The Feminist Futures Conference is being organised for May 28-29 by the newly formed Melbourne Feminist Collective (MFC): a group of mainly young activists who were inspired by a similar conference they attended in Sydney last year.
James Muldoon from the MFC told Green Left Weekly: “We are a non-aligned loose knit group of feminists who are keen to build on the movement’s past successes by focusing on shared goals and strategies for the future.
“We are seeking to move beyond the old divisions by focusing on what unites us
rather than what divides us. We believe diversity and respectful debate should be our guiding principles for building a feminist future.
“Traditionally, divisions within the movement have been seen as a weaknesses but we believe that a plethora of voices and ideologies can also be a strength by allowing multiple agendas and goals to be pursued simultaneously while guarding against uncritical stances.”
The conference aims to build a broad based feminist movement by:
• challenging the notion that we are living in “a post-feminist society”;
• raising awareness of a number of feminist issues and their relevance for society today; and
• reaching out to a boarder audience and to involve as many new people as possible in feminist debate, campaigns and activities.
“We would also like to encourage new networking opportunities and other forms of connectedness across the movement in order to involve as many people as possible in feminist campaigns and activities,” Muldoon said.
“This is something that we felt was lacking at the Sydney conference and could be improved. We want the ideas behind the Feminist Futures Conference to live on long after the event itself.”
[For more details visit http://mfc.org.au/ ]