[Anarchafeminists] safer space policies?

[nfnmaria at riseup.net]

Thanks for the replies received so far! I had a reply from Ellie in
Edinburgh who had brought the zines to Manchester, and she has sent me a
hard copy of the safer spaces zine & also Carolyn has sent me a copy by
email - thank you both again!

Lili, I'm in Liverpool, involved in Liverpool Social Centre, aka Next To
Nowhere www.liverpoolsocialcentre.org (I also work in News From Nowhere
Bookshop www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk ). The feminist group that holds the
monthly educationals/discussions in the social centre is AWOL (angry women
of liverpool) - we should have a blog/website in the not too distant
future. Thank you for the info about the Seeds for Change workshops -
would love to go but it's very unlikely that I will make it. We (the
social centre) are already planning to ask Seeds For Change about coming
to do conflict resolution training with us, and hopefully also other
workshops at some point too.

The educational will be on Monday 5th July, 8pm (The social centre is
under  News From Nowhere Bookshop, 96 Bold St, Liverpool L1 4HY, and the
entrance is next door to the bookshop entrance. The white doorbell is for
the social centre. Accessibility: the building's lift is out of order and
at present and I don't know if it will be fixed by then. The lift can hold
a person who is using a wheelchair, but not an additional person at the
same time. The floor of the space is very uneven).

I suspect that safer space will be a new idea to most people who come
along so am planning to be prepared to do a bit of an introduction on it.
(For most of our educationals we launch right into discussing & exploring
the topic as a group, rather than having any kind of presentation).
Myself, I'm most familiar with the idea of safe space policies as
practiced on some blogs/other online communities, but not as practiced in
the real world. I'm really interested in working out what the idea of
safer space means to people, myself included, and what people new to the
idea will think about how it might work (or not work!). I don't know if
anyone with direct experience of practicing safer space will be at the
educational.

Having broached the idea of safer space within the social centre
collective, am already getting a few dismissive, resistant, rather
predictably masculine reactions: "we don't need it", "safer space policies
silence dissent/free expression", "real world isn't safe" etc.

I found this great, to-the-point assertion of what a commitment to safer
space is for:
http://guerrillamamamedicine.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/what-is-real-is-what-we-do/

Maria

> Maria, I'd be really interested to find out more about your feminist
educational on the concept & practice of safer space policies. What social
centre are you involved in? Where are you based?
>
> I attended the Sexual Consent workshop at the London Free School this
year and there was discussion about having regular workshops about
consent. This hasn't happened yet, but I'm hoping to help make it
happen. Just need to make the time for it.
>
> Thanks for the zine library link. I would expect Active Distribution,
56a and similar places to have lots of stuff about the things you've
mentioned. 56a is in Elephant & Castle in South London. Active Distro gets
to lots of zine fairs and is also online.
>
> You might be interested in this event (and future ones), coming up at
the start of July, in Hackney, East London.
>
> In solidarity,
> LILI
>
>
> ***********
>
> Weekend of workshops on Consensus Decision Making and Facilitation @ 195
Mare St E8 3QE.
>
> A two day event:
> - Saturday 3rd July, workshop on Consensus Decision Making.
> https://london.indymedia.org.uk/events/4971
> - Sunday 4th July, workshop on Facilitating Consensus.
> https://london.indymedia.org.uk/events/4972
>