Donate online

Do you or people you know have some extra change for change? It's a bad joke but for a good cause: we now have a way for anyone to donate any amount to Feminist Action Project through PayPal. To check it out, go to Donate online under Pages in the left frame, or follow this link:

http://feministactionproject.blogspot.com/p/donation.html

Every contribution goes straight toward event supplies, registration funding, and especially bringing Loretta Ross to come speak and inspire us.

If you would like to donate through the mail or in person, please feel free to make out a check or money order to UT-Austin with Gender and Sexuality Center in the notes. The canceled check serves as a tax-deductible donation receipt! Please e-mail us or call at 512-232-1831 if you have any questions.

Registration is open!

The time has come! Registration has begun for the big event. You can use the link to "Registration" in the left frame under Pages, or follow this link to the form and PayPal button:

http://feministactionproject.blogspot.com/p/registration.html

A registration fee affords you the following pleasures:

• Participation in both days of the conference
  
• Admission to the Vagina Monologues performance on the night of Friday, April 1 (for the first 50 registrants)
  
• Breakfast, lunch, and snacks on Saturday, April 2
  
• The stylings of Loretta Ross, Marianne Kirby, and many other distinguished speakers and panelists

This is a self-supporting feminist event, but we don't want financial hardship to prevent anyone from attending. The registration fee is a sliding scale from $10-$20 dollars. If all you can pay is $10, we completely understand are are glad you'll be able to join us. If you are able to pay the $20 (or more), it will help others attend who would otherwise not be able to, which will in turn make the event and our community stronger.

We can't wait to get everything started! As always, please contact us with any questions, and we look forward to working with you in April.

Quick link!

In Clutch, an online magazine for "young, contemporary women of color," Dan Tres Omi writes about feminism from a black male perspective in his January 24th article, "Black Male Feminist: What Feminism Means to Me." Check it out:

Being a black male feminist does not imply that I have arrived. I am a work in progress and I don’t have all the answers. I am thankful that I have several sister warrior friends in my corner. They are supportive, loving, strong, and intelligent. I have come to realize that in the words of the wonderful Dr. bell hooks, feminism is for everybody.

Check it out! What do you think?

Call for Submissions extended!

We folks at the Feminist Action Project know things can get busy – classes, jobs, family – and so we’d like to extend the due date for our call for submissions until Monday, February 14, 2011. We are very impressed with the submissions we've received and look forward to seeing more! Please feel free to pass this information along to any and all who might be interested.

As always, you are welcome to contact us at feministactionproject [at] gmail [dot] com if you have any questions or want to get involved!

Make sure you check out the text version of our Call for Submissions below or at the permanent link here.

Call for Submissions

The Feminist Action Project, a two-day conference to be held at the University of Texas at Austin on April 1st and 2nd, 2011, is seeking panel and workshop submissions.

This year’s theme is Feminism is for Every(body). We intend this theme to encompass both accessibility to feminism and matters of lived and physical bodies. Our goals for the conference include: emphasizing “art as resistance”, including in equal measure the experiences and perspectives of academic and community members, making space for discussion about what feminism means (addressing stereotypes, myths, and stigma), and helping broaden the feminist community by framing its issues in relation to other activist movements. In addition to the larger global perspective of the conference, we hope for one programming track to focus on issues specific or pertinent to Texas.

Submissions should be consistent with the theme and goals. We welcome academically- oriented proposals as well as practical and activist ones, but we prefer interactive and conversational models. We are particularly interested in proposals dealing with:

marked bodies
• ‘race’ and racism
• queerness and gendered bodies
• fat and body activism
• disability
• ageism

governed bodies/body justice
• sex work
• reproductive justice
• human trafficking
• immigration

self-care
• self-esteem and self-care
• self-care in protest situations
• self-care in difficult economic times
• class and economic issues

accessing feminism
• feminist issues on campus
• barriers to adopting the label ‘feminist’
• movement intersectionality and organizing
• global feminisms

In accordance with these themes, we are honored to announce this year’s keynote speaker:  Loretta Ross, a highly accomplished women’s human rights, race, and reproductive justice activist. Marianne Kirby, a fat activist and blogger, will also be joining us for panels.

Please include in your submission:
• Title of panel, workshop, or presentation
• Brief description, no more than 300 words
• Description of AV and space requirements
• Your name and contact information (cell phone and e-mail preferred)

The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2011. Please submit all documents via email to feministactionproject@gmail.com, with “Attn: Programming Committee” in the subject line. You can send the submission as a Microsoft Word file, .pdf, or text file. If postal mail works better for you, please send it to: Feminist Action Project, Attn: Programming Committee, 1 University Station, A6220, SOC #529, Austin, TX, 78712.

We are very excited about this year’s conference and we look forward to hearing from you!

Radical simply means grasping at the root.

-Audre Lorde

•

A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving ... There can be no love without justice.

- bell hooks
Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

2011 conference

Greetings from the second generation of Feminist Action Project! We are very excited about this year's conference, which will be held on April 1st and 2nd on the UT-Austin campus.

Keep an eye out for the Call for Submissions, especially if you have ideas for workshops, presentations, panels, or performances that fit the theme "Feminism is for Every(body)"! This theme encompasses the issues surrounding accessibility to feminism as well as body politics and experiences.

Use the links on the left to find us on Facebook and Twitter, or e-mail us if you want to get involved in the planning process. We always welcome new voices and perspectives, and we hope to hear your feedback and ideas for making this conference valuable for everyone!

FAQs

When can I check-in?
Friday, April 16th in Main 212 (in the tower in the center of campus)
9:00 - 2:00
5:00 - 6:30

Saturday, April 17th in Main 212
8:30 - 10:30 (keep in mind that checking in on Saturday means you miss a lot of conference)


Do I need to bring my own food?
Yes and No. Dinner will be provided Friday night (at 5 pm in Main 212), lunch will be provided Saturday (at 1:30 in Main 212), and breakfast will be provided Sunday morning (at 9am in Main 212). You may want to bring snacks if you will need them and/or money for other meals. There are also plenty of places to find food, snacks, and drinks close by.

I'm confused. When is everything happening?
Check-in details are above. Below is our schedule overview with a more detailed explanation below that. You will get a program when you arrive and check-in. Upon check-in, you will receive all the information you need to start your conference weekend.

My friend wants to come, but has not registered yet. Can he/she/ze register at the conference? 
Registration is filling up! Online registration ends today, (Thursday, April 15th) at 5 pm. There will be a limited number of registrations available at check-in on Friday morning. We'd love to have everybody attend, but unfortunately we have to notify the caterers of our attendance numbers.

updated, easy to read schedule

Friday
9:00 Check in begins
1:00 - 2:30 Opening Plenary and Feminist Power Shuffle
3:45 - 5:15 Session A
5:15 - 6:30 Dinner
7:30 America the Beautiful screening

Saturday
9:00 - 10:30 Session B
10:45 - 12:15 Session C
12:30 - 1:30 Keynote with Jehmu Greene
1:30 - 2:30 Lunch
2:45 - 4:15 Session D

Sunday
9:00 - 10:00 Breakfast
10:15 - 11:45 Feminist Action Project panel
12:00 - 1:00 Facilitated Networking Session
1:00 - 2:00 Closing Plenary

Playing Friday Night - America the Beautiful

The Feminist Action Project is partnering with Body Positive Dance to bring the documentary America the Beautiful to campus for an open-to-the-public screening followed by a Q & A with the director himself, Darryl Roberts. Additionally, Roberts and Body Positive Dance founder, Ragen Chastain, are combining forces to participate in a panel discussion at the conference on Saturday, April 17th, focusing on the effects of idealized beauty in the lives of women. This discussion will include particular focus on the experiences of fat women and expose participants to the growing fat activist and health at every size movements.   

America the Beautiful explores idealized and unattainable standards of beauty. Roberts interviews a range of people including models, everyday people, cosmetic industry master minds, plastic surgeons, fashion photographers, and those in the marketing industry. These interviews are used to seek answers to questions like, “Why does America have such startling rates of body dismorphia, eating disorders, and poor body image?” and, “Who benefits from a culture of body shaming?” Roberts’ findings are a compelling introduction to the panel discussion and exploration of female perfection, fat activism, and feminism’s role in creating necessary change.

Fat activism and body positive activism are critical movements that reject and revise the photoshopped and airbrushed images that we see on a daily basis, understanding that these are unrealistic and harmful images to all people, particularly women. These movements seek to raise awareness to the various vehicles of body shaming and offer critical tools for all women, particularly fat women, to live healthy and happily in their bodies, no matter what size or shape they are.

The members of the Feminist Action Project recognize that the harmful effects of idealized feminine beauty effect women disproportionately. These effects include but are not limited to: discrimination, bullying, low self-esteem, eating disorders, and unhealthy lifestyles. Women make up 85 to 95% of those with anorexia nervosa and bulimia as stated by the Love Your Body project. According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, breast augmentation and liposuction ranked first and second respectively as most popular cosmetic surgery procedures in 2008. Men composed 8% of the total number of plastic surgery patients. With these numbers in mind and your own experiences, it is glaringly obvious just how pervasive the messages are that we receive and their negative influences in our lives.

We are pleased to bring the Body Positive revolution to the 2010 conference. Raising consciousness to new thoughts and forms of activism is our goal. We believe that unlearning myths and stereotypes about fat people and the internalized fat phobia that many folks hold is an essential step in changing the current image of female beauty. Please join us in our steps to create a world where women are empowered and fully valued.

Who is Ragen Chastain? (Excerpts taken from a personal interview with Ragen)

Ragen is the founder of Body Positive dance, a non-profit designed to foster healthy habits, high self-esteem, and friendships through dance. She has started two successful businesses, is a National Champion Dancer, and recognizes her greatest accomplishment to be learning to love herself and her body, and to be truly happy living completely outside the cultural beauty norm. She self-identifies with the word fat and says:

It's always interesting to me (at 5'4 280lbs) when I say I'm fat and people say "no you're not".  Obviously I am fat and what those people are trying to say is "you're not all of the stereotypes that I have about fat people" - I think it's important to divorce the word fat from the stereotypes.  I absolutely reject "overweight".  Over what weight?  By whose standards?  It goes against my lifestyle of making healthy choices and letting my weight take care of itself.

She has seen success time and time again in her body positive approach to dance. She works with people with eating disorders, people with bigger bodies, beginning exercisers, college students, seniors, and anyone interested in learning to love the body they are in. She believes that the future of fat activism and body positive ideologies is hopeful. As the images of women portrayed in the media become more and more absurd, there seems to be a breaking point:

I do believe that body positive will go mainstream… At this point we have Ralph Lauren promoting an image of women who are photoshopped such that their heads are larger than their pelvises.  I think eventually no woman will be able to measure up and that's where you'll start to see a lot of pushback from a lot of people.

            You can find more information about Body Positive Dance and Ragen Chastain on her personal blog and the official Body Positive Dance website.

Body Positive Dance

Ragen Chastain

our newest poster - send to all your friends, family, enemies, and frenemies (even the super conservative ones).

Blogspot tells me that if you click on the image, it will take you to a larger version. Take that with a grain of salt.