I keep thinking that I’d like to see more feminist views at BooTrib but since I lack the time, the talent, and the inclination to write brilliant diaries (like IndyLib), I haven’t done much to help bring more feminism here.
So I offer up a diary of links to posts at various feminist sites.
The diary can be considered as an open thread on the posts I link to, feminism, and political issues that might be of particular importance to women.
This shouldn’t need to be said but I absolutely do not mean this to be a discussion space just for feminists or just for women.
Links
Scribbling Woman hosts Carnival of the Feminists V, another great set of feminist posts.
Bayprairie does a fantastic summary of Reproductive Rights, Week in Review, Dec. 18-24.
Amanda over at Pandagon finds the holidays bring Scattered thoughts on the disappearance of the “traditional” family.
Echidne of the Snakes considers Susan Faludi’s Backlash and how it plays out today.
Twisty at I Blame the Patriarchy has some fun with the names of girls and women sports teams.
Philobiblon (Natalie) discusses Chinese girls and the Pill.
Feministing covers the story of a woman basketball player’s discrimination lawsuit.
Media Girl reports on the EU’s determination that doctors refusing to abort pregnancies violate international human rights.
Umm….guess I’ve got some reading to do.
See, now that I’ve got you started obsessing on your CD mix, I’ve given you a distraction.
http://noturningback.stanford.edu/resources.html This is a great site with incredible amount of links…a feminist resource site.
See what you made me do andif..I just spent almost an hour perusing the links you put up.
The book, if you haven’t read it, is very good.
Sorry to say I haven’t read it….what I wouldn’t give to have free reign in any bookstore at least once a month.
One area that is still lacking in research I think on women is how many women painters/artists were not given their due when painting back in the early hundreds and even up to this day really. People seem to assume only men could be great painters.
I’m sure you can find that book at your library — maybe when your sister gets back, she can get it for you.
There’s an interesting and very well-written novel about the plight on women who might have been artists called ‘The Birth of Venus’ by Sarah Dunant.
And if you’ve never read anything about Artemisia Gentileschi, I’ve can strongly recommend ‘Artemisia’ by Alexandra Lapierre, which is a combination novel and biography.
Hey Chocolate Ink, this essay by Linda Nochlin, Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists? might interest you. I’m not sure if that link reproduces the entire essay or just a big selection, but it’s worth the read either way.
Thanks Indy, that was a good read and another I had to save.
The Obstacle Race by Germaine Greer is well worth checking out on women artists. And you have to love the guerilla girls.
If I can do Orleans and Katrina, you can surely find your niche here.
What you have done with Katrina and New Orleans is a testament to your drive, intelligence, and passion. I know myself too well to think that I could match that but if I can prompt a little old style consciousness-raising, I’ll be happy.
BTW, this weekend I spent some time with one of my oldest friends who is a chair of a department at Loyola of New Orleans. The school is opening up this January and 96% of the senior majors, 85% of the juniors, 72% of the sophomores, and an amazing 62% of the freshman have registered. She is feeling guardedly optimistic for the first time.
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issue on gender equality in Japan – my diary ::
Koizumi’s Gender Equality ¶ Female Re-challenge Plan
I’ll cross-post diary @EuroTrib to get comments from our European counterparts …
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
Thanks for the additional links and the cross-posting.
It’s very telling that Japan with its very traditional outlook should make be making this kind of effort at the same time the U.S. government is at best indifferent and at worst actively hostile.
Yay, thanks for a links roundup, Andi.
I suppose this is a good place for me to apologize for not having yet created more feminist content for the site after promising to do so. I have drafted a few pieces, but then due to the disability found myself (as per usual) with a minor infection taking a major toll on the body and in need of some dental surgery (which I’ve been putting off until after the new year). The very worst part of my illness from my pov is that it steals my ability to write very well. I tolerate the pain and the fear and the deterioration much better than I’d have guessed, but the drastic impact on my ability to write is…fucked up.
I discovered, too, that doing feminist diaries was more emotional for me than I had anticipated. I like a friendly debate most of the time, it exercises my thinking and I always learn something, but there’s far more hostility against feminism & feminists in liberal circles than I’d realized, and that cuts deeply. Still, as frequently as my health allows it, I intend to put up feminist essays.
Whatever you can do will be fine. If you can’t do it, it will be fine as well. But one thing you might want to consider is cutting yourself some slack — I know a perfectionist when I see one and I know you don’t want to put up anything that is less than your best. Even something that you think of as second-rate or incomplete is going to be a real benefit to the site.
Yes, I am guilty of perfectionism when it comes to my writing, without a doubt. Anal, compulsive, demanding, obsessive.
Part of the thing for me is the responsibility. I negotiate very strangely with responsibility. How this relates to feminism and particularly feminist writing is that I recognize an awesome kind of responsibility in even calling one’s self a feminist — by which I mean, there is this huge loaded ball of “stuff” that the label represents on a meta-level, and that representation (like all representations) eventually moves into the material world and affects real people, real bodies, real lives in dramatic ways. More simply put: The more hostility there is against feminism, the harder real women’s lives become, and usually the least powerful women pay the biggest prices. I never forget this for a second.
But I do have an essay about normalization put kinda halfway together, maybe I can work it up well enough to post it in the next week or so and see where the conversation goes.
Your last diary was so great and the discussions in it were very good. You are right though how much hostility there still is around about just the word feminism itself…I also just tend to get pissed off in general anytime I start discussing or talking about feminism just due to the overall stupidity and injustice that women had to endure and still have to put up with far far to often.
Like you I can usually post here when I’m in pain(or with more help from pain pills) but when the fatigue that really can’t be described hits I can’t fuction and can barely remember how to spell my own name.
Thanks Chocolate Ink. I always appreciate your writing, your readership, and your feedback — and especially so because I know you and I share a kind of understanding about moving with disability that is really hard for other people to get their heads around since they lack the experience.
Which concept relates to feminism! It can be very hard for people with privilege to understand how hard it is for people without that privilege, or for people who are forced to give up equal rights in order that others may continue to keep their privilege. It seems impossible that they should not understand why some of us are so angry, but some of them really don’t get it, and all they see is the anger, to which they respond with their own hostility, and then before you know it, we’re all in a big fight and no one’s getting any more equality out of the deal.
And before someone else misinterprets me, I don’t mean to suggest that we should make nice with anti-feminists, all I’m saying is that the nature of the subject matter makes it hard to have productive discussions without lots of fights, or achieve results in the material world without lots of pain. Equality is always such a tough struggle to be in.
I’ve had a simmering anger just below the surface for to many years to count about how little the strides we’ve made towards equality-and I’m not just talking about women either. And as far as equality for the disabled..hahaha. Many times I think the biggest problem is so many people simply don’t believe women aren’t equal..that we’ve ‘got’ everything we wanted with the last feminist movement..yeah right.
Talking about people not understanding(anyone disabled) is just unfortunately so common. One lady I knew(manager of where I lived last)was actually very nice and would come down and get my rent check when I couldn’t even walk to her apt….but one day she was saying that she just couldn’t imagine not being able to get out and that she would just have to make herself do so..then she got very very sick and to make a long story short ended up spending over a year in her apt. basically and as she told me she of course didn’t mind cause she felt to bad to even think about getting out. Ding, ding ding!
Think this post is a bit disjointed but I’m hitting post anyway.
::nods vigorously::
One of the analogies I used in the draft of the normalization diary I’ve been working on was a comparison to air & breathing. Is it tacky to quote myself before I’ve even posted it? π
For instance, how often do you notice the air? Chances are, you notice it most often when the wind blows or when it smells funny or when you can’t get enough air — in other words, when there’s a disturbance in the thing we take for granted. Whatever has been normalized is hard to notice for that same reason, and even harder to talk about because there’s so much resistance to the idea that a big chunk of the species constantly struggles to get enough air when the other portion looks around and goes, “Hey, there’s air everywhere, we don’t know wtf y’all are talking about, you must be hysterical. If you can’t get enough air, it must be your own fault, or just the way you’re made or something.”
And this is the kind of thing that is said at the same time that the truly privileged portion of the species (regardless of sex) has its hands over the faces of the underprivileged portion, blocking their mouths and clamping their noses shut. But no one notices that, because it’s “normal”.
This will certainly mark me with certain folks here but I like being angry. Being angry means that I’ve still got enough passion and concern and connection to care that the world and people aren’t what they ought to be. I don’t believe in trying to tamp down my anger or argue it away or cure it — I do work to manage and master it but the day I stop being angry will be the day I decide to give up, crawl into my burrow, and hibernate my life away.
Fwiw, I see anger like pretty much everything else — it can be a tool or a weapon depending on how you hold it/use it. I think there are both constructive and destructive forms of just about every expression, and part of my life is learning when which approach is most effective to whatever my goal is about.
for me — it’s more like a fuel and I control the engine.
I agree completely..anger can fuel our passion for justice and equality in a good way..if we weren’t angry, we wouldn’t be out trying to do something to change things. Anger becomes bad when used in the wrong way-like blowing up a family planning clinic.
And suppressing anger only leads to more problems..that doesn’t mean everyone should be a raving lunatic all the time but use their anger wisely-it can be done.
“meant to be” feminists π
((((Andi))))) and all you wonderful people who are showing us what it really means so that it truly includes all women π
Many, many thanks for this post, Andi, as well as meaningful links.
Compared to years past, I have far less time & inclination to mine pertinent information/commentary OL & therefore check in primarily at BooMan these days, primarily because of the nature of the community itself.
So the expanding presence of a feminist viewpoint at this site in particular is especially valuable to me. I fully plan on making what worthy contributions I can.
I’ve been really glad that you decided to join Boo and I’ve no doubt that any contributions you make will be quite worthwhile. I suspect you can provide some interesting insights into being a woman who lives a very independent life.
I think I’ll probably do this on bi-weekly or weekly basis for awhile and see how it goes.
Needless to say, I’m very pleased to be here & I thank you for your warm welcoming!
It’s wonderful to hear that you plan on a series of posts regarding feminist concerns. I’m all for it.
Sure, I s’pose I can offer some insights into my situation in terms of a solitary existence by choice. I tend not to think of myself as living independently, however, reliant as I am on supportive family, community & environment.
Great idea andi…and to see just how far we’ve come everyone can read the 3 quotes Boo put up on the front page-of mediamatters outrageous quotes of 2005. Think that simmering anger just exploded especially at the last quote from Boortz…fucken prickhead.
A very interesting compilation of links. Recommended.
Thanks for posting this great set of links – and for the other links and recommends of the various people above. Though I’ve been trying to stay off the computer this week to make some big decisions, you got me with this.
You want to know what it was like?
Go see the movie “North Country”. It’s on its way out, probably available on DVD soon. It’s about a woman who was one of the first few women to break into the mining industry in Northern Minnesota.
I saw it tonight — and didnt’ predict the effect it would have on me. You see, I broke into TWO industries as one of the first women working in a group of men. You can kind of sugar-coat it in your mememory, until you see it up close and personal on the screen.
The first one was a cannery, a gosh-darned cannery. It was a little slice of hell. I wrote a ton about it for another online group recently. When I started there was “women’s work” and “men’s work” and then some women won a class-action suit, and they started promoting women “off the line”, and into the “men’s jobs”. The work was grueling unless you were built like an Amazon (I’m thin), and the discrimination was unrelenting. 12-hour days, 7 days, back-breaking labor.
I have to say the movie took me back. It took me aback, too, because I’d whitewashed part of it in my memory.
You may have heard about those times, and thought it was “annoying” to have the men acting as a group to keep women from advancing in “men’s work”. But you see it there on the screen, the raw hate, the (sorry) sick effort the guys put into banding together to harass the women… that’s what it was like.
They did a danged good job with that movie. I’m glad they took it out of the pages of a book and put it on the screen, so that part of history can be seen.
I admit that I wanted to stand up in the theatre and yell, “I did that. I broke into two industries the way those women did.” (The second was as a machinist.)
I wouldn’t do it again for all the money in the world, twice was enough for any one life, but by gosh, I did it.
http://northcountrymovie.warnerbros.com
Thanks for the mention of the movie and even more for your memories. It’s important to share them with people who haven’t had those experiences and who think that what happened to a lot of women a something that happened ‘once upon a time in a land far, far away’ instead of something that is a searing part of our lives.
I too remember those days, both from working for civil right agency and from my own personal experience.
In the 70’s, I was the only non-clerical woman in a large department of a Fortune 500 manufacturing company whose corporate culture was macho management. The men I worked with knew that they couldn’t openly harass me but they knew only too well how to make my work difficult and the environment unpleasant. My favorite moment was when a 6’5″ engineer told me (5’2″) that I was “too intimidating.”
You might be interested in a diary I did called “Feminist Story Hour” on how events in the 1960’s made me a feminist and in which other people shared their stories.
Thank you very much for your post here. As much as I would like to see the movie I really don’t know if I’ll be able to. I still have too much anger at how things were then and how they still are today and seeing it in a movie would probably tie me up in knots for weeks. In fact I know it would because just reading reviews and seeing previews did that to me.
I don’t think my post is conveying really what I want to say to you-and all the women who had to go through the sorry and sick crap as you say but I’m glad you’re here to write about it.
I sorry also that so many young girls-even women in their 30’s or so- don’t seem to realize what so many women went through just a few short years ago really and take for granted what ‘rights’ they do have now.
That’s really why I wanted to stand up and say something. So the people there would know, it wasn’t just these gals, it was people in your life today — people in this theatre.
My aunt tells me it was worse when she was a secretary at an aircraft plant during WWII. She says the men would grab body parts while they were at work, get one on either side of them and do that. She also said while dating there were a few times she thought she was fighting for her life. (To keep from being attacked.)
Great links, Andi. Thanks.
Reading the one about Chinese girls. . .it doesn’t seem to me that stopping more abortions of girl babies is going to help much. It probably only means that girls will be killed later instead of earlier, the unwanted ones who aren’t killed will be abused, or they will be abandoned, and the article says a half a million of them get abandoned every year even now.
It was news to me that there is now a traffic in selling girl babies to the parents of boy babies so their sons are guaranteed wives in the future.
There have been some interesting articles (none of which I can find at the moment) which discuss the long-term potential for a very disruptive societal impact in both China and India from the bad ratio of boys to girls.
I’ve read that even now there are entire small villages in China composed of nothing but young men. Can you even think of a scenario that’s riper for trouble?
they may have destroyed the idea that “all boys is good”.
How about that?
OTOH, if the boys retain that belief re their own offspring (should they figure out how to have any), that’s really quite astonishing.