Last Saturday's meeting was very enjoyable, with a great discussion on The Virtuoso by Sonya Orchard. General consensus was that it was extremely enjoyable, well researched, and creatively written, with some constructive and informed criticism/evaluation from one member of the group. But all in all a good start to our group reading.
We also discussed what else we had been reading in the last month, and some great titles were described and noted.
Our book for June meeting, chosen by Annette, is Sacred Country by Rose Tremain (2 copies currently available from the bookshop if you cant locate at your library)
And for July meeting, chosen by Lorraine, A Week In December by Sebastian Faulks (let me know if you would like to place an order but give plenty of time for it to come in)
We also decided to trial a meeting on Sunday afternoons to have a little more time for discussion and not to feel too rushed, especially over the winter months. Also we are choosing books in order according to first letter of our first names.
So next meeting for Sacred Country is Sunday June 6th at 3.00pm at the shop.
Best wishes and happy reading!
12 May 2010
08 May 2010
Female Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
6 Week Group in Ashfield
for Female Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
This group will provide participants with the opportunity to:
- explore the impacts and effects that childhood sexual abuse has had on their life
- identify their strengths
- develop strategies for challenging these impacts and effects
Topics covered: self-blame, secrecy and silencing, perpetator tactics, anger, trust and reconnection
Day Time Group
10-12.30pm Each friday
from 23 July- 27 August
Evening Group
6.30pm to 9.00pm Each Monday
19 July - 23 August
Total Cost: $300
Medicate rebates may apply
Registration is necessary as well as pre-group interviews.
For further information please call
Lorraine Wright: 0405 201 742
Mirna Tarabay: 0433 252 444
for Female Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
This group will provide participants with the opportunity to:
- explore the impacts and effects that childhood sexual abuse has had on their life
- identify their strengths
- develop strategies for challenging these impacts and effects
Topics covered: self-blame, secrecy and silencing, perpetator tactics, anger, trust and reconnection
Day Time Group
10-12.30pm Each friday
from 23 July- 27 August
Evening Group
6.30pm to 9.00pm Each Monday
19 July - 23 August
Total Cost: $300
Medicate rebates may apply
Registration is necessary as well as pre-group interviews.
For further information please call
Lorraine Wright: 0405 201 742
Mirna Tarabay: 0433 252 444
06 May 2010
Sydney Writers' Festival 2010, May 15-23
There are some really wonderful women writers at this year's Sydney Writers' Festival.
Lydia Cacho
Dubravka Ugresic
Barbara Demick
Sara Thornton
Lionel Shriver (yes she is a woman).
And great sessions such as:
"No Country for Young Women"
"Tiddas Talk Writing" - three Indigenous fiction writers
Plus two gay writers
Colm Toibin
David Levithan
Plus lots of good ideas based stuff.
Pick up a guide from The Feminist Bookshop, or go to the website:
http://swf.org.au
Lydia Cacho
Dubravka Ugresic
Barbara Demick
Sara Thornton
Lionel Shriver (yes she is a woman).
And great sessions such as:
"No Country for Young Women"
"Tiddas Talk Writing" - three Indigenous fiction writers
Plus two gay writers
Colm Toibin
David Levithan
Plus lots of good ideas based stuff.
Pick up a guide from The Feminist Bookshop, or go to the website:
http://swf.org.au
04 May 2010
International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) May 17th.
Visit National LGBT Health Alliance for your local events for International Day Against Homophobia (IDAHO) on May 17th.
http://www.lgbthealth.org.au/idaho
http://www.lgbthealth.org.au/idaho
03 May 2010
MESSAGE STICKS INDIGENEOUS FILM FESTIVAL 2010
See the best new films by Indigenous filmmakers.
6 – 8 MAY 2010
All film sessions are FREE*!
In Australia’s largest city, Blackfellas are profoundly overwhelmed. A tiny minority in a population of 4.5 million, our presence is only occasionally glimpsed, unless you live in Lapa (La Perouse) or Redfern. In the city our art hangs in the boardrooms of the CBD, a silent reminder of our presence, but only to be briefly admired on the way to do something else. The Message Sticks Film Festival is therefore precious as one of a small number of Sydney’s annual events that carves out a space, where for a moment we share the experience of Black Australians.
Film powerfully reveals the world of the storyteller, and our festival is unique in its exclusive focus on Indigenous storytellers. Over the past ten years, Message Sticks has gathered a loyal collection of people who come together to share this world as a family of sorts; both on screen, behind the camera and in the audience. For those who have been with us from the beginning, we welcome you back and for the newcomers, we are delighted to introduce you to the beginning of another decade of the best Indigenous films from here and around the world.
http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/About/program_Message_Sticks.aspx
6 – 8 MAY 2010
All film sessions are FREE*!
In Australia’s largest city, Blackfellas are profoundly overwhelmed. A tiny minority in a population of 4.5 million, our presence is only occasionally glimpsed, unless you live in Lapa (La Perouse) or Redfern. In the city our art hangs in the boardrooms of the CBD, a silent reminder of our presence, but only to be briefly admired on the way to do something else. The Message Sticks Film Festival is therefore precious as one of a small number of Sydney’s annual events that carves out a space, where for a moment we share the experience of Black Australians.
Film powerfully reveals the world of the storyteller, and our festival is unique in its exclusive focus on Indigenous storytellers. Over the past ten years, Message Sticks has gathered a loyal collection of people who come together to share this world as a family of sorts; both on screen, behind the camera and in the audience. For those who have been with us from the beginning, we welcome you back and for the newcomers, we are delighted to introduce you to the beginning of another decade of the best Indigenous films from here and around the world.
http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/About/program_Message_Sticks.aspx
01 May 2010
The EDNA RYAN Awards Night 2010
The EDNAs are awards made to women who have made a feminist difference, ie whose activity advances the status of women; the troublemakers, the stirrers, the battlers, who show extraordinary commitment and determination.
Join Women’s Electoral Lobby in celebrating Edna’s political life and providing an affirmation of feminist activists in 2010. Come along and hear about the feminist activity that is happening and the wonderful women who are working towards making a better world – especially for women. You will be INSPIRED.
When: Friday 14 May 2010
Time: 6.00pm snacks and mingle, 6.30pm presentations
Where: Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney
Cost: $25 wages / $15 concession – includes snacks.
RSVP: Friday 7 May 2010. Please include payment.
Send your booking to
WEL NSW
66 Albion St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Contact the WEL office: 9212.4374
email:welnsw@comcen.com.au
Booking form available on WEL's website
http://welnsw.org.au
Making a feminist difference seems more possible in 2010 – so let’s keep at it!
Join Women’s Electoral Lobby in celebrating Edna’s political life and providing an affirmation of feminist activists in 2010. Come along and hear about the feminist activity that is happening and the wonderful women who are working towards making a better world – especially for women. You will be INSPIRED.
When: Friday 14 May 2010
Time: 6.00pm snacks and mingle, 6.30pm presentations
Where: Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney
Cost: $25 wages / $15 concession – includes snacks.
RSVP: Friday 7 May 2010. Please include payment.
Send your booking to
WEL NSW
66 Albion St
Surry Hills NSW 2010
Contact the WEL office: 9212.4374
email:welnsw@comcen.com.au
Booking form available on WEL's website
http://welnsw.org.au
Making a feminist difference seems more possible in 2010 – so let’s keep at it!
11 March 2010
Germain Greer in The Age 8 March 2010
Taken from: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/change-is-a-feminist-issue-20100308-pqs8.html
Change is Feminist Issue
Germaine Greer
If anyone reading this believes that I am disappointed in today's women, let me hasten to disabuse him. I have been talking to predominantly female audiences from one end of Britain to the other every week or so for the past 20 years, and they never, ever disappoint me. They are articulate, affectionate, independent, feisty, funny and brave. They are the best evidence that something fundamental has changed, but don't imagine for one moment that I believe that I'm the one who changed it.
If women had not been changing in 1970, my book The Female Eunuch would have sunk without trace. Of the original printing of a 5000 only 2500 were bound. There had been no hype, no publicity of any kind, yet they were sold out on the day of issue. So begins the long story of the making of a book by the women who wanted to read it. It was the best book I could write at the time; I have written better since. If I feel any disappointment at all it is that The Female Eunuch is still in print. A tide of better books should have knocked it off its perch within a few months of its first appearance.
The most important change in the past 40 years is the gradual and apparently irreversible collapse of the patriarchal family. This was not triggered by a book, but by economic change. Wage-earners found themselves unable to finance the improvement in their standard of living, otherwise known as the rise in their level of consumption. Hire purchase of vehicles, whitegoods, furnishings and the other trappings of the good life increased the burden of debt on every household.
Even married women of child-bearing age had to go to work to service the family debt. Most of the work they did was insecure, underpaid drudgery. Because the elite labour unions made no attempt to recruit female workers, let alone to support their struggles for decent pay and conditions, a vast pool of female labour began to form at exactly the same time as automation began to threaten the survival of the labour unions themselves.
In the '60s all single women worked. As the age of first marriage rose, they worked for longer and longer. They became used to handling their own money. In those days single women were denied credit and could not borrow the kind of money needed to buy a house or start a business.
Although their credit performance was far better than that ofmen of the same age, banks and building societies would not lend to them.
Eventually single women began buying homes for themselves. With every gradual increase in women's economic activity, the appeal of economic dependency shrank. The price for being a stay-at-home wife, that is, having to run to the male head of household for every cent of housekeeping money, pocket money and pinmoney, began to seem way too high.
Working for your living is part of an honourable grown-up existence. Nobody wants to be a parasite. Even though in Australia (as in Britain) women's workplace earnings are still significantly lower than men's, 40 per cent of women with one child will be working outside the home before the child is a year old. The Australia Institute reported last year that 400,000 married women would go back to work if they could find employment, even though the cost of childcare would eat up most of their earnings.
As women's economic independence increased, their tolerance of infidelity, cruelty, neglect and emotional and physical abuse on the part of their spouses dwindled steadily. Divorce rates throughout the developed world rose in unison.
The Australian rate plateaued at the current rate of about 40 per cent of marriages ending in divorce. The trend is now slowing, partly because these days 60 per cent of couples choose to cohabit rather than marry.
Many such couples have children, and will refer to a cohabiting relationship of many years as an engagement. One way of interpreting this trend is to see it as keeping the relationship in a state of constant negotiation, in which nothing can be taken for granted and both partners are equally involved in decisions affecting family life.
The prevalence of divorce is not something I predicted. The woman who opts to end her marriage after an average of seven or eight years, with divorce following three and four years after, is making a conscious decision to go it alone. She will almost certainly be earning less than her ex-husband; if she has children she faces 15 or 20 years of poverty and unremitting hard work, both inside and outside the home.
She will have no leisure, no spare cash, no money for luxuries such as nice clothes or a decent haircut or a safe car or holidays. Her chances of finding a new partner are much lower than her ex-husband's. Women who face this fate with equanimity have my unstinting admiration. They are choosing a tough but honourable life over a servile and dishonourable one. If they get it right, and their kids do well, they will get no praise. If their kids screw up, they will get all the blame.
Every new generation of women struggles to define itself. Very few young women want to turn into their mother, and even fewer want to be their grandmother. There is no need for today's women to march to a 40-year-old feminist drum.
Amid the seeming chaos of intergenerational conflict new lifestyles and family forms are coalescing. The feminist revolution has not failed. It has yet to begin. Its ground troops are fast developing the skills and muscle that will be necessary if we are to vanquish corporate power and rescue our small planet for humanity.
Change is Feminist Issue
Germaine Greer
If anyone reading this believes that I am disappointed in today's women, let me hasten to disabuse him. I have been talking to predominantly female audiences from one end of Britain to the other every week or so for the past 20 years, and they never, ever disappoint me. They are articulate, affectionate, independent, feisty, funny and brave. They are the best evidence that something fundamental has changed, but don't imagine for one moment that I believe that I'm the one who changed it.
If women had not been changing in 1970, my book The Female Eunuch would have sunk without trace. Of the original printing of a 5000 only 2500 were bound. There had been no hype, no publicity of any kind, yet they were sold out on the day of issue. So begins the long story of the making of a book by the women who wanted to read it. It was the best book I could write at the time; I have written better since. If I feel any disappointment at all it is that The Female Eunuch is still in print. A tide of better books should have knocked it off its perch within a few months of its first appearance.
The most important change in the past 40 years is the gradual and apparently irreversible collapse of the patriarchal family. This was not triggered by a book, but by economic change. Wage-earners found themselves unable to finance the improvement in their standard of living, otherwise known as the rise in their level of consumption. Hire purchase of vehicles, whitegoods, furnishings and the other trappings of the good life increased the burden of debt on every household.
Even married women of child-bearing age had to go to work to service the family debt. Most of the work they did was insecure, underpaid drudgery. Because the elite labour unions made no attempt to recruit female workers, let alone to support their struggles for decent pay and conditions, a vast pool of female labour began to form at exactly the same time as automation began to threaten the survival of the labour unions themselves.
In the '60s all single women worked. As the age of first marriage rose, they worked for longer and longer. They became used to handling their own money. In those days single women were denied credit and could not borrow the kind of money needed to buy a house or start a business.
Although their credit performance was far better than that ofmen of the same age, banks and building societies would not lend to them.
Eventually single women began buying homes for themselves. With every gradual increase in women's economic activity, the appeal of economic dependency shrank. The price for being a stay-at-home wife, that is, having to run to the male head of household for every cent of housekeeping money, pocket money and pinmoney, began to seem way too high.
Working for your living is part of an honourable grown-up existence. Nobody wants to be a parasite. Even though in Australia (as in Britain) women's workplace earnings are still significantly lower than men's, 40 per cent of women with one child will be working outside the home before the child is a year old. The Australia Institute reported last year that 400,000 married women would go back to work if they could find employment, even though the cost of childcare would eat up most of their earnings.
As women's economic independence increased, their tolerance of infidelity, cruelty, neglect and emotional and physical abuse on the part of their spouses dwindled steadily. Divorce rates throughout the developed world rose in unison.
The Australian rate plateaued at the current rate of about 40 per cent of marriages ending in divorce. The trend is now slowing, partly because these days 60 per cent of couples choose to cohabit rather than marry.
Many such couples have children, and will refer to a cohabiting relationship of many years as an engagement. One way of interpreting this trend is to see it as keeping the relationship in a state of constant negotiation, in which nothing can be taken for granted and both partners are equally involved in decisions affecting family life.
The prevalence of divorce is not something I predicted. The woman who opts to end her marriage after an average of seven or eight years, with divorce following three and four years after, is making a conscious decision to go it alone. She will almost certainly be earning less than her ex-husband; if she has children she faces 15 or 20 years of poverty and unremitting hard work, both inside and outside the home.
She will have no leisure, no spare cash, no money for luxuries such as nice clothes or a decent haircut or a safe car or holidays. Her chances of finding a new partner are much lower than her ex-husband's. Women who face this fate with equanimity have my unstinting admiration. They are choosing a tough but honourable life over a servile and dishonourable one. If they get it right, and their kids do well, they will get no praise. If their kids screw up, they will get all the blame.
Every new generation of women struggles to define itself. Very few young women want to turn into their mother, and even fewer want to be their grandmother. There is no need for today's women to march to a 40-year-old feminist drum.
Amid the seeming chaos of intergenerational conflict new lifestyles and family forms are coalescing. The feminist revolution has not failed. It has yet to begin. Its ground troops are fast developing the skills and muscle that will be necessary if we are to vanquish corporate power and rescue our small planet for humanity.
03 March 2010
International Women's Day Celebration
A cultural Evening...
Resistance
Justice
Equality
6pm March 6
Art Gallery at the Addison Rd Community Centre
142 Addison Rd Marrickville
Hear from speakers from Palestine, Uruguay, El Salvador, Tamil Eelam and Guatemala about the struggle for justice and equality in Australia and around the world.
Entertainment includes; Women for Justice Dancers, Singers and Live Latin American Music.
Entry by donation, food and drinks available.
Join with Green Left Weekly, The Latin American Social Forum and other women's groups to mark International Women's Day. This event will follow the International Women's Day rally assemble at Sydney Town Hall at 11am Saturday March 6 for the march to Martin Place.
Any funds raised will go to community projects in Latin America and Green Left Weekly – alternative news.
Ph Brianna for more details 9690 1977 or 0439694505
19 February 2010
Watch out Women, Abbott's About
TALKING HEADS AT TOXTETH
Thursday 25 March, 2010 at 6 for 6.30 pm
Upstairs function room of the Toxteth Hotel, 345 Glebe Point Road, Glebe
WATCH OUT WOMEN, ABBOTT’S ABOUT THAT! has brought “pub talks” back to Glebe and for this session is raising funds for LABOR FOR REFUGEES
Order of business:
MEREDITH BURGMANN will read Abbott quotes from the Ernies book, a copy of which has been donated by The Feminist Bookshop as a lucky door prize
LARISSA BEHRENDT, EVA COX and TANYA PLIBERSEK
will give a commentary about serious Abbott issues that need watching
JOHN DERUM will perform a comedy piece about anything to do with Abbott he views as relevant (audience participation invited)
NOTE:This session is rated VR for “virginity rules”
Join us for dinner after for a “buy one get one free” meal deal
DINNER RESERVATIONS ESSENTIAL
Donation: $10/ $5 for Benefits recipients, full-time students, unwaged
Inquiries: katebarton3@optusnet.com.au
Tel: 9518.5560
Thursday 25 March, 2010 at 6 for 6.30 pm
Upstairs function room of the Toxteth Hotel, 345 Glebe Point Road, Glebe
WATCH OUT WOMEN, ABBOTT’S ABOUT THAT! has brought “pub talks” back to Glebe and for this session is raising funds for LABOR FOR REFUGEES
Order of business:
MEREDITH BURGMANN will read Abbott quotes from the Ernies book, a copy of which has been donated by The Feminist Bookshop as a lucky door prize
LARISSA BEHRENDT, EVA COX and TANYA PLIBERSEK
will give a commentary about serious Abbott issues that need watching
JOHN DERUM will perform a comedy piece about anything to do with Abbott he views as relevant (audience participation invited)
NOTE:This session is rated VR for “virginity rules”
Join us for dinner after for a “buy one get one free” meal deal
DINNER RESERVATIONS ESSENTIAL
Donation: $10/ $5 for Benefits recipients, full-time students, unwaged
Inquiries: katebarton3@optusnet.com.au
Tel: 9518.5560
12 February 2010
Banquet2010
A feast of new writing and art by Australian queer women. Available now from The Feminist Bookshop. Watch this space for info on Sydney book launch soon.
Visit www.banquetpress.com if you would like to contribute writing, poetry, or art to 2011 edition.
06 February 2010
F: A Festival, A Conference, A Future
F is a festival to celebrate feminist creativity.
F is a conference to reinvigorate the feminist movement.
F is a vision for our feminist future.
Two days of lively debate, workshops and discussion about where we are from, where we are at and where we are going.
10-11 April 2010
NSW Teachers Federation
39-41 Reservoir St
Surry Hills
feministconference.blogspot.com
f.the.conference@gmail.com
Meet the Author - Anita Heiss
Come along to meet dynamic author, Anita Heiss and hear her read from her new book "Manhattan Dreaming". Drinks and nibbles will be provided. Gold coin donation.
Saturday 13 March at 4.00pm in the bookshop.
This will be an intimate gathering so RSVP's are essential. Please call 02 9810 2666 or e-mail feministbookshop@iprimus.com.au to book your place.
Saturday 13 March at 4.00pm in the bookshop.
This will be an intimate gathering so RSVP's are essential. Please call 02 9810 2666 or e-mail feministbookshop@iprimus.com.au to book your place.
Saturday Book Group
The first meeting for 2010 for the Feminist Bookshop Book Group is Saturday 13 February at 4.00pm in the bookshop.
This month's book: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
New members are welcome! It doesn't matter if you have read the book or not as we will be discussing plans for book group and future reading. Enjoy a friendly, relaxed atmosphere with a diverse bunch of women...
Contact Gail 9810 2666 if interested in attending, either this month or in the future.
This month's book: The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
New members are welcome! It doesn't matter if you have read the book or not as we will be discussing plans for book group and future reading. Enjoy a friendly, relaxed atmosphere with a diverse bunch of women...
Contact Gail 9810 2666 if interested in attending, either this month or in the future.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
