Onderwerp : [Imc-vlaanderen] Answer of indy-ovl to the proposal for the application from imc women

Hallo jongens,

Schitterend initiatief, ik had al een verslagje naar de women-lijst 
gestuurd maar ik was al een paar dingen vergeten. We hebben het 
besproken, via de lijst en via irc en we zouden het graag als good 
practice en tips op de womens wiki zetten, ik paste mijn teksjte hier 
nog even onder. Als dat van jullie af is stuur het dan naar mij, dan 
stuur ik het rechstreeks naar de womens list en moeten jullie niet 
wachten op moderatie.

Ik ben beretrots op jullie.


Groetjes,

Libby

Hello Ladies,

This afternoon i have been to the first meeting of  a proposed new imc 
in Belgium, imc- ovl (oost-vlaanderen, east flanders) . At the moment 
its an all boys collective, they do see that as a problem and they were 
pretty enthousiatic on discussing our proposal.

They tried to look for a cause as to why women and minorities are 
underrepresented and they also pointed at a certain level of agressivity 
as one of the probable causes. Agressivity in general, but also within 
their own group (this is one of the collectives being born due too 
certain problems with/within the be collective) Unhealthy discussions 
and lots of  agressiveness dominate that  discussion, and this pitbull 
behaviour is very unattractive to many people, not just women. But it is 
true that that is not a wellcoming environement. Women tend to find that 
type of  macho-affirmation behaviour as very unapealing to say the least.

They name basic curtosy and respectfull communication as an important 
point to create an environement  where everybody can feel comfortable 
in, and feeling comfortable in a group is a reason for people to stay, 
especially people who face exclusion in one form or another. But that 
doesn't solve the problem of attracting diversity, they formulated a 
number of other proposals to deal with that.

They will  work on the "look" of the site, logo and colour will be made 
more appealing to a larger public, as lots of imc-sites do use strong, 
aggressive colours and violent images, breathing some kind of  machismo 
that will make a lot of people click away from the site at firsts sight.

In their ourtreach they will explicitly mention imc-women and imc-queer 
as support groups for women and holebi's and talk about the positive 
things women do and the positive role women play within the network. And 
it looks like once they get through the process we can expect a few 
subscritions to the antipatriarchy list.

Someone raised the issue of what het called "typical male romanticism" 
surrounding the large summits, that should have its place in indymedia, 
and police violence should be exposed, but there should also be room for 
an other way of covering those summits (the example of the disobbedienti 
women at the last EU summit in Rome was given). They will strive for a 
more diverse coverage to attract more diversity in readers/posters and 
have that translated/mirrored in the collective.

One thing lead to another and at a certain point an often forgotten 
"minority"  got to be discussed, children. A youg dad talked about why 
he's envolved in activism and one of the reasons is his young child. 
Childrens rights are often trampled and children also should have access 
to indymedia to have their voices heard, the whole group agreed on 
giving attention to themes that concern children, do a special outreach 
efford towards children and make room for  features by children for 
children.

These were just a few "starter" ideas, they have asked me for an input 
of ideas and make a broader sketch of how the womens proposal came to be 
and they will continue the discussion on the mailing list to be able to 
formulate a wider range of  proposals and actions by the next meeting 
where they can be discussed.

They're not there yet, but i have a pretty good feeling these guys are 
genuinly committed to creating a very wide diversity within their 
collective and the fact they took the time for an extensive discussion 
three hours into the meeting, after having discussed rahter heavy topics 
like the mission statement, edito policy and  the POU shows their 
concern for the subject.