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Southern Girls Convention Organizers Answer Critics
Back in the day, Southern Right-wingers held so much power that a meeting of feminist activists from around the South would have posed no threat to their privileged position, and it would have been laughed off or ignored. Today, Eagle Forum and Malcolm Cutchins resort to innuendo, insults, and disinformation to try to discredit us and censor future meetings.
They must be getting desperate.
On the weekend of July 20-22, we hosted the third annual Southern Girls Convention on Auburn University campus. This historic meeting was organized by members of Auburn Women's Organization and Free State Action, with support from Auburn Gay and Lesbian Association, Alabama NOW, and the Feminist Majority Foundation. Over 500 pro-woman activists came from all over the South for discussion, action, and entertainment devoted to ending violence against women, protecting abortion access, and fighting oppression based on gender, race, sexuality, economic class, and more. Our meeting was wildly successful and we left feeling united, empowered and strong.
All this caused quite a stir with the Alabama chapter of Eagle Forum, an
antifeminist group Phyllis Schlafly launched in her fight against the Equal
Rights Amendment. According to Alabama Public Television, they have sent a
letter to the AU Board
of Trustees, protesting the use of University funds and facilities for the
event. On July 25, Malcolm Cutchins published an eerily similar column in the
OA News, proclaiming that
our convention did not represent real Southern girls
and then spreading
innuendo about whether tax funds were used to support the convention.
We provided three phone numbers, a PO Box, and an e-mail address, on our flyers and website. Somehow, though, our critics never quite got around to actually getting in contact with us, or asking us how the event was funded or why we were allowed to use university facilities. So let's get some facts straight.
As a chartered student organization, Auburn Women's Organization has the right to reserve event space in Foy Union—the same right enjoyed by Campus Crusade for Christ, the College Republicans, or the League of the South. Since we held a conference bringing people from out of town, in accordance with University policy, our participants' private contributions paid the University over $1,500 for the use of Foy Union.
We never spoke with or received any funds from the Board of Trustees; only Eagle Forum has been going to them. We received a total of $2,350 from the Department of Women's Studies, College of Liberal Arts, College of Science and Mathematics, College of Education, School of Nursing, and Ralph Draughon Library. These private, discretionary funds are used to sponsor speakers on campus from every perspective. Past speakers on Auburn's campus have included Republican Senator Richard Shelby, UFO expert Michael Lindeman, and former CIA Director William Colby. This time, the money paid the honorarium and transportation costs for our keynote speaker, Ophira Edut, a nationally-known author on feminist entrepreneurship and body image. Food, housing, printing costs, and everything else were covered by participant contributions.
We hope that we have answered our critics' questions. We would also like them to answer a few questions:
How is a convention uniting over 500 people from all over the South on behalf
of women's rights a radical conference for the very few
?
What kind of arrogance does it take for Malcolm Cutchins, who is distinctly
male, to define who are and who are not real Southern girls
?
If so-called traditional values
include insulting non-heterosexuals,
censoring student groups, and talking about female co-eds
as if they were
only at college to become marriage material
, then why shouldn't we
protest these values
?
Claire Rumore, Charles Johnson, and Ailecia Ruscin organized the third annual Southern Girls Convention. Claire is an Auburn student originally from Birmingham, Ailecia is an Auburn native now attending graduate school in Kansas, and Charles is an AU student and native of Auburn.