Welcome to the Carnival of Feminists, which begins with an apology, for the hiatus since the last, which was due to my disappearing under a deluge of work, from which I’m slowly extracting myself.

So there’s more than a month of nominations here, and I decided the best thing to do was to collect them, to allow a new host a managable run.

And the next host will be Unmana’s words, on July 9. She kindly came asking if I needed hosts. You can use the nomination form to send links to her, or email her at unmana AT gmail DOT com.

(But I still need more hosts – if you’re interested, whether a “veteran” feminist blogger, or a “newbie”, or somewhere in between, please drop me a line, natalieben AT gmail DOT com.)

So, to a veritable cornucopia of feminists posts – and how to organise them? Well I’ve decided to do something different this time – to test the effects of serendipity. What’s below is, more or less, the order in which the nominations arrived; which might produce some interesting juxtapositions…

(Although I have by and large eliminated multiples from the same blog, in the interest of not allowing “swamping”. I’ve chosen the first one from each blog – following on the theme of allowing Lady Luck to do her stuff.)

To begin let’s be cheerful with Tali, who concludes, in an exploration of decades of women and motorcycles, that Ladies Prefer Vespa .

Moving into more serious territory, on Feminist Philosophers, Jender looks at a yet another rule for breastfeeding mothers. You have to wonder how the human race survived before the job of expert in childhood was invented.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents her own inimitable style view of Hillary and Obama, after the race was won.

Ann Bartow recovers some feminist history with a clip from an interview of Margaret Sanger on 9/21/57.

And a reminder that for some American women, not much has changed: Holly Ord presents Anti-Choice Oklahoma .

Getting even more subversive, you can meet The Female Sex Agent posted at Agent of Desire, which is “all about claiming back female sexuality for women sick of objectification.”

Nine Deuce concludes that The First Amendment is only sort of cool.

Cruella find that there’s Trouble in Comedy-Land.

Womanist Musings presents East Vs. West – The Feminist Divide.

Cara gets angry about claims of Faulty Feminist Introspection .

As is Lindabeth, about the fact that Sexualized Ads Become “Obscene” When Guys are the Objects.

Pete sees how Western misogyny translated to China in the Gold Diggers of 1936 .

Louisefeminista brings us back to the present with a The “Matriarch of Interracial Marriage” and Other Groundbreaking Female Plaintiffs; that’s about Mildred Loving, who made history in 1967 with a lawsuit that led the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Virginia’s ban on interracial marriage.

The intersection of racism and sexism is also explored by Deborah in Where did I learn my racism? and there’s a response by Anjum.

Getting more, dare I say it, postmodern, you can play Spot the Harry Enfield fan, while Fannie is also concerned about looks and what WNBA players are told about them.

Concerned with looking rather than looks, PodBlack looks at >Ashes To Ashes – Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Tart.

Marcella Chester considers Why Rape Survivors Go Online.

Womanist Musings presents href="http://www.womanist-musings.com/2008/05/stuck-in-middle.html">Stuck In The Middle, again considering the race/gender intersection.

Fiona Young-Brown concludes that yes, pregnant women have sex, and even enjoy it. So?

And in a possible related issue, Sarah McClellan-Brandt considersthe name change issue

At Miss Andrea’s, there’s a deconsruction of transgenderism. (Link de-activated, see comment below.)

And that concludes this rather unusual carnival. I promise that we’ll now get back on regular track. And remember – if you want to host, the email’s natalieben AT gmail DOT com.

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