Unseen Visions

I am sitting in the waiting room of the Day Surgery unit at Lions Eye Institute in Perth, Western Australia.

I am waiting for my father to come out from an operation for cataracts in his left eye.

It is the first time I have had to fill a caring role for one of my parents. My father had to abstain from food and water since 2am this morning. I was parched when I woke up, I didn’t want to dwell too much about how starved and thirsty he must be feeling, under the Western Australian sun, already so harsh at eight in the morning.

The nurse asks if I will be the one to care for him tonight. I say, ‘Yes’, without hesitating. This surprised me. Me? Care for him? He was the one paying for my dresses just last night! What do I know about caring for him?
Nonetheless, I say, ‘Yes.’

He puts on a gown and disappears into the care of strange withered white men with hands I hope are sturdier than they look.

As I wait, my eyes, thirty-six years younger than those of my father’s, glide along the room.

On the walls are framed paintings of E. Van Wilgenburg’s experience of Macular Degeneration, an eye condition that is the leading cause of blindness in Australia. I am wholly unfamiliar with it, but I gain an ironically visual sense of the condition, through the paintings on the wall.

There are ink washes of darkness, surrounded by a cooling aqua blue, reminiscent of monochromatic black holes that feature in my nightmares from time to time. In one painting, Wilgenburg has depicted fleeting bright lights not unlike the clearest pictures of young stars. In another painting, Wilgenburg drew a meticulous golden pond underneath a mottled maroon sky, a vision generated post-surgery. On another canvas, in place of darkness, we see aurora borealis, quickly replaced by mysterious dancing orbs.

It is of some consolation to me that here is one person who created some wondrous art through their experiences of becoming temporarily ‘blind’. Their paintings are a testament to the variety of visions that they encountered in ‘losing’ their eyesight.

Contrary to my belief that becoming blind plunges you into a world of darkness, the journey for Wilgenburg meant that they were privy to visions that everyone else was excluded from seeing. Wilgenburg had an ever-evolving canvas stretched over their pupils and irises. They couldn’t see what other people were seeing: grey asphalt, electric poles, corporate slogans on billboards… More importantly, no one else could see the miracles they were beholding everyday, without even having to open their eyelids.

It is interesting that I myself have just finished performing in Blind, As you see it, a hybrid physical theatre and puppetry performance based on the experiences of people losing their eyesight, created by Michal Imielski. Here was another example of the creation of something beautiful out of painful and emotionally exigent experiences.

What a silver lining! I wonder whether my father and I will find our own silver lining through this new stage of our father-daughter relationship?

Public Forum: 3376km: a long haul for nuclear waste

Public meeting, photo exhibition and film screening of “Muckaty Voices”

For the last four years, Traditional Owners of Manuwangku (Muckaty) have been speaking out against federal government plans for a radioactive waste dump on their country, 120 km north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory.

In late July a group of senior men and women from Muckaty will travel to Sydney and Wollongong to hold public meetings and meet with trade unions and other supporters.

These meetings will also launch the 2010 Nuclear Freeways project, a joint endeavour of Friends of the Earth Sydney and Melbourne. The project is part of the broader campaign to prevent the federal government imposing a nuclear waste dump on unwilling communities in the Northern Territory. The project is focussed on supporting communities along potential transport routes between the main waste producer - the Lucas Heights nuclear plant in Sydney - and the NT.

Speakers include:
Muckaty Traditional Owners Dianne Stokes and Mark Lane
Fire Brigade Employees’ Union NSW Secretary Jim Casey
Human Rights Lawyer George Newhouse

Sydney Public Forum

Wollongong Public Forum

Call for submissions: Zine on identity and experiences of oppression

Call for submissions
Zine on “Identity and Experiences of Oppression”

This zine is to create a space for people who experience social and
systemic oppression, for people who identify their own oppressive and
privileged position, people who experience being oppressed and being
oppressive, to share their experiences on how their social identities
shape these experiences. For there to be talk about the intersections of
identities and how these leads to the experience of multiple oppressions
or being privileged and oppressive in more than one way, how people
reflect experiencing oppressions and oppressing others. Many of these
experiences are silenced, ignored and invalidated, and there aren’t enough
spaces to critically share these experiences. So that’s why these zine is
being made!

Send essays, articles, poetry, lyrics, artwork, photography, mind maps,
whatever you want!

The deadline for submissions is on the 13th of August. You can submit,
write, ask question, and let me know your writing something at:
libertario_lucha@riseup.net

En Solidaridad, Amor y Rabi(A)

Benjamin Beracasa

Working definitions from our Intro to POC politics workshop

Who is a person of colour?

The term ‘person of colour’ is a self-identifying, political identification. This political identification is not based on a person’s skin colour – we come in all different shades, and people of colour are generally not of European descent. In Australia, many Indigenous peoples reject the term people of colour. Moreover people of colour politics strive to recognise how racism, white supremacy and colonialism affect the daily lives of people of colour and Indigenous peoples.

A person of colour’s politics, like everyone else’s, will develop differently and at the person’s own pace. Yet in an Australian context, there is the move to recognise the sovereignty of Indigenous peoples, to recognise that racism affects various racialised groups differently, and to work strategically together because racism affects us all.

People of colour! We are sex and gender diverse, we are cisgender; our sexualities are myriad; we are religious, we are atheist and agnostic; we are radical, progressive and conservative; we are from the Global South and from the Global North; we are from all different class backgrounds; we are temporarily abled, we have disabilities; we work in a variety of professions and occupations, some of which are heavily marginalised like sex work, factory work, and dressmaking in the home. We have a voice, we are developing our voices, we sometimes keep quiet to live and breathe in peace – but one thing is for sure, – none of us need saving.

Who is a WOC?

The term ‘women of color’ was first used regularly to describe feminist women in the USA in the 1970s. Social justice movements in the 1950s and 60s such as the Civil Rights movement, Chicano/a movement, and the feminist movement had left a number of women in them feeling unsatisfied. Black feminists, Asian feminists, Native American feminists, and Chicana feminists had been struggling for decades and were heavily involved in social justice movements of the 1950s and 60s, yet found themselves marginalised. Racial justice movements were exceedingly male-dominated and sexist, while the feminist movement was dominated by middle-class white women who tended to perpetuate racism and classism.

Women of colour, sometimes calling themselves Third World women, began to work together across their communities on issues such as reproductive justice, abuse by the welfare system, urban poverty, and state violence. In an Australian context women of colour can feel marginalised from the mainstream feminist movement and have been working together to effect change.

A woman of colour is any person who identifies as a woman and who is oppressed by both racism (white supremacy, or colonialism/imperialism) and sexism (patriarchy) and if she is a trans woman by trans*phobia. Women of colour began to refer to this nexus of oppressive forces as ‘intersectionality’. The concept of intersectionality allows women of colour to discuss the unique perspectives on social inequality that different women have. Queer women, disabled women, trans women and poor/working-class women have contributed a great deal to the women of colour movement. The activism of women of colour attempts to focus productively on differences, and avoids ranking oppressive forces or trading one off against another such as racism or sexism or trans phobia. Each woman’s circumstances are considered important to forming political solutions.

Who is a person of colour who is sex and gender diverse (SGD)?

To be sex and gender diverse means that there are many genders and sexes besides the gender binary of woman and man and masculine and feminine that should be recognised. Thus SGD people of colour face racism, white supremacy and colonialism and non-recognition, invisibility and exclusions because society does not cater to the needs of SGD people of colour in its narrow two-gendered world. SGD people of colour also face violence in high numbers.

There are many different sexes and genders, but for example a person of colour might identify as trans*, intersex, or androgynous, and may use pronouns that vary from ‘he’ or ‘she’, an example being ‘they’.

F Conference (10-11 April, NSW Teachers' Federation)

Cross posted at Men and Feminism: http://menandfeminism.blogspot.com/2010/04/f-conference-10-11-april-nsw-teachers.html

Today marked a historic occasion, a bringing together of 400 feminists and social justice activists to discuss the infamous F word- FEMINISM. Feminism is a term which for me evokes strong passions for justice, an emotional engagement with oppression/discrimination, an analytic tool to understand and deconstruct the notion of gender and political movement for social change. With such diverse histories and generations of experience that cannot (or should not) be marked by a single moment or cultural ideology, feminism becomes something crucial for the agenda setters of the future.

DAY ONE

Indigenous Women and Feminism

The conference began with an interesting discussion on the relationship between the 'Feminist Movement' and the lives/experiences of Indigenous women. For some indigenous women, the term 'feminism' has been marked with antagonism towards Aboriginal culture(s). Colonial politics are implicated in white (middle class) 'Women's Movement' that sought to liberate Indigenous women from barbaric indigenous men. Such a program was problematic because it came at the expense of a person's Aboriginal heritage or cultural background. Indigenous knowledges did not seem to have a place in these feminist politics. For many of these women, not having access to education or adequate healthcare, were the crucial issues, and one's grounded in their race (particularly the colonial displacement of Indigenous peoples from their native land) rather than their gender necessarily. While 'feminism' has been marked as a term with some suspicion, the Indigenous women on the panel noted that the way forward is one of respectful dialogue. Feminist knowledges, both indigenous and non-indigenous, should be exchanged in forums which respect difference and culture. That is, it is a time for a pedagogy of listening.


Why is feminism relevant?

Discussions then moved to question the relevance and political value of feminism today. Questions that were raised earlier around difference were echoed by each panelist, who articulated a different relationship each had to the F word. Rather than seek to universalise the subject position of 'woman', each speaker noted that feminism (as a theory, politics and way of living) is grounded in their specific social and cultural circumstances, which are not easily divorced. In this way, feminism has become an analytic tool by which people can understand the gendered dimensions of employment, labour, reproduction, migration, sexual ethics and sexual pleasure. Instead of reifying some monolithic 'Feminist' goal or outcome, feminism provides a space for the discussion of differences and how to use gendered/sexed experience as a framework to undermine social oppressions. In this way, feminism is an anchor to mobilise activism and social change both in a public political sense, and in the intimate and personal lives of individuals.

People of Colour Politics

I then had the pleasure/privilege of facilitating a workshop introducing people of colour politics. The primary objective of the workshop was to understand how the feminist movement is diverse and as activists why we need to identify and address discriminations within our own organising and society more broadly. This workshop was a good starting point for people to think about what it means to be a person of colour and the importance of autonomous spaces. It provided a safer space to challenge our prejudices, privileges and the intersection of race, gender, sexuality and sex. What this means is not prioritising common goals over differences when we all have different subject positions on issues. It was encouraging to have people engage in issues around sexuality, sex/gender diverse persons and Indigenous people and the often complex relationship these population groups have to feminism. People had to think about the way racism is not only systemic in public institutions, but also how it prevents certain groups having access to space (or land) and operates at the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives, such as how we define our individual relationships with others.

Trans*

Transitioning from a workshop dealing with anti-racist issues, into a trans* discussion was particularly engaging. As a cisgendered (a person who's body/anatomy aligns with their prescribed social gender identity) male, learning how to discuss and engage with trans* politics requires rethinking some of the most common assumptions we make about a person- whether they are male or female (within the classic binary model). Moving beyond such a narrow scope on gender, forced me to question how we think about gendered experience as simply bodily experience, when it has psychological, emotional and performative aspects to it. Some people choose to transition if they feel a dissonance between their gender identity and how their body presents their 'sex', while others choose not to (for financial reasons or otherwise). Whether one 'passes' the gender binary by 'successfully' transitioning to a male or female so they appear cisgendered or whether they choose to 'cross' and be non-gender specific are entirely personal and valid ways of living (or not so) with gender.

By problematising the notion of biological experience as making a person 'authentically' male or female, the question of how trans* people relate to feminism is important. Transphobia in some feminist communities has sought to marginalise certain populations who felt that their gender experience (for some who identified as women) was not being included. Whether autonomous spaces should allow for trans* people brought to bear a question on how to define what 'autonomy' means. Is it or should it be self-identified or based on a biological way of being? While trans* people have distinct and different experiences to cisgendered women, should they be excluded from feminist spaces which try to reclaim a space for an 'essential (read: biological) feminine sisterhood'?

DAY TWO

'Power'

Day 2 began with a panel discussing the ever elusive concept of 'power'. One of the most resonating and emotional moments was Elena Jeffrey's discussion on sex worker rights. What has often been stigmatised as a degrading and anti-feminist practice, was shown to be a damaging fallacy for sex workers in Australia. Rather than promoting phobic attitudes to sex work and attempting to police the sexual agency of women, Elena promoted a feminist agenda that could provide sex workers with support rather than social/physical alienation. Policy change is needed to decriminalise certain kinds of sex work (including sex worker association), introduce anti-discrimination legislation, and end mandatory health checks which characterise sex workers as 'high risk' or 'infectious' bodies. Autonomy is a crucial element to this discussion, by allowing sex workers a platform to organise and effect change from a position of experience rather than having 'feminist spokespersons' who are anti-sex work speaking on their behalf.

Discussion also canvassed the importance of human rights and corporate governance in supporting women. Greater accountability and audits of women in leadership, stronger transparency and developing targets is key to promoting gender equity in the workplace. Questions of workplace labour also addressed the problems of sexual harassment, and the ways in which corporate cultures are 'masculinised'. For example, some women find sexual comments or sexualising gazes/flirtations as a 'common' work ethic between men and women. While the workplace itself is a place of sexism, the gendered division of labour in an unpaid/paid context, continues to marginalise women. In a place where the ideal worker is characterised as an individual who is a flexible, always available, works overtime and the ideal woman is defined as a mother who commits to raising children in the home, how do working women fit (if at all) into this framework?

This discussion prompted the question, do we need to move beyond neoliberal questions of economic (personal) progress to further feminism?

Men and Feminism

What inspired the Men and Feminism blog and formed the basis of the initial posts, was discussed in this workshop with great enthusiasm. Men occupy a complex relationship to feminism. What was really interesting was having a sub group consisting entirely of women, came to a unanimous consensus that men could identify as feminists. While this discussion will be continued further in other posts, what is at stake when men call themselves 'feminists'? Or is the politics of simply having a label merely a first step?

Futures

The final panel centred on the question on the future of feminism. Such a question is complex and demands a lot of attention, suffice to say that it cannot be answered in the space of one panel. What is clear to me, and hopefully to others, is that feminism has a important future. Some excellent points were raised to the processes of developing feminist engagements both politically and in our personal lives.

Feminism is about intersections. Knowing that we are not just a gendered individual, but also that our identities have particular racial, cultural, sexual, class, age, ability and religious dislodges this notion that 'gender' can be isolated as a ground of oppression. Women of colour experience distinctly different things to white middle class women. Each part of our identity is mutually constituted by another. We can experience both race and sexuality simultaneously, for example, when a person refuses to date someone on the basis of their ethnic or cultural identity.

Feminism must work to develop an ethics of listening and respect. Larissa Behrendt argued convincingly that gendered division does not necessarily imply subordination. In Aboriginal communities, the separation of labour between the sexes does not privilege one form of labour over another. It is simply different. In taking this notion of difference further, she suggested that the future of feminism must work to engage with indigenous knowledges. That is, thinking about lived experience/knowledge, valuing reciprocity and effecting cultural change through ongoing conversations.

Differences and intersections are questions of respect and valuing diversity in feminism. The strength of the movement relies on the facilitation of differences in productive dialogues rather than the erasure of minority voices. Sometimes tensions do not detract from politics, sometimes having a debate or disagreeing can strengthen the foundation of a political struggle. In thinking through these questions at a level of social change, feminism must engage politics and activism at the local level, rather than become a rigid institutional structure.

Canberra Convergence 2008

Culture Jam: 2008