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Celeste's Notes from the Lesbian Avengers Natn'l Conference
I went to two workshops and one action planning. The first workshop was
Lesbian Avengers 101 How to set up a chapter
Of course, actions (or mini-actions) can be as small as stickering or flyering and for that, you don't need to worry about the media (unless it's on mills campus :) To plan shit, you really need a core of 4 super-reliable roles...
Committees report to general meetings, but meet outside of them. General meetings shouldn't go over an hour. When new people show up, it's good to have a welcome person or even pair them up w/ a buddy inside the group. This prevents cliquishness. Also, it's good to mix groups of experienced and inexperienced people, so knowledge can be shared. But watch out for power issues. Also, it's good to have a phone and email lists. Call ppl and let 'em know what's up if they missed a meeting. Mail out minutes. Make sure that people get called before events and that new people get called within a couple of days. Recruiting parties are also a good way to pull folks in. There are all sorts of roles to take at actions, but a good one to have, aside from a lookout, is a designated cop person. This chick just needs to stall. Go talk to the cops and ask them questions. Clueless ones. Ask for explinations and repetitions. The cops will be trying to find a leader and order the group to disperse, but cop people can distract them and win valuable time to keep doing stuff. Don't get in their face, just keep 'em talking to you.
Mall Action making trouble at the Loyd Center, largest mall in oregon, first indoor mall ever.
every group had a lookout person. Somebody who was not involved in actually participating in whatever, went with them and watched out for security. In the event that security tried to get ppl, the lookout would stall them, giving the ppl a chance to flee. The lookout person would then be able to honestly say they hadn't done anything. It's a good job for people who, for whatever reason, would be unable to run away quickly.
We had a hotline number for folks to call in case they got arrested, but reminded them that there was no bail fund, so they'd need to have their own contact who could raise bail. In the case that someone got arrested, they would call the number and tell people where they were being held. We would then send somebody to wait in the receptionist area for them (which tends to speed things up) and call the police station every fifteen minutes to inquire about the status of the person being held (which also tends to speed things up). People who were planning to risk arrest filled out contact sheets with their date of birth, social security number, whole name and a person to call for bail. Because the police would probably search arrested people and take everything away from them, all phone numbers people needed should be written on their bodies, in a non-immediately visible place.
Some issues that were raised with the planning of this action had to do with speaking for groups that were not represented in the action planning. someone made a bathroom sticker that said "FTM Only" and had a nekkid picture of a mid-op ftm person. We did have the goos sense to run this by the T.S. attendees first. However, one of them reminded us that it was not ok to do an action the affected the lives of local trans ppl with out having some of them involved in the planning. Trans ppl would have to live with the public reaction to our actions while we would not. Many MTFs shop for makeup at a trans-friendly store in the loyd center, however (this being oregon), their survival depended on mall patrons not recognizing trans people as such. Calling attention to trans folks risked them getting attacked by unfriendly locals. this principle is important to remember. It's not ok to speak for other groups. An all-white group shouldn't organize around women-of-color issues. It's not ok just to tag group names on the end of your organization title without representation. don't try to speak for others. Cuz other people have to live with the words yer putting in their mouths. That sucks, so don't do it. ok? Once we arrived at the loyd center, we began executing our plans. the parking violation idea was a complete bust. Portland is a pretty liberal place and nobody had evil bumper stickers. But, it would be a good idea just to travel around with the parking violations so when you stumble across and evil car, you can mess with. A lot of people did have nike stickers tho. I think the parking violation should be made use of to educate folks about sweat shop labor. People who put anti-queer bumper stickers on their car have made a conscious choice to be offensive and thus might even feel smug about is "ticketing" their car, but people with Nike stickers probably haven't thought at all about what those stickers stand for. Making the flyers look like tickets risks a backlash, but it does get their attention. I don't read flyers most of the time, but i'd read a ticket. The bathroom stickering appeared to go well. The patriotic songs just didn't happen. The bed sheet banners stayed up a long time before the security guards got around to them. mall employees noticed the banners but didn't give a hit (minimum wage jobs often lead to pride in yer workplace...esp malls. not.) The gaurds left us alone until we began smooching. (They have something called The Portland PDA Challenge, where folks attempt to be as inappropriate as possible for as long as possible) After we started smooching (but not me, cuz xi didn't come along), the gaurds told us french kissing was unacceptable. We didn't push it or wait to be told to disperse, but instead started marching out and chanting. I don't have the words for all of them yet, but i'll get them. My favorite one, tho, was "2, 4, 6, 8. proud to be the beaver state." People watching us had no clue why were chanting that, tho. Afterwards, everybody went to a party where they got drunk and went topless :) (only, i was hanging out with xi's family, so there's no reason for that little emoticon) Partying after an action is a good idea cuz it helps folks unwind and it's fun. more fn than processing, which can be done later. and people won't burn ot if they balance their hardcore activism with having fun.
Body Issues Organizing around body image
We talked a bit about what women tend to find attractive in other women, including a strong physique, body hair and a more chubby appearance. however, while many of us enjoy a girlfriend with a belly, we tend to be unhappy when we get one ourselves, cuz of all the negative crap we've been fed growing up. We also need to watch out for anti-femme stuff. A lot of avengers talked about how they felt they had to butch-up for meetings because being femme might be looked down on. (also fat butches seem to be more accepted than fat femmes) Organizations around these issues include fat girl and NAFA (National Association of Fat Acceptance. Diets keep women weak. Fat women are intimidating and need to be neutralized. The economy also has an interest in keeping women on diets. Dieting is a multi-billion dollar industry and low-fat foods are expensive. the average size for women is a 14, but clothes are constructed for the body of a skinny child with breasts. This does two things, it eroticizes youth and it makes the ideal woman child-like. 14 is the cutoff size for what is shelved under "normal" in the store. Anybody over 14 has to go to a different section. So about half the population is forced to think of themselves as overweight. Having a woman's body, with a butt and a stomach and hips is hard to fit in standard sizes. Standard clothing is not made for women outside of what the clothing industry considers "normal" (even tho the number of women who are "normal" are the minority)
So what can we do about this? We need to change beauty ideals. Portland did a mock beauty pagants. the winner was tall, skinny, blonde-wigged, wearing a slip, bound and gagged. Her sash said "fear" on it, and she was lead on a leash. other entries included an african american person labeled "miss too ethnic."
this turned into an action. A few of us (well, two car loads) went to clackamas town center (the mall where tonya harding rehearses in the ice rink (every mall in oregon seems to have an ice rink)) and mostly stickered. There's a TV ad campaign up here with the slogan "wider is better," so we stuck stickers that say that up on mirrors and on clothes. as well as "big is beautiful." "you are beautiful" on "larger size" (those were finger quotes) clothes. Some of 'em had cool slogans like, "size 14 is the average size. stay above average." others said "i love my squishy tummy." We stuck info about diets and negative health affects of them in the pockets of clothes. We stuck stickers that said "Riot, Don't Diet" everywhere.
Things i learned
Next year's conference is in Baltimore or D.C., prolly. can't wait to go :) |