Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts

19 March 2008

Feminist book club

I wrote about this on my books blog: I'm planning on reading a few feminist classics over the next year. I mentioned this at the meeting last Saturday and a few people were keen to join in (in addition to the meetings every three months, we might get together in between and discuss what we're reading). Books that I've thought of/others have suggested so far (some classics, some more recent) are:
  • Simone de Beauvoir: The second sex
  • Germaine Greer: The female eunuch
  • Shulamith Firestone: The dialiectic of sex
  • Mary Wollstonecraft: A vindication of the rights of woman
  • Betty Friedan: The feminine mystique
  • Kate Millett: Sexual politics
  • Virginia Woolf: Three guineas
  • Sheila Rowbotham: Woman's consciousness, man's world
  • Elisabeth Badinter: XY, de l'identité masculine (not sure whether this is available in English translation)
  • Susan Faludi: The terror dream
  • Deborah Siegel: Sisterhood, interrupted

Suggestions welcome, and anyone who wants to read along, that would be great.

21 January 2008

Pankhurst turns in her grave

Link in title. Really, I just don't know where to start with this. Wannabe WAG Nicola McClean - star of 'Help, My Wife's High-Maintanence', to be shown soon on Channel 5 - says that she never lets her husband see her without make-up, even getting out of bed early in the morning to apply a fresh layer before he wakes up.

"Even when I was in labour I had my full face on, hair straightened and perfect nails. I'm so proud of that," she boasts.

Boasts? Really, it's like the 20th century didn't happen. Nicola then goes on to bemoan the state of modern womanhood: "Letting yourself go is a sign of a lazy slob who doesn't care about herself or her man. No wonder one in three marriages fail."

Not content with pinning increasing divorce rates on women getting ideas above their station and 'letting themselves go', Nicola then moves on to the subject of parenthood:
"I had my boobs increased from a 32C to a 32G so I didn't feed my baby because they'd go saggy and lose their sexiness. I wanted to keep my boobs for my boyfriend, know what I mean?"

Nicola later moves on to her frankly retarded views on the domestic division of labour:

The couple's flashy Bucks home may look perfect, but that's no thanks to Nicola - she never lifts a perfectly-manicured finger round the house. She refuses to change a lightbulb and proudly says she has never done so in her life. "That's Tommy's job," she sniffs. "Me? Use a screwdriver? With these nails? No way."

Given the choice of sitting in the dark or flicking a switch on if the fuses went in the house, Nicola curls a glossy lip at the thought of doing anything for herself. "I'd rather sit in the dark - or go to a neighbour for help," she says... Relinquishing the right to choose her own food, she even lets Tommy order for her in restaurants. She adds: "If my glass was empty and I wanted another one, I wouldn't ask the waiter. I'd say to Tommy, 'Babe? Catch someone's eye, please,' and he'd do it for me. It's not for me to do a job like that."

Her motivation, it seems, is that her hubby keeps her in designer handbags and shoes: "her pampered tootsies only feel comfortable in the £300 Gina shoes Tommy buys her to add to the 30 pairs already lined up in her walk-in wardrobe".

Which raises a rather difficult point - if, as appears to be the case here, a woman's primary motivation is money, or at least luxury goods, just where do you draw the line between trophy wife and prostitute? (WAG or slag, you could say...).

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft told us that women, "confined in cages like the feathered race...have nothing to do but to plume themselves, and stalk with mock majesty from perch to perch". We've moved on a lot since then, but Nicola isn't deterred by 216 years of feminist progress:

She exfoliates her entire body and shaves her upper and lower legs, underarms and bikini line every day. The very thought of a missing out on her daily regime shocks Nicola to the very core of her fake-tanned body. She exclaims: "Let my minnie grow a millimetre too long? Never!"

Finally, young Nicola tells us the secret of her happy marriage:

"I hate those girls that let themselves go, let their boyfriends see them without make-up and don't put an effort in for their men. It's laziness to look so ugly. I have higher standards, and that's one reason why Tommy loves me."

13 July 2007

New UK Feminist Mags

Good news, everyone! Quite a few feminist magazines have been launched in the UK recently according to The Guardian, link in title. Feminist blogs and groups are also mentioned including some we already know about, like the f word and LFN. According to The Guardian's Jess McCabe, this is all proof of a rejuvenated women's movement. Huzzah.

And here's some more new mag links:
Knockback
Uplift
Subtext

Perhaps we can take a look at them at the next group?

04 May 2007

The truth isn't sexy

An interesting campaign (described as 'the best ever excuse for a pub crawl!') highlighting the problems behind the sex trade, The truth isn't sexy will be handing out posters, flyers and beermats which draw attention to the exploitative nature of prostitution and sex trafficking. They're meeting on Saturday 19th May at 11am at The Art Academy, 201 Union St, London, SE1 0LN.

03 May 2007

Women in Iraq

A truly amazing interview, via Feministing and Guernica magazine, with Yanar Mohammed, an Iraqui feminist activist, talking about the ways in which the occupation of Iraq has been bad for women.

Mohammed asserts unequivocally that war and occupation have cost Iraqi women their legal standing and their everyday freedoms of dress and movement—a topic that has received surprisingly scant news coverage beyond scattered reports on sectarian violence and infamous prison abuses. “The first losers in all of this were women,” Mohammed says of post-invasion Iraqi society.

18 April 2007

Full frontal feminism

Jessica Valente, co-founder of the young feminist website feministing.com, writes in the Guardian about what feminism has to offer to young women and her new book aimed at teenage girls, Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman's Guide to Why Feminism Matters.

The book might be an idea for the next group? Which incidentally probably won't be until June or so - after I finish my exams...