feminist blogs in english

At long last, the question we've long wondered here at TGW moves to the New York Times.

It is really discouraging to do feminist work sometimes. It seems like there are a thousand people working against equality for every person working towards it. When I talk to my peers, it becomes obvious that a lot of people have accepted sexism as a fact of life. But looking back on important milestones in feminist history helps. It helps to know that despite the fact that a lot of bigoted policies are still out there, the feminist movement has made huge advances in the last 100 years. A woman nearly won the democratic nomination for president, we now head two-thirds of American families, and we have a female Speaker of the House.

Speaking of which, Nancy Pelosi wrote an article today celebrating this anniversary while urging women to vote. I did a lot of voter registration work this summer and I can attest that not nearly enough women (particularly young women) vote in off-year elections. So celebrate this anniversary by voting and reading the below Susan B. Anthony quotes which I included out of hero worship.

"It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union."

"The fact is, women are in chains, and their servitude is all the more debasing because they do not realize it."

"[T]here never will be complete equality until women themselves help to make laws and elect lawmakers."

"I can't say that the college-bred woman is the most contented woman. The broader her mind the more she understands the unequal conditions between men and women, the more she shafes under a government that tolerates it."

In May, I wrote about Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s statement that the United States would not abandon the women of Afghanistan by allowing President Hamid Karzai to make any deals with the Taliban.  Clinton told three senior female Afghan officials that “we will not abandon you. . . . [I]t is essential that women’s rights and women’s opportunities are not sacrificed or trampled on in the reconciliation process.”  Clinton also said that she had promised Karzai that the U.S. would not “abandon Afghanistan in its quest for peace and long-term stability and we will not. And I make the same pledge to the women of Afghanistan. We will not abandon you, we will stand with you always.”

However, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai is still said to be “seeking a rapprochement with the Taliban movement, with the ultimate goal of drawing it into the political process.”  I haven’t heard anything more from Clinton about the situation.  Any rapprochement could have egregious impact on Afghanistan’s women.  For example, the Taliban is against any education of women after an early age.  As a result, in areas under Taliban control, the Taliban has been suspected in a series of poisonous gas attacks against school girls in 2010 and the past few years, including in 2008, when around 15 girls and teachers in Kandahar were sprayed with acid by men on motorbikes.  Female teachers are also being threatened.  One female teacher at a girls’ school in a southern Afghan province received a letter saying: “We warn you to leave your job as a teacher as soon as possible otherwise we will cut off the heads of your children and will set fire to your daughter.”

This past week, Human Rights Watch issued a report titled The ‘Ten Dollar Talib’ and Women’s Rights: Afghan Women and the Risks of Reintegration and Reconciliation. The report was based on interviews with 90 women in districts largely controlled by the Taliban.  The report’s purpose was to show that any claims that the Taliban are mostly influenced by money, rather than ideology, are wrong.  The report summarizes that:

“Afghan women want an end to the conflict. But as the prospect of negotiations with the Taliban draws closer, many women fear that they may also pay a heavy price for peace” and that “Reconciliation with the Taliban, a group synonymous with misogynous policies and the violent repression of women, raises serious concerns about the possible erosion of recently gained rights and freedoms.”

All of the women interviewed for the HRW report said they had lost freedoms. In some cases, women have been killed.  In April, a 22-year-old woman was threatened and then killed for working for an American development organization.  A day after the killing, another woman received a letter saying that she should stop working for the infidels and “in the same way that yesterday we have killed Hossai, whose name was on our list, your name and other women’s names are on our list.”  In late 2009, women were warned not to ring up radio stations and request songs and were told that, if they did, they would be beheaded or acid thrown in their faces.  More generally, women have been forced to give up their jobs and stay at home.  Women active in politics have been targeted and a number of the most prominent assassinated.

Hillary Clinton, please remember your pledge to the women of Afghanistan.

Last week I posted a question at SkinnyScoop: Do you think a woman will be elected president in your lifetime? Most of the respondents (81 percent) said yes. No one answered definitely not. I sure hope the respondents are right, but getting there won’t be easy. One respondent at SkinnyScoop wrote, “We are ready and [...]

Greetings from Boston! “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This weekend we celebrate the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.  Thank you to all who support [...]

Iceland’s prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottir, just got married – to another woman; the country’s marriage equality laws went into effect this past week. And for the record, Iceland elected its first female president, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, thirty years ago. Now that’s progress. Meanwhile, Australia has a new prime minister – its first woman to hold the [...]

I may have mentioned that last month I was in England. Being a political junkie, I was paying attention to the situation there before I left–the British election was a bit of a bigger deal than usual in my particular NYC lefty media circle because Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, was a former intern at The Nation magazine, where I interned recently. The running jokes about Nation interns taking over a country still haven’t really subsided.

Since I spend a significant amount of time complaining about our two-party system, it’s always interesting to watch the workings of a multiparty system–and to notice the problems with that as well. Minority governments, coalitions that could collapse, etc. (Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems joined David Cameron and the Conservatives to form a government, and Labour is out, with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown stepping down as leader of Labour, in case anyone wasn’t following.)

I’m back in the U.S. but am still paying attention to the situation there, partly because I’ve got a bit of a politician-crush on Ed Miliband, the other former Nation intern prominent in UK politics. (Seriously, there are two! At one point the joke was that there was a 1 in 11 chance of a two-Nation-intern coalition running the country! What’s wrong with us over here?) Miliband, along with his brother David and several others, are trying to become Labour leader. Of course, my first question was “Where are the women?”

I asked that question when in England and my friend told me that Yvette Cooper, who is married to another prospective leader, Ed Balls (yes, Balls. It makes me giggle. Shut up, I’m secretly 12.) might try for leadership. But according to the latest piece I turned up from the Guardian, the only woman in the fight (and the only person of color) is Diane Abbott, and she wouldn’t have had enough support to even enter the fray had David Miliband not given her his vote. Seriously?

Barbara Ellen wrote:

Indeed, while no one expects female Labour MPs to vote for Abbott merely because she is a woman, it is pretty shocking that so few did that she ended up having to accept Miliband’s “spare” votes. A good 35 years after Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative party, why is there such scant support for the lone female candidate? For that matter, the lone black one? What does this say about the true “diversity” of Labour and where does it leave Diane Abbott?

It’s always been interesting to me that Thatcher was able to lead as a Conservative but supposedly progressive (:cough: neoliberal) parties have had a hard time finding non-whitedude leadership. I’ve never been a Hillary Clinton fan, but here in the US we certainly have the same problem. The UK is just coming off how many years of Labour’s dominance and yet they only have one woman willing to fight to lead the party back to power? Um, what? And let’s not even TALK about what the current setup looks like.

So I follow Miliband on Twitter, because that’s how I keep up with things. And the other day I caught him having a chat with his followers about a proposal to have 50% women in the Shadow Cabinet (the opposition party has a Shadow Minister for every official minister. I love it because it sounds like something out of Harry Potter. /fetishizingtheBritish). Harriet Harman, who is acting Labour Leader at the moment (but decided not to stand for leader) proposed that it was “time for Labour women to step out of the shadows”.

Miliband backed her proposal, which may well be political posturing, but had some good answers for people who questioned him: “Does that mean that the Tory cabinet which has four women out of 23 reflects merit in your view? If not,how would u change it?”

There are cracks here in the U.S. that this is going to be the “Year of the Woman” in politics; that Tea Party candidates, a lot of them women, are some sort of “new feminism.” Obama’s two Supreme Court nominations have been women, and a good chunk of his Cabinet is female as well, so maybe we’re slowly getting better. But what about an actual promise to make the percentages equal? What do you think?

And British Feministe readers, I’d love your take on the situation. I don’t know much about it other than Twitter-stalking Miliband and the occasional conversation.

By now you’ve probably heard that Washington Post fashion columnist Robin Givhan took on Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan and her wardrobe in Givhan’s column this past weekend. She wrote about Kagan, “mostly she embraced dowdy as a mark of brainpower.” Why is it the media always assumes women who don’t relish fashion are making some [...] Related posts:

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The women of Afghanistan are correct to worry that any peace deals the Afghan government might make with the Taliban will sacrifice women’s rights.  After all, the Taliban was more repressive to women than, probably, any government in the world.  And their relatively recent re-control of parts of Afghanistan is reestablishing the tyranny.  For example, Taliban sympathizers routinely intimidate or attack women who work outside the home, wear western dress, or try to attend school.  They have even been suspected of poisoning school girls.

In an effort to lessen some of that fear, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today that women’s rights should not be sacrificed in any peace deal.  She told three senior female Afghan officials that “we will not abandon you. . . . [I]t is essential that women’s rights and women’s opportunities are not sacrificed or trampled on in the reconciliation process.”  Clinton also said that she had promised Karzai that the U.S. would not “abandon Afghanistan in its quest for peace and long-term stability and we will not. And I make the same pledge to the women of Afghanistan. We will not abandon you, we will stand with you always.”

I would like to believe her.  But I don’t see that happening.  President Karzai is obviously under pressure from many sides to take some kind of action to lessen the fighting with the Taliban.  Does the U.S. really think that Karzai will draw the line and absolutely refuse to make any deal that decreases women’s rights?  Does the U.S. really think that the Taliban will enter into any deal where they must adhere to women’s rights in the areas in which they gain more control?  And, even if the U.S. is adamant that there be no trampling of women’s rights in any deal with the Taliban, does the U.S. think that Karsai will listen to them?  After all, with the pressure that Karzai is under and with his past statements calling for the U.S. to respect Afghanistan’s sovereignty, why would he listen to the U.S.?

And, so, although Clinton’s words are very welcome, it seems unrealistic to think that they will come true.  It seems far more realistic to think that the Afghan women in any geographical areas affected by any peace deals will indeed be abandoned.  I hope I’m wrong.

Just a quick reminder, you can submit links for this column via e-mail at rosiered23 (at) sparecandy (dot) com, and you can catch up with Spare Candy on Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr as well. Or! Leave a link in the comments! Self-promotion is perfectly acceptable here.

My must-read recommendation of the week comes from The Curvature, "This is Not an Analysis of Rape Culture. This is a Rant." It is about a 15-year-old girl who died after two teens raped her, and it is about language. Because the Philadelphia Daily News, in reporting the story, said the teens "had sex with" her, even though the two teens pleaded guilty to rape. The paper also takes part in slut-shaming her. If I may suggest something here: If you see media coverage like this -- a newspaper article that doesn't even use the word rape to describe rape -- write to them, if you can. Send an e-mail to the reporter or the editor and explain that rape is not sex and the terms are not interchangeable. Because things like this? This is not acceptable.

In related news:

• The Daily Mail: "You're not guilty of rape: Those skinny jeans were too tight to remove by yourself, jury rules." There are no words. Just absolutely no words.
• The Hathor Legacy: "Have your rapist’s baby and you’ll feel better."
• Chicago Tribune: "Women charged rape; doctor still practiced." And eventually? The doctor got a nine-month suspension. Ugh.
• Change.org: "Five Hours of Trying to Rape a Lesbian Straight."
• Feministe: "PTSD and Healing After Sexual Trauma." Great information here.

In other news:

• Diary of a Goldfish: "Blogging Against Disablism Day 2010." A round up of posts, many of which are excellent. Read up!
• Jackson Free Press: "School Cuts Gay Student Photo from Yearbook." Sometimes, I hate people.
• Los Angeles Times: "Attacker repeatedly slashes transgender student in Cal State Long Beach restroom." More here.
• Media Matters: "Wash. Times calls for discrimination against transgender people."
• Definatalie: "You Can't Bully Me Out of My Skinny Jeans."
• The Guardian: "US navy lifts ban on women submariners: First female officers to be assigned to eight crews after completing a 15-month training programme." Best of luck to them.
• Jezebel: "Since When Is Hillary Clinton Less Influential Than Sarah Palin?"
• AWID.org: "A Decade On, No Seats for Women at the Peace Table."
• Boston Herald: "State bill targeting bullying approved." This is in response to the suicides of two students after they were bullied. I don't know if it will help, but I hope so.
• New York Times: "Two Convicted of Denying Access to Abortion Clinic."
• RH Reality Check: "Tampon Safety and Our Monthly Affair with Toxins."
• BBC News: "'Mass illness' hits Afghan schoolgirls in Kunduz." Illness = poisoning.
• Jezebel: "Filament: The Thinking Woman's Porn Magazine." Images NSFW.
• Jezebel: "Dirty Dancing Is The Greatest Movie Of All Time." It's really a convincing argument. Also, check out their article "The Chick-Flick Antidote: Please Give."

By the way, if you're thinking "umm, there was like, a LOT of news about abortion this week and you don't have it listed," you would be right. A separate post is coming, eventually.