Saturday 16 May 2015

Guest Post: Fightback Magazine - Voices from Women and Gender Minorities

Fightback is a socialist-feminist organisation which publishes a website and themed bi-monthly magazines. This August, we are bringing together an issue that is edited, designed and written entirely by women and gender minorities on the kaupapa of anti capitalism / decolonisation / socialism / anti-racism / feminism.


Despite the centrality of women, girls and gender minorities to the social movements of today, we are still a smaller minority of writers in the socialist press. Fightback acknowledges that there are many reasons for this, some of them including the fact that these groups are weighed down by more unpaid work, that our work may not be as valued and that there's a higher chance we will come up against barriers for our involvement in political spaces.
Instead of just offering a space for writers to be read and heard, we are also raising money to support contributors in a tangible way – by paying a rate of $NZ100 per page of content. We understand that writing and creating takes time, and how much of our political work is unpaid labour. By offering this payment, we hope that people who usually wouldn’t have as much time or resources, can focus on creating a contribution they are proud of and offers further insight into anti-capitalist politics.
Fightback will be covering the printing costs, however, we are asking for donations to pay for the funding that will go to the contributors.
If you are keen to support this project, there are a couple of options:
  1. Write for us! We are looking for articles, art, comics, poetry or design work to be a part of this issue. If you are interested in contributing, then please submit a pitch of your idea (can be a couple of sentences) by May 20th (late submissions may be accepted). Our priority areas are perspectives from tangata whenua, Pasifika peoples, immigrants and gender diverse people. If your piece is relevant to these perspectives let us know. We are also open to supporting new writers, if you would like some help in developing an idea. 
     
  2. Help us make sure writers are paid!  While we aren’t expecting women and gender minorities to fund this project, we would really appreciate you sharing the Pledgeme link with your networks, or passing it onto male supporters who would be keen to donate. 
If you have any queries about the project or how you can take part, feel free to get in touch with Fightback.

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