Tag: Read-ems

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The 92nd Down Under Feminists Carnival

This article originally appeared on Hoyden About Town.

In blue on a white background, the DUFC logo: in a square with rounded corners, there is the female/feminine symbol; with the Southern Cross inside, above which it says 'Down Under' and below 'Feminists Carnival'.

Welcome! This post is the 92nd monthly Down Under Feminists Carnival. This edition of the carnival gathers together December 2015 writing of feminist interest by writers living in Australia and New Zealand. Thanks to all the writers and submitters for making this carnival enraging, sorrowful, celebratory, and joyous in different ways and at different times.

Highlighted new(er) Down Under voices

I’ve highlighted posts that come from people who began been writing at their current home in 2015, such posts are marked with (new in 2015) after the link.

This carnival observes the rule that each writer may feature at most twice.

Race, ethnicity and racism

Celeste Liddle was angry that Andrew Bolt of all people will be centered by the ABC in the constitutional recognition of indigeonous people debate.

The inquest into the August 2014 death of Ms Dhu in custody in continued in early December (now to resume in March). December writing about Ms Dhu’s death and the inquest included:

Stephanie explored peak white person in travel writing about drug tourism to Colombia.

Bodies

Australian feminist bike zine 3rd Gear launched, with Issue #1 available and Issue #2 calling for submissions (new in 2015).

Catherine Womack swam at McIver’s Baths in Sydney; a women-and-children space.

Ashleigh Witt asked why private health insurers in Australia won’t pay for contraception?

Jo Tamar detected classist overtones in the reporting of bulk-billed IVF treatment in Australia.

Kath asked for marketing of plus-sized clothes that is unashamed and aspirational, using models in the size range of the clothes.

Rebecca shared educational information about breast cancer after another treatment.

Workplace

Stephanie made fun of the silly IBM #hackahairdryer campaign.

Deborah observed that there are more men named David running NZX-listed firms than there are women.

Harassment and abuse

Brydie Lee-Kennedy discussed her experience in the Australian comedy community as a domestic abuse survivor.

On December 1, Clementine Ford shared abusive messages she’s received online. In the followup Kerri Sackville kicked off a Twitter campaign sharing the names of men who send abusive messages on the #EndViolenceAgainstWomen hashtag. Other writeups include:

Clementine Ford, Van Badham, Lou Heinrich and Hoyden‘s own Viv Smythe spoke to Tanya Ashworth about optimism in the face of online abuse and Viv followed up about her feminist burnout.

Lauredhel invited people to resolve to oppose rape culture in 2016.

Deborah Russell condemned NZ PM John Key’s participation in a prison rape joke.

Relationships

Emily wrote about the myth of “spoiling” children by being kind and compassionate (new in 2015).

Celeste Liddle celebrated seven years of singledom.

Jo Qualmann reflected on her experiences being aromantic and asexual in a relationship.

Sky Croeser collected intersectional and anti-capitalist resources on solidarity and healing.

Media and culture

Doctor Who Season 9 wrapped up and Liz Barr mostly but not entirely liked the final three episodes.

Daily Life announced their Women of the Year finalists, with the eventual awardee being Australian Human Rights Commission President Gillian Triggs.

Scarlett Harris looked at women’s friendships in two media phenomenons: Taylor Swift’s performed-friendships and in Grey’s Anatomy.

Ju wrapped up her 2015 Australian Women Writers Challenge reading and reviewing.

Anna Kamaralli drew out less-recognised abusive parenting themes in King Lear.

Year end

2015 retrospectives included: Emily (new in 2015), A.C. Buchanan, Avril E Jean, and Rebecca.

New sites

Blogs and sites started in 2015 featured in this carnival were:

Next carnival

The 93rd carnival will follow at Zero at the Bone. Submissions to chally.zeroatthebone [at] gmail [dot] com by 2nd February 2016.

Volunteers are needed to host carnivals from April onwards. Volunteer via the contact form.

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Unhappy data retention day

This article originally appeared on Hoyden About Town.

This morning, Australia’s mandatory 2 year data retention regime began. Internet activity through Australian ISPs (including mobile phone providers) is now recorded. Australians, according to Crikey, here is what is likely to be retained about your accessing this link today:

  • your name and similar identifying details on your Internet account
  • the Internet address of where you accessed Hoyden About Town from
  • the Internet address of Hoyden About Town itself
  • the date and time you accessed this site
  • how long you accessed it for (quickly, in the case of websites, no doubt, but what if you were Skyping with us?)
  • what technical services you used (HTTP over ADSL or mobile or cable or …)

If you are accessing this over a mobile device, your location is also stored, to quite a high degree of accuracy. This data is also by far the hardest to conceal using any method, since it’s revealed as a core part of your phone’s communication with cell towers.

At least the actual specific page you accessed would not (or at least need not) be retained, if I am interpreting the information at Allens and Crikey correctly.

Surveillance cameras attached to a building exterior
Surveillance, by Jonathan McIntosh CC BY-SA

Further reading:

Image credit: Surveillance by Jonathan McIntosh, Creative Commons Attribution-Sharealike.

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The 79th Down Under Feminists Carnival

This article originally appeared on Hoyden About Town.

In blue on a white background, the DUFC logo: in a square with rounded corners, there is the female/feminine symbol; with the Southern Cross inside, above which it says 'Down Under' and below 'Feminists Carnival'.

Welcome! This post is the 79th monthly Down Under Feminists Carnival. This edition of the carnival gathers together November 2014 writing of feminist interest by writers living in Australia and New Zealand. Thanks to all the writers and submitters for making this carnival outstanding, amazing, sad, outraging and uplifting.

Highlighted new(er) Down Under voices

I’ve highlighted posts that come from people who began been writing at their current home in 2014, such posts are marked with (new site) after the link. Hopefully this will be a quick guide to sites you may not be following yet.

Also, this carnival (broadly…) observes the rule that each writer may feature at most twice.

Feminist identities and practices

Kelly Briggs explained how her intersectional feminism supports Aboriginal women:

Critique of pop culture does nothing for me and my sisters. It does nothing to aid in our struggle to be seen as equal, which is why I stick to critiquing the policies of governments that use black women as whipping posts… At my last reading of the statistics surrounding this heinous human rights violation [the intervention] incarceration rates have more than doubled, self harm rates have more than doubled, suicide rates are at unprecedented epidemic proportions and forced rehab is nothing short of criminal. WHERE ARE THE FUCKING FEMINISTS?

Catherine Deveny republished her Destroy the Joint piece Feminism in Twelve Easy Lessons.

Tulia Thompson explored the limits of conceiving of bargains with hetero-patriarchal culture as an individual choice.

Race, ethnicity and racism

Kelly Briggs wrote about racism and resulting self-harm and she and Christine Donayre wrote about Aboriginal deaths in custody and how they seem invisible to Australians (new site) compared to police killings of black people in the US. Kelly was also interviewed by Saffron Howden about racist barriers to accommodation and employment for Aboriginal people.

Celeste Liddle listed terrible failures of top-down approaches to Indigenous safety and wellbeing.

Ruby Hamad asked why Australian media continually assembles panels full of white people to discuss race issues and non-white people and communities? She also recounted how she and other people of colour are commonly dismissed as having a lower bar for their work.

Bodies

Jessica Hammond took us on a pictorial tour of the truth of her body. (new site)

Kath at Fat Heffalump described the double-bind of fat women’s sexuality.

Jes Baker asked why the hourglass figure is the only version of plus size that we see?

Tracey Spicer showed us how she uses makeup, how she looks without makeup, and how various pressures changed her makeup use during her career.

Disability

Some of what were to be Stella Young’s last pieces appeared in November:

Danielle Binks discussed differing portrayals of Deafness in Young Adult fiction.

El Gibbs explored other people’s attitudes to disability, and how it’s those that make disability hard.

Carly Findlay wrote about unsolicited comments and advice in the workplace about both disability and appearance. She also debunked claims that autoimmune illnesses are caused by “self-hatred” and cured by “self-love”.

Kathy writes through the five stages of chronic illness (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance).

LGBTQ

In the wake of Apple CEO Tim Cook coming out, Rebecca Shaw argues that coming out is still important and heroic.

Harassment and abuse

Jem Yoshioka explored the alignment between activist organisations in the technical community with misogynists and abusers such as Julian Assange and weev. (new site)

Jo Qualmann asked why rape is tolerated as a subject of “masterpieces” of Western fine art?

Roger Sutton, chief of the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority, resigned after allegations of sexual harassment. Writings included:

Jenna Price reported on the Australian government denying responsibility for violence against women in a report to the UN.

Deborah Russell highlighted the many chilling aspects of the Roastbusters ongoing rape scandal in Auckland, including police failures.

Ada Conroy talked about her work as a men’s behavioural change practitioner.

Jane Gilmore debunked claims that women are as likely to commit violence as men and observes that offender demographics are far harder to access than victim demographics. Jennifer Wilson followed up urging men to stop feeling unfairly attacked.

Motherhood

Lisa Pryor wrote a column about surviving medical school and mothering with the help of caffeine and antidepressants. Former federal Australian Labor Party leader Mark Latham responded in the Australian Financial Review with commentary (which I’m not going to link) called “Why left feminists don’t like kids”. Criticism of Latham’s piece included:

Penni Russon talked with her daughter Una about time travel, women heroes, and community.

Andie Fox told her story of hiding her caring responsibilities while proving herself at a new job as part of the broader picture of women’s caring responsibilities and workplace roles.

Education

Camilla Nelson followed up some October pieces in counting how many of the various states’ English curricula texts are by men.

Clementine Ford wondered what would an anti-sexism school curriculum look like?

Media and culture

Sharon Smith attended PAX Australia and found that the Australian gaming community proved that it was not GamerGate.

Danielle Binks remembered Heartbreak High, including its exploration of gender and racial politics, and the role of public broadcasters in creating diverse programming.

Scarlett Harris explored feminist themes in the musical Wicked and anti-feminist themes in Gone Girl.

New sites

Blogs and sites started in 2014 featured in this carnival were:

Next carnival

The 80th carnival will follow at The Scarlett Woman. Submissions to scarlett.harris [at] y7mail [dot] com by 5th January.

Volunteers are needed to host carnivals from March onwards. Volunteer via the contact form.

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The 62nd Down Under Feminists Carnival

This article originally appeared on Hoyden About Town.

In blue on a white background, the DUFC logo: in a square with rounded corners, there is the female/feminine symbol; with the Southern Cross inside, above which it says 'Down Under' and below 'Feminists Carnival'.

Welcome! This post is the 62nd monthly Down Under Feminists Carnival. This edition of the carnival gathers together June 2013 feminist posts from writers living in Australia and New Zealand. Thanks to all the writers and submitters for making this carnival outstanding, amazing, sad, outraging and uplifting.

Highlighted new(er) Down Under voices

I’ve highlightede posts that come from people who began been blogging at their current home in June 2012 or later, such posts are marked with (new blog) after the link. I know this is a very imperfect guide to new writers, since some may have simply started new blogs or switched URLs, or be well-known as writers in other media, but hopefully this may be a quick guide to feeds you may not be following yet.

Also, this carnival observes the rule that each writer may feature at most twice. Apologies to the fine submissions that were dropped under this system.

Feminist theory

Cristy is kicking off a feminist book club, from historical feminism and first wave onwards.

Joanna Horton reviews Joan Smith’s Misogynies, twenty four years on.

Party politics and government

In late June, Julia Gillard was deposed as Australian Prime Minister. Feminist commentary on Gillard’s media portrayals, treatment in Parliament, and defeat in a leadership ballot included:

Orlando got in before the spill with the questions the governing Labor party ought to be asking itself (not about the leadership).

Julie found that potential women candidates for office can’t commit due to time constraints.

Orlando salutes Emily Wilding Davison and other radical activists for women’s right to vote.

Ethnicity, racism, colonisation

Utopiana discusses lateral violence in the wake of her critique of Indigenous beauty pageants. (new blog)

Kim Mcbreen recaps a talk she gave about understandings of gender and sexuality in Māori traditions.

LudditeJourno chronicles news stories about pressure on indigenous people to assimilate.

Barbara Shaw recounts more than five years on income management in the Northern Territory.

The Koori Woman blogs on hope after the apology and anger after the Intervention for Reconciliation Week 2013.

Celeste Liddle reflects on international gatherings for indigenous people.

Misogyny, sexism, harassment, assault

Hayleigh wants to go outside her house without being objectified (new blog).

AJ Fitzwater promises to ally herself with people who speak out or who can’t speak out about bad behaviour in the speculative fiction community or the SFWA.

Amy Gray argues that the treatment of Adrian Earnest Bayley, who murdered Jill Meagher, shows that the Australian legal system does not deal with rapists well.

tigtog explains that it is the very indifference of creeps to desire that makes them creepy.

newswithnipples takes the mainstream media to task for widespread fail of the highest order.

bluebec does not want to excuse the abuses perpetrated by the Catholic Church on the grounds that they also do good works.

LudditeJourno reviews the many lessons about rape that the Steubenville rapes show aren’t being learned.

Scuba Nurse points out that a rape, abuse or victimisation narrative resulting in the eventual victory of the survivor isn’t miraculously unproblematic.

Bodies

Hayleigh is tired of being chased around Facebook by weight-loss ads (new blog).

Eliza Cussen lists five mistakes she’s constantly correcting about abortion, including the myth that it’s legal throughout Australia (new blog).

Genevieve writes about healing after post-abortion trauma (pro-choice perspective).

Fat Heffalump debunks fat-shaming as a pro-public health act.

Workplace, employment and education

Anjum Rahman writes about the right to work, in the context of people with disabilities, and ethnic minorities (new blog).

blue milk writes about the Australian Coalition’s parental leave scheme and adds a followup in response to critique.

Rachael Ward asks why so many of the testing materials in the General Achievement Test in Victoria related to men’s achievements.

Arts, music, crafts and media

Holly Kench writes that stories with diversity don’t need to be about being different; they may be about belonging with difference (new blog).

The results of the Triple J Hottest 100, 20 Year Edition music poll aired in early June, and as with the all-time edition in 2009, women musicians were very badly represented. Commentary:

Chally is reviewing LGBT young adult books, check out her reviews of Is He Or Isn’t He?, Beauty Queen and more.

Transcendancing recaps Karen Pickering’s talk on the secret feminism of the Country Women’s Association (CWA).

Jo Qualmann analyses the disappearing women of Doctor Who in light of the season finale.

AlisonM observes how very different Facebook ads are, depending on your selected gender.

canbebitter analsyes Cee Lo Green’s Fuck You, concluding that Fuck You is misogynist. Later in the month canbebitter presents an alternative queer reading of Fuck You.

Scarlett Harris reviews Paper Giants 2: Magazine Wars in light of current developments in magazine wars.

bluebec criticises recent coverage of polyamory in the press.

QoT is unimpressed by “feminist” clickbait.

New blogs

Blogs started in or after June 2012 featured in this carnival were:

Next carnival

The 63rd carnival will follow at can be bitter in early August. Keep an eye on Down Under Feminists Carnival HQ for submission instructions.

Volunteers are needed to host carnivals from October onwards. Volunteer via the contact form.

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The 44th Down Under Feminists Carnival

This article originally appeared on Hoyden About Town.

Apologies for not getting this done on time everyone, December and January turned out to be a major time crunch for me. However, I won’t keep you, on with the show!

In blue on a white background, the DUFC logo: in a square with rounded corners, there is the female/feminine symbol; with the Southern Cross inside, above which it says 'Down Under' and below 'Feminists Carnival'.

Welcome! This post is the 44th monthly Down Under Feminists Carnival. This edition of the carnival gathers together December 2011 feminist posts from writers living in Australia and New Zealand. Thanks to all the writers and submitters for making this carnival carnilicious.

Highlighted new(er) Down Under voices

I’ve decided to highlight inline posts that come from people who began been blogging at their current home in January 2011 or later, such posts are marked with (2011 blog) after the link. I know this is a very imperfect guide to new writers, since some may have simply started new blogs or switched URLs, or be well-known as writers in other media, but hopefully this may be a quick guide to feeds you may not be following yet.

Also, this carnival observes the new rule that each writer may feature at most twice (full disclosure: I used the “three if the host really really wants to!” exemption once). Apologies to the many fine submissions that were dropped under this system, but I hope it results in a more manageable carnival size and representation of different writers.

Feminist spaces

Maia wrote On Change and Accountability: A response to Clarisse Thorn (cross-posted at Feministe and Alas! A Blog) in response to Feministe’s interview with Hugo Schwyzer and ensuing critical discussion of Schwyzer’s reception as a leading ally.

Politics and social justice

anthea encourages consideration of a charity’s ethical framework and agenda before donating.

stargazer doesn’t think identity politics and inequality politics are in conflict.

Disability

anthea deconstructs judgments about fat, laziness, energy expenditure, priorities and disability.

Maia is troubled by the presentation of the sexuality of people with disabilities in The Scarlet Road‘s trailer, and notes the conflation of the sexuality of people with disabilities and the sexuality of men with disabilities.

Ethnicity, race and racism

Chally is not happy with racially coded beauty standards about her hair.

Chrys Stevenson reflects on Aboriginal health, Meryl Dorey’s promotion of non-vaccination and that Aboriginal people have every reason not to listen to white people like Stevenson. (Later, Stevenson/Gladly writes about working with the media to publicise Dorey’s involvement in the Woodford folk festival.)

Workplace

Mentally Sexy Dad introduces Lisa Coffa and Bronwyn Sutton, co-winners of the Pam Keating Award given by the Waste Management Association of Australia. (2011 blog)

Kaylia Payne explores internalised stereotypes about women’s and men’s jobs.

Blue Milk recalls staging an office coup for the corner office.

Penelope Robinson considers the academic workforce, including workloads and casualisation.

Environment

Steph is skeptical about wind farm noise complaints being genuine, rather than a lobbying technique.

Feminist life

tallulahspankhead discusses consent issues and ethics outside the context of sex acts. (2011 blog)

Sonya Krzywoszyja rolls her eyes at feminism 101 questions sent through dating sites.

Deborah writes about the feminism of raising daughters as independent thinkers.

Sex work

Anita condemns the focus on Nuttidar Vaikaew’s sex work in the media coverage of her murder by her spouse.

Blue Milk explains how she, as an outsider, views sex worker experiences by analogy with drug culture experiences ranging from very negative to very positive. (This post is a followup to a late November post on her blog.)

LGBTQIA

Jo writes about personal explorations of asexuality. (2011 blog)

bluebec is suspicious of any claim that “It has always been that way since the dawn of humanity” and gives Joe de Bruyn of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association a lesson to that effect.

LudditeJourno thinks that the mythos of New Zealand egalitarianism is causing police to prematurely determine that Phillip Cottrell’s murder wasn’t a hate crime.

Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear makes sure the bigotry of politicians gets exposure beyond Hansard.

Religion

stargazer is pleased with a review of mosques as women’s spaces in Turkey and thinks New Zealand could benefit from the same.

Media, literature and culture

brownflotsam has a mixed review of Albert Nobbs and is keen to talk with other people who’ve seen it. (2011 blog)

IsBambi celebrates the work and thoughts of Abigail E. Disney, who makes films about women’s roles in peace processes. (2011 blog)

Jo is critical of the conflation of motherhood with womanhood in the Doctor Who Christmas special. (2011 blog)

PharaohKatt pushes back on privileged criticisms of The Australian Women Writers Challenge.

bluebec reflects on choosing to and being allowed to play female (and non-white) characters in computer games.

Anita demonstrates how an NZ Herald article unnecessarily emphasises the gender of a police officer who was assaulted.

Penelope Robinson is bothered by media talk of Nicola, Tanya and Julie instead of Roxon, Plibersek and Collins.

sleepydumpling takes Mia Freedman to task on fashion judgments as classist, ableist and sizeist, and newswithnipples examines Freedman’s denial that there’s any problem.

Violence

Jshoep got some very unhelpful “report him” and “hit him” advice after being assaulted at an Opeth gig.

ColeyTangerina explains that the prevalence of triggers and people who can be triggered is why the feminist blogosphere tends to warn for them.

Deborah observes another case of victim-blaming when police talk about sexual assault.

Mindy considers whether the fundamentals of the perception of women prisoners have changed since the Victorian era.

LudditeJourno calls on the New Zealand government to adequately fund the Auckland Sexual Abuse Help line.

Reproductive rights and justice

Alison McCulloch details the history and consequences of creating a moral hierarchy of abortions in New Zealand. (2011 blog)

Megan Clayton writes about prenatal testing and the assumptions made that terminating the pregnancy is the only choice if atypical chromosomes are found.

Beauty and body image

The End is Naenae! discovers a doozy of a comment thread about pubic hair and removal thereof in, of course, a Life and Style section. (2011 blog)

The End is Naenae! also considers the continued assumption that beauty is a woman’s or girl’s foremost aim and accomplishment. (2011 blog)

Rachel Hills writes about the special shame of trying hard and still failing to look 100% officially beautiful.

Chally analyses the telling of stories about women who lose their beauty, particularly the case of Lauren Scruggs, injured in an accident. (Cross-posted at HAT.)

Tracy Crisp writes about beauty and intercultural communication when she is diagnosed with a basal cell carcinoma (and, later, how Australian women consider that news).

sleepydumpling celebrates what the fat acceptance ideas and community have led her to.

Next carnival

The 45th carnival will follow hard on our heels at Maybe it means nothing. Submit January 2012 posts as per Chally’s instructions.

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The lamb roast roundup: Mums and censorship

This article originally appeared on Hoyden About Town.

Feminist criticism of the “It’s Time to Tell Mum” anti-filtering campaign has shown up on several blogs:

ZDNet Australia writer Josh Taylor picked up the story and contacted myself and Geordie Guy, vice-chair of EFA’s board, for comment in his article EFA apologises for ‘sexist’ anti-filter site.

[Geordie] Guy told ZDNet Australia the responses he received to his blog forced him to delete the entry.

“A couple of the comments that came in response to that were really abusive and I didn’t want to start or continue a fight, which is why the article was removed,” he said.

“We sincerely regret that the campaign offended some people,” Guy said, explaining that his personal musings on the blog were superseded by the apology from the EFA board. He said it was inevitable that the different approach to the censorship debate — and getting a comedian involved — would offend a few people.

“Needless to say, we didn’t set out to upset anyone and we don’t think mums are stupid — we think some mums are being treated as such by the government, who is playing on their fears without giving them the full story,” he said.

The EFA though have explicitly disclaimed any apparent apology in their own blog:

So contrary to reports elsewhere, like [Taylor’s piece], we aren’t apologising for the campaign – we’re happy with the way it turned out. Of course, we’d rather nobody was offended, and sincerely regret it. But offending nobody is only possible without any risk-taking, and a risk-free campaign is unlikely to break any new ground.

I’ve also transcribed the the Akmal Saleh video that’s part of the “It’s Time to Tell Mum” campaign.

Continue reading “The lamb roast roundup: Mums and censorship”