feminist blogs in english

Or "Dick Fingers."

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I wrote a few weeks ago about changing my name. Today was the first time I’ve had the chance to get to the courthouse. I completed the paperwork and paid my fee ($51). My court date is November 10. I’m not sure what to expect since I’ve read it’s a pretty simple process unless you’re wanted for a felony or are changing your name to something really odd. Since I’m just returning to a previously used name, I figure it falls under the “easy” category.

 

The form asked why I wanted to change my name. I wrote “philosophical desire to return to my maiden name.” That sounds a bit stuffy and “high-falutin’,” as my Papa would say, for what I’m doing. I just wish I’d never changed my name in deference to the patriarchy, but that’s a bit over the top - especially for Kentucky.

 

I’ll keep you, dear readers, updated about my name change. I hope my next report will be that as of November 10, I’m Brandi Brown in law again.

Echidne has this up at her blog and I had to post it here too coz it's so appropriate. I haven't heard it in awhile and it brought tears to my eyes:Sing it, sister.

From the archives:Happy Halloween!

               This is my first and only opportunity to post on this blog before Nov. 4, so I wanted to get my feminist two cents’ worth in on the election. 

 

                First of all, let me say this:   It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I’m not a big fan of Sarah Palin.  Aside from the fact that she is woefully unqualified to be Vice President  (or, God forbid, President),  I find her pretentious, abrasive, and artificial. 

 

                So I was intrigued when I read a commentary on Tuesday by CNN’s Campbell Brown entitled “Embracing Your Inner Diva” discussing the recent use of the term “diva” to describe Palin’s “rogue” behavior of going off message and ignoring her advisers.    

 

                Brown claims that the term “diva,” in this context, is sexist, and she insinuates that if Palin were a man her behavior would be admired rather than criticized.   I suppose most women would probably applaud another woman for being gutsy enough to stand up for herself, especially in an arena dominated by men.  But throughout this campaign, Palin has made a specific point of touting herself as a team player.  In fact, she’s been cheerleading the Republican brand ad nauseum with her “gosh-gee-whiz-I’m-just-one-a-you-real-Americans” shtick.  

 

                So why choose now, one week before the election, when her team is down in the polls, to do an about face and “go rogue?”   Is she trying to distance herself from a losing candidate because  she really does see herself as the next big Republican star?  If that’s the case, then it’s pretty safe to say that’s why she’s being referred to as a diva – because she’s actually acting like a diva. 

 

                Besides, aren’t all politicians divas?  Honestly, I think “diva” has begun to transcend association with gender and can be applied  to anyone who exhibits the characteristics related to it.  I know I’m perfectly comfortable with referring to either men or women who are difficult and demanding as divas, and I don’t find the application of the word to Sarah Palin’s recent behavior as sexist at all, especially if it’s an apt description.

 

                Both Sarah Palin and network commentators had better realize that Palin can’t have it both ways.  She can’t act like a diva and then cry “sexism” when she’s called a diva.

 

 

                    So, my two cents adds up to this:  Let’s call a spade a spade (or a diva a diva) regardless of its gender, and be concerned about situations where sexism is truly offensive rather than trying to force sexism into a situation where it doesn’t apply

                . 

 

 

 

Readers, I’d like to introduce you to Margaret Bail. She’s the newest member of the Reclamation Feminist team.

Margaret is a mom, writer, and feminist sharing her love of women’s issues with readers at ReclamationFeminist.com. Margaret is currently completing her bachelor’s degree in English/writing with hopes of continuing on to a Master of Fine Arts program in the near future.

Margaret is excited to be joining the ReclamationFeminist family where she hopes to not only contribute to a meaningful dialogue about feminist issues that affect all generations of women (and men), but also to learn from other feminists what issues are important to them.  

You may reach Margaret at Margaret@reclamationfeminist.com.

I could not stop listening to the news over the weekend, hoping that Julian King, son of Julia and nephew of Jennifer Hudson would turn up. I'm not sure anyone could be untouched by the tragic and senseless murders of a mother, a brother, and a child.

While the case is still inconclusive, the crime's presumable connection to "domestic violence" is a terrible reminder that many people--especially women--are murdered by people they know. While some are trying to make the Hudson tragedy a "black" issue or a consequence of living and dating "in the ghetto," intimate violence does not discriminate on the basis of color or class. To be sure, working class women may live in higher crime areas in general and may also have less access to counseling and police protection but unfortunately intimacy and violence are all-too-common bedfellows. If you just Google the cases of, mostly men, murdering their estranged wives and sometimes their children and other relatives too, you'll find quite a motley crew.

Will the high-profile nature of this case increase awareness? I'm not sure. But I do know that women and men must continue to form coalitions against violence in all of our families and neighborhoods. If there is any defense against such inscrutable crimes, it will have to be a collective effort.

I am teaching a class at work for the second time in a month, and it's causing me to really worry about those who are behind the tech gap and their collective chance of catching up.

It's a pretty basic class we call Windows OS: Beyond the Basics. There's a lot of theory talk about how file structures can be arranged, and how to work with directories and files, how Windows is designed, and how the internet works. Our audience are mostly low-income adults who are either unemployed or underemployed. Mostly people who were not exposed to computers within any sort of educational institution who are now finding themselves in need of basic computer skills.

The challenge I am seeing in the near future is that computers are no longer emulating real life. In the beginning, it seemed that graphical user interfaces did their best to make it easy for computer instructors to draw parallels between how a computer works with data and how we work with data in our real lives. The entire windows operating system, with its "desktop" and it's "folders" and "files" was ripe for analogy, and easily explainable even to the most rudimentary user.

However, it seems that designers, programmers, and engineers have been moving away from those reality-driven constructs and instead have begun to focus on creating interfaces that are intuitive only to those who are already participating in technology - further distancing the techno-illiterate.

Office 2007 is a good example of this. I have been using Microsoft Office products for at least the last 20 years of my life. When I sat down to use Excel 2007, I was somewhat taken aback. I had to search for things, nothing was intuitive, and it took some getting used to. I am a somewhat savvy tech user, so I was able to just sit there and figure it out. In fact, once I had figured out some of the major navigational differences, a lot of the changes seemed even ingenious to me. They made the interface more usable, even though it was less user friendly.

The problem with this, though, is that nothing in Office 2007 is linear. Just about everything is context-driven, and I am having a difficult time figuring out how we are going to teach our clients how to find things. It's possible I am underestimating our clients and our instructors, but that's not really the only example of how changes in technology are causing things to be more difficult to explain to the techno-illiterate.

As I am explaining how to organize information on various storage media, clients identify very strongly with the file cabinet analogy. We create folders withing folders withing folders, and store our files in those folders. This analogy is a simple one to grasp, but the way the windows os stores files now is not necessarily the way they will be stored in the near future. I can see operating systems moving more and more towards the label/tag approach, such as how emails are organized in gmail, to reduce redundancy and increase the efficiency. But how do you explain labels to folks who are just beginning to grasp the many and varied ways in which data is structured, ordered and rearranged. There is not tangible, real-life equivalent to applying a tag or label to a document and being able to filter information based on those tags or labels.

Technology is quickly stepping out of the bounds of reality. In many respects, this is increasing efficiency as well as proliferating possibility. We are no longer bound by hard-copy examples to dictate how we treat soft data. However, if we are not careful about educating our techno-illiterate populations, we risk creating an insurmountable barrier which becomes exponentially moreso with each interface upgrade.

ReclamationFeminist.com is the organizing party for Unfinished Business: What�??s Next for Women in Kentucky, a symposium planned for March 2009. Selected presenters will give 10-15 talks about their view of an important issue for women in Kentucky and how that issue can be addressed. Our hope is that the proposals can lead to discussions and ultimately action to better the lives of Kentucky women.

 

Unfinished Business will be held in Frankfort with the exact hours determined depending on the number of participants. We invite members of academic communities, nonprofit organizations, students, and any other people with an interest in the trajectory of women�??s rights in Kentucky to submit a proposal for consideration.

 

Feel free to email me at brandi@reclamationfeminist.com with any questions or to submit a proposal electronically.

 

symposiumguidelines

unfinished-business-entry-form

ReclamationFeminist.com is the organizing party for Unfinished Business: What’s Next for Women in Kentucky, a symposium planned for March 2009. Selected presenters will give 10-15 talks about their view of an important issue for women in Kentucky and how that issue can be addressed. Our hope is that the proposals can lead to discussions and ultimately action to better the lives of Kentucky women.

 

Unfinished Business will be held in Frankfort with the exact hours determined depending on the number of participants. We invite members of academic communities, nonprofit organizations, students, and any other people with an interest in the trajectory of women’s rights in Kentucky to submit a proposal for consideration.

 

Feel free to email me at brandi@reclamationfeminist.com with any questions or to submit a proposal electronically.

 

symposiumguidelines

unfinished-business-entry-form