outside of her abdomen in edible materials relate conceptually to her previous exhibition, Smell Me (2012), which culminated in the recent marketing of perfume of her own scent with nude advertising in Harper’s Bazaar. However, the sculptures don’t actually look good enough to eat, which, for me personally, shut down the consumptive gaze. I find myself wondering where they take the viewer that artists like Janine Antoni and Hannah Wilke haven’t already taken them with their chocolate busts of women. And where does Feed take the viewer overall that Tehching Hsieh didn’t already take them conceptually with a single line of text?

 

For images, please see http://www.envoyenterprises.com/#wawrzyniak

FEMINIST FILM FESTIVAL Sept 26-Oct 24 Five Fridays in the Fall

FEMINIST FILM FESTIVAL NYC
FIVE FRIDAYS THIS FALL

Joy of Resistance is thrilled to announce that we will be presenting the FIRST EVER Feminist Film Festival at WBAI! It will take place on five consecutive Fridays this Fall, starting on September 26 and running through October 24 (Sept. 26, October 3, 10, 17, 24).

We’ll present “feminist classics”–the defining feminist films of many eras–and some of the directors will be present in person or via Skype. We’ll also show rare documentary shorts, feminist comedy, and have some live performance.

Showings will take place at “The Commons,” at 388 Atlantic Avenue.

Doors will open at 6:00 PM for short films, with main features starting at 7:30 PM.

This is a benefit for WBAI: Suggested donation is $20, but a sliding scale of $10-20. will be in effect. Wine and popcorn will be available.

If you sign up to become a WBAI Buddy, between now and September 24, we’ll give you a free pass to all five evenings of the festival. Your name will be at the door. Sign up at: https://www.wbai.org/baibuddy.php.

For further information and to get emails about the specific films to be shown on each night of the festival, email feministfilmfest@gmail.com or go to joyofresistance.wordpress.com.

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE (check back for newly added releases):

Sept. 26, Jennifer Lee’s 2013 release “Feminist Stories from Women’s Liberation” (http://www.feministstories.com/film-clips) , getting rave reviews as it is shown across the country, with the Director to speak to us via Skype. Includes Betty Friedan’s last interview, the “Women of the World Unite” banner being placed on the Statue of Liberty in 1970, SNCC & feminism and much more. Followed by Bev Grant’s ‘Up Against the Wall, Miss America!’ (http://www.give2wbai.org/product_p/od0656.htm), documentary short of the Miss America Pageant Protest of 1968 (where women are rumored to have burnt their bras!). Bev Grant will join us in person to discuss the film.

October 3. “With a Vengeance: The Fight for Reproductive Freedom” by Lori Hiris (1989)http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c149.shtml)–a gutsy fast-moving film influenced by 60’s Avant-Garde cinema (Emile D’Antonio), shows history of abortion in this country, jump-cutting between movement pioneers, clashes with the Right, an early meeting of Black women formulating what would become “the reproductive justice movement” and much more. Cameo appearance by the great Flo Kennedy. “I Had an Abortion” (http://www.jenniferbaumgardner.net/i-had-an-abortion) by Jennifer Baumgardner and Jillian Aldrich. From a “celebrity feminist” to an 85 yr. old Harlem woman who tells what it was like in the 1930’s, women of many ages and communities tell their personal stories about abortion.

October 10th. An evening in Celebration of Indigenous People’s/Columbus Day. We’ll present “Salt of the Earth” (1954) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_of_the_Earth) a feature-length movie that was banned by the House-of Un-American-Activities Committee, about a strike by Mexican workers–within which women rebel against their husbands to participate in the strike. Then “La Operacion” (http://www.filmandhistory.org/documentary/women/operacion.php) by Ana Maria Garcia–the documentary that broke open the scandal that a third of Puerto Rican women had been sterilized in the 1950s/60’s because of U.S. population control policies. Films will be followed a LIVE PERFORMANCE by the Indigenous Women’s singing/spoken word group Mahina Movement! (https://www.facebook.com/mahinamovementcommunity) (Plus films TBA.)

October 17: Lizzie Borden’s cult classic “Born in Flames”(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born_in_Flames). A sci-fi journey into a post-revolutionary New York City where a Women’s Army, led by Black women, has formed to fully bring women into the revolution. With Flo Kennedy in a featured role! Must see!

October 24: Fundi: The Story of Ella Baker, (http://www.icarusfilms.com/cat97/f-j/fundi45.html) Joanne Grant’s brilliant film on the not-well-enough-known woman behind many of the great campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement. Features Sweet Honey in the Rock’s “Ella’s Song.” Sweet Honey in the Rock/Raise Your Voice! (http://www.whyy.org/community/sweethoney.html) Stanley Nelson’s award winning exploration of the world-acclaimed a capella singing goup will have you singing as you leave. (Plus films TBA.)

All screenings will take place at at 388 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, 1st Floor (between Hoyt and Bond streets–A, C or G to Hoyt-Schermerhorn/#2 or 3 to Hoyt Street).

9 Practical Leadership Power Tools to Advance Your Career

Book Review: Box Girl by Lillibet Snellings — by Heather Saunders

Book Review: Box Girl by Lillibet Snellings

Lillibet Snellings once had a job as unique as her name: for three years in a West Hollywood hotel lobby, she was one of the scantily clad women who lounged in a transparent box for four to seven hours as eye candy. ‘Lounge’ is actually misleading, since all the positions caused discomfort (she provides a hilarious description of the many options, such as the Nutcracker, which was devised to mask the fact that she was menstruating). The project, which began in 1998, is billed as an art installation, and within the box, the Box Girl is surrounded by installations that change monthly, such as pesky paper airplanes that fly into her face, thanks to a fan.

 

Snellings recounts her experiences in Box Girl: My Part-time Job as an Art Installation (2014, Soft Skull Press). Some chapters are as short as a single sentence, and they appear out of chronological order, making it what she calls a hybrid of sorts. Her interview for the Standard Hotel, for instance, occurs half-way through the book. She makes quite a few diversions from the act of being in the box, and though it seems like stream of consciousness, she consistently brings the content back to being a girl on display.

 

People’s reactions run the gamut, but the most startling to the author is a man asking if she is for sale. Experiences like these lead to feminist commentary broaching serious subject matter—such as comparisons to Hooters, a Playboy Club, and Amsterdam’s Red Light District—but never at the expense of her lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek writing style. When she inquires about the background of the box, she learns that it is a man who is responsible for the Standard Hotel’s design concepts. She quips, “Of course he is a man. This manufactured reality could only be hatched from the head of a man. Men like to think that women lie around on their living room floors wearing itty-bitty white shorts and tiny white tank tops, always looking pretty, never making a mess” (p. 81). That is the extent of the rant. Her biography brings the theory of art historian/author John Berger to life without dwelling on theory, which makes the book great leisure reading. Although she touches on feminism throughout, she doesn’t take a firm stand. To her question, “Am I a piece of art or a piece of ass?” (p. 220), she concludes maybe neither, or maybe both. What matters to her is that she feels empowered.

 

In this coming of age tale, Snellings describes her transition from English graduate to the real world, cobbling together internships and freelancing in her field with a variety of LA-type jobs like part-time model and actor. Even though she moved across the country from Connecticut with friends and is essentially on her own, her attachment to her family is undeniable. Her parents, who are bewildered by her hotel gig, are polar opposites and even when she writes about them with frustration, her underlying love is clear.

 

In spite of brushes with fame that come with the territory, Snellings’ focus is on her many foibles. She writes with the flare of Helen Fielding, she of Bridget Jones fame, though with more introspection. From crying in the box on Valentine’s Day, to getting an asymmetrical mullet in a hair show, to having a photo of herself rejected from a magazine featuring a spread on ‘real people,’ she channels Jones’ goofiness and bad luck. Also reminiscent of Fielding’s protagonist is her  love of wine and her obsession with her weight (case in point: she beams when an onlooker questions whether or not she is real, since mannequins do not have cellulite). Snellings’ self-deprecation would be more convincing if her bio photo didn’t reveal that by all accounts, she is beautiful. To her credit, Snellings reveals that it’s all relative, living as she does in the capital of models and celebrities.

 

Interspersed with the ‘OMG, I can’t believe this is my life’ track are astute observations about culture. For instance, Snellings draws parallels between the voyeurism and artifice of the Box Girls and 2.0 culture. And the few art references she includes are spot on, like connecting Manet’s Olympia to the fact that eye contact is verboten for Box Girls, or seeing Box Girls as performance artists in the spirit of Marina Abramovic. There are witticisms throughout, but blink and you could miss them, because she doesn’t draw them out, instead maximizing punchiness. I can’t shake the feeling that the sparing revelation of her intellect combined with her comical self-deprecation reflects the message women have been given historically: that they shouldn’t appear too smart. Nonetheless, Box Girl: My Part-time Job as an Art Installation is highly recommended.

 

 

Cover courtesy of Soft Skull Press.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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