Monday, September 14, 2009

Organising so far

We have had three meetings to date and our next meeting is coming up on the 30th of September at 5.30.

At the meetings to date we have discussed many different aspects of the march.

We have decided that the march for this year will be based around the culture of violence towards women and we want to go ahead with a legal march that is focused around being safe in our city; in our homes, on our walk to and from work, whilst out exercising early in the morning, when popping around the corner to pick up our milk or our takeaways or when out on an evening with our friends.

Our posters for the event are going to reflect these different aspects of fear that women feel in their everyday lives. I have been reading a lot of material by feminist Catharine McKinnon who portrays this point very strongly throughout her different books. McKinnon and other feminist legal scholars such as Hilary Charlesworth and Christine Chinkin among many others help to uncover human rights and laws in different societies as ethnocentric and patriarchal. They discuss how their neutrality and equality really undermines women in different countries all around the world. Women feel fear and often moderate their everyday lives and behaviour because of this fear. For example I never walk home after dark alone because I am frightened of what might go wrong. I live a 5 minute walk from the university library, yet I do not feel safe walking this distance alone in the evenings when I finish my study, men do not experience this same sort of fear in their everyday activities.

We have not decided on a route for the march yet and would like to check out this aspect with the Council before we publicise this aspect.

The date we have in mind for the march so far is Friday November the 27th 2009.

We would like to have an after event after the march and have chatted to the bar manager at Garden Bar on Dixon Street who are happy to host the event.

At the moment we are looking for female performers to play the this event so if you are interested or have any friends who would like to get involved please leave a message.

We are also looking for a female sound tech that may be interested in helping out for the gig.

Anyway we look forward to any suggestions, comments, or hearing from anyone who would like to get involved.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Reclaim the Night Wellington 2009

Hi everyone,

We are a group of women who having been working toward organising a Reclaim the Night March for Wellington for 2009.

If you would like to get involved, come to meetings or have suggestions please leave a message.

Thank you for reading :)