IAC'12 I [Heart] Being a Girl session (THGS12) presentations

Finally, here are the presentations from the session we had at the International AIDS Conference.

As Jessie says in her report:

"Tea Parties are casual safe spaces for girls where anyone who is a feminist can come met up and speak up about their frustrations but also share their hopes for the future. The social pressures put on girls are often hypocritical, including how media portrays women as sexy and sex figures, but young women are condemned for expressing themselves sexually or wearing revealing clothes, or they’re expected to be working professionals taking care of themselves (even with a considerable stagnant pay gap), but once you have a family, you are “supposed” to become domestic and support your husband. Gender is a social construct that does not have to follow your biology. Your gender and how you express yourself should not be dictated by societal norms that are often oppressive. In the words of Leynah Gbowee, “It is time for women to stop being politely angry.” There are various forms of resistance to the prejudice of “being a girl” and support for young women looking to make a difference all over the world. In some rural parts, girls learn how to make reusable menstrual pads so that they can continually go to school, and have their privacy. We should have open discussions about questioning gender stereotyping and combat prejudice social norms, like the pay gap. Places like the Philippines are extremely strict when it comes to reproductive health especially for  women, and the results are harrowing; there are half a million unsafe abortions a year and cervical cancer is one of the top killers in the country. When women and more girls have a stronger and unified voice in civil society, they can start to change those societal norms."

IAC'12 IHBG from jauatkales

(Yes, the videos are not really there. The first one is the movie from the 2012 AIDS Conference that you can find here. And the second one is a surprise coming... for now we can say that it was made with a lot of help from all our beloved people in HERA, and that it's amazing!)

IHBG at IAC'12 Best Practice Nepal from jauatkales

(And, yes, obviously, this is the example of the simple fact that talking about and exploring sexualities, pleasure, taboos, barriers... well, you know, the empowerment stuff can be positive and can be - at the same time - very local and very universal indeed. Thank you so much, Shubha, for sharing this experience with us!)

AIDS 2012: When the party's over...

I Defend Sexual Rights! - Do You?

Yes, the International AIDS Conference is long over.
And we are still getting our laundry and after-conference reporting done...

While we get together everything, draw the lessons learned and such, at least the pictures are online. You can find the @YSAFE at IAC'12 photo-set here!

AIDS 2012 THGS12 I [heart] Being a Girl Tea Party

Here you see few pictures taken after today's session (the second one, yes) where we were joined by Anzaira from IPPF MA in Philippines and Shubha from Y-PEER on talking about gender, the importance of positive focuses and such.
Presentations and more stories from the session coming soon, we promise!

Yes, we can!

AIDS 2012 THGS08 Society, Sexuality and Pleasure

The presentation that we gave in our AIDS 2012 session today:

Society , sexuality and pleasure (AIDS 2012).

AIDS 2012: No, objectification of women is NOT OK!*

* Yes, even if that's your way to get people to use condoms!

We attended a non-commercial satellite session yesterday morning TUSA07 Everything You Have Ever Wanted to Know About Pleasurable Safer Sex but Were Too Afraid to Ask. Instead of having a very early (7:00 AM, mind you) breakfast and a conversation about bringing pleasure and sexuality back to all the people-scaring prevention messages, we got

This how MYX Annaïs recounts her experience:

On Tuesday I woke up bright and early to attend a session at the International AIDS Conference titled Everything You Have Ever Wanted to Know About Pleasurable Safer Sex but Were Too Afraid to Ask. The session was led by Pleasure Project which “builds bridges between the pleasure/sex industry and the safer sex world by avoiding negativity, and by ensuring that erotic materials include examples of safer sex, and that sexual health materials include pleasure as a key element”.

To say I was excited is an understatement; you see I make it my personal mission to talk about pleasure whenever and wherever possible. In a society that sexualizes everything and everyone we seem increasingly scared to acknowledge our right to pleasure. Yes, we have the right to pleasure, whether it be physical or sexual pleasure, to the immense pleasure you may get from being in bed with a tub of ice cream… But back to the point at hand, I believed this session would look at how we can position condoms (and indeed other forms of contraception) within the sphere of immediate sexual pleasure. In other words, I was hoping this session would address the idea that condoms can and are sexy and can and does enhance sexual pleasure.

Instead, I heard from two representatives from DKT (a family planning services, and reproductive health products provider for the developing world) about how they have advertised and marketed condoms in recent years. I’ll give you all two guesses on how they have gone about doing this. Not that you need any clues, but the first clue is naked women. Yup, it turns out if you want to sell condoms you have to objectify women and reduce their sexuality and pleasure to a tool to excite men. Below are a couple of examples of the ad campaigns DKT Brazil have employed, they don’t look all too different to beer, perfume, or car commercials do they? Now I understand that selling condoms kind of requires sex and I’m not against that at all, what I am against is the idea that a woman’s sexuality is only good for the pleasure of a man.

When asked by a YSAFE member why images that reinforce negative images of womens’ sexuality, race, and beauty, were being used, they responded with (and I paraphrase) ‘Well everyone else is doing it so why can’t we? And we all know SEX SELLS!’ Now I don’t know about you, but that it the laziest answer ever. So what, because everyone else is presenting women as an object of mens desire in the media you can too? Wouldn’t it be a greater accomplishment to portray sexual pleasure as something for all partners? Wouldn’t it be better to illustrate safer sex within the confines of a healthy relationship?

What are your thoughts on the ways in which DKT are marketing condoms is it different from how women are represented in the media as sexual objects?

The right-outside-the-session example on how "DKT does not objectify women".

You can respond to this on Facebook or Twitter, and share your excitement or disagreement about the way it has been done in campaigns they do. Oh, an they have a Twitter account too, in case you are interested...

Nevertheless, while ranting and raving about this, we still love The Pleasure Project that does a wonderful job transforming the "if you use a condom, all the hot babes will jump on you" discourse into an honest dialogue on safe and pleasurable sex. So, our hope is that this is just an unfortunate hook-up they've had with DKT.
Or, Pleasure Project could do some training for DKT just to make sure they finally get the difference between performing hegemonic heterosexuality in a "sexy" way and actually bringing the sensuality back to safer sex.

Women at AIDS2012: U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee: If We Don't End Discrimination, We Will not End AIDS

Although there are things that seem forgotten and overlooked in the global response to AIDS, like condoms that are present everywhere on the Conference venue but not that much in the speeches. The Pleasure Project shares their disappointment with it here, and we can only agree that condoms are still the very popular, accepted and cheap double protection device we shall keep working with...

Although the tensions between structural disadvantage women keep facing and shortcomings of health care providers failing to work in human rights framework are still piling up (today's workshop My Body, My Rights: Ethics and Human Rights for Women Living with HIV in Research, Care and Treatment Settings tried to shed light on these issues)...

Still, there are also a lot of very inspirational people in the Conference, not only among all the amazing activists but also among people holding offices. So, since yesterday U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee is our hero!

The AIDS 2012 programme aka lousy excuses

Sorry for all the delays in reporting.
We are still very-very busy choosing Conference tracks, roadmaps and sessions.

* Though we certainly suggest to all the big conference people to rethink the need for these bricks. We get damaged spines and destroyed trees/wasted water and other resources at the same time and no good.

SRHR work via Social Media (AIDS 2012 Youth-Pre)

So, here - yes, finally - is the presentation Annaïs and Maya gave during their Session on SRHR work via Social Media:

Srhr via Social media from jauatkales

And some Tumblr goodness shared during the session:

• Because I am a Woman
• Body Positive Zone
• Feminist Frequency
• Fuck Yeah Sex Education
• Fuck Yeah, Sex Positivity
• Fuck Yeah, Sex Positivity! Yes, there's 2 of those!
• Fuck Yeah, Sexual Health
• (hell, yeah) Scarleteen Recommended by Annaïs as the best, btw.
• Jessica Valenti
• Ms. Jamie Keiles
• QPOC In Like
• Sex as Subject Matter

Also, Laci Green is still on Youtube!

And Life in My Shoes - a very innovative approach to address the mix of personal and anonymous frequently needed when working with SRHR and people affected by HIV directly particular - was presented.

AIDS 2012 Youth-Pre, Day 2

Starting the Session on the labyrinths of Social Media and SRHR messaging using them!

The presentation they used in this Session is coming soon!

And, talking about the local I [heart] Being a Girl Tea Parties, ...

Trying to breathe (which does not always come easy).

Maya working on her 1st Day report to be found here!

And you just do not mess with people then!

AIDS 2012 Youth-Pre, Day 1

Maya participating in the opening panel Turning the Tide: Where do we go from here with the global HIV/AIDS response? and insisting on the crucial importance of comprehensive sexuality education. Everybody on the panel agreed, off course.

Annaïs during her session Sexual and Reproductive Health Education: What is Comprehensive?

Luize co-facilitating the session on best peer education practices around the world. Talking about the importance of keeping gender in mind when doing peer education. You can find the presentation on the topic below!

Gender in Peer Education (AIDS 2012 Youth-Pre)

The presentation we gave in the AIDS 2012 Youth-Pre Conference today while sharing a session on best peer education practices with Leo and Jackie:  Youth pre peer_ed_gender_luize_ratniece

View more presentations from jauatkales.

To Washington D.C. we go (or, IAC'12, here we come!)

As we already said, we are excited to bring I [heart] Being a Girl back to the International AIDS Conference that will take place, well, bascially, starting from NOW! in Washington D.C, USA.

Below you can find the sessions we will be participating in, both during the Youth Pre-Conference and in the Global Village's Youth Pavilion.

As always, both our Facebook and Twitter will be on and going! And we will be wondering around looking for new ideas to bring back, new friends and new insights. Catch us if you can!

Oh, IAC...

Hey, we are drooling over our IAC'2010 photos and preparing our Global Village activities for IAC'2012! 

We'll have the pleasure to have two Global Village sessions on July 26, one on Society, Sexuality and Pleasure and an I ♥ Being a Girl Tea Party.

We are saving the date already!

Much love,

your YSAFE