Belated Weekend Roundup Roundup

Apologies, I've been trying to sleep away a headcold. Here's some other people's roundups of recommended reading this week.

Feministing's Weekly Feminist Reader

Carnival of Radical Feminists - this is a bit later than planned, because Heart put so much work into setting the stage for what radfem is and isn't and what radfems have achieved as she introduces the festival. Some thoughtprovoking reading about Women as a Colonized People, with specific areas of colonization highlighted. You don't have to agree with every aspect of radfem theory to find the posts here highly valuable.

Lauren (Faux Real Tho): Things Your Mother Guilt Trips You Into Reading

Last week I missed the 22nd Carnival Against Sexual Violence and for a broader view of anti-oppression writing and activism, Blogging Against Disablism.

Feel free to use this post as an Open Mothers' Day reading thread as well - any posts about Mothers' Day that have a feminist or anti-feminist slant you want to highlight, leave a link in comments, please.

Weekly Online Reader

The round-up of Roundups.

Ariella Drake: Anti-Oppression Roundup

Kate Harding: Stuff to Read

Of course, the 37th Carnival of Feminists at KitKats Critique and the 1st Carnival of Radical Feminists will be up any minute now at Womens Space/The Margins.

Great resource

Second Wave and Beyond - I just discovered this while following some other links.

The "Second Wave" and Beyond scholarly community, launched in 2006, is an innovative form of electronic communication and research that brings together feminist thinkers, scholars and activists, to analyze compelling questions about feminist activism and theories, define new directions for historical research on this period, and provide a new venue for publishing traditional articles but also for writing and recording this history in ways made possible by the medium of online publication.

There's several links to lists of recommended reading at their Teaching and Research Resources page, which I'm just about to add to the Recommended Reading post from last week.

A New Feminist Festival

Way down on the sidebar are links to current blog-festivals that feature feminist issues. There's a new one going on the list:

Carnival of Radical Feminists - May 2, 2007 edition

Host blog
¤ Women's Space/The Margins
Scheduled for
¤ May 2, 2007
Submission deadline
¤ Apr 29, 2007 23:59:02 -1200
Description
¤ Carnivals of Radical Feminists will consistently include the best of the previous month's blog posts on topics of interest to radical feminists.

Weekly Online Reader

I'm going to aim to do this every week, anyway. A roundup of other people's roundups.

Pen-Elayne has a great roundup.

Carnival of the Feminists #36 has been put together by Belledame, and it's a monster:

[ Part One ] [ Part Two ] [ Part Three ]

Please do add other roundups or notable posts from the last few weeks in the comments thread.

Updated to add: May's edition of JANE has put together a comprehensive feature promoting physical and emotional breast health, in response to a reader survey indicating that 75% of their readers were unhappy with their breasts.
Online: “The JANE Guide to Breast Health”

.
Socialize:   del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Squidoo | Technorati

FAQ: What can I do for feminism?

Object to any speech or action which demeans, constrains and/or harms women, whether you know the women concerned personally or not.

Do not accept that there is a "war between the sexes" and challenge anyone who assumes that there is and that it is natural.

Do not accept that "men just can't help being X" wherever X is something that women are complaining about as demeaning or harmful to women (or gender roles that are constraining, demeaning and harmful to men).

If you are a pro-feminist man, this is especially important, because when you don't object:

"You are missing an opportunity to help stop the bad guys.

You’re missing an opportunity to stop the real misogynists, the fucking sickos, the ones who really, truly hate women just for being women. The ones whose ranks you do not belong to and never would. The ones who might hurt women you love in the future, or might have already.

‘Cause the thing is, you and the guys you hang out with may not really mean anything by it when you talk about crazy bitches and dumb sluts and heh-heh-I’d-hit-that and you just can’t reason with them and you can’t live with ‘em can’t shoot ‘em and she’s obviously only dressed like that because she wants to get laid and if they can’t stand the heat they should get out of the kitchen and if they can’t play by the rules they don’t belong here and if they can’t take a little teasing they should quit and heh heh they’re only good for fucking and cleaning and they’re not fit to be leaders and they’re too emotional to run a business and they just want to get their hands on our money and if they’d just stop overreacting and telling themselves they’re victims they’d realize they actually have all the power in this society and white men aren’t even allowed to do anything anymore and and and…

I get that you don’t really mean that shit. I get that you’re just talking out your ass.

But please listen, and please trust me on this one: you have probably, at some point in your life, engaged in that kind of talk with a man who really, truly hates women–to the extent of having beaten and/or raped at least one. And you probably didn’t know which one he was.

And that guy? Thought you were on his side.

As long as we live in a culture where the good guys sometimes sound just like the misogynists, the misogynists are never going to get the message that they are not normal and that most people–strong, successful men included–do not hate women.

Kate Harding: On being a no-name blogger using her real name

What else can we do for feminism?

.
Socialize:   del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Squidoo | Technorati

FAQ: what do you mean by "Not my Nigel"? (feminist abbreviations/jargon)

Updated 03May07

Like any other field of debate and controversy, a lot of issues and positions in feminism end up being discussed so often that they are abbreviated for convenience into acronyms, initialisms and shorthand phrases that make up a jargon.

"Not my Nigel" is shorthand for the common reaction of many women to feminist observations and explanations of sexist activity and sexist motivations i.e. "Not my Nigel! He'd never do anything like that" or more invidiously "well sure, my Nigel says/does that but he doesn't mean any harm by it".
(The feminist response is that truly one has no idea what sexist activities one's Nigel engages in when performing manliness to impress other men (you think all those gropers and harassers tell their wives/mothers/sisters what they do?) and that not meaning any harm because "boys will be boys" is exactly the root of the problem.)

Below are a few common abbreviations/jargon terms. There's a more formal academic list of terms at Feminist Lexicon, and you may find some of the differences/distinctions between their entries and this list instructive (for more on differences/distinctions see the Feminisms FAQ).

Descriptive:

first-/second-/third-wave - different periods of feminist activism with different priorities. An Anglo-Americocentric description of feminist history, although largely generalisable.
First wave feminism : the advocacy of basic legal (de jure) equality: suffragists, property inheritance and contractual agency rights. Historically a movement for wives of the propertied classes, but a broader movement today in those countries where women are still denied de jure equality.
Second wave feminism : working for the implementation/enforcement of de jure equalities but also concerned with de facto (unofficial) inequalities: finding the political in the personal and fighting for changes in long-standing sexist prejudices and traditions - socioeconomic equality not just legal equality, and for more than just the propertied classes.
Third wave feminism: a challenge to essentialist views of femininity (as biologically reductive) and feminisms (as homogenously directed) combined with an emphasis on the intersectionality of oppressions.
MRA - male rights activist (an extreme masculinist example)
patriarchy - one of the most misunderstood critical-theory concepts ever, often wilfully misunderstood. Patriarchy is an ancient and ongoing social system based on traditions of elitism (a hierarchy of inferiorities), privilege and the subjugation of women via strict gender expectations which constrain individualist expressions. Some societies are more patriarchal than others, but patriarchal social traditions are universal in human societies. [more in the Patriarchy FAQ]
"the personal is political" - a radical 1960's concept that there is a politics of sex/gender based on power relationships in families, and that describing family power imbalances as "personal" was simply dismissive and condescending. First cited in an essay by Carol Hahnisch in 1970 defending consciousness-raising from charges that it was merely "therapy": Hanisch states "One of the first things we discover in these groups is that personal problems are political problems. There are no personal solutions at this time."(the term has since been adopted by other protest movements).
PHMT - Patriarchy Hurts Men Too. Men are also constrained from full individualist expression by strict gender expectations. (Corollary: FBMT - Feminism benefits men too - thanks Helen)
privilege - advantages that some groups have over others in the social hierarchy. Some privileges are situational and temporary (parent over child, employer over employee) and serve a pragmatic social purpose but other privileges are societal and traditional and serve to perpetuate elitism. Some elitist privileges are de jure (e.g. South African racial apartheid, rules against the ordination of women as priests) but most are de facto (informal discrimination against "others" in the workplace, education, financial transactions (e.g. exclusionary "mates' rates") and social recognition/reward). [more in the Male Privilege FAQ]
radfem - radical feminist
rape culture - a constellation of behaviours and attitudes embedded into patriarchal society. These attitudes, socialised from birth and often wielded unconsciously, enable and encourage the subordination of women by maintaining a environment that is pervasively hostile and threatening to women. The behaviours include a spectrum of acts which function to keep women in an object role and perpetuate their fear. They include (but are not limited to) certain aspects of "chivalry", victim-blaming, leering, intimidation, sexual harrassment and coercion, domestic violence, assault and rape. (defn from lauredhel) [more: Biting Beaver]
sex-pos - sex-positive feminist
strawfeminist - a false construction, created to scare people away from the juicy crops of equality, equity and the end of female subjugation (See "strawman fallacy" and our "spot the strawfeminist" category)

Disparaging:

empowerful: used to reveal how sexist marketing appropriates "empowerment" in order to persuade women into yet more sexual displays for male titillation [Twisty's post coining the term]
godbag - religious authoritarian, theocrat (not used to describe tolerant believers who respect the rights of others to make their own choices)
"I'm not a feminist, but" - a common utterance by those who notice and are disturbed by instances of sexism, and totally agree that something should be done to combat such sexism, if only they could argue against such sexism without perhaps being mistaken for one of those humourless, hairylegged, manhating feminists. (i.e. folks who have been intimidated by the strawfeminists(see above)). Often women who disdain feminism while describing the benefits of feminist-earned rights to work, child care, education, vote etc as "basic rights".
“Nice Guys™” - There are two types, which often overlap in one individual:
1.a guy who believes that the simple act of being decent means that the universe owes him a girlfriend.[defn from Mickle]
2. men who are looking to date a woman with the appearance of a supermodel, and yet they continually whine about how "women don't like nice guys - they only want good-looking assholes" [source] [more at the NiceGuy archive at Heartless Bitches International]
pornulated/-acious - extremely sexualised women's fashions, usually uncomfortable and impractical as well as emphasising the vulnerable flesh of female secondary sexual characteristics.
PUA - Pick Up Artist. Sexual predator as serial scorekeeping seducer. [link from theriomorph] The goal of PUA as a sport is to defeat the minds so inconveniently attached to ladybits rather than treat women as people who could enjoy sexual fun together with egalitarian men. A growing movement designed to persuade both men and women that this reduction of gender relations to a hunt for sex is a reasonable and sane model for human interaction.

The list could go on and on, and that's where you, dear readers, come in. Please add more abbreviations/jargon in the comments of terms you've had to explain most often, or requests for explanations of abbreviations/jargonisms that have been puzzling you. (Update: thanks for all the suggestions so far!)

.
Socialize: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Squidoo | Technorati

Some art for the holidays

Artkrush features Feminist Art

The latest issue of Artkrush, which is available online now, explores contemporary feminist art from around the globe. Artkrush #55 features a survey of the Global Feminisms exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum and an in-depth interview with Cornelia Butler, curator or WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. We also profile multimedia artist A.L. Steiner and review a new monograph of provocateur Tracey Emin. The issue includes reviews of exhibitions by Monica Bonvicini and Cerith Wyn Evans as well as a mix of news and other international exhibition reviews.

Check it out at http://www.artkrush.com/mailer/issue55

Thanks to Artkrush Editor Paul Laster for sending me the announcement.

To mailing list, or not to mailing list?

On a previous post, it was suggested that some people might find discussions on blogs more difficult to join in than discussions in a Vbulletin or a mailing list format. It made me realise that some folks these days might easily come to blogs as discussion forums without ever having been introduced to good old fashioned mailing lists ever (I've never been into V-bulletins, but I know mailing lists).

One of the advantages of mailing lists is that they are text-only, so that if you are in a region without broadband access you can download the discussions quickly to your email folder. Or for those who'd rather not have the emails on their own computers, if you use a yahoo or gmail address for the mailing list subscription then you can read the mails on the web without having to clutter up your inbox at all. The lists are subscriber only, and moderated, so with little effort they can be kept troll-free.

I'm very happy to set up a FF101 mailing list associated with my personal domain, to which any regular blogger or commentor with a feminist outlook is welcome to subscribe. It could be a useful backup for bloggers in discussing certain thoughts and concerns about interacting and communicating effectively in the more public forums of blogs.

So, I'd like to gauge the level of interest. Anybody?

FAQ: I've got nothing against equal rights for women, but we've got that, so isn't feminism nowadays just going too far ?

aka "Why do we still need feminism?" (see "Does feminism matter?")

This question is based on several misconceptions.
1. Even if women in your part of the world do have legal equality, what about women elsewhere? Feminists who fight for the rights of other women to have what they already have are justified in doing so.
2. Simple, basic legal equality regarding the right to own property, sign contracts or vote does not always translate into social equality in work, the community or the home. Feminists who point out residual cultural traditions and reactionary business practises that disproportionately disadvantage women are not making it up (see FAQs on Patriarchy, Gender Gap and Objectification).

This FAQ is mostly clarifying-concepts rather than introductory. If you haven't read any of the basic level FAQ posts (See FAQ roundup here) then I suggest you start with some of those before reading these posts.

I've been seeing a lot of "Why we still need feminism" posts around lately. Here's a few I've found powerful. Please add links to other posts on the same theme that I've overlooked in comments.

Natasha Walter (orig. in The Guardian): We Still Need Feminism

The suggestion is constantly put out that women must be "free" to choose their own way of life, even if it is clear that many women whose choices are shaped by discriminatory workplaces and poor childcare provision do not feel very free at all. Indeed, even if few people choose to identify themselves as feminists, it is hard to find a young woman who would not sign up to the feminist goals that are meant to be so outdated, such as being treated equally at work and being able to share family responsibilities with their husbands. But even if the desire for equality remains, it is still unmet.

Rad Geek (Rad Geek People's Daily): Atrocious Dating Violence Against Young Women: We Still Need Feminism

If anyone asks you why we still need an organized, agitating feminist movement, tell them to think of five women they know. Ask them whether they want one of those five women to be tortured by someone she should be able [to] trust. If the answer is no, we still need feminism.

Mr Shakes (Shakesville): Feminism benefits us all

Men need to get it through their heads that they, too, are under the heel of power structures that have no interest in promoting their welfare. They must understand that the rights and privileges that they have hitherto been enjoying fall far short of the privileges they could enjoy were they to try and achieve them. The internecine warfare that occurs between women and men, people of color and white people, straights and gays, as they all squabble like schoolchildren in an attempt to gain or deny rights, is exactly what those in power want.

Aunt B.(Tiny Cat Pants): Remedial Feminism

Does Ivy hate men and want to mock and belittle them at every turn? No.

Ivy wants to be able to walk into McDonald’s and get for her daughter a toy without it turning into a lesson in how either 1. Boys get all the cool toys and girls have to learn how to put up with shit. Or 2. Because you’re a girl, you usually only deserve the girl toy, which sucks, but because someone has pointed out that you are “exceptional,” you might be able to get the boy toy.

See how nothing about this has to do directly with boys? This isn’t an anecdote about boys. No one is suggesting that any boy should have to suffer or put up with a shit toy. There’s nothing in this story directly about boys.

(nb a lot of the attitude of the questioner for this FAQ overlaps with "I'm not a feminist, but...", which is a common utterance by those who notice and are disturbed by instances of sexism, and totally agree that something should be done to combat such sexism, if only they could argue against such sexism without perhaps being mistaken for one of those humourless, hairylegged, manhating feminists)

.
Socialize: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Squidoo | Technorati

Feminism Friday: Young Feminists

What with the continually alleged "death of feminism" in this "post-feminist" age, how are young women finding their way into feminism going about it? Particularly those who are not going to tertiary education facilities that offer a Women's Studies Course?

How did those of us who are not so young find our way into feminism? How were we helped/hindered by family and friends?

I had a father who encouraged me to read Germaine Greer and Betty Friedan and always pay my own way on dates at the same time as he refused to agree to my mother returning to full-time work until my 6-years younger sister was in secondary school, and who thought that making a big deal about complimenting me on my body in front of his mates was OK. My mother resented being held back from working after having kids but also expressed doubt about a lot of the Women's Lib (as it was referred to at the time) agenda. Most of my school-friends thought my feminist beliefs were at the simplest (votes, equal pay) obvious and at the more anthropological (dating rituals, sexist language) weird. Mixed messages.

I never studied Women's Studies or feminist theory at a tertiary education level - I've just read a lot of books and made a lot of feminist friends over the years, some of whom have formally studied feminist theory and some of whom, like me, have read a lot and thought a lot about it outside college/uni. Different paths.

So what are young feminists doing for themselves to make sense of feminism here and now?

I just found one young feminist online community linking to this blog in my sitemeter stats: the All-Girl Army, whose tagline is Ovathrow the status quo! which I love. They're a community of feminist bloggers ranging from age 10 to 23, which is far younger than the feminists online whom I usually read. Check it out.

Any other young feminists (let's make an arbitrary cut-off of age 25) wanting to promote their online and/or offline communities/activities please leave a comment about yourselves! The rest of you, please reminisce about the feminist or proto-feminist you aged 25 or under.

.
Socialize: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Squidoo | Technorati

Saturday Retrospective: early feminist writings

Please feel free to leave comments quoting your favourite excerpts from these and why they speak to you.

A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) by Mary Wollestonecraft
With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects

It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion, that they were created rather to feel than reason, and that all the power they obtain, must be obtained by their charms and weakness.

On the Subjection of Women (1869) by John Stuart Mill (and probably Harriet Taylor Mill)
An essay partnering Mill's "On Liberty", an analysis on utilitarian philosophical grounds.

That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes--the legal subordination of one sex to the other--is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.

NB: It's an interesting example of the US-centricity of the internet that my first searches on "early feminist writing" were all links to writers from the Second Wave of Feminism, the US Women's Liberation Movement in the 1960s-70s. Great writings, but not that early, to me. These much earlier writings, written in measured, stately language to counter the stereotype of women as overly emotive and unable to reason, are an excellent source for the philosophical fundamentals.

Socialize:   del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Squidoo | Technorati

FAQ: What can feminism do for me?

Updated 16Mar07

1. You will find that you are not alone in thinking something is disturbing and unjust with the way that society deals with gender.

my first encounter with feminist writing reassured me that i wasn't insane, and that amongst other things, it was in fact normal to be bothered by violence and misogyny.

[m. (sthreeling): 5 things feminism has done for me]

This is one of a series of testimonials from bloggers via a meme on feminism. Find more of these testimonials using this Google search string "5 things feminism has done for you"
(If you want your own feminist testimonial to show up on that search, write a post using the quoted words in the post-body)

2. You will find ways to actively work for reform, both singly and collectively.

Organisations:
Global
Association for Women's Rights in Development
Global Fund for Women
UNIFEM: United Nations Development Fund for Women
UN: Womenwatch
Global List of Women's Organisations

National/ethnic: (alphabetical order)

Australia
Emily's List
National Foundation for Australian Women
Govt: Office of the Status of Women
Women on Boards
Women's Electoral Lobby

India
India Women's Organisations (Names and contact details, no websites)

New Zealand
Auckland Women's Centre
Govt. Ministry of Women's Affairs
NZ Women's Centre's Directory

United Kingdom
Emily's List
The Fawcett Society
Older Feminists' Network
Women Against Rape

United States of America
Emily's List
Feminist Majority Foundation
National Organisation of Women
Radical Women
The WISH list
List of many other US women's organisations from feminism.eserver.org

Feed the FAQ! Links to national directories of women's activist organisations for other countries, please! (Or if someone knows an existing international directory that I've missed, even better)


Socialize: del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Squidoo | Technorati

FAQ: Does feminism matter?

Updated 22Mar07

Hell yes.

1. Society deals with gender in a way that, on balance, harms women.
2. This is a problem that must be corrected.

[yami (Green Gabbro): Feminisms]

Related reading:
All FAQ articles below have links to further reading on other sites

Harm to women:
FAQ:Isn't feminism just playing "victim" politics?

Gender inequity:
FAQ:What is male privilege?
FAQ: What is the "Gender Gap"?

Clarifying Concepts

Feminist Theory in Liberal Arts Courses
What is Feminism (and why do we have to talk about it so much)?


Socialize:   del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Squidoo | Technorati

FAQ: What do feminists want?

To end the perpetuation of gender expectations that, on balance, harm women.

To explain the many ways that sexist stereotypes, double standards, and oppressions harm women generally is beyond the scope of this introductory post, but the reading below should give you some starting links.

Related:
What is feminism?
What is male privilege?
What is the "Gender Gap"?
Isn't feminism just "victim" politics?

FAQ: why do some people talk of "feminisms"?

Most recently updated 17 March 2007

Because, as was said back on the What is a feminist? and Why are there so many fights between feminists? posts, Feminism is not a monolith.

From the soc.feminism Terminologies FAQ compiled in 1993 by Cindy Tittle Moore, here is a following non-exhaustive list of feminisms (read fuller descriptions at the given link to clarify concepts). Some of the following groups are very small compared to the major strands of modern feminism:

Feminisms
Amazon Feminism
Anarcho-Feminism
Cultural Feminism
Erotic Feminism
Eco-Feminism
'Feminazi' **
Feminism and Women of Color
Individualist, or Libertarian Feminism
Lesbianism *
Liberal Feminism
Marxist and Socialist Feminism
Material Feminism
Moderate Feminism
'pop-feminism' **
Radical Feminism
Separatists

There are important new movements not included in the list above, particularly the Radical Women of Colour movement and the many non-Western national/ethnic feminist movements, which have all been caught up in the single classification "Feminism and Women of Colour" above.

The Feminist eZine (LilithGallery): 1001 Feminist Links (just keep on scrolling, and then scroll some more)

Feminist Theory Website (choose English/Francais/Espanol on homepage): Different National/Ethic Feminisms - biased towards academia, but a good starting point for specific readings.

* Just as not all feminists are lesbians, not all lesbians are feminists. It's a "correlation, not causation" thing, and not an easily distinguished movement as such either.
** Essentially media inventions rather than meaningful classifications.

Men's Movements
From the same FAQ: "many of these movements were started in reaction to feminism: some inspired by and others in contra-reaction to it"

Feminist Men's Movement
Men's Liberation Movement
Mythopoetic Men's Movement
The New Traditionalists
The Father's Movements

The Father's Rights Movement has grown greatly since this FAQ was compiled, and is probably now the largest cohesive Men's Movement.

Further reading into the differing details of these movements will be added to this post as time allows. I especially apologise for the US-centricity of the list thus far, (and me an Aussie!) and hope to add more information on other feminisms around the world. (Update: national/ethnic feminist movement directory now added above) Feel free to leave links to distinctive voices characterising one or more of these movements in the comments.

Socialize:   del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Squidoo | Technorati

FAQ: What is feminism?

Updated 16Mar07

Introductory Essays

University of Montana Women's Center: a brief history of Western Feminism

International Women's Day: a brief history from the UN

Classic Quote

"I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute..."

--Rebecca West, The Clarion, 11/14/13

Sarah Bunting: Yes You Are

Clover Patch's FAQ

Sage (Persephone's Box): Feminism 101

Karen Healey (Girls Read Comics (And They're Pissed)): I'm not doing this twice

Classic quote:

"The reason racism is a feminist issue is easily explained by the inherent definition of feminism. Feminism is the political theory and practice to free all women: women of color, working-class women, poor women, physically challenged women, lesbians, old women --as well as white economically privileged heterosexual women. Anything less than this is not feminism, but merely female self-aggrandizement."

--Barbara Smith, 1979

Clarifying Concepts

Bitch PhD: Feminisms

The Happy Feminist: Feminism is not a monolith

yami: Feminisms

There are just two pieces of dogma in my feminist tent:

1. Society deals with gender in a way that, on balance, harms women.
2. This is a problem that must be corrected.

You’ll notice that they have nothing to do with: men, race, class, liberty, religion, teleology, biology, consumerism, violence, sex, or shoes. This is deliberate.

yami: Defining Feminism: Once More, with Feeling

Click on the category labels at the bottom of this post for more additions to the Introductory category in the future. There are more links to essays in the Clarifying Concepts category.

OK, this blog has been moribund long enough

I'm actually going to try and get this thing going again.

Rather than try and generate material specifically for this blog, I'm going to make it more of a link farm (with occasional calls to activism). Every now and then I might do a roundup of material that answers FAQs.

This week was International Women's Day and Blog Against Sexism Day (although all feminist bloggers know that every day is Blog Against Sexism Day) and there are some great posts out there, collected at the official site.

One of them was Sage's Feminism 101 FAQ, which inspired me to do something here again.

1. Why do feminists all disagree? Feminism isn’t a movement, it’s an argument!

We all want to raise the status of women to the level of men, to feel safe and respected, and to have a fair and equal chance for all our opinions to be heard. Since the movement is all about choice and the ability to make our own decision that affect us, then it’s necessarily going to be a group fraught with differences. We’re all making our own choices. That’s the commonality. Trying to actively be allowed these choices is the movement. Butting heads along the way from time to time is the reality.

Any time someone posts an essay that fits into a Feminism 101 framework, I'd like to link it here, which means that I need to know they're out there. It's fine to add them in comments, but to get the best boost from search engine spiders they need to be linked in a post.

Jill Filipovic and internet searches

This is a crosspost to effect a Googlebomb, correcting an injustice against a fellow feminist blogger.

Jill Filipovic, who blogs at Feministe and Ms. JD, is a NYU law student who has been the subject of cyber-obsession on a discussion board allegedly populated by law students. The discussions regarding Jill Filipovic (and many other female law students) are sexist and sexual in nature, rating the women's physical attractiveness and fantasising about sexual contact, both consensual and non-consensual. Neither Jill Filipovic or any other of these women contributed, or gave their permission to be discussed, to the discussion board in question.

Jill Filopovic's name and class routines etc have been regularly posted to this board, and at least one of the pseudonymous board-members claims to be Jill Filipovic's classmate. Photos that Jill Filipovic posted (with full rights reserved) to an interent photo-storing and sharing site have also been posted to the sleazy discussion board without her permission. This is a horrendous invasion of Jill Filipovic's privacy, a violation of copyright law, and calls the ethics and character of the alleged law-students participating in these discussions on the discussion board into question.

A major side-effect of an already nasty situation is that the sexist, objectifying cyber-obsession threads come up on the first page of internet search results on Jill Filipovic's name. To an inexperienced user of the internet, it may even look as if Jill Filipovic and other female law students chose to compete in these Hot or Not rating competitions, instead of having their pictures posted without permission.

This post is an attempt to balance those internet results to point to the significant writings of Jill Filipovic instead, using the Googlebomb tactic and also linking this post to social networking sites (eg. del.ici.ous, Stumbleupon). Please feel free to copy any or all of what I've written here to your own blog in order to help change the top-ranked search engine results for Jill Filipovic. If you don't have your own blog then please at least link to one of Jill's this post[s] listed below at your preferred social networking site and give it the tag "Filipovic" (as well as any others you think appropriate).

I have linked to these sites in this post:
Jill Filipovic's bio page at Feministe
Jill Filipovic's blog posts at the Ms. JD blog
Jill Filipovic's article about these scummy lawschool sleazebags at Feministe
Jill Filipovic's article at Ms. JD: When Law Student's Attack

If any of the other female law students stalked by the same sleazy site wish to copy this text with names altered, you hereby have my full permission to do so. All other rights reserved. (C) 2007 tigtog

Socialize:   del.icio.us | digg | reddit | Squidoo | Technorati