Blog posts from May 2006
Purity balls
by Jess McCabe // 30 May 2006, 09:11
Purity Balls. No, not some sort of newfangled spherical chastity device to be inserted using vacuum tubes and pulleys, but rather fancy creepy dress-up rituals taking place in towns like Colorado Springs and Tucson and Zoloft Jesusville, in which Christian...
Playboy thinks Lolita is porn
by Jess McCabe // 29 May 2006, 21:56
Playboy has published a list of the supposed 25 "sexiest novels ever written". Supposed, because the list is mostly a bit crap (note the presence of Forever by Judy Blume, which, whilst it was passed around all the girls in...
New Features and Reviews
by Catherine Redfern // 29 May 2006, 18:58
Features Real Female Heroines As FHM publishes its '100 sexiest women' list, Maxine Frances goes for an antidote and pays tribute to her own female idols, whilst pondering the effect female heroines can have in inspiring young women and...
Ladyfest Newcastle - competition
by Catherine Redfern // 29 May 2006, 16:20
Ladyfest Newcastle, the music and arts festival taking place in September, is looking for imaginative, creative designs to use on official festival t shirts. Anyone can enter, regardless of age or gender, and the winners will receive free festival tickets...
Carnival Time
by Jess McCabe // 29 May 2006, 01:16
Actually we're a bit late with this one, but the latest Carnival of Feminists is a corker. As usual, this is an excellent way to add to your list of required-blog-reading. Top of the list: About To Get Skinny and...
Be Heard
by Jess McCabe // 28 May 2006, 20:38
I'm sure you'll all have heard about the dirty moral water that Google and Yahoo! have been paddling in in China - helping the authorities to restrict access to certain websites, closing down blogs and handing over details that have...
Teenage mums knuckle down
by Jess McCabe // 28 May 2006, 19:41
Teenage mums: scurge of Daily Mail readers, they are generally characterised as feckless, working class and irresponsible, the encapsulation of social disintegration. But according to a new study, getting pregnant in your teens can urge girls on to take their...
Helen Gets a Fair Hearing
by Jess McCabe // 27 May 2006, 22:27
If anyone is going to the Guardian Hay festival (incidentally - jealous here!), they might want to check out an interesting talk on Helen of Troy tomorrow. A historian named Bettany Hughes is set to demolish our understanding of the...
A Feminist Cruise?
by Jess McCabe // 27 May 2006, 18:30
You know those cruises that Ms Magazine runs? Well, P.M.S. Media has put together a stinging critique of the whole concept. Watch it here. The main arguments seem to be: 1) Cruises are dirty and polluting 2) On-ship workers -...
South Dakota activists fight abortion ban
by Jess McCabe // 27 May 2006, 11:49
Pro-choice campaigners in South Dakota are set to file a petition next week, in a bid to force a referendum on the state's ban on abortion, the New York Times reports. If enough signatures are collected, the ban - which...
Vatican blames "feminism" for ministers voicing opinions
by Jess McCabe // 26 May 2006, 13:39
Based on this slightly odd story on LifeSiteNews, the Vatican's newspaper has hit out at newly elected Italian ministers for expressing their opinions on "sensitive" issues such as abortion and sexuality. The providence of this story is unclear, because the...
Scandal hits immigration service again
by Jess McCabe // 21 May 2006, 10:42
An immigration official has been caught on video propositioning a teenage rape victim from Zimbabwe, and offering to grease the wheels to help her claim asylum, just two months after the Home Office promised to crack down on similar abuses....
News Update
by Jess McCabe // 18 May 2006, 23:27
Women will be one of the first beneficiaries of pension reform in the UK, the Government claims. Work and Pensions Secretary John Hutton has called the measures a "new deal for women", according to the Guardian The debate on flexible...
Comic art uncovered
by Jess McCabe // 11 May 2006, 09:08
Superhero/ine comics are notorious for cover artwork which objectifies women. Annoyed by this latest example, one blogger has turned the tables, drawing mock superhero covers which objectify their male characters in the same way. It's very revealing. Just how incongrous...
Trafficked women freed in the UK - but what about the World Cup?
by Lynne Miles // 10 May 2006, 15:37
Good news comes this morning that 19 trafficked women have been rescued by police from brothels across London and the West Midlands. Under the banner of the UK-wide Operation Pentameter, police have arrested two individuals believed to have been the...
Does Equality Minister believe homosexuality is a sin?
by Jess McCabe // 10 May 2006, 08:30
Well, she has refused to answer the question. But given that Ruth Kelly is both a Catholic and a member of the dodgy religious group Opus Dei, and given her voting record, who could blame us for drawing our own...
Women auctioned at British airports
by Jess McCabe // 7 May 2006, 21:01
Women are being openly auctioned by sex traffickers at airports at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, according to research by the Crown Prosecution Service. The Independent reports: The head of operations at Britain's largest vice squad admitted that the police were...
Andrea Dworkin Conference
by Catherine Redfern // 7 May 2006, 13:31
Recordings from the Andrea Dworkin Conference held at The Centre for the Study of Social Justice on Friday, 7 April 2006 have been placed online in .mp3 format. Blogger V from another radical feminist has organised for the recordings to...
First female foreign secretary - a cause for celebration?
by Jess McCabe // 6 May 2006, 01:59
The Feminist Majority Foundation in the US has picked up on the news that the latest reshuffle has resulted in Margaret Beckett receiving a substantial promotion from environment secretary to foreign secretary. This makes her the UK's first ever female...
Ladyfest Newcastle 2006
by Catherine Redfern // 1 May 2006, 17:59
Please fee free to publicise / pass on the following notice: ----- LADYFEST NEWCASTLE 2006 Ladyfest Newcastle will be 2 whole days and nights of incredible music, art, photography, spoken word poetry, performance art and workshops - all taking place...
Founder of The F-Word, Catherine Redfern, has co-authored a new book with Kristin Aune. Find out more at the 
