Linkalicious: Big Tuesday Edition

A veritable smorgasbord for you!

1. “Intimate Politics: A Roundtable”: a downloadable podcast of a panel of feminist scholars and their reactions (not book reviews, but further musings) to the book Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel, by Bettina Aptheker.

2. “Who hates to hear they look great?”: amandaw on the “But you don’t look sick!” phenomenon and invisible disabilities.

3. “What are we doing here?”: magniloquence muses at length on the femisphere, its characters, and the dynamics of blogwars. Meta upon meta, lots to unpack here.

4. “Students use sex to promote healthy foods”: Two students in Canberra come up with the absolutely ground-breaking new idea of presenting scantily clad women’s bodies in order to promote a food group. Somehow, this is “Innovative!” national news.

Filed under: Meta, Politics, Read 'ems, bigotry, birth, indigenous, interblog, language, racism

What happened to women’s rights in Iraq?

There were some long involved threads on ozblogs last week about Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Kim at LP, and those of us who agreed with her, got piled upon (twice) for disagreeing with some of Hirsi Ali’s suggestions about how to best end the oppression of women in Islamic cultures. The offended were a whole bunch of WOT-hawks who seem to think that Hirsi Ali’s many undeniable strengths and talents mean that somehow her opinions, agenda and tactics are above criticism. Their argument seemed to be that because Hirsi Ali has suffered sexist oppression justified by reference to Islam and she speaks of how such oppression needs to end through curtailing the power of Islam, that therefore her calls to eradicate Islam are the only plans for ending sexist oppression that should be listened to.

I’m not going to flinch away from mentioning female genital mutilation (FGM) here, because that seemed to be a core of the outrage: how could we criticise a women who wanted to end the genital cutting and mutilation of little girls? Of course, we never criticised Hirsi Ali wanting to end FGM: who doesn’t want to see the end of harmful physical mutilations?

We merely argued that her particular emphases and tactics seemed counterproductive rather than genuinely helpful to the goal of eradicating such harmful practices as infibulation (and never even got a chance to mention that by far the bulk of genital cutting is simple ritual labial marking which leaves minimal scarring on a par with piercing an ear, or that excision of the top part of the clitoral hood actually enhances sexual pleasure rather than diminishing it).

So, not waving away FGM, but now it’s back to the larger picture of women’s oppression by traditionalist male hierarchies. We can all agree that sexist oppression justified by religious teachings needs to end. Where many people have a problem with Hirsi Ali’s speeches on this is that she singles Islam out as somehow uniquely prone to being distorted by male hierarchies seeking to rationalise and justify the systemic oppression of women.

Filed under: authoritarianism, blogging, interblog, islamophobia, middle east, religion, war

“Acting childish” – from Feministe

There’s a long and involved thread on Feministe right now about the much-bandied-about phrase “I hate children!” The guest blogger, Roy, wonders why open hate speech against children is perfectly ok, when it’s not generally acceptable against other group of disempowered and victimised people. For varying values of “not generally acceptable”, anyhow; much bigotry against women, against fat people, against old people, against poor people, against people with disabilities, against immigrants, and against some other groups seems to be still perfectly acceptable in many circles, or at least winked at.

There are many meanders and subthreads and analogies, but I’m just going to pluck out this comment by EG, as one of the ones that made me think. Following a discussion of “childish” behaviour and its putative unpleasantness and discourtesy:

We wouldn’t describe that behavior as “acting like a kid” if it wasn’t how kids acted.

Really? Right, because folk wisdom is always so very accurate. Does “act childish” mean “express enthusiasm and interest in the world,” “sit quietly by yourself and cut out paper dolls for two hours” or “learn everything there is to know about sharks”? No, it doesn’t. “Act like an adult”- does that mean harrass women on the street, drink too much, talk very loudly on cell phones in public places, talk very loudly right behind me when I’m at the movies, and commit murder? Because the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of such lousy behavior are adults. No. “Act like an adult” means “be on your best behavior.” So what does that mean? It means that adults control the discourse.

Filed under: bigotry, family, interblog

The interblog ventures, continued

I’m going to have to start writing proper posts more often. Along with the Blogocracy Round Robin initiative (see previous post), which was a welcome workout, I’m also going to be guest-blogging at Feministe for a week at the end of July June!

Jill has put together a roster of guest bloggers to fill the posting gap that’s due to Jill interning at a law firm this Northern summer and thus having less time for writing on the intertubes (law firms are sticky about browsing at work), and the roster includes ex-Feministe blogger and founder Lauren, as well as regular Feministe commentors Mikey, Little Light, Flea, Belledame, Trailer Park Feminist, Evil Fizz, kactus, SassyWho and Bean. Those who are regular readers of Feministe should appreciate just how varied that roster is in terms of various feminisms.

So, as Jill’s idea is to showcase a variety of voices rather than just cookie cutter feminism, I’m casting around for a few topics to cover that week that have a regional slant on feminist and progressive politics issues that are still of interest to the American majority readers of Feministe. Any suggestions (in comments please)?

Also, my own posting might be a little less frequent as I aim for more depth and analysis again in my posts. So I’m actively soliciting more guest posts here from people who have been commenting here for a while. Shoot me an email if you’ve got a post you’d like to see published at Hoyden. I’d like to see one or two guest posts a week, say.

Filed under: blogging, interblog

Sorry Matters, and Assimilation

Over the past week there has been a huge amount of discussion in the femiblogosphere about dropping the defensive, domineering blustering and starting to listen to people of colour. Listening has got to be step one if there is to be any sort of understanding, any sort of reconciliation.

It seems the last thing blusterers want to say is to start listening and say “Sorry”.

Today, Australia’s conservative government has offered a stellar example of white people putting their fingers in their ears and shouting “LA LA LA NOT LISTENING” at indigenous people.

ABC News reports:

The former chairwoman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) has attacked the Federal Government for a lack of effort on the Stolen Generation in the last decade.

Lowitja O’Donohue, a member of the Stolen Generation, has addressed a gathering at Parliament House in Canberra to mark 10 years since the ‘Bringing Them Home’ report. Ms O’Donohue says of the 54 recommendations made in the report, 35 have been ignored.

“That is two thirds. The Prime Minister either doesn’t get it or he doesn’t care and I’m not sure which is worse,” she said. “There has been a failure of moral authority and ethical leadership in Australia over the last 10 years.
[...]
But the Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough says the Government has committed an extra $2 million a year to help people reconnect with their families.

“What Lowitja has just said on some aspects I clearly would disagree, but in many aspects I want to state that I believe that the work that is being undertaken today is the beginning of what must continue for many years to come,” he said.

That’s ten years since the Bringing Them Home report. Ten years. And most of the recommendations ignored.

Filed under: Politics, indigenous, interblog, obstreperation, racism

Feminism 101 Blog update

I’ve just switched the Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog over to wordpress from blogger.

I had to do it as my hatred of sucky Haloscan commenting had grown from the fiery heat of a hundred red dwarfs to the raging inferno of a thousand blue supergiants about to go nova. The new layout with static pages is a great improvement as well.

The new site is here.

Filed under: interblog

Fluffy Feminism Redux

Last month, in one of HAT’s most commented posts, Lauredhel riffed off a trenchant criticism of the marketing around Jessica Valenti’s book Full Frontal Feminism to make some larger points about the common co-option of “sex-positive” feminism into the Feminist Sex Wars that perpetuate the sexist fuckable/unfuckable allocation of female value:

I’ve mentioned my dislike of the term “sex-positive” in my bio, but haven’t really elaborated. Here’s my take: Any set of ideas that insists that I affirm my personal sexual availability every time I talk about my politics, as not even a footnote but a mandatory adjective, is not for me. What’s liberatory about this? Are women to be freed of everything except their paramount sexbot role? “Sex-positive” functions like “pro-life”; it only serves to construct a false category of “sex-negative”, which is, of course, automatically “bad”. Consensual sex is lumped in with the worst of rape-roleplay and exploitative porn and everything in between, and those who are against some must of course be against the other in this particular binary. Why is one of the biggest divisions in feminism all about sex? Why are we categorising women using sexual attitudes as a primary descriptor? Whose hands are we playing into by maintaining this as our focus?

Lauredhel, not having read the book at the time, was very careful to point out how much she agreed with in Valenti’s Guardian article and other writings about feminism, and while she was critical of some of Jessica’s choices in presenting meaty feminist issues inside a fluffy “fun-feminist” frame as she promoted the book, Lauredhel didn’t descend into frenzied Jessica-bashing. There’s been many other criticisms of FFF since then, some more substantive than others, and sadly quite a few have indeed been frenzied bashfests of a woman who has done a hell of a lot for feminism just by founding Feministing, and she’s done a lot more than just online newsclearing – she lives an activist life. Not that doing some good things makes anyone immune from criticism over anything else they do that’s not so good, but it does help to keep some perspective.

Last week Jill of Feministe waded into the fray, loyally defending her friend and making some very good points about the nastier snipes in the commentary. Unfortunately,

Filed under: interblog

Friday Fluffy linkfest

Ripped from my feedreader this week:

Mentis Fugit gives us the story of two US military veterans deciding to bestow their Purple Hearts on two separate individuals they felt worthy of the decoration.

Men and Women like different films (except for Star Wars) according to Sky via Winter at Mind the Gap!

The Onion has a special women’s issue via Ann at Feministing

Women’s health? Or Women’s Suppression? from Pharyngula

If you’re a regular reader of the blogs, you read about the honour kiling of a young woman in Iraq last week. Did you read anywhere else that she wasn’t murdered by Muslims? (Samhita at Feministing)

Helen from Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony takes on the hyperbolic allegories being drawn from some spoilt brats refusing to share Lego in a preschool

Punkass Marc tells how a prominent display of boobage on a billboard was insufficient to allay patriarchal wrath.

The Politics vs The Science of Weight from Kathy at Shakesville
A look into the Bridal-Industrial Complex by zuzu at Feministe

Two posts from Kate Harding where she is astonished that THEY SAID IT OUT LOUD. [ -1- ] [ -2- ]

I had several moments of enrapturement and of endudgeonment this week. I’ll tell you about them tomorrow.

Filed under: interblog, photography

“I’ve never known what happened to that woman.”

Good Enough Mum narrates her journey from being pro-life in her youth to be pro-choice today. She tells the story of a woman she saw in her final year of medical school. The woman was carrying an anencephalic fetus, and attempted induction of labour failed – over five days of trying.

“As we walked away from the bedside, one of us asked what the options were for her if the pessaries still failed to trigger labour. “Hysterotomy,” he replied.”

GEM goes on to discuss the risks of second-trimester hysterotomy both to the woman and to subsequent pregnancies, the rationale for IDE, the use of Five Minutes Before Birth slippery-slope mythology by forced-birther propagandists. She discusses the absurd meddling by the US Supreme Court in banning one particular type of abortion from a position of medical ignorance, extreme privilege, and breathtaking misogyny:

It is not about saving the lives of fetuses regardless of the cost to women, because it will not save the lives of any fetuses. It will not prevent a single abortion (well, after reading Cecily’s story, I have to amend that to say that I suppose it’ll prevent abortions in those rare, tragic cases where a woman’s condition is so serious that she’ll die before she can get an abortion by another method).

Filed under: interblog, obstreperation, reproductive freedoms

Friday Fluffy and linkage

Some photos I took last weekend in the Blue Mountains National Park. These creatures are all wild, no fences. They’re just very used to people with cameras. The two people in the background of the middle picture are mr tog and the tigling. (Click pic for larger image)

There’s more ducklings here than you might think.

Count ‘em.

Very large joey suckling.
Image credit: tigtog (uploaded to tigitogs)

Links:
Open Pit Irony Mine: Universal Feminist Blog Comment Template (ver. 1.0)

Wil Wheaton: The Butterfly Tree

Glenn Greenwald at Salon, in response to MSM articles decrying the anonymous “nastiness” of blogs:

The emergence of the blogosphere is a reaction to the wholesale destruction of our political discourse by national journalists, not a cause of that destruction.

There’s lots more good reading that I’ll come back and add in comments this evening, but mr tog and I are spending the day off work together for our 16th anniversary (which was actually last week, but he was on call for the evil boss). It’s warm and sunny and autumn, with gorgeous clear skies. Have a good day, everyone.

ADDIT:
37th Carnival of Feminists – links to two of Lauredhel’s posts.

Blogging from the Wayback Machine – Amanda at Pandagon discussing the reaction when she joined a big-dog blog for the Blogging Feminism blog, which Lauredhel mentioned in the previous post.

Filed under: interblog, photoblog