Friday June 20, 6pm
Chatswood Youth Centre (64 Albert St, Chatswood)

A film, bands, speakers, discussions and a zine about gender and sex in music.

FILM:
CLITfest ‘04 documentary
A 35 minute documentation of the first C.L.I.T.Fest, a yearly festival in the US to promote the the active participation of women in the punk movement and educate against and help eradicate sexism in punk and beyond. It includes interviews, commentary and live footage.

BANDS:
Terrastylus, Squidd + more TBA

SPEAKERS/DISCUSSIONS:
I’m going to invite a few people I know to speak in the 15 minute breaks between the bands, but if any woman, man or non-gendered person would like to speak or hold a short discussion on a particular topic relevant to gender and sex in music please contact me about your ideas.

ZINE:
For this event I will also be putting together a zine as well. Consider this an open invitation for all people of all gender to contribute all sorts of articles (positive, negative, neutral, essays, poems, reflections, drawings…) on the broad topic of sex and gender in music (of any genre, scene or location). Please send all articles to uncutflowers[at]gmail[dot]com by June 15.

DISTROS:
If you are a woman or transgender person who runs a distro/label or makes zines and would like to be able to have some table space to sell/distribute your stuff, please get in touch and we can try to work something out. Likewise, men who do pro-feminist zines get in contact too.

SOME QUESTIONS:
Here are some questions for discussion and maybe for inspiration on an article you might like to contribute to the zine. Some answers/discussion may be reprinted or referred to in the zine unless you say that you don’t want them to be.

1) Do you see an equal representation between men and women playing music in the genre/scene/community you feel associated with? What do you think are the reasons for this?

2) If you do feel there is gender inequality in your genre/scene/community, is it desirable to change this? How do you think it could be changed?

3) I here often that women who play music feel forced/encouraged to fit into either a macho and masculine role or a sexualised role. What do you think of this observation/theory?

4) Do you think that men in music are also forced/encouraged to fit into certain roles because of their gender? Are non-gendered or transgender people encouraged/forced into performing certain roles because of their sex?

5) Last year, at least one person posted similar questions on numerous internet forums. Do you think much has changed since then?

You can answer these questions as a comment on this post, on the Uncut Flowers forum or via email. If you got any questions of your own to ask and/or add to the list then post them too.

Some Further Reading:

Females in bands (Mess+Noise forum thread from 2007)

RVA CLITFest 07

Chicago CLITFest 08

Different Kind of Dude Fest

CLITFest 04 Documentary (AK Press Review)

Hip Hop, Gender, Race and Capitalism by Nichali Ciaccio

The Exploitation of Women in Hip Hop Culture by Ayanna

Beyond Beats and Rhymes (A documentary by Byron Hurt) – VIDEO