Dublin here we come!

Posted by Annalytica

Lashings will be heading to the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival first thing tomorrow morning! We can't wait! Catch us at the Cobalt Cafe at 8pm, every evening from Mon 2nd - Sat 7th May.

If you can't make it to Dublin, take a look at our exciting promotional videos: http://zozzytv.com/profiles/lashingsofgb/

The little things

Posted by Annalytica

Feminists like to make a fuss over the little things. Throwaway remarks about apparently minor incidents are dissected for all their offensive implications, and as we pick them apart we get angry. Often people observing the dissection and the anger get the impression that the thing responsible for making us so upset is the feminism. It seems that we’ve invented new ways of getting offended and taught ourselves to get worked up and upset over things which never would have bothered us before we discovered feminism.

Links roundup

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer


Welcome to the weekly Lashings links round up! Feel free to add your own links in the comments, with a brief description and trigger warnings if appropriate.


Asher Bauer, Self-Explanatory: When Your Gender Isn't. An extract from Bauer's upcoming zine, Nelly, which focuses on male femininity and feminine men.

“Hey, faggot.”
The words are not a threat, but an affirmation. They come from my friend who for now I’ll call Ethan, a cute boy in the same awkward situation that I find myself in—gay, fem, transgender. Fucked.

Arwyn at Raising My Boychick discusses the supposed moral obligation to be healthy

The problem isn’t the idea of health or productivity; the problem is when we make those things moral obligations, rather than recognizing that they have inherent value, and that, lacking outside pressure, people will still want them for themselves.

Hannah Eiseman-Reynard @ Bad Reputation: A Lower Low: very interesting piece on the tendency in contemporary comedy to 'punch downwards' and reproduce sexist/racist ideologies for the sake of 'edginess' -- a subject close to most Lashers' hearts.

Anger and humour are very often interlinked, but where you aim that anger makes all the difference. Aim it ‘up’ at deserving, more powerful targets and it’s subversive, it can hold people to account – satire has a long and proud tradition. Aim that anger ‘down’ at the underdog and it’s tired, old and – frankly – it’s bullying.

 A very funny cartoon about the up-coming UK referendum on the Alternative Vote

Street Fair

Posted by Sally Outen

5.15. Time for that early-morning wolf-whistle – as regular as clockwork, and more of a certainly than breakfast. Every day, walking through the city centre, I'd pass the same bus stop, and get the same reaction from the same guy – at least, I assume it was the same guy – I never looked directly at him. I never even changed my pace. And I never found a convenient alternative route into work, and I never complained to the police. I didn't feel threatened. I felt embarrassed, and sad, and puzzled – because it was just such a weird situation. Every day, the same thing. Every day for months, the whole time I was working an early shift.

Academic Roundup

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer

Here is some information which may be of interest to students, academics and researchers in fields relating to feminism, gender and sexuality.

Links roundup

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer


Welcome to the weekly Lashings links round up! Feel free to add your own links in the comments, with a brief description and trigger warnings if appropriate.


Brian Stuart at Red No. 3 has set up a twitter hashtag called #thingsfatpeoplearetold. In this blog post he pulls together a sample of the tweets from the first 24 hours. These are very likely to be triggering for fat hatred, but they're also enlightening as to just how common, and horrific, some of the things people feel entitled to say to fat people are.

Genderplayful is a plan for a new online clothing marketplace that celebrates diversity in gender presentation and body types.

The Invisible Elephant Metaphor is a brilliant explanation of how asexuals feel when it comes to sexual attraction.

Choosing Not To Have Sex: Why The Big Deal?

Posted by Jenni

As anyone who read my last post will know, I'm asexual.

(Recap time, boys and girls, and those others inside, outside or somewhere in between that binary! An asexual is someone who doesn't experience sexual attraction. Simple, right?)

My aim today is to give you a brief glimpse of some of the difficulties I encountered whilst beginning to identify as an asexual feminist. These opinions may be of the few, but they were a vocal few, and it made it pretty hard to reconcile those two labels for me at first.

Links roundup

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer

Welcome to the weekly Lashings links round up! Feel free to add your own links in the comments, with a brief description and trigger warnings if appropriate.

Lashings' own Dr Carmilla has written an excellent post about gendering trans people.

The Biggest Lie in British Politics - Johann Hari meticulously deconstructs the idea that cuts are necessary.

FATPOCALYPSE - activist tools for preparing for the end of days fat oppression. Offered as an antidote in case you clicked around Johann Hari's site and found out how sadly he has internalised fat hatred.

Trans Media Watch offers guidance for the media when portraying trans people, and guidance to trans people when dealing with the media.

From Sociological Images: Resistance, Language and the Toronto SlutWalk:

In January a member of the Toronto Police force, Const. Michael Sanguinetti, suggested to students at York University that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” (source). In response, SlutWalk was born. The SlutWalk, which strode just yesterday, was a march designed to draw attention to the way in which the term “slut” is used to stigmatize and invalidate women.

Mary Evans responds to David Willetts' recent remarks about feminism and how it's to blame for the lack of social mobility. Triggers for misogyny and classism.

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) have revised their guidance on LGBT equality at work

Dates for your diary

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer


Below are some upcoming events we thought might interest Lashers. If you know of any other relevant events, please post details in the comments.



International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival featuring Lashings!

What: 2 weeks of gay-themed drama, comedy, musical theatre, cabaret and more

When: 2nd - 15th May 2011. Lashings are performing during the first week, 2-7th May, 8pm

Where: Dublin, various venues - we are at the Cobalt Cafe

Find out more


Oxford LGBT Book Club

What: An Oxford book club for everyone interested in reading books with an LGBT theme. This month they are reading "Sacred Country" by Rose Tremain. Annalytica went along to the last meeting to discuss Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters and they were all a very friendly and interesting bunch.

When: Monday 9th May, at 7pm

Where: The Jam Factory

Contact: oxlgbtbooks at gmail.com

Find out more


Oxford BiFest

What: A celebration of bisexuality for bisexuals and bi-friendly people

When: 4^th June, 2011 @ 11am to 11pm

Where: The Oxford University Club

Find out more: Oxford BiFest

York Carnival of Feminist Activism

Posted by Sebastienne

Last year, Annalytica pointed the Lashers towards an awesome-sounding event coming up at the University of York:

This carnival is part-festival and part-conference. The event brings together people from many nations to learn from each other, celebrate activist creativity, and advance feminist work. Come along for craft workshops, papers, performances and small exhibitions which explore ways in which art in many forms can open up spaces for thinking and for action.

We ask, can feminist art save the world, and if so, how?

Well, this sounded pretty much like our natural habitat. Many of us have academic leanings, and all of us are into activism & celebrations!

The event took place last month, and it was a blast. Underneath the cut are write-ups of some of the fascinating and empowering things that we got up to - think of it as "What I did on my feminist holidays, by Sebastienne, aged 25¼".

Links roundup

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer

Welcome to the weekly Lashings links round up! Feel free to add your own links in the comments, with a brief description and trigger warnings if appropriate.

Is Big Society Working? is a public art project that aims to investigate the impact of the UK Government’s budget cuts on real people. They invite people to get involved by sharing stories of how you have been affected by the cuts.

40 influential black female authors

Shakesville deconstructs a plan put forward by Arizona's governor to charge a fee to some groups of people using Medicaid, including those defined as "obese", and smokers. Triggers for fat hatred.

Bad Cripple writes about the problematic ideas behind some discussions of assisted suicide for people with disabilities:

"The message society sends is not subtle. There is a word that comes to mind—oppression. Add in an illness, social isolation, dependence upon others and the logical leap to thinking my life is not worth living is dangerously short."

Awww! This is adorable:

Irish anti homophobic bullying advertisement, created as part of BeLonG To Youth Services annual Stand Up! LGBT Awareness Weeks. The campaign promotes friendship amongst young people as a way to combat homophobic bullying.

Feminist women wanted for PhD research

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer

Carly Guest is looking for female volunteers aged between 18 and 35 to take part in a study of women’s feminist identities.



As a participant in this study, you would be asked to take part in an interview about how you came to see yourself as a feminist and what being feminist means to you. This will involve talking about personal photos and images that say something about your feminism.

Your participation would involve one interview lasting approximately between one and two hours.

If you are interested in taking part in this study, or would like further information please contact Carly Guest Email: feministstories@yahoo.co.uk

This study has received ethical approval from the Birkbeck College School of Social Science, History and Philosophy Ethics Committee.

Please note: Carly Guest is not connected in any way with Lashings of Ginger Beer. This post was temporarily deleted in order to ask Carly's permission, which she has now given.

Oxford Pride fundraiser - TONIGHT

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer

The very first Jolly Farmers' Pride Quiz will be taking place this Monday, 4th April, from 8:30pm.



£2 entry.
Teams of 2 to 5 people.
Prize for the winning team.

This will be a weekly event and all proceeds with go to help fund The Oxford Pride Festival - Taking place 3rd to the 12th June.

Everyone's a little bit privileged

Posted by Annalytica






"You’re a little bit privileged.
And I’m a little bit, too.
I think we’re both a little bit privileged,
Admitting it is not an easy thing to do.
But we still have to."
(Everyone’s a Little Bit Privileged, by Galatea Gorgon, after Lopez & Marx)

Everyone is privileged in some respects and oppressed or marginalised in others. For example, I am a white middle-class bisexual woman. This means I am privileged with respect to class and race and oppressed with respect to gender and sexuality. Of course, it’s more complex than that. As a bisexual person with an opposite-sex partner, the invisibility of my queer identity can be privileging in some ways and oppressive in others. We all move between positions of oppression and positions of privilege, depending on which aspects of our identity are most relevant in a given context.

Because we are all privileged and all oppressed, throughout this piece I will use the pronouns “we” and “us” wherever possible when talking about both privileged and oppressed people. The idea is to try to get beyond the “us and them” attitude which often characterises discussion of privilege and oppression, and emphasise the extent to which we all share both experiences. Obviously different kinds of oppression and privilege are different, but I think there are important similarities in what happens when we are confronted with our own privilege.