Lolita's Fist

Isn't the word Feminism redundant, we could use Womanism, we have other words 'group dynamics', the word's 'ism' suggests man-hating? I was reading a manist's blog (Pelle Billing) and responses to his suggestion that there should be a masculist movement was met by comments that that would just be repeating the mistakes of feminism - that equality should be part of the liberal agenda and not start pitting factions against each other. I was thinking that the desire for a masculist movement is reactionary. To his credit Billing took the criticism and agreed with the point. He is prolific, try this  Google search . Here is  Pelle Billing's blog . Here is  Pelle Billing's website . Would feminism ever have become a movement had there not been opposition to it? Women had to find a name for the thing they were standing up to support. And men had to find a name for the thing they wanted to rail against. At the time when feminism started did it ha...

🍒 I love scifi, and I live in South Africa, 50 kms from where they made the movie. Our local film industry is very sad, but District 9 was great! Very very very very violent, very very very pointed about apartheid. Some hard bits to see, which made it great! But I could never see it again. Way too hectic. We South Africans are very gritty. I was just saying to one of my international pals on Facebook that we don't use the word nice here in South Africa - it would be too anomalous, too weird, too freaky, to unfitting. There are no nice situations here. It's hectic! No one is emigrating to South Africa.... unless they are transferred or living in a place where their limbs are getting hacked off because they don't fit in their social groups. Commentary. "We were filming in a cleared-shack area of Soweto, inhabitants had been moved to RDP housing. The pollution shocked us in the first few days, but by day three it seemed normal. We normalized." IMDB District 9 (...

🍒      Wordplay is a fantastic documentary on crossword puzzles called Wordplay. Fantabulous! Extraordinary! Stunning! Beautifully done. Interviews all sorts of people - celebrities, puzzle makers, New York Times public editors, a guy who decided to make an annual event for the people holed up in their rooms to get out and meet like-minded puzzlers. The competitiveness! Worth keeping. The Indigo girls - and a brief shot of a concert - a sea of dykes. Heaven. IMDB Wordplay (2006) Director: Patrick Creadon Documentary

Worth seeing for some very truthful scenes, but kinda yawn. IMDB Management (2008) Director: Stephen Belber Actors: Jennifer Aniston, Steve Zahn

Coco Chanel was kinda nice, great cinematography - or shall I say, it wasn't linear but it was a bit been there done that. Her long-time lover was badly cast. But I loved the woman who played her, and there were great notions. Coco was wonderful. IMDB Coco Chanel (2008) Actors: Barbora Bobulova, Brigitte Boucher Director: Christian Duguay

🍒 Danny falls in love with Sandy. She is sweet and lovely and believing and innocent (virgin). He loves her. When he gets to school and sees her through the eyes of his friends, he rejects her because she doesn't put out (whore). She realizes that unless she puts it out there that she wants him, and everyone knows she wants him as a boyfriend, now they need to know that he's the one whose body she wants. She needs to flash her body sexually and be very very thin and wear very very clingy clothes and speak very very dirty(ish) then she will get her man. She does. He is pleased that he can have the nice girl, who will put out, who realizes that virginity is lousy. Sadly, I know every millimeter of this movie by heart. This film tells me, that I can be virgin and whore and I will get the guy, but he gets to tell me what he wants and I must be that. If I choose to do as he wants, I will be cool. IMDB Grease (1978) Actors: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John Director: Randal...

BEEN READING: Jessica Valenti on Full Frontal Feminism Valenti is the founder of Feministing.com and says that the next feminist wave will be cyber. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071015/bennett ... Bullyin - trying to intimidate us women into being Paris Hilton clones I totally think that we are being bullied and emotionally manipulated into being terrified to not shave, terrified to call ourselves feminists, terrified to act. It amazes me that no one realises that the bullying in schools is a reflection of what happens in front of children's eyes everywhere they go. A doctor, doing a breast sonar, made a comment about my underarm hair, suggesting that I should get that shaved before I see him next. It's bullying. He used his position of power to make me afraid that he would not give me his services if I did not conform to his idea of womanhood. How shocking is it that my hair is more scary than his bullying. Those brats in American schools, giggling and laughing and ...

That's a very big request...'Please explain feminism to me.' And the answer is not simple. Just like there are many different versions of religion, politics, whatever - so there are many versions of feminism. Each person who adopts any ideology tweaks it to make it their own. I think that the very basic, very essential idea behind all activism (and feminism is an activism), is to create an awareness that you cannot subdivide society into units - race, gender, sexuality, etc - and say that that subdivision should not be treated as equal to any other group. Feminism focuses that rejection of subdivision on 'women'. Activism generally focuses on the unequal distribution of human rights, among other things (you get eco-feminists who are environment lobbyists). So, under human rights, you can't pay one group less than another for the same work, e.g. women are paid 30% less on average in a similar job to a man. You can't give one group less rights than another...

In her explanation of  gynocidal  ritual, feminist theorist Mary  Daly  explains that in a patriarchal culture, society uses certain ritualistic behaviors (usually in the interest of enhancing female "beauty") to destroy female connections and to oppress women.* In these situations, women are often used as "token torturers". For instance, there was a saying during the days of Chinese  footbinding : "If a mother loves her daughter, she will take no mercy on her feet." Nope, instead she will torture and cripple her to make her palatable to a society infected with brainwashed men who wouldn't know a natural woman if she bit him on the ass and then ran away on her big ' ol  feet! * Discussion of  gynocidal  ritual can be found in Mary  Daly's  book,  Gyn /Ecology: the  Metaethics  of Radical Feminism. Source:  Only one Manda I love the way Amanda puts this. Great voice. Amanda wrote this while expressing her horror a...

"A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Gloria Steinem "I feel that 'man-hating' is an honorable and viable political act, that the oppressed have a right to class-hatred against the class that is oppressing them." Robin Morgan "I haven't the faintest notion what possible revolutionary role white hetero-sexual men could fulfill, since they are the very embodiment of reactionary-vested-interest-power. But then, I have great difficulty examining what men in general could possibly do about all this. In addition to doing the shitwork that women have been doing for generations, possibly not exist? No, I really don't mean that. Yes, I really do." Robin Morgan "We can't destroy the inequities between men and women until we destroy marriage." Robin Morgan "I claim that rape exists any time sexual intercourse occurs when it has not been initiated by the woman, out of her own genuine affection and de...

In response to the publishing of her first book The Church and the Second Sex in 1969, Mary Daly was issued a terminal contract by Boston College i.e. her position would not be renewed once it had expired. Her situation became the cause for student protests, petitions, and teach-ins celebrating academic freedom. With student (all male at the time) and other popular support, not only was she taken on as full professor but also was given tenure. AND she refused to admit male students to her classes at Boston College. She believes that men's presence in her classrooms kept the women students from fully and freely exploring radical feminism. Because of her ban on men from her classroom she has provoked repeated reprimands from Boston University and accusations that she was violating both university policy and Title IX (the federal statute banning discrimination in higher education on the basis of sex) requirements. The confrontations came to a head in 1998 when Boston College Theol...

The women of today are asking the second-wave feminists "What have you done for me lately?" What are feminists doing?" doing my bit to get rid of the Ms-Miss-Mrs to None offer a place to stay to women who have been abused (several) rescued a woman in a violent-home situation pick up women hitchhikers disseminate information about feminism actively support the activities of other women, even when the women themselves would not self-identify themselves or the activities as feminist promote a theme of the-man's-friends-are-culpable-in-an-abuse-of-women-situation act against women who abuse raise awareness in relationships that one of the partners is not enhancing the goals of the other partner make sure that women enter their houses safely before I leave, after dropping them off blog raise consciousness about informed choice raise awareness of sexual gratification do general computer-fun training for women at every opportunity took the education of the d...

In my case, firstly....My sister used to parade herself half-naked in front of guys I brought home. Probably not intentionally, she wears really tiny clothes. Of course the guys would drop me like a hot potato! Boing! Eventually I thought to myself, what a brilliant test of the guy - so I brought them home on the first date! My girlfriend passed the test. Secondly...I also realise that I would have to lead a life of severe deprivation to get and keep a society-envisaged weight. I would have to do mind-vacating exercise almost all day long. I am WAY not going to do that. That would make me unhappy. I am prepared to lose some weight, do some exercise. Become normal like I used to be (what other people call fat), maybe ten or so kgs more. That's normal for me. But I don't kid myself about being thin. Oprah gets up at 5, she does 4 hours of exercise during the day that include 300 situps - she has a personal chef cooking nutritious delicious food for her wherever she goes. She go...

To be fair - it's difficult to think of a non-self-defining feminist woman as anything but a tool of the patriarchy. I have to concentrate on the fact that even though a woman would not call herself a feminist, she would never endorse  footbinding  (to name a radical example) and it doesn't necessarily mean she is a doormat either. In fact, some of my favorite women scorn my feminism and hate it when they are judged solely on their marital status or gender. Ironically if you look at films made during the so-called liberal 60s and 70s you will see that movies align the woman's role less to what is happening politically in the big wide world and more to what is happening in pornography. The rise of the snuff movie mirrored the rise of violence towards women in the movies, serial killer paradise. Pornography always centers on the woman - probably in an attempt to hide the size of the penis. From my perspective, I am less uncomfortable looking at vintage porn than  Emanuell...

Expanded the boundaries of what women could want, such as high-powered careers, children, sexual freedom, political power — or all four at once. The public is now aware of research showing that the staggeringly high percentage of women murder victims have been murdered by husbands, boyfriend, relatives, or acquaintances. Nearly half of these women are killed when they tried to leave the man. Awareness that women are endangered by other women. Worldwide, “token torturers” [Mary Daly’s phrase] genitally mutilate girl children, banish their incestuously abused daughters — and not the abusive men who perpetrate it. Awareness that women shame each other into obedience [e.g.  women barter commitment for security so sexual ‘promiscuity’ cheapens her value  - Alma] Male family violence, child abuse, and child sex abuse are being recognized as crimes by police, courts and religions.

One of the things that really astounds me is the Awakening. You know that feeling of lying in bed and suddenly realising that you have been awake for some time. You realise that you have been lying there thinking and time has passed. Catching those last few thoughts before the Awakening lasts as long as the memory of a dream - not long. My waking into feminism was exactly like that. I never thought I 'needed' feminism. I knew myself, my mind, my capabilities. I could act and react. I believed that the only difference between men and women was biological, genital, surmountable. How wrong I was. I became aware that my previous stance and my current stance is a choice. The world brainwashes you, as does any system, feminism included. The difference is, that if you have become aware of an alternative reality, it undermines the ubiquitousness of reality number one. Alternative realities give the possibility of choosing, of making an informed decision. Of saying, 'These bits su...

By Tanya Pretorius (fetsiboomsticks)

It does seem odd to seek marriage that has come up through the ranks of ages as a method of legitimising certain people over others - the progeny of this sort of union are better than the progeny of that sort of union. “This woman is my property, as are her children and my other property will go to them if I so decide.” Suzanne du Toit and Annemarie de Vos, who tested the adoption laws - that only one woman could adopt a child, not a pair of women. Annemarie adopted two children, and found that were she to die, that Suzanne would not legally be able to continue to live with and mother the children. They would have to go back into the foster care system and Suzanne would be offered no recognition of time served. They won. The courts now recognise, thanks to them, that those children belong to both women and no one can take them away. They are a whisker’s breadth away from legal marriage. What makes them not married? Certainly not anything in their lives. Only the law and/or a choice on ...

A friend wrote: We have problem there. The way we watch movies (you and me) is very much the same way in which we approach new social situations. With anything new, you (Fetsiboomsticks) zone in on particular details / people, attach, interact. Your commitment to the interaction causes you to have to sacrifice some of the details and facts, no one can be everywhere at once. You walk away with a good idea of the all over 'vibe' that was present at the time and what views who held and what their interests were, those that got your attention anyway. But all the background noise and activity slipped by unnoticed. Me, new people, I withdraw, look on from the distance, expend no energy on the interaction, so there is quite a substantial bit of energy left to employ peripheral vision along with the normal absorption of details. I see who talks to who, where they're standing, who they're comfortable talking to, what they're drinking, who's hiding by omitting, who...

Feminism is awkward territory because it has no status quo that people have settled into comfortably, written books about, and studied on the scale that Sexism has, in its efforts to prop itself up. If you think about what real progress I made with CENSORED (Company) on the Titling issue you can see that moving forward is a slog. Now consider the sexist practices, they are already there - possession is nine tenths of the law - once you own a thing, it is almost impossible to make you let go of it. CENSORED (Company) owns the paper form and the e-form, the sexism on the form, and the possibility of change. Sexism is entrenched, and change is hard. I am sure that we are working harder to repeal the Title Mrs than the effort that went into setting it up in the first place. The hard part IS doing something about the status quo. I have consistently sent out emails, followed them up, taken steps forward, taken steps back on the Titling issue, among others. I live what I think. Feminism, ...