Onderwerp : [Imc-vlaanderen] imc-ovl answer to questions in imc-women proposal

Dear people from imc-women

Indy-ovl (east flanders, see www.indymedia-vlaanderen.org for the 
testsite)  have received with much interest your proposal for the questions 
to be  added to the application form. As we would like to show our support 
for the  proposal, we have discussed the questions in the proposal (with 
the great  help of libby who is also working on imc-women), and we would 
like to give a transcript of this discussion in the hope that we could get 
some feedback on our proposals, our remarks, and especially our questions 
towards imc- women.

Libby explained the proposal and referred to the opinion in the imc-women 
group that women and minorities don't feel home in the often macho world of 
ICT and INDYMEDIA, and that there is a need for a room for minorities and 
women where they can discuss without being interferred with.

Some remarks were made by individuals on the proposal and we would like to 
give them also to you :

*there should be attention that the proposal does not reinforce cultural  
gender-patterns: women are not always less interested in conflict or in 
ITC. The idea that women are less intrested in technology is also an idea 
made up by our macho culture, however we acknowledge that the cultural 
pressure in our society endorses these patterns, and have te be taken into 
account.

*It is not enough to talk about gender or sex only,
Indymedia Oost-Vlaanderen recognizes that the struggle against patriarchy 
also touches topics like transgender, homo- and bisexuality and 
transsexuality. We believe that sex and gender is a personal matter which 
goes beyond the individuals' choice and which is a major aspect of his or 
her personality. On the matter of sex and gender we state that it is our 
duty to respect this fact and to open up an atmosphere in which all  
individuals can flourish as who they are.  This respect for the 
individuality of others should also reflect on other basic personal matters 
like systems of belief, colour of skin, culture, physical or mental 
abilities and so on. The members of the Indymedia Oost-
Vlaanderen collective agree that in order to open up a free and dynamic 
space for all, everybody should respect the others' choices and aspects of 
character for as long as these do not interfere with the objective of an 
anti-patriarchal collective, and the rights, choices and aspects of 
character of others.

We acknowledge that the makeup of our collectieve is not reflecting the 
diversity of the local community, There is an overrepresentation of white 
atheistic heterosexual middleclass males, and an underrepresentations of 
women and sexual, cultural and other minorities.   While we think it is 
important to keep this underrepresentation in mind, the feminist or anti-
patriarchal struggle is more than just a struggle for equal representation, 
as this will only be a partial solution. We thought it would be wise to 
question our functioning as a collective,  why we might attract certain 
types of personalities and repell others, thus fighting the very cause of 
underrepresentation 

A brainstorm about the origins of this under representation gave the 
following results:
*the origin of indymedia-ovl was indy-vlaanderen, a controversial site in 
belgium. As it was very controversial, there were alot of hard and tough 
discussions on how to proceed, this chased away minorities and people not  
interested in conflict
*the state of mind in features and articles is orientated towards 
conflicts: features often highlight conflicts with police or the state, and 
there is relatively less attention towards the more constructive social 
work, the social dimension of alternatives for the system.

*women feel less interested in ICT and techie stuff,

A brainstorm on how we can broaden the diversity of our collective as well  
as our reader/writers gave the following results:
*we ask the imc-women group to share their proposals and experiences, Libby 
draws for example attention to the polymedia bus, a project started by  
women in a context of cooperation. 
*We will try to use more humour in image, and texts
* We will try to give the website a less agressive and intimidating look 
(black and blood red colours).
*we will try to be more constructive towards other people and other imc's, 
and try to create a positive mood.
*in our process text we will insert a paragraph with a reference to the imc-
women text, and our support for this proposal and we will add links to 
different lists and irc-rooms that are open to women or sexual, cultural 
or  other minorities
*As for the content, we thought that maybe imc is too much focussed on  
moments of direct conflict and physical struggle with our ennemies, 
whereas  processes of constructing alternatives and co-operation pass less 
noticed. Therefore, we intend to give more interest to the latter.
*In our meetings we will continue to use techniques (see Starhawk and PGA 
meetings) that give attention to the oppressed voices, or who make it more 
difficult to silence people.
*We will activly try to involve more women, by appealing more to women to 
join us, and by putting a poll on the web site where everybody can indicate 
what could be improved, or what they would like to see changed on the site
 or collective
*we will try to make the manual for techies more easy to read
 *we will try to have more attention for kids, maybe on a long term have a 
special page for kids, with simple interface and features that interest 
kids or youngsters

we hope that we get some feedback on these propositions, and that you will  
all let us know if you approve or not.

for the indy-ovl collective this was a (crappy) translation by manutiht



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