Was wir gegen patriarchale Strukturen tun können

In ihren Antworten schreiben viele IMC-AktivistInnen, wie sie glauben, dass patriarchale Strukturen in ihren Gruppen abgebaut werden könnten. Einige beschreiben auch, wie sie das in ihrer eigenen Gruppe geschafft haben. Ich hatte leider noch keine Zeit, einen Text daraus zu machen. Aber einige bei indymedia germany fanden, dass eine sinnvolle Diskussion über das Thema besser geführt werden kann, wenn schon mal ein paar Lösungsvorschläge auf dem Tisch sind.

Hier außerdem der Text eines erklärten Feministen, Charles W. Johnson: What you can do to support Women's Rights.

Hier gehts zum Artikel über patriarchale Strukturen bei indymedia.

Hier also eine kleine Zitatensammlung:

IMC St. Louis: I think the first way we can bridge this gap is by taking an interest and covering issues that are important to people unlike ourselves, and to make our effort known to them while encouraging them to become involved in the process.

I do little things, like at meetings when we ask who’s taking the notes, I’ll suggest that a guy takes on this role so it’s not always the women acting as secretaries. We try to follow the Organization for Black Struggle’s rules for a more democratic meeting, which state that someone must facilitate the meeting, preferable a rotating position. It is the role of the facilitator to call on people first who are women or people of color to speak, and to bypass someone who has spoken a lot for someone who hasn’t had a chance to speak as much. Or to point out that only the men have been addressing a certain issue.
Also, I try to make a lot of effort to encourage people who are new to the group who are women, people of color, or who want to focus on gender or minority issues. (..)The one thing that’s difficult for people to understand is that IMC and Confluence change with each person who’s involved. They may see, from the outside, that these groups don’t work on issues of race and gender, but that’s because no one’s come in to influence that particular dynamic.

IMC XXX: i think that the men are all aware of gender discrimination and trying to work in an anti-oppression framework, but not really taking the time to make a concerted effort to make women more comfortable with and interested in the tech side of indymedia.

The guys have to stop thinking of Indymedia as their personal pet project.

IMC S.F.: i think we could change it by focusing more on projects that are not web-based. also, i think it would help if we did more trainings, and had more equipment to lend out. and respect the fact that some women *don't* want tech-oriented work, and that non-tech projects are equally as valuable as our web presence. but, also, making it easier for women who *do* want to learn tech stuff, to do so.

keep communication open. more understanding of the point of view of people without mad tech skills by techies. more appreciation of everyone's participation. more trainings. have men be aware when they are talking too much in meetings. be aware of the possibility of gender discrimination, be aware of how a woman feels when she is the only female in theroom...

IMC UK: Many in the collective have little idea about IT when they join, but there is a lot of support, and training, from the men who do. They don't like being in charge of all the boring administrative stuff either, so they are always ready to pass on knowledge.
So - no, we don't have a special „more women" policy, but we try to make new people comfortable in the way they need it. And I know from some of the „indysisters" that they make a point of engaging with new women. Some newcomers, especially some men, don't feel as welcome as they would like.

And there is a nice culture of referring to each other. Even the men refer to what a woman has said, wow! Sad that this needs explicit mentioning.

At some point in my political socialisation in the early nineties in germany, there was at least a broader knowledge about the gender discussions, and in many groups you could assume that men don't want to be sexist and that they have some idea how they can behave sexist even if they are nice. So as a woman, you could just raise your voice and remind them, and often they would shut up. I think we are loosing that consensus with a younger generation of activists. Some men don't even know the basics of gender power relations through forms of speech and communication, some women take for granted what an older generation has struggled for - which is good in a way, but in my view not if it transforms in a kind of post feminist attitude.

mutual support amongst the women, sometimes, if it makes sense, a chat with the more open men, and rarely shouting. It is still up to the women to initiate such things.

And finally, we don't have a space, i.e. we don't have a kettle, so we don't need to discuss who makes the tea.

IMC Switzerland: women have to fight, women have to claim their rights and insist. women have to make themselves independent from what men may think about them. this does not mean, that they should only treat with women, but generally women are very afraid of what male persons may think about them. but this is a longer discussion...

don't take men to serious....

IMC Portland: Probably our most effective tool to minimize gender discrimination is our decision making model, which specifically allows everyone a voice and theability to block a decision with any reasonable concern. Slow, but nobodygets shouted down.

Imc San Francisco: keep communication open. more understanding of the point of view of people without mad tech skills by techies. more appreciation of everyone's participation. more trainings. have men be aware when they are talking too much in meetings. be aware of the possibility of gender discrimination, be aware of how a woman feels when she is the only female in the room... just more understanding and communicationbetween everyone.

IMC Maine: Open discussion set up so people can speak without fear of being verbally attacked....