Feminist Futures comes to Melbourne

Feminist Futures comes to Melbourne

The Melbourne Feminist Collective will hold the Feminist Futures Conference this May 28 – 29, Melbourne’s largest feminist conference in over a decade.

The conference aims to reclaim ‘feminism’ as a positive term, and to embrace the diversity of backgrounds and ideologies within the feminist movement, promoting robust debate and constructive criticism.

Feminist Futures will feature a number of high-profile speakers, including radical lesbian feminist Sheila Jeffreys, commentator and ethicist Leslie Cannold and Kathleen Maltzahn, who ran as a Greens candidate in the 2010 Victorian state election.

Speakers will feature in themed panel discussions, and conference participants will have a chance to ask questions following each panel.

There will also be workshops exploring specific feminist issues.

Anyone interested in running a workshop, performing or otherwise contributing to the conference should email [email protected]

info: For ticket information and bookings, visit www.mfc.org.au

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2 responses to “Feminist Futures comes to Melbourne”

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  2. What this article doesn’t mention is that Sheila Jeffries is anti-sex work and anti-trans*. Sheila Jeffreys argues that trans surgeries are “self-mutilation”, that trans men are lesbians with an interest in masculinity, and that trans women are a product of the patriarchy medically constructing women and an attempt to take over women’s spaces. Sheila aligns herself with such people as Janice Raymond (who said that “all transsexuals rape women’s bodies”). Sheila Jeffries also calls all penetrative sex is rape (even in lesbian relationships). The list goes on.

    Of gay men, Sheila Jeffries has written that ‎”Male gay sexual practice, which values quick, impersonal contacts in public places, does not differ greatly in procedure from what will take place for money. The act of being prostituted does not demean the man taking part. He may even, it seems, gain in status. The offer of money may confirm his masculinity and sexual desirability even more than free sex could.” (‘The Idea Of Prostitution, 1997, Spinifex Press, p107)

    I am quite disappointed that the Star Observer offers no critique of this line up.