GenderYOUTH Network

IUSB: Blurr zine calls for submissions

Call for submissions... on gender.

Greetings!

Gender Project is well underway at Indiana University of South Bend. We are a new, student organized, gender advocacy group on campus associated with GenderPAC.

Last month we distributed our first issue of Blurr, a new zine with a focus on gender. It was a great success here at IUSB and soon we hope to be able to share the zine with a much larger audience by making the publication available online.

In the meantime, we are currently compiling works for the second issue. We hope to begin printing in just a few short weeks.

This zine is a focus on all aspects of gender and how it crosses lines of socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, age, and more.

A call for submissions... more info below.

With as much diversity as we have among our students and faculty here at IUSB (and the larger community), I know there is just as wide a range of creativity. I would like to use these creative voices in order to educate and advocate the versatility and complications of gender as they are portrayed and interpreted in our society.

We're looking for artists, poets, essayists, personal stories, etc. -anything that can be related to gender, be it positive or negative.

Can you help or do you know someone who would be interested? If you would like to send us a submission or if you have questions, please contact us via e-mail.

Karrie Blevins
Coordinator, The Gender Project
Indiana University at South Bend

For submissions:
E-mail: blurr@iusb.edu

For questions:
E-mail: kblevins@iusb.edu

For snail mail:

The Gender Project
Indiana University South Bend
1700 Mishawaka Ave
South Bend, IN 46634

X-posted to relevant online communities including the GenderYOUTH Network on Yahoo.

RSS feed available via Livejournal.

IUSB: The Gender Project

Hey all! Hope everyone is enjoying their summer. I know I am
especially enjoying the 14509345823049 degree heat. Yum. :/

Right. Well, back to business....

"The Gender Project" will be the name of our GenderYOUTH group here
at IUSB, at least to start off with. We're working on a couple
things before classes start in the Fall.

A website is being developed and we plan to have it up and running
by mid-August.

We're also hoping to get the G-Zine printed around the same time.

As mentioned in our last post, we are looking for submissions that
would be topic related - drawings, poems, OpEds, etc.

As for the website, we welcome suggestions for information,
materials, etc. to be included.

Looking forward to hearing from many of you before school starts.

X-posted

For equality & diversity,
Karee

Zine: IUSB chapter calls for submissions...

We are working on putting a zine together for the beginning of the Fall semester here at IU-South Bend. This first issue will be geared towards incoming freshmen students and student organizations getting back into the swing of things. This is a call for submissions (or suggestions)... So, if you have some artistic talent that you'd like to share... along the lines of gender, stereotypes, labels, etc., let us hear 'em! Interesting articles, poems, or other written works would be greatly appreciated too. (Plus, we can send you a copy once its ready to distribute.) *Feel free to pass this message along to any person(s) or group(s) you feel might be interested. Karee B. e-mail: karee23@hotmail.com

University of Utah events

At the University of Utah, much of the organizing is done through the gender studies department. They hosted a GenderBOOT camp in which folks dressed up as a certain gender and visited the masculinity corner for some boxing. In a Digital Gender party, participants played different games and talked about the role of gender in the video games. They helped organize a gender studies sports team. At movie nights, participants watched films and discussed gender in the films, including the new Derrida documentary. They hosted a poetry slam and an inclusive breast monologues/dialogues where trans people presented too. They protested in response to a traditional wedding held on campus by a conservative group. They hosted a drag show with fraternities that included a pre-discussion. They proposed a weekly Queeries radio show on queer theory and queer issues that is scheduled to launch in September of 2004 and deal with issues of gender and identity.

Planning at UC Berkeley

Students at the University of California at Berkeley are creating an inclusive clothesline project to highlight violence against all people that is caused by gender steretypes). They are also looking to put together a more inclusive Vagina Monologues performance. As teachers and students themselves, some students at UC Berkeley prioritized the need to educate teachers adn empower students through their campaigns. Students are excited about starting a "coalition" (an umbrella group of members/leaders of many other organizations) that will operate as a GenderYOUTH Affiliate. Other interests include a conference for the Spring, a gender-neutral bathrooms campaign (with an explanation for why the signs are removed), and re-writing sex ed curricula as well as planning workshops for youth in high school as well as for younger children. Several students are also interested in intersex issues, including educating peers and community members about the need to end intersex genital mutilation.

Community Involvement at Johnson County Community College

Johnson County Community College students scheduled presentations with at least two youth groups in November of 2003. They planned to speak to a church for outreach as well as to a four-year school. Tentatively, they have discussed hosting an event bringing all of these groups together (GenderCONNECTIONS maybe). The GenderPAC chapter leader will serve on the Board of Directors of the Kansas City Democratic Organization this year. The chapter will table at Kentucky Gay Pride. They are also working to help uphold the Domestic Partner Registry Ordinance, which will serve as a springboard for more community involvement. In doing so, chapter members stress how GenderYOUTH helps young people of any background that face oppression due to gender non-conformity.

Chatham College Event Brainstorming

Members of Chatham College's GPAC chapter came up with lots of great ideas for campaigns and activities in a brainstorming session. Some ideas:
-Ask professors if you can be involved in curriculum development. For example, in psychology the discussion of depression, suicide, various "disorders" including GID, and histrionics can all be examined through a gendered lens.
-Survey curriculums and ask if you can be a part of adding gender to the curriculum for the next semester (maybe you can TA).
-Plan an event around a popular TV show. Meet (weekly/monthly) during that TV show and talk gender during the commercials and afterwards.
-Place an event around a popular movie and address the gender-related issues in an open form. Invite other group to give their critical perspectives too (i.e. race, heterosexism, etc).
-GenderDIALOGUES: Have everyone give an example of how a gender stereotype has affected them. People love to talk about themselves and tell their stories. If people do not want to tell personal stories, they can tell how they think gender stereotypes cause discrimination and violence. End the session by telling people what they can do to bring an end to discrimination and violence caused by gender stereotypes.
-Ask teachers if they will give extra credit for GenderPAC events.
-See if you can fulfill a service learning requirement for starting a GenderROOTS Mentoring Program at a local high school or work with children who may already be on campus for other service projects. For example, if local grade school children already meet with college students to organize plays once a week, you could piggyback off this effort and participate every week or plan a one-time workshop about preventing school bullying.
-Direct your campaigns at students who are studying to be psychologists, teachers, social workers, medical school students, lawyers, etc. Many of these students have multicultural requirements or you may be able to convince some of their professors to give you some air time since when these teachers-to-be learn will translate into how they deal with bullying when it occurs in their classroom or when they need to address the needs of their clients.
-In your initial meetings with your groups, you can have everyone identify what their areas of interest are, so that you can identify campaigns that are shaped by members' interests but still related to gender stereotyping. If someone is passionate about Abstinence Only until Marriage Sex Education, outline some of the ways in which this issue is influenced by gender stereotypes.
-Piggyback on other events. For example, Take Back the Night is often a big event and they are often looking for many speakers. Someone from your group could talk about gender stereotypes and could even explain how gender stereotyping affects perceptions of violence and as a result makes violence against men and same-sex violence (between men and especially between women) nearly invisible.
Hopefully these ideas will help out others! Any additional suggestions?

Michigan State University's EEO Work

We have been working on the process of expanding our university's EEO policy for the past 2 years. This fall the Board of Trustees officially amended the anti-harassment policy to include gender identity. This is the first step, we hope, to moving towards full inclusion of gender identity in the anti-discrimination policy. The move to include gender identity in the anti-discrimination policy has the approval of all the major governing groups on campus, passed in the joint student-staff governing board, only to be derailed by the president before it could make it to the Board of Trustees (where it would have likely failed). Our lobbying the president produced the positive result of regaining seats on a committee to steer the direction of the initiative after we lost them do to political power plays in a student governing board. In the future, we plan to focus on educational initiatives for the Board of Trustees regarding gender identity. We’re producing educational packets and setting up appointments to meet with the Trustees individually.

Radio show from Katie Farley at the University of Utah

I was invited to speak about GenderROOTS and gender issues on a community based radio show here in Salt Lake called "Radioactive". The whole goal of the show is to create dialogue with the community about issues that don't normally get addressed. Response to my commentary was overwhelming- we had the largest amount of calls in the history of Radioactive. I guess it just goes to show how volatile the topic of gender actually is. I should be getting a copy of the show in the next week or so and I can send you out a copy if you would like.

Youth outreach at the University of San Francisco

The University of San Francisco's GenderROOTS chapter worked on plans to do some community service at a local conference for youth. They plan to host a workshop about language, definitions, vocabulary, etc. They also hope to reserve a table and advertise a bit about their group and the University of San Francisco, and also maybe about GenderROOTS and the conference, to let the kids know what's out there and what the university in their area is doing. In addition, they are organizing a big campaign to expose the harmful effects of advertising that reinforces narrow gender norms that cause violence and discrimination. They will also volunteer at a local conference for youth where they will present workshops that empower younger students to confront the bullying and harassment they experience as a result of narrow gender stereotypes. They will lead workshops for their peers challenging them to recognize gender stereotypes and eliminate the harmful effects of violence and discrimination that result from the enforcement of restrictive gender norms.