Sistershow Revisited by D-M Withers

Author:D-M Withers [Withers, D-M]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Women, Social Science, Feminism & Feminist Theory, General
ISBN: 9781910849224
Google: a6BGEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Intellect Books
Published: 2020-07-17T03:36:42+00:00

I’d been involved for a long time in organising the previous conference, therefore I inherited an organisational role. We had many meetings, discussions, phone calls. One of the things was, because there was always unhappiness about certain activities not being catered for, we asked people to write in and ask us to provide space for whatever they were interested in.

We ended up in the Students’ Union as nowhere else in Bristol could have accommodated all the activities. A quiet room, a place to do art activities, all sorts of things, it was hugely varied. We needed a room for big assemblies as well. It was a nightmare to organise. I don’t know if I went to anything at the conference apart from the big meetings! It was a huge jamboree. I certainly didn’t get to go to Sistershow. Heaven knows what I was doing.

Like many of the WLM conferences, men were called upon to run the crèche. There were workshops on a wide variety of topics that ran throughout the day. These included radical feminism, women and religion, wages for housework, the family allowances campaign, women and technology, women in China, women in history, literature, women’s studies, women’s centres, family and capitalism, family and sexuality, women and racism, images of women in the media, women’s work and the unions, women and psychiatry, women in prison, men’s role in Women’s Liberation, an alternative to the family, women’s role in the family, women’s pensions, anti-discrimination, women’s newspapers, co-counselling, consciousness raising, women and Marxism, non-verbal communication, housing, group dynamics.

After a hard day debating a wide range of issues, there was evening entertainment provided by Sistershow. Phyl Chandler commented: “We had a lot of captive prisoners in the audience who were very much on our side. There was an extraordinary atmosphere. Everyone who was there knew exactly what we trying to get across, even though we were doing it in such a haphazard and messy way. They loved what we were doing. The atmosphere in the audience was one of real friendship and love. You could almost feel the warmth, and touch it like a wave of heat.”

Pat VT West described it in a slightly different way: “We did Sistershow at the Women’s Liberation Conference in Bristol. It was mind blowing. We had a huge audience of women from all over the country. It turned everyone on. It was wild. Women were making love on the dance floor. No men at all. The porters said they didn’t know what was going on.”

After the conference, a participant wrote to Ellen Malos to offer thanks for organising the event. “Dear Ellen, thank you and all the members of the Bristol group for a wonderful conference. It was beautiful – especially Sistershow and the feelings it engendered.”33

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.