The Thirty-Ninth Carnival of Feminists

Hello and welcome to the thirty-ninth Carnival of Feminists! Please take a seat, we have a very big and comfy sofa with limitless seating capacity, and also there are a few brightly coloured beanbags around. Enjoy our selections of drinks and snacks, and settle down for the best of the feminist blogosphere. I started by trying to put things into categories…. but then my categories got all confused and began to merge into one another. So instead of even giving the appearance of organisation, here are the posts, in no particular order…

Shannon of Egotistical Whining points out to us that the concerns of WOC feminists are often subsumed under those of white feminists.  Meanwhile, Jessica of Cheers to Ambiguity comments on a CNN article about the horrendous suicide rate for Asian American women, noting that the ill-education of mental health professionals is contributing to the needless deaths of Asian American women.

Joseph Orosco writes about Women’s Bodies and the Fields of War: Japanese Comfort Women and the Legacy of Cassandra, and asks if we must continually re-enact ‘the legacy of Cassandra’. Evelina Galang continues her fight to secure an apology and compensation for the surviving Filippina ‘Comfort Women’, whose plight has gone largely un-noticed. The stories on Evelina’s site are potentially triggering. I urge everyone reading this to sign Evelina’s Global Petition to help these women.

Heart comments on the case of the Pakistani Female-Born Partners Imprisoned for Marrying to Prevent One of Them From Being Sold to Pay Uncle’s Gambling Debt, and presents a thought-provoking and nail-on-head analysis of the issues involved in this horrible case. Yolanda at The Primary Contradiction draws our attention to the desperate plight of destitute Iraqi women and girls who are forced into prostitution to survive. In Yolanda’s words, ‘Who’s still cheerleading this war?’

The wonderful Sparkle*Matrix takes apart the apologetic Myth of Porn and the Cathartic Relationship, by means of an analogy to chocolate and some scary data. NoPornNorthampton notes the underrepresentation of women in the media, remarking on how silence can be construed as lack of dissent, rather than as a result of the difficulties in speaking that the powerless have.

On the subject of the media, Deborah Siegel reviews the film ‘Knocked Up’ from a feminist perspective, as does Aspazia at Mad Melancholic Feminista, both coming to different conclusions. Going back to the 50s, Anna of Verging Writer, discusses I Love Lucy- the accidental feminist.

Eilidh70 of Teetering Slightly discusses sexual objectification and beauty standards as brought up by Beth Ditto’s nude pictures in NME magazine, while Alfa King alerts us to the existence of a newspaper in Madya Pradesh which is dedicated solely to the description of female reality.

Birthcycle relates the sexual harrassment she suffered at the hands of her male peers, between the ages of 12-14. This is sobering and moving reading which speaks honestly about the experience of sexual bullying. Sophie at 2Bsophora writes about the ‘invisible boundaries’ that women have to negotiate, the spaces that they must stay away from or risk worrying everyone else. Arantxa expresses her frustration with men dominating feminist spaces with ‘what about the men’ type queries.

Tamilpunkster of Days in a Wannabe Punk’s Life has a concise and eloquent piece about why rape is a men’s issue. This is most definitely worth perusing and passing on to any males you know you do not ‘get it’.  Witchy Woo calls attention to the unusual sighting of a radical feminist article in a mainstream paper. Charliegrrl points out how impossible it is to avoid seeing disturbing misogynistic images.

Rainbow Girl announces the sale of a comic book to raise money for the Umoja Women’s Village, a women-only village in Kenya, created to combat sexual violence against women. Newt in a Tea Cup has a fantastic post on Invisible Women.

Penny Richards of Disability Studies, Temple U has a piece on the life and works of Margaret Fuller, who wrote Woman in the Nineteenth Century in 1845, and reported on the conditions of mental asylums, and Jeremy of Daddy Dialectic has an  interview with the family historian Stephanie Coontz. Neela of One Hundred Years of Solitude shares with us images of beauty in a fascinating piece.

Cara at the Curvature posts an interesting review of Naomi Wolf’s classic The Beauty Myth, and Sazz remarks on motherhood, recalling a classic of the feminist movement, Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born. Babylune publishes the name of the charity chosen by the Mothers’ Day Charity Campaign. Meanwhile, Red Jenny discusses the Two Paths of Population Control.

Finally, the GinjaNinja argues that we should keep the word ‘feminist’, rather than capitulate to political pressure, and The Goldfish notes the heterosexism of Tesco’s free ‘gift for him’.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed reading the carnival- I certainly enjoyed compiling it! The fortieth Carnival of Feminists will be at Bra-less Living in LA on June 20th.

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