Cork Feminista

How Do I Tell Them I’m Pro Choice [Resources]

corkfeminista — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:51:39 +0000

Thanks to everyone who came to our meeting last night about lobbying TDs on the abortion issue. As agreed at the meeting we’re posting the presentation here for people to download. We’ll also create a draft letter format over the weekend!

Happy lobbying!

Lobbying Workshop Presentation

The Other Side of Sleep

corkfeminista — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:36:03 +0000

‘Truly haunting’ – The Guardian

Nominated for Best Director and Best Actress at the 2012 Irish Film and Television Awards

First Irish film by an Irish woman to be included in the Cannes Film Festival

Rebecca Daly’s stunning new Irish feature The Other Side of Sleep starring Antonia Cambell-Hughes to be released nationwide from 16^th March 2012

The Other Side of Sleep is an acclaimed debut feature by Irish filmmaker Rebecca Daly that features a powerful and compelling performance from Antonia Campbell-Hughes, one of this year’s Berlin International Film Festival’s Shooting Stars award recipients. This hotly-anticipated suspense drama made history at its World Premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 as it was the first film directed by an Irish woman to be selected for inclusion in the Festival. The film, produced by Fastnet Films, also screened in competition at the Toronto International Film Festival and was nominated for Best Director and Best Actress at the Irish Film and Television Awards.

A sleepwalker since childhood, Arlene works in the local factory of the small Irish rural town she grew up in. When a young woman is found dead in the woods, Arlene is forced to her confront a tragedy from her own childhood. Echoes of the past inexorably draw Arlene towards the tragedy; she becomes close to the victim’s grieving sister (Vicky Joyce) and family while at the same time finding herself entangled with the woman’s lover (newcomer Sam Keeley) and the case’s main suspect. Deprived of sleep and having to barricade herself in at night, Arlene’s sleepwalking and waking reality start to blur as the community searches for someone to blame.

Leading a fantastic ensemble cast in The Other Side of Sleep, as well as being named one of Berlin International Film Festival’s Shooting Stars, Antonia Campbell-Hughes’ career is at a high point. This year she stars in another upcoming cinema release, Lotus Eaters. Other key cast members include two veteran Irish actresses of stage and screen, Olwen Fouere and Cathy Belton, as well as hot newcomer Sam Keeley who has gone on to star in RAW, What Richard Did.

The Other Side of Sleep is released nationwide from 16^th March 2012. There will be a gala preview of the film at 6.20pm on 15^th March at the IFI in Dublin followed by a public interview with director Rebecca Daly.

For ticket bookings:

IRISH FILM INSTITUTE DUBLIN: http://www.ifibooking.ie/

EYE CINEMA GALWAY: http://tinyurl.com/7j5xa9a

CENTURY CINEMAS LETTERKENNY: http://www.centurycinemas.ie

TRISKEL CINEMA CORK: http://www.triskelartscentre.ie/cinema.htm

BIRR THEATRE & ARTS CENTRE OFFALY: http://www.birrtheatre.com/filmclub.shtml

FOLLOW US IN TWITTER AND FACEBOOK.

WWW.THEOTHERSIDEOFSLEEPMOVIE.COM

RETURNING TO JAMAIS VU

corkfeminista — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 19:15:02 +0000

RETURNING TO JAMAIS VU

Live Performance Installation & Presentation

By Elaine O’Sullivan

Granary Theatre, March 3^rd 8pm

Free Event Pre-Booking Advisable

‘Returning to Jamais Vu’ gathers traces of a past event to compile a score to generate new actions and ideas. The event to which we return is Jamais Vu a performance/installation by the artist Anne Seagrave, which was premiered in the Granary in January 2005. Seven years on, audience memories of Jamais Vu are re-activated in the theatre through sound, movement and text.

The live performance installation will be followed by a presentation on my research into sensations of memory and strategies of re-enactment in contemporary art.

Elaine O’Sullivan is a PhD student at the University of Bristol and a studio member of Basement Project Space.

Basement Project Space
Camden Place
Camden Quay
Cork city
Irelandwww.basementprojectspace.wordpress.com

Sad News – Banúlacht Closing

corkfeminista — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:42:52 +0000

We were very sad to hear this news today.

21^st February, 2012

Dear members and friends,

We are writing with great sadness to inform you that the Executive Committee of Banúlacht have taken the very difficult decision to close Banúlacht with effect from March 31^st. This decision was taken because of a number of factors that have combined to make it impossible to continue to do our work according to our feminist ethos.

Banúlacht was founded in 1990 and over the years our work was funded by many different funders, including the EU Commission, Concern, various government departments, WIDE, the Joseph Rowntree Trust and others. Our focus on linking the local and global, our feminist ethos and our role within the women’s community development sector has never been easy for funders to categorise, and this, in parallel with a changing funding environment, has meant that maintaining a diverse funding base has always been a struggle. In spite of all our efforts to access funding from other sources, the organisation has been funded only by Irish Aid and Trócaire since 2009. Over the last two years, however, Banúlacht’s funding from Irish Aid fell by 42% and funding has been reduced by 52% in total. Trócaire, after consistently funding the organisation for 20 years, declined to fund Banúlacht in 2011. This withdrawal of funding has left Banúlacht more financially vulnerable and dependent on Irish Aid.

At a policy level, Irish Aid suspended its multiannual funding scheme in 2009 and in 2011 carried out a review of its funding of development education. In the last few years there has been a marked shift in Irish Aid’s approach away from an understanding of development education as facilitating activism to its current position in the 2012 guidelines which stipulates that funding cannot be used for campaigning and advocacy work.

Since its foundation, Banúlacht, in consultation with women’s organisations in Ireland and the global South, has worked to facilitate the engagement of grassroots women and women’s community development organisations in advocating for the realisation of women’s human rights at local, national and international levels. This ethos is defined in our Feminist Principles and our Strategic Plan and underlies all our work—our training, our economic literacy programme, our ExChange programme, the Mná Sasa Manifesto, our conferences and website, our links with organisations such as Kivulini, our participation in networks and alliances, such as the Women’s Human Rights Alliance and our publications. Dependence on Irish Aid, in the absence of other sources of funding that could be used for more critical policy focused work, would effectively require us to abandon the advocacy dimension of the above work and our ethos as a feminist organisation.

After much deliberation and with a heavy heart, we have decided that compromising our feminist principles for the sake of funding goes against the integrity of the organisation and our mission and vision. We therefore have decided not to apply for Irish Aid funding, which means the closure of Banúlacht after the completion of our current work programme at the end of March.

We know that this will come as a shock to many of you, but we hope that our work will continue, somehow, through the engagement of our members and friends who share our ethos and subscribe to the same feminist principles.

We are inviting members to come together on Saturday March 31^st at 3pm, in a Dublin city centre location (venue to be confirmed closer to date), to celebrate Banúlacht’s work and to provide a space for you to look at how feminist global solidarity work, and the Mná Sasa Manifesto in particular, can continue.

Yours faithfully,

Gráinne Begley, Eileen Smith
Chairperson Coordinator

Coordinator

Banúlacht-Women in Ireland in Global Solidarity

20 Lower Dominick St, Dublin 1

Tel: +353 (0)1 872 3039

Email: eileen@banulacht.ie

www.banulacht.ie

Guest Post: Anthea McTeirnan

corkfeminista — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 17:40:00 +0000

This post is a copy of the speech given by Anthea McTeirnan at the Action on X Public Meeting on 21st February 2012.

Why must men always fight their battles for control on the bodies of women?

Why can’t women be trusted to make the right choices? Why shouldn’t women be trusted to make the right choices?

We are the experts. We make our choices with careful thought, with intelligent consideration. Sometimes with sadness, sometimes with relief – but always with responsibility.

Our bodies are just that. They are our bodies. It is not a cliché – it is a fact.

We have argued over women’s reproductive rights for so long. The putative womb of Irish women has been kicked around our courts and debating chambers as men in wigs have bickered over whether women inIrelandare fit or capable of making our own decisions.

We have not yet decided whether they are.

We have need of more experts, it seems.

This time the experts will look at implementing the X-Case judgment.

A woman is entitled to an abortion in this State if her life is threatened by her pregnancy, including the risk of suicide. This means that there must be clear medical and psychological criteria for allowing a woman to have an abortion.

And there must be a service provided. She must be able to have that abortion inIreland. The European Court of Human Rights expects this matter sorted. Twenty years after the Supreme Court made their ruling In the X Case, the human rights of women inIrelandare still being violated.

No more pretending.

No more pretending that the 4,500 abortions that happen each year in England or Holland or Spain- or wherever – are not Irish abortions. They are. The sex was Irish sex, the money to pay for the termination is Irish money, the counselling – before and after – is Irish counselling.

A land of saints and scholars that spews its women like undesirables across the sea at a time of great individual challenge is not one to be proud of.

We now have the opportunity to make amends.

As we speak, men the world over are waging their wars over the bodies of women. TheUnited Statesis dissolving into a chequerboard of pot luck, where unlucky women needing an abortion find themselves imprisoned in their home States in the land of the free. Women fromUtahandAlabamaandIndianamust turn to their sisters inNew Yorkto help them to travel and pay for a medical procedure with prohibitive restrictions in their home States.

Here inIreland, we are used to men fighting their battles over our bodies. Yet our own situation has begun to look even more precarious. Across the Irish Sea conservatives like MP Nadine Dorries seek to erect barriers where none previously existed, adding layers of policing and control to the provision of terminations inBritain. This move failed, but we cannot be certain there won’t be more attempts.

So we can continue to abandon Irish women to the whims of other jurisdictions or we can drag our post-colonial democracy kicking and screaming into a place where we no longer cede the vindication of the rights of half our population to another state.

We actually have the opportunity to develop a model of best practice. We have the chance to unhook ourselves from a colonial reliance on the land next door. We can do it better – we can have a system that supports the reproductive rights of women, a system that doesn’t seek to judge and moralise and restrict.

And it is not a far-fetched demand to make.

In England, progressive campaigners are demanding that the clause in the 1967 Abortion Act that “the opinion of two registered medical practitioners” must be sought to approve an abortion should be removed. We can provide a service in this country that is progressive, accessible and stripped of moral policing. We can move forward into a new millennium, where a woman seeking a termination is not “mad” or “bad”. There is no need to judge. The woman will decide, the woman must decide.

It is time to stop asking for small measures.

The recent Electoral (Amendment) (Political Funding) Bill 2011 says 30 per cent of election candidates must be women by 2016. A strangely disproportionate choice given that 50 per cent of the population is female. In the words of one of our corporate saviours, providers of the Morning After Pill, Boots the chemist – “here come the girls”. We will increase our numbers in government, but it will mean nothing for our personal autonomy.

We have elected two fine women Presidents, heads of State who embodied the sovereignty of our nation, yet who, as women, never enjoyed sovereignty over their own bodies. An irony of presidential proportions.

Yes we can be presidents, yes we can take our 30 per cent allocation of places on the ballot paper. But as women we can never be equal in a State that embeds discrimination into its Constitution.

If we can afford the cost of a plane ticket and a termination in an English clinic, if we are strong enough during our chemo to walk up the steps of that Ryanair plane, if we can find someone to mind the kids, if we can get out of the country on our visa, if we can find out where, if we can find out how, we can get an abortion.

But that is too many ifs. If we need an abortion, if that is the choice we make, it is time for us to be able to do so here.

Reducing the women of this State to reproductive systems that need policing has to end.

Equality of opportunity will only come from equal rights and equal respect. The time has come for a mature democracy to take mature decisions. It is time to provide a service for medical terminations here.

Women are the expert group. Women can make the right choices. The time has come to trust us.

- Anthea McTeirnan – journalist and reproductive rights activist

‘How do I tell them I’m pro-choice?’ Lobbying Workshop 23rd Feb

corkfeminista — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:39:45 +0000

[Press Release] Cork Groups Mark 20th Anniversary of X Case

corkfeminista — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:12:15 +0000

Press Release

Tuesday 21^st February 2012

For Immediate Use

Cork Groups Mark 20^th Anniversary of X Case with Online Petition

This month marks the 20^th anniversary of the X Case, the highly publicised case of a 14 year-old rape victim who was forced to return home to Ireland when trying to get an abortion in the UK. The Supreme Court ruled that the girl – who was suicidal – had the right to obtain an abortion, as the pregnancy was deemed a threat to her life.

Twenty years later, the Irish government has yet to legislate to clarify the X case ruling. This failure was recently emphasised by the European Court of Human Rights’ ruling on ABC.

Groups around the country have joined the ‘Action on X’ alliance this month to highlight the Government’s inaction on the abortion issue. As part of the Action on X alliance, Cork Feminista has launched an online petition calling on the Irish government to legislate for X before the end of 2012. The petition is available at: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-irish-government-legislate-for-the-x-case-before-the-end-of-2012.

Cork Feminista organiser Linda Kelly states: “Within the first week, over 1,000 people have signed the petition. Public opinion is very much behind legislating for some access to abortion.”

Cork-based groups including Cork Feminista, Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group, and the Women’s Studies Programme at UCC have organised events this week to mark the anniversary.

Events include:

A Lobbying Workshop “How Do I Tell Them I’m Pro-Choice?” will take place on Thursday 23^rd February 2012 at 7 PM in the Quay Co-op Meeting Room, Cove St (behind the Quay Co-op). This event is co-hosted by Cork Women’s Right to Choose Group and Cork Feminista.

A Seminar “From X to ABC: 20 Years On” will be held on Saturday 25^th February 2012 from 11 AM at UCC, G05 Brookfield Health Sciences Complex, College Road. Speakers include: Dr Lisa Smyth, Queen’s University Belfast (Author of Abortion and Nation: The Politics of Reproduction in Contemporary Ireland (Ashgate 2005); Dr. Mary Favier, Media Spokesperson for Doctors for Choice; Niall Behan, CEO of the Irish Family Planning Association; and Dr. Brenda Daly, Law & Government, DCU. This event is co-organised by UCC Women’s Studies and Cork Feminista Registration is required for this event. To register, please contact corkfeminista@gmail.com.

Ends

For further information contact:

Jennifer DeWan or Linda Kelly on corkfeminista[@]gmail.com

About Us:

Cork Feminista was founded by Linda Kelly and Dr. Jennifer DeWan in August 2010 to provide a discussion and activist space for feminism in Cork. It is a collective of women and men who meet once a month to discuss different issues related to gender equality and feminism. The meetings allow participants to explore their thoughts on issues and network with other campaigners.

Connecting the head, heart and hands

corkfeminista — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:05:41 +0000

There is a conference being run in Athlone on the 3rd March that some of you might be interested in. Although billed as a teacher conference, I hear they are looking to expand the audience outside of this group.

Download the flyer for more info: Connecting the head, heart and hands

Women and Politics: Debunking the Myths behind Gender Quotas

corkfeminista — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 10:44:49 +0000

5050 Cork invites you to a Public Meeting:

Women and Politics:
Debunking the Myths behind Gender Quotas

Date: Monday 27 February 2012

Time: 7.30 to 9.30 pm

Venue: The Imperial Hotel, South Mall, Cork

The lack of women in Irish political life is an issue of serious concern. The Gender Quota Bill is a significant positive development in this regard. The meeting will debate how the Irish political parties will implement reform.

Confirmed Speakers:

Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael)
Ciarán Lynch (Labour)
Fiona Buckley (Dept. of Government, UCC)
Margaret O’Keeffe (5050 Group)

All are welcome to attend and contribute to the discussion

For further information: Email: Deirdre@5050-group.com;
Find out more about the 5050 Group online: Twitter: @the5050group
Web: http://5050-group.com/blog Facebook: the5050group

Save the Date – Join us on International Women’s Day

corkfeminista — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 16:05:24 +0000

Download and share the poster: IWD Save the Date Poster