LAST TWO DAYS AT WCS!!

Alas, the final two shows are upon us. For the final shows, WCS will be hosting one at the Culture Project and one at the Knitting Factory to conclude EMANCIPATE (a series of concerts featuring women musicians who are also activists in their communities).

Tonight (July 16th) at 7:00 pm. at the Culture Project (55 Mercer Street) WCS will present Laura Flanders on S. Dakota. In this presentation, Laura Flanders is joined by community activists to discuss organizing initiatives to defeat an abortion ban ballot initiative in 2006.

Tomorrow night (July 17th) at 7:30 pm. at the Knitting Factory (74 Leonard Street) WCS will host the final EMANCIPATE concert. This final concert will feature Chantal Kreviazuk, Marta Gomez, Imani Uzuri, and Aguafuego.

And that's it. Don't miss these final two shows: they're going to be amazing!

EMACIPATE AND COMEDY AT WCS

So on Tuesday night (July 3) WCS hosted another EMANCIPATE show at the knitting factory. The show was incredible to say the least. It was a night of spectacular musical performances featuring Pistolera, Christina Courtin, Vicki Randle, and Cris Williamson. You can come and check out EMANCIPATE again on July 10th at 7:30 pm at the knitting factory: an evening launching Myth of the Motherland, a film about young artists' travels to 12 African nations over 3 months. Featuring Queen Godls.

In addition, you can expect a series of comedy shows at the culture project this week which are as follows:

7/5: Liz Swados' Political Subversities (10:30 pm): A wild night of songs, scenes, and monologues portraying the absurdity of our world and the outrageously stupid behavior of the people in it. The young cast brings a unique perspective to mix with Elizabeth Swados' years of trouble-making.

7/6: Julie Goldman (9:00 pm): Julie Goldman may just be the funniest woman alive. This extraordinary comedian, with strong roots in the gay and lesbian communities and the activist world, brings her latest solo show to Women Center Stage.

7/7: Ladies Laugh Last With Lizz Winstead (9:00 pm): Lizz Winstead (The Daily Show, Air America) headlines the evening of the funniest women comedians around, including Julie Goldman, Negin Farsad, Katie Halper, and Desiree Burch. Presented by Women Center Stage and Laughing Liberally.

The shows are going to be great so come and check them out on any or all of those nights. For even more information, visit cultureproject.org

The Semantics of the Word "Feminist"

WCS Director Olivia Greer wrote an interesting article about the word "feminist" for YP4 following our "Why Women Center Stage?" event, at which the panelists (Jennifer Buffett, Gloria Feldt, Aisha al-Adawiya, Idelisse Malave, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, and Carol Jenkins) sparred over the relevance/usefulness/relative "good" of the word "feminist."

"Am I a 'feminist?'" asks Olivia, whose article explores the paradox of being white and an activist in the struggle of women's rights, a struggle in which non-white women feel left behind, estranged from the feminism of Steinem et al.

As a pro-rights-for-women dude, I just want to say kudos to Olivia, and to add that of course every person, man or woman, must internalize their own, idiosyncratically-connotative definition of the word "feminist," like any other word.

But as a semantics buff and serious word nerd, I have to point out that the word itself is not the problem; no one is "not" a feminist nowdays, at least in New York. The word "feminism" means simply "the ideology that men and women should have the same rights," or however you'd like to paraphrase it.

Perhaps some Texas good ole boys or Egyptian polygamists might not label themselves as "feminist," but the vast majority of Americans will, do, can, and/or should.

I was not at all surprised when, during the "Why Women Center Stage?" conversation, panelists argued about race. I agree, white ladies have left their not-white sisters in the dirt, in terms of socio-political advancement, work opportunities, etc.

But I grew confounded as the argument seemed to return again and again to that word - "feminist." What does it mean to be a "feminist" versus "someone who believes in equal rights for women?" Why is there so much confusion surrounding what should be a simple ideological signifier?

Think about this in terms of a different argument: When I tell a conservative that I am "pro-gay marriage," he doesn't ask what I mean. He doesn't say, "do you mean that you are pro-white gay marriage, or pro all-gay marriage?" That would seem ridiculous.

Yet many prominent non-white women feel that "feminist" somehow excludes them; they are not "feminists," could never possibly be "feminists," even if they very much self-identify (whether as social or political leaders, like Jenkins and Pogrebin, or as religious organizers, like al-Adawiya) as "believers in equal rights for women."

Here is the crux of the problem: The word will continue to mean just what the word means, for a time, at least. Is is not better to educate people as to the meaning of the word than to abandon the word, invent a new term for the same thing, and thus split the "feminist" old-school white woman-equalists from the "not-feminist" non-white woman-equalists?

I'm not kicking aside the very real problems brought up by those who feel excluded by the F-word; they should absolutely bring their concerns to the forefront of the women's rights debate. But they should also admit that they, too, are technically feminists.

The problem with trying to alter language politically is that, besides from ugly-fying a beautiful natural system of sound and metaphor and meta-metaphor, it doesn't work. In fact, it often backfires.

Think of Russel Simmons' quixotic quest to delete the N-word from the mouths of thugs across America. I still hear the N-word every single day. (Or Germany's campaign to suppress Nazi propaganda, which, while noble in intent, has produced a lot of German neo-Nazis.)

Rather than focus on a problem word, we should focus on problem ideas. Ideological battles cannot and should not be won semantically; that is, if women in the hood feel estranged from "feminism," women in the Upper East & West Sides should explain what feminism, in their view is; the hood women should explain to the rich women their problems with white feminism or what they see as white feminism. I bet the two groups will find more commonality than difference, at least in terms of gender-ideas.

In general, groups fighting for the same important human rights should embrace one another, not divide and subdivide based on, of all things, a four-syllable Latin piece of jargon. New labels and new words should and will pop up, of course. As new ideas come to the front of the collective watercooler debate-circuit, their jargon will replace the previous era's.

But what better option than "feminism" is floating out there right now? Perhaps there is one. If there is, please write to us and prove my earlier argument incorrect (or out of date). But think long and hard: Is being a "feminist" really so much worse than being a "transgenderequalist" or a "equagynovoterist" or a "grrl=boi-er?"

The question could be rephrased: How can we make "feminism" a better idea, and thus a better word, since we all basically agree on what it means and why we will continue to fight for it, in its name, by whichever name it takes?

The Gathering

When I walked into the Culture Project theater tonight to see Harry Belafonte's The Gathering, I had no idea what was coming. Project Director Malia Lazu (who ran for President in 2004 as part of RJ Cutler's amazing documentary series The American Candidate) began talking about the need for prison reform. Then they screened a short film about their work. It followed Harry Belafonte and Malia and their colleagues around the country as they tried to teach their communities about the prison industrial complex. The numbers are staggering - in South Carolina for instance, black people make up 35% of the population, but over 80% of the prison population. We are incarcerating children, mostly minority children, at a growing and astonishing rate all across the nation. Mr. Belafonte began this group when he saw a news clip of a 5 year old black girl in Florida being arrested for "being unruly" - and he knew something had to be done. The event tonight was eye-opening and heartbreaking, and I'm incredibly proud that Olivia brought this important message and messengers to our theater. I urge you all to learn more about The Gathering, as well as PMP (Prison Moratorium Project). It will be a long long time, if ever, before I forget the image of that terrified little girl screaming and pleading in handcuffs.

Words about WCS on Women's eNews; Women on Words

Women's eNews has assigned a blogger to cover Women Center Stage. Thanks, guys.

Also, I ran into a wonderful lit-blog about women authors the other day called Modern Matriarch. Cheesy name; wonderful content.

Concerning literary ladies, all modern supporters of equal rights for both genders should read Woolf's very short, somewhat depressing A Room Of One's Own. (It's free.)

Gracias Mamacita

Hi everyone - Check out Mamacita's blog (www.mamacita.tv) for a nice little post about Women Center Stage. (And while you're at it, take her advice and get a ticket for tomorrow's show - "Beauty on the Vine", with Olivia Wilde - at 7pm.)

Hey Folks!
So WCS kicked off the festival last night with "why women center stage?" where five different women addressed the question of "why women center stage?". The event was a blast, setting up quite well what is to be the event of the summer. That being said, here are some other exciting events you can expect from WCS this coming week:

6/26: EMANCIPATE at the Knitting Factory (7:30 pm) EMANCIPATE is a series of musical performances done by women who are activists in their communities.
ST. JOAN (8:00 pm) A reivention of Brecht's savage masterpiece featuring original live music by Kelley McRae

6/27: BEAUTY ON THE VINE WITH OLIVIA WILDE (7:00 pm) BEAUTY ON THE VINE is a reading of Zak Berkman's Beauty on the Vine done by Olivia Wilde.
ST. JOAN (8:00 pm)

6/28: HARRY BELAFONTE'S THE GATHERING (8:00 pm) THE GATHERING is a pannel of activists and youth organizers organized to discuss the criminal justice system.
ST. JOAN (8:00 pm)
LENELLE MOISE (9:00 pm) An evening of jazz, queer theory, hip-hop, and movement in which Lenelle Moise speaks out about childhoon, masculinities, sexualities, AIDS, cultural hybritity, and reclaiming f-words.

6/29: STACEYANN CHIN (7:30 pm)"Def Poet" Staceyann Chin brings excerpts from her new book for TWO NIGHTS ONLY.
ST. JOAN (8:00pm)
TOWN BLOODY HALL (9:30 pm)

6/30: STACEYANN CHIN (7:30 pm)
ST. JOAN (8:00 pm)

7/1: AFTER INNOCENCE (5:00 pm)
BECOMING NATASHA (8:00 pm) A four-woman play that explores and exposes the economic and cultural influences behind the human trafficking industry.

Come and check out some, or better yet, all of these events: they are going to be spectacular. A calendar of all events this summer can be found at the cultureproject.org

Women Center Stage arrives!

It's here! It's here! With great fanfare and excitement, I present to you all...

...drum roll please...

...Women Center Stage!

WCS is our multi-disciplinary festival that brings together women artists, activists and thinkers whose work calls attention to human struggles globally.

Through July 17 we'll present Pulitzer Prize-winner Samantha Power, spoken word poet Staceyann Chin, Eve Ensler, Carol Gilligan to Azar Nafisi, a play about human trafficking, a film about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and a concert series featuring women artists who are activists in their communities.

What we're really looking to do here with Women Center Stage is to vehemently promote women’s work – in art, in action, and in imaginative and vibrant visioning of the future.

While I usually feel relatively icky about singling women out as "nurturers" or having more capacity for compassion than men, it has historically been true that women play a unique and potent role in innumerable struggles for social change - in large part because they tell stories that don't otherwise get told, they hold community memory, wisdom, and culture; and they bear witness and engage us all to respond.

Not to mention the fact that women remain consistently underrepresented in all arenas. So we're using this festival to gather artists, activists, thinkers and other important voices for justice - to build community and solidarity, share stories and ideas, and challenge one another to act and react.

Democracy is about action, and we are looking for a diverse audience of those who take action and those who will take action, who as audiences will take what they see, hear, and experience away with them - to carry the call further out into the world.

Thank you Wythe, for your fantastic appreciation of the Men's Equality Congress (who I would like to thank for giving me a good laugh last week), and thanks to Alternet for their kind words about us:

This summer, at a time when the media is dominated by bombastic male voices, New York City's Culture Project's multidisciplined festival of women voices provides a welcome antidote.

The Un-Women Center Stage?

The "True Equality" website features an epigraph from ole Ben Franklin, that paragon of masculine virtue (a portly tinker who advocated monogamy and proposed the intelligent, if ugly or weak, turkey as the ultimate symbol of American virtue):

We must all hang together,
or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.

While I suppose I can't disagree with Ben's platitude (he's a great writer, truly, but this statement is taken out of its proper context--the Revolutionary friggin War), I'm not sure what to make of the "National Men's Equality Congress," nor why such a congress should exist.

Men are probably discriminated against in some ways, some of the time, but the cold, hard facts are these:

Women are discriminated in more ways, more of the time; in worse ways, in more countries, in more serious ways. They earn less money, are more likely to be raped, disowned, mutilated, or even dismissed as unable to talk about electronics as well as men.

(This last evil happened to my girlfriend, a video artist who worked in the electronics section of a large department store and was routinely dismissed as just a girl, unable to recommend a good HD camera or find the RCA cords or whatnot.)

While Culture Project advocates for women artists via Women Center Stage, these guys busy themselves writing trite sophistry such as:

When we explain men's issues, women, men, liberals and conservatives could care less. Yet when we explain boys’ issues, women, men, liberals and conservatives care. Why? Protecting boys calls upon women’s instinct to protect; but protecting men wreaks havoc on women’s instinct to expect protection from us. Similarly, men, whether liberal or conservative, recoil if we fail to protect. Understanding boys’ issues therefore has a dual benefit: it helps us communicate our issues to others; and it helps us to know ourselves. Thus, just as the Chinese symbol for crisis incorporates both the danger and opportunity, we will discover both the depth of the crisis for boys and the depth of the opportunity for us all.

WTF? A guy called me the other day just to accuse Culture Project of misandry, which is hilarious and wrong; we have a male artistic director, general manager, tech director, marketing associate, publicist, attorney, graphic designer, etc. Of course, we have a female business manager, development director, festival director, producer, etc. We produce work by men and women. The women's festival's only three weeks long. We know men get the shaft, har har, sometimes; again, the point is, women get a much worse shaft, much more often.

If that idea "wreaks havoc" on you, my apologies. (Writers: stop using that phrase or E. B. White's ghost and I are going to find you and shaft you.)

Perhaps the most dangerous opportunity there is is to see that women aren't "women," aren't some noxious, conspiracy-forming group; just as men aren't even "men." Men earn more and have more opportunities because of a vast historical head-start. Women are catching up and will hopefully continue to do so. (Not that I'm voting for Hillary; that bitch is nuts.)

If anyone has info on the man-congress or is attending, please do write us.
I exit with two quotes from Anais Nin.

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are.

oh, and check this out -

A piece by Britt Bravo on Women Center Stage.

dispatch from Nairobi

This is a bit belated - it's a re-post from a piece I wrote for openDemocracy about the World Social Forum in Kenya, which I attended in my capacity as producer of Women Center Stage, Culture Project's annual multi-disciplinary arts festival focusing on women artists who are calling our attention to issues of social justice globally.

Growing up a young white woman in New York City, my world was comfortable, it was integrated, and my feminism was without a name and assumed. I say with not a small amount of shame that it was only very recently that I understood acutely enough that only for white and privileged women is feminism about reproductive rights, glass ceilings and the stiletto-or-not debate. And I am looking for deeper connections, for wider, meaningful work.

In 2007, there is a palpable paradox: women take leadership positions from Chile to Germany, as women from Ukraine to the Dominican Republic are trafficked into prostitution and the right of women in the United States to sovereignty over their bodies is carefully dismantled. Countries like Mexico and South Africa allow employers to keep women from work due to pregnancy; in Morocco, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, women’s legal rights belong to male family members. Each day, in every part of the world, women are beaten in their own homes.

The World Social Forum has made this co-existent diversity and commonality of experience palpable.

Arriving in Kenya, my first trip to any African country, I found myself enraged (at myself? at my schooling?) by how little I know about the world, and even about my own country. I have so little real information, know so little about real people and their experiences. And so I began to understand that my job in Nairobi was to listen.

So I’ve tried to pull out themes that emerged in the sessions I’ve been to:

The first is a call from women in all parts of the world to shake off the limitations implied by our attachment to the language of patriarchy. That, in re-visioning the world, we continue to use and accept assumptions asserted by an old standard. It is within our rights – perhaps our responsibility – to re-work the vocabulary and the assumptions as we work to make change. As a young woman said at a Young Feminists meeting, “we are not just a women’s movement, we are women in movement.”

The second point follows closely: as women in movement, generational disconnects seem to come up again and again. In a youth circle, an older woman thanked younger women for carrying the torch in a long speech, but left the room as soon as younger women began speaking; in a session on women elected leaders, young women lamented a lack of mentorship and begged for more guidance and support; older women observed that younger women don’t seem to have a sense of their history or a tie to any coherent movement. And these things were expressed across barriers of country, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, what-have-you.

A third, related, point is that, as women, we can tend to fight to be in the space we have, rather than fighting to expand the space. Women talked a great deal about competition between one another, and a barrier between generations and classes of women, and called strongly for more solidarity. They brought up, in every session, the importance of “knowing each other better,” learning from each other, and supporting each other – and expanding the space so as to be able to stand together.

Finally, women globally are calling the world’s attention to a wide range of social justice issues in their regions and homes. Women fight side by side with men, and with a unique worldview, in the labor movement, in the environmental movement, in the immigration movement and in countless other struggles of countless other people and communities. The global women’s movement is a call to action for equality and safety for all people, everywhere.

By the closing of the World Social Forum, I felt deeply all the beauty and contradictions of the event. For 7 days, I walked through the most diverse throngs of people I’ve ever seen – people from African countries in tribal dress, people from African countries who would blend in anywhere in the U.S., women in saris, endless types of headdress. I saw a woman in a full burkha, but openly holding hands with the man she was with – no gloves even!

What if the world really looked like this! And of course, it’s a small oasis and not without its problems and complications. Many Kenyans protested the Forum because even the reduced price for them was a day’s wages and not at all affordable. And once we were all safely home, two of these citizens - young boys - were executed for their efforts. Yes, they were executed.

One afternoon, as I was admiring the number of men wearing t-shirts that read “women are not property,” I was approached by a young man from Sierra Leone who wanted to chat. He told me that he works as an anti-mining activist, and we talked about Sierra Leone and the Appalachian coal-mining region in the U.S. And then he said, “I would like to bring you to my country,” to which I replied, “I’d be very interested to see it.” He said, “Yes, you will marry me and come to live in my country.” When I explained that wouldn’t be possible he thought for a moment and then asked if I have a sister. I told him that she is sixteen. “Ah,” he said, dead serious, “the perfect age for marrying. Very obedient. You will give her my picture when you go home.”

But what an extraordinary event this was! I quickly came to relish being in the minority for a period (I’m sure tempered by the fact that it was temporary), reminding myself to listen and not to hold tight to my own views and experience. I loved seeing so many different colored people engaged in real conversations, and to see that there is work going on constantly, at the most local, grassroots level, as well as in global partnerships. As a woman said in the last day's final Women’s Forum, the World Social Forum gives us a moment to take the work we’ve done and put it on the world table. And in the end – to sum up the parts of the whole as best as I can – as we meet and grow in our work, we make another world possible.