I was in Bradford recently, giving a talk about The Fattylympics for an academic/activist gathering called Just Do(ing) It, Again: The Politics of DIY and Self-Organised Culture.
It's getting close to being a year since The Fattylympics took place, and a good time to reflect on it. Although there were problems on the day, I think it offers a good example of how to make multi-layered activist events that appeal to many different kinds of people, don't cost very much, and which push the boundaries of what can be considered activism (a good thing, in my opinion, because it enables more people to engage with activism in their own ways). Not only that, but we produced this event in a context that was pretty repressive by first world standards. I think The Fattylympics is also significant because it was a joyous event, it showed that the work of social justice does not have to be a hand-wringing affair.
I made a slideshow of the audio of my talk and some images from The Fattylympics and have made it available on YouTube. There were some questions afterwards, but I did not include these as I thought it would be uncool to include people's voices without their consent. The whole thing lasts about 25 minutes. There's some swearing, beware, but also plenty of context and description about how and why we put the event together.
I want to add that the gathering where I spoke was a bit of a strange one. Although it took place in a well-respected (though inaccessible) autonomous space, it was very much an academic affair. What's more, I was really shocked by the sexism within the symposium. Two panels of white men, with tokenised women moderators, set the tone of the event. This was really alien to me! I come from a DIY community where feminism, queers, and increasingly people of colour, are central to the scene. Some of the men's work was very old, and two ethnographers, when pulled on their samples, admitted that they had very much marginalised women in their research. The feminist and queer speakers were put together at the end in a panel called 'Case Studies,' even though I mention some theory in my presentation, and even though some of the men's presentations could also have been called 'Case Studies'.
It really was vexing to witness this, and small moments, such as when one panellist got his fellow speakers a glass of beer, but not the queer woman moderator (presumably she is too ladylike to enjoy a drink?), spelled out how invisible and marginal many people's voices were on the day. I heard a lot of talk from the men about class struggle, but feminism or other theoretical frameworks, if mentioned at all, were very much added as an afterthought, or a touchstone to make the speaker appear right on.
I'm sure this kind of thing is familiar to people who have an academic interest in punk, or who spend time with straight men, but for me it was quite an unpleasant eye-opener. What's even more dismaying is that our panel of feminists and queers was the most well-attended and popular of the day. I wish what we brought had been more central to the event.
Cooper, C. (2013) Doing the Dance of Disrespect: The Fattylympics. Just Do(ing) It, Again: The Politics of DIY and Self-Organised Culture. Bradford: 1 in 12 Club/Bradford University. 11 May.
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