Another small act of censorship by our corporate overlords
Posted: 26 August 2012 Filed under: feminism, protest, tech 2 Comments
No More Page 3 is a campaign against the inclusion of topless photos of young women of page 3 of daily newspaper ‘the Sun’. I’ll admit that I’d never heard of this campaign until their Twitter account, @nomorepage3, was shut down. What did @nomorepage3 tweet that led to the suspension? Was it really bad enough for this act of censorship to be warranted? There’s no way to find out, and those tweets have hidden and thus removed from our collective memory.
I have the greatest respect for people who take the time to contact Twitter’s @support about this, but I’m not going to join in. I find myself wondering, why do we have to ask Twitter nicely if we can please communicate online? Why do we have to plead with them to recognise that a feminist campaign against a newspaper’s day-to-day portrayal of women as objects is not offensive – why does Twitter INC get to decide that?
We can’t know for certain why @nomorepage3’s account was suspended, but I think I can make an educated guess: News Corporation solicitors contacted Twitter’s legal department, complaining that @nomorepage3 had infringed on their rights in some way (perhaps copyright infringement or libel) and threatened a lawsuit. When a large company makes a threat like this it doesn’t actually matter to Twitter whether the complaint is real or not – just going to court in a case like this would be hugely expensive. In order to avoid such a lawsuit, Twitter suspends the account first, and investigates second. This is how we end up in a situation where threats of violence against feminist bloggers on Twitter are so common that it’s seen almost as a rite of passage, and are ignored by Twitter’s moderators, yet even very mild criticisms of corporations often result in account suspensions.
Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre Fundraising Opportunities
Posted: 14 August 2012 Filed under: Events | Tags: Cambridge UK, Events, Fundraising Leave a comment
Dear women,
Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre supports women and girls who have survived or are currently experiencing rape or childhood sexual abuse. We offer a telephone helpline service and face-to-face counselling.
We need to raise £30k to keep our services running for the next 12 months.
We are looking for female fundraising volunteers who can help us by:
· Organising fundraising events (band nights, comedy nights, cake sales…)
· Taking part in sponsored events (eg running a marathon, sponsored cycle ride)
· Letter writing to local businesses requesting support
· … or any other ideas you have to raise money for us!
If you are interested and think you can help, you are warmly invited to come along to a meeting on Weds 15th August 7pm at the Women’s Resources Centre, Hooper St.
The Women’s Resources Centre is an accessible venue with a free car park. Directions here: http://www.cwrc.org.uk/index.php?page=60
If you live in Cambridgeshire UK and you cannot make this meeting but would like to get involved, there will be more info here about following meetings and on our Nabble page where you can sign up to our mailing list and get emails about events etc.
Students! We will be setting up a separate student fundraising group starting this October – if you would like to join please get in touch to let us know you’re interested!
Discussion Meeting: Feminism and Race, 22nd August
Posted: 9 August 2012 Filed under: Events Leave a commentThe discussion group for the 22nd August will be on the subject of Feminism and Race. We’ll be covering the ways that race and other issues can act as divisions within feminist groups, and looking at how to talk productively about race.
We’re lucky to have an external facilitator for this session, Ila Chandavarkar, who works with MENTER, the East of England Black and Minority Ethnic Network .Her contact address is ila@menter.org.uk, and anyone is welcome to get in touch with her before the session with their thoughts, including anonymously. She also invites anyone who can’t make it to the session to email her beforehand if they’d like something mentioned.
This session is open to anyone who wants to attend. Generally our discussion groups have between 15-30 people, which are usually somewhere around half and half familiar faces and new people, or people who don’t come along so often. We try to avoid using overly academic language in our discussions. The session will be made up of a mixture of facilitated and general discussion.
As usual we’re meeting at 8-10pm at the Friends Meeting House at 12 Jesus Lane, Cambridge, CB5 8BA. There is no entry fee but if anyone would like to show their appreciation for Ila’s help we will be making a collection for MENTER during the session.
The Friends Meeting House is fully wheelchair-accessible on the ground floor, which is where our meeting room is, including wheelchair-accessible toilets. There is a large cycle rack outside and paid parking nearby at Park Street car park as well as some blue badge parking bays just down Jesus Lane.
Afterwards some of us usually go to the Champion Of The Thames, which is a pub on King Street. Generally a backgammon group leaves around when we arrive, so there’s usually space for us on the ground floor. Everyone is welcome to come along – you don’t have to be a regular. You also don’t have to drink alcohol, although the ale and cider there is lovely. 🙂
Cambridge W.I. gets a re-vamp?
Posted: 1 August 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment
Cambridge WI gets a re-vamp
FeministActionCambridge 
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