hdrbwroofpencilvsmlweb by Sean Flynn @ Flickr.com

Lots of really, really great stuff this week. I bring you a handful of excerpts I shared at tumblr. For the rest, wander on over to the feminist librarian reads.

Molly @ first the egg | unemployment, class privilege & family-blind expectations.

“Apparently unemployed people are all either single people, or men with wives to take care of the children and home, or independently wealthy. The online unemployment system advises that everyone should treat the job search like a full-time job, carrying on job-seeking for 40 hours each week. Isn’t that adorable? Should I perhaps stick Noah in a crate eight hours a day in order to accomplish that? Because being unemployed meansI can’t afford full-time childcare.”

echidne @ ECHIDNE of the Snakes | Who Stole Feminism? Part I.

“How does one define an ‘establishment feminist,’ by the way? Do people who write about feminism a lot count or not? Or does the person have to be running a feminist organization to count as one? How long must a person be famous as a feminist to count as part of the establishment? I’m asking because sometimes it is hard to know who these establishment feminists are, given that the whole feminist movement is in tatters and shreds.”

Courtney @ From Austin to A&M | Connecting with female characters in geek television.

[Courtney provides: spoiler warnings for Dr. Who, Torchwood and Supernatural, as well as trigger warnings for imagined violence, slut-shaming and misogyny against women characters]

“This tendency to dislike female character reminds me of another ‘being one of the guys’ strategy: I often meet women who tell me proudly, ‘I just don’t get along with women. All of my best friends have been guys.’ These women also often think that this fact actually makes them progressive (because nothing’s more radical than failing to create female-centric relationships!). And most of the women I’ve known who say this are geeks. It’s actually one of the reasons it took so long for me to become friends with geeks, because ‘I don’t get along with women’ is dealbreaker for me. Any woman who says this is either a) telling me that I can never expect more than perfunctory friendship with them or b) inviting me to denigrate women as well, as the basis of our friendship. And no thank you.”

Spilt Milk @ Spilt Milk | Bullies = bullies, children =/= sociopaths and other simple equations.

“At two years old, Bean is still developing her capacity for empathy. She doesn’t yet have the cognitive ability to ‘put herself in someone else’s shoes’ or to reason through all of the consequences of her actions. Even so, she shows concern when others are distressed, she shows affection and practices impulse control when she can in order to share and take turns. She actively comforts adults and other children, offering cuddles and sympathy. Just like the other toddlers and preschoolers and school-aged children that I know do. They are not adults and don’t (can’t) think and behave exactly like adults. But that doesn’t make them sociopathic.

. . . you can’t call for more vigilance, transparency and action against young bullies without also calling for more respect for young people. It is precisely because adults feel safe and justified in expressing anti-child sentiments like “[children are] basically sociopathic” – that is, precisely because children are marginalised in our culture – that bullying is allowed to flourish in institutions like schools. If you don’t feel that children deserve the same respect as any other group of humans (and I would argue that whacking a negative label on them, using sarcastic jibes about their behaviour and showing hostility towards those that would defend them is, um, disrespectful) then how can you argue that their pain matters and that their voices should be heard? The very same people who call being bullied ‘character building’ are the people who wish to maintain the status quo, a situation where children are not well protected.”

For all the rest of the week’s links, head on over to the feminist librarian reads.

cat bath by Girla Obscura @ Flickr.com

Because when you can combine nakedness with cats, why not go for it?

This week in tumblr posts.

Hands-down Most Perfect Post of the Week Award:

Thetroubleis @ FWD/Forward | We also have the right to be in public.

Ever since childhood, I’ve been judged for not preforming humanity correctly, as anyone who wants the basic decency afforded a real person should. Reading at the dinning table to avoid a freakout is disrespectful. Refusing to look people in the eye must mean I’m hiding something. Making my mom order for me because I couldn’t stand to talk to strangers was freaky and just not right. It cannot be allowed stand and thus, I had to be molded, to become more normal. The discomfort of others with my natural state was always more important than anything I could need.

…One would think feminists, who I hear aren’t too keen on the policing of womens’ behavior, would see the parallels in policing the behavior of other marginalized people. Really, truth be told, the feminist movement has never been very good at being inclusive, at understanding intersecting oppressions. Therefore, I’m not very surprised, just further disappointed. This happens time and time again in various movements sold as progressive.”

Most Interesting Research from Across the Pond Written by Male Feminist Award:

Catherine Redfern @ The F-Word | Johnathan Dean: Rethinking Contemporary Feminist Politics [interview].

I found that a lot of academic work tended to assume that the most radical kinds of feminism are those that are most purist and separatist. There are good reasons for the popularity of that assumption, but my book tries to argue that there might be other ways in which feminist practices might be described as ‘radical’. This sets the scene for the book’s main argument, which is that all the groups I studied were in many ways becoming increasingly vibrant and radical during my research period. The F-Word, for instance, has been astonishingly successful in bringing together a plurality of different – and sometimes competing – voices from across the spectrum of UK feminism. I think there is something quite radical and challenging about that plurality of voices (rather than, as some might argue, it being a mixture of radical and ‘non-radical’ voices). Also, the Fawcett Society – which could be seen as quite a mainstream, liberal group – used to project quite a safe and unthreatening image, but since around 2005 its feminism has been much more assertive, and it has collaborated in interesting ways with several smaller organisations.

 Can We Not Have This Generational Feminisms Argument Yet Again? Award:


Courtney Martin @ Feministing | Electras talk back: responses to Susan Faludi’s Harper’s piece.

I talked to my own mom as I was deciding how to respond to this article and she said this: ‘The way I see it, you have to stop listening to my voice at times, so you can learn to listen to your own.’ I depend on both my own mother, and the larger feminist legacy, for wisdom, but I expect to be seen and heard accurately and compassionately in return. It’s time that we took this dialogue to a new level; instead we’re wallowing in finger-pointing and holier-than-thou judgment. There are real enemies out there, waiting for our good energy and savvy methodologies. Let’s not waste all of our time parodying one another.

To read the rest of this week’s links, wander on over to the feminist librarian reads.