Viva la Feminista

Get ready feministas!  The online event will run on March 8, 2012. This year, Gender Across Borders and CARE will host the Third Annual Blog for International Women’s Day, a day where bloggers, writers, and humanitarian organizations are asked to write about the International Women’s Day theme on March 8. This year’s theme is “ Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures ” and they are asking bloggers to address one or both of the following points: How can we, as a culture and as members of the global community, involve, educate, and inspire girls in a positive way? Describe a particular organization, person, group or moment in history that helped to inspire a positive future and impact the minds and aspirations for girls. Throughout the day of March 8, they will have an ongoing live blog of what you have to say about “Connecting Girls, Inspiring Futures” at GenderAcrossBorders.com . They will also feature articles from staff write...

CALL FOR PAPERS Demeter Press is seeking submissions for an edited collection Performing Motherhood Co-editors:  Amber Kinser,  Kryn Freehling-Burton and  Terri Hawkes Submission Deadline For Abstracts: June 15, 2012 Scholarly and lay observers alike have long recognized the relationship between everyday life and performance. Some hold to a sharp split between that which is authentic, true, or real, on one hand, and that which is contrivance, façade, or "mere" performance on the other. Others indicate that any lines separating "performance" from "life" are indistinguishable or not useful, that all of life is performance, that human interaction of any sort is a text to be read in a variety of ways, that social meaning and identity are in fact performatively constituted. Judith Butler and others have directed attention to performativity and the way it can contest and disrup...

Rock Away Racism  Thursday, Feb. 23 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Hard Rock Hotel 230 N. Michigan Ave. Hosted by the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago’s Future Leaders Council The concert event is focused on celebrating Chicago’s diversity through music and will feature a variety of artists, including Endiskize, Jeff Goodwin & Jamiah ‘On Fire’ & The Red Machine & DJ Madrid. Katrina Lynn of Savvy Talk radio will be the hostess of the event. Through Rock Away Racism, the YWCA honors Black History Month and those who worked toward racial and social justice, while also spotlighting an issue that continues to impact our society today. “As an organization committed to the elimination of racism, the YWCA works to raise awareness through many vehicles,” said Christine Bork, YWCA Metropolitan Chicago CEO. “Music has historically been used to overcome or respond to prejudice and intolerance, and helps us recognize our similarities and appreciate our differences.” General admission fo...

Attention Illinois readers! Did you know that Illinois Republicans think that women are livestock? That must be the only reason why they continue to submit bills impacting women's health to the Agriculture Committee. Want to learn more? Hands Off Women’s Health Twitter Chat Lorie Chaiten, ACLU of Illinois, Director of Reproductive Rights, is hosting a twitter chat on Thursday, February 16 th from 1-2 pm discussing the Health and Human Services Plan B decision, the Mississippi personhood a mendment, the Komen/Planned Parenthood controversy, the birth control coverage compromise, the attacks on reproductive health care here in Illinois and everything in between. Please follow the hashtag #HOWH (Hands Off Women’s Health) and join in the discussion. Women Are Still Not Livestock Rally and Lobby Day Yet again, extremists are trying to close down access to reproductive health care under the guise of protecting women’s health – by ramming measures though the Agricultu...

Viva la Feminista welcomes Keidra Chaney of The Learned Fangirl for this Guest Post:  I don’t read dating books. I do date, but I’ve been single more often than not throughout most of my adult life, and I’ve never fit into mainstream “three dates and you’re in a relationship” dating culture. More to the point, the “He’s just not that into you” advice behind most dating literature just makes my flesh crawl. Despite my aversion to dating books (or probably because of it) I was excited to read Outdated: Why Dating is Ruining your Love Life (Seal Press, 2011) when it was first announced, because even though I don’t read dating books, I totally want dating advice. As a single, dating feminist, there’s not a whole lot of literature out there that speaks to me: even the more ostensibly progressive dating books out there don’t really push hard against gender essentialist, “Mars Vs. Venus” ideas of what it takes to enjoy “normal” romantic relationships. Many feminist books on gender, ...

CALL FOR PAPERS   Motherhood Initiative for Research and  Community Involvement  (MIRCI)  MATROREFORM AND MOTHERLINES October 18-20, 2013, Toronto, ON, Canada Matroreform , a feminist term coined by Canadian psychologist Dr. Gina Wong, is a psychological, spiritual, cognitive, and emotional reformation of mothering at an intra- and interpersonal level; is a process by which mothers reproduce a new way of mothering apart from her motherline; and it represents an holistic, sociocultural revolution of motherhood at a global level. As a transformative maternal practice of claiming motherhood power, this progressive movement to mothering includes new and empowering motherhood ethos, ideologies, rules, views, and practices apart from one's motherline and apart from dominant and normative discourses of the sacrificial and good mother. Adrienne Rich describes matrophobia as the result of a daughterhood fraught with witnessing the self-sac...

The past week's brouhaha over religiously affiliated entities having to provide their women employees with birth control was infuriating to watch. I agree with the original stance of the White House that churches and houses of worship are exempt. But religiously affiliated hospitals and universities are different. Especially hospitals. According to Religion & Ethics Weekly , "Catholic hospitals have become the largest nonprofit health care provider in the US, with over 600 hospitals. This year, one in six patients will be cared for in a Catholic hospital." For those of us living in large cities, we have a choice as to which hospital to use. But families who live in rural America have little, if no choice. I believe that even suburban families are also impacted. But during the past week's "debate" over birth control, Anthony Picarello, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops general counsel finally revealed to the world their ultimate goal - no birth ...