another brief hiatus in posting, as i got some important things done over the weekend. one of which was my tax return. i know, i know, i'm an accountant and should be totally on top of these kinds of things. and really, it's only about one and a half hours of work so i don't know why it looms as such a large job in my mind. but there you go. at least it's done and posted, and i can relax for another year (on that issue at least!).
i haven't linked to a couple of posts that went up at the hand mirror last friday, one on the media coverage of the sophie elliot trial, and another on the tragic murder in a german court of a pregnant egyptian woman, and the shooting by a police officer of her husband who was trying to get to her. earlier this evening, i put up a post on the kirsten dunne-powell interview aired on 60 minutes, tv3.
all of which is serious stuff, way too serious. so i'll just briefly reflect on the three roses that are in bloom outside my window & the very pretty camelia flowers i saw on a bush at our mosque in hamilton. i have no idea why these flowers would be out at this time of the year, but they look especially pretty at a time when many of the trees are without leaves. and in a few weeks the spring blossoms will be out. the plum trees that line my parents street have the loveliest pale pink blossoms, and it's a real pleasure to drive with them lining the road on both sides. unfortunately they only last for a little while, but definitely worth it.
i really hate gardening (i'm no good with bugs and slimy creatures in the soil, and i definitely don't like the mess), which is funny because i really love the beauty of nature & can spend quite a bit of time just looking at things and savouring the beauty of them. i think i could easily spend several hours watching waves at the beach, or watching leaves rustle in the wind. i don't get too much time to do things like that just now, when there seems to be so many other important things to do. but i think i really should make time. contemplation is an end in itself.
Monday, 13 July 2009
Thursday, 9 July 2009
language matters
i have a couple of posts at the hand mirror today, one about sarah palin's resignation as governor of alaska, and another about a report by the equal employment opportunities commission about demographics of the professional workforce.
i'm pretty full of outrage today, and most of it will come through tomorrow on a couple of posts i've put up at the hand mirror. but one other thing that has me pissed off is to do with the civil unrest in western china. now i'll put down clearly my total lack of ignorance of the issues in this particular part of the world.
nonetheless, there is plenty to be pissed off about. the fact that it would appear that there has been significant and on-going discrimination against uighurs, leading to this current round of violence. the fact that so many innocent people have been killed during this current round of rioting. the fact that hundreds of people have been arrested, and their chances of a fair and transparent trial are not likely to be high.
of course i'm upset about all of these things. but the other thing that is really getting on my nerves is that in media coverage of this issue, the word "uighurs" is always (and i do mean always) preceded by the word "muslim". the chinese are described by their ethnicity, being han chinese but never by their religion.
as far as i know (and again, i admit that isn't a lot), this is an ethnic dispute and not a religious one. and in media coverage of the unrest in tibet last year prior to and during the olympics, you didn't hear the term "buddhist tibetans". even though most people would know that a good proportion of tibetans are buddhist and even though the dalai lama featured in much of the coverage, the descriptor was not used.
so i'm really failing to understanding why the uighurs can't just be described as such, without any religious descriptor being added. i can only conclude that it's another attempt to link muslims and violence, regardless of the underlying factors that have lead to this situation. and that is just sick.
in other news, this press release from the migrant action trust regarding their recent meeting with the minister of immigration may be of interest. let's hope that the minister does actually take some action regarding:
interim emergency measures for migrants in distress, short term solutions that can bring relief to affected persons and solutions to address a long term immigration policy that make New Zealand a preferred destination of would be migrants who can contribute to the growth of the economy of this country.
i'm pretty full of outrage today, and most of it will come through tomorrow on a couple of posts i've put up at the hand mirror. but one other thing that has me pissed off is to do with the civil unrest in western china. now i'll put down clearly my total lack of ignorance of the issues in this particular part of the world.
nonetheless, there is plenty to be pissed off about. the fact that it would appear that there has been significant and on-going discrimination against uighurs, leading to this current round of violence. the fact that so many innocent people have been killed during this current round of rioting. the fact that hundreds of people have been arrested, and their chances of a fair and transparent trial are not likely to be high.
of course i'm upset about all of these things. but the other thing that is really getting on my nerves is that in media coverage of this issue, the word "uighurs" is always (and i do mean always) preceded by the word "muslim". the chinese are described by their ethnicity, being han chinese but never by their religion.
as far as i know (and again, i admit that isn't a lot), this is an ethnic dispute and not a religious one. and in media coverage of the unrest in tibet last year prior to and during the olympics, you didn't hear the term "buddhist tibetans". even though most people would know that a good proportion of tibetans are buddhist and even though the dalai lama featured in much of the coverage, the descriptor was not used.
so i'm really failing to understanding why the uighurs can't just be described as such, without any religious descriptor being added. i can only conclude that it's another attempt to link muslims and violence, regardless of the underlying factors that have lead to this situation. and that is just sick.
in other news, this press release from the migrant action trust regarding their recent meeting with the minister of immigration may be of interest. let's hope that the minister does actually take some action regarding:
interim emergency measures for migrants in distress, short term solutions that can bring relief to affected persons and solutions to address a long term immigration policy that make New Zealand a preferred destination of would be migrants who can contribute to the growth of the economy of this country.
Tuesday, 7 July 2009
meeting friends
a bit light on posting the last week. partly cos i was busy putting up the carnival & partly because my health is still troubling me. another visit to the doctor today, another afternoon off work. in fact, i don't think i've felt well since queen's birthday weekend.
but i've still been managing a few things. one of which was to visit julie in the weekend and meet wriggly again. he's running around now, rather than crawling as when i saw him last. he decided that he really loved my car keys and spent the whole visit with them clutched tightly in his little hands. another highlight was to visit a friend from my childhood, whose parents run the hollywood dairy featured on radio nz's asian report (afternoons, 3.30pm). as is the case when you meet up with childhood friends, we reminisced about growing up in 1970's nz and how different it is for our now teenage daughters. damn, i must be getting old! i'm certainly feeling old just now, but hopefully that will go away as the weather warms up.
in the meantime, i've put a more substantial post at the hand mirror, about a speech hon margaret wilson gave earlier this year.
but i've still been managing a few things. one of which was to visit julie in the weekend and meet wriggly again. he's running around now, rather than crawling as when i saw him last. he decided that he really loved my car keys and spent the whole visit with them clutched tightly in his little hands. another highlight was to visit a friend from my childhood, whose parents run the hollywood dairy featured on radio nz's asian report (afternoons, 3.30pm). as is the case when you meet up with childhood friends, we reminisced about growing up in 1970's nz and how different it is for our now teenage daughters. damn, i must be getting old! i'm certainly feeling old just now, but hopefully that will go away as the weather warms up.
in the meantime, i've put a more substantial post at the hand mirror, about a speech hon margaret wilson gave earlier this year.
Sunday, 5 July 2009
14th down under feminists carnival
kia ora everyone, and welcome to the carnival. as always, there's a whole heap of wonderful writing to be shared. so i won't waste your time any further, let's get right into it.
WEIGHT
from elisha, we have a brilliant post about women's issues related to weight. she talks about how positive she felt about her body when she was pregnant:
The fact that clinched my body confidence was that I found myself beautiful anyways. The compliments were simply fans to an already existing flame. I could feel life inside of me, effusing from my pores, coursing through my veins, and willy nilly in my gut.
and the issues that arose post baby, including dieting and the MILF myth:
An attractive mother could not just be an attractive woman. Because she was a mother, her assumed status was unF-able, which is why the mother who is F-able deserves her own acronymic nickname.
the queen of thorns deconstructs a fat-hating op-ed in a new zealand paper. dr alice boyes talks about the effect of weight on relationships, concluding that weight stigma has a negative impact for heavier women. and ele at homepaddock talks about the problem of pregorexia.
APPEARANCE
on the related issue of appearance, witty knitter highlights another case of a woman being put under unfair scrutiny. hell on hairy legs shows the narrow beauty norms involved in the use of women's bodies to sell noble causes.
FP talks about the focus on appearance for women in sports, in particular the comparison between serena williams and kirilenko:
I’m not suggesting she ought to have more, that she needs to stun me with her beauty in order to play tennis. But when those people who DO assert that sort of nonsense, also try to assert that “beauty” is an objective thing, I do take exception to WHAT is being called ‘beauty’ and then being set against what is apparently unacceptable to beauty.
MEDIA
linda radfem writes about some below-par dudebro comedy by the men on "the chaser":
This is soo not what The Chaser men do, and I refer to them as men despite their habit of behaving like giant toddlers, because I believe that refering to them normatively as “the chaser boys” kind of minimises their behaviour and lets them off the accountability hook a bit.
and concludes not only that their humour doesn't come close to political satire, but it is also harmful.
in other news, dave letterman got into hot water for some misogynistic jokes about sarah palin's daughter, and finally came up with a pretty decent apology. and wellywood woman discusses the difficulties for women trying to make feature films:
A while ago, I wrote an article about how it’s harder for New Zealand women to make feature films than it is for men. And I discussed how having women as script assessors and decision-makers appears not to help women filmmakers. And how I came to realise that I, too, tended to favour men’s work (as I also wrote here). The editor took those bits out and I wondered: Is this reality sometimes too hard to acknowledge?
VICTIM BLAMING
a political scandal of the sexual kind led to plenty of victim-blaming in nz over the past month. for non-kiwis, a minister was fired for reasons not known (apparently it's still not in the public interest for the prime minister to tell). it turned out that said minister was under investigation by the police for "a sexual matter". it then turned out that he had been allegedly harassing a different woman via txts and phone calls. the political bun-fight began.
this post by julie at the hand mirror gives a rundown of the allegations. maia, also at the hand mirror, tackles this particular round of victim-blaming. and here, the marvellous queen of thorns takes down one of the nastier commments on another blog. then she takes on the even nastier "women should just harden up" type argument:
It’s got to mean shooting down every man who wants to get you a coffee after you’ve done him a favour. It’s got to mean even bluntly refusing to do a coworker or superior a favour in the first place. It means never letting a guy be nice to you, never letting a guy buy you flowers on your birthday or after a big project winds up or when a close relative dies, because if you won’t say "fuck no get away from me I have no sexual interest in you whatsoever" at the slightest provocation, well, how is he meant to get the message?
aside from the awesome writing, these are a couple of the best titled posts i've seen in a long while!
keri hightlights a case of victim-blaming by commentors on a [alliteration alert!] female footy fans forum, in regards to women who had made allegations of sexual assaults against carlton footballers.
PR0N WARS
the hand mirror bloggers took on the pr0n debate, starting with this initial post on objectification by ms enid. there was a response of sorts by moi, and a further guest post on the topic by AUSA women's rights officer caroline, the latter generating some pretty heated debate. the queen of thorns jumped into the fray, with her take on the issue. and back at the hand mirror, maia put up an excellent post about why pr0n debates by feminsts so quickly turn to custard:
Media that has been created for the purpose of sexual arousal and produced to be bought and sold ... sits at an intersection: Desire, sex, the construction of men’s sexuality, the construction of women’s sexuality, bodies, work, the role of the state, objectification, the creation of rape culture and commodification ....
It only takes small differences in feminists’ analysis, weighting or experience of a couple of these before they’re coming at the issue that we call ‘pr0nography’ from completely different angles.
and hell on hairy legs gives a quick explanation of why anti-pr0n feminists and social conservatives are not the same. at all.
POLITICS
rocky at the standard writes about why the current new zealand government is showing its contempt for women. over in australia, kim at larvatus prodeo reproduces a piece about the furore caused by sarah hanson-young, a green party MP, taking her child into the debating chamber at parliament. the topic is also very well covered by deborah at in a strange land and here by bluemilk. from deborah's post:
In the olden days, a child would have been at home with her mother, and it would have been her daddy who was the senator. These days, senators and MPs are female and male, parents and childfree, straight and gay, not as many colours of the rainbow as would be nice, but nevertheless, no longer predictably white, male, middle class, and with a nice wife at home to carry all the childcare. Just maybe, it’s time for the rules to change to reflect [that].
and in australia, they have another big political scandal involving a ute and a fake email. get the whole story from rebekka, told in lolcats form - a wonderful combination of cute & hilarious.
DISABILITY ISSUES
lauredhel at hoyden about town gives us a cracker post about why changes to disability parking rules should be of concern to feminists. wildly parenthetical takes the issue further, and discusses the invisibility of certain kinds of disability:
This suggests that even understanding particular bodies as impaired is the result of a presumption about the body. That is, it argues that disability begins at the moment when you understand some bodies as naturally unimpaired, and others as naturally impaired: the drawing of that line is not a neutral, naturally-given one, as we like to pretend. It is a political distinction that is, in itself, invested with the ability system, which, as Lennard Davis argues, is what constitutes particular bodies as disabled, and thus as the problem.
lauredhel calls out another blogger who trivialises a traumatic brain injury by saying that parents are being too "precious" about everything.
VIOLENCE
anita at kiwipolitico puts down her thoughts in response to the killing of dr george tiller (see here for a discussion by lauredhel on late-term abortions). i express my outrage at the use of the "provocation" defense in the trial of the man who brutally stabbed sophie elliot. dr sapna makes a not-so-serious comparison of racism in australia and new zeland, particularly in reference to the attacks on indian students in melbourne:
I have been to Melbourne so many times. It is a great city; multicultural and dynamic. It is also Australia. The indigenous people are missing, banished to the desert and boondocks to become unemployed alcoholics and gamblers in a perpetual cycle. The media is full of white people with supposedly Ango-Saxon origin, Australian identity denying anything else. Indian students in Melbourne, the ones I have seen in town, loitering at Flinders Street Station and in the trains and buses are regular middle class kids, a little bit frightened, a little bit out of their depth and a little bit defensive.
sandra of ludditejourno talks about women killed in new zealand recently. lauredhel responds to the criticism of trigger warnings on posts containing graphic violence:
Because feeling disgusted, creeped out, sad, scared, or nauseous at these things doesn’t mean I’m ill. It doesn’t mean I’m broken. It means I’m normal. It means I’m paying attention. And it doesn’t need fixing.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE
clem bastow of the dawn chorus discusses sentencing in rape cases, and in particular asks what "low-level or less serious" rape might be:
The perceived semantics and language of rape – witness the ongoing debate about “grey rape”, “marital rape” and “date rape” (with many pundits and politicians seemingly believing the latter two don’t even exist) – are doubly frustrating because the fact that we even need to argue about the impact of language in these situations demonstrates that the seriousness of rape is still doubted or misunderstood. If a man rapes me, no matter whether I am given a black eye, a slit throat, a drink laced with drugs, or a bunch of flowers afterwards, a man has still raped me. When will the wider community (and, importantly, the legal world) realise that the issue is not (primarily, at least) what happened before, during or after the rape, but the rape itself?
lauredhel highlights another case of a judge trivialising the sexual assault of minors. crowlie writes about denial of sexual harassment by the female boss of tony scrinis, and a rape culture that makes it increasingly difficult for women to come forward.
FEMINISM
hell on hairy legs tells us how she is going to communicate feminism to dudebros:
If I don’t have the mental strength to deal with it, it isn’t my job to exhaust myself to educate someone else how to be a decent human being. I’m tired of feminists being treated like we’re outsourced labourers for caring about women... I have a finite amount of time and if someone wants me to raise awareness about rape tourism in Thailand or Sharia law in the Middle East, then they can damn well do it themselves (and they don’t even have to join the uber special feminist club to do it).
richie of crimitism gives us a brilliant post about the use of stick-figure cartoons to destroy the matriarchy. orlando, guest posting at hoyden about town, blogs about a youth radio station which seems to have forgotten that there are women in the music industry. and brenda at coffee geek wants to talk about "the seriously negative sexist incidents that happen from time to time" in the open source software industry that she otherwise loves working in, but doesn't have the energy to cope with the backlash.
BREASTFEEDING
bluemilk reviews kate evans' book "the food of love: your formula for successful breastfeeding". lauredhel very competently challenges the notion that society has "gone too far" in supporting breastfeeding mothers:
Show me the people who won’t allow infant formula in an office fridge because it could be carrying disease.
Show me the mainstream media forums in which it’s just fine to call women “filthy”, “perverted”, “gross”, and “cow-like” because they formula feed.
FOOD
who says feminists can't construct some wonderful food?! fifty-two acts brings us another batch of feminist cookies. the ex-expat continues to delight us at the hand mirror with her cake-decorating skills. and julie has us drooling over cupcakes.
LITERATURE
here are a couple of book reviews. emma finds the feminism in charlotte bronte's jane eyre. sajbrfem reviews the female man:
It seemed to me quite early that the book was a kind of an SF 'what if' imagining of Virginia Woolf's Shakespeare's Sister idea. How do a woman's circumstances really effect her? What would the same woman be like if she was able to grow up in a world without patriarchy? "So plastic is humankind."
pavlov's cat writes about the lack of recognition for female novelists, both in the longlist and the shorlist of the miles franklin literary award:
No, it's this: that the masculine world view is still the norm, the feminine world view a lesser variant; that the masculine representation of women is still accepted as the truth, while female resistance to that representation is seen as some kind of wilful rebellion; that masculine values are still (mis)taken as universal values, and feminine ones seen as aberrant and unimportant in the world. Simone de Beauvoir still puts it best, even after all this time. 'There are two types of people in this world: human beings and women.'
PINK
yeah, that would be the colour, not the artist. and a little incongruous given this blog is so full of it (pink, i mean!). ms laurie, on the other hand, doesn't like pink:
I wonder, though, if knowing whether the baby is a boy or girl – and knowing only that really – for several months before they arrive is perhaps driving the seemingly relentless march of pinkification/blueifying of clothing, furniture, and accessories of baby boys and girls? If in the rush to do something in those months of waiting for the baby to arrive, people somehow feel the need to try and connect with the unknown, through identifying clearly that their things were chosen specifically for that child, not a child?
deborah finds that even the parent's car parks are... you guessed it, pink! on the related subject of colours, bluemilk talks about gender and the dressing of babies.
GENERAL
some final bits and pieces: kakariki at radical cross stitch does some awesome animation titled "votes for women". and our own steph from the hand mirror answers bluemilk's 10 questions about feminist motherhood in a way that has not been done before - she gives us the point of view of a (very hard-working and totally involved) stepmother:
I think this is true for many stepmothers who don’t have biological children, one day we are own person the next we have these little people that are suddenly in our lives. There’s no period of getting used to the concept of being a parent through pregnancy and no birth to officially ‘mark’ the point in which we become a parent. I think that’s why feel like I gatecrashing some exclusive party. Biological motherhood is placed so high on a pedestal that any questioning of the status is akin to wondering if there is a god. And by our very existence, stepmothers question the status of motherhood which is why our experience of motherhood is frequently belittled by the admonishment all stepmothers love to hate, ‘you’re not the child’s mother.’ I am aware I am not the child’s official mother, the child is aware that I am not her ‘real’ mother. Now that that has been clarified can everyone just move on?
and saving one of the best for last, julie of the hand mirror writes a letter to her son, in preparation for the inevitable chats about sex.
so that's it for this month. hope you enjoy the various contributions as much as i have.
WEIGHT
from elisha, we have a brilliant post about women's issues related to weight. she talks about how positive she felt about her body when she was pregnant:
The fact that clinched my body confidence was that I found myself beautiful anyways. The compliments were simply fans to an already existing flame. I could feel life inside of me, effusing from my pores, coursing through my veins, and willy nilly in my gut.
and the issues that arose post baby, including dieting and the MILF myth:
An attractive mother could not just be an attractive woman. Because she was a mother, her assumed status was unF-able, which is why the mother who is F-able deserves her own acronymic nickname.
the queen of thorns deconstructs a fat-hating op-ed in a new zealand paper. dr alice boyes talks about the effect of weight on relationships, concluding that weight stigma has a negative impact for heavier women. and ele at homepaddock talks about the problem of pregorexia.
APPEARANCE
on the related issue of appearance, witty knitter highlights another case of a woman being put under unfair scrutiny. hell on hairy legs shows the narrow beauty norms involved in the use of women's bodies to sell noble causes.
FP talks about the focus on appearance for women in sports, in particular the comparison between serena williams and kirilenko:
I’m not suggesting she ought to have more, that she needs to stun me with her beauty in order to play tennis. But when those people who DO assert that sort of nonsense, also try to assert that “beauty” is an objective thing, I do take exception to WHAT is being called ‘beauty’ and then being set against what is apparently unacceptable to beauty.
MEDIA
linda radfem writes about some below-par dudebro comedy by the men on "the chaser":
This is soo not what The Chaser men do, and I refer to them as men despite their habit of behaving like giant toddlers, because I believe that refering to them normatively as “the chaser boys” kind of minimises their behaviour and lets them off the accountability hook a bit.
and concludes not only that their humour doesn't come close to political satire, but it is also harmful.
in other news, dave letterman got into hot water for some misogynistic jokes about sarah palin's daughter, and finally came up with a pretty decent apology. and wellywood woman discusses the difficulties for women trying to make feature films:
A while ago, I wrote an article about how it’s harder for New Zealand women to make feature films than it is for men. And I discussed how having women as script assessors and decision-makers appears not to help women filmmakers. And how I came to realise that I, too, tended to favour men’s work (as I also wrote here). The editor took those bits out and I wondered: Is this reality sometimes too hard to acknowledge?
VICTIM BLAMING
a political scandal of the sexual kind led to plenty of victim-blaming in nz over the past month. for non-kiwis, a minister was fired for reasons not known (apparently it's still not in the public interest for the prime minister to tell). it turned out that said minister was under investigation by the police for "a sexual matter". it then turned out that he had been allegedly harassing a different woman via txts and phone calls. the political bun-fight began.
this post by julie at the hand mirror gives a rundown of the allegations. maia, also at the hand mirror, tackles this particular round of victim-blaming. and here, the marvellous queen of thorns takes down one of the nastier commments on another blog. then she takes on the even nastier "women should just harden up" type argument:
It’s got to mean shooting down every man who wants to get you a coffee after you’ve done him a favour. It’s got to mean even bluntly refusing to do a coworker or superior a favour in the first place. It means never letting a guy be nice to you, never letting a guy buy you flowers on your birthday or after a big project winds up or when a close relative dies, because if you won’t say "fuck no get away from me I have no sexual interest in you whatsoever" at the slightest provocation, well, how is he meant to get the message?
aside from the awesome writing, these are a couple of the best titled posts i've seen in a long while!
keri hightlights a case of victim-blaming by commentors on a [alliteration alert!] female footy fans forum, in regards to women who had made allegations of sexual assaults against carlton footballers.
PR0N WARS
the hand mirror bloggers took on the pr0n debate, starting with this initial post on objectification by ms enid. there was a response of sorts by moi, and a further guest post on the topic by AUSA women's rights officer caroline, the latter generating some pretty heated debate. the queen of thorns jumped into the fray, with her take on the issue. and back at the hand mirror, maia put up an excellent post about why pr0n debates by feminsts so quickly turn to custard:
Media that has been created for the purpose of sexual arousal and produced to be bought and sold ... sits at an intersection: Desire, sex, the construction of men’s sexuality, the construction of women’s sexuality, bodies, work, the role of the state, objectification, the creation of rape culture and commodification ....
It only takes small differences in feminists’ analysis, weighting or experience of a couple of these before they’re coming at the issue that we call ‘pr0nography’ from completely different angles.
and hell on hairy legs gives a quick explanation of why anti-pr0n feminists and social conservatives are not the same. at all.
POLITICS
rocky at the standard writes about why the current new zealand government is showing its contempt for women. over in australia, kim at larvatus prodeo reproduces a piece about the furore caused by sarah hanson-young, a green party MP, taking her child into the debating chamber at parliament. the topic is also very well covered by deborah at in a strange land and here by bluemilk. from deborah's post:
In the olden days, a child would have been at home with her mother, and it would have been her daddy who was the senator. These days, senators and MPs are female and male, parents and childfree, straight and gay, not as many colours of the rainbow as would be nice, but nevertheless, no longer predictably white, male, middle class, and with a nice wife at home to carry all the childcare. Just maybe, it’s time for the rules to change to reflect [that].
and in australia, they have another big political scandal involving a ute and a fake email. get the whole story from rebekka, told in lolcats form - a wonderful combination of cute & hilarious.
DISABILITY ISSUES
lauredhel at hoyden about town gives us a cracker post about why changes to disability parking rules should be of concern to feminists. wildly parenthetical takes the issue further, and discusses the invisibility of certain kinds of disability:
This suggests that even understanding particular bodies as impaired is the result of a presumption about the body. That is, it argues that disability begins at the moment when you understand some bodies as naturally unimpaired, and others as naturally impaired: the drawing of that line is not a neutral, naturally-given one, as we like to pretend. It is a political distinction that is, in itself, invested with the ability system, which, as Lennard Davis argues, is what constitutes particular bodies as disabled, and thus as the problem.
lauredhel calls out another blogger who trivialises a traumatic brain injury by saying that parents are being too "precious" about everything.
VIOLENCE
anita at kiwipolitico puts down her thoughts in response to the killing of dr george tiller (see here for a discussion by lauredhel on late-term abortions). i express my outrage at the use of the "provocation" defense in the trial of the man who brutally stabbed sophie elliot. dr sapna makes a not-so-serious comparison of racism in australia and new zeland, particularly in reference to the attacks on indian students in melbourne:
I have been to Melbourne so many times. It is a great city; multicultural and dynamic. It is also Australia. The indigenous people are missing, banished to the desert and boondocks to become unemployed alcoholics and gamblers in a perpetual cycle. The media is full of white people with supposedly Ango-Saxon origin, Australian identity denying anything else. Indian students in Melbourne, the ones I have seen in town, loitering at Flinders Street Station and in the trains and buses are regular middle class kids, a little bit frightened, a little bit out of their depth and a little bit defensive.
sandra of ludditejourno talks about women killed in new zealand recently. lauredhel responds to the criticism of trigger warnings on posts containing graphic violence:
Because feeling disgusted, creeped out, sad, scared, or nauseous at these things doesn’t mean I’m ill. It doesn’t mean I’m broken. It means I’m normal. It means I’m paying attention. And it doesn’t need fixing.
SEXUAL VIOLENCE
clem bastow of the dawn chorus discusses sentencing in rape cases, and in particular asks what "low-level or less serious" rape might be:
The perceived semantics and language of rape – witness the ongoing debate about “grey rape”, “marital rape” and “date rape” (with many pundits and politicians seemingly believing the latter two don’t even exist) – are doubly frustrating because the fact that we even need to argue about the impact of language in these situations demonstrates that the seriousness of rape is still doubted or misunderstood. If a man rapes me, no matter whether I am given a black eye, a slit throat, a drink laced with drugs, or a bunch of flowers afterwards, a man has still raped me. When will the wider community (and, importantly, the legal world) realise that the issue is not (primarily, at least) what happened before, during or after the rape, but the rape itself?
lauredhel highlights another case of a judge trivialising the sexual assault of minors. crowlie writes about denial of sexual harassment by the female boss of tony scrinis, and a rape culture that makes it increasingly difficult for women to come forward.
FEMINISM
hell on hairy legs tells us how she is going to communicate feminism to dudebros:
If I don’t have the mental strength to deal with it, it isn’t my job to exhaust myself to educate someone else how to be a decent human being. I’m tired of feminists being treated like we’re outsourced labourers for caring about women... I have a finite amount of time and if someone wants me to raise awareness about rape tourism in Thailand or Sharia law in the Middle East, then they can damn well do it themselves (and they don’t even have to join the uber special feminist club to do it).
richie of crimitism gives us a brilliant post about the use of stick-figure cartoons to destroy the matriarchy. orlando, guest posting at hoyden about town, blogs about a youth radio station which seems to have forgotten that there are women in the music industry. and brenda at coffee geek wants to talk about "the seriously negative sexist incidents that happen from time to time" in the open source software industry that she otherwise loves working in, but doesn't have the energy to cope with the backlash.
BREASTFEEDING
bluemilk reviews kate evans' book "the food of love: your formula for successful breastfeeding". lauredhel very competently challenges the notion that society has "gone too far" in supporting breastfeeding mothers:
Show me the people who won’t allow infant formula in an office fridge because it could be carrying disease.
Show me the mainstream media forums in which it’s just fine to call women “filthy”, “perverted”, “gross”, and “cow-like” because they formula feed.
FOOD
who says feminists can't construct some wonderful food?! fifty-two acts brings us another batch of feminist cookies. the ex-expat continues to delight us at the hand mirror with her cake-decorating skills. and julie has us drooling over cupcakes.
LITERATURE
here are a couple of book reviews. emma finds the feminism in charlotte bronte's jane eyre. sajbrfem reviews the female man:
It seemed to me quite early that the book was a kind of an SF 'what if' imagining of Virginia Woolf's Shakespeare's Sister idea. How do a woman's circumstances really effect her? What would the same woman be like if she was able to grow up in a world without patriarchy? "So plastic is humankind."
pavlov's cat writes about the lack of recognition for female novelists, both in the longlist and the shorlist of the miles franklin literary award:
No, it's this: that the masculine world view is still the norm, the feminine world view a lesser variant; that the masculine representation of women is still accepted as the truth, while female resistance to that representation is seen as some kind of wilful rebellion; that masculine values are still (mis)taken as universal values, and feminine ones seen as aberrant and unimportant in the world. Simone de Beauvoir still puts it best, even after all this time. 'There are two types of people in this world: human beings and women.'
PINK
yeah, that would be the colour, not the artist. and a little incongruous given this blog is so full of it (pink, i mean!). ms laurie, on the other hand, doesn't like pink:
I wonder, though, if knowing whether the baby is a boy or girl – and knowing only that really – for several months before they arrive is perhaps driving the seemingly relentless march of pinkification/blueifying of clothing, furniture, and accessories of baby boys and girls? If in the rush to do something in those months of waiting for the baby to arrive, people somehow feel the need to try and connect with the unknown, through identifying clearly that their things were chosen specifically for that child, not a child?
deborah finds that even the parent's car parks are... you guessed it, pink! on the related subject of colours, bluemilk talks about gender and the dressing of babies.
GENERAL
some final bits and pieces: kakariki at radical cross stitch does some awesome animation titled "votes for women". and our own steph from the hand mirror answers bluemilk's 10 questions about feminist motherhood in a way that has not been done before - she gives us the point of view of a (very hard-working and totally involved) stepmother:
I think this is true for many stepmothers who don’t have biological children, one day we are own person the next we have these little people that are suddenly in our lives. There’s no period of getting used to the concept of being a parent through pregnancy and no birth to officially ‘mark’ the point in which we become a parent. I think that’s why feel like I gatecrashing some exclusive party. Biological motherhood is placed so high on a pedestal that any questioning of the status is akin to wondering if there is a god. And by our very existence, stepmothers question the status of motherhood which is why our experience of motherhood is frequently belittled by the admonishment all stepmothers love to hate, ‘you’re not the child’s mother.’ I am aware I am not the child’s official mother, the child is aware that I am not her ‘real’ mother. Now that that has been clarified can everyone just move on?
and saving one of the best for last, julie of the hand mirror writes a letter to her son, in preparation for the inevitable chats about sex.
so that's it for this month. hope you enjoy the various contributions as much as i have.
Wednesday, 1 July 2009
first prize
no substantial post today, it's been a busy evening. and afternoon. i'm the person who has never won anything substantial - given that i never gamble so have never bought lotto or the like, that really reduces my chances. but during my trip to the winter show a while back, i entered a competition run by a photography studio. all it involved was giving them my personal details. yeah, i generally don't do that, but i thought i'd risk it this time.
so seddon portrait house rings me a few weeks later to tell me i've won their grand prize, which involves $1,649 worth of free photography. i'm thinking there will no doubt be a catch, but they sent me all the details and it looked above board. what i'd won was one big framed photograph. today was the photo shoot, with me and the girls. we had some lovely photographs taken down by the river - well, i hope they're lovely. i'll see them next week at the "viewing".
i suspect that's where the hard sell will be happening, and their photographs sure aren't cheap. an upgrade to the next size from the prize i've won will cost me $700 ie counting the $1,649 free prize, that's one photograph costing $2,349. now maybe this is normal pricing for this kind of thing, and maybe there are plenty of people who pay this kind of money for photographs. but it sure seems expensive to me.
anyway, i do appreciate the fact that we'll get this portrait for free. and it was a fun experience. i just hope i'm not too much out of pocket this time next week!
so seddon portrait house rings me a few weeks later to tell me i've won their grand prize, which involves $1,649 worth of free photography. i'm thinking there will no doubt be a catch, but they sent me all the details and it looked above board. what i'd won was one big framed photograph. today was the photo shoot, with me and the girls. we had some lovely photographs taken down by the river - well, i hope they're lovely. i'll see them next week at the "viewing".
i suspect that's where the hard sell will be happening, and their photographs sure aren't cheap. an upgrade to the next size from the prize i've won will cost me $700 ie counting the $1,649 free prize, that's one photograph costing $2,349. now maybe this is normal pricing for this kind of thing, and maybe there are plenty of people who pay this kind of money for photographs. but it sure seems expensive to me.
anyway, i do appreciate the fact that we'll get this portrait for free. and it was a fun experience. i just hope i'm not too much out of pocket this time next week!
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
my place on the spectrum
as per julie's suggestion here, i did the political spectrum quiz. this is my result:
My Political Views
I am a left moderate social authoritarian
Left: 6.87, Authoritarian: 1.32
Political Spectrum Quiz
hmmm, i'm only just an "authoritarian" but definitely a lefty. i'm not sure that this really reflects who i am, and i found several of the questions difficult to answer. but there it is.
ETA: didn't have time before this post went up (busy doing the down under feminists carnival!) but wanted to link to this post on tensions between class and democratic reform at kiwipolitico. says what i've been trying to, only better.
My Political Views
I am a left moderate social authoritarian
Left: 6.87, Authoritarian: 1.32
Political Spectrum Quiz
hmmm, i'm only just an "authoritarian" but definitely a lefty. i'm not sure that this really reflects who i am, and i found several of the questions difficult to answer. but there it is.
ETA: didn't have time before this post went up (busy doing the down under feminists carnival!) but wanted to link to this post on tensions between class and democratic reform at kiwipolitico. says what i've been trying to, only better.
Monday, 29 June 2009
exploitation of graduates
i caught up with a friend over the weekend, whom i hadn't seen in a while. the reason being that she's shifted up to auckland & is working in one of the top accounting firms there.
she started telling me about her workplace, and i'm truly appalled. she tells me that she has often been working until 10pm at night, and staying until 9pm is normal. this is the expectation of all employees. i asked her what would happen if she refused, and left work around 5.30pm. she said that the result would be that she would be allocated the most boring jobs that would give no satisfaction, and it would mean that she wouldn't be moving up within that organisation.
there is no doubt that this particular firm is getting at least 1.5 person's work out of 1 person, and that they are doing so deliberately. my friend says that staff turnover is high, but with the current recession, people are not able to leave so easily. and because it is so difficult to get a position in what is seen as a prestigious firm, these young people don't want to let that position go because of the fear of the negative effect on their career.
this pressure appears to be applied to new graduates, and of course the accounting workforce isn't unionised (not that i've seen, anyway). we have the institute of chartered accountants, but i've never ever heard of them fighting for the rights of junior staff to have decent work hours. it's not likely, given that the elected positions in the institute are mostly senior partners in accountancy firms.
at least these graduates are getting paid a better wage than, say, cleaners on contract & unlike cleaners, they know that if they stick it out, they'll be getting promoted. but that doesn't make this kind of exploitation right. these big firms are working in a competitive market, and the way they keep the price to the client down is by saving on labour costs.
i wish i could name the particular firm, but i don't want to get my friend in trouble and don't want to end up with any kind of legal action against myself. but really, the only way to deal with this kind of thing is by naming and shaming. and getting these young people to join a union.
in other news, my friend and hamilton city councillor daphne bell has just joined the blogoshpere. welcome daphne, and looking forward to your contribution.
she started telling me about her workplace, and i'm truly appalled. she tells me that she has often been working until 10pm at night, and staying until 9pm is normal. this is the expectation of all employees. i asked her what would happen if she refused, and left work around 5.30pm. she said that the result would be that she would be allocated the most boring jobs that would give no satisfaction, and it would mean that she wouldn't be moving up within that organisation.
there is no doubt that this particular firm is getting at least 1.5 person's work out of 1 person, and that they are doing so deliberately. my friend says that staff turnover is high, but with the current recession, people are not able to leave so easily. and because it is so difficult to get a position in what is seen as a prestigious firm, these young people don't want to let that position go because of the fear of the negative effect on their career.
this pressure appears to be applied to new graduates, and of course the accounting workforce isn't unionised (not that i've seen, anyway). we have the institute of chartered accountants, but i've never ever heard of them fighting for the rights of junior staff to have decent work hours. it's not likely, given that the elected positions in the institute are mostly senior partners in accountancy firms.
at least these graduates are getting paid a better wage than, say, cleaners on contract & unlike cleaners, they know that if they stick it out, they'll be getting promoted. but that doesn't make this kind of exploitation right. these big firms are working in a competitive market, and the way they keep the price to the client down is by saving on labour costs.
i wish i could name the particular firm, but i don't want to get my friend in trouble and don't want to end up with any kind of legal action against myself. but really, the only way to deal with this kind of thing is by naming and shaming. and getting these young people to join a union.
in other news, my friend and hamilton city councillor daphne bell has just joined the blogoshpere. welcome daphne, and looking forward to your contribution.
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