Blogroll

My blogroll>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> is totally outta date. At some point, I will get round to adding all the other cool peoples on my RSS to there :). If you particulaly wanna be on there (because everybody does, right?!) comment and I will do it asap.

Hace rato que no nos veíamos…

Okkaaaaaaaaayy…so today seemed a good time to add artist Tiffini Elektra‘s Blogging Without Obligation link. I am gonna try and actually stick with this whole blog thing :D. ¿Es muy difícil, no? No sé la razón que estoy escribiendo en español. Aparece que no puedo parar. Este puede ser un problema. Especialmente cuando considera que mi Español no es bien. ¡Ay de mi! Hasta luego…

Quote of the day

“Oh right it’s all women’s fault. Because they’ve been reading Marx, whilst binge drinking no doubt. Well you know how good the laydeez are at multi tasking.” Polly Styrene

Check out the blog post at You know I’ve been drunk a thousand times.

Sorry!

Hey people/ person/ no one (I have no idea how many people/any people are reading this or even care :))

I’m sorry I haven’t blogged in ageeeeeeeess. Y’see I’ve got AS exams (1st year A-level) coming up and I’ve been revising my ass off. I know thats a totally lame excuse but I should start again in about a week with even more gusto than before!!!

I must say at the moment I am totally hooked on an American mental health blog called The Trouble With Spikol. The blogger, Liz Spikol, writes so informatively about mental health – a topic which I know nothing about – but does it with a sense of humour. Check out her videos on You Tube as well.

Another thing which should keep you entertained is a set of videos about feminism on True Tube. It’s got some cool people in it; Kat Banyard (Fawcett Society), Jenni Murray (Woman’s Hour)…

Also, for fun inbetween revision (as if it weren’t fun enough!) I’ve been making an elastic band ball – how Cool am I? Yes, that is cool with a capital ‘c’. Here’s how its been progressing:

 

24 Reasons for 24 Weeks.

From Abortion Rights:

“You can make a direct difference in five minutes by writing to your MP to urge them to vote to defend women’s abortion rights during the forthcoming Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill debates. The anti-choice lobby is already very active – MPs are receiving dozens of letters, postcards and e-mails. We cannot allow this vociferous minority to dominate the abortion debate!”

To support the 24 week time limit on abortion, head on over to Abortion Rights to sign the petition and send the model letter – it’ll take about 1 minute if ya do it by email 😀.

Nadine Dorries MP who is trying to reduce the 24 week limit within which women can legally have abortions to 20 weeks published her ’20 reasons for 20 weeks’. However, fear not feminist friends! Penny Red and Jess McCabe (F-Word) have complied their own ’24 reasons for 24 weeks’ – fantastic idea – which is supported by the London Feminist Network, Liberal Conspiracy, TheFWord, Abortion Rights, Red Pepper magazine and Feminist Fightback.

Lap Dancing Clubs

 Object‘s new campaign, “Stripping the Illusion” – go sign the petition! Under current licensing laws, it is easy for lap dance clubs to open. When many of these clubs open, they create “no-go” areas for women. Research undertaken by the Lilith Project in 2003 in Camden found that in the years following the opening of a lap dance club on Tottenham Court Road, reports of female rape increased by 50% and reports of sexual assaults against women increased by 50%. We must protect our right to feel safe on the streets.

“Under current legislation lap dancing clubs are licensed in the same way as cafes or karaoke and require only a Premises Licence. The Licensing Act 2003 restricted the power of both local authorities and residents to have a say in the licensing of lap dancing clubs. This is wholly inadequate.

Research confirms that lap dancing clubs are part of the commercial sex industry. The buying and selling of sexual services occurs in some clubs and women performers face poor working conditions and high levels of harassment. Lap dancing clubs have a negative impact on the safety and well being of women living and working near them. They normalise the sexual objectification of women. It is clear that lap dancing clubs have a deeper social impact than cafes or karaoke. Licensing must recognise this.

We call on the Government to rethink licensing and re-categorise lap dancing clubs as Sex Encounter Establishments. This would give local authorities the same licensing powers as apply to sex shops, ensure better regulation and give local people a far greater say in licensing.”

“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to to re-categorise lap dancing clubs as Sex Encounter Establishments.” Sign the petition.

Extreme Porn Ban

This week, a bill is being passed that bans the possesion of extreme pronography. Extreme pornography can be defined as:

• An act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life.
• An act which results in or appears to result in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals.
• An act which involves or appears to involve sexual interference with a human corpse.
• A person performing or appearing to perform an act of intercourse or oral sex with an animal.

Tthe first two points seem pretty subjective to me, but overall I think this is a positive thing. The campaign was started by Liz Longhurst whose daughter Jane had been killed. Her killer, Graham Coutts, had been found to be looking at images of women being raped and strangled as well as pictures depicting necrophilia. While some people are worried that these images can be consensual and part of a healthy relationship, I must agree with the spokesperson from the Ministry of Justice:

“Pornographic material which depicts necrophilia, bestiality or violence that is life threatening or likely to result in serious injury to the anus, breasts or genitals has no place in a modern society and should not be tolerated,” says a spokeswoman for the ministry.

However, unfortunately I don’t think this is going to be able to stop the “Graham Coutts” of this world.

Shreddies: knitted by nanas. Advert: created by sexists.

  

Here is new shreddies advert, created by McCann Erickson, which is based on the same principle as their last advert – shreddies are knitted by nanas in a factory.

The first thing that struck me when I first saw this advert was how all the people knitting were older women, nanas you might even say! All the “nanas” were sitting at their sewing machines on desks knitting these shreddies. However, older men do feature in this advert – they push around the trolleys.

Another thing that I noticed is that all the people in this advert appear to be white. Why is that? Don’t nanas of colour knit? It’s really odd.

The biggest problem I have with this advert is Charles. Yes, Charles. Y’see nanas aren’t capable of judging their own knitted products they have to get Charles to check them first. Charles, an older man, sits at an offical looking desk which is situated on a platform slightly higher than the nanas’ desks. A bowl of freshly knitted shreddies is brought over to Charles. All the nanas wait with baited breath to see what he will say, hoping that they’ve put enough effort in and knowing that if they haven’t, Charles will catch them out! Charles simply gives a nod and smile to signify that the nanas are on top form today and the shreddies are up to his standards.

This advert isn’t as obviously sexist as say, the lynx adverts, but still I think it reinforces the idea that women should look up to men for approval, in this case in their work. This advert may not annoy me so much if there was an equal amount of men and women knitting, but its the way men are featured in this advert that gets me. Perhaps the most telling thing is the fact that the man is physically on a higher level to the women.

Congo

I’m recently coming to realise that here are some evil things going on in Congo, much worse that I have ever heard before. These acts show how true the hatred of women is there. Some are so horriffic that my utter and complete disgust cannot be put into words. The systematic rape of women and girls is being carried out in the Democratic Republic of Congo every day as a result of conflict. The problem is epidemic.

Anxious Black Woman lists the tonnes of people who blogged about this, so go over and check them all out. I heard about these two links from the F Word and the Burning Times respectively: Zawadi is a woman who lives in the Congo, her story (note: the contents is very disturbing ) can be heard here. This is about a film called the greatest silence: Rape in the Congo. The video at the bottom of the page is just…..unbelievable.

First predominantly female cabinet

Spain’s Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (Socialist Party), has appointed a predominantly female cabinet for the first time in Spain’s history and as it happens it is the first cabinet with a female majority in Europe. Zapatero has also appointed women in important positions such as Defence Ministry.

Of course there are those who aren’t too happy about this, referring to these women as “ZP’s battalion of inexperienced seamstresses”. Silvio Berlusconi, the Prime Minister of Italy, has described the cabinet as “too pink”.

Four years ago, Zapatero appointed equal numbers of men and women as ministers and last March he passed an equality bill that required medium to large companies and political parties in larger boroughs to employ 40% women in high ranking positions.

Fantastic news, eh?