-
make tv in < 10min
- add something new
- one of many ways to get on tv
-
-
Gen Y Feminism
- What does it mean to be a feminist in 2008? more info
-
- NON-PAID ASSIGNMENT
- FORMAT:
- ENDS:
-
-
-
Put it away, love: trendy Tories urge curbs on lap-dancing
The Conservatives would give communities more power to block the opening of lap-dancing clubs, the BBC reports today.
Current licensing laws put lap-dancing clubs in the same category as pubs or coffee shops, giving residents less scope to oppose them than sex shops or cinemas. The number of lap-dance clubs in the UK has risen to 300 since the first one opened in 1995 (that's more lap dance clubs than rape crisis centres, don't you know).
But councils should be able to decide whether such venues are appropriate for their area, according to shadow women's minister Theresa May.
Ms May said: "Councils are currently unable to block lap-dancing clubs opening even if they are overwhelmingly opposed by local residents.
"The government's reforms have effectively silenced communities and allow no consideration to be given to their views.
"Local people often have legitimate reasons for objecting to the planned location of a lap-dancing club - if it is near a school or a library for instance. We want to empower councils to take account of local opinion."
Um, if its near a library? Are the Tories saying that ladies shouldn't dance in their underwear in close proximity to books, or that the trade of human flesh should be regulated carefully, and a matter for community consideration?
And it's a great sentiment, but is anyone else slightly suspicious of the Tories' right-on attitude to all things lady these days? Yes, a Tory agenda in favour of decreasing sexual permissiveness isn't a huge surprise, but lefty feminists have long been campaigning for re-classification of lap dance clubs, and here come their traditional political nemesis with resounding support! It's an odd combination. What on earth is happening to the Tories... and is it (dare I say it) actually a good thing...?
The Conservatives would give communities more power to block the opening of lap-dancing clubs, the BBC reports today. ... more -
Carry your lardarse lady to safety! PlayStation launches "Fat Princess" game
Apparently responding to female gamers' calls for more and better representation of women, Titan Studios/Sony has launched a new PlayStation game called "Fat Princess." I'm not kidding.
According to PlayStation, "Frantic and fun, Fat Princess pits two hordes of players against each other in comic medieval battle royale. Your goal is to rescue your beloved princess from the enemy dungeon. There’s a catch though: your adversary has been stuffing her with food to fatten her up and it’s going to take most of your army working together to carry her back across the battlefield."
Wow. This isn't even a joke. Sony has certainly got the wheels of publicity spinning - online debate and bitchery have begun in earnest, and it's certainly intense.
Some gaming bloggers are pleased - and surprised - by just how good the game is:
"With the title and logo the way it is, it may be hard to think of Fat Princess as a real hardcore title, but that's exactly what it is. Fights always end in bloody messes. After a massive battle, you'll see body parts and blood soaking the entirety of the floor. With its unique art style, high concept, and fun presentation, we can't wait to play Fat Princess when it debuts exclusively on the PSN later this year."
And from one eloquent and angry female gamer, this gem:
"Anyway, congrats on your awesome new game, Sony. I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes. It's not often I have the opportunity to congratulate a cutting-edge tech company on such splendiferous retrofuck jackholery. Way to go! The Fat Princess of Shakes Manor salutes you."
A moment's pause please, for 'splendiferous retrofuck jackholery'. Mmm, delicious.
So, "Fat Princess" - a harmless joke, a justified reaction to developments in the real world (where of course everyone is piling on the pounds, if moral panics are to be believed), or a shocking example of sexism, fattism, and just plain wrong-ism? Let the games begin...
Apparently responding to female gamers' calls for more and better representation of women, Titan Studios/Sony has launched a new PlayS... more -
Appeals court reverses ruling that a woman in tight jeans cannot be raped
It is nearly a decade since Italy’s top appeals court caused a furore by ruling that a woman wearing tight jeans cannot by definition be raped or sexually molested because the removal of the garment requires her“collaboration and consent”.
Yesterday the judges of the Court of Cassation reversed the ruling, with Italian feminists welcoming the belated change of heart to a chorus of “and about time too”.
The ruling came after the conviction by a court in Padua in May 2005 of a 37-year-old man who was accused of sexually molesting his partner’s 16-year-old daughter from a previous relationship by “inserting his hands inside the front of her jeans”. The sentence was upheld by the regional appeals court in Venice in October.
The man, identified only by the initials RP under Italian privacy laws, appealed to the Court of Cassation, citing its landmark 1999 ruling and claiming that he could not have committed the alleged acts against the will of the girl because her jeans were too tight. However the court upheld the one-year jail sentence given to the man for sexual assault, ruling that “jeans cannot be compared to any type of chastity belt”.
The defendant had claimed that because the jeans were so tight the girl had unbuttoned them to allow him to fondle her and in doing so had consented to his sexual advances. The girl complained to her father and her boyfriend, who went to the police.
The 1999 ruling overturned the conviction of a 45-year-old driving instructor from Potenza who was accused of raping an 18-year-old client. The view of the appeal court judges that the victim must have collaborated because her jeans were too tight caused uproar among Italian feminists. Women deputies — led by Alessandra Mussolini, the far-right politician and granddaughter of the Italian Fascist dictator, and Stefania Prestigiacomo, now the Environment Minister in the centre-right Government of Silvio Berlusconi — wore jeans to parliament as a protest.
Yesterday Ms Mussolini said that she was pleased with the latest verdict but said she regretted that it had “taken until 2008 for the Court of Cassation to acknowledge an obvious fact — that women’s clothing has nothing to do with the violence to which they are forced to submit on a daily basis”.
Maria Gabriella Moscatelli, who runs Telefona Rosa, a helpline for women seeking legal advice, emo- tional support or refuge from domestic violence, said: “Finally we have justice, with a sentence which respects the rights of all women. It shows that when civil society, politicians and pressure groups mobilise themselves the law has no choice but to be on their side.”
The Court of Cassation, which is staffed mainly by elderly male appeal judges, has issued several controversial judgments on sexual and social mores in the past decade. It has, however, been increasingly aware of women’s rights, issuing rulings on previously accepted acts of sexual harrassment such as bottom pinching.
In March the Cassation judges went so far as to rule that a mistress may lie under oath without committing perjury to protect her honour, clearing a 48-year-old woman from Porto Ercole who had been convicted by a lower court of giving false testimony to police. In February the court ruled that men who touched their genitals in public were committing a criminal offence. Under an age-old custom Italian men sometimes grasp their crotches as a protection against bad luck and the evil eye, for example if a funeral procession passes by.
The judges, however, upheld a lower court sentencing of a 42-year-old workman from Como for indecent behaviour after he had “ostentatiously touched his genitals through his clothing”. They ordered the man to pay a fine of €200 (£159) and €1,000 in costs, rejecting the defence by his lawyer that he was only “adjusting his overalls”.
It is nearly a decade since Italy’s top appeals court caused a furore by ruling that a woman wearing tight jeans cannot by definition ... more -
Hard Times for Women at the New York Times...
The New York Times Book Review has never exactly embraced passionate advocacy—unless it was promoting Pynchon’s and DeLillo’s place in the postmodernist canon. Even worse, it has become the place where serious feminist books come to die— or more accurately, to be dismissed with the flick of a well-manicured postfeminist wrist.
Recently, Times editors—in both the daily paper and the Sunday section—have trotted out a particularly insidious formula for bashing feminist authors. First, hire a female reviewer to unleash misogynist tropes in her piece and then, lest she appear prejudiced against her own gender, throw in an illogical, contradictory statement about the importance of a less threatening version of feminism that isn’t so “polarizing,” “provocative,” or “strident.”
The emergence of this pattern has been troubling for feminist bookworms. One nasty review was irritating, two were bewildering, and three or more became evidence of a downright bias. Professors and journalists have chastised the editors of the Sunday section for ignoring female authors and reviewers. Despite the fact that women constitute a majority of book buyers, the Times has made merely a passing effort to achieve parity on its pages. For instance, none of the paper’s “Top five novels of 2007” were written by a woman, and only 13 of 50 on its short list were female-authored.
Beyond this, though, books that take women’s issues in hand are rarely taken seriously. It’s not just that they are criticized, which they are, but rather that the books, their authors—and heck, the whole feminist movement—are routinely treated with a mixture of giggly naïveté and barbed antifeminist prejudices. In a 2007 op-ed for In These Times, media critic Susan J. Douglas noted that there’s “a robust tradition in the Times Book Review to stereotype feminists as single-minded, humorless ideologues who march daily to some shrine where we all genuflect before images of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.”
Douglas’s analysis is painfully true. In the past two years of book reviews, one can find almost every conceivable antifeminist stereotype applied with splashy strokes. Feminists are bra-burning, smelly, party-crashing, armed and dangerous, pushy, desexualized women who are living in the past and deserving of their own bad reputation. Here, without comment, are some choice excerpts from recent reviews of books with a staunchly feminist agenda.
The New York Times Book Review has never exactly embraced passionate advocacy—unless it was promoting Pynchon’s and DeLillo’s place in... more -
Target Women: Feeding Your F---ing Family
The way to a family's heart is through their stomachs. So fill up those stomachs, ladies. Or else.
-
2 out of 3 Egyptian men harrass women
A shocking two-thirds of Egyptian men admitted to having sexually harrassed women, the majority of whom say the women themselves are to blame for the treatment. Harrassment includes touching or ogling women, shouting sexually explicit remarks, and exposing their genitals to women. "Sexual harassment has become an overwhelming and very real problem experienced by all women in Egyptian society, often on a daily basis," said the report by the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights, though only 2.4% of women affected report the matters to police. A shocking two-thirds of Egyptian men admitted to having sexually harrassed women, the majority of whom say the women themselves are t... more
-
Two-thirds of Egyptian men harass women: most men blame women for it
A survey of more than 2,000 Egyptian men and women and 109 foreign women said the vast majority of Egyptians believed that sexual harassment in Egypt was on the rise, citing a worsening economic situation and a lack of awareness or religious values.
It said 62 percent of Egyptian men reported perpetrating harassment, while 83 percent of Egyptian women reported having been sexually harassed. Nearly half of women said the abuse occurred daily.
Only 2.4 percent of Egyptian women reported it to the police, with most saying they did not believe anyone would help. Some feared reporting harassment would hurt their reputations.
"The vast majority of women did nothing when confronted with sexual harassment," the survey said, adding that most Egyptian women believed the victim should "remain silent."
Some 53 percent of men blamed women for bringing on sexual harassment, saying they enjoyed it or were dressed in a way deemed indecent. Some women agreed. A survey of more than 2,000 Egyptian men and women and 109 foreign women said the vast majority of Egyptians believed that sexual hara... more -
Women who don't submit to husbands are to blame for domestic violence, says Baptis...
One reason that men abuse their wives is because women rebel against their husband's God-given authority, a Southern Baptist scholar said in a Texas church recently.
Bruce Ware, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, said women desire to have their own way instead of submitting to their husbands because of sin.
"And husbands on their parts, because they're sinners, now respond to that threat to their authority either by being abusive, which is of course one of the ways men can respond when their authority is challenged--or, more commonly, to become passive, acquiescent, and simply not asserting the leadership they ought to as men in their homes and in churches," Ware said from the pulpit of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas.
Ware said God created men and women equally in God's image but for different roles.
"He has primary responsibility for the work and the labor and the toil that will provide for the family, that will sustain their family," he said. "He's the one in charge of leadership in the family, and that will become difficult, because of sin."
"...A woman will demonstrate that she is in fact a Christian, that she has submitted to God's ways by affirming and embracing her God-designed identity as--for the most part, generally this is true--as wife and mother, rather than chafing against it, rather than bucking against it, rather than wanting to be a man, wanting to be in a man's position, wanting to teach and exercise authority over men,"
Oh. My. God. (Or not, as the case may be). Like we needed any more reasons to scorn and revile southern American right-wing religious types. Why doesn't this stuff make the headlines more often? How can Christians tell Muslims (and they do, often) that some elements of Islam treat women unfairly? Are enough loons out there taking this crap seriously for it to be a serious social and political issue?
One reason that men abuse their wives is because women rebel against their husband's God-given authority, a Southern Baptist scholar s... more -
How men and women react to temptation
Apparently all it takes to establish a new gender type is a study involving just 71 males and 58 females.
-
HHS moves to define contraception as abortion
In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40% of Americans use, as abortion. In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal th... more
-
Was controversial lap-dancing club destroyed by arsonists?
And in a country with more lap dancing clubs than rape crisis centres, is this really any great loss?
Obviously arson is a very bad thing and all, especially if firefighters risk their safety, but lap dancing clubs surely aren't good for any community, whatever your opinion on the merits of women making money by dancing for sleazy customers and calling it 'empowering'?
According to the Daily Mail (ouraged at this attack on entrepreneurs' freedom to make money out of vulnerable women, naturally) firefighters used a sniffer dog to search for signs of petrol or other flammable liquids and police checked CCTV footage for a possible arsonist in the area early yesterday morning.
Club Redd in Burgess Hill, West Sussex, was one of scores of lap dancing venues that have opened in small towns and residential areas since the government relaxed the laws in 2003.
But despite an internet campaign on Facebook and a letter writing blitz by angry locals to try to halt the development, the council said it was powerless to act because, under the rule change, the club did not need to apply for a special licence to operate.
Local Liberal Democrat councillor Anne Jones said many residents were outraged when the club launched last month.
'There was a great deal of opposition to this club when it opened. It came as a surprise because there had been no consultation whatsoever with the town's residents. We had not asked for the club and suddenly it was there. It didn't have to ask for permission as they are automatically licensed as just an ordinary club. It is an issue that a lot of people feel very strongly about at the moment. It doesn't feel as though the Government is listening to ordinary people anymore,' she said.
Under the 2003 Licensing Act, which introduced 24-hour drinking, lap-dancing clubs outside London are treated in the same way as bars, restaurants or traditional nightclubs.
This meant that Club Redd, which opened on a former nightclub site, did not need to apply for a special licence despite offering sexual services. The number of lap-dancing venues has doubled to more than 300 since the 2003 act.
Club Redd manager Leo Valls said he was 'absolutely convinced' the fire had been started deliberately.
In an extraordinary outburst, he even claimed the fire was an attempt at 'violent censorship' similar to the book burning in Nazi Germany.
Hmm. Now, I can understand the guy's pissed off. He has a right to be if someone's burnt his business down, however heinous his industry of choice. But the destruction of knowledge and the wiping out of ideas that didn't fit a fascist creed compared to the temporary closure of a sleazy sex establishment? Er, I don't think so.
What do you reckon? Should lap dancing clubs be allowed to spring up all over the country without having to consult the local community or seek a special licence? Is lapdancing just a harmless activity that's completely harmless for both customer and client? Or something far more sinister, and depressing evidence of our society's lack of respect for women?
And in a country with more lap dancing clubs than rape crisis centres, is this really any great loss? ... more -
Pretty (Bad Ass) in Pink
Sampat Pal heads the Gulabai Gang, a revolutionary movement in India committed to protecting women against social malpractice, corrupt administrators, and abusive husbands. Sampat Pal heads the Gulabai Gang, a revolutionary movement in India committed to protecting women against social malpractice, corrupt... more
-
Feministing.com
Every young feminist should know this blog! A feminist take on everything from pop culture to politics. Highlights include the Friday Feminist F*ck You, a weekly vlog. Every young feminist should know this blog! A feminist take on everything from pop culture to politics. Highlights include the Friday ... more
-
Jessica Alba *hates* fat, *loves* banging on about it
Brilliant post from Heckler Spray on how 'Pregnancy Made Jessica Alba All Fat And Gross And Stuff'. I love them.
"While she was pregnant, Jessica Alba had quite the sideline in describing every single aspect of the pregnancy in excruciating detail.
Luckily, though, the recent birth of Jessica Alba’s baby means that all that has come to end. And, in its place, Jessica Alba has started to give retrospective descriptions of her pregnancy in magazine interviews instead.
Anyway, we’re judging unfairly because actually Jessica Alba is quite entertaining when she looks back on her pregnancy. Especially since the main thing she’s concerned about is how fat and bloated and unsexy her unborn daughter made her feel. Great, that means in 20 years we’ll be reading magazine interviews with the daughter about how Jessica Alba prenatally destroyed her sense of self worth. Thanks a lot, Alba.
Remove the sexiness from Jessica Alba and you’re not left with much - maybe a set of untrimmed eyebrows and a staggeringly bad filmography at best. It’d be like Stephen Colbert waking up one morning and realising he wasn’t funny, or Kanye West waking up and realising he could deal with criticism in a sensible, even-handed manner. It just doesn’t bear thinking about.
But, according to Jessica Alba herself, that’s what being pregnant did to her. Before she got pregnant, Jessica Alba was so sexy that she could send legions of teenage boys into month-long masturbatathons just by casually dropping the subject of recreational sex into an interview.
But then, as soon as she got pregnant, Jessica Alba’s sexiness level dropped immediately, with boys only being able to spend two or three weeks abusing themselves to a freeze-frame of Into The Blue at a time, no matter how often she tried to lure them back by only talking about her massive boobies all the time.
However, now Jessica Alba has given birth to her daughter Honor Marie Warren, none of that matters any more. Sure, she may have experienced some bloating during the pregnancy, but the most important thing is that her baby exists, and the unconditional love between mother and daughter will be the most important relationship she ever has with anyone for the rest of her life.
So chances are Jessica Alba doesn’t even care that the baby made her pack on a tiny amount of weight, right Cosmopolitan magazine?
“I never felt less sexy,” Jessica Alba says of her own pregnancy. “I mean, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world … but I wanted to get rid of all the weight.”
Oh little Honor Marie Warren, what a life you’ll have. From the first time you’ll be accompanied home from school by a social worker because of your kindergarten art project ‘This is mommy crying because she says I made her fat once’ to the therapy bills you’ll rack up because Jessica Alba will somehow find a way to blame the theatrical failure of The Love Guru on all the hormones you were thumping through her body during filming, you’ll have a gifted existence. A gifted existence indeed."
Brilliant post from Heckler Spray on how 'Pregnancy Made Jessica Alba All Fat And Gross And Stuff'. I love them. ... more -
Nursery nurse has boob job paid for by 100 men she doesn't know
Men! Take part in the surgical enhacement of a lady who's never going to let you touch her! Appealing eh? Well no, you'd think not, but it seems to work on website MyFreeImplants.com which pairs women up with the weirdos who're prepared to fund their boob jobs, seemingly for no reward, other than to be part of creating a race of pneumatic barbie dolls, I guess.
The delightful Daily Mail today reports that Karen Fielding was able to afford the £2,500 breast enlargement operation after members of MyFreeImplants.com donated enough money for her to pay the plastic surgeon's fee.
MyFreeImplants.com allows members to create profiles similar to that of Facebook and Myspace. Women can post pictures of themselves and men can then donate money to their future procedure. While a current photo is required (one for the wank bank, I guess), a post-operation shot is not compulsory.
The homepage of the website encourages its male members with the line: 'Gents...help the girl of your dreams get the body of her dreams. Develop a connection with a girl of your choice and help her earn free breast implants!'
Its message to women reads: 'Ladies...have you ever wanted bigger breasts? But couldn't afford the expensive surgery? Here is your opportunity to earn free breast implants!'
Karen said: "I am feeling pretty good and really pleased with how it turned out. I went for a natural look and that is what I got. I know you can change how you look through exercise and eating well but you can't change your boobs, which is why I had mine done."
Ugh. This is itself is not news. Its just sort of gross. But the idea that women are being 'improved' thanks to the generosity of men who'll pay for their surgery, and who must hope that by paying they'll one day get a piece of the action IS news, and its proper disturbing.
Why do these men pay for women's breast enhancement? Is this a kind of prostitution - a kind of 'you pay for my new-and-improved body and I might let you touch it' situation?
I wish MyFreeFlatByTheSeaside.com existed. Or MyFreeBroadcastQualityCamera.com perhaps. Or MyFreeExtravagantLifestyle.com...
Men! Take part in the surgical enhacement of a lady who's never going to let you touch her! Appealing eh? Well no, you'd think not, bu... more -
Germaine Greer furious at play based on her life by 'insane reactionary'
Feminist academic Germaine Greer has branded the writer of a comic play reportedly based on aspects of her life an "insane reactionary" who "holds feminism in contempt".
Her wrath was provoked by Joanna Murray-Smith's The Female of the Species, which pokes fun at militant feminism and questions whether ideological extremes stand up to the rigours of real life.
Ms Greer, who became a household name in the 1970s with the publication of her groundbreaking book The Female Eunuch, described The Female of the Species as "threadbare" and was said to have declined an invitation to its first night, and returned a copy of the script unread.
Although the characters are fictional, the play kicks off with an incident similar to one experienced by Ms Greer in 2000, when Karen Burke, a 19-year-old Bath University student obsessed with Ms Greer's work, broke into her house in Saffron Walden, Essex, tied her up and held her captive for an hour. Ms Greer was released after friends arriving at the house for dinner called the police after hearing shouting. Ms Burke later received two years' probation after admitting a charge of harassment.
In the play, a student called Molly holds hostage a feminist writer called Margot Mason. "Men aren't our problem – old feminists are," says Molly.
Ms Murray-Smith said her play was not a "character portrait" of Ms Greer, but the academic countered: "Why do the production team and the writer keep on referring to me, Germaine Greer, if they say it is not Greer they're writing about?" She told The Sunday Times: "Murray-Smith is an insane reactionary who boasts that she has not read a single feminist text. She holds feminism in contempt."
Ms Murray-Smith said: "I'm sorry she has formed that opinion of me without having met me or read my work. It would take a braver woman than me to write about Greer directly. However, my Margot does have many of Greer's characteristics. Both are charismatic, outrageous and irritating."
The Molly character was created to explore "what happens to the fans who find that the intellectuals they admire then renege on their one-time beliefs", she said, adding: "Despite what Greer says, I am a feminist."
Does a play or a film have to actually name a person for it to be clear that the central character is based on them? If your life is on public display, do you have the right to complain when people explore it, even in fiction? Is that the problem for feminism today - that old and modern feminists just can't agree, so end up getting nowhere? And can the hip young things responding to this possibly bear to discuss feminism without mentioning hairy lesbians, ugly bitter women or social outcasts...?
Feminist academic Germaine Greer has branded the writer of a comic play reportedly based on aspects of her life an "insane reactionary... more -
Combat Barbie: squaddie makes Miss England final
A female soldier who once fought off a suspected Iraqi insurgent has won a place in the final of Miss England, the BBC reports. Katrina Hodge, 21, will participate in the contest in July, having already won the Miss Tunbridge Wells crown. L/Cpl Hodge was nicknamed Combat Barbie in 2005 after being given a bravery commendation for saving the lives of members of her regiment in Iraq.
Miss Hodge, a military clerk with The Adjutant General's Corps, will go on to appear at Miss World 2008 if she wins the English title.
"I was delighted to have been selected for the Miss England final and it is a great honour," she added. "Being a part-time model and a serving soldier is certainly a world apart. I want to use this competition to highlight the work that the Army are doing and what they have done for this country."
She is currently serving at Frimley Park Hospital in Camberley and will take part in the Miss England national finals on Friday.
A solider taking part in a beauty pageant - a victory for women who really *can* do everything, or yet another tired, depressing example of women being judged purely on their looks? Do beauty pageants still have a place in our so-called modern, emancipated age? Can women ever hope to be respected if they sign up to this kind of starry judge-fest? A female soldier who once fought off a suspected Iraqi insurgent has won a place in the final of Miss England, the BBC reports. Katri... more -
Sex every day of the year: could you handle it?
The Daily Mail today reports on a woman whose birthday gift to her husband was the promise of sex every day for a year, and who (how convenient!) has happened to write a book about it.
Now, there are *just too many* issues to rant about here, but I think I'll start with:
"Charla is the most unlikely sex guru... She admits to being 'sturdily built' and is on the wrong side of 40."
Nothing like making the meaty and the mature of us feel great, Daily Mail.
Or perhaps...
"'When my girlfriends ask if it's healthy to do it once a week, three times a week or whatever, I just tell them to do it twice as often as they are doing it at the moment. Their husbands will love them for it, and they might just find that they love themselves that little bit more, too. If they let themselves.'"
*Hurrrrrl*
But dodgy Daily Mail-isms aside, could you promise your partner to have sex every day? And should you?
The Daily Mail today reports on a woman whose birthday gift to her husband was the promise of sex every day for a year, and who (how c... more -
Church of England Synod set for dispute on female bishops
The Church of England faces an accusation of being woefully out of touch with the modern world today as delegates at the organisation's Synod, currently meeting in York, argue over the question of whether women should be allowed to become Bishops.
Many Anglicans are claiming that the masculinity of Jesus's 12 apostles suggests that female bishops would not be acceptable. They also fear that a man ordained by a woman wouldn't be properly ordained in the eyes of God.
The Church of England faces an accusation of being woefully out of touch with the modern world today as delegates at the organisation'... more -
Feminists shut down London Underground... with milkshakes
Feminists reportedly brought chaos to London Underground stations when they 'milkshaked' escalators in support of the tube cleaners' strike during rush hour this morning.
Activists from Feminist Fightback poured the milky concoctions (chocolate, strawberry or vanilla, I wonder?) onto the escalators, forcing a close-down until the mess could be cleared up, in an attempt to highlight the crucial role that cleaners play in keeping the underground running.
They were acting in support of cleaners on the underground who've been on strike since Tuesday evening, after TfL failed to respond to the cleaners' one day strike last week.
London Underground cleaners - the majority of whom are women and people from ethnic minorities - are demanding:
• A wage of £7.20 per hour, the minimum London living wage as determined by the GLA last year
• Sick Pay
• Decent pensions
• 28 days' annual leave
• An end to third party sackings
Last Friday Feminist Fightback activists invaded London Underground Headquarters. Armed with feather dusters, brooms and mops, they set about helping Transport for London 'clean up their act' until they were forcibly removed.
Do you support the demands of the men and women who mop up your sick and clear away your newspapers every day? )
Were you at Bank or Tottenham Court Road stations earlier today? Did errant dairy products ruin your journey, and mess up your morning?
Or was the protest just a drop in the (milky) ocean (do you see what I did there?) of the tube's everyday disruptions?
Feminists reportedly brought chaos to London Underground stations when they 'milkshaked' escalators in support of the tube cleaners' s... more
-
related topics
Feminism
Contributors (747)
Feminism
