White Women Feminism – There They Go Again

Donna writes:

I got an email from the wonderful Elle PhD to alert me to the latest white women feminist shenanigans being reported at the Washington Post: To Women, So Much More Than Just a Candidate. Of course by women they mean the default women, middle to upper class white women, with some ageism thrown in for good measure since they show little respect for the decision making abilities of younger women too.

…

“During the NOW tour across Ohio, the makeup of each audience was almost exclusively white, middle-age women, many of whom had joined the organization in the late 1960s or 1970s.” People vote for who they think can best represent them. I understand perfectly well why this demographic is excited for Hillary Clinton, is showing up at her rallies, and is voting for her. But for some of us having a vagina isn’t enough, because she will be voting for white, middle aged, middle class interests. Not to mention corporate lobbyist interests, and starting wars to prove she’s as tough as the guys, which I hear is her excuse for her Iraq War vote.

Sex Workers Project

Holly, of Feministe, interviews a representative from the New York based Sex Workers Project:

As the Spitzer scandal burns down into its coal-like embers, there’s been a lot of discussion about the nature of sex work as well as what society’s response to it should be. Legalization? The Swedish model? Or something else? Should we be looking at sex work as another kind of labor in which people–especially oppressed people–are victimized, coerced, trafficked and usually unable to exercise control over their work and their pay? Or is it somehow inherently different and deserving of different treatment? I don’t pretend to have all or even any of the answers to all of this. I’m not a sex worker myself, and since it seems clear to me that sex workers themselves are especially marginalized and victimized from multiple sides (traffickers, coercive environments, the dangers of a black market, bad clients, the hostile anti-prostitute stigmas of our culture, and not least law enforcement) I tend to think we should work to give sex workers–especially the most marginalized and silenced–more political voice and agency in how this industry is affected by theory, laws, policy, and practice. The most I can do on that front is try to be an ally to the current and former sex workers in my life, and to organizations that are run by and for sex workers and former sex workers.

55th Carnival of Feminists

Penny Red hosts this edition of the Carnival of Feminists:

As luck would have it, this edition of the Carnival straddles both International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month in the USA. As feminists, we are as diverse in our personal politics as the kitchen at a socialist’s birthday party at one in the morning, when the conscience-lesbians are clustered in the corner with the hidden vodka, the marxists have occupied the table with all the crisps, and someone’s anarchist girlfriend has nabbed the damn bottle opener again. There is no single politics of feminism; accordingly, responses to IWD and WHM have varied dramatically across the blogsphere, and our political diversity and ingenuity is something to celebrate in itself.

Is There Something to Celebrate?

Junaid blogs about International Womens Day and its meaning in Pakistan on the blog Pak Tea House:

Last week the world celebrated International Women’s Day. So did Pakistan with a bit of fanfare on the electronic and print media. I thought of writing something but then wondered if at all there was anything to ‘celebrate’?

Are women in Pakistan any better than before? no morning ever brings sunshine in their lives. Their struggle in their homes and outside continues unabated. Discriminatory laws are still there despite tall claims of enlightened moderation…

Sex workers excluded at IWD march London

Sokari blogs about the International Women’s Day march in London and the exclusion of organized sex workers from the march:

I and my friends and colleagues left, what had started out as a march of solidarity – or so we thought at the beginning- with not just a sense of frustration and disgust but the realisation that the words RESPECT and SOLIDARITY were not in the vocabulary of some of the women attending the march and rally. Whilst they were prepared to listen to Middle Eastern and African women about violence, rape and prostitution, they were not prepared to listen to sex workers in their own cities and country not to speak of the vulgar racism spouting out of their mouths. Clearly for some attending the march, sex workers were not entitled to respect, solidarity or a voice and Black women were bitches!

How safe to stand up in London and shout support for the “other” not on your doorstep yet when you are face to face with the presence of sex workers and women of colour you try to silence them and scream “not in my backyard”!

Vagina??

The Apostate blogs about a new feature on Feministing:

I’m so glad Jessica is out there.

Their new feature — Friday Feminist Fuck You — is great. There is something very powerful about young smart happy women saying Fuck You to the anti-feminist powers that be.

Here’s the first video — it’s very cute and spot-on. I’m not surprised it’s given birth to a Facebook fan-group.

A Little History on Planned Parenthood

La Chola blogs on a controversy involving a few bloggers on the racist history of Planned Parenthood and its work today:

It’s dangerous to not know the history of an organization–even more dangerous to not know its present. Yes, PP has done some absolutely amazing and brilliant things. PP has also done some detestable and horrific things–and it is WRONG to let the detestable and horrific things pass because of the good things. It’s even worse to call a woman of color who has had a bad experience with her reproductive life “stupid” because there is no critical analysis of how a historically “population control” centered institute is currently conducting its business. As I said in my comment, the only reason PP is where it is today is because women of color stood up to all the people who attempted to silence them with calls of “stupid” and “worthless” and demanded to be heard.

54th Carnival of Feminists

The 54th Carnival of Feminists is up at In A Strange Land:

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa. Greetings, greetings, greetings to you all. And welcome to the 54th Carnival of Feminists.

Exploitation

Bambu rants:

i recently got a myspace message from an old friend who had a little bit of a beef with me. she wanted to know why i was “knocking the hustle” of so many young pinays in the import model/go-go dancing game. she felt that by me trying to persuade young women (especially young women of color) away from standing next to vehicles at car shows, or dancing on a platform by speaking “ill” of them, i was hurting their pockets and not supporting my sisters.

hmmmm…

…

my intention is never to make my sisters feel trashy, but it’s also not meant to sugar coat anything. we’ve been struggling and fighting for such a long time. i just want young people to understand what exploitation means and how many levels there are to being exploited.

i want everyone to celebrate their physical beauty! i want us as a people to be truly happy with our beautiful faces, our beautiful bodies and our wonderful culture!

Feminist Carnival #53

The 53rd edition of the Feminist Carnival is up at Uncool:

There’s some great posts this time around: some submitted, some found through extensive blog-hopping. Like the last time I hosted the carnival, I’ve marked any blogs that maybe unsafe for you to view at work with a “(NSFW)”. Enjoy…..

Racism, Feminism, and the Issue of FGE

Plain(s)feminist blogs about Female Genital Excision (FGE), also known as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), and the issue of white Western feminists focusing more on the brutalities against women in Third World countries than in the Western world:

There seems to be no way to get a certain segment of the feminist population to understand that it is possible both to oppose practices like FGE and still seek to use respectful terminology. This is perceived as attempting to “whitewash” (an interesting phrase, since we’re talking about mostly White women slinging racist slurs as mostly Black women) the issue. In fact, on several occasions when this issue has come up, it has progressed in the following way:

40th Carnival Against Sexual Violence

Marcella Chester hosts the 40th Carnival Against Sexual Violence which deals with sexual violence issues involving: gender, the law, the media, personal stories, and other subjects.

King’s Dream: A Reality Yet to Be Achieved

Shark-Fu blogs on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:

Today, nooses are hung on high school campuses and arrogantly displayed on the cover of national magazines…media critics discuss how even racists will vote for an ‘acceptably black’ candidate and fashion editors chastise women of color for wearing natural hairstyles in corporate environments…the achievement of thousands is credited to the system they struggled against…the historic campaign of Shirley Chisholm is scarcely mentioned in an election year where a woman and a black man are trying to do separately what she strove to do as one in 1972…white supremacists plan to march in Jena Louisiana even as the language of immigration reform is laced with bigotry and fear…and education is still separate and unequal.

…

Now is the time to honor the King legacy through action and unite in the struggle for what I know is possible…

…no longer a dream, more a reality yet to be achieved.

Carnival of Feminists No. 51

The most recent Carnival of Feminists is up at Philobiblon:

Welcome to the Carnival of Feminists No 51, which has come back to its original starting point for the second time for a very late second anniversary. And it is also running later than the scheduled date – for which apologies. But enough of that, moving on quickly to some great feminist posts….

One of the many great things I find about the feminist blogosphere is that so many of its writers are capable of dealing with nuance, and complexity, and exploring difficult issues in depth.

On (White) Feminism

BrownFemiPower blogs about the book Full Frontal Feminism, on teaching it at university women’s studies classes, her own experience as a woman of color in such classes, and the overall arch of teaching feminism in general:

It’s time for all of us, but in particular, women’s studies departments, to stop pretending that these interactions between women of color and white women never happened or don’t count. It’s time to stop pretending that the voices of white women speaking about women of color is sufficient enough of a history for women of color. It’s time to stop pretending that universal agreement between women of color is necessary before white people can interact with an engage with a particular critique of women of color. It’s time to stop pretending that any critique by women of color exists within a timeless vacuum that demonstrates some ancient racism of a feminism from time past.

Miss Landmine

BrownFemiPower blogs about the Miss Landmine Beauty Pagent:

Now, I’m not sure what I think about this pageant beyond the fact that I think that the name is repulsive (as I’ve said in several places, would we make a pageant called “Miss Rape Victim”? Or “Miss Car Crash”?–and what are the implications of “beautifying” the violence done to female bodies?)–but I do want to say that I think it’s *vitally* important for feminists to be just as critical of this pageant as they would any other pageant (no matter what their final conclusions are).

Announcement: Body Images

I just posted a blog on Double Consciousness that I want people, hopefully women of color, to respond to.  Thanks.

Since I’m the Educational Development officer for this student activist org. I’m apart of at San Francisco State University I always need to keep myself attuned to the needs of the membership.  We’ve done workshops on immigration, the Third World Liberation Front SF State student strikes, an upcoming one on white privilege, and a workshop in November on the basics of the capitalist system.  However I’ve been noticing among the membership issues on body image.  Specifically people being influence by white mainstream (fascist) standards of beauty.  So for next semester I’m going to get a hold of some fellow radicals to put on a workshop on white supremacist beauty standards and how it effects women of color and others in this American society.

Does anyone out there have any resources and blogs, blog posts, books, articles, etc. that they could share with me.  You can contact me here.  Thanks.

Stop Police Brutality on Women and Trans People of Color

Brown Femi Power writes:

The amazing women of Incite! Women of Color Against Violence have created a powerful brochure about how to end police violence against women and trans people of color. My recommendation? PRINT IT OUT AND DISTRIBUTE!!!!! Also, if you would like copies of the brochure, you can also e-mail incite_national@yahoo.com, with the number of copies you’d like and an address to send it to!

South Asian Studies

Zooey Live blogs about being a South Asian graduate student and South Asian Studies, one of her points is this:

[T]here is also something else which intrigues me about the South Asian departments. Something that’s also very visible in this class. So few of their students work on modern and/or contemporary South Asia. It’s not that I think working on pre-modern South Asian texts or societies is inherently bad. But there is also this general reluctance to acknowledge the existence of a modern South Asia. Very similar to the project of classical Indology. Which relegated India perpetually into the realm of “ancient.” And my pea-sized brain tells me this is not just an innocent fascination with the pre-modern past. But indeed, this is a very problematic manisfestation of an evolutionary understanding of the world and not totally unconnected to the racial-colonial politics which attempted to colonize non-Western territories by claiming that the people in there are not that “modern.”

“Troublemaker”

FAbulosa Mujer writes:

This here, I’m seeing more and more of. At 26 years-old, having been in the progressive circle for a couple of years now, mostly people of color and the few whites in positions of power in a nutshell this is what I see: when you’re new and excited about the work, always hopeful, dreaming, wanting to say yes to everything and not challenge everyone loves you. Speak in a tone that’s very welcoming…you are one with the movement. Beware once you fall, when you are not proper and you are speaking your mind “articulately” in a matter you believe in, and you disagree with um…the ranks, whether it be white women in the ranks or the men of color in the ranks or men of color colleagues when you challenge oppression, you’re a divider, trouble maker, punishable. You’re too loud and not as likeable.

“Troublemaker”

FAbulosa Mujer writes:

This here, I’m seeing more and more of. At 26 years-old, having been in the progressive circle for a couple of years now, mostly people of color and the few whites in positions of power in a nutshell this is what I see: when you’re new and excited about the work, always hopeful, dreaming, wanting to say yes to everything and not challenge everyone loves you. Speak in a tone that’s very welcoming…you are one with the movement. Beware once you fall, when you are not proper and you are speaking your mind “articulately” in a matter you believe in, and you disagree with um…the ranks, whether it be white women in the ranks or the men of color in the ranks or men of color colleagues when you challenge oppression, you’re a divider, trouble maker, punishable. You’re too loud and not as likeable.

Feminist Carnival No. 45

The newest edition of the Feminist Carnival is up at Feminist Philosophers:

First off I just want to say what a huge amount of great feminist writing there is out there, and how tough it’s been to put this together.   There’s just too much important stuff out there,  and I feel really overwhelmed. I’ve organized the Carnival a little artificially into categories, just to make it easier to take it all in (hopefully).  In particular, the fact that there is an “Analysis” header shouldn’t be taken to suggest that other items lack analysis.  It’s just that these didn’t fit the other categories, really! So, enough faffing, here we go…

Being a Woman In The Middle East

Margari Aziza Hill writes about her travels in the Middle East and opens up with this line:

As the reality of being a woman in the Middle East sets in, I am becoming increasingly aware of my limitations in social opportunities.

“You’ve Had Sex Before?…Well Than You Couldn’t Have Been Raped!”

Vanessa, on Feministing, writes:

Rape victims in Scotland are being questioned more than ever about their sexual history despite a previous victim committing suicide after being forced to show her underwear in court.

After the incident five years ago, the law was changed so that lawyers must request an application to “investigate” the person’s sexual history. (How considerate of them!) Unfortunately, that hasn’t changed much; more than three-quarters of rape trials include a request for an application. Scotland is also among the worst of rape convictions in the world with 3.9% of reported rapes ending in conviction in 2005.

“You’ve Had Sex Before?…Well Than You Couldn’t Have Been Raped!”

Vanessa, on Feministing, writes:

Rape victims in Scotland are being questioned more than ever about their sexual history despite a previous victim committing suicide after being forced to show her underwear in court.

After the incident five years ago, the law was changed so that lawyers must request an application to “investigate” the person’s sexual history. (How considerate of them!) Unfortunately, that hasn’t changed much; more than three-quarters of rape trials include a request for an application. Scotland is also among the worst of rape convictions in the world with 3.9% of reported rapes ending in conviction in 2005.