Random recommended reading
A fantastic and heartbreaking post from Kelly Briggs, aka The Koori Woman, on the fear of Aboriginal mothers.
My children have missed days at school because of economic reasons. A year ago, I would not have admitted that. A year ago, I would not have said a word. A year ago, I would have kept my head down and my mouth shut for fear of drawing unwanted attention to myself and the problems I was facing. In the back of my mind, I always hear the voice that says “don’t ever let anyone know you’re doing it tough, because they will take your kids from you”.
Making a serious point with humour, this post at Buzzfeed illustrates five things which are much more likely to happen to you than being falsely accused of rape.
Trying to change your internal vocabulary to avoid ableist language like “dumb” and “lame”? Here’s a handy list of alternatives. (I like “cockwomble” and “Voldemort”.)
Meghan Hughes is amazing on the subject of why it’s okay to drive your car to an anti-oil protest at Hot Topic. Applicable to many progressive movements:
You have a right to demand alternatives to the only choices you have at this current moment. Do not be discouraged or shamed by people who say you cannot live in society at the same time as you try and change how society is organised. Calling for a change is not hypocritical. It is the only rational thing to do.
Not safe for work and likely to induce rage, Amie and Roz went to a workshop on “expanding female sexuality” and got a lot of creepy, inaccurate, rape-culturey shit instead. From Amie’s post:
Andy tails off the Labiaplasty rant by teaching us a bit about our anatomy and shows us some pictures of real life labia. Unfortunately, all of the pictures he uses for demo are Penthouse centrefold style vaginas, rather than the beautiful diversity he was ranting about 2 minutes before. He also refers to the clitoris numerous times as ‘the cute little bit you get to play with’. Gag. What am I? 6?
As seen on Twitter, here are a few links which basically destroy the arguments of any journalist who complains that knowing how to correctly refer to trans people is haaaaaaaard:
- The Associated Press memo on correctly referring to Chelsea Manning (you may just remember this was a slightly big story)
- An article at transgenderlaw.org showing that the AP Stylebook had good advice (under a terrible heading) for gender pronouns as early as 2000.
If you haven’t got the memo that reporting about trans people is a bit of a sensitive issue, you are kindly invited to get the fuck out of journalism and preferably off the planet.
I totally lack the spoons to write the post on domestic violence and the inherent violence of the “men’s/father’s rights” movement, so here’s the amazing Jan Logie talking about domestic violence and protection orders.
This government has shifted the focus from domestic violence to vulnerable children despite domestic violence being one of the most significant risks for children in NZ.
Domestic Violence was not mentioned once in the white paper, despite a large number of submissions raising this issue. There is nothing in the legislation to progress our response to Domestic Violence. In fact it may well move resources away from domestic violence.
Please remember when you’re talking to people about the general election this year that this government doesn’t give a fuck about violence against women and children, except as a vehicle to push more beneficiary-hate.
And finally, a reminder to always be Googling: after seeing this horrific and probably triggering media release on child abuse, I looked up the author, Bruce Tichbon, noble crusader for separated parents, and here he is in 2006, complaining that the Family Court is basically part of a dark feminist agenda to destroy men. It’s funny what conclusions you can draw about someone who says mothers “almost invariably get ownership and control of the family”, isn’t it?
Ideologically Impure 
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