Femgenficathon Changes...and a Question

[gehayi.livejournal.com]

In a few weeks--April 2, 2010, to be precise--it'll be time for Femgen yet again. (Femgenficathon VI. Six years. That's a long time on the Internet.)

A couple of things are changing this year.

1) I think that six months is just too long a deadline. People forget about what's due, forget that they signed up, lose inspiration and enthusiasm, etc. So I've cut the posting dates. The first date that you can post will be July 15; the last date will be July 31. That still gives people three months to write, and a month to two months if you have to worry about things like term papers and finals.

2) Second, I've thought a lot about this for a long time, and I've decided to alter one of the definitions in the ficathon. For the purposes of the ficathon, I've decided to define women as canonically female characters (cis or trans). (Bree from Transamerica, Wanda from Sandman, and so on.)

Disguises, canonical or otherwise, do not count. If the character is, for example, a cop or private detective dressing up as a woman as part of an undercover operation--no. If a boy who, in canon, has to dress up as a girl to attend a certain school because that's what his grandfather wanted--no.

Curses, spells, one-time bodyswap, alien intervention, etc., that involuntarily transform a male character IN CANON into a female form do not count for Femgen unless the character subsequently chooses to embrace this female identity for the duration of canon. If the character is still striving to break the curse and/or turn back into a male--like Ranma, for example--this character is ineligible for Femgen.

If the character alternates IN CANON between representing as a male and representing as a female, this character is not eligible.

Genderswapping male characters into female ones so that you can write about them in this ficathon is absolutely not allowed. Don't bother asking. The answer is NO.

If you have any questions about the character you're interested in that you don't don't feel were covered by the above, please e-mail me and we can talk about it.

Finally--and this is not a change, given that I've been posting quotations from women as prompts for the past five years--I'm hoping that some of you can suggest names of women of color whom I could quote. I'm particularly interested in finding quotable Hispanic or Latina women, quotable Native American women, quotable Asian and Pacific Islander women, and quotable Middle Eastern and African women. I'm looking for people from all times and all areas of the world. I tried to do this last year, but this year, if possible, I'd like to have a richer variety. So I'm asking for suggestions, because it's quite likely that some of you know names that I don't.

***

Crossposted to gehayi

Comments

[bantha-fodder.livejournal.com]

I am glad that you are explicitly saying that we can write about trans women and cis women. but maybe you could just say that? i am a cis woman, so i am happy to be told to hush by someone else who is perhaps more experienced in thinking about this/more personally impacted, but the way you've expressed it here (OR as canonically male characters that, in their canons, overtly and consistently, by their own choice, represent themselves as women) just feels a bit funny. i know trans women who would balk at being referred to as 'canonically male, representing as women,' is all.

[elvenpiratelady.livejournal.com]

Other Women's Voices (http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/) has quotes from women before 1700, scrolling through the list I can see Latina, Asian and Middle Eastern sources.

[blueinkedpalm.livejournal.com]

I'm thrilled both that you're rerunning the ficathon and that you've expanded the rules to be inclusive of all female-identified characters. I think reading the femgenficathon entries is always wonderful, so thank you!

I defaulted in the femgenficathon the last time I participated. Would I still be eligible to sign up this year, or do you have an atonement process like Yuletide's New Year's Resolutions?

[squirrelarmy.livejournal.com]

Here's a link for some good quotes by Chinese women: Click here! (http://thinkexist.com/quotes/top/nationality/chinese/gender/women/)

Also, are quotes from books allowed? (As in, not said in a speech, etc, but rather written as a description or a quote from a character.) Because I have many books about China that would have some lovely ones, I imagine.

[hungrytiger11.livejournal.com]

Mary Brave Bird (has also been published under the name Mary Crow Dog) is a Lakota Indian who wrote her memoir "Lakota Woman" focussing on her interactions with the AIM movement in the 1970s, including the second battle of Wouned Knee and the Trail of Broken Treaties.

You might also try looking at the the national women's hall of fame (http://www.greatwomen.org/women.php?action=viewAll), if you haven't already. I know that all the ones on that list are American but many are of Indian, latino, and pacific Islander backgrounds.

Also, she is not a racial minority, but Esther Morris has always been a favorite famous woman of mine. She's sometimes known as the "Mother of Suffrage" for her work in getting women the vote in Wyoming, the first government to allow women to vote. She also became the first female Justice of the Peace that same year, a post she held for a long time.

[swissmarg]

For quotes and other inspiration, have a look at this blog (?): Women of Color You Need to Know "a collection of photos, links, stories, poetry and news about women of color". http://woc365.tumblr.com/

For the African ladies

[igrockspock.livejournal.com]

Have you seen Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Danger of a Single Story (http://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.html)? It is a beautiful and fascinating talk, and if you look over to the right side of the page, there is a link to an interactive transcript for quoting purposes.