Sun 3 Aug 2014 – Gender Politics and Indyref

Wham! Bam! Thank you Ma’am!

Gender Politics and Indyref

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With Jo Clifford, PastaChips, Kate Higgins, Harry Giles, Julia Taudevin, Kirstin Innes, Rachel Amey, Gordon McIntyre.Movie All Is Lost (2013)

We said that Wham Bam, Thank you Ma’am was going to be about ‘gender and the indyref’, and immediately started feeling limited by that. What you’re about to listen to is the articulation of marginalised voices who may or may not have found a platform or common grounds with others during this campaign. Yes, most of these voices came from ‘gendered’ places, but they were talking about social and political alienation, and the possibilities for overcoming those in a future Scotland.

Playwright and performer Jo Clifford starts us off, with a passionate, lyrical polemic analogising her own journey as a trans woman to the transformation beginning to happen in Scotland. On the panel, blogger and Women For Independence co-founder Kate Higgins speaks about forging a voice for herself as a woman and single mother within the campaign, poet Harry Giles voices skepticism about mainstream politics, while activist PastaChips articulates the difficulties current legislation is causing sex workers in Scotland today. There’s cynicism and gnashing of teeth, but also a lot of hope for the future, all rounded off beautifully by Rachel Amey‘s rousing feminist poetry and songs of gentle victory from Gordon McIntyre (ballboy). Rather than trying to define ‘gender’ and its relationship to the campaign, we asked the audience to complete the sentence ‘An equal Scotland is…’

Your hosts for the hour are actor, activist and playwright Julia Taudevin and writer and journalist Kirstin Innes, who between them make a lot of terrible Bowie puns.

Kirstin Innes

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