leenamielus took off her hijab in an unexpected way. So she really didn’t expect what happened next.

Tim Armstrong, the CEO of AOL, cut his staff’s retirement benefits.  And he blamed this sick baby for it. (Content warning: description of bad pregnancy outcome/sick premature child/hospitalization)

I believe Dylan Farrow.

Here’s what Dylan Farrow’s letter tells us about what our culture has to learn [Bitch Magazine].  Here’s Dylan’s brother Ronan being a stand-up dude [Vanity Fair].

I’m strangely captivated by this shoot Miley Cyrus did for W magazine [Tom and Lorenzo] (NSFW).  Still pissed about that racism/Blurred Lines performance though.

The Libertarianz have deregistered as a political party [Scoop].  Guess the invisible hand of the market made its choice, right?  Oh no, they’ll be back.

A new mini-campaign for better clothes options has launched with the Clothes Calling Card.  Check out Coley Tangerina’s blog for details.

Ableism is implying that a person’s mental health disqualifies them from, well, whatever it is you want to disqualify them from doing.  Mad Gastronomer at This is Thin Privilege takes some down.

Next time someone complains that their mediaeval fantasy novel has to have an all-white cast for “realism”, point them to this excellent article about diversity in European history.  Speaking of which, it turns out pale skin is a very recent evolutionary development.  We’re the aberrations, white people.

Your weekly brain cleanser: Mean Girls quotes on NZ politicians at LOL NZ Politics.

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?

From Bitch: Here’s why you should know about the case of CeCe McDonald

At Salon: Biblical birth control – the surprisingly contraception-friendly Old Testament (in case you needed another reminder that Christian religious extremists aren’t even in line with their own faith’s teachings)

At lip: Victoria becomes the first Australian state to erase the criminal records of gay men.  Bloody good move.

A sex worker’s open letter to the Australian media at Tits and Sass:

I have never had anyone adequately explain to me how abolishing my occupation helps me in any way. I will never believe it could make me safer. More importantly, I did not ask and do not wish for non-sex workers, those who would see my right to work abolished, to speak on my behalf. Allowing abolitionist groups or non-sex workers to speak for sex workers does two things: It misinforms the message. Those speaking out on sex work must be sex workers because we speak from the lived experience of sex work. It also takes up space. Sex workers are a marginalized group who have to fight for space to get their message heard. Stop giving sex worker space away.

My Milk Spilt on Parenting through obesity panic.

At the same time as the media tells women we are all ugly, all too huge, all in need of expensive ‘treatments’, it directs mothers to model good self esteem for daughters. Body image advocates stress that mothers should avoid ‘fat talk’ around their kids, lest they pass on their hatred of their minor body ‘flaws’ to impressionable youth. There is no space to talk about what happens when mums are fat, when their bodies are unmentionable.

San Pablo, California, had zero murders last year.

New housing and retail, top-notch after-school programs, and improved parks and schools have all helped. But much of the credit goes to the Police Department, Morris said.

Brain cleanser for the week: visualize just how excited the team at NASA got when a doughnut-sized rock suddenly appeared on Mars.

Happy new year, all.  Here’s some recommended reading to carry you through the holiday break/the terrible back-to-work blues.

Do you get really eye-twitchingly annoyed at men who sit on buses like their balls are the size of melons?  Gods, I do.  Fortunately there is not one but two Tumblrs where you can vent your rage (or feel comforted in the knowledge it ain’t just you.)  And an article! Hat-tip to SaigonSyl and her merry band of righteous Twitter followers.

Zoe Ferguson at The Wireless on the lack of credit our women athletes receive.

[Trigger warning: family violence, police inaction] Sometimes people’s response to violence is to say “Why didn’t you call the police?”  This letter in the Taranaki Daily News may give some insight.

A nice white boy gets himself arrested in New York to see how bad the justice system is from the inside.  Answer: really really bad.

What if you just made Bilbo a girl one day?  Find out in One weird old trick to undermine the patriarchy.

Another piece of evidence to add to the pile: Your assumptions about welfare recipients are wrong.

Fellow Kiwifeministblogger Deborah Russell is running for Parliament!  You can read her awesome stuff here.

A great post to make you think about disability binarism (i.e. the idea you can’t be a wheelchair user if you can walk.)

This video from Jimquisition on the terrifying epidemic of male gamers is the best thing I’ve seen all year.  Via Fake Nerd Guys.

How we teach our kids that women are liars, at Role Reboot.

No one says, “You can’t trust women,” but distrust them we do. College students surveyed revealed that they think up to 50% of their female peers lie when they accuse someone of rape, despite wide-scale evidence and multi-country studies that show the incidence of false rape reports to be in the 2%-8% range, pretty much the same as false claims for other crimes. As late as 2003, people jokingly (wink, wink) referred to Philadelphia’s sex crimes unit as “the lying bitch unit.” If an 11-year-old girl told an adult that her father took out a Craigslist ad to find someone to beat and rape her while he watched, as recently actually occurred, what do you think the response would be? Would she need to provide a videotape after the fact?

…

It’s notable, of course, that women are trusted to be mothers—the largest pool of undervalued, economically crucial labor.