[Wamvan] WAM! Vancouver social Dec. 22nd?

Tue Nov 27 21:44:02 PST 2012

Are newcomers welcome?
Jill

CC: wamvan at lists.resist.ca
From: info at imagesmith.ca
Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 21:25:53 -0800
To: wamvan at lists.resist.ca
Subject: Re: [Wamvan] WAM! Vancouver social Dec. 22nd?

Hi Joanna and WAM!
I can make the 22nd for sure. Love to meet everyone and share ideas/intel for all of our organizations/projects etc 
Jennifer  

Jennifer K Johnson 604-763-2392
On 2012-11-27, at 9:09 PM, Joanna Chiu <chiu.joanna5 at gmail.com> wrote:

Hmm, so far, I've heard that Jarrah, Alex, Frieda (maybe) can make it. 

Could anyone else who plans to come reply to the list so we could get a sense of whether there'd be enough people to have the social on the 22nd? 

If not, would after Christmas and before New Year's work better or is that time really busy too? 

I'm free the 19th and the 21st, too. 

On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Alexandra Tse <alex_tse at sfu.ca> wrote:

yes! That would work for me.alex

From: "Joanna Chiu" <chiu.joanna5 at gmail.com>

To: wamvan at lists.resist.ca
Sent: Monday, 26 November, 2012 22:29:11
Subject: Re: [Wamvan] WAM! Vancouver social Dec. 22nd?

Would afternoon on the 22nd work for everyone? We'll look into Rhizome. :) 

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 4:24 AM, Frieda Werden <frieda.werden at gmail.com> wrote:

I have heard that the Rhizome Cafe still has some vacancies for its meeting room for the week before Christmas.

On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 10:23 AM, Joanna Chiu <chiu.joanna5 at gmail.com> wrote:

That'll be great! The WAMVan organizers actually have a meeting scheduled for Dec. 20 evening. I'm free anytime on the 22nd, though! It sounds like a good idea to book something  soon so we can keep that time free during the busy holiday season. 

It'll be great to get together and catch up and talk about ways to support each other's work and collaborate! :) 
Would Dec. 22nd work for other people? I'm changing the subject heading. Thanks so much for looking into possible venues, Jarrah! They'd have to be accessible, not require members to pay money to participate, and be centrally located. 

Joanna 

On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 2:18 AM, Jarrah <jarrahhodge at gmail.com> wrote:

Definitely! I'd suggest Thursday night the 20th or Saturday the 22nd daytime. If that works for folks I could start trying to find a place that would work.

On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 9:41 AM, Joanna Chiu <chiu.joanna5 at gmail.com> wrote:

If only I could teleport back to Vancouver to cover this story. (I've been in Hong Kong on a one-year contract position at a newspaper for the past half year.) 

I'm coming back home for a few weeks starting Dec. 18, though. Can we all please meet up and do something fun? And brainstorm on how to take over the world? 

On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 1:17 PM, Frieda Werden <frieda.werden at gmail.com> wrote:

Suzette says the dealership that had the signs was at Hastings and Knight (Clark).  It was there for a long time, we saw it just a few weeks ago, too, but Suzette says she thinks they have taken the signs down.  I was having fantasies of throwing eggs, but perhaps someone did that or raised a constructive objection - or, maybe the old owner sold out?  Or just got fed up with the MR movement people.  Or got busted for something.  It would be interesting for a journalist to go there and talk to people about why they had the signs and why they took them down.

On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 8:44 PM, Joanna Chiu <chiu.joanna5 at gmail.com> wrote:

Hey, thanks for all the information. Is this MRA business a recent thing in Vancouver that started growing this year?
What's been happening at commercial drive & broadway stn, Tami? 

I'd like to discuss counter measures as well. If we do a counter poster campaign, my worry is they'll just tear down the posters in retaliation for whoever tore down theirs. And I don't think they're worth the printing costs. 

Maybe we can make some sort of web poster/infographic to share around social media? Or an online petition? What would we want to ask for? An end to harassment of feminists by MRAs? I don't know, any other ideas? The tricky thing is that you don't want to help them get more publicity. 

Joanna 

On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 12:28 PM, Frieda Werden <frieda.werden at gmail.com> wrote:

There's a car dealership here in town with MRI posters all over it.

On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Tami Starlight <tamistarlight at gmail.com> wrote:

Yup
Been an ongoing issue here and know a few who were challenging their shit on commercial drive & broadway stn.

Sent from my wireless device*All my relations*Tami Starlight:Unceded coast Salish territory/Vancouvertamistarlight at gmail.com

http://facebook.com/TamistarlightTami_starlight (twitter)Cosmictami (skype)

On 2012-11-24, at 8:42 AM, Jarrah <jarrahhodge at gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Joanna,
You or the journalist should really talk to the folks from Feminist Edmonton. They are directly challenging MRAs through a counter-poster campaign and online videos. Their videos are here: http://www.youtube.com/user/FeministEdmonton?feature=watch and they have a website here: http://feministedmonton.com

Men's Rights Edmonton has made videos like this in response: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcI4VPiJVKM&feature=youtu.be

I would love to do a counter-poster campaign here if anyone's interested. The more I hear from some MRAs the more angry I get. They target my videos endlessly with anti-feminist comments and post their own video responses where they don't show their faces. They pull out the most ridiculous arguments for why feminism isn't needed and actually hurts men. They have an endless repository of quotes from people you and I have never heard of who say they're feminists and advocate violence against men. They try to bait you into long, fruitless arguments. 

In this video the guy actually criticizes Because I am a Girl because they don't help boys in developing countries (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f68U4p7Ml8&list=UUj5Ce3ACuCyGCjmrHydbr_Q&index=7&feature=plcp).

They made a video in response to what I thought was a very open post by one of my contributors saying she wished she could work with MRAs if they truly believe in equality. Their video has a picture of a woman in a gorilla mask with the title "Feminist Sans Makeup" and they read her entire post in a mocking voice and invite commenters to attack her arguments (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYMQkSCdELs). 

To some extent I get conflicted - I don't want to make videos or write long posts directly taking them on. I know it's inviting huge amounts of trolling and putting my face/name out there as a target. But I'd love to work on some sort of counter postering campaign involving more people. 

At any rate, I'm happy to talk more on this issue but for an example of people actively fighting back I would definitely follow up with some of the Feminist Edmonton activists. Also interested to hear what other experience WAM-ers have had in Vancouver.

Jarrah

On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 6:45 AM, Joanna Chiu <chiu.joanna5 at gmail.com> wrote:

Hey WAM peeps,
A Men's Rights group recently did some poster campaigns in Vancouver. http://masculism.ca/blog/vancouver-mra-hits-the-streets/ 

For those who haven't heard about MRA's before, these Urban Dictionary definitions are actually quite accurate: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mra 

Are there any feminist individuals or groups in Vancouver that are actively resisting against them? Would really like to know. I might write about this for my next Herizons' column, and a journalism student from Langara asked me if WAM! members had any comments for an article she's writing on MRA's. 

More info on the posters in Vancouver. Some had been torn down. http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/09/10/mens-rights-posters-vancouver_n_1871526.html 

Here are the journalist's questions below but please comment on whatever you find pertinent. 
Thanks,
Joanna 

1. Have you encountered/had any experience with the men's rights movement?
2. What is your perception of men's rights activists?
3. Men's rights activists have many qualms with the feminist movement. One thing is, the men's rights movement does not believe that, historically, the scales of power have been tipped away from women, and that society is not a patriarchy. As a feminist, what would your response to that be?

4. On issues such as reproductive rights, one of the men's rights activists I spoke with said that it was an issue of religious beliefs and not a "war on women." Do you agree/disagree? Why?

5. Have women achieved equal status in society?
6. Why do you believe feminism is still relevant?
7. I asked a men's rights activist about the over-sexualization of women in the media, the madonna/whore dichotomy, and his thoughts were: it's not only society's exploitation of female sexuality, but women exploiting the sexual power they hold over men. I am curious to hear your thoughts on this.

8. What would you say to anyone who views feminism as an attack on men's liberties?
9. Can you point to a point in history, from past to present, when women have held more power than men?

10. Do you think the feminist movement is threatened by the men's rights movement?

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