Just a note that there are two new theatre reviews over on My London Your London, of Gaudeamus or A Very Liberal Education, at the Arcola, Dalston, and Animal Farm: A Fairy Story at the Courtyard Kings Cross. Both written by my classy, well-trained (if unpaid) “staff”.
Once again, the Observer is proving its anti-female credentials, basically repeating the ridiculous Prospect article on which I commented earlier this week, and calling it, ridiculously, academic. Now I think most people would agree that an academic article is one that appears in a peer-reviewed journal, which Prospect certainly isn’t. If I were still buying newspapers, I would be boycotting the Observer, which with its anti-abortion and anti-working women stance is looking more like the Sunday Mail every week!
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An interesting piece in the Sunday Times on online shopping, which basically argues that online, people are “harder” shoppers, shopping around more and less prone to impulse buys. Although what it fails to mention is eBay – which has certainly changed the way I shop. If I decided, as I did say the other day, that I wanted a thermos, it was the first place I went, and I had what I wanted in five minutes – much less hassle than sloping down the shops.
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Finally, another in the “name and shame” category, from today’s Independent:
Stephen Ladyman, the transport minister responsible for green fuels, drives a new diesel-powered Alfa Romeo GT. He has a passion for sports cars and motorbikes. And he is being blamed for personally resisting plans to subsidise the purchase of cars with low carbon dioxide emissions such as the Citroën C1 and Toyota Aygo.
Sounds like a good protest target for me….
First little gem from the Mediev-L email list, the information that there were German mini-states ruled only by women (abbesses) for hundreds of years.
“…the female abbey of Essen which lasted 873-1803, and was I believe territorially the largest of them. … The bucolic town of Essen was founded in the tenth century by the abbess Hedwig I. … It became a principality of the empire in 1275. The ruling abbess was assisted by a chapter of ten other nuns, who were largely aristocratic…
Here is a snip from the 14th century.
Kunigunde II of Berg 1328-1336
Katarina of La Marck 1336-1360
Irmgard II of Bruch 1360-1370
Elizabeth III of Nassau 1370-1412″
I’m keen to find a source to find out more. (In English – can’t do German, sorry!)
This first link must come with a health warning – some could find it distressing. Karen Armstong provides an account of her mother’s horrific, slow, struggling death.
She found it increasingly difficult to speak, but the one thing she said frequently and with clarity was that she wanted to die. It was her last – indeed her only – wish. Thirteen years ago, when in good health, she had made a living will, which stated that, when the time came, she did not wish her life to be prolonged artificially.
Yet the hospital could not let her go… So often the story you hear. The only reassuring thought is that this is going to have to change, given the rapid advances in medical science that otherwise will see vast numbers of people in this situation. The hospice movement has shown the way, but it either has to rapidly expand (tough since it is still – scandalously – largely funded by donations) or else hospitals are going to have to come to terms with the fact that it is time for some people to die, and to let them go, peacefully.
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Getting the bad news over together, there has been a rapid increase in the number of glacial earthquakes at both poles, suggesting the ice is melting and breaking up faster than has been predicted:
The annual number of glacial earthquakes recorded in Greenland between 1993 and 2002 was between six and 15. In 2003 seismologists recorded 20 glacial earthquakes. In 2004 they monitored 24 and for the first 10 months of 2005 they recorded 32.
The latest seismic study, published today in the journal Science, found that in a single area of north-western Greenland scientists recorded just one quake between 1993 and 1999. But they monitored more than two dozen quakes between 2000 and 2005.
But some good environmental news – showing what is possible. This is an oddly written story, but the basic message is that simple conservation measures have reduced Japan’s water consumption by 10 per cent in just five years. Surely a model for what you could do also for electricity…
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Finally, a preview of what is sure to be a good old historical row: Tristram Hunt’s view of how the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Britain should be celebrated. John Prescott has been put in charge.
“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.
Prospect in the UK magazine started out as an interesting new project that presented views from across the political spectrum. I took it for several years, but dropped it as it looked more and more right wing, a trend that seems to be continuing, judging by the Working girls article in this month’s issue.
It claims that women’s “fully equal access” to professional opportunities (ha!) has three results:
1. The “death of the sisterhood”: “an end to the millennia during which women of all classes shared the same major life experiences to a far greater degree than did their men.
2. The end of “female altruism” – “The period from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century was a golden age for the “caring” sector in one major respect. It had the pick of the country’s most brilliant, energetic and ambitious women, who worked in it as paid employees, but who also gave enormous amounts of time for free. Now, increasingly, they do neither.”
3. A “shortage” of babies: “In most developed countries, birth rates are well below replacement level.”
My response:
1. Women never were a “sisterhood”, never were allowed to be a sisterhood – because their primarily allegiance was, or was supposed to be, the male to whom they were attached. In competing to get and keep a man, they were forced into opposition with each other, and societal structures pushed them to police each other to enforce “appropriate” female behaviour.
2. Alternatively, of course, you could call this the end to the exploitation of women pushed, by lack of other opportunities, to use their skills and talents for no pay and precious little recognition.
3. The birth rate figure is true, but given the huge number of humans in the world no bad thing. And anyway, the Scandanavia states have shown that if you provide sufficient incentives in terms maternity and paternity pay and leave, you’ll get to something close to replacement rate.
This sort of pernicious stuff needs to be challenged, although it is extremely difficult to get anything in the mainstream media, given the views of the average male editor. (Funny how all this equality hasn’t produced a flood of female editors…)
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