Proudly presenting the 68th Down Under Feminists Carnival!
It is scarily awesome to be here, folks, with the 68th Down Under Feminists Carnival. That’s over five years of Antipodean feminist blogging hotness, guaranteed to lift the spirits and standing as a reminder that you sure as shit aren’t alone in this world.
Let’s get this ball rolling!
New contributors
Sarah Wilson blogs at Write Handed Girl about chronic illness, feminist issues, and living on the sickness benefit. This month she’s covered not calling people crazy, the intersection of reproductive health and mental illness, and how not to be creepy on Twitter.
Trish Corry at polyfeministix writes an open letter to the Australian Prime Minister on the reality of discrimination against women.
Christmas time and 2013 in review
Orlando at Hoyden About Town talks about Saint Lucy and other virgin martyrs. Liz Barr at No Award blogs on A summer Christmas. sleepydumpling reminds us that with the holiday season, the food police will be out in full force.
Scarlett Harris at Early Bird Catches the Worm has two posts looking back over the year, with 2013: A bad year for women and The year of Beyoncé.
Reproductive health
Sikamikanico writes about how feminist discussions of childbirth often erase the right to choose a Caesarian.
I blogged about Stealing babies: your classist, racist, ableist trifecta and the way people automatically assume doctors must always be doing the right thing because, well, they’re doctors.
Gender roles
Jenna Price in the Sydney Morning Herald (a paper whose URL I can never stop reading as “somuchhate.com.au”) agrees that girls should be allowed to wear shorts at school – but asks why people don’t get outraged when private schools don’t let them?
Chrys Stevenson at Gladly, the Cross-Eyed Bear talks about the way some couples seem to stick together out of obligation, even when they seem really unhappy, in Dangling conversations.
Amy Gray at Pesky Feminist has put together a transcript of a speech she gave on Breaking through the prison of our skin – a look at the institutional factors that still discriminate against women, specifically in writing and publishing.
Sarah at Maintain the Beige talks about class, gender and the Melbourne Cup.
Sex and relationships
Jo at A Life Unexamined watches a documentary called 40 Year Old Virgins and questions the assumption that everyone must enjoy sex.
Jennifer at No Place for Sheep asks what marriage equality is actually good for – and how the fight for marriage equality gets conflated with the wider argument about the whole institution of marriage.
Rebecca Shaw at SBS ponders the media’s need to immediately label people as hetero, gay, or bi – even when they themselves have clearly avoided pigeonholing themselves. Catherine Deveny takes on Bettina Arndt’s latest musings about compulsory monogamous heterosexuality marriage. [Note: contains ableist language]
How to survive the internet
Elan Gale is a TV producer who allegedly live-tweeted his Totally Awesome smackdown of a fellow air traveller on Thanksgiving. tigtog at Hoyden About Town takes a look at just how much of a clusterfuck this story is – and what it tells us about misogyny on the internet. Van Badham at Women’s Agenda talks about women, trolls and the Australian media in 2013.
Jennifer Duke posts at feminaust about her recent experience of online harassment, saying Am I overreacting? No, actually, I’m responding reasonably to unreasonable treatment.
sleepydumpling at Fat Heffalump was in the news – and with the media attention came the trolls. She writes about the inevitable backlash in In the news again!, challenges the people who declare she can’t really be happy, and calls on us to find our inner fabulous and screw the haters.
Gaayathri at A Human Story points out that she’s learned a hell of a lot from the much-maligned “internet feminism” that she never did in an academic setting in Maybe the internet raised me.
The internet and “real” media
Here at Ideologically Impure I asked where the line is between “news media” and blogs, following a recent case of a (particularly awful) blogger trying to use a journalist’s legal defence to protect a source.
Rallying cries and good feelings
Gaayathri writes a love letter to her tribe. Rachel talks about being a an invulnerable, inviolable bitch.
A grab-bag of good reads
Hoyden About Town celebrates Graça Machel. Celeste Liddle talks about why she calls herself black. Chally describes the kafkaesque nightmare of getting an Australian passport. Liz Barr discusses an Australian viewpoint on dystopias in young adult literature.
Orlando at Hoyden About Town calls for an end to the valorisation of ignorance. Mindy makes a few suggestions as to why slim people might be “happier”. Celeste talks more about racism and sexism in the AFL, and also got interviewed about indigenous feminism at The Postcolonialist.
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Want more? Check out the DUFC contributors list right here at Ideologically Impure.
The next edition of the DUFC will be hosted by Mindy at Hoyden About Town. Submissions to dufcathat [at] gmail [dot] com for those who can’t access the blogcarnival submissions form.
Ideologically Impure 
Thanks for hosting, QoT! So many delicious things to read. 😀
Talk about chock full of feministy goodness! I’m going to be reading for some time!
Thanks for the inclusion of my pieces too. I am honoured.
I third the general comments of delicious and goodness! Thank you for the carnival.