Lashings at NUS Women's Conference 2013

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer Time

A week ago on Tuesday, Lashings performed at the NUS Women's Conference in York - a night we also chose to officially launch our crowdfunder for taking Fanny Whittington to Edinburgh this year! Valentina, Astra, and Cleopatra share their feelings on the gig.

 Valentina writes:

We were utterly overwhelmed at the reception - 200+ noisy, enthusiastic, fast-tweeting, colourfully dressed and well-informed feminist activists, fresh from a long day of discussion and planning, looked absolutely delighted to see us. They cheered and laughed from the moment three Tories jumped onto the stage, a little rushed and flustered from a start time earlier than we'd been expecting, and by the time we'd resurrected Thatcher to tell them all about spin, they were cheering and clapping along in earnest.

Spirits stayed high throughout our 45-minute set, which took in performance poetry, stand-up comedy and singing numbers and covered discussion of straight and queer relationship models in the media, the policing of normative beauty standards, the failyness of transphobic feminists and lots more besides. It was fabulous to hear different sections of the crowd cheer the start of several songs as they recognised them - music inspiration came from Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Wicked, RENT, Mary Poppins and the Buffy musical - and laugh at small asides in the lyrics. (Playing several villains, I found it rather difficult to keep a straight - or brooding, or evil, or patronising - face when standing before such enthusiasm.)

We were helped along by the fantastic techie power of feminist DJ extraordinaire and long-time Lashfriend Ruth Pearce, who ran an excellent dancing set soon after the entertainment. As the NUS had provided hotel rooms, we were able to stick around after our set - it was unusual to not be scrambling to clear away and catch a train afterwards, and we greatly enjoyed being able to chat and dance with our audience into the night. Several people invited us to perform at their student unions, and we even had an offer of publicity help in Edinburgh. The next morning, tired out from dancing and full of hotel breakfast, we returned south still glowing happily over the gig.

Astra writes:

The NUS Women's Conference marked my third gig since joining Lashings as part of their recruitment drive last autumn. And this time, I was doing more acts in front of a lot more people than before.

But the inevitable stage fright beforehand proved totally worth it, as I had a fantastic time. Playing to a crowd that we knew were on our wavelength was a huge amount of fun. The moment they started clapping along to Spoonful of Bullshit, clearly just as delighted by the juxtaposition of Mary Poppins + Tories as we are, I stopped panicking and started performing.

For me it was a particular pleasure to sing 'Dead Girlfriend' for the first time, an act that's meant a lot to me since I first saw it at a Lashings gig two years ago.

It was wonderful to watch other Lashers perform so brilliantly - each poem, song and piece of compering or standup came together to create a very exciting and entertaining set. Ending the gig with a rousing audience participation chorus of 'join the fight with me against hetero-patriarchy' was a delight, and I have no doubt that the activists sat at tables at front of us intend to go on and do just that.

 Cleopatra writes:

I can safely say I've almost never had a Lashings gig like Tuesday's at the NUS Women's Conference in York before. Probably not since I joined up last minute to help with last year's Cinderella Panto. It certainly marked a first for me in that I've never felt so unconstricted by stage fright in my performance. (If you've ever spoken to me before, after, or during a gig, you've probably found me quite short, irritable, and/or aloof. Rather overpowering stage fright at work.) I'm hoping it's a lasting change rather than a one-off thanks to a fabulous audience!

The gig did get off to a bit of an inauspicious start, my entrance was slightly late, due to an earlier start time than we were expecting. The others covered for me like pros, however, and I don't think the audience even noticed the change. Like Astra, I noticed how much they enjoyed Margaret Thatcher giving lessons on how to improve the deficit to the tune of Mary Poppins, laughing and clapping in time to the music. This was an incredible boost and spurred us on through the rest of the set, full of Lashings staples I've loved both as performer and audience member. It was wonderful to be able to focus on performing, rather than doing an adequate job through a haze of nerves.

It also made a lovely change not having to pack up at top speed and clear the venue or make a mad dash for the train. We had a great time afterwards at the feminist disco.

In contrast to Astra's experience as a newer Lasher, if you had told me when I joined that just over a year later I would be the most experienced Lasher at a gig, I would have told you you were dreaming. I've loved so much about my time with Lashings and this gig felt like a real milestone for me in terms of how far I've come as a performer.

We spent a very enjoyable night drawing each others' attention to various tweets from our audience - one Lasher has put these together into a Storify, stored here if you'd like to have a gander.

Space Station Politics

Posted by Iona (Guest Blogger)

One of my favourite Lashings sketches is their Science Fiction and Fantasy Theatre. What
I love about it is that it's a barbed critique that nevertheless comes from a place of love,
of wanting these stories to be better. I don't believe that the intersection between social
justice activists and science fiction fans is at all coincidental: I think science fiction gives us
the promise of just that, of doing and being and becoming better – the future worlds and
other worlds where things will be different.

And in that spirit, science fiction on television has given us women and non-white people
who are pioneers. I love the old, true story of Nichelle Nichols, the actress who played
Uhura on the original series of Star Trek, being persuaded not to leave the show by
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jnr, because of the role model she offered to young black girls and
women. (Wonderfully, astronaut Mae Jemison, the first African-African woman in space,
reported decades later that she had been inspired to follow Lieutenant Uhura to the stars.)

Alongside Uhura, there was Leia Organa, who was a princess and a rebel; then came Kathryn
Janeway, who brought a crew home safely from the edge of known space; there was
Dana Scully, who didn't want to believe because she knew. And then, Kara Thrace,
Sam Carter, Zoe Washburne and Martha Jones, who were not just heroes but also pilots,
astrophysicists, soldiers and doctors – women who excelled in whatever they chose. (For
a not-exhaustive, but fabulous, depiction of women in sci-fi on screen through history, I
recommend "Space Girl" by Charmax. And Zoe and Martha, who aren't white, strike that further blow. The promise of what's to come is neatly encapsulated in this line from an otherwise rather dispiriting
episode of Doctor Who:

"Imagine it, Adelaide, if you began a journey that takes the human race all the way out to
the stars. It begins with you." 

And Adelaide Brooke, who is the leader of the first human mission to Mars, merely nods: she
knows what she needs to do without the Doctor's help, or anyone else's.

These women play the role that they have always played: they inspire us to greater things.
There are several different versions circulating of King and Nichols' conversation, which in
itself is encouraging to me – the value of the story is such that it has become a fable, told
and retold accordingly – and many report Dr. King as saying, "Once that door is opened by
someone, no one else can close it again."

Is it only white men who can take us into the future? No, and that door cannot be closed
again.

But this post is not about that, exactly. This is a piece in praise of those who build that
future, once we have reached it. Because it isn't just the first steps into a new frontier that
are a feminist act, although of course they are: it is also the building of communities that
dismantles kyriarchies, the structures of oppressors and oppressed. And when we speak of
wonderful things to one another, when we tell these stories, we take another step towards
this total dismantling.

There hasn't ever been a Star Trek captain who is neither male nor white, alas. But let's
take a moment to consider Benjamin Sisko, captain of the space station Deep Space Nine.
In the first episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who is a
cultured, deeply cerebral archaeologist-turned-starship captain, the star of Star Trek: The
Next Generation and all-around good guy, meets Sisko, the new commander, to hand
over his new orders. We know Picard very well, by this point; and in his familiar intensity, he
comes off much the better next to the gloomy, uncooperative, positively un-Starfleet Sisko.
Sisko is recently widowed, not concerned with Starfleet's orders or its ideals, nor its lauded
hero standing next to him giving him those orders; he's more concerned with his son, Jake,
and how what remains of their family will survive this grim space station posting. Picard
leaves Sisko unimpressed, and vice versa.

Sisko's second-in-command is Kira Nerys, a self-confessed terrorist and freedom fighter. Kira
(her family name comes first), is a militia officer emerging from spending her life fighting
in the resistance against an enemy occupation. She was fighting battles, killing the enemy,
living as a fugitive, from earliest childhood – and now the resistance battles are over but Kira
is still fighting a war: against the Federation, against the Cardassians, against everyone and
everything standing in the way of her people's self-determination.

Neither Sisko nor Kira is a hero, nor a pioneer: they have not struck out, like so many Star
Trek and general science fiction protagonists do, into the great unknown. Neither has Susan
Ivanova, the woman who is second-in-command of another space station, Babylon 5 –
among the greater wars, Ivanova fights her own battles, born of her history, her family, her
identity as a Russian Jew – and neither is Elizabeth Weir, the put-upon commander of the
Pegasus base Atlantis.

What do they do, then, these people standing outside the dominance of white, male
television sci-fi? They build: they create and build communities, they step forth towards
a better world in the small things of daily life. In part I think this is a happy intersection
of two things: the television series format, the slow progression of a story week by week,
year by year, slowing their character development into almost real time, layer by layer to
a three-dimensional whole; and the space station setting, that by necessity must contain
and continue all its narratives and conflicts, rather than leaving them behind every week in
pursuit of new worlds to conquer.

Michael Piller, one of the writers for Deep Space Nine, commented: "Sisko was a
builder, a man who built things, stayed with projects, as opposed to the driver, the captain
of a starship who went off and moved from place to place." In "Explorers", the main plot
is about Sisko persuading Jake to help him build a replica of an ancient spaceship and fly it
together, but it's not just the building of the ship. The conversations that they have inside
the ship they built – about how Jake has resolved to be a writer when he grows up, how he
thinks his father ought to start dating again – are characteristic of their relationship and of
the show. Deep Space Nine is their home and it's where their families and futures are built.
In "Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang", Sisko's girlfriend, Kasidy, attempts to persuade him to take
part in a holodeck heist caper set in 1960s Las Vegas; Sisko is dead against romanticising the
past, noting that in the real time and place, "our people" would not have been allowed – in
other words, two non-white characters are talking about race, and disagreeing. That internal
discord, that plurality of opinion, is the key feature of a real community. The converse
situation where one character speaks for their entire group is tokenism rather than real
representation.

And it isn't just Sisko. Kira in her early twenties is learning for the first time how to live
as a civilian, how to live in peace. She's building her own life, day by day through work,
friendships, romance, the things that real people do. In "The Circle", following Kira's
unexpected loss of her job on the space station, she attempts to pack. Dax arrives to return

some hand cream that she borrowed; O'Brien comes to say he'll miss her; Quark comes to
try and throw her a leaving party; Odo wants to yell at her for leaving; Bashir comes along
because everyone else has; they argue, raise a ruckus, drive Kira visibly up the wall, and
when the religious leader Vedek Bareil comes to see her, she says, hugely irritated, for the
first time: "These are my… friends." It's a short scene that does a beautiful job of depicting
a woman who has built a life for herself without consciously knowing it: a life, a circle of
friends, a community. Kira will end up running Deep Space Nine and knowing its people
inside out, but the route she takes to get there, through romances and friendships (notably
with Dax; there is a running joke throughout the show about Dax's various attempts to get
Kira to have fun) is what is fascinating about her, that path from being part of a resistance
cell to running a community of free people, with no regrets on the way for anything she's
done.

In a season 2 episode of Babylon 5, "There All The Honour Lies", various notable things
happen, but central to our purposes is that Ivanova is put in charge of the Babylon 5 gift
shop. This sounds like it will be hilarious and is, in fact, hilarious. There are teddy bears
with "Ba-bear-lon 5" embroidered on them. There are masks of various alien life-forms you
can try on. A number of aliens come and try on "human" masks, whipping them off in front
of a mirror with a flourish. And of course it's delightful, and a sharp piece of satire -
as anyone who has cringed at someone wearing a feather headdress or a sari as a
Hallowe'en costume may have noticed – but it ties into that broader theme. Babylon 5,
that "last great hope for peace", a space station on which aliens and humans live, work,
do business and learn together, is a fictional community that has a lot to say about real
communities: it has its gift shop, it has its leaders, its religions, its trades, its clashes,
its love affairs, its unions, politics and riots. From the starting-point of this community,
Ivanova is working to become a better officer, a better human being. Its doctor, Stephen
Franklin, another man of colour, fights his daily battles with those that stand in the way of
his Hippocratic Oath and, later, with his own addictions. And these are not the first steps
towards an unknown frontier, but they nevertheless are feminist, anti-racist story arcs.
They are about moving towards a science-fictional world where these battles are taken
as seriously and thoughtfully as the battle of the chisel-jawed white man against the alien
invaders.

We don't yet live in a world of space station politics. Except, of course, that we do: most
of us live in small spaces, with other humans who are different from us, and some of those
spaces are inside our own heads. We cannot be women, or queer, or people of colour,
without knowing that we can be all those things at once, layer upon layer; we cannot live
in discrete blocks apart from one another, and we cannot live as communities of one. Me,
I love science fiction because of the worlds it opens up – and here's to Kira and Sisko and
Ivanova and Weir and all the quotidian heroes, the people like us in the places we hope to
be.

The Beauty Debt

Posted by Galatea

Horrible joke I remember from high school: 

Q: Why do women wear perfume and make-up?

A: Because they stink and they're ugly. 

Why don't men wear perfume and make-up?

A: Because they stink and they're ugly and they don't care. 

I've been noodling around this idea in my head for quite some time now – in fact, this is a version of a post I wrote lo these many years ago, about the time of the Great Fuss Over Susan Boyle Being On National TV in 2009. It’s about a concept that I think I want to call ‘the beauty debt'.

Essentially, what I’m thinking of when I say ‘beauty debt’ is the idea floating around in modern culture that women owe a certain standard of attractiveness to those who 'have' to look at them, and that if a woman's 'natural' beauty is not sufficient (and it very rarely is), she must perform a certain amount of beauty work in order to rectify the problem, to 'pay the debt' as it were. This work might involve shaving, waxing, dyeing, surgery, food restriction, exercise, straightening, lightening, tanning, all according to individual situation, sub/culture, race, class etc. It almost always involves paying money, and quite often involves physical discomfort or pain. I probably don't need to list here what happens if she fails to perform this work or fails to perform it to a sufficient standard, but what's interesting is that often the undercurrent is we don't want to see that!; she's hurting my eyes!, how dare she make us HAVE to see that!

Trans identities and essentialism

Posted by Orlando

“Gender is socially constructed.”

“Trans identities are real and valid.”

So. I’m a feminist and a trans person, and I believe both of the above statements. These two positions are sometimes held to be in opposition, whether by feminists who believe trans people are buying into patriarchal gender roles or trans people who denounce non-binary trans identities as ‘transtrenders’ (have a look at the ‘transtrender’ tag on Tumblr if you want to see examples - I’m not linking because some of the stuff on there is really hateful). In this post, I’d like to show how an understanding of gender as socially constructed and a recognition of trans identities are not mutually exclusive, starting with some analogies.

RadFem 2012: uniting feminists against transphobia

Posted by Orlando.

[Trigger warning: transphobia. Neither this blog nor the linked posts are transphobic, but they do engage with and discuss transphobic ideas, and it is possible that linked blogs which don't share our safe space policy will have transphobia expressed in their comments section.]

We told you on Monday that our weekly post was going up early because of the urgency of the topic - but now, with another pressing topic begging to be written about it, this week you get a double-dose of Lashings bloggery! Aren't you the luckiest things? So, I'm Orlando - named after the gender-fluid Woolf character, rather than any popular actors - and I'm a newly-ascended fan of Lashings who is still somewhat breathless about joining the team here. Hello!

In mid-May, a London-based 'radical feminist' conference called RadFem2012 was announced, and parts of the internet began to rumble. A few days later, that rumble on Twitter became a roar on the blogosphere. Why all the attention? The website stated that entry was restricted to 'biological women living as women' - later edited to 'women born women living as women' - and renowned transphobe Sheila Jeffreys was billed as a speaker. A week later, and I'm - actually, kind of elated.

Academic round-up

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer

Information that may be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of gender and sexuality.

The Girl Who Is A Lot More Than Her Physical Characteristics, Actually [rape triggers]

Posted by Goblin

So, further to Sebastienne’s frankly brilliant post t’other day about concepts of self-belief, self-doubt and the fantasy of understanding in Paging Doctor Sherlock House, let’s talk about what happens on the rare occasions when the supercharacter in question is female. As Sebastienne has already discussed the case of Holmes’ former nemesis and now (apparently) sap Irene Adler, I won’t go into that, but believe me it’s tempting – instead, let’s talk about Lisbeth Salander, the eponymous Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. (It seems important to point out here that The Young Female Defined By A Notable Physical Feature wasn't actually the original title of this book: the literal translation of the Swedish Män som hatar kvinnor is 'Men Who Hate Women', which is going to be relevant in due course.) Apologies to those who haven't seen the films or read the books - this post contains spoilers.

Who needs sociopolitical equality when you have YOGHURT?

Posted by Goblin

So, the swimming pool was busy today and I retreated – uncharacteristically these days – to the gym. Because I am a skint student, my gym doesn’t boast its own continuous music channel, so I had to make do with my walkman and some unnamed terrestrial channel.

And, God help me, I started watching the adverts. Has anyone else ever noticed the sheer proportion of adverts that attempt to sell women products – usually food or domestic products – as emotional fulfilment? They’re all over the show. The two I’m going to talk about are very different – Mr Muscle bathroom and Rachel’s Organic Yoghurt.

"But...that doesn't happen, right?" [TW: Sexual harrassment/assault]

Posted by Jenni

Since I started blogging about feminist and queer subjects, I've noticed there's one negative response I get more than most. It's not a complaint, or an insult regarding my stance, but rather, disbelief that I still think these things are important to discuss. And it's never in a malicious manner, but rather, genuine puzzlement as to why certain issues are still relevant.

My favourite examples are often to do with my comments regarding a film - "But why does it matter that the girl doesn't do anything? It's not about her!" (Gee, I dunno - maybe it's the fact that there aren't exactly many films about 'her' outside of romantic comedies?) or perhaps "Why does it matter that the gay character got killed? It wasn't because they were gay, duh!" (I'm not even going to explain why that one annoys me.)

Events in London this weekend

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer


Another weekend full of exciting events:





Friday 25th November

Ah! Forget My Fate - A Complete History of Women in Opera (Abridged!)
Queer feminist opera by Better Strangers
10pm King's Head Theatre, Islington, London
Tickets here

Ah! Forget My Fate will take you on a musical journey. If that sounds cliché, bear with us: we begin in the late 17th century, with a bold two-woman adaptation of Dido and Aeneas; then soprani Claudia Guastella and Jessie Holder guide their audience through the dramatic and often disastrous fate of the operatic heroine; the sultry and salacious stylings of villainesses; the dubious dealings of witches and wenches; and the curious custom of dressing women as men.

Saturday 26th November

Feminist Library book sale
2.30pm at the FEMINIST LIBRARY, 5 Westminster Bridge Road, SE1 7XW (map)

On top of selling duplicates from the Feminist Library collection (so very valuable out of print feminist texts!) there will be a selection of non feminist books and knick knacks - and the good thing is that you are free to bring your own books and donate them to the library to sell on the day! All this plus the chance to visit the library and browse the collection, meet other amazing feminists and sample some of our delicious food.
The library is wheelchair accessible and the event is open to all.
After the event, we will take the library vintage red banner and join the Reclaim the Night march - why not join us?
You can RSVP on Facebook event; and use this to invite your friends! You can contact the library on admin@feministlibrary.co.uk or on Facebook; or by following @feministlibrary on Twitter.com

CN Lester at the Camden Enterprise
7:30 until 10:30

Singer, song-writer, pianist, trans activist, and all-round awesome person CN Lester is performing at the Camden Enterprise, "Channelling some more Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen and Patti Smith - and some favourites from Ashes."

Feminism is not a club you join

Posted by Sebastienne





Recently, feminists on Twitter have been carrying out a #DiversityAudit on the representation of women in British TV and radio, with a particular focus on comedy panel shows.

It has, perhaps not unexpectedly, revealed that TV and radio panel shows have a rather strong bias towards the representation of one particular gender - and it's not women! Thefword have published an overview of the findings - with the most representative of shows just nudging 1 in 3 female guests, and Mock The Week just about managing 1 in 7. And lest you think these figures aren't too saddening, take note - they refer only to guests on the shows. When you take into account regulars, like hosts and team captains, no show manages more than 17% women. That's 1 in 6.

Can feminists be funny?

Posted by Sally Outen

OK, OK, here's one:
Q: What do you get if you cross, um, Silvio Berlusconi with... an accusation of sexism?
A: Silenced! Haha?

What? Not laughing? But... it's topical, nearly... and, and it's funny because it's true, right? Oh. Yeah. It's sad that it's true - that's the one. But at least it isn't as bad as all those how-many-women-does-it-take-to-screw-in-a-lightbulb jokes - the ones that, while still being rather sad, also manage to be, well, not actually true. Not really. They're just playing on popular stereotypes and being generally misogynistic*.

Or... oh... maybe I'm just one of those humourless feminists.

Women and Comics (The Positive Side!)

Posted by Jenni

Warning: this post is link heavy!

I recently wrote about women and comics, and it seems that I’m writing on that topic again. The reason? Since my last article, something pretty amazing has happened, and that’s a project called Womanthology.

Okay, here’s the point that I admit I’m pretty biased, being involved in the project myself. But that’s beside the point. I figured I’d show a contrast to the negativity of my previous article, and some of the steps that are being taken.

Women and Power in the films of Hayao Miyazaki

Posted by Sally Outen

"Our princess is as strong as they come!"
"Indeed, she rescued me earlier!"
Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind


In a Disney film, dialogue like this might be written to be self-consciously subversive, a knowing attempt to play upon that whole "rescue-the-princess" cliché. It might come across as empowering, but it's just as likely to ring false, as though the writers aren't sure whether their main objective is to provide strong female role models, or just to show off how clever they are at messing around with fairy-tale tropes.

But these lines actually come from a film by Hayao Miyazaki, and it's difficult to find the same flavour of cynicism in them, within context. In Miyazaki's films, women are every bit as likely to be heroes as men, every bit as likely to be in positions of power – and the majority of Miyazaki's protagonists are well-characterised women. Miyazaki is often described as a feminist (most notably by Studio Ghibli president, Toshio Suzuki), and his films are frequently noted for their feminist themes, as well as for their elements of environmentalism, pacifism, socialism, and complex attitudes towards good and evil. For me, this was always going to be a winning formula, and in evaluating Miyazaki's output, I tend to find myself squeeing incoherently rather than taking an attentive critical viewpoint. So here's my attempt to offer a broad feminist analysis of Miyazaki's work, highlighting the aspects that I've found potentially problematic, alongside more squeeworthy elements.

OK - a couple of warnings. Firstly, this post turned out a bit longer than usual, proof that I should never start typing while watching anime. Secondly, it contains spoilers for Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, Castle in the Sky, My Neighbour Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Ponyo. It can be inferred that these spoilers will extend to the novels and manga on which some of these titles are based. I haven't included Castle of Cagliostro (from the Lupin III canon) in this analysis because I'm not sure to what extent it is possible to detect Miyazaki's own directorial voice in this film from early in his directorial career.

Call for Artists: Researching Feminist Futures

Posted by Lashings of Ginger Beer

The organisers of a conference on feminist futures are seeking an Artist in Residence.

They say:

"This is a Call for Artists for the upcoming symposium Researching Feminist Futures organised by the University of Edinburgh's Graduate School of Social and Political Science.

Researching Feminist Futures will provide a space for creative discussions of feminism in academic practice. It is a two-day symposium scheduled for the 2nd and 3rd September and will be held at the University of Edinburgh.

As part of this two-day event we are seeking ‘Artists in Residence’ to work in the symposium Art Space, transforming a standard university seminar room into an exciting, challenging and stimulating creative space. This might involve: exhibiting your own previous work, documenting or creating art in response to the symposium, facilitating a collaborative, creative space for symposium participants, curating a gallery space of artists who explore feminist or gender-related issues in their work, something else wonderful of your own devising!

If you are interested in being an ‘Artist in Residence’ at Researching Feminist Futures please send a short (no more than 800 words) proposal detailing the nature of your work, your aims for the art space, time/space requirements as well as a short biography researchingfeministfutures@gmail.com.  

The deadline for applications is July 1st 2011.

For further information, please see our blog:  http://researchingfeministfutures.wordpress.com/
And webspace: http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/gender_and_politics/events/conference/researching_feminist_futures/"

On Comic Books (and X-Men: First Class)

Posted by Jenni

On Women and Comic Books

[Spoilers for X-Men: First Class]




This post began life as a discussion of the problems with the new X-Men film from a female perspective, but I quickly realised my canon-love showed through a bit much. So here’s an attempt to convey why comics have the potential to be a potent tool to get new ideas through, and why the lack of development in this direction bothers me.

My Gender Identity

Posted by Sally Outen

“I totally accept that very young children can feel constrained in terms of their gender roles, and feel that the way they are expected to behave (dependent on being male or female) does not match how they would prefer to be. I felt like that growing up. I hated the idea that I was supposed to be feminine.”

Guess the writer? Yes, it's self-identified radical feminist Julie Bindel, whose views on trans issues don't seem to have moved on very much since her first article on the subject was published, in 2003. This is a fresh quote, from the Guardian's online Comment is Free section a week ago; the article itself was a discussion concerning the parents who have decided not to announce the sex of their newborn baby – and hey, personally I agree with a lot of what Bindel had to say there. Sadly, in the comments (yes, I know... Rule 1: Never Read The Comments), she was led to repeat her standard transsexualism-is-just-a-cultural-construction theory. (If you'd like the full context, the quote I've chosen was in direct response to a question about how she'd explain gender dysphoria in very young children.)

Now, the thing I find so impressive about this particular quote is that it's so nearly an example of the But That Happens To Me Too! method of derailing. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it only fails to qualify for the reason that, for me at least, it spectacularly misinterprets what I actually feel in experiencing myself as trans.

In my first contribution to this blog, I made a case for why any one person's sexual or gender identity shouldn't be taken as an invalidation of any other person's sexual or gender identity. In this post, I'd like to talk about what my gender identity actually means to me, and why that doesn't have to stand in direct opposition to the aspiration that Bindel and many other radical feminists refer to as the abolition of gender.

"Bad Science" and bad science.

Posted by Sebastienne





Ben Goldacre - columnist, GP, empiricist hero of the secular left - published a column in the Guardian this Saturday: "How can you tell if a policy is working? Run a trial". In it, he lambasts UK politicians for their lack of interest in the effectiveness of the policies they propose. And he's right, as far as it goes; policies with intuitive appeal are much more likely to be accepted than policies which just happen to be effective. We might think we can increase the intuitive appeal of tried-and-tested policies by educating people (the MPs who will vote, and the public who will later vote on them) on the evidence; but I don't know if anyone has actually run a trial on this approach, so we'd better not rely on it.

There is a real problem here. It is not a trivial proposition, to convince people that their intuitions are not to be trusted - but it's an important goal that anti-oppression activists and pro-science empiricists share, although we rarely acknowledge it.

Feminism and Men

Dear Readers,

Apologies for the lateness of this post - there have been some technical problems with the Blogger site over the past few days.

However, we hope you'll find it was worth the wait for this post by our newest guest blogger.
Love,
Lashings x

Feminism and Men

by Guest Blogger Dan

I’ve been trying to write something on my involvement with feminism for the last three and a half years or so. And, no matter where I start, I always end up at the question of what men can or should do in a feminist political space.


Fairly essential to feminism for all its diversity, is the acknowledgment of a patriarchal society in which women are oppressed. And men have no small hand in the creation and perpetuation of this inequality and oppression. For any man to accept some of these basic ideas is to instantly be forced to answer some difficult questions. If I am indeed a man, what has my role been in oppressing others through my unconscious excercise of male privileges? What are those privileges? What does that culpability then say about my character, my perception of myself – and further down the line, about the very formulation of my identity and my relationships with others?

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.