March 08, 2005

• Mandyman and I were thinking it'd be nice to have a women's night in #mofirc, to talk about women's issues and so on and just chat with and get to know each other. Mothninja suggested today would be the perfect day to do it - March 8 - I honestly wasn't even aware there was this designated day. So, yeah. In my time zone it's still the 7th, but let's just make it for the next 24 hours, and extend a general invite for a women's chat zone. #mofirc is linked on MoFi's front page sidebar and we'll be more than happy to get you set up with an IRC client if you need help. BTW women's night != no men allowed. But we hardly ever have a "topic" in #mofirc, and it would be neat to talk about all sorts of women's stuff - this is apparently the day to do it!
• Greetings sisters! Here's to a future when every day celebrates the victory of your struggles.
• Here in Italy, the occasion is celebrated by the gift of mimosa flowers, which was chosen as the symobl of the day by the Italian Women's Movement in 1946. It's charming custom; every shop or cafe you go into will give you a sprig - they smell wonderful and feel like little tiny balls of eiderdown to touch. Here's one for all of you monkeys. And hope to see you in #mofirc (male or female)!
• I'd join in the #mofirc, but it's that time of the month. ;-) /flippant fish tickery
• Best wishes in your goals for all the women here, from me and my wife. We were at the Toronto Japan Foundation recently and came across mention of a film we're going to hunt down and see, about a woman my wife heard of some time ago: Asayo Murakami. The whole concept of being a 'picture bride' is so alien to me that I think I need to see the film and learn a little more about the concept.
• Get the boys to make you sandwiches.
• Hopefully I can join in later, school is swamping me at the moment.
• Oh, lovely. I was a little confused when I saw this, but of course, it's already the 8th down under. I'm going to a big party next week here to celebrate International Women's Day, the 20th anniversary of LEAF (the Legal Education and Action Fund), and the 20th anniversary of the coming into force of s.15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms - the all-important equality provision (which actually took place April 17, 1985, but close enough). Super cool stuff. Maybe I'll try to get into #mofirc now, even though I should be working...
• Beep. Is it any wonder why some people hate cops? I saw that footage of the riot police in Turkey, I guess I should stop complaining about income tax now.
• So, I used to use mIRC on my old (Windows) laptop but now I'm on a Mac. I downloaded ircle but am baffled by its interface. Any suggestions on how to actually find you guys on there?
• Ircle is evil. Do you have Mozilla or Firefox? Mozilla has Chatzilla built-in and Firefox has an IRC extension.
• I can download Firefox, I'd never bothered since I think Safari works better on the Mac. But I'll try that now. :)
• Thanks for the suggestion - chatzilla works fine, and I'm on there now. :)
• Not A Feminist It's an all to common refrain, a reminder, an indication, that things remain the same I’m not a feminist I wear what I want and I don’t deserve to be raped! I’m not a feminist I work as hard as my boyfriend and I deserve equal pay! I’m not a feminist I like fucking men and I’ll fuck who I want I’m not a feminist I didn’t study her story and I don’t like history I’m not a feminist I don’t want to hear that and I’ll guard my secret I'm not a feminist If I want a kid I should be able to stay at home if you're not a feminist then what the fuck are you?
• Apologies for the language, never really had to consider that before. :(
• YAY! Here's to my feminist sisters and brothers! May I suggest that everyone who cares post the name of a feminist - declared or implied - to whom we feel most indebted? Mine is James Baldwin, who said, basing his statement on the biblical language that gave him his early eloquence: "All men are brothers. If you can't take it from there you can't take it at all." And he very much meant women to be included in that language.
• Kate Sheppard, who led the women's suffrage movement in NZ and made ours the first country to give women the vote.
• Well, I had that link to Mujeres Libres above, so keeping in the anarcha-women vein my shout-out would have to go to Emma Goldman.
• What abut that great dumb plock, the mother of modern day electricity? Madam Curie.
• Carol Gilligan and another whose name I can't, for the life of me, remember - for leading me toward clarifying what I believe by defining the opposite. I spent a semester in college studying that style of feminism ("women are all psychic sisters, men are all cold-hearted bastards") and quietly seething and arguing with the prof, but in the long run I did learn a lot from it. I just decided that I believed differently than they did. Important, in a roundabout way.
• I would say that old Jewish guy with the cult that got real popular? His go-to person (Something about Mary) is who I *would* say, but thanks in large part to some heavy lifting by the subsequent men-only crowd I don't honestly know a lot of her work. So I'll say Eleanor Roosevelt. She r0XxoR3d.
• I don't think there's any one specific person I can pin this on. So I'm just going to drop in a great link for Canadian women in history. Fantastic stuff there. ]
• I'll have to think a while about who my favorite female feminist is; it ain't Andrea Dworkin though. And there's another anniversary to commemorate today: this is also the (new style) anniversary of the REAL Russian Revolution (not that Bolshevik coup in November).
• Always had a soft spot for Mary Wollstonecraft - and I want to learn more about Mary Astell, who said that what men were arguing about their own political freedoms in the 1690s ought to apply to women's freedom within the household too.
• Virginia Woolf for writing the amazing essay: A Room of One's Own . It brings to life the time before great changes. Decades later, it's still a rip-roaring read, a declaration of personal freedom, with universal appeal.
• There are a lot of feminists I think are great people and role models and leaders, etc. One I'm enjoying right now: Diane DiMassa, the creator of Hothead Paisan.
• Margaret Sanger.
• coppermac, I read the livejournal "Feminist Rage Page," which I think hothead moderates, and have detoured into her journal a couple times. I never pursued her further (also never commented, as I have no livejournal [or want one], and as I'm older than most of the posters there, feel divorced from some of the concerns). Am glad to see she's a bigger internet presence than I knew. If you know her, give her my thanks for being the articulate radical she is.
• There is no nation on Earth where women are fully "equal" to men. But let's put this in perspective... In large portions of the world, women are not merely "unequal", they are at least de facto slaves. They "belong" to their husbands or their fathers. They are not (directly or in practice) allowed to own property. They are raped with little recourse; and in most of the world they are raped by their husbands without legal recourse at all (this is true in most of the US). Some are forced to have their clitorises and labia removed. They are not allowed or are discouraged an education. They die in childbirth without adequate medical care. If even a large subset of all these things were true with regard to a particular "racial" or ethnic group in large portions of the world, there would be mass outcry and campus demonstrations. But in today's world, for the most part, this is the status quo, mostly ignored. Make no mistake: later generations will look back upon ours the way we look back upon the generations that condoned racial slavery. We judge them harshly—we will similarly be judged.
• I wish I knew her, goofyfoot: my exposure to Ms. DiMassa is limited to some wandering about the net and being loaned a couple of her books by friends and family. Reading Hothead's a great way to de-stress after some jerk gets on your nerves and you need a bit of a catharsis. I'm also a tad older than most of the people here, I believe, but the concerns she addresses are a part of my world from time to time.
• In Norway, a woman's place is in the boardroom
• Abie, I think the link might be pointing to the wrong story?
• D'oh! Stuck on clip-board after posting elsewhere. And I previewed! Not very well, obviously, silly boy. This is why we need more women running things and posting links. Thanks for the heads-up our moth As promised: In Norway, a woman's place is in the boardroom