The Thirty-Seventh Down Under Feminists Carnival, Collated by Boganette

Boganette has deleted the content on her blog, but she gave me permission to repost her edition here so it has a home. This was originally posted on 1 June 2011.

So, I’m going to start this by saying that I got a lot of submissions and I’m not very good at editing or excluding people. And so this is a big carnival. Are you ready? I present to you the 37th Down Under Feminist Carnival.
(Seriously, I hope I’ve done it right. I couldn’t pick just one theme so ended up chucking things into places where I thought they’d fit).
If you’d like to host a carnival (you should! It’s fun!) head over to the Down Under Feminist Carnival main page and let Chally know.
Enjoy!

May 17 was International Day Against Homophobia and Trans*phobia
Octavia has worked her butt off and researched and written a must-read post Safe Places for Cis Women at Octavia’s Spitfire Emporium about Women’s Refuge policy against trans* discrimination (Hint: there isn’t one).
Scar’s post on the Women’s Refuge – A Refuge From What? really lays out just how dangerous their bigoted policy is:

It’s not just the indignity of being denied access to women’s services (we’re well used to that), it’s the dangers presented to an already dangerously vulnerable woman who is reaching out for support.

Amanda at Pickled Think wrote a brilliant post: International Day Against…Hate Of (all types) about the day itself but mainly about her science fiction and fantasy writing and also some great and important links.

“To me, IDAHO is more than just speaking out against hate for gay, lesbian and trans people. It also includes intersex, bisexual, asexual, agender, pansexual, pangender, androgyne, genderqueer and other non-binary people. A little difficult to put into a neat and snappy acronym. Whoda hoti? IDAHOTI!

Julie at The Hand Mirror gave her thoughts on International Day Againist Homophobia and Transphobia. There was also a roundup at The Hand Mirror.
In No refuge for some in IDAHO the badass Queen of Thorns talks about “an acronym that probably speak predictable volumes to the groups it leaves out”.
Steph at All My Penguins posted about the hideousness of the T removal.

“Today is IDAHO(T), the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia! But the T is invisible. Because the T is always invisible. Which is cool, you know, because the T can totally afford to be invisible. Because transphobia is one of those issues that everyone knows about and that everyone totally understands and nobody ever dies because of it”.

New NZ Queer blog – Missing Sparkles – is awesome. C. Connoisseur’s post is incredibly true, touching and meaningful.

“I would love to live in a world where I didn’t have to think about how people react to who I fall in love with and share my life with.”

Speaking of the awesomeness that is Missing Sparkles – Mr Wainscotting has a fucking top shelf post on Labour’s massive fails: The correct collective noun is ‘Pride’.

“We need politicians and media outlets to actually take a zero-tolerance stance on bigotry”.

Caitlin has posted a note on gender inclusiveness at Young Labour Women too. So check it out.
And remember if you’re in Wellington (like I am!) Queer the Night is happening this Thursday! (9th June) The march against homophobia and trans*phobia on our streets starts at 7pm at Waitangi Park (formerly Chaffers), travelling to Cuba St where there will be guest speakers and an open mic. Please bring glow sticks, torches, etc to light up our city.
Slut Walk was big in May and will be big in June
Slut Walk Aotearoa is June 25th in Wellington and Auckland from 2PM.
NZ Organiser Kiwiana (Inked) is calling for donations to help with set-up costs.
The Hand Mirror was all over Slut Walk with heaps of great posts that had heaps of interesting comments both in support and against Slut Walk. Scuba wrote about Paul Quinn’s gross comments on Back Benchers and also posted about why she’s taking part in Slut Walk. Luddite Journo posted in support of Slut Walk in However We Dress, Wherever we Go.
Fat Heffalump blogged about why she chose to take part in the Brisbane Slut Walk (which was on May 28th)
One of my most favourite blogger personality types in the whole wide world Clem Bastow helped organise the Melbourne SlutWalk and defended it in The Age.
Nadia at Mixed Nuts also blogged about her support for Melbourne Slut Walk.

“I don’t think there is any particular need to dress any differently than you normally would, because somewhere out there is someone who thinks it’s ok to call you a slut regardless of how covered or uncovered you are. So rather than yet again reinforcing the stereotypical image of a slut as someone who dresses and acts in a particular way, I would like to see people take that horrible little word and slap it across every woman of every age in every kind of dress and say, Riot Grrrl style: THIS is what you think of us for simply having been born female.”

I was a Riot Grrrl *looks off into the distance* once upon a time. And it was a badass time.
News with Nipples is participating in the Sydney Slut Walk on Monday June 13. She explains why in her post I am a Slut. Ya’ll should also read her post When skirts break the law.

“If someone else breaks the law, what on earth does it have to do with what I’m wearing?”

Can I get a Hell Yeah?
Fucking McCoskrie aye? Julie at The Hand Mirror blogged about how Bob McCoskrie is missing the point of Slut Walk when he says Slut Walk is missing the point.
Clownyprincess has linked to a post – Slutwalk: A stroll through white supremacy there has been a lot of important discussion going on about that on Tumblr and elsewhere.
Scar wrote about why she won’t be attending Slut Walk.

“Because once again, unlike every other minority on the planet, trans women are expected to be sensitive to cis women’s concerns and are ALWAYS expected to be the ones to give way if challenged by a cis woman.”

Tallulah Spankhead talks about why she is attending Slut Walk and also, about feeling conflicted about Slut Walk, at her place Strongly Wrong and also posted a round-up of what people are saying about Slut Walk.
Tabitha at Tabitha Talks Trash blogged about why she doesn’t support Slut Walks.
QoT took on an NZ blogger who “doesn’t think SlutWalks are necessary or have any point or will change anything or are really serious and omg feminists aren’t a hivemind so it’s all doomed to fail”.
With all the victim-blaming comments on feminist blogs about Slut Walk, Steph at Lady News decided we needed to remind people that Men are not wild beasts and people need to Blame The Rapists.
Tallulah also took on the victim-blaming rape-apologist assholes.
Chally at Zero at the Bone posted about Slut Walk and biological essentialism.
In Walk, Don’t Walk Octavia gave her thoughts on Slut Walk and why she doesn’t think she wants to attend.
Speaking of events – there is some great news on the Mebourne Feminist Conference front.
Can I, like, sneak now into Slut-shaming, body-policing and sex?
Clownyprincess talks about Cosplay – Slut shaming and body policing. I send a big FUCK YEAH and HORNS UP to this call to action:

“Stop victim-blaming. Stop erecting heirarchies to undermine others. Stop policing women’s freedom of expression. Just stop all your misogynistic, classist, sex-negative regurgitation and just flush it once and for all.”

Luddite Journo at The Hand Mirror – What if I don’t feel like having sex?

“…if you’re a sex therapist calling everything other than intercourse “foreplay”, you probably need another job”.

And again she brings that smart-talk with It’s hard to feel good about viagra.
Now, you don’t want to be thinking about good sexy sex thoughts and then have someone bring up that raging fuckwad Sam de Brito do you? Oh, my bad: Did I just link to a News with Nipples post about that stain de Brito saying Older women are ugly? Way harsh.
Maia at The Hand Mirror talks about Labour’s new ad that has a rape joke in it.
Stargazer at The Hand Mirror reminds us Bodies are NEVER embarrassing in relation to some terribly revolting TV vomit that has been shown on NZ channels.
Talking about our bodies – Fat Heffalump takes on “Bad Foods” – Control, Punishment and Singling out the Fat Folk. I wish my GP handed me that post instead of the usual shit-filled lectures she usually gives me. I also love this Fat Heffalump post – An Ode to My Thighs. I love my thighs. I endevour to not hate on them – they look amazing when I’m wearing tights as pants (yeah, I went there).
Really, if you don’t regularly read Fat Heffalump you should – If you could magically become thin overnight, wouldn’t you? is an amazing post.
Deborah at Bee of a Certain Age has posted about her experience having a mammogram.
Anthea at The Hand Mirror blogged about the internal conversations she wants to have with her body.
And Stef awarded a personal trainer the title of Asshat of the Week.
Random cool shit by awesome people (I’m not very good at labelling so I’m just going to put heaps of random cool shit by awesome people in this section).
Amanda at Pickled Think loves Mick Foley. And so do I. And so should you.
Don’t read Blue Milk’s post while drinking a bourbon and coke – you may spray it all over your laptop while choking/laughing. Duke Nukem is “overly chivalrous” don’t ya know? Super hedonistic Duke of the chivalrous love pats.
I think we can all learn a lot from this post: The Crying Stranger in the Playground at Autism & Oughtisms.

“That is what I understand: That I don’t understand. And so I will not – cannot – judge her”.

Amanda at Pickled Think reminds us that in Christchurch people are still really struggling to get back to something that resembles normal. “I hear it a lot: “It’s been three months already, move on, get over it”. And I’ll say the same thing that I did back in the first few weeks, and on memorial day: come live here.”
Over at The AntiBogan (heh nice name) a post on Osama bin Laden’s death: All lose if Hatred Prevails.
Joanna at The View From Down Here has a list of her top five things she wants to be different about disability in five years’ time.
Chally at Zero at the Bone posted about her complicated relationship with her disability.
Here’s a great post by Wildly Parenthetical at Hoyden About Town on Neo-Liberal welfare and gender inequality. You really need to read the whole thing (It’s pretty fucking amazing) but this in particular made me throw the horns:

“By telling us these nightmare stories about individual women, the injustices of neoliberalism get obscured, and those who actually could do something about these kinds of issues – the government – get to shrug their shoulders and raise their empty hands and say ‘well, we tried to give them dignity, we really did, but there’s just no helping some people.'”.

RIGHT? SO RIGHT!
Elizabeth at Spilt Milk’s great post on her reaction to “fashion” and “celebrity” mags at the hair salon – When loathing feels normal, don’t buy it.
Deborah at A Bee of a Certain Age writes about an article in an NZ paper about the Albany tornado – and how people need to really fucking think before they speak (and also editors and lay-out subs really have to fucking edit and fucking lay-shit-out proper in the papers). And also, a million atheists sigh in unison. If God saved the childcare centre, why didn’t he save the husband and father too?
Read all about Travelling Feminist: Eleanor of Aquitaine “One of the wealthiest and most powerful women in Europe, during her lifetime” at Penguin Unearthed. Also in the Travelling Feminist series this month – Teresa Bandettini and Emachia of Pompeii and Clara Campoamor.
This post by Laughingrat posted at Hoyden About Town was sent to me by no less than four awesome people! On women writers and a conversation.
Good Gravey talks about his entry into the world of online feminism and activism.
Elizabeth at Spilt Milk talks about fatigue and it’s EXACTLY HOW I FEEL. It makes me less tired reading it though…..How odd.
Alison Campbell at BioBlog talks about colour preferences – pink for girls, blue for boys – and whether they’re culturally or genetically determined, in the wake of that ridiculous nailpolish on a little boy story out of the US.
Speaking of colours – what colour do you think the Google sign was on Mother’s Day?
Infertility, parenting and pregnancy
This post over at A Touch of Crazy made me nod sadly through most of it. It’s about Facebook and infertility. Read it, think about it, talk about it with your friends and family.
Foggy in Nelson has a post about The Irony of Mother’s Day (on Facebook, again). In Three Little People Foggy talks about how “good friendships can be built between the fertile and the not-so-fertile”. And finally Dealing with infertility: A How To Guide for Friends and Family – a brilliant post that is a must-read.
You really should read Hazel Parson’s post Children: a lifestyle choice? It’s like a complete take-down of the ridiculously assholeish statement “Don’t have children you can’t afford.”
At Tales from the Naughty Corner Annie writes about the Coffee Group Mine Field.
Helen at Blogger on the Cast Iron Balcony has a beautiful and sad post about the Womens Hospital in Carlton.
Stargazer at The Hand Mirror wrote a post in favour of relaxed parenting.
Blue Milk talks about teen mothers and how they’re treated (here’s a clue: fucking horribly) by jerkfaces who should know better. Read Shunning for your own good and be thankful we have people like Blue Milk who speak out against that fuckery! Also Blue Milk talks about the child being raised without a gender in the US.
I guess this could lead into Shelley Fucking Bridgeman and how she totally fucked off, like, everyone with her horrible post Not All Families Are Created Equal .
Octavia’s brilliant take-down – Preventing the needs of poor people from being a burden on the very silly rich.
Giarne guest posted at The Hand Mirror – Extreme Middle and Upper Class Privilege.
That debate lead to Julie at The Hand Mirror posting about Breast Vs Formula being a false dichotomy.
Azlemed at SAHM Feminist posted about it too, her anger was shared by many people throughout NZ – Breastfeeding causes breast implants.. WTF?
And while we’re talking about breast feeding. It’s so fucking annoying that breastfeeding in public is still an issue (revolving door of assholes – when will you close for good?)A Timaru cafe owner asked a mother feeding her baby to cover up. Deborah at Bee of a Certain Age explains that under NZ law “no one may stop a mother from feeding her baby in public”.
Mary at Hoyden About Town has posted about new laws in Australia that “establish breastfeeding as a separate ground of discrimination”.
This post is by a self-described “teenage girl, entering a new phase in her life. High school.” This young woman is kick ass as fuck. She’s eloquent and strong and I can’t say enough awesome things about her and how awesome she is. FUCK YEAH YOUNG FEMINISM! The post I’m sharing is “There is no ‘good’ time to have children”.
Damn this young woman is awesome! And also her post on calling (or not calling) herself a feminist – is just SO GREAT. Like I started tearing up while I was reading.

“One of the biggest lessons that I have learned, is that feminism is not one size fits all, and that you can make it whatever you want it to be.”

Lessons to be Learned – bookmark it!
General feminism by badass feminists
Chally at Zero at the Bone has asked some important and interesting questions about representations of feminism.
Join the conversation TigTog started at Hoyden About Town on her post Systemic Imbalance and Marginalised Voices: Feminism FOR REAL.

“What can more privileged voices do to oppose the systems that sideline minority voices?”

Easy Guide to Defending Feminism for Fun and Profit – from the incredible Octavia at Octavia’s Spitfire Emporium is a must-read.
Analiese (former president of Young Labour) at Young Labour Women has a wee rant about the importance of feminism in New Zealand.
On an unrelated but everything is related note – You need somewhere to keep your whore pills right?
This section I’m going to call the “Abortion – for the love of all that is holy I wish mainstream newspapers would quit with the bullshit sensationalised anti-choice propaganda disguised as news crap” section:
The Sunday Star Times failed amazingly hard in May with a series of really shitty, unbalanced non-stories about NZ’s parental notification laws around abortion. They started with Schools arrange secret abortions (I’m not even kidding – that was the headline). Then followed that up with Judith Collins backs action on secret teen abortions (Seriously – that was the headline). And then in keeping with the theme they followed that shit story up with another shit story for the series Mother angry at lack of abortion counselling. For the sake of this round-up let’s call these three stories – Complete piece of shit #1, flaming pile of shit #2, and steaming handbasket of shit #3.

• Criticism of “Complete piece of shit #1”:

It was a giant beat up of a story about children (tiny, tiny kids for real) getting SECRET (undercover, CIA-style, totally illegal, all communication in morse-code) abortions by witches (probably heathen lesbian witches) disguised as guidance counsellors (under the guidance of Satan more like it!) corrupting our youth, destroying happy families etc
Queen of Thorns at Ideologically Impure kills it with Why self-reflect when there’s some good moral panic to foster?
Octavia explained “Well I can think of a couple of good reasons for secrecy”.
Sarah Robot at Inside Story was rightly fucked off at the manufactured uproar the SST is trying to force people into.
La Ranita talked about how totally ridiculous it was to describe the abortions as ‘secret’ and imply schools were breaking laws.
The Hand Mirror has been all over the issue. Julie at The Hand Mirror fixed it for the Sunday Star Times – which is really pretty fucking nice if you ask me.
Stef at a Touch of Crazy was disgusted too so she wrote a letter – Dear SST you are actually awful.
No Right Turn had a great zinger of a post on the issue too.

• Criticism of “flaming pile of shit #2”:

This time the article was Judith Bloody Fucking Collins and Bill Fucking Fuck Face Fuck English backing a change to NZ’s parental notification laws on abortion
I re-wrote their bullshit story (made it more accurate-like).
Caitlin at Young Labour Women did a roundup and gave her thoughts in the appropriately titled post – ARGHBLARGH.
Steph
continued to layeth the smack down on the Sunday Star Times with – SST continues to do Family First’s PR Work.
They don’t call her Queen of Thorns for nothing! QoT killed it a second time just to make sure it was dead with Pregnant teens deserve privacy and the SST needs a remedial journalism class and There is no “pendulum”. Boner killer crush!
Julie got to the heart of the matter at The Hand Mirror with Parental notification is defacto parental consent.
Scuba – also at The Hand Mirror – posted on The Support We Choose.
Luddite Journo at THM focused on the SST’s illusion of objectivity. Anthea at THM had a great post on the scenarios the Sunday Star Times used to scare parents.
Tallulah wrote a post on bullshit and backrooms.

• Criticism of “steaming handbasket of shit #3”:

In this article the counsellor at the hospital didn’t have a face and had a gaping hole instead of a heart. And afterward the counsellor and the evil Nazi doctor ate the foetus.
I had to blog again – It’s Sunday and you know what that means – because they didn’t listen to me the first time around. Don’t you hate that?
La Ranita wrote a post about headlines we aren’t likely to see in the Sunday Star Times anytime soon.
In conclusion: ALRANZ have a fact sheet and a post about parental notification laws. Y U NO contact ALRANZ and do YR HOMEWORK SST?
On the marginalisation of women in society, pop culture, media, film, radio, etc. etc. etc.
Just so you know, Amanda at Pickled Think fixed everything for you. Editors and journalists take note.
Tallulah Spankhead at Strongly Wrong asks why there were no women in this year’s NZ comedy gala show. And she gets a reply from the NZ Comedy Festival organisers.
Blue Milk posted about Roseanne Barr being eight kinds of awesome at Hoyden About Town.
I’m excited about Julie at The Hand Mirror’s series A Woman’s Place in the lead-up to the general election in New Zealand.
Kim at News with Nipples watches Megamind and is not fucking impressed.

“How many female characters do you see in Pixar films? How many do you see in animated Disney films? Tinkerbell, Little Mermaid, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella. Sure, there’s Pocahontas, but her life was all about falling in love. The lesson that children learn when watching these movies has to be that girls are either sexy or invisible, and the only thing that women should aim for is to fall in love.”

How do you attract clientele to your bar? Easy! Painfully sexist advertising bro! Let Steph at Lady News tell you all about it.
Are you outraged? You should be – if you’re a feminist and all the other feminists are outraged too – QoT puts the The Hive Mind expectations people have of feminists in a sharpshooter until they’re counted out.
Actually (for real) I know you will be outraged by this. Because this dude is like the most dudely-dude-bro-jackass ever. Mindy at Hoyden About Town has a stronger stomach than I have. She’s written about a shit-tastic piece of douchepie of a book – Don’t be that girl. Read it and you’ll totes get married (you want to, don’t lie, it’s your dream, you know it, don’t fight it).
He’s actually worse than my resident mansplainer.
(Gorgeous) Curvaceous Dee wrote a review about the “sex-positive road-trip/documentary/stage performance” Too Much Pussy! Feminist Sluts: A Queer X Show (how ACTUALLY AWESOME is that name?).
TigTog at Hoyden About Town wrote about Cate Blanchett and how we “Can’t have uppity womenfolk free-ranging those opinions now, can we?”
And finally – remember: The Feminists destroyed Marriage. Don’t ever forget.
Also, finally, again – Merkin.
*phew*