March 2, 2009

The Tenth Down Under Feminists’ Carnival

Holy Christ on a pogo stick have we got a superlative lineup this time around! Let’s get things started on as light a note as possible, with

Things To Leave You Gobsmacked

Because sometimes, after you’ve spent a long evening trying to explain that yes, sexism does exist and yes, feminism is still relevant and no, we don’t live in an egalitarian society, sorry … sometimes, you see stuff like this and just want to scream, COME ON, PEOPLE, IT’S NOT LIKE THE PATRIARCHY’S BEING PARTICULARLY SUBTLE ON THIS ONE.

First up, as seen at The Hand Mirror, Well that’s f*^#ken offensive: US website lets men track women’s periods, Granny Herald says this will save lives. At Hoyden About Town we get Not so wordless Wednesday: two sets of wordhoard-expanding fridge magnets, two different sets of words, who’ll bet me $5 that princess appears on the girls’ one?* And back to The Hand Mirror for Meat heads: Advertisement for steakhouse. Picture of topless woman. Guess which part of her is being covered by raw meat? Fuck Politeness lets us know I don’t believe in any god that wouldn’t strike Nalliah instantly mute for this shit – yes, even in Australia, there’s always fundy bastards ready to blame horrific natural disasters on us evil aborting witches.

Gobsmacking to Groan-Worthy

Of course, it ain’t all just candy and men screaming GET THEE TO A NUNNERY FOUL HARLOT. There’s also the low-level constant grind of sexism that keeps needling at us all every. Single. Day. Of our lives. Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony illustrates this brilliantly in You’re soaking in it.

davyd posts body images over at LJ looking at his own reactions to mannequins in shop windows and what that says about how we internalize messages about size.Cactus Kate has a go in Stroppy Subby about the tendency to call women who dare to voice opinions “stroppy”. 2 B Sophora has yet More inane phone conversations with people who don’t think women can be farmers. WhyI’mbitter says I just wanted a damn cup of coffee – pity she couldn’t get it without some hilarious sexual harassment from the baristas.

NZ: Pay Equity

This has been a big issue on the Kiwifemiblogosphere, after it was reported that our shiny new Government had cancelled a series of inquiries into why women social workers were getting paid less than the men. Anita at Kiwipolitico gives us Women are paying for bankers’ excesses; Julie at The Hand Mirror is maintaining Because we’re worth it: Pay Equity Hub, a great round-up of links and info on the issue, and don’t miss their Pay Equity Faxathon on March 6th!

The Pay Equity issue couldn’t be topical at a more serendipitous time, what with it coinciding nicely with the NACT Government’s “do-fest”:

NZ: The Jobs Summit

Which obviously has no place in this carnival, because women and women’s groups weren’t exactly high on the invite list. Even the mainstream media noticed, which has to tell you something: it rates a mention at the top of Tracy Watkins‘ Stuff blog. The Hand Mirror posted a Quick hit: Diversity deficit at the Jobs Summit; and No Right Turn notes A picture is worth a thousand words.

Crime and the Invisible Victim

Maia has a fantastic post at Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty about Othering rapists, in the wake of Wellington’s “Safe in the City” campaign and a blisteringly denial-filled comments thread at Kiwipolitico. Labellementeuse responds to Maia on her Livejournal. Elsewoman posts at her Scoop digs about The Invisible Victim in the David Dougherty case from the 90s.

Lita at Bits on the side covers the Willie Jackson v Tony Veitch showdown:

The real victim in this (remember: it ain’t poor, career-limited, shattered, mentally unstable Tony) seems to be the only one with the class to refrain from commenting publicly.

And at The Hand Mirror, Anna says Words fail me:

The sex workers which immigration officials were investigating during this disastrous raid were suspected human trafficking victims. It takes a stunning bit of pig-headedness to see flouted immigration laws, not the racialised degradation and enslavement of women, as the key injustice in this situation.

The Home Front

In a strange land continues to work through the dilemma of Miss Ten’s desire for a cellphone in Sorting the numbers (and raising feminists). Spilt Milk considers the gendering of “emotionwork” in This woman’s work. Sorrow at Sills Bend looks at ‘Average’ wedding expenses. Weddings are getting ri-damn-diculously expensive these days, aren’t they? And at The Hand Mirror, Bowled over for a maiden ponders the eternal Surname Changing Issue.

Healthcare, Healthism, and Reproduction

In a classic case of “keep women panicked that they’re doing things wrong and their babies will die”, Hoyden About Town reports Bad science on booze in pregnancy: Women infantilised with absolutist messages. Also at the Hoydens About Town, What the media isn’t asking about that private hospital birth study (or, Bayes’ Theorem for Dummies) and Maternity Services Review: Medicare payments to OBs up from $77m to $211m since 2004.

Maternal mortality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women runs two to five times the mortality for white women in Australia, and infant mortality is doubled to tripled. Yet this large-scale national disaster doesn’t get anywhere near the mainstream media time that the AMA’s posturing about turf wars gets.

Jo Tamar at Wallaby writes about Yoga – inappropriate touching and healthism, with a follow-up on Whingeing as a feminist act. Go Jo! SAHM Feminist tells us I did it… made a complaint to the DHB about her treatment for an ectopic pregnancy. PodBlack Cat posts about Loretta Marron, Health Hero, On Australia’s A Current Affair. Inspiring (yet scary) stuff!

Media Madness

WhyI’mbitter covers yet another trigger-hitting PSA about drinking which totally doesn’t imply drunk chicks deserve what they get. Honest it doesn’t. Hoyden About Town covers the “If only”? New child abuse campaign, with it’s … fairly problematic tagline. Great discussion in the comments, too!

Literary Pursuits

Harvest Bird is just awesome (I need a wider vocabulary) with her poem Innumerable soft, flat shoes. Jo Tamar asks, What makes a story feminist? Chally at Zero at the Bone posts Octavia E. Butler died three years ago today.

Bits and Bobs

All those posts that refused to fit nicely into my sorting scheme! *shakes fist at the Universe*

Robyn of Robyn’s Secret Passage rediscovers knitting and Outdoor Knit in The needles and the damage undone. Fuck Politeness is brilliantly scathing in How *sad* for Elizabeth Farrelly (cos we all know Mardi Gras should be about HER).

Direct quote:

And the question? The question is this. What happens when being GLBTQ is no longer queer at all? What happens when gay goes straight?

Well I don’t know. Why don’t you ask that when gay and lesbian folk don’t get bashed or killed for not being straight? Why don’t you ask that again when transgendered persons don’t run such an extraordinarily high risk of being raped or killed? When jokes about ‘which bathroom’ stop sounding hilarious to heteronormative fuckwits?

New NZ MP Jacinda Ardern talks about being a Parliamentary noob at The Hand Mirror in Guest post: New school. At Puzzlement, Mary Gardiner talks On girl stuff, about women, women’s work, and the Free Software community. Stargazer at The Hand Mirror posts about water & tears after watching the film water.

That’s all for this edition, folks! Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Down Under Feminists’ Carnival using our carnival submission form. The next host is Why I’m Bitter, cheers!

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And just to prove that I have had far too much time on my hands these past few days, witness! The Ultimate DUFC Contributors’ List, featuring all of YOU awesome people who have been featured in our faaaaaaaaaaaaaaantastic carnivals past! Let’s see how big that puppy can get!

Ideologically Impure

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