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.
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“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.
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“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.
