Monthly Archives: August 2006

Friday Femmes Fatales

Friday Femmes Fatales No 65

August 11, 2006 – 10:52 pm

Ten great posts from 10 new (to me) women bloggers.

On the beautifully named So Many Books, Stefanie Hollmichel reflects on the BC (before computer) days. “My writing relationship with my computer is different than someone who came along AD (after DOS) …. I wonder how a computer would have changed Virginia Woolf’s writing?

Staying with the bibliophiles, since it is summer holiday season, Ali on bonbon cosmique selects her five favourite historical novels. For the young adult readers – and those who fancy an expedition to the abbey of Whitby in Northumbria’s glory days – Carla Nayland on Historical Fiction reviews Wolf Girl, by Theresa Tomlinson.

And Jennifer Weiner on Snarkspot has been at what sounds like an amazing reading session in New York, with Stephen King, John Irving, J.K. Rowling.

Turning more critical, can you imagine Rebus speaking “American”? That’s what Sarah Cuthbertson on Sarah’s Books found when she looked at an American edition of Fleshmarket Alley. (That’s Fleshmarket Close to the rest of us.)

Moving on to issues of body politics, Stephanie, The Feel Good Girl, is reflecting on the uselessness of diamonds. “You can’t wear a diamond tennis bracelet with a wetsuit or on the ski slopes, so what good is it?”

Now I’m aware that some of my readers might consider this a controversial topic, but if you do use use wax for hair removal, either at home or at the beautician’s, Spa Diva on Blogher has advice on making waxing as painless as possible

Moving swiftly on, “Heidi the Hick” on Hick Chick isn’t geographically where she’d like to be right now, but she’s still managing an interesting life anyway.

Turning more overtly political to finish, on The Wonderful World of Lola, praise for the BBC and Eastenders (a popular soap opera). “Considering the number of kids who see similar scenes playing out live in their own homes, I think the Beeb should be praised for being brave enough to show the realities of the abuse that so many women and children live with.”

And Skookumchick on Diary of a Feminist Engineer explains how she aims to be, well, a feminist engineer. “I believe that engineering (and engineering education) has historically been constructed to ignore technology associated with women and women’s work.”

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If you missed the last 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 650, 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. Or don’t be shy – nominate yourself! (Thanks to Penny for her suggestions this week!)

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Women's history

The 16th-century ‘true crime’ genre

August 11, 2006 – 10:01 am

Call me an unsophisticated lass from the colonies, but I still get a buzz from artistic crossing of the centuries, so I really enjoyed last night seeing a production The Tragedy of Master Arden of Faversham. Published in 1592, it closely follows the “true-life” crime of 1551.

I reviewed it over on My London Your London.

Of course the “true-life” angle is thought-provoking – I woke this morning thinking about poor Alice, the real-life one, who paid the ultimate price for “petty treason”, being burned alive.

And at least one modern writer, has exonerated her:

Thomas Ardern, Orlin shows, was a broker of dissolved monastic properties who learned the art from some of the age’s most rapacious courtier-officials, Sir Edward North (Alice Ardern’s stepfather) and Sir Thomas Cheyney. As Cheyney’s steward in Kent, and as a customs collector for the vicinity of Faversham, Arden was, much to his own advantage, deeply involved in the conveyance of church holdings into private and state hands. Memories were long in Kent: people knew whence Ardern’s wealth had come, and, perhaps more dangerously, Ardern knew whence had come the wealth of many others. I will not give away Orlin’s solution to Ardern’s murder; suffice it to say that among the possible motives for Ardern’s murder, those of his wile Alice were by no means the most urgent.

(From: Recent Studies in English Renaissance, Lawrence Manley; Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, Vol. 36, 1996, referring to Lena Cowen Orlin’s Private Matters and Public Culture in Post-Reformation England.)

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Feminism

Abuse by judge

August 11, 2006 – 9:41 am

You’d really think judges would have got the message by now, but of course they live in another (male, public-school educated, London club) world. The latest is the judge who told a millionaire’s son (of course), that he could write a letter of apology to get off a sexual assault charge.

The introverted businessman had been “led into temptation” after the women, all Swedish and in their early twenties, had agreed to go back to his hotel for some food after a night out in Central London, the judge said.
He told the Old Bailey that, under normal circumstances, Modi could expect a jail sentence of up to eighteen months but that he was instead being given a six-month suspended sentence. He would also have faced a stiffer sentence had one of the victim’s friends not awoken and started screaming during the attack. By then Modi was half-naked, had removed the victim’s jeans and knickers and was lying on top of her.

You can just hear the expensive lawyer spinning the “innocent sheltered lad” story – for a man of 33 who’s travelled extensively in the West.

And that the judge thought it was the women’s fault…

After sentencing Modi, Judge Roberts said: “I suspect that this situation of having three women asleep in his bed and sofa would have been somewhat confusing. It was, of course, that situation that led him into temptation.”

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Books

The new Phyrne Fisher is out!

August 10, 2006 – 9:59 pm

OK, I admit it, I’m a bit of a Kerry Greenwood nut. We’re not talking fine literature here, but just fun characters and fast-paced writing. A query on the old post led me to check Angus and Robertson (Australian bookstore) today, and although Greenwood’s website says Murder in the Dark won’t be out until next month, it appears to be available now. (And I picked up the new Corinne while I was at it…)

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Environmental politics

Naming and shaming Burger King

August 10, 2006 – 10:35 am

The “no junk mail” sticker on my door seems to be pretty effective, so I particularly noted the Burger King leaflet deliverer who this morning kindly provided me with FIVE of their thick leaflets. (Now in the recycling bin.)

I rang up the company’s “careline”, which was notably uninterested … their money; pity about the trees.

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Politics

My sympathy

August 10, 2006 – 9:04 am

… to anyone who was trying, or planning, to fly today. Why the chaos? Well I won’t be believing much of what I read or hear for at least the next week – particularly if it is sourced to “security sources”. After the dust has settled there might be some hope of judging what the threat, if any, was.

Why the cynicism? Well remember the “sarin” plot, the “blow up Man U ” plot, the “tanks around Heathrow” scare, poor old Jean Charles Menendez, Forest Gate … I could go on.

And notice how much trouble the Blair government is in: on Iraq, on the Mideast (with growing calls to recall parliament), in Afghanistan.

That’s not to say that the whole thing is cynically made up – there undoubtedly is some basis there somewhere – but as the non-existent WMDs in Iraq showed, a wide variety of judgements can be applied to “intelligence”, and if the push from the top is all one way, the outcome is almost inevitable.

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