Anti Harassment Craft Night

Wednesday the 2nd’s meeting was a little different to the usual. To tie in with Anti Street Harassment week we held an extended meeting with a craftivist theme. The image above is an example of the kind of felt brooches we were working on, marked out ready to be stitched with the words “End Street Harassment”. Being DIY gives you the benefit of being able to choose whatever slogan you like, so we had a suffragette style “Deeds not Words” and an anti-page 3 “Boobs are Not News”.

Harassment is a huge problem for women though it’s often not seen that way by men (if they admit to seeing it at all). We have no idea what our harassers intentions are, so even if they feel like they aren’t doing anything particularly bad we can’t tell the difference between a bloke with a big mouth and a potential rapist. It’s never OK to make someone feel unsafe, and the more we can spread this message the better!

School’s Out For Sexism

JOIN us on Thursday 4th August at Sunflower Lounge on Smallbrooke Queensway in Birmingham for the fundraiser of the year!  Local music (lots), art to buy, the comedy stylings of Barbara Nice, a raffle, and cake!  All for just £3.50 (donations appreciated for cakes and also you will need to purchase raffle tickets!!)

Select the picture for a bigger image of the poster.

Proud allies of Slut Walk Toronto

Birmingham Fems are pleased to be allies to the Slut Walk Toronto initiative

After a Toronto copper said this

The people of Toronto did this

Frickin’ awesome.

WE VOTE FOR THE ALTERNATIVE

I’m sure you already know about the March 26 March For The Alternative .  Did you know there was a Women’s Bloc?

Birminghams Fem Geraldine represented the group having been sponsored to attend by Birmingham Fems.  With materials kindly *donated* from a local source, we made a fetching and eye-catching placard for Geraldine to take, which even made it onto the photograph stream of the Women Against The Cuts facebook page!  Very exciting!

Here are a few excellent shots of the day from Geraldine:

Go Geraldine!

And go all the other fantastic marchers who stood up and marched (for a very long time) for the cause.

***PRESS RELEASE***

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

West Midlands women march against rape

On Saturday 16th October, Birmingham will host its second annual march against rape and all forms of violence against women – Reclaim the Night.

 

The march, being organised by local group  the Birmingham Feminists, will take place on 16 October at 19.00.  Women from around the West Midlands will assemble at Victoria Square before setting off on a route that will take them through the heart of the city centre back to Victoria Square.  During the rally after the march prominent feminist writer and icon, Catherine Redfern, founder of thefword.org.uk and co-author of Reclaiming The F Word: The New Feminist Movement , will speak.

 

The march itself is women only, but everyone is invited to join the rally. Whilst women  march to ‘Reclaim the Night’, men who support fighting violence against women will stay in Victoria square and hold a vigil.

 

Reclaim the Night is an international campaign which started in the 1970s as an outcry to the poor response of  the police to rape cases who would warn women not to go out alone at night. Now, over 40 years on, much the same advice is given – when two young women were  raped at this year’s Latitude music festival, festival organisers advised women to avoid being alone at night. The women attending the march, and the men supporting it, believe women should be able to walk anywhere free from the threat of  male violence.

After last year’s march, one attendee stated  afterwards: ‘Here was a group of women who were proud of making a stand, of not being afraid to walk down some of the dark streets in the city of Birmingham’.

 

Birmingham Feminists member Katie says of the march ” We who have survived violence or have been lucky enough to be that one in two women who won’t experience the violence, take to the streets en masse to say no.  No you can not do this to us, and no we

will not be silenced.”

 

 

For further details leave a comment and telephone details can be sent (or .doc version of press release to a given email address)

Photos are available on request.

 

 

 

 

We Got Equal Rights on Ladies’ Night

On Sunday 22nd September 2010, Birmingham Fems held another fantastic fundraising event, called We Got Equal Rights on Ladies’ Night.

This live music event was held at the Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham and featured excellent music by Andrew Gordon, Hannah (bham fem!) & Ben, Eeek! and FlyByNature.  Some great tunes from all acts and a lovely atmosphere all round.

(Andrew Gordon, Hannah & Ben – more shots to follow)

We also had a raffle with such great prizes as whiskey, wine, more wine, home wares, and sweets!

Thanks to our very generous guests we managed to raise £150 for the cause of Reclaim The Night Birmingham 2010 – a massive contribution!

We’d like to offer a special thanks to all of the acts and all of the people who contributed raffle prizes, helped to set up and simply spread the word.

See you on 16.10.10 for RTN Birmingham 2010!!

Reclaim the Night 2010, the story so far….

Harriet Allen, blogging for Birmingham Fems:

Crafted and carried by Annika Spalding

We are just a few weeks from Birmingham Reclaim the Night 2010 on October 16th. Before we start the inevitable panic and rush for the last preparations, I thought I’d take a moment to write about what’s been going on in the last few months.

As soon as 2009’s march was finished we all sat round and decided what we liked and what we didn’t like. We liked doing the march in streets where we had been discouraged from walking; we really felt we had reclaimed those streets. On the other hand, other than those who marched and those who lived there, who actually saw us march? Of course we made lots of noise with our singing, chanting, whistles and horns and we did collect some marchers on the way…but…we thought we’d like to be more visible next year.

So, we decided to march in the city centre this year. Quickly we realised that reclaiming the city centre would cost more and involve more organisation than reclaiming the suburbs. We ran the 2009 march on a complete shoestring, but estimates for city centre road closure costs instantly more than doubled our costs.

Our initial priority had to be fundraising. Veg Out Against Violence in June was the first fundraiser. You can look at the pictures from then on this site.  Veg Out was a great success – not least thanks to our friends at the Warehouse Cafe. We raised enough money that night and with donations, to get us started. With a few hundred pounds under our belt we knew that we could start planning properly. Fundraising continued with our music night at the Sunflower Lounge in August. Sadly my job took me out of the country on the day, but the pictures tell me it was a brilliant evening. Finally, we’ve managed to get support from the Royal College of Nursing and the TUC; massive credit to Kim securing for that sponsorship.

Meanwhile we also tackled the organisation of a march in the city centre. In 2009, although we had to figure things out as we went along, planning was relatively straightforward. We had an excellent relationship with the police, who were very helpful. Since there aren’t too many events in the area, there wasn’t too much bureaucracy to get through. The city centre is a different story. Gradually we discovered who to talk to, which forms to fill in and who to go and meet. As we went along we also learnt of all the costs charged to city centre events (including, for example, the need to pay to close a parking space for a few hours). Birmingham has had some poor experiences lately with violence from the EDL. These experiences, and the ever decreasing budget, means they want to pass on as much of the costs and organisation to the event team.  However, after meetings, emails and phone calls, we have a route that we love and enough money to make it happen (just about). All we need to do now is organise the rally, book the party, deliver the leaflets, organise the stewards…….

[Better late than never] Reclaim The Night Birmingham 2009 – success!

It’s only been two months since the march took place but I thought it was about time we had a bit of a write up!

I wasn’t able to march due to being only partially recovered from flu but sent everyone on their way from the Five Ways Island to go through Edgbaston and end up back at Ladywood Community Centre.  We could hear the marchers coming up the road to the community centre, shouting and singing with great gusto as the reached the end of the march and took their seats for the rally.  At the rally we heard several influential speakers tell us about their work and their experiences in working with women who have experienced male violence.  It was truly inspirational to know that this work is going on in our local community, although it is clear that there is so much left to do, not least because of the lack of funding open to services such as Sandwell Rape Crisis.

Afterwards we went on to a chilled out after party with some choice tunes (a playlist created entirely from my own collection with some excellent suggestions from others – so of course I was in my element!) and some lovely food.

I met several new women at the march, some of whom I have seen again, and we also picked up a new Birmingham Fems member on the way round!

Nadine, a new member of Birmingham Fems, who joined the group after RTN having heard about it on facebook through her W.O.M.E.N group discussion board, gave us the following write up:

“I attended Reclaim The night in Birmingham for the first time and really enjoyed it. What I enjoyed was the fact that there was a group of women no doubt coming with their own different experiences, there was a group of women who were proud of making of stand of not being afraid to walk down some of the dark streets in the city of Birmingham.

We then went onto the community centre in Ladywood to listen to talks from women doing amazing work with other women some of which are perhaps a bit vunerable. It was moving to hear of other womens experiences but at the same time very good to hear the positive work being done and that to me was a huge inspiration.

I am looking forward to attending next year s Reclaim The Night and am happy to be involved in the fortnightly meetings where I meet with women from B ham Fems to discuss a range of issues which affect the day to day lives of women and of course the plans for 2010 Reclaim The Night.”

It was certainly great to meet Nadine that night and it is great to have her as part of the group today.  This is just proof that these kinds of events DO help to spread the word.

We are also in the Birmingham Post, the Birmingham Mail and the Sandwell Express and Star.

Watch this space for more information about upcoming events for 2010 – especially the 2010 Reclaim The Night Birmingham, which is set to be a big success with some wonderful backing and a great team of planners!

Reclaim The Night Birmingham – 17th October 2009

Birmingham Feminists are holding their first Reclaim The Night march on Saturday 17th October 2009.

The march will take us from the top of the city to an area that we feel needs to be ‘reclaimed’ from its reputation as a ‘no go’ area for the women of Birmingham.  This event will unite women across the Midlands with women from out of area, to march and take a stand against violence against women, and particularly against the myth that a victim of sexual violence is somehow responsible for their victimisation if they walked home alone at night, or wore revealing clothing, or talked to a man at a bar.

We who have survived violence or have been lucky enough to be that one in two women who won’t experience the violence, take to the streets en masse to say no.  No you can not do this to us, and no we will not be silenced.  This is why we are going to reclaim the night for the first time in decades in Birmingham. (taken from a speech for the Veg Out Against Violence fundraiser*)

This is a women only march.  We define this as any person who self-defines as a woman.  We do feel that men are an extremely important part of the movement.  However, there is a symbolism to a women only march for Reclaim The Night that separates it from marches for other causes.  This is a HUMAN problem, but it is the collective voice of WOMEN that needs to be heard.

The march will be followed by a rally with speakers from the Anawim Project, the Women of Allen’s Croft and Sandwell Rape Crisis among others.  This rally is free to enter and is a gender mixed event.

We will then be holding a fund-raising after party in the city centre with proximity to travel options (also mixed).

More details to follow.  Keep checking here for the specifics.

If you are travelling from out of area and want to know more about parking for cars and coaches please contact bham.fem@gmail.com

We are very excited about this, the first march of it’s kind in the region for a very long time!  Please tell everyone about it and come along if you can!

* for full speech, please see the post immediately previous to this one.

Veg Out Against Violence – Katie’s speech

As I am lazy and am partial to some cross posting (and therein a bit of shameless personal blog promotion), here is the link to my speech from the Veg Out Against Violence event held last night on 23rd July 2o09 at the Warehouse Cafe in Digbeth.

http://graceneedshelp.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/veg-out-against-violence/

Watch this space for more news about RTN Birmingham and any future fundraising events.