Moxie Minutes, 10/18

MOXIE Minutes
Thursday October 18, 2007

General:

Good news!
We don’t have to buy movie rights for “Clueless” because it’s educational! Perhaps plan it for somewhere after Thanksgiving and before finals/break. At mid-point. Just need two weeks to put the word out. We should probably have it on a Thursday instead of a meeting. We need to make sure OPEN isn’t doing something the same day.

No word back from OSDA if they’re going to fund the self-defense workshop yet. Steve McAllister said he’s done a lot of this before and wants to talk to us about ideas and stuff. A couple members responded to his e-mail, but he hasn’t replied back yet.

Events:

What time/date for street harassment? Definitely get it in this semester. How should we structure it? Don’t want just discussion. Want it in within next week of self-defense. Guest speakers? Perhaps on November 15th? Self-defense before that, on November 9th, which is a Friday, when the instructor could come. Plan street harassment around who we can get. Get someone from Hollaback?? Erica will email someone from it and ask about getting them to speak. Show clips from their website.
Any back-up ideas if we can’t get someone from Hollaback? Vlada and Erica will talk to Anne, she knows a lot of people.

Date for Clueless: December 6th
What kind of food? We only 50 bucks, request more? Alcohol at event (wine?) However, it’s doubtful that they would allow it at an undergrad event
After we get finalized info for the event, we can send flyers to OSDA so they can distribute them to dorms

Do we as Moxie want to do something for street harassment (techniques, discussion, etc) or just leave it up to speaker??? Depends on how much speaker has to talk about. Moxie can moderate, have questions to redirect things.

Suggestions:
Get Babeland to sponsor something with us?

Upcoming Events:
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
The Abortion Controversies
7-9 PM
Wollman Hall, 65 W. 11th St., 5th Floor (enter at 66 W. 12th St.)

Moxie Minutes, 10/11

MOXIE Minutes 
Thursday October 11, 2007

General:

The permanent meeting space for this semester is now located in the basement of 65 E 11th, Room 50, big thanks to Richenda for securing it!

There is no active business because we are waiting to hear back from OSDA on funding. The request for $300 for the “Clueless” screening is in, plus snacks. A $400 request was also put in for the self-defense workshop however, the street harassment one was not, and will have to wait.

General Discussion:

Doris Lessing won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Many consider her to be a feminist writer. She is best known for “The Golden Notebook.”

The “Relationships, Sex, and Intimacy” presentation to the freshmen during Workshop was essentially a bomb. It only went through a short list of STDs and an anonymous sex survey. Why aren’t we talking about consent and dangers in city specifically??? Or a presentation about being safe in the dorm?

Discussion Topic: National Coming Out Day

Today is Coming Out Day (October 11th). However, there was no open mic in the courtyard as planned, just a person yelling “it’s coming out day!” It was not seen as very effective. The point of it wasn’t for it to be forced on you, like you had to “come out” that day. It could be stories about when you came out and what the experience was like.
*
“I just like who i like when i like them” –it’s an unspoken thing; a person doesn’t have to pronounce a specific preference/gender.
*
“Anybody have a relationship with their parents where they can talk about sex?”
–a few Moxie members shared their personal stories.

Suggestions:

LSU should buy megaphone for student use.

*Moxie should put out a quarter page flyer type thing; use bright paper and place it near the New School newspaper so that people automatically pick it up. Different people can write different things each week. We can include links, pictures, logo, graphics, etc. Essentially it would be a mini-newspaper designed to engage the community.
Perhaps talk to NSU newspaper about advertising Moxie events? If we place advertisements, it probably won’t be cheap but we can try.

Upcoming Events:

The Monday before Halloween (the 29th) there will be a party organized by the Student Activities Board. There will be drink deals for the NS students that are 21. Flyers will be posted (name of location). The SAB meets at 6 on Fridays.

In November–OPEN will be showing “Trannyfags”, which we might not have to pay for. There will be a discussion afterwards. Moxie could run the event in conjunction with OPEN; could show clips instead of entire movie. We should probably screen it beforehand to see if it’s worthwhile.

Feminist Pedagogy Conference is/was October 12th. There was various workshops on race theory, porn, etc. Hopefully we’ll hear more about that at the next meeting.

October 23rd–The Abortion Conference

Gender Studies Minor Events:
November 8th: “BioSecurity & Bodily Exposures: Notes on the Sexual Politics of Defense”
December 4th: “The Touch of Sea in Greeting: Judith Wright: Poet, Housewife, EcoFeminist”

Other Discussions:

Why are there so few young feminists? Are they intimidated by the “older feminists” who might not be able to identify with us? Are their issues even the same as ours? Even within a five year gap there is a huge difference with what we grow up in versus what the older women did. However, age is not the only factor–there is class, race, sexuality, etc. It should be expected that age is a factor.
There has been no real, actual feminist response to attitudes towards women since around the Reagan era. People tend to think of Feminism of something that is past, behind us, and doesn’t need to be worked on anymore.
How does the younger crowd get involved with making a difference? Everyone has to start somewhere, so where do we begin?

The Moxie Logo:

Currently it is the blank and pink Moxie one. Should we have images instead? The “official” feminist symbol is not often used (the female symbol with the fist in the middle.) However, we may just stick with the logo we currently have. For the Moxie blog we could use an image but for advertising purposes just use the simple text.

Moxie Minutes, 10/4

MOXIE Minutes
Thursday October 4, 2007
6pm to 7:15pm

General:

Conference room may become permanent meeting space (the one across from the Lang Cafe.)

EVENTS:

The Vagina Monologues Production: (written by Eve Ensler)

Going into third year of production at NSU; student run.
Starting earlier this year
It’s a global movement and fundraiser for stopping violence against women. Helps to empower women
Raises money for organization of our choice. Last year the organization was Safer.
First meeting for V-day and The Vagina Monologues was October 4th. Working on publicity of it and organizational things. Casting and auditions probably in december.
Fundraising should begin now, before vagina monologues, so we can give more money to organizations that help women.
Moxie can get a table at V-day event.
Next V-day Organization meeting is October 19th at 3pm 55 W 13th St

For more information check out http://www.vday.org/main.html

There will be a “teach in” with SAFER (students active for ending rape)–will be looking into policies on sexual assault on campus. Takes place over few hours. http://www.safercampus.org/
Email Alisa McGee if any questions. McGeeA@newschool.edu

At Moxie table what would we have?

Suggestions:
Sell chocolate vaginas for a month or so beforehand–people would like it and it would publicize the production. Would complement Moxie masturbation month (also in February)

How involved do we want Moxie to be in V-day event????
*We can organize a trip to see the performance or we can help put it together, raise money for it, join cast,
*Depending on how involved we are, Moxie can be on the VM flyer.

Possibility of getting EVE ENSLER herself to speak at event.
Her speech fee is thousands of dollars–we would need a lot of fundraising to make that happen.

Fundraising Ideas:
*Movie screenings however, cannot make money on movie itself but on food. But people might be pissed we’re charging for food because they can typically get it for free. There’s also a large availability of things like pizza, might not bother buying it at event.
*Sell chocolate vaginas
*Moxie members can walk around with a box and sell lollipops or something. We can sell anything prepackaged but we just can’t make it ourselves.
*Sell food at regular events as well. Target specific kinds of things to sell with types of lectures and whatnot.
*Sell VM book and DVD
*Official VM shirt? Pins? Sell them as well.

There is a separate committee for fundraising VM however, we can feed ideas into them.

Richenda is going to email about a table at the event and getting Moxie involved. Make sure there’s staff at all the times.

Advertising VM–post flyers in cafes and elsewhere, try to get outside people to come in. Also a good way to fundraise.

Advertise Moxie itself more at the event as well. Direct people to Moxie’s blog. http://moxierocks.wordpress.com/

What is the The Vagina Monologues?
It started out as one woman show.
Vaginas are internal, not seen, repressed, people don’t want to talk about female sexuality. People don’t want to talk about or say “vagina”. It’s a way to get people for people to talk about it and have a discussion.
Different tones of monologues–can be sad, tragic, comical. A different monologue for a woman every year–last year’s was based on the rape and brutalization of a woman.

Discussion Questions:
How do you percieve construction workers?
*Reminds you how you’re subordinate.
*It’s sometimes too late to respond so don’t bother
*Some women starting to take it as compliment to be cat-called/etc
*Is a stare better than a vulgar comment??
Just as bad, objectified nevertheless.
*If you don‘t know what they’re saying is it worse or better?
*Do they like it better when you’re rude back?
Being a smart-ass probably won’t change anything/may just encourage them. Can get self in trouble by verbally talking back.
*Sometimes funny but still creepy, i.e. “your vagina must be warm!”

*Man In White!! Is he a pimp? Always by 6th ave by pet shop in all pure white. He will ask for sexual favors. How do you respond???

*Inform people of different kinds of mace, hand it out. However, some states have outlawed it. If you use it, person can sue you for macing him.

*Be careful of generalizations and ethnocentrism regarding circumcision of women–it’s a “cultural thing.” However, there is debate over this.

Perhaps coordinate self defense workshop with SAFER? Get Erica in contact with Alisa concerning this.

Vagina Monologues

The New School’s production of the Vagina Monologues is getting underway, and Moxie is getting behind the V-Day Effort. This year the project wants to surpass its fund-raising goal from last year, and try to raise enough for Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues, to speak at the New School.

Moxie is planning to help with fund raising this year, as well as participating in the production process on a voluntary basis.

The next meeting for the Vagina Monologues organizers is Friday, October 19th at 3pm. Keep an eye out for flyers across campus. EVERYONE is welcome to participate, male and female.

For more info about the Vagina Monologues and the V-Day campaign to end violence against women, visit: http://www.vday.org