Gender Resistance

November 20, 2021 @ 1:00pm — 5:00pm
A.I.R. Gallery via Zoom
With sára abdullah

Workshop description:

“Gender does not need to organize social arrangements, including social sexual arrangements. [And] gender arrangements need not be either heterosexual or patriarchal. They need not be, that is, as a matter of history. . . ”

María Lugones, The Coloniality of Gender

We will begin by discussing María Lugones’ essay The Coloniality of Gender, which presents a framework for understanding modern gender as part of a larger system of power that also manifests as racism, settler colonialism, and capitalism, among other things. This workshop also draws from malcolm shanks’ and khari jackson’s zine Decolonizing Gender, and is deeply indebted to shanks’ and jackson’s brilliance, generosity, and labor.

Jumping off from Lugones’ text, we will discuss several historical examples of non-binary, non-patriarchal gendered social roles, expressions and identities in order to emphasize the long historical timeline that we are working with and to focus our attention on both structures of oppression and forms of resistance.

Prior knowledge or experience with this material is not required, but participants are asked to come with a willingness to challenge conventional understandings of gender and sex, and to explore the intersections of these categories with racist and imperialist oppression. We will also be turning inwards and towards each other to build our awareness of our gender embodiment and share our experiences with each other.

Rough Schedule:

Time	Description
1:00 PM	welcome, introduction, and land acknowledgement (10 min)
1:10 PM	facilitated discussion on Coloniality of Gender (60 min)
2:10 PM	large group activity from Decolonizing Gender (30 min)
2:40 PM	break (20 min)
3:00 PM	discussion of examples of non-binary/egalitarian gender (60 min)
4:00 PM	small group activity from Decolonizing Gender (45 min)
4:45 PM	closing
5:00 PM	end