Grassroots media in Europe (468)

"We are a group of women in the Labour Movement fighting for Womens Liberation and Socialism. We see the two as inseparable. Women are not going to be liberated by an act of parliament, although this does not mean we do not fight to elect a Labour government committed to equal rights for women. But we do not think this is the way women will have true liberation, nor do we believe that the working class is white, heterosexual and male.

We cannot expect male members of parliament nor for that matter male revolutionaries to give us liberation.

"It is clear that having a forum to speak about things that are kept silent, about the daily violation of women's rights, to defend women who have nobody to stand up for them, to discuss and work to change the rules, laws, and decrees which dominate women's lives, to stop the emotional and moral harassment committed by society, to raise awareness about women's human rights, to give women the hope that our lives can be better, is more needed: a forum, a journal, an organisation, to show that women have something to say, to express our views, to have our voices heard: a forum to show that women

An anti-sexist magazine that was produced by a working collective of socialist men and launched to coincide with the London Men's Conference in 1978. From the editorial of their first issue:

Founded by Lesley Riddoch. Shortlisted for Orwell Prize. Unsuccessfully sued by Harpes and Queens before being declared bankrupt.

Excerpt from interview (4.10.2005), http://livingmemory.org.uk/rememberwhen/interview/intHC.html

Helen Chambers: I got my first proper job which was Harpies and Quines magazine which was a feminist magazine, published in Glasgow which Lesley Riddoch was involved in starting so I did that for a while.

Vicky Woods: What was it called?

GenderArtNet is an experimental mapping project exploring the interrelation of gender, ethnicity, race, class and sexualities in contemporary Europe.

GenderArtNet’s primary aim is to thematically link the various existing online resources of feminist and queer artists, projects and networks rather than provide yet another user platform for artist profiles. By connecting existing, often remote, online resources, we would like to improve the accessibility and readability of these resources while keeping the memory of feminist artistic and cultural production in the broader Europe alive.

By organising this information in a map, we work to provide contexts, connections, and relations between artists, artworks and networks and between geopolitics and artistic practice. Our starting point is a relational understanding of feminism as a critical, multilayered practice that considers the interrelatedness of various forms of social, political and cultural hierarchies and exclusions along the lines of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, bodily ability, race, class and geopolitical location.