Cultural feminist activism Sample Clauses

Cultural feminist activism. Cultural feminist activism has its roots in the do-it-yourself ethic of counter-cultural production of the Xxxxxxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxxxxxxx led by Xxx Xxxxxx in 1950s France. Elements of this activism were borrowed by women’s liberation and new left groups in the 1960s and 1970s. DIY activism takes symbols, discourses and representations from mainstream society to produce counter-cultural artefacts – journals and zines, graffiti slogans, posters - in order to disrupt and challenge dominant meanings and thereby raise oppositional consciousness. Feminist cultural activism has been exemplified in the practice of movements such as Riot Grrrl ,which first emerged in the early 1990s, in the USA, as a fusion of punk rock and DIY activism. While Riot Grrrl did not constitute as extensive and visible a movement in the UK as it did in the USA, it left a legacy of cultural feminist activism taken up by the UK Ladyfest movement in the 2000s, by feminist girl bands and ‘zinesters’ who gained the confidence to engage in creative activism through art and which has become part of much feminist Internet production today. Among respondents three declared having a strong cultural feminist side to their activism. This has involved: one of them being a member of the London chapter of Riot Grrrl in 2001; all of them being participants in Ladyfests since the first one, in Glasgow (2001); two of them organising Ladyfests in Brighton (2005) and Manchester (2008) respectively; two of them running Ladyfest workshops (e.g. on self harm, zine making) in other years; and creating a Ladyfest film archive. In addition to being Ladyfesters, two of the respondents are accomplished zinesters, producing their own zines discussing issues such as violence against women and self harm and one has her own Riot Grrrl-inspired band. Describing the positives of DIY activism, one of the respondents says: Yeah again this is something, this is what attracts me when you can have an idea in your mind and almost put a call-out and all these strangers come together. This is my favourite form of activism because you don’t know what’s going to happen and there was probably a core team of maybe around 10 people and we took about a year and we organised this event [Brighton Ladyfest] and it was over 5 days. I think it was over about 13 different venues. These were all young women, there was men involved as well, who perhaps hadn’t organised anything before and it was just incredible … (Xxxxx)