Category Archives: Friday Femmes Fatales

Friday Femmes Fatales

Friday Femmes Fatales No 36

Ten new (to me) female bloggers, ten top posts, on my way to 400. It answers the question: where are all the female bloggers?

First the stunning Within/Without, on which Neha posts about working with street girls in Bombay. Also check out the post below about a child welfare official who employed am 11-year-old maid!

On Conversations with Dina, a report from the Global Voices Summit and Rebecca posts her impressions of the Les Blogs conference.

Tokyo Girl provides a deadpan but highly illuminating account of gender/national differences revealed at a Swedish housewarming party. Staying on the national customs side, on Frizzy Logic an explanation of a German Christmas tradition.

Then, on the British media, Sashinka reports back from a taping of Have I Got News for You.

Turning personal, on This, That and the Mother Thing, Anita is blogging day by day about dealing with a miscarriage.

Less seriously, Masked Mom suggests taking those dog days of February and adding them to December, while on Little Red Boat, Christmas looms as a menacing wave.

On This Too, Jean meditates on order and disorder, while (at the top as I write), Natalie on Augustine’s Blog wonders if God would have chosen to be self-published.

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You can find the last edition of Femmes Fatales here.

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Nominations (including self-nominations) for Femmes Fatales are also hugely welcome – I’ll probably get to you eventually anyway, but why not hurry along the process?

Friday Femmes Fatales

Friday Femmes Fatales No 35

Ten new (to me) female bloggers, ten top posts, on my way to 400. It answers the question: where are all the female bloggers?

I’m starting with a hugely powerful post from Andrea on Officials Shrub.com about how popular culture, and general culture supports and accepts domestic abuse. She asks: “If we continue to defend injustice because “that’s how life is”, does that not give a green light for the injustice to continue to perpetuate itself?”

Sugared Harpy supports the campaign to ensure the right to emergency contraception in Missouri and on Half Changed World, a post on why excessive standards of cleanliness are a feminist issue.

Then to other politics: Lis Riba sets out more causes for concern about Samuel Alito and on Boudicca’s Voice a strong view about the acceptance of torture.

On the cultural side, MJ Rose suggests the New York Times is losing the plot in covering books.

For something different, EAMS are the initials, I gather, of the diary of a now elderly lady being published by her son(?). Here, she’s recalling childhood visits to Dorchester, and some of its characters, including Miss O’Rourke, who was Thomas Hardy’s secretary. Lovely stuff – there should be more like it.

On the personal side, Casey on Girlspoke imagines the perfect gentleman caller for when she’s ill. Definitely the fantasy category. (Warning, some aspects of the main blog may not be work-safe, at least for conservative workplaces.)

Meanwhile, On Self-Portrait As has an explanation of why people who can’t say ‘no’ are so irritating. I can only sympathise; it reminds me of those horrible social occasions when a group is trying to decide where to eat or drink. “I don’t mind; well I don’t mind; well….” That’s usually the point I go home in disgust, or else I decide for the group, which will then complain about the decision.

Then Jenny Smash writes about the sad side of being attached to cats.

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You can find the last edition of Femmes Fatales here.

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Nominations (including self-nominations) for Femmes Fatales are also hugely welcome – I’ll probably get to you eventually anyway, but why not hurry along the process?

Friday Femmes Fatales

Friday Femmes Fatales No 34

Ten new (to me) female bloggers, ten top posts, on my way to 400. It answers the question: where are all the female bloggers?

For all of us northern hemisphere bloggers, winter is definitely here, but few can have captured it as beautifully as Meanwhile Here in France. (Likely to be slow-loading on dial-up.) “An Aussie lass” in Paris is meanwhile contemplating her first European winter and hoping for snow. (Know the feeling; I still get a thrill.)

Helen, a harpist, is meanwhile entrenched in deepest North Norfolk, but has found some some historic reading material. Not sure about a half bottle of champagne being enough for a romantic evening …

The on the wonderfully named Boob Pencil: Random Wibble from a Textually Loquacious Word Freak, Clare has formula for overcoming writer’s block. Might come in handy some time.

I can’t imagine how I’ve missed this blog for so long, but (Another) 52 Books started out posting one review a week for a year, and is now continuing. This week she has a book about a naked elf – and it’s apparently not bad. (Going to have to read it just for novelty value!)

For more traditional reading, The Daily Blog with Kelley Bell is finding feminist messages in fairy tales.

Sundries: a Sweatshop of Moxie is musing on the different traditions of laundry, and serving your family.

Then serving up some not-so-humble pie, Christine C on PopPolitics is reporting on how it offers an insight into character. (Go up this blog a little and you’ll also find her outline of next year’s Women, Action and Media Conference (in the US).

On the harsher realities of life, Kriti, a widow living in Crete, writes about painting her husband’s tomb. Secret Agent Josephine is enduring jury duty, while eight months’ pregnant – and posting some lovely pics.

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You can find the last edition of Femmes Fatales here.

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Nominations (including self-nominations) for Femmes Fatales are also hugely welcome – I’ll probably get to you eventually anyway, but why not hurry along the process?

Friday Femmes Fatales

Friday Femmes Fatales No 33

You know the score – ten new female bloggers, ten top posts, on my way to 400. It answers the question: where are all the female bloggers?

Patricia Lay-Dorsey is an American who has been delivering an anti-war message in Beiruit. What really grabbed me on her blog Windchime Walker, however, are her accounts of her travels. You’ll have to read a few to realise that she has a serious disability.

Staying international, On A Whole Year: What I Wish I’d Known About Being the Parent of an Exchange Student, a mother talks about some of the memories her daughter has been left with – and why there’s a touch of sadness in a smoking ban.

Turning scientific, Tara C. Smith on Aetiology reports how a myth about Komodo Dragons has finally been dispelled. (She’s a great source for subtle science that won’t make the headlines because it is, well, too subtle and nuanced.)

Now all of the humanities PhD students who read this blog, be warned: if you were doing the same thing in science, you’d also have to wrestle an array of dangerous instruments That report’s from Disgruntled Julie: A PhD in Progress.

But just don’t mention the maths, at least not around Laura, author of After the Ratrace, subtitled “Life After Marketing”. She’s training to be a counsellor, but having a statistical nightmare.

Turning literary, The Written Nerd is an “independent bookseller” (nice to know there are a few left). So you might want to check out her recommendations for plane reading. They’re suitably eclectic.

Then on the personal front, Dry Bones Dance reflects on things to be thankful for at Thanksgiving.

There’s a political take on holiday from Marisa Treviño on Latina Lista. I know what the Macy’s parade is because it is one of those pictures that “foreign” newspapers run without fail every year, but this year there’ll be a Latina character for the first time.

Then read an explanation from Minta’s Midnight Musings on why there’s really no reason to celebrate.

Finally, don’t miss this post, a cautionary tale with an astonishingly good ending. Lucky White Girl kept her laptop in the oven for safekeeping, but …

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You can find the last edition of Femmes Fatales here.

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Nominations (including self-nominations) for Femmes Fatales are also hugely welcome – I’ll probably get to you eventually anyway, but why not hurry along the process?

Friday Femmes Fatales

Friday Femmes Fatales No 32

You know the score – ten new female bloggers, ten top posts, on my way to 400. It answers the question: where are all the female bloggers?

Starting with a bit of navel-gazing, Dr Virago (love the title) on Quod She introduces the Electronic Frontier Foundation and discusses the issue of freedom in the blogosphere. Let’s Get Digital, meanwhile, looks at how children are navigating a digital world. Medieval manuscripts get a look in too.

Turning topical, Redneck Mother is aiming for a $150 Christmas. And she’s found that one of the best presents children could possibly get is simple, basic dirt (or perhaps mud). Soap as a stocking filler might also be a good idea.

On Commeo, the impressively named Ms Bella Sultane ponders the responsibilities of military spouses in speaking about the war in Iraq

Now, a warning: this pairing on fertility could be distressing to some. Dead Bug is blogging her seatbeltless rollercoaster to (she hopes) motherhood – this time the news is good. Barefoot and …, however, is posting from the heart, after another miscarriage. They appear to be part of a supportive network of bloggers dealing with issues of fertility – well worth checking out their blogrolls if the issue is close to your heart.

Turning social, Emma Jane on Barely Tenured discusses the problem of the argument that gets out of hand, while Cate on My Mom Dated Spike offers a short but sweet review of the Pride and Prejudice movie.

Staying literary, I’ve been musing, after appearing on a radio show (see below) on how you always think of brilliant things you could have said when it is too late. Well Liz Henry’s a poet, so she’s got the problem of lines she’d like to airbrush.

To finish on the light side, Jessica on Go Fug Yourself desconstructs celebrity life. I don’t understand half the references, but it sounds fun.

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You can find the last edition of Femmes Fatales here.

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Nominations (including self-nominations) for Femmes Fatales are also hugely welcome – I’ll probably get to you eventually anyway, but why not hurry along the process?

Friday Femmes Fatales

Friday Femmes Fatales No 31

Welcome to the start of my next century of women bloggers. You might notice this is being delivered on a Saturday. Sorry about that, but last night was my farewell party from work, so I was tied up elsewhere. (And this morning comments are as usual welcome, but _quietly_ please!)

In other news, don’t forget the Feminist Carnival No 3 will be on Sour Duck next Wednesday. The call for nominations is here.

So to begin …

I have to start this week with a post by a Jordanian blogger, Natasha, who has a simple message arising from the Amman bombings Burn in hell Zarqawi! (As I wrote earlier in the week, I have fond memories of Jordan, so was particularly struck by the atrocity.)

Redneck Woman, who’s “raising children, lettuce and hell in Texas”, has an important post about the need to be honest about the realities of pregnancy. This is active service folks, she warns.

Still on the family side, on Pause, Jory des Jardins talks with heartfelt honesty about her father.

Then in business, Antonelle Pavese is writing about Alice’s Corporate Wonderland. You just can’t pretend the “woman question” isn’t there.

Pants that Fit wants to know what readers think about wearing an inherited fur. Even if you’re opposed to fur in principle, if the animal died before you were born, what is wrong with it?

Renaissance Woman has a wonderful post musing on the death of her hamster, including haikus for him to read in his next life. (Not perhaps for the overly sensitive.) But there’s nothing to upset anyone (although it is quite bandwidth heavy) in Music and Cat’s Friday catnap.

Cooking with Amy has a recipe for pozole that holds emotional memories. She also muses on the odd idea of hoarding recipes rather than sharing.

The Singaporean Clapbangkiss defends herself against newspaper accusations of being a ‘poor little rich girl’ (and sets out how her mother has provided for her family. (There’s an explanation of the furore in which she has become entangled here.)

Average Jane, meanwhile, has two songs, and a novel to write. For a weekend, one out of two isn’t bad.

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You can find the last edition of Femmes Fatales here.

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Nominations (including self-nominations) for Femmes Fatales are also hugely welcome – I’ll probably get to you eventually anyway, but why not hurry along the process?

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