umsu.wom*n's

While Amy and I have a bit of a rest this week after an awesome time during Rad Sex & Consent Week, check out this awesome event taking place this Wednesday:

https://www.facebook.com/events/374050182631908/

Paying too much for rent?
Have to travel a long way to get to uni?
Can’t afford to move out?
Come to our PAJAMA PARTY WITH A POLITICAL AGENDA!

The Melb Uni Student Union is holding a sleepover to raise awareness of student housing problems. We are building a community of students to take direct action in pressuring the University and government to confront the Melbourne housing crisis. We will be sleeping the night in Union House from 6.30pm with a range of activities planned (games, film screening, book readings, sing-alongs, BIG social change to name a few). There will be dinner and breakfast provided by the wonderful food co-op. BYO sleeping bag.

Rough time plan:
6pm start – meet in the second floor rooms opposite the Rowden White library to bagsy a good sleeping spot
6.30pm – Informal discussion with Roger Deutsche from the Univeristy Housing Services
7pm – Co-op dinner served outside the co-op
7.30pm – Informal presentation about greening your home if you are renting
8pm – Get to know you games and super fun times
9pm – Discussion about direct action in pressuring the Uni to make change
10pm – Banner making and supper
11pm – Movie screening/sleepy time
7.30am – BREAKFAST!

What you may want to bring:
- Sleeping bag and mat
- Pillow
- P.Js or thermals (recommendable)
- Musical instruments
- Towel if you’re keen to shower in the Union showers
- An open mind!

Also to keep in mind:
- You can rock up or leave at any time, feel free to just come for activities if you don’t feel comfortable sleeping over
- There will be a quiet space where you can crawl off to sleep at any time
- The womyns room will be open for female identifying people to sleep in if they feel more comfortable in a purely female space
- This is an alcohol and drug free event
- Security will be present for the night
- We will be enforcing a one meter rule in which students cannot come within one meter of each other to prevent any funny business (this is a JOKE, consensual snuggle trains all around)

We will be doing flash mobbing and handing out flyers in our sleeping bags and pyjamas tomorrow. Meet at 9am in the enviro office if you want to get involved. We will be providing breaky for those that help out!

Can’t wait! Invite every Melb Uni student you know!

Hey everyone! Sorry again for the lack of updates on here but it’s all due to the hard work we’ve been putting into Rad Sex & Consent week – starting on Monday! The full schedule has been released and here’s a look at all the awesome events happening! (Visit here for more detailed descriptions of all the workshops, and here for a more visual version of the schedule).

MONDAY
12.00 – 1.30 Sally: Journeys into the Forests of Sexuality, Sex and Gender
1.30 – 2.30 Julia & Millie: Body Positivity
2.30 – 4.00 Louise: Fun Lovin’ Safer Sex
4.00 – 5.00 Lia: How To Pick Up Without The Internet – Flagging In Conversation
5.00 – 7.00 Film Screening: SHORTBUS
5.00 – 6.00 Arse-Whole Education (Queer Space)

TUESDAY
12.00 – 1.30 Kate: Pleasure Physiology and Eroticising Safer Sex
1.30 – 3.00 Ari: Polyamory and Non-Normative Relationships
3.00 – 5.00 Erin: BDSM 101
5.00 – 7.00 Film Screening: SCARLET ROAD
5.00 – 6.00 Creatrix Tiara: Burlesque for the Rest of Us (Queer Space)

WEDNESDAY
11.30 – 12.30 Jess K Evans: Disability & Sex 101
12.30 – 1.30 Doctor: Sexual Health 101 Presentation
1.30 – 3.00 Nina: Consent for Everyone
4.00 – 5.00 Rei: Drag School 101
5.00 – 7.00 Film Screening: INDIE SEX
5.00 – 700 Rei: Drag School (Queer Space)

THURSDAY
10.30 – 11.30 Kate: The Joys of Sex Geekdom
10.30 – 11.30 Ruthi and Rachel: Rad Pads (Arts Lab)
11.30 – 1.00 ISGD Autonomous Caucus (Queer Space)
11.30 – 1.00 Nina: Consent for Wom*n (Wom*n’s Room)
1.00 – 2.30 Louise and Kate: Sex Toys
2.30 – 4.00 Cyndi: Improving Communication
5.00 – 7.00 Film Screening: HISTORY OF THE VIBRATOR
5.00 -6.00 POC/CALD Autonomous Caucus (Queer Space)

FRIDAY
11.30 – 12.30 Karen: Sex & Feminism
12.30 – 2.30 Anna: Doing it their Way: Women Reclaiming the Adult Genre
2.30 – 4.00 Cyndi: Enhancing Pleasure
2.30 – 4.00 Biddy: DIY Sex Toys (Queer Space)
4.00 – 5.30 Louise: Anal Play
7.30 – Late Performance Night (Czech Club)

Visit the Rad Sex and Consent website for more details!

“The anti-male world of conspiracy theories in which you and the Sisterhood inhabit is the complete antithesis of the world in which positive women thrive. Women who can’t cut it in – what did you call it?, the boys’ club – can easily cover their inadequacies by claiming bias, s-xism, misogyny, chauvinism etc. etc. ad infinitum. It’s so tiring to read such twaddle.

Face reality, my dear. Smell the coffee. Try to turn your sour, negative, anti-male view of the world into something more positive and productive. Demonising men may be your life’s quest but fewer and fewer people are listening.”

So here’s an interesting article from the Aussie news this morning. I don’t think the sentiment is surprising, just the stupidity of the guy to put it in writing. From Crikey:

Tuesday, 17 April 2012
Ian Macdonald adviser quits after sexist email rant

A senior adviser to conservative Queensland Liberal National Senator Ian Macdonald, Max Tomlinson, has resigned from his position after launching a misogynist spray against a feminist academic.

This week, Tomlinson wrote to Cairns-based activist Dr Carole Ford complaining about a Courier Mail article penned by Ford on the lack of gender equality in the new Queensland parliament. He called Ford a “sourpuss”, told her to “get a life” and explained that men were superior to women “because Nature equipped them with something called testosterone”.

Last night, the former News Limited staffer was hung out to dry by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, who told Crikey the comments were “completely unacceptable”. “It is repudiated by me and the Coalition,” he said. An Abbott spokesman confirmed Tomlinson’s departure this morning.

The fracas started on Monday, when Ford wrote a mild op-ed headlined “Women Struggle for a Political Voice“ noting that the George Street benches had been “reduced to a virtual political boys’ club” under the new LNP regime where just 18% of government MPs are women compared to 49% under Anna Bligh.

But the intervention enraged Tomlinson, a Townsville-based media adviser, who previously worked for years at News Limited’s Townsville Bulletin.

He quickly dashed off a private email to Ford, obtained by Crikey (read below), goading the Cairns Women’s Network coordinator with a challenge to run for parliament if she didn’t like the status quo. But he didn’t rate her chances: “… like most women, you probably don’t possess the necessary drive, determination and decisiveness that men innately possess. It’s not a personal criticism; it’s a fact of biology.”

“Where, for example, are the great female explorers, mountaineers, warriors, inventors, chefs?”, Tomlinson mused. “Blokes dominate most areas of human endeavour because Nature equipped them with something called testosterone.”

Tomlinson, whose has two journalist sons, confirmed the authenticity of the email when contacted by Crikey, explaining he had made a “personal comment” to the “rabid feminist” in a “private capacity”. Ford was previously an ALP candidate, he added.

“Hell hath no fury, you know what these feminists are like, if you say something they don’t like they want to have your balls on the desk … go for it girls, have a bit of fun,” he told Crikey. His message to Ford remained loud and clear: “C’mon, get a life my darling, life goes on, it’s all about ability not gender.”

Continue reading →