Come and hear about the BFN’s activities in 2011 and plans for 2012
Date: Wednesday 18 January 2012
Time: 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Place: Hydra Books
The Bristol Feminist Network write:
Our fourth year has been the busiest ever for the Bristol Feminist Network. Starting in January with the Where are the Women – Here They Are! cabaret night where we celebrated women’s music, poetry and art, our activity hasn’t stopped.
Since then we have had numerous discussion groups, including Feminism 101, Sisterhood, Feminism and Relationships and Feminism and Eroticism. We hosted a sell-out event about women’s representation in the media with renowned journalist Bidisha. We’ve ran two packed film and panel events on female genital mutilation, and a film and speech night on violence against women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We ran a workshop on women’s rights in Afghanistan and joined women up and down the country when we hosted a candle lit vigil to demand women’s voices are heard as peace negotiations with the country progress. Most recently, we marched through the streets to Bristol to Reclaim the Night.
Our members have attended conferences, written articles, contributed to reports, ran workshops, sat on committees and marched on Slut Walks.
This year has seen a number of feminist-related stories in the headlines, often demonstrating how far we have come – but also how far we have to go. In our own city, we have seen how entrenched victim-blaming myths are, with the initial police safety advice after the murder of Jo Yeates (which BFN successfully challenged and changed). The reactions to the allegations against Julian Assange and Dominique Strauss-Kahn revealed the investment we have in rape myths that excuse the alleged perpetrator and blame the victim. The opening of the Playboy Club in London and the Miss World event showed we have a long way to go before the normalisation of women as sex objects is over. And the cuts from the coalition government continue to entrench inequality as they turn back the clock on women’s rights.
