Ask Annabel

Every war needs its camouflage stories. Homosexuality regularly figures in the “War on Terror”, as one of the stakes of the “clash of civilizations”: gay and lesbian rights supposedly belong to the West, and are put under pressure by the presence of Islam.

In this video-essay LGBTQ activists in Belgium and Lebanon present their visions on the intersection of sexuality, (geo)politics and war.

Ask Annabel presents:

Gender and/on/for/in Children

25^th February 09

From 6.30 to 9.00 pm

Drift 23, room 0.10, Utrecht (click HERE for a map!)
Free of charge, all welcome!

As a child, were you a sleeping beauty or a prince charming?

Growing up, did your gender seem like a prize or a prison, or both?

In this session we will be exploring issues surrounding children and gender at an upcoming gathering, and we would love to have you join.  We will offer some information about gender-conscious childcare practices as well as some reflections on the functions of gender in children's lives- including your own!  Anyone who wishes to come and join the interaction is welcome, and there will be further gatherings on diverse topics coming up.  See you there!

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The first session of Ask Annabel&Media

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Ask Annabel Invites you to her Monthly gAAthering!

Every First Monday of the Month from 20.00 hrs onwards

In this eleventh 'gAAthering' on Monday the 3^th of November we do not have any specific theme to address, however, we would like to:

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Flash Back to Sex Education Class!
....Ask Annabel Style

Tuesday the 24^th of June
18.00 to 20.00 hrs; Drift 23, room 1.03, Utrecht (click HERE for a map!)
Free of charge, all welcome

Stereotypes of Sexuality

Wednesday the 12th of March

18.30-21.00 hrs @Drift 23, room 0.20, Utrecht (click HERE for a map!)

Free of charge, all welcome

Motorbike Butches / lipstick lezzies / straight chicks / gay men with blusher and handbags�

Can these stereotypes be empowering? On which presumptions are they based? Can they be successfully used to get �things done�?

This session engages in an informal exploration of labels, desires, drives, icons, and representations of sexuality. In dialogue with the results of the short questionnaire*, this session will be framed with musical, visual and gastronomic elements. Thus, you are heartily invited to take along food, music, drinks, magazines, posters, film or anything else that we need to take into consideration.

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The questionnaire featured the following questions and was (anonymously) completed by a total of 15 people:

• How have you been labelled?

• How would you define yourself?

• What is sexuality for you? What else does sexuality do for you?

• What/which circumstances/who �turns you on�?

• Name a well-known person who �speaks to you�:

• Suggestions for what you�d like to have addressed during the AA session?

Domésticas: Negotiating Women’s Dis/empowerment – Introduced by Sabrina

Domésticas, o filme is a comedy about the life and the friendship of a group of Brazilian women who work as maids in wealthy families.

This film will be the starting point of our discussion on what paid domestic work means in (some) women’s lives. The discussion will turn around the concepts of negotiations, resistance and strategies. In this sense, paid domestic work is taken as a case in which women do compromise with the patriarchal and (neo)liberalist system as far as it enhances their working skills and self-sufficiency.

The story of “Domésticas” is based on hundreds of interviews with maids in Brazil. It was made into a film by Fernando Meirelles in 2001. For info and trailer: www.domesticasofilme.com.br/

Identity formations of Adoptees of Colour - Introduced by Nathalie

After the presentation there is ample time for questions, after which we’ll open the floor to a general discussion on adoption and ethnicity, in which participants are greatly welcomed to share their knowledge on and (possible) personal experiences with adoption policies and ‘ethics’ from their own specific national and/or cultural location.

Filming the Feminine / Feminist Filming?

Reflecting on Chantal Akerman’s 1975 Film *Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles*

Hosted by Chiara

Who is this ordinary woman called Jeanne Dielman, and why are we allowed to enter her house, her kitchen, her bathroom, to stare at her daily activities? Jeanne Dielman is the story of a housewife, but also of a part-time prostitute and a mother, all in one. A three hours movie condensing three days of Jeanne’s life, portrayed through a static camera that “traps us as completely as Jeanne's static life traps her, and studying that world, we become a part of it.” (J.Loader) A movie defined by critics as “an underground epic that has achieved a popular reputation as an experimental cult classic”, as “a crown jewel of myriad film movements (feminist, avant-garde, experimental)” and as “the first masterpiece of the feminine in the history of cinema”. A movie that deeply challenges its (feminist) audience…

The movie lasts 3 hours, and it’s important to see it without pauses, at 18.00 sharp we will start so to have time for discussion later, please BE ON TIME! (French version with Dutch subtitles, there will be transcripts in English of the –few- dialogues.)

Chantal Akerman, a Brussels-born and now Paris-based filmmaker, is world famous for her deconstructive style, pessimistic humour and corrosive observations of identity, sexuality, and politics. Akerman’s films have been called the single most important and coherent body of work by a women director. Among her most celebrated films are: Saute my ville (Blow up my town); News from Home; Les Rendez-vous d 'Anna; Je, tu, il, elle; Window Shopping ; Toute une nuit (All night long; Les Annèes 80 (The Eighties); Nuit et jour (Night and Day); D'Est (From the East; Portrait d'une jeune fille de la fin des annèes 60 à Bruxelles (Portrait of a Young Girl at the End of the1960s in Brussels); Un Divan à New York (A Couch in New York); and most recently, Sud; and La Captive. Source:  http://www.egs.edu/faculty/akerman.html

SexyShock!

"Real Beauty" - Capitalist Conformity or Empowering Alternatives?

The aim of this campaign is to inspire multiple versions of beauty, by which women - it's sole focus - could boost their self-esteem and build up confidence in their daily lives. Furthermore, its tools consist of predominantly technological media, i.e. an extensive website and television advertisements, which may entail that audiences without access to TV or internet are excluded.

Ask Annabel invites you to check out the campaign's website and explore its various sections. Maybe you'll spot an ad on TV.

Some points to elaborate on:

* Is it significant that this campaign is fuelled by a cosmetics brand that's part of the Unilever Corporation? To which extent is the brand visibly placed inside this campaign?

* What can be said about the website's use of language? Is the tone 'young', 'popular', 'scientific' or 'formal'? Which effects does this language use produce, and can we deduce its target audience from it?

* The website specifically underscores the importance of the relationship between mothers and daughters in providing a caring and supportive environment, especially during turbulent adolescence. The "Talk it Out! Mother and Daughter Decoder" helps mothers understand how her comments may come across to her daughter. Helpful as it may seem at a first glance, the multiple-choice answers leave little room for interpretation or creativity; they are clearly identifiable as either 'right' or 'wrong'. Do you share this thought?

* Take some time at the 'Dove Real Beauty Photo Exhibit' to browse through the many photographs. Do the captions instruct the viewer? Or is there still enough room for other interpretations? More importantly, what can be said about how sexuality is represented, as only one of the photographs may be labelled 'lesbian' with a clear butch / femme lens, whereas all others are either a-sexual / 'innocent' or heterosexually centred? What about the photo of a woman wearing a burka, whose caption reads "Beauty is something in the soul, in the spirit, not on the face, or the body. The burka, covering a woman from head to toe, illustrates this" – how is religion and agency framed in this particular example? How old are the women? Where is class located, and also, do the photos portray ethnic diversities? Do they focus on (other)abled bodies?

* Is the concept of beauty itself ever questioned? Could it be an essentially / essentialistic female-specific attribute? Does this campaign reinstate and repeat gender categories?

A Critical Feminist and Postcolonial View of Disney’s Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Mulan and Pocahontas

Join Ask Annabel in an exploration of several Disney films – how do they inform young viewers on gender roles? What can be said in terms of ethnic representations? How about the framing of beauty-ideals in Beauty and the Beast for instance? How can postcolonial theory be mobilized as a tool for analyzing Mulan and Pocahontas?

Lisa, Hanneke, Quijn and Annabel will provide a short introduction to each film.

 

Follow up on:

Beer and Hamburgers ? Psychologising, Individualisation, Parody and Power

Following the success of the previous Ask Annabel session, another get-together will be organised as a follow-up space for practical and activist planning! Main focus of this evening will be to work on subverting the 'Bavaria' beer commercial, to make it focus on the connection between alcohol and violence. Also, we will start working on a Nike "Just Do It" adbusting strategy, by turning the catchphrase to "They Just Do It", stressing that these products are made in sweatshops under horrible working conditions.

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Previous event 

Beer and Hamburgers ? Psychologising, individualisation, parody and power

Firstly, this session takes a closer look at the practices at work behind several TV commercials (for instance, Bavaria beer, McDonald's 'men's hamburger' and Libresse hygienic pads), and asks which strategies are at work here. Seemingly, these advertisements, and many others, function through strategies of recognition and parody. How can a parody be parodied? How are gender roles represented in these advertisements, and what happens if we’d reverse these roles? Can we think of a way to change these commercials, and, if so, which methods would we use?

Secondly, we focus on the dominant trend to ‘psychologise’ social structures, which for instance appears in women's magazines, politics, and health care. The idea of being personally responsible for your own happiness in life appears to make a critical analysis of power structures impossible. This focus on the individual ensures that the positions of power are retained, which is deeply inherent in capitalism. Think for instance of the way Nike markets its sportswear products: 'search deep within yourself, discover the true you and express it... we will help you to do this.' Most current products rely on their ability to be customised by the buyer. This method ensures a larger sales market, because it is founded upon an individual’s desire to express her/himself through material goods. Is this something to be worried about? Can we escape? Which counter strategies can we think of?

We will have ample examples with us, such as women’s magazines and a laptop with some commercials, so don’t worry if you haven’t seen them! Feel free to take along your own materials, too.

Curious? Take a look at the Bavaria beer advertisement:

• Critical feminist and postcolonial review of Disney's Mulan, Snow White, and Beauty and the Beast

• Reviewing lesbianism in today's pop-music videos - Is it a trend? Does it focus on lesbian women or heterosexual men? What makes a music video a lesbian video?

• The myth of Medea - the woman who killed her children: reading Euripides' play and a contemporary remake and translating it into your own life

• Visit to the sex museum and the 'women friendly' sex shop 'female and partners' in Amsterdam. Is this shop really female friendly? What is the difference with a 'regular' porn shop? Visit to the sex museum - how are gender / class / ethnicity represented?

• Woman and violence + popular media: Screening of and subsequent discussion of the film Veronica Guerin

• Popular media: Lesbian music videos - What's up with the trend to have lesbian scenes in pop music videos? Is this directed at lesbian women? Or is it produced for heterosexual men? What makes a music video ‘lesbian’?  

• 23 and 24 March 2005: Benefit performance of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues. All proceeds (more than 2000 euros!) went towards Utrecht-based organisations striving to end violence against women

• Women and violence + popular media: The female action hero! Discussion of Kill Bill - A step forward in emancipation?