Feminist Action Cambridge in conjunction with the Guardian has exposed the misinformation about abortion being given to thousands of school children around the country by Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC).

The Guardian today has revealed the information that FAC gathered when we went to a local Cambridgeshire school to give pro-choice workshops.  SPUC were giving an anti-abortion presentation after our workshops, and as the Guardian article details, they presented unproven and untrue medical 'information' as fact, telling the 14-15 year olds that there was a link between abortion and breast cancer, infertility, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (which they called 'post abortion trauma') and even death.

You can read an account of our visit to the school here and you can read more about what was in SPUC's presentation here.

FAC are grateful to Education for Choice for their support in putting together our workshops, and the British Humanist Society who have put together the information about SPUC, and are campaigning against SPUC being allowed to go into schools.  They have a response to the leak which has lots of useful links about the medical misinformation SPUC have given.

Friends Meeting House, 12 Jesus Lane, Cambridge.  28th March 8pm-9.30pm.  All welcome.

Second wave feminism and the radical left have generally used non-hierarchical ways of organizing groups. This is in order to avoid having hierarchies such as leader, deputy leader, and down the chain, which gives some people more power than others.

However, there are some dangers with non-hierarchical organizing - for example, that informal friendship structures of leadership emerge, or that the group isn't transparent - people don't know who does what or how to get things done.

We thought it was time that Feminist Action Cambridge discussed these questions, but as a general question asking 'Is there a feminist way to organize groups?' as well as 'How should we organize our own group?'

Whether these questions are totally new to you, or really old news, you are welcome to come along and discuss your ideas of what is important in feminist group organization. If you'd like to think about this more before the group, you could read these two articles:

The Tyranny of Structurelessness http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm (written towards the end of second wave feminism, reflecting on their organizing)

And the blog post by our very own KM, on how non-hierarchical organization works in the Occupy movement, with some practical suggestions for how to proceed: http://feministactioncambridge.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/participatory-democracy-and-the-occupy-movement/

There's no obligation to read these in advance, as we'll summarise the main ideas at the start of the session.

General questions to think about:
- what are the advantages and dangers of having leaders?
- is efficiency or equal participation/inclusion more important?
- what effect might hierarchical or non-hierarchical organizing have on the way people in the group participate? (eg if it's easy to get involved or not, empowering or not).
- what skills do we need to participate in non-hierarchical groups that we don't need in hierarchical groups?

We will certainly go to the pub after the discussion.