INVITATION
Radical critique of masculinities international
discussion and
networking
weekend
1 and 2 April 2006, Gent, Belgium
History of the initiative:
At a meeting in the wake of a discussion event on
âMen and
feminismâ at the
Feminist Cafe Poppesnor in Antwerp, Belgium (see
www.feminisme.be/fcpoppesnor) in September 2005 we
decided to organize
a
"critique of masculinities weekend" in the spring of
2006 where all
those
present at the meeting would meet again to continue
the discussions
begun,
speak more about what everyone does locally and see
what activities we
might
want to coordinate, and if it is possible to intervene
collectively in
certain political fields or running campaigns... We
said we were going
to
invite people we know that might be interested in this
kind of debate
from
Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, and
maybe also from
further
abroad.
Who is behind the initiative?
The people who met in Antwerp were from Belgium,
France and the
Netherlands,
mostly men who are active in (among other structures)
radical left
queer
groups and/or (mostly straight) radical left
profeminist men's groups.
A lot
of the discussion circled about how our attempt at
antisexist politics
could
take account of the intersections of gender and
sexuality with
ethnicity,
race and class, although this was by no means the only
thing we talked
about.
Several of the people present are active in antiracist
projects and/or
doing
academic work in this direction (critical
anthropology, postcolonial
studies).
General introduction:
Despite worldwide struggles of the movements of women,
gays, lesbians,
queers,
transgendered people, intersexuals..., their
oppression remains.
Ideologies
that legitimise the exploitation and oppression of
women abound. For
too many
people, the oppression and marginalisation of all
those who don't
conform to
dominant norms of gender and sexuality is invisible,
or appears
natural. The
forms of consciousness that enable this blindness are
unchallenged in
their
global effectiveness. And in many radical and
emancipatory movements
the way
gender and sexuality are dealt with is completely
insufficient.
Worldwide,
only very few men are active against gender-specific
violence,
oppression and
exploitation; for most men in emancipatory movements,
the different
kinds of
oppression suffered by people who deviate from the
norms of gender and
sexuality in force in their society are only rarely an
issue.
This is the background for our initiative. We want
more men to become
active
against patriarchal gender relations in radical
movements (and
elsewhere). We
want more heterosexual men to challenge the
heterosexism of our
societies.
Who is invited?
What we want is a practical and theoretical critique
of masculinities.
This is
the responsibility of men. But the issue of
masculinities and their
critique
does not âbelongâ to men. We invite everyone to
the process of
debate,
learning and hopefully organizing which we envisage
â whether they
define
themselves as men, as women, transgendered persons or
whatever.
Some of our questions:
What is the role of race, ethnicity and class in the
constitution of
masculinities? Can white and non-white men work
together against sexism
and
heterosexism, and if so, under which conditions? Can
heterosexual and
non-heterosexual men work together against sexism and
heterosexism, and
if
so, under which conditions? What would it mean to
abolish masculinity?
Is the
attempt to reform masculinity worthwhile? Is that
possible at all? What
is
subversive appropriation of masculinity by women? Is
masculinity a
resource
that can be redistributed?
Provisional Program:
Saturday 1 April 2006
10h Startup meeting, introductions
11h-13h Workshop I: "Race, class and the
contradictions of
masculinityâ (Daniel Mang)
13h-15h Workshop II: âMen and Violenceâ (Jens
Vantricht)
15hâ17h Workshop III: âMasculinity and
Whitenessâ (Bob Wester,
Daniel Mang,
Jaason van Bannisseht?)
17hâ19h Break
19hâ21h Synthesis
21h- Performance? (Queer Collective) / Intro to
Contact Improvisation?
(Daniel) / Massage and Relaxation Space? / Partytime?
Sunday 2 April 2006
11h-13h Workshop IV âMen and Spiritualityâ (Hein
Kuipers)
13h-15h Workshop V âRepresentations of non-white
masculinitiesâ (
Jaason van
Bannisseht )
15h-17h Synthesis
Technicalities:
We will meet at the Jeugddienst, Kammerstraat 10, 9000
Gent, Belgium
(
www.gent.be/jeugd). Communication will be in English
and French. Since
we
have no funding from anywhere we can offer only very
limited travel
cost
support. We will be able to provide places to sleep
with people in Gent
free
of charge, though. We would like to ask everyone to
contribute between
10 and
25 Euros for the weekend so we have something to
redistribute to those
people
who come from farther away and have higher travel
costs.
Registration:
Jens Vantricht
j.vantricht@???
+31 206793928
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