IUSY Feminist Working Group Meeting 2021

OVERVIEW

What: Feminist Working Group Meeting 2021

When: 15-16 April

Where: Zoom online platform

Age: 18-35 years                                                                                                               

Registration Deadline:  12 April, 12:00PM CET

Concept 

Every year, IUSY Feminist Working Group brings together young activists of IUSY member organisations to engage in a dialogue on common struggles and obstacles, and work together to come up with strategies to enact political and social change within our organisations and beyond. 

This year, Feminist working group meeting will take place on the 15th and 16th of April under the topic “That’s enough! Let’s build feminist organisations”.

Young feminist activists continue organising across movements in an intersectional way, locally, nationally, regionally and globally even in these difficult times of pandemic. Regardless of the work and continuous fight by many feminist organisations and networks, we continue facing discrimination in our organisational structures, lack of support in political and economic empowerment and in participatory decision making processes. 

In this year’s working group meeting, we want to get down to the essence of how we walk the walk and not just talk the talk in our quest to build an international socialist/social-democratic organisations that are feminist. By deconstructing old narratives, being critical, sharing good practices and highlighting topics such as intersectionality and gender discrimination within organsations, this meeting will give participants the tools and skills:

  • to acknowledge, define and share the main problems among our organisations 
  • to have the space to acknowledge and share best practices for continuous work
  • to build a network of feminist activists and a chance to be a part of the feminist working group

Thus, the main goals of this meeting are: 

  • to acknowledge, define and share the main problems among organisations;
  • to acknowledge and share best practices and achievements for continuous work;
  • to continue building a network of feminist activists;
  • to give tools and raise awareness about gender discrimination within organisations;
  • to engage young feminist activists within the working group, across the different regions. 

What can you expect? 

We will get together for 2 days (about 2.5 hours per day) in an informal and formal settings. This means we will have a space to talk, to share, to support and to act. 

The meeting will start either at 1PM CET or 2PM CET. The time will be confirmed as soon as it is possible taking into account the different time zones.

More details on the programme will come soon and all registered participants will be informed of the technicalities and the content of the meeting. 

The meeting will be held online on the Zoom platform. It will be in English and without any participation fee. 

It is important to remember that our events are safe spaces and that we are mindful and respectful towards each other.

Who can apply

This activity is aimed towards the activists of IUSY member organisations. Please note that it is required that the participants stay for the whole duration of the activity and also to contribute to the working group after the meeting.

Participants should:

  • Belong to IUSY member organisation
  • Be aged 18-35
  • Have been active/working/studying in the field of feminism/feminist movement 
  • Be willing to continue to work and be active in the field of gender and feminism 
  • Availability to contribute to IUSY activities in future

How to apply

To apply you must complete the following this form or copy/pasting the following link https://forms.gle/ZMhZ8BGpj4vwRtNe6 by 12 April, 12:00PM CET.

Contact information

Should you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact the coordinator of the project at the IUSY Secretariat:

Gohar Ghandilyan 

IUSY Project Manager

EMAIL: gohar.ghandilyan@iusy.org

Phone: +43 699 135 32 960

Statement of IUSY Feminist Working Group’19: Gender Mainstreaming in Youth Organisations

Young activists of IUSY member organisations have met 27-30 June 2019, at Salvador Allende Haus in Germany to reflect on the theme Gender mainstreaming in youth organisations.

The IUSY Feminist Working Group has further discussed on women empowerment, intersectionality, representation and prevention of sexualized violence with a unique left perspective. We believe the fight against patriarchy must be the fight against all privileges and exploitations. Therefore, we have highlighted the difference from right and liberal feminism and have stressed for the need to:

  1. change the structure of society in order to achieve real equality. It’s not enough to cancel limitations;
  2. consider other struggles requiring attention and association with the needs in pursuing for gender equality;
  3. emphasise that the only feminism is intersectional feminism;
  4. analyse the reality through the lens of socialist intersectional feminism and to bring the left perspective to the centre of the table;
  5. have internal tools and common understanding of topics related to feminism in order to implement gender equality in the MO’s & in IUSY;

The Feminist Working Group has resolved to develop and publish a toolkit in December in order to inform, form and transform the knowledge.

No feminism without socialism, no socialism without feminism

Salvador Allende Haus, Germany, 29thJune 2019