Please add your Bikini Kill story to this blog! It can be totally off the top of your head and doesn’t need to be fancy. Maybe it’s your reaction to a song we wrote, something weird that happened at one of our shows, a personal anecdote or just WHATEVER. Feel free to send images too!

Last month I wrote briefly about Staying, an art project by 12 lesbian asylum seekers and refugees, with artist Oreet Ashery. There's going to be a reading from the project at the Poetry Society in London on 12 February, as part of LGBT history month. Via womensgrid which has full details:

Jerusalem-born British artist Ashery has collaborated with lesbian asylum seekers, developing characters, stories, drawings, and poems from their experiences of suffering traumatising discrimination, because of their sexual orientation, in their home countries. These have been brought together in a publication available for download at http://www.artangel.org.uk Please join us for readings from the publication and a discussion of the project. Venue: Poetry Place, The Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9BX http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk

Nerves Strengthened By Tea revisits Jane Austen's early gothic satire Northanger Abbey:

The female gothic, which Jane Austen is poking fun at in this novel (but obviously loved too), provided a space for women to express and explore very real anxieties about patriarchy.

Why are there so few female werewolves? Student Elizabeth M. Clark has written what sounds like a very interesting thesis about this, and although I can't download it for some reason, Latoya Peterson summarises at Jezebel.

Clark argues:

This interview segment illustrates how the idea of a female werewolf challenges cultural conceptions about the appropriate female body and acceptable female behavior. For a horror film to show images of large, muscular, hairy, aggressive women would just be too "horrifying," according to Wiseman and Beckinsale.

And Latoya summarises:

In order to neutralize the jarring effect that seeing "masculinized" women would have on the viewers' delicate psyches, many directors employ a common device to keep audiences connected - physical beauty conveyed through excessive nude scenes. In exploring the scenes in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, Clark notes how both of the episodes emphasized the were-woman's human form, and often featured long lingering shots of the women's hairless, slender, nude bodies or images of the women behaving in sexually aggressive ways while still in human form.

Via Samhita at Feministing, The Frisky has a series of photos and stories about black women artists, including writer Zora Neale Hurston - it's black history month in the US right now.

In The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter famously retold and repurposed fairy tales, and many feminist reclamations of the genre (if fairy tales can be called a genre!) have followed. Jezebel found another project in this vein, which is calling for submissions of

Stories that radically revise stereotypes of "bad women" in the Bible, in myth and in fairy-tales. Stories that aren't afraid to be literary, transgressive, dark, and sexy. Think: Lilith, Medea, the Wicked Stepmother, the Evil Witch, Pandora, Eve, crones, sibyls, fates, muses. Contemporary adaptations are fine... The spine: We begin to see these women through another lens.

Over at Racialicious, guest blogger A. Rahman Ford writes a powerful piece about masculinity, race and disability, explaining his photographic self-portrait:

The photo, titled “undesirable,” is essentially about me ultimately beginning the journey of accepting my disability as I have my blackness. More broadly, it is to protest what I refer to as the negative fetishism of poor bodies, bodies that are deemed broke and broken, crooked and criminal, dilapidated and degenerate, ugly and useless. It was influenced in part by depictions of Holocaust victims - persons with disabilities among them - determined by the Nazi regime to be “undesirable” and anathema to the Aryan archetype because they did not and could not conform. “Undesirable” is also meant to invoke sexuality and how poor male bodies navigate the difficulty of being sexually desirable because of the physical valuation males and females deploy to determine sexual attraction. These are issues and feelings that I have dealt with and I used the photo to embody both my struggle and progress.

Heather Corinna from Scarlateen unpacks a very common phrase used in sex ed for teenagers: "You should wait for sex, but if you can’t…." She says instead:

What we want is for everyone to only have any kind of sex — be it intercourse or any other physically enacted expression of sexuality with oneself or a partner — when it is what everyone involved in a sexual scenario: strongly wants, can and does actively consent to, feels prepared for, and has the knowledge and capacity to have sex in a way that is physically and emotionally safe for everyone.

This is our goal for people of every age, and we don’t think it’s fair or reasonable to hold young people to different standards on this than we hold, or anyone else holds, older people (especially if you’re going to say young people are less capable of meeting the standard than older people, but older people don’t need to meet it once they are capable).

On 28th January the government announced changes to the parental leave system, which currently allocates the birth mother up to twelve months, of which nine months can be partly paid. Her partner (male or female) gets up to two weeks at minimal pay. The government’s new plans allow the mother to allocate all or part of the final three months’ unpaid and three months’ paid leave to her partner should they wish. The Conservatives wish to allow couples to take 38 weeks of a total twelve months’ leave in any combination they want. As someone who looks after children when his partner is working, earns roughly what she does, whose partner is currently feeling much like this about maternity leave, and who only managed by luck to have an extended period of time with my first son, I should be jumping for joy at these moves to allow us choice. Both, however, are deeply flawed.

There can be no real reason for allocating the early part of leave only to women and the later part, potentially, to their partners. Women often need less than six months to recover after birth, and that time should be for their own physical or emotional wellbeing and treated as ‘sick’ leave, not incorporated into leave for childcare. The Conservatives’ proposal comes close to what has been argued for by Jennifer Gray on this site, but ignores one key piece of reasoning behind an EHRC leave proposal. By allowing leave to be taken simultaneously, male partners may indeed get to ‘help out’. Regardless of the time spent actually caring for children, ‘helping out’ and ‘assuming responsibility’ are not the same, and it is notable that more men think they take ‘responsibility’ than women think their partners do. The sphere in which responsibility is taken also needs examining. I know many men who undertake a fair share of the childcare at home, but rarely take the baby out of the home, something which would be impossible if they actually looked after children on their own. Allowing men to act as societally invisible subsidised domestic sidekicks in a supposedly woman’s world does not promote the idea that childcare should be their responsibility too.

My key objection is that ‘choice’ is not sufficient to change the idea that this leave, and childcare, are primarily intended for women, and may make the situation worse by suggesting the current status quo is desired rather than enforced. Gendered inequalities in existing pay and welfare structures mean that choice is so constrained by external circumstance that what ‘makes sense’ can hardly be seen as choice at all, so that two in five men do not take even what leave they are currently allowed . The problem goes much deeper than economics. From the children’s centre staff who refer to me as ‘’babysitting’; to the women at baby group whose discussions about childcare never consider their men staying at home; to a barrage of media coverage, the world outside of the feminist blogsphere is one in which the assumption of female caring is so strong it makes choice and criticism of that choice about when and if a woman returns to work, not whether her male partner should be involved. The law needs to change this, not work within it.

Meaningful reform of parental leave is critical to parents and non-parents. The initial period of leave influences which partner does what for the rest of their children’s childhood, and the way their children and other adults perceive gender roles. The image of women alone as child carers constrains all adults, and women especially. We don’t need a law which states that men can do childcare if they want, but one which states that they should. Its basic components must be a separation of the recovery period of the mother from leave given for childcare, and leave periods for both partners which allow some flexibility but which cannot be taken largely simultaneously. The government claims these ideas offer ‘radically more choice’; it would be better for us all if they simply offered a more radical choice.

Over fifty women are currently trapped in an airless hallway in Yarl’s Immigration Removal Centre. On Friday 5 February they began a hunger strike. Today they were herded into the hallway were they have been left there for over two hours without access to water or toilets. Four women, including an asthma sufferer, have fainted. Around 1.30 the guards came into the hallway and started to beat women. As we spoke to one woman she told us that someone was bleeding. One of the managers told the women they would regret what they have done; she called the Chinese women monkeys, and the Black women black monkeys. Four other women have been locked in other rooms for three hours, and have been told by room mates that their belongings have been packed. They are worried they face immediate removal even though their cases are still being considered. Fifteen women have been locked up in “Kingfisher”, the punishment wing.

According to women on the other wings all movement has been restricted - even those not on the hunger strike are not getting any food including diabetics who urgently need it.

Hunger strikers want to speak to the press and get the truth out about the protest.

They are protesting at the length of time they have been detained - one woman who cannot speak English, has been held for over two years. Their statement is attached. Their demands include: an end to the “degradation and humiliation of detained/foreign nationals during deportation by detention staff and escorts during flights”; an end to the Fast Track for asylum seekers which denies fair decisions, the restoration of full legal aid and access to independent legal advice for everyone who is being detained.

Cristel Amiss, Black Women’s Rape Action Project which is supporting women on hunger strike said “Over 70% of women in Yarl’s Wood are rape survivors, many are sick and vulnerable. Why are they being punished for raising serious injustices? This “kettling” tactic has been thoroughly discredited, women should be allowed back into their rooms immediately, there should be an immediate investigation into what has happened and any guard found to be responsible for injuring women must be sacked immediately”.

More information about the conditions in Yarl’s Wood reported by women recently released who spoke at the House of Commons 14 January 2010.

Click on the images below to see a full-size version and read the full list of demands:

Amnesty International and Cageprisoners

Statement by Gita Sahgal

7 February 2010

This morning the Sunday Times published an article about Amnesty International’s association with groups that support the Taliban and promote Islamic Right ideas. In that article, I was quoted as raising concerns about Amnesty’s very high profile associations with Guantanamo-detainee Moazzam Begg. I felt that Amnesty International was risking its reputation by associating itself with Begg, who heads an organization, Cageprisoners, that actively promotes Islamic Right ideas and individuals.

Within a few hours of the article being published, Amnesty had suspended me from my job.

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when a great organisation must ask: if it lies to itself, can it demand the truth of others? For in defending the torture standard, one of the strongest and most embedded in international human rights law, Amnesty International has sanitized the history and politics of the ex-Guantanamo detainee, Moazzam Begg and completely failed to recognize the nature of his organisation Cageprisoners.

The tragedy here is that the necessary defence of the torture standard has been inexcusably allied to the political legitimization of individuals and organisations belonging to the Islamic Right.

I have always opposed the illegal detention and torture of Muslim men at Guantanamo Bay and during the so-called War on Terror. I have been horrified and appalled by the treatment of people like Moazzam Begg and I have personally told him so. I have vocally opposed attempts by governments to justify ‘torture lite’.

The issue is not about Moazzam Begg’s freedom of opinion, nor about his right to propound his views: he already exercises these rights fully as he should. The issue is a fundamental one about the importance of the human rights movement maintaining an objective distance from groups and ideas that are committed to systematic discrimination and fundamentally undermine the universality of human rights. I have raised this issue because of my firm belief in human rights for all.

I sent two memos to my management asking a series of questions about what considerations were given to the nature of the relationship with Moazzam Begg and his organisation, Cageprisoners. I have received no answer to my questions. There has been a history of warnings within Amnesty that it is inadvisable to partner with Begg. Amnesty has created the impression that Begg is not only a victim of human rights violations but a defender of human rights. Many of my highly respected colleagues, each well-regarded in their area of expertise has said so. Each has been set aside.

As a result of my speaking to the Sunday Times, Amnesty International has announced that it has launched an internal inquiry. This is the moment to press for public answers, and to demonstrate that there is already a public demand including from Amnesty International members, to restore the integrity of the organisation and remind it of its fundamental principles.

I have been a human rights campaigner for over three decades, defending the rights of women and ethnic minorities, defending religious freedom and the rights of victims of torture, and campaigning against illegal detention and state repression. I have raised the issue of the association of Amnesty International with groups such as Begg’s consistently within the organisation. I have now been suspended for trying to do my job and staying faithful to Amnesty’s mission to protect and defend human rights universally and impartially.

It seems that in today’s society the average woman is becoming very competitive and even a bit more masculine than their counterparts in earlier generations. All the while it seems to be just the opposite is taking place for Asian women who tend to retain their sense of femininity and well-known cultural attitude of gentle and caring support. …

Asian ladies ... are known for their loving and gentle nature, they are extremely loyal, supportive, and dedicated to their men. One of the great qualities you will find in the Asian women at ClassyAsianLadies.com is how important their man is in all aspects of their lives. It’s not about what a man does for a living or how much he earns; the Asian woman at ClassyAsianLadies.com will stand behind her men in times of trouble and stress, while rejoicing in his periods of success. She always thinks of her man first! …

They rarely complain, are gentle and constructive with their criticism ... Did we mention that Asian ladies are among the most beautiful females in the world? And they are well known for retaining their youthful beauty and shapely figures well into middle age and beyond.

If you are one of the growing band of disillusioned genuine single Western gentlemen, who is "sick to the back teeth" with the new breed of twenty-first century woman. If you are disillusioned with the kind of de-feminised, over sized, self-centred, mercenary minded lady, available on the Western singles scene, who is only out for what she can get. ... we introduce gentlemen to the kind of decent, marriage minded Thai ladies ...

A Singaporean man was seen distributing leaflets to passersby, promoting luxury cruise packages at a cost of S$13,800 (US$8,365). For an extra S$9,800 (US$5,940), a single man buying a luxury cruise could choose a bride on the spot to accompany him on his trip.

"It was like a TV advertisement, and it was so humiliating," the Thanh Nien daily reported, quoting a Vietnamese employee at a computer firm in Singapore.

In recent years, an increasing number of Singapore men, unable to find love at home, have sought their brides in Vietnam, China and Indonesia. Many are convinced that foreigners make better wives because they are perceived as more domesticated, less arrogant or materialistic compared to their Singapore counterparts.

"Mr. Yeo said that he is getting old, he need someone to take care of his 73-year-old mother and himself."

Foreign brides are more demure and accommodating.

"I want woman who will put the family and husband first, rather than demand cars, condominiums and credits."

Willing to bear kid. …

His wife takes care of the kids and all housework.

Her requests are simple, "care for her, don't bully her and don't go out look for other women."

This is the church that ordered the excommunication of everyone involved in helping a 9 year old girl, who was pregnant with twins after being raped by her stepfather, to have an abortion. The church actively tried to prevent the termination, and when it failed it ordered that the child's mother and the doctors involved be excommunicated. (Not the step-father, tellingly).

"If the B52 bombers flying over Vietnam were dropping contraceptives, the American Catholic hierarchy would have condemned that in a minute, but they were dropping napalm"
-- James Carroll

Later this year, the Pope is planning a visit to Britain. Not only do I not want him here, I was really disgusted to hear that the £20 million cost of his visit will be paid for by public money. Just think how many Rape Crisis centres could be funded by that money!

The National Secular Society have started a petition to ask the Catholic Church itself to pay for the visit. As I write, it has 17,457 signatures, one of which is mine.

The Catholic Church, contrary to the guidance of many passages of the Bible, is a very rich institution. If this man, who played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, wants to come here, let him pay for it himself.

(cross-posted at incurable hippie blog)

The plan is to impede work on the UK’s planned new warhead for the Trident nuclear missile system by closing down all seven gates of the Atomic Weapons Establishment Aldermaston simultaneously. As women, our plan is to close, for as long as we can, one of the gates of AWE. Known as the ‘Home Office Gate’, it is one of two entrances used by 50% of Aldermaston’s workers. Other gates will be blockaded by groups of men and women from Scotland, Wales, England and other countries; by students, cyclists and ‘faith’ groups.

[...]

We decided that Women’s Gate messages will express our feminist critique of nuclear weapons and the militaries that deploy them, of the UK government’s irrational notion of ‘security’, and of NATO with its ever-growing, nuclear-tipped ambitions. We want to contrast this with the lack of government support for women suffering violence - whether it’s cuts in funding for rape crisis centres, or the lack of funds for women’s refuges, or the ever declining conviction rate for rape. We want to let the government know what we mean by security. As women we’ll refuse violence in every aspect of our lives, from home to street, from nation to the international arena. Let’s say no to violence - whether from fists, boots and knives, or from guns and fighter jets - and a resounding NO to nuclear weapons.

All the details are available on the Facebook page (you don't need a Facebook account to view it).

We sometimes lose contact with children back home. Or we hear of them suffering without our protection --- living on the streets after caring relatives have died; taken by the military; or even turning to pick-pocketing and prostitution to survive and feed the younger ones.

We have hardly enough to feed ourselves but we do all we can to send money home for them. And if we don’t know where they are, we raise money to search for them. We do low-paid, illegal work or even sleep with men for money for them.

Currently, there is no guarantee that children left behind in their home countries will be granted asylum in the UK should their mothers win the right to stay here, and children who turn 18 while their parents' claim is being processed (often a matter of years) have no right to family reunion in the UK.

The mothers have put together a list of demands:

· To be recognised as mothers, with dependent children

· That when the government grants amnesty to families with children here - their right to stay without having to establish a fear of persecution - that we, together with our children back home, must also have a right to family amnesty. Though we are divided, we are a family.

· Unconditional right to family reunion to everyone who wins the right to stay in the UK (whether under the refugee convention, humanitarian protection, human rights act, legacy process or other grounds).

· The right of children to join their mother even if they turned 18 before her asylum claim was settled.

You can show your support for these demands by signing the campaign petition. I'll keep you updated with ways we can support the mothers, but in the meantime please contact the All African Women's Group if you'd like to get involved:

Crossroads Women's Centre
230a Kentish Town Road
London NW5 2AB

Tel: 020 7482 2496
E-mail: aawg02[at]googlemail[dot]com

This time it isn't what she was wearing, what she had drunk, or her fantasies, but is actually her own history of trauma and her lack of awareness of her surroundings.

Many women have a history of trauma, and I can't imagine there are any who are constantly aware of everything that's going on around her. Neither of these make it her own fault if she is raped.

Similarly, even if you are aware of your surroundings and don't 'freeze' when attacked, that is not necessarily enough to prevent rape. Virginia gives certain examples,

Maybe it was a "blitz attack", which of course by definition would mean she wouldn't have known she was even being attacked until she was already down. Or maybe her rapist had a weapon: I have to ask--do men really believe that a martial artist can kick a gun out of an attacker's hand like good ol' Chuck Norris on the teevee? And then there's the rapist who comes in through the bathroom window in the middle of the night and has you under his control before you even wake up. Now how you gonna karate-kick his ass outta bed with your legs all tangled up in the kivvers? And then there was the woman I knew whose attacker told her if she cooperated, he wouldn't harm the children sleeping in the next room: All the martial arts training in the world won't trump that one.
[...]

Let us note that one in every six women in the U.S. will be assaulted in her lifetime. Maybe it's just me, but I think that's frequent enough to suggest that we are not, in fact, in control of our own destinies--at least not when it comes to rape. Indeed, that kind of thinking sounds to me like a form of privilege: The not-raped can believe they did/do something to earn/deserve that status ("I kicked the shit out of him!" or "I'm always aware of my surroundings." Always? Really?). That kind of thinking allows the not-raped to feel safe and secure in the fantasy that "it will never happen to me" and to look down on victim/survivors as people who screwed up somehow.

When I was at sixth-form college, two police officers came in to give us a talk about safety. The boys were sent to one room with a male police officer, to receive a talk about driving safely. The girls were sent to another room with a woman officer, to receive a talk about rape prevention.

Quite why the girls didn't need to be given the same advice about safe driving was bewildering, but the weirdest thing was it was the girls being told how to prevent rape rather than the boys.

In that talk, we were told that 2 out of 3 rapes could have been prevented (by the victim). How's that for victim-blaming? Imagine how that felt for rape survivors in that room! Being told by a cop that really they should have been able to do something about it was humiliating and vicious.

And what's more, 3 out of 3 rapes could have been prevented - BY THE RAPIST NOT RAPING THEM. That is where the blame needs to be laid. Every rape that ever occurs could have not happened, if the perpetrator chose not to do it.

That is the point. Men can stop rape. They have to.

(cross-posted at incurable hippie blog)

When young feminist writer Nona Willis Aronowitz and her feminist photographer friend Emma Bee Bernstein met for brunch one day, they excitedly came upon the idea of taking a road trip across the United States in order to talk to other young women about what feminism means to them.

Girldrive: Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism is the result - a beautifully designed and exuberantly written journal of the two friends' trip, and an insight into where young contemporary US feminism is at.

But don't let the emphasis on the US put you off - the diversity of women's opinions presented here are just as relevant to UK readers and the two authors' account of the fun and freedom they experienced whilst out on the road, just as inspiring.

We set off in Chapter 1 from Chicago, and each chapter thereafter stops off in a different state, containing profiles and photos of the women they meet along the way, Nona and Emma's personal reflections and striking photography of the landscape they drive through.

Click here to read on and comment

The Fossil Hunter, journalist Shelley Emling's first book, is a fictionalised biography of Mary Anning, a woman whose fossil discoveries helped found paleontology and - although she didn't know it at the time - would come to back up Charles Darwin's evolutionary theory.

Charles Dickens was fascinated by her, modern scientists revere her, and it was Mary's lengthy career that inspired the nursery rhyme "She sells sea-shells on the sea shore", but it was not until recently that this oddly-dressed woman from Lyme Regis has been given her due.

The child of "adventure-seeking cabinet maker Richard Anning and his brooding bride, Molly", Anning stumbled across the fossil of a strange monster with "flippers like a dolphin, a mouth like a crocodile, and a pointed snout like a swordfish." This was the first Icthyosaur discovered, and the find supported the family for six months.

Click here to read on and comment

The feminist-punk movement which was riot grrrl was hugely inspiring for me, and countless other girls and women. Riot grrrl created a platform – but what impact has it had, particularly in terms of inspiring girl bands and female-centred music?

I wanted this piece to project, and essentially to reciprocate, the enthusiasm and optimism which riot grrrl movement first infused in me. However, in trying to research where this vital revolution has led, the picture seems to be disappointingly bleak and subdued – and especially when compared to the highly energetic riot grrrl spirit.

To justify my fondness for – and appreciation of – the movement, and hence why I desperately wanted this article to be a positive one, I feel it necessary to explicitly state why for me, and countless other girls, this contribution to the 'third-wave' of feminism was so important.

The riot grrrls, who initially exploded out of, and into, the underground music scene in Olympia, Washington in the early 1990s were unquestionably, and regardless of whether all feminists wholeheartedly endorse their position or not, a revolutionary force for creatively-inclined women; especially women who had a passion for music.

Click here to read on and comment

Really? Because here was me thinking this policy was just a way to discriminate against a whole bunch of people who don't live their lives and loves in a certain way. Needless to say, I think Cameron's plans to bolster marriage are bullshit. It's 2010, do we really want to go back to the good ol' days when couples stayed together through thick and thin, boredom and unhappiness, violence and abuse, because there was so much social stigma attached to divorce? And the 'tax breaks for married couples save the kids' argument is a complete misnomer: Cameron et al never once stop to consider that - just maybe - kids might be better off with separate parents than unhappily married ones. They're just freaked out by all us socially liberal weirdos who refuse to force ourselves into the oppressive, heterosexist enforced nuclear family box. We might spill out and threaten the cushy little privileged world they've built for themselves on the back of women's domestic slavery. Quick, give'em a tax break, that'll rein them in! I think not, Mr Cameron.

Oh, and the debate panel is made up entirely of men. I rest my case.

In 1998, Natasha Walter said young women were fed up with being made to feel guilty for wearing mini-skirts. Feminists should forget policing women's clothes and sexual behaviour, she argued in The New Feminism, and concentrate on financial and social inequalities.

The personal, it seemed, was no longer political.

A year later, Walter complained that her words had been used to undermine feminist critiques of the beauty and sex industries. She pointed out: "Young women were being sold personal rather than political empowerment, and young women particularly are under the constant blandishments of a culture that tells them that the only way to feel empowered is through shopping and plastic surgery." She was "shocked by the way 'new feminism' was taken as a code for a watered-down, depoliticised kind of empowerment, the very opposite of what I was arguing".

In her latest book, Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism, Walter distances herself further from her earlier work, admitting: "I was entirely wrong." Living Dolls builds on existing critiques of the 'hypersexualised culture', such as Ariel Levy's Female Chauvinist Pigs, and shows how the poorest women are bearing the brunt of its effects as they increasingly see lap-dancing and glamour modelling as the only route to a better life. "The middle classes can dismiss it as being of no relevance to their own lives or the lives of their daughters," she argues. "Some of the men who create and support this culture do so in the belief that they can protect their own families from its effects."

Walter interviewed Dave Read, director of Neon Management, which manages glamour models. He says he would "die" if his daughter wanted to follow in the footsteps of model Jodie Marsh. Phil Edgar-Jones, creative director of Big Brother, says he hopes his daughter would have "different aspirations" from the surgically enhanced young women on his programme. "I encourage her to read books," he says. "Other people have different backgrounds."

Click here to read on and comment

Comments on features and reviews from December 2009 are up and ready to read!

Props to Helen G for once again coding and sorting out the comments; the delay this month is all mine, as she was done with them ages ago and I've only just got to them!

Some interesting responses this month to Natalie's analysis of sexism in sport, and also some readers came to different conclusions about the Girlguides to Clare.

Commenting on this Mooncup review from our archive (back in 2003), there's some debate over whether or not toxic shock syndrome could be caused by the alternative menstrual product.

Photo of keyboard shared by Divine Harvester on Flickr under a Creative Commons license

"I can write letters but I can't make phone calls, I have to do it in secret. I'm not allowed to have a boyfriend. My employer wouldn't like it, she would send me back to Indonesia.” ...

Many domestic workers are forbidden from leaving the workplace unless they are in the company of their employer or, for those who are so lucky, on days off. Some domestic workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch reported being locked in their workplace from the outside. More commonly, domestic workers reported that their employers discouraged or prohibited them from talking to neighbors, other domestic workers, or to friends on the phone. ...

Almost all of the domestic workers that Human Rights Watch interviewed were required to obtain permission to leave the household where they worked. Many domestic workers were not allowed out of the apartment unless they were in the company of their employer, even to go to the market.Some employers locked the phone so domestic workers could not use it during the day. ...

"They would lock me inside the house with the baby. I was not allowed to make phone calls or send letters to my family. I wasn't allowed to say anything or talk to the neighbors, I had to just keep quiet.” ...

"If I left the flat to throw out the trash, I had to return in exactly three minutes."...

"They don't give me more off days, because they're worried that I will get a boyfriend." ...

STORM IN A TEACUP is a London-based collective set up with the aim of promoting women in the arts.

Fed up with finding no platform for our amazingly talented female musician, writer, poet, artist and illustrator friends we decided to do something about it. The project has now escalated with a fanzine, club nights and record label all in the pipeline!

Details on Facebook.

I'll let them introduce themselves. Jolene says:

My name is Jolene Tan. I'm a cis straight able-bodied feminist, of Singaporean nationality and Chinese ethnicity, living in London with two lionhead bunnies. I'm particularly interested in violence against women (I'm part of the core team for No To Rape, the campaign to end marital immunity for rape in Singapore) and the relationship between feminism and secularism, but I hope to write about a range of issues, with varying degrees of bile.

And Joanna says:

In the enduring words of Kim Deal, and contrary to popular belief, I just want to get along. I'm the kind of person who calls the council when a street light is out and likes Lindor eggs, riot grrrl and daily acts of subversion. I'm currently stuck in admin purgatory whilst I attempt to clear my monstrous backlog of debt and figure out what the hell I wants to do with my life. Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

The festival closes with Whip It! - Drew Barrymore's directoral debut, a coming of age roller derby riot with Ellen Page in the lead; I saw a screener a few weeks ago and it's fantastic.

There's a massive array of films on this year, as always loads of it is really tempting, including a section on "cinema by women outside the world's main filmmaking centres, focussing our lens in on Kenya and India" (although isn't Bollywood a film-making centre?!) I'm really keen to see the documentary about environmental activist Wangari Maathai (profiled briefly here).

This year's retrospective focuses on iconic blond women in film history, including a talk by feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey.

As a sidenote, this month the ICA is also running a mini-season of films by/about Japanese women and girls, with the Japan Foundation.