Most of this journal is friends-locked. If you're really that interested in reading about our lives, leave me a comment here and I'll add you back if you interest me. Otherwise you're stuck reading my occasional feminist shout-out or meme, poor you.

If you are a fuckwit or you dislike rats or children, you might as well not bother. I define fuckwittery as follows: misogyny, bigotry, anti-choice rubbish, spouting uneducated shit about mental illness and/or people living on benefits. I probably won't like you much if you're whiny or type with less accuracy than my three-year-old, either.

I've been friends-locked for a while, I just never had a banner. The otters were begging for an airing.

My son's dad dropped him off and noticed my 'this is what a feminist looks like' shirt. He said he'd seen Bill Bailey wearing one and we were talking about that when I mentioned that I'd thought of getting one in Orion's size.

He said, in my son's voice, "Mummy, I don't want your political views thanks, I'll form my own."

Sigh.

Firstly, it is impossible to raise a child as a blank slate. All of us teach our children the things we believe to be right - don't be violent, respect others, be accepting of those who are different. I happen to believe that equality is morally right and that is what I will teach my son.

Secondly, since when was feminism purely a political view? Since when was teaching my son that women are not inferior to men, pushing some sort of political agenda on him? Would the ex prefer I left him to be taught by his peers to treat women as subhuman? I don't think so, buddy.

So there's my small rant. I know it may be perceived as minor, but it really riled me up.

Cross-posted to feminist_rage and Shut Up, Sit Down.

I have been left in charge of a blog I am a contributor to named Mothers For Women's Lib. The point of it is to be a group blog for biological, adoptive, step and foster mothers who are also feminists, but it has ground to a halt after a shaky start a couple of months and now I am looking for new contributors.

So if you are a feminist and you have kids, I’d love to hear from you. You can either become a permanent contributor or an occasional submitter, whichever you would prefer to be.

If you don’t fit the criteria, I’d really appreciate it if you’d spread the word anyway. There is a serious lack of resources for feminist parents outside of LiveJournal and I believe a blog which addresses the unique issues which affect women who are both feminists and parents would be very useful in filling this gap.

Thanks for your time! :D

What really makes me laugh is that this post was prompted by an anti-choicer who clearly got butthurt when I posed questions he couldn't adequately answer and so ran off and deleted me instead... let it not be said that womanhaters and anti-choicers have the courage of their convictions, eh? ;oP

• If you are anti-choice, you hate women.
• If you believe your discomfort about abortion should be more important than an individual woman's life, you hate women.
• If you believe a potential, partially-formed creature which has never loved or had hopes and dreams is more important than its host, a real live woman who has done all of those things, you hate women.
• If you think you know better than an individual woman about her own situation, you hate women.
• If you think you know better than an individual woman about whether she has had 'enough time' to decide if she needs an abortion, you hate women.
• If you don't trust women to make their own decisions regarding their bodies, you hate women.
• If you believe abortion should be restricted or banned simply because you individually with your opinion which is very much a minority opinion believe it is wrong, not only do you hate women but you also seem to hate democracy.

If you hate women, you are not welcome here and I suggest you get the fuck out because I am sick and tired of ignorance and misogyny. If you genuinely care for the reasonings behind pro-choice and why anti-choice is womanhating, please see the following.

Anti Choicers Confuse Me
Blog For Choice 2007
Blog For Choice 2008

I just deleted around half of my friends list. Basically if I couldn't put a real name or a face to the username, you got deleted. It's nothing personal. I just don't have time to read about people I barely know.

If you think I deleted you by mistake (and it's very possible) or you really really want to be kept, say so here. If you haven't been deleted then I knew who you were and liked you enough to keep you. ;oP

That is all. You can go back to whatever it was you were doing now.

WARNING: Unsuitable for anyone under 14. This film should disturb viewers.



Waiting For The Guards is the first of 3 films commissioned by Amnesty to highlight the enhanced interrogation techniques used by the CIA in the "War on Terror".

The Directors approached the making of the film in a way that has never been done before, choosing to show the reality of Stress Positions in as authentic a way as possible. They filmed a person being put into Stress Positions over a 6 hour period. There is no acting on the part of the "prisoner" – his pain and anguish is for real.

This powerful film shows without doubt that what the US administrations say is interrogation is in reality, torture and must be stopped.

We've released the film on the Internet before going to theatrical release in independent cinemas in early 2008. We believe this film is a great introduction to what the unsubscribe movement is all about, so we ask you to get the movie out there, in any way you can.

The more people see it, the more people will be compelled to unsubscribe.

Waiting For The Guards backstory.

Unite against terrorism. Unite against human rights abuses in the 'war on terror'. www.unsubscribe-me.org or unsubscribe_me.

Stop! Just fucking STOP. STOP telling women that it is their fault when they are raped.

"Women in Northern Ireland are leaving themselves vulnerable to rape or serious sexual assault because of their binge drinking, according to a report."

No. No, no, fucking NO.

How about "Women in Northern Ireland are vulnerable to rape when in the company of rapists"? Or the even more simple and true "Men in Northern Ireland are raping women"? In fact, if we want some really honest and important reporting, why not "Rapists are attacking women right now, at this very moment, all over the world, while you read this article"?

Wearing a short skirt does not cause a woman to be raped. Being drunk or on drugs does not cause a woman to be raped. Working in the sex industry does not cause a woman to be raped. Being flirtatious or having a reputation of promiscuity does not cause a woman to be raped.

The one and only thing which EVER causes a woman to be raped is that she had the misfortune to be in the presence of a rapist.

Why the FUCK are we warning women against "leaving themselves vulnerable"? Why aren't we warning men against, you know, RAPING WOMEN?

And don't give me that tired old shit about "well women should take responsibility for themselves and realise that there are bad people in this world." Telling women they can't wear what they like or do what they like is NOT asking them to take responsibility for themselves. It is asking them to take responsibility for rapists. Rapists, according to popular thought, are poor red-blooded men who simply can't control themselves and it is up to women to remove temptation rather than up to rapists themselves to resist.

Fuck that.

These rapists are not generally what society would call 'bad people'. They are your brothers, your fathers, your sons and your friends. They are your coworkers and your bus drivers, your doctors and your team mates.

These are not men who kill. They manage not to punch the man who annoys them in the office because they realise it is inappropriate, because they are able to exercise self-control. Don't you dare for a second try to tell me that they are not capable of controlling themselves, because they do it. Every. Single. Fucking. Day. They are so self-controlled, they manage to convince the world that they would never commit such an atrocity as rape.

But they do. They rape women, and it happens every single fucking minute, and instead of being held accountable for their own actions, women are somehow supposed to coddle them and understand that the poor dears simply can't help themselves.

Fuck that. Fuck every single person who ever said, or even implied, that a woman who has been raped was 'asking for it', or that she was somehow responsible. The only person responsible is the rapist, and HE should have been warned that raping women is not acceptable. The responsibility for his actions is his and his alone. STOP making it the responsibility of women to control the actions of men, and start making it men's responsibility to control themselves.

If you are a UK citizen, please take the time to sign this pledge to write to your MP highlighting the issue of lack of access to sanitary products in Zimbabwe, which I posted about yesterday.

Signing and writing a letter (you can even write to your MP online!) will take less than fifteen minutes of your time. This is really worth it.

From This Is Zimbabwe.

Information on how you can help the Dignity. Period! campaign, coordinated by ACTSA, is provided at the end of this post.

One of our bloggers wrote a little while ago about the Zimbabwean government’s crass approach towards the crisis that Zimbabwean women are facing in terms of shortages of sanitary products in the country. This isn’t simply a story about shortages of yet another type of product. Shortages of sanitary ware go to the heart of women’s rights: it’s an issue which raises questions of whether a woman is forced to stay away from work or school; whether she is putting her health at risk by picking up infections or, if she is HIV positive, whether those infections will literally shorten her life span. In short, a lack of affordable hygienic sanitary products translates directly into issues of women’s rights as well as women’s dignity. The story has been picked up by The Sunday Times (UK) again today. The article is cited in full below:

Celebrities back tampon rebels of Zimbabwe

She has been arrested 22 times, tortured so badly that her front teeth were knocked into her nose and had an AK-47 thrust up her vagina until she bled. Thabitha Khumalo’s crime: to campaign against a critical shortage of tampons and sanitary towels in Zimbabwe, one of the least talked about and most severe side-effects for women of the country’s economic crisis.

Now her cause has been taken up in Britain by celebrities including the actors Anna Chancellor, Gillian Anderson, Prunella Scales and Jeremy Irons.

Later this month they will launch “Dignity. Period!”, a fundraising campaign to buy sanitary products for Zimbabwe’s women. It will start with a night of entertainment at the 20th Century theatre in Notting Hill, west London, hosted by Stephen Fry.

So desperate is the situation that women are being forced to use rolled-up pieces of newspaper. Zimbabwe already has the world’s lowest life expectancy for women - 34 - and Khumalo believes these unhygienic practices could make it drop to as low as 20 because infections will make them more vulnerable to HIV. “It’s a time bomb,” she said. The shortage is forcing schoolgirls to stay at home when they start menstruating.

The crisis began in 1999 when Johnson & Johnson, the healthcare manufacturer, pulled out of the country because of the worsening economic situation. Zimbabwe then had to import products from neighbouring South Africa. But the collapse of the currency and the world’s highest inflation, now more than 1,000%, have made the products unaffordable to all but the elite.

In a country where the minimum wage is Z$6m (£17.14) a month, the cost of a box of 20 tampons is Z$3m. “Who in their right mind is going to spend half their earnings on tampons?” asked Khumalo. “As it is most people can only afford to eat once a day. Women are being forced to choose between their own health and the survival of their family.”

Khumalo, 45, general secretary of the Women’s Advisory Council of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, and a mother of two, started her campaign after she saw a woman walking awkwardly on the street: “She told me she was going home from work because she had her period and could no longer afford sanitary protection or cotton wool.”

When an MP raised the issue in parliament, government ministers fell about laughing and dismissed the matter. Khumalo has tried to highlight it through public meetings and distributing scarves printed with demands for affordable sanitary wear. As a result she has been repeatedly arrested and beaten, but refuses to be deterred.

ACTSA have been pushing further with the Dignity! Period. Campaign and have secured the support of Bodyform, manufacturers of sanitary protection in the UK. Bodyform are committed to supporting the work of ACTSA’s Dignity! Period. campaign and will donate funds to produce ¼ million packs of sanitary towels for Zimbabwean women, as well as continuing to raise awareness of the campaign. Please visit the Bodyform website and use the ‘Tell a Friend’ feature to spread word of the campaign.

For a mere £2.50 you can also buy yourselves a Dignity! Period. wristband. What’s truly amazing about this is that your money will provide one woman with essential sanitary protection for three months.

The following is a list of information and suggestions on how people around the world can help. If you have more ideas for what people can do to help the campaign then please send us your ideas and we’ll add them to the list:

• Information on the campaign on the ACTSA website
• Make a secure online donation to the campaign here. Or you can also send cheques payable to ACTSA (with sanitary appeal written on the back). Details on the website.
• Make a donation to ACTSA via the JustGiving website in the UK here
• People in the UK can ask their MP to sign the parliamentary Early Day Motion (EDM) supporting the campaign.
• Everyone else, please contact your local MP and encourage them to actively support the campaign.
• Download and distribute the ACTSA Dignity.Period! leaflet. Print out multiple copies and leave them in places where people can pick them up - in the cubicles of women’s public toilets are one suggestion.
• If you are a blogger or have a website, please feel free to use the button Sokwanele has created on your website or blog as well. Using our code will add an image like the one we have in our sidebar, and a link back to this post where we hope to build on the list of ideas here. Details on how to do so below.
• Think about how people around the world can help and send us your ideas. We’ll continue to build this list of suggestions.

To use our button and link back to this list of ideas on how everyone can support the Dignity. Period! campaign, please copy the code in the box below and paste it where you would like the button to appear on your website. Please let us know you’ve done so.

<a href="http://www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe/archives/407"><img src="http://www.sokwanele.com/images/buttons/dignity_period.jpg" title="Zimbabwean women want Dignity.Period!" alt="Zimbabwean women want Dignity.Period!"/></a>

Help spread the word and thank you all for your support!

Links to recommended reading and updates on the campaign

• Bodyform and the Dignity! Period. campaign
• Join the ‘Rally for Dignity in London’ (10 March 2007) - details here
• Comments left by ACTSA (see comments below) or link directly here and here
• Zimbabwe state security agents seize sanitary pads
• How We Met: Anna Chancellor & Thabitha Khumalo (Dignity. Period! Campaign)
• Answers to frequently asked questions about the campaign (including many asked in our comments) available at this ACTSA link

Poll #1012489 To you, what does the title "Ms" mean as opposed to "Mrs" or "Miss"?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

When a woman uses the title "Ms" it means:

If you are a woman, what title do you use?

Why do you use that particular title?

Any other comments?