blogging in a confused, exploratory feminist kinda way.....
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We are lucky enough to be able to host some amazing photos of Million Women Rise, taken by the very talented Rowan Fulton (who is also very lovely). Do enjoy the photos, and do also please consider writing to the major newspapers, who once again completely failed to highlight Million Women Rise. Whilst this does mean we get to host some excellent photos, I would much rather be seeing them in the paper, highlighting our cause!
All photos are Copyright of Rowan Fulton, Photographer
Louise highlights this story at the F Word, regarding what happened to a 15 year old girl, who was found to be an Escort.
Has the Agency been prosecuted? Has the girl recieved counselling for rape? Nope. She’s had her ‘immoral earnings’ removed and no has bothered to find out why a 15 year old girl was engaging in sex work.
I’m disgusted. Is there anything we can do? I’d like to write a strongly worded letter to both my MP and the Police force involved, condemning their inaction at investigating the multiple rapes of a child, and the pimping of a child by an Escort Agency. Does anyone think this will help?
So last week there were many uber posts in the Blogosphere. So many good posts in fact that we have a joint winner, one runner up and an honorable mention!
So the winners of last weeks Best Blog posts are this post by Misty at Shakesville with questions for the idiotic legislators of North Dakota, and this post from Shark-Fu at AngryBlackBitch, after reading a post claiming feminist blogs as a new form of digital colonization.
Renee once again takes runner up for her commentary on Bristol Palin reporting that abstinence doesn’t work.
And our honourable mention goes to The Guardian online for this article about the awesomeness of Icelandic women.
Last week, a 27-year-old woman took charge, for a single game, of a football team playing in the Blue Square South League. You’d think that this wasn’t a big deal. After all, she already ran a boys team, she had coaching badges, and what’s more she’d raised £500 to help the team keep going.
According to some of the people attending the game, however, she was a simply there to be abused. The “fans” of opposing team Eastleigh kept up a steady chant of “Get back in the kitchen” and their manager, Ian Baird, refused to shake her hand at the final whistle.
As for the press, they were just as bad. From last Thursday, in thelondonpaper, columnist Brad Ashton wrote:
She was upset that nobody took her seriously…what did she expect? Powell was no more than a managerial mascot, part of a gimmick for her club that generated plenty of publicity but did little for the club’s reputation…
…Whether she likes it or not, women and men’s football simply don’t mix…
…far greater names have been subjected to far worse.
What did she expect? Maybe she expected the simple courtesy of being taken seriously, given that she probably knew more about the technical aspects of the game than the majority of those watching. Maybe she expected that in 2009, it was no longer socially acceptable to abuse an opposing manager purely on the basis of their gender.
I’m confused as to why she shouldn’t mind being verbally abused, just because other people have “been subjected to far worse”. Would that mean that I could happily go round to his house and verbally abuse him, safe in the knowledge that since other people have been abused in more horrific ways, it must be OK? These arguments don’t even begin to make sense.
With people like Mr Ashton around, it’s no wonder that such sexism is still rife in football. Presumably, he’s not aware of equal-rights legislation that would mean he would face disciplinary action should he air these views in relation to a woman that worked with him. Oh, wait, that’s right – it’s sport, and therefore basic human decency can be avoided in the name of pub-talk journalism where the knee-jerk reaction and the pathetic put-down still rule.
Personally, I can think of absolutely no reason why a woman couldn’t do the job of a football team manager. But I have certainly seen a few reasons why none of them would want to.
If I wasn’t already cheering loudly for our cousins across the pond after Obama pledged to close Guantanamo Bay within a year, and immediately banned ‘trials’ there, I’m now positively HOWLING for joy.
Obama has lifted the Global Gag rule, that prevents organisations providing services in foreign countries from receiving US aid if they so much as mention abortion. And he yesterday said that:
“On the 36th anniversary of Roe v Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women’s health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters,”
‘Nuff said really. Can we have an Obama now please??
It’s not often I’ll ever do a round-up post. However, I’m incapacitated with pain from an (actually) pustulent ear infection right now, and despite the fact that I’ve broken out the uber painkillers of doom, there is still green shit pouring out of my ear and I’m still on the verge of screaming in pain. Therefore, instead of writing the thoughtful and provocative piece I had planned on Feminist Marriage, I’m going to be lazy and just highlight a few things which caught my eye and made me thoughtful today.
The first is obvious- in less than 24 hours the world is rid of the sheer hell and devilry of George Dubya Bush and Barack Obama becomes the 44th President of the United States of America. Lauren at Feministe reminds us of why this is just the best damn thing!
This British Feminist would like to wish Mr Obama all the luck in the world. May he live up to his hype and not suddenly become an outrageous sexist the minute his ass hits the chair in the Oval Office. And may we all, be aware of our responsibility to progress and change, and not just leave it up to the guy who gets to have the title. That’s not social change at work people, that’s scapegoating.
Next on the “List of things that made me go Hmmmm” is this report from Cara at Feministe about an anti-choice nurse ‘accidentally’ removing women’s IUD’s and then refusing to give them new ones. I’m sickened by this story. Sadly, I’m not surprised and I wish I was
I’m very pleased to wish Jessica at Feministing, many congratulations on her engagement, and the sincere best wishes of the FemAcadem team. Whatever your personal feelings about marriage, it is a joyous event in peoples lives.
I’d like to finish the round up by saying a resounding ‘Hells Yeah!’ to the fab Catherine Redfearn of The F Word, who has blogged about the lack of recognition Feminism as a movement receives, despite the large amounts of feminist activism that’s going on.
Right, if you’ll all excuse me I’m going back to lying on the sofa in fast amounts of pain, with half my face out of use!!
So, according to the BBC our Internet service providers are being asked to retain and store our electronic traffic and, if needs be, inform the police if they find anything suspicious.The police then only need to get a warrant in order to look through your e-mails and text messages in order to gain evidence of any wrong doing.
Given that we live in the post 9/11 era we are ,apparently, all potential terrorists,I say this because every time the government trial these security ideas its because of the need to protect national security.
Let me ask you this- in the 1970’s & 80’s,were we all subjected to surveillance because of the terrorist threat posed by the I.R.A? Were all phones and paper mail bugged and tapped into? No. Why? Well there wasn`t the technology then and a lot of people didn’t have telephones. So did terrorists communicate via carrier pigeon? No they met up ,the police then did police work (using human intelligence not using a programme to sift out the words bomb ,kill,maim etc). Human intelligence ,if I’m not mistaken, is what differentiates us from the rest of the animal kingdom and A.I.
Human intelligence and intuition is what guides us through life ,enabling us to make decisions (to what ever ends) and the police use it to catch criminals and to protect citizens.
Why does the government put more faith in monitoring systems than it does the actual human intelligence and the intuition skills of police officers? Could it be because its a cost cutting measure? Tell me,can monitoring someones electronic messages stop a knifing ,mugging,rape,domestic violence murder? Surely these crimes are more of a threat to national security than the sensationalist statements of religious radicals.
We can`t rely on C.C.T.V . If you remember in the Mendez case the police used the C.C.T.V to back up their version of events, but in the end it was the human witnesses that convinced the jury of the truth. Yes the visual evidence of events were there, but it was manipulated so the police team could get a way with murdering an
innocent man and only with the honest testimony of human witnesses did the truth out.
There’s also the great moral panic about the electronic criminal,the electronic criminal who rips your credit card details of the net,the electronic criminal who clones your phone.
Listen carefully I shall only say this once…Hackers are not electronic criminals.
Why be afraid of the beast which is the electronic criminal, find the best firewall you can (you can download them free at Linux) ,change your passwords every couple of weeks, don`t use your birthday or name on your passwords and limit the amount of time you have blue-tooth switched on. If you knew someone had your debit card pin would you not change it? Would you walk down the street with your purse/wallet hanging out of your pocket so a pick pocket could easily lift it? Course not if you take the same precautions on-line as you do off-line then there’s a good chance you won`t be a victim of electronic crime.
So now here’s the bottom line: what a lot of people say is “I don`t mind, I’ve got nothing to hide”. Well you know what, I’ve got nothing to hide either , I’m not a criminal , I’m just a citizen going about my business, but I do mind that I’m being monitored by my services providers, whom I PAY for services, and likewise the Police (through taxes) .We are a nation that is paying for its own errosion of Liberty namely the right to privacy.
He who gives up liberty for security ends up with neither.
- Benjamin Franklin
Latoya over at Racialicious has written this essay about ‘not rape’ – the other forms of sexual assualt women are subject too, which, when experienced as teenagers, we often lack the vocabulary to speak about. I would like to recommend that you all go and read it, but do please be aware that it may be triggering. The essay forms part of the book Yes means Yes: Visions of femal sexual power & a world without rape which I will be reading just as soon as I can get my hands on a copy.
This will only be a quick post as it’s past 1am, and I have to be up for the school run in less than 6 hours, but I found this. It’s a news report about a guy who is alleged to have murdered his two year old son, in order to avoid paying child support.
I was, I’m sad to say, unsurprised as I read the report. It seems to me that our model of parenting is not only immensley harmful to women, but also to children and, to some extent, men, becuase stories like this are too common. I’m not sure about what to say, at this point apart from feeling desperately sad for the little boy Ja’ Shawn Powell, and for his mother, who curiously remains nameless in the article.
I will be blogging more about this, but for now I have to go to sleep.