CWS at University of York Announces A Carnival of Feminist Cultural Activism

Carol Ann Duffy Reading, Questions and Book Signing in Lincoln

Theatre as a tool for survivors of sexual assault and rape? @ The F Word

The number of people convicted of rape in Scotland has dropped to a 25-year low, according to new statistics @ Women’s Grid

A new seatbelt ‘harness’ could help pregnant women @BBC

Nawal El Saadawi: Egypt’s radical feminist @ The Guardian

Abortions ‘could be offered in GP surgeries across England’ @ The Telegraph

Sexual harassment in Egypt is leading to calls for gender segregation. But is hiding women really the solution? @  The Guardian

Asylum Seekers Sue Britain After Hunger Strike @ Women’s eNews

I also went to see Ruined at the Almeida in London on Friday, it was an amazing production. Great set, great sound and extremely emotionally complex acting. I’m hoping to get you a better review and some background on the continued war in Congo as soon as I focus, but until then book your ticket, go and see it.

Over at CNN – Women’s movement mourns death of 3 Haitian Leaders

At Women’s eNews - 3 part report using new research to uncover clearly the gendered bias in subprime mortgage sales in the USA in the market boom

At the Guardian – China’s Lost Girls, a piece on sex selective child rearing

At Womanist Musings – PETA’s 2010 State of the Union and the Sexualization of Black Women (PETA have hilariously blocked Womanist Musings on twitter, something that could only be a sign of her fabulous take downs)

At the Times – Migrant domestic workers in the UK are often subjected to meagre wages, violence, sexual abuse and food rationing — usually by their middle-class employers

The method of questioning 1,804 British women aged 23-83 in their belief of having a G-spot to prove or disprove its existence seems a little thin to me. In the research which “proved” the G-Spots existance, at least they took a look at some vagina’s to search for the illusive cluster of nerves.

If the lead researcher already thinks that the G-Spot is an imaginary friend, and then only treats it as a subjective erogenous zone then she’s done little other than work to confirm her belief, rather than dig deep into the issue and disprove the physical existence. Unless there’s research that has been conveniently ignored here.

Regardless of what can or cannot be proved, how much do we need are our G-Spots? Are they just a tool to medicalise women’s bodies and sexuality once again?

I spent quite a lot of yesterday evening and some of today (I ran out of envelopes yesterday) packing up all the subscribers and pre orders for issue 8, and have just dropped them off with a mildly confused and somewhat disgruntled Post Office employee!

I think releasing them into the wild, right when everything’s crazy for Christmas, might have been a bit of a pain for them – but having said that, they’re going to try and get them all out for tomorrow.

Hope you enjoy the new issue!

The three women, known only as A, B and C, travelled to Britain to have abortions and claim their health was imperilled and that they were traumatised and humiliated by the Irish anti-abortion laws. “All three women complain that the impossibility for them to have an abortion in Ireland made the procedure unnecessarily expensive, complicated and traumatic. In particular, that restriction stigmatised and humiliated them and risked damaging their health and, in the third applicant’s case, even her life,” said a court statement.

Excerpt from The Guardian Article. To see in full go here.

Commenting on feminism and fashion and the recent story about Cambridge female undergrads’ scantily clad photos, Berry commented that:

“Girls can be highly intelligent and interested in being seen to be attractive – the two aren’t mutually exclusive”

For starters, not really a problem. Perhaps the idea of ‘being seen to be attractive’ is problematic (to me this suggest pampering to the rest of society’s/men’s version of what this means) but I do support the move away from the ‘blonde-bimbo’ vs ‘ugly geek’ dichotomy.

And then Berry claims:

“We must resist the impulse to judge women, to judge them harshly and judge them narrowly”

Lovely. Again, an idea I can get my head around.

But then when an article in The Guardian titled Girls should be ‘realistic’ about careers and motherhood – schools group head appears, the plot thickens…

Teenage girls need to be taught a heavy dose of realism – that it may not be possible to be a perfect mother and a career woman, the president of the Girls’ Schools Association (GSA) will say next week.

Berry is now implying that girls need to be realistic about their futures. That there is ‘nothing wrong’ with mothers not working once they have children. Firstly, what kind of empowering message is that to young women? That they can be all they want to be but will have to re-think all that once they think about starting a family? Why are we telling girls to be ‘realistic’? Why are we accepting that as the reality that women are often placed into positions in which they are pushed back into the private sphere once they give birth? Instead of telling the generation of tomorrow to wise-up about the way the world is, how about educating them on how to change that world?

And you know that what lies beneath this is a discourse of ‘bad working mothers’. Considering we weren’t meant to be judging women for their choices Berry…

Laura

Links to the two articles:

Fashion not a betrayal of feminist ideals
Girls should be realistic about motherhood and careers

You may have not made it to the mothership .co.uk site in quite some time, but after some super dedicated work from Kerry at ReallyFancy.com we have integrated everything you’ll ever need from us, right here in our new one stop feminist shop of ideas.

So now you can navigate the rants and then buy an issue of the magazine, become incensed and  submit an article too us via the close by contacts button. You can buy a badge then browse the blog, take a little looky at the twitter feed and then find something else to do. Or you might already have a subscription the magazine (Issue 8 OUT SOON!) and you’re just here to grab the rss feed to fit into your extremely full busy modern day lifestyle.

Whatever you’re planning on doing, we’re glad you’re doing it, we’re hoping you contribute.

Another HUGE thanks to Kerry our designer.

Charlotte

Today’s Observer carries the headline

Up to 64,000 women in UK ‘are child-sex offenders’
After Plymouth case shocked the nation, police say number of women abusing children is rising

The ilk of the story is that women are growing in numbers as abusers. But, I would suggest awareness of women being abusers is increasing – that there has been no change in the behaviour of women, that we are not becoming this evil out of control gender but it’s just impossible to continue to tie us down to wishy washy delicate lady stereotypes.

Added to this, the coverage of working mums supposedly failing their kids – I griped about that previously, but this time rather than the evil sexual deviant, women who work are simply tutted at for deserting their proper place in the home.

Both stories in their own way begin to paint a picture of women out of control, that their behaviour, now masculine and undesirable, is the cause of all social ills.

Coupled with the fact the real winning articles in women’s interest are arts and crafts, it’s ok to wear make-up, bat your eyes, femininity is feminism and we can see a clear remodelling of women’s place in society.

There is room to remind the mainstream audience that feminism isn’t at odds with femininity but to do so often comes at the cost of reinforcing the idea of old, hairy, women’s libbers, the “undesirables”. And to do so, creates a bigger crevice between all women and feminists, and calls for a pat on the back to the reclaimation of something which remains a want of the patriarchy. And every day I see a little more how damaging this is to us all.

We should leave open the ability to criticize, to discuss certain parts of life – but the work/life balance is the problem, not women’s behaviour if working mothers have no choice but to sacrafice time at home. Mainstream medias inability to see men in the picture of the family and childcare is another block in the road of progression. And as long as we allow ourselves to feed and condone a media system which thrives on supporting trad and damaging stereotypes, we continue to hold back the change we’re fighting for.

Charlotte

Charlotte