Feminism Conference London March 2011

Watch this space!  A colleage and I are putting together a 2 day conference on feminism for March of 2011.  We shall be releasing the CFP and CFArtists in the next few weeks. 

The conference builds on themes uncovered in a Workshop on Feminism and Heterosexuality held in 2009.  The website for that workshop is here: http://igrs.sas.ac.uk/index.php?id=318. 

The 2011 conference will not focus on heterosexuality. It will include topics dealing with feminism and religion, domestic identity, domestic violence, apathy in the academy as well as feminism's response to its critics, how to include men in the picture and/ or work with Men's Rights movements. 

Also, it's a woman only event.

We hope to have some money available to help with accomodation and travel as well, but probably won't have tons.

Women's Lib Movement - Conference March 12-13

Ruskin College in Oxford is hosting a Women's Lib Movement Conference in March.  No one told me!

Website: http://www.wlm40conference.org.uk/index.html
Details:

12-13 March 2010, Ruskin College, Oxford


In 1970, 500 women came together at the first UK Women's Liberation Conference organized at Ruskin College Oxford. The conference built on existing feminist and women's activism and formulated the first four demands of the Women's Liberation Movement. Were you at the original conference? Want to share your story with delegates for the 40th Anniversary conference?

In 2010, 40 years on, the Women's Liberation Movement @ 40 Conference will celebrate and explore the intervening period, feminist work and changes within society. The conference aims to bring together feminist and women's activists across borders (spatial, generational, political and demographic and others) to engage in debate and discussion around contemporary issues.
Featuring
•Keynote addresses by Shelia Rowbotham, Beatrix Campbell and others on the changing contexts of feminist and women's activism.
•Creative workshops
•Panel sessions on key moments and tactics
•Skills workshops on organizing
•Publishers and organization

The conference is supported by Ruskin College Oxford and the Oxford International Women's Festival .

Reminder: Irigaray Summer School 2010

Luce Irigaray rang yesterday.  Really. 

We got to know one another last year when I attended her summer school in London. Now, many of you might be a bit tired of me harping on about this, but I want to - at least one more time - put up a notice about her summer seminar for post-grads in 2010. The seminar was, without question, the most intense and rewarding experience of the time I've spent working on my PhD. Not only did Irigaray offer one-on-one interpretations of my work, she is also a window into an intellectual climate in France that is long gone - but for which many of us long. Irigaray was there during the May 68 revolt. She studied under Lacan and even got herself kicked out of his course. She is strong, hard-headed with a mind like a trap for philosophy. She expects discipline in a way that no-one does anymore. If you want answers, you will find them. If you have questions to discuss, she will discuss them.


Perhaps more importantly, however, is that if feel like you're in isolation - typing out your feminist thoughts in a vacuum that seems unconcerned or even antagonistic - you will get a break from that. The seminar introduced me to intelligent, creative people who were in the same boat that I was. My isolation was remedied! We still keep in touch.

_______________________
Invitation to the Seminar of Luce Irigaray, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, June 14-19, 2010.

Since 2003, Luce Irigaray has held an annual seminar for researchers doing their PhD on her work. The seminar offers the opportunity to receive personal teaching from Luce Irigaray and to exchange ideas, methods and experiences with other participants. The seminar was hosted by the University of Nottingham during the first three years (see Luce Irigaray: Teaching edited by Luce Irigaray with Mary Green, and published by Continuum, London & New York, 2008), by the University of Liverpool the fourth year, by Queen Mary, University of London, the fifth year and by the Goodenough College of London the sixth year. In 2010, it will be hosted by Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, in Ireland.



The framework of the seminar is this: a group of fifteen researchers doing their PhD on the work of Luce Irigaray stay one week on the university campus. The schedule includes: a presentation by each researcher of the aspect of their PhD which most focuses on the work of Irigaray, the discussion of this presentation by the group, comments from Luce Irigaray herself and her answers to questions raised by each participant. Also included are sessions devoted to the explanation of key-words or key-thoughts chosen by the participants. Personal meetings with Luce Irigaray are organised on the last day. The participants pay for their travel, but receive hospitality from the university. The seminar is conducted in English.



The participants in the seminar come from different regions of the world; they belong to different cultures, traditions and fields of research – Philosophy, Gender Studies, Religious Studies, Literature, Arts, Critical and Cultural Studies, etc. The themes of their research include, for example: the treatment of personal or cultural traumatic experience; the resources that various arts can offer for dwelling in oneself and with the other(s); the maternal order and feminine genealogy; the interpretation and embodiment of the divine today; the contribution of sexuate difference to personal and social development; new perspectives in philosophy etc. In each of these fields, diverse domains, approaches and methods are represented. To date, participants have come from Australia, Vietnam, Korea, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, Latvia, Spain, Italy, Ireland and from different regions and universities of the U.S.A. and of the U.K. Beyond the multicultural teaching which results from such a gathering, the participants learn to live together and to share in difference during the time devoted to the work, and also during meals, walks, personal meetings etc. The atmosphere of the seminar is intense but friendly and joyful, and its outcome highly successful for both the research and the life of each participant.



If you are interested and would like to participate in such a seminar please send, as soon as possible, a CV, a PhD abstract (1 page) and a presentation of the issues and arguments of your PhD that most focus on the work of Luce Irigaray (5-6 pages) to Luce Irigaray (by mail: 15, rue Lakanal, 75015 Paris, France). After receiving this material, Luce Irigaray will tell you if you can participate in the seminar of 2010. You will be contacted for further practical information by Marita Ryan at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick after the selection of the candidates.

Women in the Bible - Channel 4

I've really gotten into Channel 4's series, The Bible: A History.  Last night, Bettany Hughes brought us 'The Daughters of Eve'.  You can see it here:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-bible-a-history/episode-guide/series-1/episode-4

She made a really interesting point. She suggested that the female virginity clause in Christian doctrine was embraced by many women who had lived under the Pagan Eros.  These women were, in short, tired of having to have sex.  Christianity gave them the power and opportunity to say no for the first time.  I don't know my Bible history, and I'm positive there are problems with this interpretation, but on the surface she's got a point.  The right to say no might very well be a little discussed Christian gift to women.

I read so much French psychoanalysis and work inspired by French psychoanalysis, that I have often been led to think of Eros as the promise land of female sexuality - Eros is that thing we should all be aiming towards.  Hughes has countered that with something I have long wanted to write about: the perversion of the female 'no'.

Feminist post-grad, post-doc funding

If, like me, you're beginning to wonder what the future holds, you might be looking for funding in 2010. Finding funding to do any kind of a feminist-based, woman-based project can be incredibly difficult, particularly if you're doing philosophy in the UK.


I was excited to discover that the Leverhulme trust granted a Major Research Award to Madawi Al-Rasheed at KCL for the project 'A Masculine State: gender, religion and politics in Saudi Arabia. Check out the proposal here: http://www.leverhulme.ac.uk/news/Awards_in_Focus/Al-Rasheed/

I was also excited to see that the ARHC has awarded a Research Project Award to the project 'A History of Television for Women in Britain: 1947-1989 to three researches at Warwick. The project is detailed here: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/researchnews/history_of_television_for_women_in_britain/

Both of these projects give me a glimmer of hope that it is possible to do studies about women in the current academic environment in the UK and to get them funded. Now, if you're scrambling for a post-doc position next year, you might just be out of luck. Most deadlines to apply have come to pass. There are, however, two that I know of coming up next week.

Post-doc

- King's College London's Arts and Humanities Dept has a number of Early Career Fellowships on offer. The deadline is 19 Feb 2009. Who can apply is up to the individual schools in the department (and some of the schools don't even mention they have the Leverhulme opportunity) so get in contact quickly.

- Oxford also has four Leverhulme fellowships on offer. One in Classics, One in History and two in English. The deadline is the 15th of Feb and you've got to go through a lot of hoops to meet that one, so hurry: http://www.humanities.ox.ac.uk/research/applying_from_outside_oxford/leverhulme_early_career_fellowships/leverhulme_ecf_application_process
The rule of thumb for post-doc funding is that you must plan to apply before November the year before you want to start.

Post-grad
As far as post-grad funding goes, the AHRC offers plenty of funding across the UK to UK residents and citizens. Also the OSRAS is great for international students.

- Warwick is a good place to go to do feminist-based studies and they have an easy to understand funding website. http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/academicoffice/gsp/scholarship/funding/phd

- Middlesex is a good place to go if you want to do continental philosophy, though they give hardly any information about funding on their website. Best to get in touch: http://www.mdx.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/fees_funding/scholarships/index.aspx

- The Philosophy Department at the University of Liverpool is headed by Gillian Howie. She has been consistently involved in feminist philosophy and is a board member of SWIP UK. In other words, she's awesome. The University has a great Funding Search application that you can find here: http://www.liv.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/finance/scholarships.htm

- And finally, the Philosophy Department at the University of Dundee is also great for feminist philosophy. Johanna Oksala heads the department and lists feminist philosophy in her research interests. The school's funding page is listed here: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/philosophy/postgrad/pgguideapplicants.htm#fees

Christina Hoff Sommers

I've just come across the existence of Christina Hoff Sommers.  I have to say that if you believed woman had found the equality they sought to find 150 years ago and should now quiet down about the trivial inequalities, this is the 'thinker' for you.

Christina Hoff Sommers claims to be a philosopher.  A quick review of her publication history, however, suggests this is not the case.  The closest she's come to publishing something that resembles philosophy is Vice and Virtue in Everyday Life, an introductory volume to ethics that doesn't mention Aristotle, Paramendes, Kant, Hegel, Derrida or Levinas. Even Certeau is left out, which is surprising considering that 'everyday life' is in the title of the book.  Despite, or maybe because of these exclusions, this book is a best seller on the college textbook circuit in America. A fact that might explain why American students have no clue about the history of ethics.

Christina Hoff Sommers is not a philosopher.  She is a critic who has figured out a way to make a buck off criticising feminism.  Her other titles include:

Who Stole Feminism?: How Women have Betrayed Women
The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men

Do these titles scare you?  She says they shouldn't.  For her, it's time to criticise feminism. According to Hoff Sommers, popular feminism came to a halt in the 80s because it became too idealogical (i.e. too intellectual) and angry.  For her, feminism has and is based upon 10% of women who blame men for the evils in the world.  Feminism is thus invested in blaming men for all cultural and political violence.

I fully support criticising feminism and agree that feminist philosophy, as is true of all philosophy, is somewhat removed from the real life of real women.  In fact, I have become rather used to being the one in the room whom other feminists argue with.  I preach about female responsibility and that makes everyone tired, uncomfortable and angry.

HOWEVER, Hoff Sommers is doing something completely different.  She's bought into the idea that legal equality means real equality.  We all know this is not the case.  Legally, women in the US are treated the same as men. That's true, however, only when they 'act like men'.  Women who do any of the pesky things that make them women: have babies, menstruate, go through menopause, etc, are not treated the same.  When women are women, the equality breaks down.

For instance, in some companies, women who are on maternity leave no longer enjoy 401K matching by their employer.  Thus, they are paid for the 6 weeks of leave, but their future is no longer supported.  This has been to the courts.  I recently heard an American feminist thinker suggest that re-classifying pregnancy as a long-term illness would solve the problem.  I think that speaks for itself.

Hoff Sommers also does a lot of work on rape. She combs through statistics and points out how they don't match up, proving, in her mind, that rape is overvalued as an event. For her, the discourse on rape has created a non-existent crisis.  You can find one of her articles here: http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9502/sommers.html and an interview here: http://www.scottlondon.com/interviews/sommers.html.

I agree we should look more carefully at rape stats and not produce fear in women when there is none.  However, most of the world doesn't live in a quiet, middle-class, suburban, American neighbourhood that protects women from rape.  To assume that feminism is here only to talk about middle-class, American women is to forget, as Hoff Sommers does, that the rest of the world exists.  Feminism might have made enough gains in America to offer middle-class women the luxury of self-criticism, but without doubt, there are women alive and scared that feminism has not, nor will it ever, touch. So while it's great to be self-critical, we must do so in light of our global, not our local, achievements.

Men's rights

From what I understand, the Superbowl was plagued with commercials aimed at supporting men in a time when emasculation has become rampant.  I haven't seen any of these and welcome links pointing to them!

One of my favourite responses to the argument that men are being emasculated by Feminism came from the Daily Show last week.  It had me snorting with laughter.  You won't be able to see it in the UK or Europe (though it was obviously broadcast here), but it's here for those of you elsewhere:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Male Inequality
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

About 30 years ago, French feminism predicted that if Feminism took an equality to approach to rectifying the unequal status of women in society, a war of the sexes would break out.  America seems to currently be proving the French right.  Have a look at this website:

http://manhood101.com/

Their mission statement is:

Manhood 101 is a completely FREE resource. We are a growing community of men dedicated to reestablishing male authority and defending the male identity against the emasculating culture of Feminism.

By teaching men how to improve their social skills, establish relationships, properly care for women and defend their masculine role in society, we hope to change men's lives around the world.

What is fascinating here is that they have picked up on something that has inevitably been a basic trend when humans come to live together in large cities: the feminization of culture.  The fact is that the larger our cities get, the closer we are forced to live together. This proximity requires traits that are seen as 'feminine' such as cooperation, intuition about others, respect of others, quietness, etc rather than  'masculine' traits such as loudness, selfishness, individuality, etc.  This basic trend is not the result of Feminism, but is in fact a necessary shift if we are to go on living together in closer and closer proximity. The closer we get, the more 'feminine' traits are valued.

I'm all for men getting in touch with their maleness.  I fully support them finding ways of being together in the world beyond the sporting, drinking events that they seem limited to.  In fact, I think it would be fascinating to hear about any original takes on maleness they come up with, for, I agree, it's a state-of-being that is very, very prescribed.

I hope that at some level these men recognise the irony of their meetings. Remember it was women who got together in 'consciousness raising groups' in the 70s in order to figure out what it meant to be a woman.  Feminism made that happen for those women in exactly the same way that Feminism is making it happen for these men now.  The only difference being that men are doing it to re-establish their authority over the other, over women, whereas women were looking for self-understanding.

The day that men realise their maleness is not threatened by the feminine, but is threatened by a certain way of thinking that defines maleness in opposition to femaleness, is the day we will begin to learn something more about the being that is male.  I look forward to it!