A huge Spring edition this month proves that the Down Under Feminist Carnival is well and truly establishing itself (go us). I am so proud to be hosting the Carnival this month and it has been rather charming to peek behind the scenes, and realise for example, how many of you submit posts from blogs other than your own (not that self-promotion isn’t also endearing), and how many of you coyly submit your own pieces completely unaware of the fact that others (sometimes several others) have already lovingly done it for you.
Not surprisingly there were many posts submitted this month with an Olympic flavour. Oh Olympic Games, you didn’t make the sexists any better behaved than usual. But what really warmed my little feminist heart was the number of posts submitted on the topic of reproductive justice. I am heartened to see this brave and resilient fight continuing in feminism. This was the injustice that first led me to activism in feminism rather than just identifying as feminist, and while I don’t participate much in the area now (there’s really no way of glossing up that little slackness about me) it none the less remains a favourite cause for me.
Sexual objectification, abortion.. there is so much here for you dear angry feminist reader, but you mustn’t overlook the cross-stitching guerrilla action or the ripper poem either. How do I wrap this thing up? Oh yeah, go read.. and finally, you can submit your blog article to the next edition ofDown Under Feminist Carnival using the carnival submission form.
Reproductive justice
Emervents calls for a little bit more medical integrity and less humiliation of women by suggesting anti-choice doctors hang out a truthful notice with their professional shingle. No Right Turn takes stock of the precariousness of abortion rights in New Zealand, while The Hand Mirror reminds us that a proposed regressive regulation currently scaring American feminists is actually already a reality in NZ abortion law. This is My Truth, Tell Me Yours investigates the lies, lies, and damn lies in the pants-on-fire propoganda of the anti-choice organisationTell the Truth Coalition. Audrey and the Bad Apples walks the walk with ‘personal as political’ feminism and a powerful open letter to the Victorian Greens MP, Colleen Hartland, after Hartland came out publicly to speak about her own abortion. Magic Bellybutton delights in some of the most off-the-wall anti-choice comments so far in response to the passing of the Victorian abortion bill – “There’s blood on your hands, John Brumby … what about the babies?” And The Dawn Chorus spots a news media site doubling as a right-to-life billboard.
The Hand Mirror skewers a particularly annoying and commonly held view of women’s responsibility for all things contraceptive, with among other points – “..why we are in a bizarre position of having a major industry deciding that men – millions of whom manage to do things every day which require more effort and less potential reward than birth control – are simply uninterested and incapable of swallowing a tiny pill on a daily basis”. Meanwhile another contributor to The Hand Mirror learns to love her elective cesarean in what just might be the best titled post of the month. Hoyden About Town investigates recent conclusions by desperately over-reaching economists – greedy mothers were delaying births and harming their babies in an effort to be eligible for a higher baby bonus? Plus, Hoydens express indignation over women being represented as disembodied pregnant bellies in stock photos. And Emervents gives hope to women and their pregnant bellies everywhere when she plugs Orgasmic Birth, the film event. For real!
Violence against women
Blogger on the Cast Iron Balconey takes a look at a Club Troppo thread of doom and finds gosh, men can’t seem to discuss an innocent little qualitative study on rape without getting awfully defensive and pompous. 2 B Sophora finds a convenient naivety in the advice given to women experiencing domestic violence “just to leave”. And The Hand Mirror niftily summarises the proposals being considered in New Zealand for improving sexual violence legislation,
Media
The Melbourne International Film Festival gets a discerning, feminist eye cast over its offerings by Crimitism, which delivers among other observations this rather perfect film review in one sentence: “There’s nothing especially disturbing about it, it’s just difficult to shake the feeling that the writer was wanking after every page”.
In a strange land is tired of newspaper columnists and their editors being so unskeptical of their own opinions. Hoyden About Town finds a viral advertising campaign for Jim Beam is as puerile and mean-spirited as you might expect from an over-masculinised alcoholic drink. And no matter what your sexuality is, it always comes back to dick.
Family and women’s work
Larvatus Prodeo highlights (and then some – check out Kim’s astute observations on “feminists of convenience” for instance) a terrific article by Stephanie Coontz arguing that far from hurting families, feminism “may be our best hope for well-functioning families”. Penguin Unearthed wonders where is all the discussion about raising feminist sons. WoLFi TaLEs unpacks the rhetoric of choice used in the reporting of a recent study on women in the public service, and asks do women really ‘choose’ a non-promotion track at work by having children? Arianne’s little world argues the case for self-indulgence as the missing piece in work-life balance. Bernice Balconey’s Baloney explores the government’s recently announced truancy measures and finds them to be more of ‘the focus on the symtom rather than the cause’ approach which has marked so much of the ‘mutual obligation’ social welfare program in Australia. In a strange land calls the bluff on ‘get sole parents to work’ political campaigns. And blue milk reveals the sleight of hand that is combining mother blaming with shaming.
Shannon Breen, guest posting on blue milk unpacks the stigma that surrounds stay-at-home mothers. Real Mummy notes that mother work comes without sick leave entitlements. blue milk reviews Mama PhD and discovers that sexism is alive and well in academia and squeezing the life out of academic mothers, while two peas, no pod reviews her life and understands what that squeezing sensation is about. eglantine’s cake enchants with a fascinating investigation of her feminism, her motherhood and the intersection of the two. blue milk profiles a thought-provoking contribution to her series on feminist mothers with a pro-feminist father. Ramping It Up decides her feminism helps her to be a more optimistic mother and carer for her daughter with a disability. Garden Variety outwits the Disney Princesses, while Bad Mummy Syndrome explores the limits of female life in public spaces with an account of prams and public toilets.
Health and disability
The Dawn Chorus reminds us that “vaginas – like faces – are meant to look different” and a little bit of sanity prevails when Australian and New Zealand Gynaecologists agree. A contributor to The Hand Mirror considers the rights of disabled children to inclusiveness when her own gifted child is encouraged to experience exclusiveness.
Race and racism
Pavlov’s Cat observes something sinister while listening to commentators at where else, but the Olympic Games. And The Dawn Chorus wonders who can point fingers at who for having female gymnasts who don’t appear sufficiently sixteen years old-ish enough for competition. Meanwhile, Fuck Politeness unearths the gratutitous crotch shot to end all crotch shots for that “underage gymnast debate” and its racist undertones.
The Hand Mirror gets a twinkle in her eye when she discovers her old school, a school that was shunned by racist snobbery, has made the news for its gifted Afghan refugee student.
GLBTI
Ideologically Impure takes no prisoners in a passionate rant on the heated debate about transgender and inclusion currently dominating the feminist blogosphere. The Hand Mirror is bemused by a silly old duffer’s panic at gender neutral language and his insistence not that the sky is falling but that the lesbians are taking over. With a bit of eavesdropping Mim’s Muddle discovers her primary school age children are devising some clever counter-arguments to homophobia. And Fly My Pretty reveals some of the advantages to being a lesbian feminist parent.
Sex and relationships
Hoyden About Town are merciless with a misogynist Mayor inviting ugly chicks to get lucky in Mt Isa. StephiePenguin changes her surname after marrying and wonders what it means for her identities as a feminist, a professional, a Chinese woman, and an Australian woman. In a strange land writes an insightful feminist critique of Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley, the story of a woman with means negotiating the marriage question.
Craft and creativity
Poetry to fuck off to – Karen Healy writes a wonderful poem about her breasts in response to a leering e-mail. The thoroughly gorgeous adventures of Radical Cross Stitch include making a statement about land waste and housing scarcity. Hoyden About Town have fun with the brand new Google Streetview for Australia. Art and My Life contemplates the domestic constraints on female artists and takes solace from the fact that even Patti Smith refers to having to take the rubbish out.
And corr!, objectify this, Mim’s Muddle‘s garden was nominated simply because it is beautiful. Why not, I ask?
Politics
The latest installments in a series by The Hand Mirror provides report cards on the gender breakdown in the New Zealand Green Party and the Labor Party. And No Right Turn questions whether the press have it right in reporting the reasons behind better representation in New Zealand.
General feminism
Tell me you didn’t miss the Australian feminist post everyone is talking about? Hoyden About Town’s Women still the sex class in international elite sports begs to be read if you haven’t already. The Radical Radish notes that Olympic sex testing has women and their bodies yet again as the battle ground for public dispute, while Fuck Politeness finds that female athletes’ bodies are being treated as sexual objectification candy for Olympic viewers.
The Hand Mirror calls bullshit on Boobs on Bikes as female empowerment, while Elsewoman observes one reporter’s absurd bias in covering the event. And The Hand Mirror isn’t conflicted in her response to the Boobs on Bikes parade – she hates it (and she also finds soothing relief from all the boob press in an inspiring image of female Muslim athlete, Roqaya Al-Gassra’s ferocious victory salute). But oh wait, The Hand Mirror IS conflicted about Boobs on Bikes, oh so very conflicted. Ah, the beauty of a group blog.
The Hand Mirror also notes how very, very equal women are now, and the obnoxiousness of grizzles about political correctness. WoLFi TaLEs doesn’t see much to celebrate on Equal Pay Day. Hell on Hairy Legs takes us for a cultural journey through the history of hair removal and discovers beauty standards are never too far away from marketing strategies. Stranded in Reality celebrates the unapologetic weirdness of Grace Jones and did you know she’s turning 60? And Hoyden About Town proves we’ve still got plenty to say about feminist icon, Germaine Greer with 84 comments and counting.
[…] wonderful Blue Milk has just published the Fourth Down Under Feminists Carnival, and a bloody marvellous effort it is too. (And four days ahead of deadline, what’s with […]
And four days ahead of schedule? Blue, I’m not worthy.
Delightful carnival.
Awww, shucks, my kids and my garden in such exalted company 🙂
Fantastic job blue milk, I look forward to plenty of reading in the next few days!
This looks great!
I’d like to share a non-blog women’s history learning opportunity…
Senator Clinton and Governor Palin are proof that women can and do diverge on important issues.
Even on the question of whether women should vote!
But most people are totally in the dark about HOW the suffragettes won votes for women, and what life was REALLY like for women before they did.
Suffragettes were opposed by many women who were what was known as ‘anti.’
The most influential ‘anti’ lived in the White House. First Lady Edith Wilson was a wealthy Washington widow who married President Wilson in 1915.
Her role in Wilson’s decision to jail and torture Alice Paul and hundreds of other suffragettes will never be fully known, but she was outraged that these women picketed her husband’s White House.
“The Privilege of Voting” is a new free e-mail series that follows eight great women from 1912 – 1920 to reveal ALL that happened to set the stage for women to win the vote. It’s a real-life soap opera!
Suffragettes Alice Paul and Emmeline Pankhurst are featured, along with TWO presidential mistresses, First Lady Edith Wilson, Edith Wharton, Isadora Duncan and Alice Roosevelt.
There are tons of heartache on the rocky road to the ballot box, but in the end, women WIN!
Thanks to the success of the suffragettes, women can now support the candidates they choose — left, right, in-between or GREEN!
Exciting, sequential e-mail episodes are perfect to read on coffeebreaks, or anytime.
Subscribe free at
http://www.CoffeebreakReaders.com/subscribe.html
Excellent work, Blue.
I’m annoyed with myself though for forgetting to nominate my Transgenderism & the Gender Binary post, although perhaps it’s not entirely festival fare because it was posted as stoush-bait. Sure enough, the [long] thread is pure stoush and rather dry in spots as I try to pin down a slippery, twisting adversary, but it raises some important points about the ways many people pigeonhole gender.
Fantastic work, Blue Milk, and setting a speed record while you’re about it. Wow.
Oh gosh. There are far too many interestingly sounding posts here. You have done a fabulous job!
Wow blue, this is amazing! Thanks so much for your hard work, and for the links, we are getting lots of new hits coming in already, so it’s great to see that the carnival is doing such a good job of showcasing feminist writing 🙂
This is the first Down Under Feminist Carnival I’ve had the joy of stumbling across (and being linked to). I’m so very excited right now, sitting with my coffee, salivating over all these wonderful links! Where to start, where to start??
[…] new carnival is up at blue milk’s. She did a fabulous job (and published it on the second day of the next […]
may i also add my thanks for your hard work and a wonderful carnival!?! really appreciate the links, as well as what looks like a whole heap of wonderful reading over the next few days…
Awesome carnival post, blue milk!
“Meanwhile another contributor to The Hand Mirror learns to love her elective cesarean in what just might be the best titled post of the month.”
I’m frankly appalled that this is being celebrated as a feminist contribution to anything. It is inaccurate, scaremongering, and the comments after it are possibly even worse than the original article. Woohoo let’s celebrate the unnecessary surgical removal of a baby as a feminist gesture?
*appalled*
Janet, I just got back from reading that blog post with its comments and I’m not sure I would have called the caesarian unnecessary. Many women are terrified of breech births and this terror feeds into their labour making a normal labour impossible.
It is my personal opinion that this terror comes from a perception that breeches are always incredibly dangerous for mother and baby. This perception is an exaggeration that the medical profession has a great deal to answer for.
That said, it sounded like her decision was well informed and well thought out with her own needs in mind. If she wishes to avoid the risk of an emergency caesar (and yes, emergencies are more dangerous than planned), wishes to guarantee that she is conscious when her baby comes into the world then that is entirely up to her. Personally I would have given labour a go surrounded by midwives and doulas I trust, and that is totally up to me. That is the point, is it not?
Oh, and fantastic carnival Blue Milk, and thanks for including my Orgasmic Birth plug I really appreciate it.
Cheers
Emma
That is up to you when it’s an option readily available to you, presented as such, and supported by society.
Unfortunately, for many many women it is not an accessible option – doctors coerce and railroad them into caesarean section, and midwives refuse care or are forced to refuse care by the terms of their employment.
When the only vaginal breech birth available is one that involves either freebirthing, employing a $4000 independent midwife, or placing snarling wolves at the hospital labour room door, it’s not “accessible” at all.
Oh my gawd that YouTube video is making my tummy churn. Oh, the tragedy indeed.
So you have to self-nominate?
Well, I will put in a belated nomination for my post about BPD:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/08/31/on-the-borderline-personality-disorder/
There is help for men. Let them know about dick management and the book How to Manage Your DICK by Sean O’Reilly. Available on Amazon and in fine bookstores everywhere.
Oh, I am honoured to be in such wondrous company!
Part of my decision to not try a vaginal breech birth was the fact that I did not have a good trusting relationship with my midwive, plus the fact that she basically refused to communicate with me about the whole situation.
I don’t see what is un-feminist about women controlling their bodies and making informed choices about their birth processes. Why is it that “my body, my choice” is ok when it comes to abortion but not when it comes to birth?
Anyway, I’ve replied at more length in the comments to the offending post.
And Janet I’ll thank you not to describe MY birth story as inaccurate. I was there, you were not.
Janet,
I have to say I am a bit disappointed with your comment. Did you not stop to think that the author might be devastated to have her birthstory, perhaps is one of the most profound events of her life, described as being inaccurate scaremongering? Quite frankly I find you lack of compassion appalling.
In the end the author of this post did what she thought was right for her and her baby just like women who have given birth vaginally at home, a birthing centre or had a c-section in the flashest of hospitals and it isn’t you or anyone’s right to second guess that decision.
Our bodies, our choice.
sounds excellent, look forward to grabbing some cotton candy and getting out and about perusing what is on offer!
[…] Blue Milk is hosting the Downunder Feminist Carnival for September. Sounds fun doesn’t it? Check it out! […]
Wow! Someone other than me nominated me?
I am more than honoured.
Love the feminist carnival…. dont love the comments from janet whos name leads directly to a homebirth site.
Having the birth you want is important, but more important is being able to accept that that choice was not possible, Julie had choices to make re the birth of her child, she made the choice that worked for her and her baby, Ideally vaginal birth is best but sometimes that is not an option that is best for mum…. in this case Julie was writing about learning to accept what happened for her.
Isnt feminism about being empowered to make choices that are best for us?
D
It should be possible – if everyone makes the effort – to see both sides of this, because they’re actually the same side.
Feminists should be able to talk about systematic patriarchal crap and the harm it does (like the obstetric-industrial complex) without shaming and blaming individual women for the situations they’re in or the constrained choices they’ve had to make.
Feminists should also be able to talk about the individual choices they’ve made or had to make, without ignoring and dismissing the damage that the systematic patriarchal crap does to women as a whole.
I agree Lauredhel, I forget how lucky I was with my births. Thanks for reminding me.
Thanks for a wonderful carnival, bluemilk. It’s going to take me ages to read it all! And I’m honoured to be included.
lauredhel – thanks for facilitating this conflict, sorry I wasn’t around over the last few days to take responsibility myself for that role.
The points raised in response to Janet’s comment have probably hit all the marks I would have liked covered, but I’ll just emphasize one thing. Birth stories are very intimate stories for women to tell, let’s not make an example out of one woman’s very individual story, let’s keep the discussion focused on the broader topic of woman-centred births and otherwise.
Janet, by all means respectfully point out any innaccuracies you see in concepts but try to avoid making an individual woman’s experience the innaccuracy.
I had my baby in a very political birth centre under a midwifery model – but I liked Julie’s story, which was so different from my own because she tackled some of the machismo of birth which leads to the idea that women can fail their own deliveries, that they can somehow not live up to their womanly roles during their labour. That pressure I can relate to, even though our labours were so different.
tigtog – I nominated your transgender post, so my mistake to have somehow overlooked it in the preparation of this Carnival.
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