Welcome to the first Femmes Fatales on the new site: you know the drill – 10 great posts from 10 new (to me) women bloggers.

To begin, an immensely powerful post from Witchy-woo on Well, I’ll Go To The Foot of the Stairs, about the fate of her cousin, Catherine. She was savagely attacked, but the even worse villain of the piece is the teachings of the Catholic Church…

Then Lelyons on Femivist offers a powerful and deeply personal explanation of Hetero-privilege. “Without a doubt, I could exercise privilege if I decided to go with the flow. I would have to stay in good shape and learn to cook, but some might say that is a small sacrifice to make to have a bottomless credit card with which to shop with.”

After that a bit of light relief: Boinkette specialises in the short and sweet, and often pictorial. She’s glad to note that Bill Clinton is well hung. (But what I want to know, in the post above that, is why George Bush is wielding what looks – in fact I’m sure it is – a cricket bat?)

It is early days, but in the “one to watch file” is Laura on Sheffield Fems who is introducing her group, formed by a group of women eager to capitalise on the success of the national feminist conference, Fem05, which was held in Sheffield in the same month. Mo Pie on Big Fat Deal has meanwhile been expressing a wish – not a really huge wish really – for an overweight woman to be shown on television as sexy and desirable.

Turning to the less overtly “political”, Kaka Mak has some pleasant, and some considerably less pleasant, road encounters, accompanied by a fiery steed.
On Healthy Policy, Kate provides a vivid account of her progress from two crutches, to one crutch, to freedom.

Then ‘Nika has, I gather in reading between the lines, two small children and another on the way. A post about her day might be usefully employed as a contraceptive, for anyone getting a bit clucky. And the effects of the arrival of a baby on a relationship is explored by Shannon on It’s Shanntastic. “Having a baby has been THE most challenging thing our marriage has ever had to withstand.

Finally, one for the word mavens among us: JCarwen on TruthSpiral would like to apply restraint to some copywriter’s keyboard. I could think of a few other nominations – particularly the bank I walk past nearly every day that has abandoned hyphens. “Old fashioned” looks very odd without a hyphen.
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If you missed last week’s edition, it is here. (If you’d like to see all of them as a list , click on the category “Friday Femmes Fatales” in the righthand sidebar. That will take you to a collection of 540 (and counting) women bloggers.)
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Please: In the next week if you read, or write, a post by a woman blogger and think “that deserves a wider audience” (particularly someone who doesn’t yet get many hits), drop a comment. It really does make my life easier!

Ten brilliant posts, and ten new (to me) women bloggers worth waiting for.. that’s why they are Femmes Fatales.

Starting out on politics this week, Stacy on Cafe Politico looks at the Bush regime’s treatment of the media. Don’t ask questions seems to be the best strategy; otherwise you might get thrown out. Crabbi, on A Curmudgeonly Crab (great name!), sees a small sign of hope in the attendance of gay and lesbian families at the White House Easter Egg Roll.

Then a genuinely new blog, and an interesting cross-cultural international project, Jen on Speaking Up, Speaking Out is seeking personal accounts of domestic violence. “I decided that these silences must be broken, and that I wanted to be a part of helping that to happen.”

Dr Socks on Reclusive Leftist reflects on the position of the British Queen (in the week of her 80th birthday), and the general fascination of the monarchy.

Then, going on the road, on Workers dojo a look at the place of trade unions in Russia today – and some pictures…

And an on-the-spot report on India Ink on the state of Katmandu; Basia Kruszewska reports on how curfews don’t apply to tourists, but “the Nepali god is crying”.

Marie Javins reports on (the just renamed) No Hurry in JC about her feelings on leaving Spain. She asks “what now?” the sort of question many travellers encounter when they get “home”.

Turning personal, the Snow Crow, on A Crow in the Snow, has a cautionary tale about the fact that anything you post on the net will eventually come back to haunt you. And on My Wabi-Sabi life, Melissa J White reflects on the the effects of the passing years. Some things change, some stay the same.

Finally, a little history to remind us we’re come a long way. Allison Meyer O’Connor on EHearth has an account of what life was like in early 20th-century America. “This was in the days when people used to heat with little tiny stoves, or they’d have one heater in the middle of the room, and everybody would huddle around it.”

If you missed last week’s edition, it is here.
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Please: In the next week if you read, or write, a post by a woman blogger and think “that deserves a wider audience” (particularly someone who doesn’t yet get many hits), drop a comment here. It really does make my life easier!

Late again this week. Sorry. Am I regretting putting a day of the week in the name? Yes. Have I been a journalist so long that I should know better? Yes. Sorry. Will do better.

So, the ten brilliant posts, and ten new (to me) women bloggers worth waiting for…

First up, a huge find, (thanks to the latest History Carnival), The Old Foodie, who has a daily posting about food and history. Friday was – what you didn’t know? – St Lidwina’s Day, and her herb is borage. The Foodie not only tells us all about its culinary and medicinal properties (it might, modern science says, be useful against eczema), and a recipe – not any old recipe, but one from the “first English cookbook”, from 1390, from Richard II’s cooks.

Staying on the food theme, want to know how to make your garden into a feast? On Eat Your History, Deborah offers her practical, spectacular example. (Although the California climate must help.)

And while on gardens, on The Ethel Experience, a wonderful range of pictures from the Chicago Botanical Gardens. No 1, 2, 3 and 4. The swans (No. 2) are in there to make up for the fact that I didn’t get to take any pics of the many I saw while cycling the Thames path today. (I was too busy just keeping up with the group.)

Moving into the workplace, Simplicus, on the group effort Blogging the Renaissance, has a post that will have resonances for academic readers (in fact for anyone who socialises professionally). She reports on the social traps and frustrations of the academic conference. On The Hag’s Mouth, The Hag reports on staff from failed but cool companies who use them as models at staff meetings. (I’ve been reading a fictional account of the dotcom crash, so this really resonated.)

Turning to books, on Between an Oxymoron and a Redundancy (what a great name!) Lucyrain starts to read Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and finds a sentences that speaks volumes to her. Then, getting artistic, Lisa on Digital Medievalist (no, not a contradiction), offers thoughts on the National Gallery’s attempt to buy a portrait of John Donne.

Turning personal, Caron on Women Creating the World is hoping to create a community of debate. She’s looking now for thoughts on dealing with difficult family relationships.

Then OK, The Chronicles of Hermione Granger Reed is a dog blog, but it is a very classy dog blog, not written in the dog’s voice, and this post has an hilarious twist in the tail… it involves Harvard Law school and mange.

Finally (and this comes with the warning that it might be upsetting to some), two shattering posts about itinerant thinker’s gradual discovery of the extent of health problems of her foetus Annabel, starting with the 19-week ultrasound. Part 1 and Part 2. (The story has not yet been finished.) Those producing hysterical vitriol about “late” abortions should be made to read this. (Not of course that they will – might interfere with some of their comfortable preconceived notions.)

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If you missed last week’s edition, it is here.

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Please: In the next week if you read, or write, a post by a woman blogger and think “that deserves a wider audience” (particularly someone who doesn’t yet get many hits), drop a comment here.

It really does make my life easier!

Building on my collection of 500 female bloggers – 10 each week. (Yes there are millions out there, this just seeks to highlight a nice range of them and give them a bit of publicity.)

Why “femmes fatales?” Because these are killer posts, selected for great ideas and great writing, general interest and variety.

The Publishing Contrarian, Lynne W. Scanlon P.E.A. (Publisher/Editor/Author), has been to a Harvard power breakfast, and provides an amusing account thereof.

Staying in the literary field, Jenny Davidson on Light Reading discusses a range of books that don’t really deserve that title, including one on the place of the public intellectual.

On the Sigla Blog, Sinéad Gleeson ponders public spats between women, and the media’s affection therefore, prompted by a row between Sinéad O’Connor and Mary Coughlan.

Turning personal, and coming with a warning that this is a very disturbing post, Jules on Depressed Single Mother commemorates the ninth anniversary of death of “the first person I ever fell in love with”. She says: “I know that she really died because her father couldn’t keep his filthy hands off his vulnerable, tiny three year old daughter.”

Sage on Persephone’s Box has a great collection of musings on sexual intercourse, and ignorance thereof among men, and some women. “I also briefly dated a health teacher once who was adamant that menstrual blood is made up of dead embryos. WTF???”

Koonj on HU, a group blog for Muslim women, reports on her victory, as a pregnant, about-to-give-birth woman, over doctors convinced they, not nature, knew best.

On Always Aroused Girl, moving on through the lifecycle, a description of the magic glider on the porch, and its place in soothing a stressed child, or adult.

Ozarque collects words for the sense of touch that we’ve (almost) lost: e.g. “felth – the power of feeling in the fingers”.

Moving into political territory, on Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty, Maia reports on a New Zealand case in which three police officers were accused of raping an 18-year-woman. Again, it is not pretty reading; sorry. (I’m pointing there to one of the central posts, but it is well worth reading the whole succession, although it is a story we’ve no doubt heard the like of before. For a rape victim, the big problem, it seems, is to behave “properly”.)

On Tired of Men, “a 20-something woman” finds that Canary Wharf in London (the new financial district) is a great place to find dinosaurs.

Finally, to finish on a cheery note, a post from Mom-101 on the Things I’ve Won in My Life, which reminds me of the “I Love My Computer” mug I won in an introduction to computers one-day course back when I was 20 (for writing a short “Basic” programme, if I recall correctly – which really does date me. There were these new things called computers, and I was about to buy my first one; it had twin floppy drives and no hard disk, for the record.

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If you missed last week’s edition, it is here.

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Please: In the next week if you read, or write, a post by a woman blogger and think “that deserves a wider audience” (particularly someone who doesn’t yet get many hits), drop a comment here. (Thanks to Jonathan and Maxine in particular this week.)

It really does make my life easier!

P.S. Yes it is Sunday. Sorry!

Break out the balloons and the streamers – we reach a total collection of 500 women bloggers. (Yes there are millions out there, this just seeks to highlight a nice range of them and give them a bit of publicity.

Why “femmes fatales?” Because these are killer posts, selected for great ideas and great writing, general interest and variety.

First off, unusually, I’m going to start with a whole blog, rather than a particular post, since it would be unfair to single any one out: Reading Middlemarch is a group blog of women (at least I think they are all women) reading George Eliot’s masterpiece, and reflecting on it as they go. A great idea – and it would be fascinating if someone wanted to do something similar with a feminist classic – say The Female Eunuch? (Just a thought… I’m already committed to a variety of projects for about 23 hours a day.)

Turning back to the politics – well I have too, even if with a heavy heart – but let’s start with a positive story: on Avast! Feminist Conspiracy! (which proves from its title that irony is alive and well in America – whew!) an account of the campaign of Tammy Duckworth, “a disabled combat veteran and a woman of color, running on the kind of democratic platform that many of us joined the party for”.

Also on a note of celebration, Mikaila on The Pan Collective (a women’s blog “on Caribbean life” makes her first blog post, celebrating Jamaica’s first female Prime Minister – the Honorable Portia Simpson Miller.

Now I think Hecate on her blog should stop pulling her punches, say what she really thinks, as on the case of the Wiccan high priests versus a Great Falls, South Carolina town council. “The basic premise is that if xians aren’t allowed to shove their religion down everyone else’s throat, then the xians are being persecuted,” she says.

Belledame222 on Fetch My Axe (know the feeling) reflects on sex, porn, oh, all those issues around sex-positive feminism.

Turning to the artistic side, Lisa Call is, I guess you’d say, an artistic quilter, or an artist who quilts…? Forgive me; not my area. But she’s tracked the movement of her Welcome to Parker and given us a peak.

Then to the heartbreaking work – in this case medical – side. On Lost in Sasazuka, Kim is a final-year medical student on placement in the “deepest darkest Northern Territory” (Australia). And this is her quite technical, but deeply moving, account of the attempts to treat a young child, a case of ‘third world’ lifestyle – dirty water & overcrowding, managed with with ‘first world’ knowledge and resources.

Staying in warmer parts, That Girl in Samoa attends a movie premiere, a rather special premiere, of the the first Pacific Island feature length film, Sione’s Wedding.

Finally, a fun link for readers who have lots of computer power to burn – mine is still groaning. (If you’re on dial-up DO NOT CLICK.) On i-Anya Angela Thomas has a Tibetan-themed music sim.

And next week, we’ll continue on, towards the 1,000 mark….

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If you missed last week’s edition, it is here.

***

Please: In the next week if you read, or write, a post by a woman blogger and think “that deserves a wider audience” (particularly someone who doesn’t yet get many hits), drop a comment here.

It really does make my life easier!

“Where are all the female bloggers?” HERE, in my weekly “top ten” – all women bloggers who are new to me. Why “femmes fatales?” Because these are killer posts, selected for great ideas and great writing, general interest and variety.

“Putting your money where your mouth is” is something we often plan to do, but I anyway, don’t always live up to. So good on Rachel K. on Rachel’s Random Ramblings for doing her bit to “stop the Christian fascist tyranny” by making sure that she buys a new computer through, at least, the least-bad possible manufacturer and supplier. (Thanks to Penny for that link, despite our recent disagreement on another topic!)

Blue Girl in a Red State, is, however, selling, not buying. A brilliant image, and some interesting thoughts on the state of the US deficit.

And something else to buy: on BlondebutBright some information of a Kenyan jewelry-making project that provides work for disadvantaged women. A great gift idea, for yourself or others!

Then on to an antidote to that Christian fascist tyranny – although one you’d prefer didn’t exist: on The Fat Lady Sings a powerful argument for the cervical cancer vaccine.

On to more debatable issues: Veronica on Aldahlia debates sex-positive feminism and what it might or should mean. Then on Feminist Law Professors, why is it that the selection of a few female candidates has led to the Democrats being labelled the ‘mommy party’?

But if, after reading that, you need cheering up, hop over to the wonderfully named Climacteric Clambake, and check out the miracle of the uterine wall.

And then check out Bad Feminist’s lists of feminist crushes – in other words a collection of role models to look up to. It includes Cecilia Fire Thunder, first female president of the Oglala Sioux tribe of South Dakota, who plans to beat the abortion ban in South Dakota by setting up a clinic on (sovereign) tribal land.

ON the group blog Power Is The Ability Not To Have to Please, Jen Spillane reports on yet more horrific damage to American women’s rights to their own body – this time rape victims being denied emergency contraception.

OK – that’s enough being miserable – a determinedly cheerful run to finish off:

If you’re feeling hungry enjoy The Blythe Spirit’s triumph with feta-stuffed chicken.

If you fancy a taste of country life, check out the ladybugs on the shores of Lake Michigan with Nancy White on Full Circling the Globe.

(If you were counting, you’ll find that’s 11 this week. That’s to make up for the sex-change operation I performed on Joida on Buried Voices last week. Thanks for being a sport about it! It was bound to happen sooner or later.)

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If you missed last week’s edition, it is here.

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Please: In the next week if you read, or write, a post by a woman blogger and think “that deserves a wider audience” (particularly someone who doesn’t yet get many hits), drop a comment here.