Uplift Magazine

First Woman ‘Best Director’

By: Dearbhaile Kitt, 09.03.2010 | Comments (0)

Congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow for becomming the first woman EVER to win the Best Director Oscar!

Photo from The Examiner

Celebrate International Women’s Day

By: Sarah Barnes, 06.03.2010 | Comments (0)

International Women’s Day is fast approaching (it’s on Monday, the 8th, in case you weren’t aware), which begs the question; What will you be doing to celebrate it? And when I say ‘Celebrate’, I don’t really mean party hats and bubbly booze (although this is also a very valid, and fun, way to mark the occassion!) but choosing a worthy event where you can reflect on the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future. Whilst many people will be marking IWD by donning their marching boots for the Million Women Rise March today, here is a little list of events going on on the day itself…

CRAWLEY – ASSERTIVENESS WORKSHOP
From 9.30am to 12.00 mid-day
You’ll learn to express yourself assertively when communicating with others. The skill of expressing opinions confidently and clearly, with respect for the other person, is essential. This event is free, but spaces are limited.
Venue: Kinnarps, Mack House, Gatwick Road, Crawley, RH10 9RJ

SLOUGH – 100TH INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
From 10.30am to 2.00pm
Prominent women from Slough will be on a panel discussing why this year is so important to make sure you exercise your right to vote.
Venue: Thames Valley Community Centre The Green Chalvey , Slough, SL1 2SP

LONDON – ONE LAW FOR ALL PRESENTS: A SEMINAR ON SHARIA LAW
From 6:00pm to 8:30pm
Speakers including Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (British Muslims for Secular Democracy); Yassi Atasheen, Ismail Einashe and Maryam Namazie (One Law for All); Clara Connolly and Yasmin Rahman (Women Against Fundamentalism);  Pragna Patel (Southall Black Sisters)  and Joan Smith (Writer and Activist) will come together to discuss opposition to Sharia Law within the UK legal system. Tickets cost £10 (or £3 for students/low income) and you will need to register here beforehand.
Venue: Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL (Closest Underground: Holborn)

LONDON – FUNNY WOMEN STAND UP
Doors: 7.30 p.m. for show 8.00 p.m.
Some of the best and most innovative female comedy acts (including Jan Ravens, Shazia Mirza and Bridget Christie) take to the stage in support of Funny Women’s annual charity gala, Funny Women Stand Up. There’ll be free cake too! The serious message alongside the laughs is about bringing attention to the issues surrounding violence against women. Tickets cost £25 (buy them here) with proceeds raised on the night donated to V-Day Tender, which is currently focusing on a campaign to stop the physical violence and brutality that women and girls are suffering as a by-product of war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Venue: Leicester Square Theatre – main house, 6 Leicester Place, WC2H 7BX

The Birds Eye View Film Festival is still in full swing, so why not celebrate with one of their film screenings on the day?

Still not found something to do? Then head to the International Womens Day Website for more ideas!

(Vintage Women’s Liberation March image found here)

Speaking of Diversity in Modelling…

By: Sarah Barnes, 04.03.2010 | Comments (0)

Okay, so this whole “We need to re-imagine the entire modelling landscape” argument has really come to the fore-front of my mind lately. Whilst I could blame the fact that I’m reading Crystal Renn’s autobiography, Hungry, for the re-emphasising of this long held belief, I think my resurgence in interest actually came when Company Magazine announced they were going to publish another Reader Issue this year.

In case you hadn’t guessed yet, last year’s Company Reader Issue featured readers in all the places that you would usually find professional models. So that meant the fashion editorials, the beauty pages, the trend pieces… even the bits where stock photos are usually used to show two-gals-having-a-laff, and the like. It was certainly a wake-up call as to how often we consume images of ‘perfect specimen’ women (yes, I know professional models are real women too, but they are a very small, specific and idealised grouping) who are supposed to reflect us.

Of course, it goes without saying that I blinkin’ loved last year’s Reader Issue (and not just because they grilled Gordon Brown about women’s safety). To have a magazine’s readership as models seems a really fresh way to get a representative bunch of women visually represented in the media… and it’s also an interesting tool to open up a publication, in terms of accessibility and personality, to it’s readers.

Ever the nit-picker, I did want to prod Company into considering choosing some larger sized readers to model for their next Reader Issue (which is why I wrote this blog post on the Company blog). Last year the models only ranged from size 8 to 12, and they were mostly pretty tall and all able bodied too. But hey, beggers can’t be choosers, I suppose!

It will be really interesting to see how this years Reader Issue shapes up… and we shouldn’t have too long to wait; last year it was the May issue, which means it actually came out in April. Only a few weeks to go then! And then, finally, I might be able to get this diversity-in-modelling bug out of my system!

All Walks Beyond The Catwalk at London Fashion Week

By: Sarah Barnes, 01.03.2010 | Comments (0)

Running around London Fashion Week last week there were plenty of fantastic collections to write up (something I’ve been doing here)… but very little in the way of feminist happenings to report on. That was until I bumped into the All Walks Beyond the Catwalk campaign in the Vauxhall Fashion Scout venue at the opulent (and slightly creepy) Freemason’s Hall. In a little make-shift photography studio the All Walks team were snapping away at willing participants, each holding a letter that would later spell out ‘Every Body Counts’.

The campaign, devoted to ‘broadening the size and age range of professional models used at London Fashion Week’ was co-founded by Clothes Show legend Caryn Franklin, fashion consultant Debra Bourne and the ever-poised Erin O’Connor. The project was started in May 2009 after Susan Ringwood, chief executive of eating disorder charity BEAT, posed the question “Was it possible to show fashion on a range of inspiring bodies?”

Since that question was popped, All Walks have created campaigns, magazine editorials AND fashion shows featuring models ranging in size from 8 to 16, and in age between 18 and 65. The most well known example of All Walk’s work was at last season’s Mark Fast show where the appearance of average sized women in clingy knits was apparently too much for the stylist to cope with… and grabbed plenty of headlines. Fast did it again this year, this time with the most super of plus-sized models Crystal Renn (I’m reading her fabulous autobiography at the moment – review to come!) as his secret weapon.

Whilst I think the campaign is an amazing one, and desperately needed, there are just a couple of things that irk me slightly (I know, I know… I’m a nit-picker!). First up, why only officially concentrate on diversity in size and age when catwalks are still awash with white?! Jezebel very recently reported on the staggering lack of racial diversity on the catwalks of New York Fashion Week and I’m sure a similar analysis would come out of London Fashion Week too, so why not commit to tackling this particular lack of diversity as well? I’m sure it must be on the All Walk’s agenda (in fact, it IS mentioned here), it just isn’t obviously written in their main promo material (descriptions on website, facebook or twitter) as one of their objectives. Odd. Perhaps we are at a delusional stage where people are hoping it’s not a problem anymore?

Another thing. After the clumsy, but well meaning, attempt of BBC Three’s Britain’s Missing Top Model to get disabled models into the fashion spotlight, you’d think this would be on the All Walks agenda too. Sadly not, although I’m sure there is room to bring this into the campaign in the future. In the mean-time, however, at least we have the (similar yet separate) Models of Diversity campaign. Along with Britain’s Missing Top Model winner Kelly Knox, representatives from the M.O.D. campaign made their presence felt at London Fashion Week (although, since they were protesting, they weren’t allowed into Somerset House).

All Walks is a relatively young campaign and yet, already, it’s doing brilliantly. I’m sure that this is because it’s coming from within the fashion industry, spearheaded by some well-connected and highly regarded names. Because of this, it’s approaching the industry on its own terms and being taken seriously. People are listening. But, aside from this, I also hope it’s simply because people are waking up to the need for more diversity on the catwalks. I especially love that All Walks is bringing age into this debate; it’s just as important to give visibility to older women and yet this is a factor that often gets overlooked.

Follow the All Walks campaign on Facebook and Twitter, or visit their website to find out more. That’s certainly what I’ll be doing every 10 minutes (or so… ahem) to check when they put up the picture they took of me holding up the R in ‘Every’! Until then, I’ll have to be content with this snapshot, taken by by Palida Boonyarungsrit, of me fashionably stomping on the request to size me up.

Million Women Rise needs you!

By: Yasmin Eshref, 22.02.2010 | Comments (0)

On the 6th March this year the annual Million Women Rise march will be taking place, calling all women together  to bring domestic violence to an end. As usual, MWR will be coinciding with International Woman’s Day, and what better way to show your love for yourself and your sisters than marching?

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