Dear all,

In conjunction with the international womyn’s day, a bunch of us (the no name collective), Innerview and Katagender will be organizing a few things to commemorate the struggles of our sisters.

Details:
date: 7th March 2009, saturday
time : 11.00 am – 5.00 ish
venue : rumah FNBKL/PONYO

PROGRAMME
1. Sexuality workshop by Katagender
What is the Malaysian preoccupation with sex? What does our sexual identity have to do with what we can say, do, expect or demand? Is sexuality a private issue or a matter of public interest? Do Malaysians have any rights when it comes to sexuality?

2. DIY cloth pad
We are finally gonna do this. i quote my friend, “tak radical la kalau beli kotex (please replace brand if you dont use kotex)!!!” For this session please bring your own cloth (the older and softer the better. and no polyester or nylon. flannel shirts and pyjamas would be best), good morning towels, ole terrycloth towels, needle and thread, stud buttons. The average womyn will use around 17,000 pads or tampons in her lifetime and pads and tampons are made from products which non-biodegradable.

3. Movie creening + discussion
Libertarias or Leila Khalid: Hijacker. Both films are equally good and they talk about particpation of womyn in revolution.

4. Picnic
The whole event is called the radical feminist picnic (how awesome is that name?). so yeah, we need to have a picnic. to our benefit, we have a park right in front of the house so we will have the picnic there and some of the events in the park out there. we’ll have food, music,company and trees. now it sounds like a hippie event. oh well.

5. Print your own t-shirts
A friend of us from Innerview designed something for the event. So if you bring your own t-shirts, you’d be able to print them yourself. We are going all out with this DIY thing.

For more information on Womyn’s Day, you can check out www.mockmeat.wordpress.com.

Hope to see you there at the picnic!

In lieu of recent heat tomboys have been getting, Katagender will be celebrating “tomboys” in Malaysia with the tagline “We are proud of our women just the way they are!”.

With all the hype recently over the way women look, should look or what folks think they/we look like; we are now compiling photos of all the women that are perceived as ‘tomboys’ and putting up on the katagender.blogspot.com.

These photos can be of working women, in uniforms, in factory clothings, historical figures, sportswomen, our grandmothers, mothers, ourselves…as long as it is all from Malaysia (whatever you perceive as Malaysian, your grandmother could be from Singapore but now in Malaysia, you know that kind of thing.)

Anyway, this campaign shall be lovingly tagged, dedicated to the cool ‘tomboys’ out there, as: “We are proud of our women just the way they are!”

Do you have pictures of yourself with short, spiky hair? In an ‘unfeminine’ outfit? Wearing those pleather, punk wrist bands, all geared up for some PLU party in Club 69? Posing with your foot upon a ball with the rest of your futsal team?

Pose as you will, get your friend to snap it, and send them Katagender’s way! You know what? Get your mother to pose too, if your family is cool that way. Lo-res is fine, and include a tagline with the moniker, age and description of your choice.

The e-mail address is kata.gender@gmail.com and they’re looking forward to hearing from you ‘tomboys’ soon!

What defines a tomboy? Beats us, you decide. Do you have to be a lesbian to participate? Not at all!

The Tomboy Photo Project is still new, and some submissions have already been sent in. Head on over to Katagender and check them out.

Have some fun, people .