Due to a confluence of things, including key members moving, being too busy with other projects, spotty attendance, etc., the Baltimore Feminist Reading Group is/had been on  indefinite hiatus. We thank everyone who attended meetings over the past year, people who helped out with the Summer BBQs, and everyone who’s shown us support and love.

We also definitely encourage folks who’ve been e-mailing us about attending this group’s meeting to start their own reading groups! Organizing these sorts of things is surprisingly time-consuming, sometimes frustrating, but so, so rewarding! I’ve met true, life-long comrades, participated in important conversations, had my analyses and perspectives on  things changed, all as a result of this reading group. As cheesy as it sounds, it’s definitely one of the most important things I’ve participated in. 

Nothing, not even the internet, can replace an actual, physical space of feminist camaraderie where people can have sometimes-difficult conversations about capitalism, racism, heterosexism, etc. without having to fight the “other side”– so to speak– the side that tells us what we know can’t be true: that the exploitation of people must go on uncontested, that sexism is natural, that racism can be cured by not talking about the white supremacist society we live in, that imperialist wars are “just,” that women, people of color, queers, trans people, have to wait for the “real, class war” to be fought for “our” issues to be confronted. Fuck that shit, we gotta find our comrades, we gotta talk and disagree and laugh and dance and debate and protest and scream and cry with them. 

A reading group isn’t a political organization, it won’t dismantle any of the crap I just cited, but it’ll (hopefully) help you find people who are just as frustrated and fed up as you; maybe after meeting yall will be able to get stuff started… .

So yeah, this reading group is basically done (for now…?), but feel free to use this little site as a resource for any future projects, or e-mail questions to us. 

May a thousand  reading groups bloom!

Th is pamphlet is an attempt to trace the historic rise of an oppression that, as yet, has no commonly agreed name. We are talking here about people who defy the “man”-made boundaries of gender.

See ya Thursday!

Click to access halberstam_in-a-queer-time-and-place-l.pdf

and

another 3 page take on the movie to be added when I remember how to post pdfs!!!

Through revolt, the women de-mystified the dimensions of their penury, specifically the housewives’ sector of the Oaxaca Commune, who in their own terms defined their rebellion against capitalism and the state as directly correlated with their rebellion against their husbands and families in the domestic sphere.