NEW FEMINIST GROUP FOR ALL GENDERS (call out modified)

papidan | 29.09.2008 18:41 | London

Let's try to start a brand new gender discussion group open to people of all genders! Come along to our first meeting at the London Action Resource Centre (LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, E1 1ES) on Sunday 19th October at 3pm.

The London Profeminist Men's Group has been meeting for more than 9 months now. For us, the experience of meeting together as men has been very positive, especially in terms of deconstructing our role in patriarchy as oppressors, understanding how we became men, mutual support and raising our consciousness.

Members of the group have decided that we would like to start a brand new gender discussion group open to people of all genders. At this point we feel we'd like to create:

• A constructive dialogue about gender politics between people of all genders which has a clearly feminist perspective.
• A group which takes the feminist principle "the personal is political" seriously and aims to create a space where we can talk openly about our own experiences of gender, of perpetuating oppression and of being oppressed.
• A group in which we would support each of us both in our individual struggles with our gender conditioning and in our political activism.

The possibilities for this group are pretty much endless, so why not get involved and help shape what the group will do and how it will work.

Please do get in contact if you're interested (

newfeministgroupforallgenders@googlemail.com) and come along to our first meeting at the London Action Resource Centre (LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, E1 1ES) on Sunday 19th October at 3pm. Oh, and tell all your friends!

The men's group will continue to meet, probably on the weeks in between the gender inclusive meetings. The group can be contacted on

londonprofeministmensgroup@gmail.com, or check out the blog, londonprofeministmensgroup.blogspot.com

papidan
e-mail: papidan..at..no-log.org

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I'll be there

29.09.2008 19:40

This is great, there's nothing like this feminist stuff for pulling the birds....

Austin Powers

Pointless masochism

29.09.2008 22:47

How are the men who attend this group "perpetuating oppression" of women? The fact that you are a man does not make you an oppressor of women. This is just a painful exercise in delusion and self dislike. There are important issues regarding sexual violence and lower pay for woman that need resolving. The above event appears to skirt such important issues in favour of a childish dichotomy where all men are bad.

Keith

End to enforced Gender Roles in general

30.09.2008 12:57

While I am all for 'Feminism' so to speak, I still insist that the word is outmoded and causes much misunderstandign with men. In reality, the issues dealt with are no longer purely 'feminist' - we need to recognise 'Gender oppression' on both sides of the fence.

Mike Innes

why so much negativity?

30.09.2008 22:46

the group's for all genders...
people wanna meet up and talk about all kinds of things, including how our different backgrounds and life-experiences might contribute to our political understandings and status and position now, the many different types of privilege that some people have or don't have (which is not just restricted to gendered privilege, although i think it would be good for more 'radical' men to examine the ways in which they do enjoy various privileges while living in a patriarchal/capitalist/racist society), and the ways in which we might contribute to the oppression of others, or be oppressed by others ourselves.... nowhere does it say that only the male members of the group will be talking about their complicity or involvement in this oppression - you seem to have assumed that the women wouldn't have anything to contribute there..

it's not 'masochist' to take some of these issues more seriously, and to actually try and learn how all these things affect us and our activism, and the diversity/ long-term sustainability/ effectiveness of our 'movement'. i think it's actually a positive use of time and energy. i'd like to think that this new group might even encourage more men to identify as 'feminists' (pure and simple, no need for 'pro-feminist').

i wish more activists would make the effort to learn about the herstory of feminist analysis/ theory and action through the ages/around the world (find out what we mean by words like 'patriarchy', 'privilege', 'oppression', 'gender', 'violence' etc). it seems to me that unless you're already tackling those gendered problems in some way, it'd be better for all of us if you didn't criticise people who do/ plan to....

get over the male guilt, and fight patriarchy yourself! there are lots of feminist websites you could look at with suggestions of ways men can show more solidarity with feminist struggles, or maybe you could even go along to a feminist meeting?! like this one that's being organised in london....

feminist