(Please be aware this video could be triggering, it contains descriptions of domestic violence and sexual assault)

"It is about raising the voices of our disabled sisters. It is also about ensuring our recognition within this struggle for human rights. [...] We all have a responsibility to ensure that disabled women are recognised, and respected, as equals within this struggle, and all our voices to be heard. We are women too."

[Edited to add - There are transcripts of these speeches here, thank you so much to Eleanor, one of the speakers, for letting us know, and to Felix Gonzalez for making the videos and doing the transcription. More transcripts of speeches of the day will be published at http://connectculture.wordpress.com/ in due course.]

WOMEN BUILDING BRIDGES is an International Womens Day 2010 Art
Exhibition and Programme opening in The Womens Centre, Beibinn House,
5 Guildhall Street, Derry on Monday 8th March.

Exhibitions, to be hosted by a number of venues around Derry city, will run from Monday 8th March to Saturday 27th March, and includes part of the cross-border project LIMINALITY: Different Views / Viewing Difference.

This project, between Women Making Waves in Co. Fermanagh and Women Independently LIving in Leitrim, has explored issues of gender,
self-image and disability through community arts activities with disabled and nondisabled women from the disadvantaged border area in the North-West of Ireland.

The result is a collection of photographic self-portraits showing smiling, stylish, independent women unashamed of age or impairments. It challenges stereotypical images from the mainstream media, the women themselves choosing how they are to be represented.

Some of the work from LIMINALITY will be on show in the Tower Museum from the launch at 12:30pm on Wednesday 10th March until Saturday 27th March.

To contact the venue, call Margaret Edwards/Bernadette Walsh. T:02871 372411

For information on the Women's Day celebrations around Derry, visit
www.thewomenscentre.co.uk.

For more info about Women Independently Living in Leitrim, contact
Secretary Isolde Carmody: c/o LAPWD, Station
Road, Mohill, Co. Leitrim,
Ireland

Phone: +353-71-9621936, Text:
+353-86-8810445 E-mail: isoldecarmody@gmail.com.

(cross posted here).

The way that we are treating these women is appalling. Completely ignoring the trauma they have suffered, we are locking them up or forcing them to beg and sleep rough, without support, healthcare or money.

Asylum Aid have created this video.

Every single woman from Asylum Aid on Vimeo.

They say,

We believe a change of culture designed to produce a genuinely gender sensitive asylum system is urgently needed to ensure that women seeking asylum receive a comparable standard of treatment to women in similar situations who are settled here already.

There is also a campaign briefing available, and they are campaigning so that all member states of the European Union adopt gender guidance so that women's asylum claims will be dealt with consistently.

(cross-posted at incurable hippie blog)

My main concern at the time was that he hadn't wet the razor, so he was taking off several layers of skin as well as the hairs he was aiming at. It was only when the other people in the room started telling me to not be embarrassed that I hadn't shaved my legs, that it didn't matter, that I'd had enough to worry about in advance without worrying about having clean-shaven legs too, that it even crossed my mind that people were expecting me to be ashamed of the hairs.

I don't shave my legs. I could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I must have done it in the last 5 years or so. I forget that I don't do it, like I don't think about other things I don't do. So I didn't feel ashamed, yet people's expectations were that of course I would feel ashamed, and that they would need to reassure me.

Those people were all very lovely, and very supportive throughout the experience, and were reassuring me about so many things, that I didn't think too much about it. They were, frankly, saying anything that they could say to calm me down, and I'm sure that there weren't judgements within what they said. But their expectations were that I would be embarrassed, and I'm not.

They got those expectations by living in this society that we live in, which does make women feel embarrassed by the things our bodies naturally do. It is a strange situation we're in, where women don't have to explain why they do shave, but not shaving does so often seem to require explanation. I don't think women should feel obliged to justify either, frankly.

The people in that room didn't care, but they were concerned that I thought they would think badly of me. And if the Daily Fail is to be believed, women with furry legs in public is both newsworthy and horrifying.

Clearly, I dispute that! Not only will I not shave, I will also not apologise for it.

While this is not something that most UK feminists will be attending, I thought it was worth posting because of the incredibly powerful gallery of photographs on the exhibition's website.

Words like:

rape
a kiss is not a contract
a feel is not consent
and a hard-on
doesn't give you
the right to force yourself

inside a woman

are moving and true and vital. There are images, too, of situations with the words 'this is not an invitation to rape me' placed at strategic points, and images of media reporting of rape sentencing, amongst other things.

I would recommend going over to the site and watching a slideshow of the images, though please bear in mind that they could be triggering to some.

In any toy shop or kids' clothing shop, everything is so very, very gendered, particularly with regards to blueness and pinkness.

In the comments to Laura's post, some really ridiculous examples came out. Gadgetgal talked about seeing different fish tanks for girls and boys, and Troon about scrabble for girls. There are also pink Pritt Sticks because a girl, presumably, couldn't possibly use a neutrally coloured one.

These things reinforce, right from the beginning, that girls and boys are somehow entirely different species, and that the two can not cross over in any way. So I was heartened to be pointed to this blog post from Mistress Mom, entitled Why Is Your Son Wearing Pink?.

There are a series of clever, funny and insightful potential responses to that question, two of my favourites being,

"Because we’re raising him to not care about the opinions of people who are so ignorant and short-sighted that they’d make fun of a five-month old boy for wearing a pink shirt."

"Because even if pink is for girls, what’s wrong with being (like) a girl?"

Head over there and check them out, especially if you know young boys who like things that society declares to be 'girlie'.

Last June, Catherine mentioned a new women's magazine, called HerStoria, and as I've recently subscribed I thought it was worth mentioning again, because it looks great!

Look at history from a female perspective and everything changes. HerStoria magazine in print, and Discover Women's History Web online, will entertain, inform and create a community. We’ll turn a kaleidoscope on the past to uncover a different history - women's history - and celebrate the women who made it.

Published in the UK, HerStoria magazine is a high quality print magazine with 4 issues each year, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter.

With a few memorable exceptions, many feminist magazines only last a short while, and I'm very happy to be contributing to keeping this one alive, by subscribing!

(Photos by me)

So, if you're interested, get in touch with them at the email address below.

The Chicago Taskforce on Violence Against Girls & Young Women is pleased to announce a call for contributions to its Occasional Papers series.

We welcome submissions from practitioners, community members, and like-minded allies in academia, and invite you to join us in "translating" knowledge about girls and violence to the general public. In launching the Occasional Papers series about Girls and Violence, we seek to offer relevant, practical, and useful information to the general public about the realities and impact of violence in the lives of young women and girls, innovative programming and approaches, and concrete tools that communities can use to end violence.

We also welcome submissions from girls and young women themselves who want to write about the realities of their lived experiences of violence. The Taskforce defines girls as those under 18 years old and young women as between 18 and 24 years old.

The Taskforce is seeking contributions of case studies, work in progress research papers, special reports, conference reports, and curriculum units on issues of violence against girls and young women. All writings are intended to be useful to those in the field.

We are particularly interested in soliciting work from Chicago practitioners who are engaged in direct service provision and/or grassroots organizing around issues of violence against girls and young women. We want to know about new approaches - what new models are you applying? What has worked and what challenges have you faced?

Violence against girls and young women is pervasive, complex, and cumulative. Individual organizations and individual community members cannot tackle this issue on their own. The Chicago Taskforce on Girls, Young Women and Violence has been founded to serve as a vehicle for addressing the following question: What are the conditions that need to exist locally and statewide to end violence against girls and young women? One of the most important goals of the Taskforce is to reassert community control over the production, documentation, ownership and use of our own information and experiences.

ABSTRACTS WILL BE DUE BY MARCH 31, 2010. Publishing decisions will be made by May 20 by a team of reviewers, for publication in fall 2010. We will work with authors, and respond with comments on submissions. Authors will have an opportunity to review and approve suggested edits. Please note that there will be no compensation for submissions.

Submission Guidelines:
Submission should include: the title of the submission, the author(s) names, an abstract of 250 words, and a brief biographical sketch, with affiliations, telephone and e-mail address.
Language should be accessible to a broad audience including young people.
Please use Times New Roman 12 point font, and leave 1-inch margins all around.
Please submit as a word document (.doc, not .docx) or as a PDF file
Please send your submission to us electronically at chitaskforce@gmail.com.

Inquiries about the Taskforce's Occasional Papers Series or other related questions may be directed to Melissa Spatz at chitaskforce@gmail.com.

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)

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)

Today was the first time I left the house since the snow started. It was a very scary prospect. My walking can be pretty dodgy at the best of times, but amidst ice and snow I just haven't been able to risk it. But by today I was tearing my hair out. I needed to see something other than my 4 walls. So, yaktrax and woolly hat on, I ventured out.

It was pretty precarious. The city centre pavements were worse than I'd anticipated, but I did most of what I had to do, then waited for my bus home.

It was when the bus arrived that the presumably well-meaning man grabbed me. From behind. By the shoulders. The jumping-out-of-my-skin which resulted was far more likely to make me lose my balance than any amount of ice, and his holding onto my shoulders was hardly going to help with that.

It was only when he said, "Here, let me help you on the bus" that I knew I wasn't being mugged.

I know, I know, he was only trying to help. But seriously, grabbing a woman from behind is not a good thing to do. It's inappropriate and way too invasive to personal space. And when that woman has a walking stick, which is perhaps why you're grabbing her, you're probably more likely to cause injury than to prevent it.

If you really want to help, just ask. I would have actually appreciated being able to hold onto Mr Grabby's arm to help me on the bus, had he asked if I needed any help. Don't presume, don't grab, don't force a blind person across the road or a wheelchair user down a kerb. If you ask, and they need help, they'll tell you what you can do. And you won't frighten or injure them that way.

(Cross-posted at incurable hippie blog)

The fact is that you really do not need to do this. You are allowed, as a woman, to take up as much space as you take up. You are allowed to resist the messages relentlessly bashing us over the head from the media which insist that we copy celebrities and hate every inch of our body which is not clinging unhealthily to bones.

95% of diets fail. Their whole philosophy is one of deprivation and undernourishment, which is not something that the vast majority of people can stick to for any length of time. The result being a cycle of miserable starving and bingeing, which feels endless.

The trick is to stop dieting at all. Start to love yourself and your body exactly as they are. By all means do your best to eat well, but banning foods will make them more tempting than ever, and punishing yourself via what you put in your mouth creates a horribly negative relationship with food, and food is something that we have to deal with every day of our lives if we are to survive.

(Cross-posted at incurable hippie blog)

In fact, two men have also been convicted of the murder - one last night and one last year, but they are very much secondary to the story, even though, as far as I can tell, it has never been decided who did the actual killing.

Now, I have not studied the trial or the evidence, and I do not know whether Amanda Knox did or did not kill Meredith Kercher, but I do know that this is seeming to be another legal case where the woman involved is demonised to a degree rarely seen in male defendants.

And the fact that Amanda Knox appears to be a young woman with some confidence in her sexuality has certainly worked against her. That she had condoms and a vibrator in a see-through bag has been widely reported, as some kind of proof that she was deranged enough to kill her housemate in a sex game.

That her nickname is Foxy Knoxy has been repeatedly mentioned, though very few reports tell you that that nickname apparently came about due to her skills on a football field rather than anything more salacious. Because that wouldn't fit the story quite so well.

With the murders of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Maxine Carr has arguably been more slated by the press and public than Ian Huntley, who actually killed the girls. Maxine Carr's crime was to lie to the police by giving Huntley an alibi, and there is no indication that she did so with any knowledge of what he had done.

Amanda Knox even got a longer sentence than Raffaele Sollecito, who was also convicted of Kercher's murder. Issues which seem to have been used against Knox during the trial are so telling about what women are still up against compared to men in these situations.

1. There was a youtube video showing her drunk.
2. She sent an email to a friend saying she had had sex on a train.
3. She wrote a story about a woman being raped and a photo of herself with a machine gun entitled 'the Nazi'.
4. She did cartwheels in the police station while waiting to be questioned.

Now, while the third of these is certainly questionable, and the fourth somewhat odd, the first two are unremarkable, and are in no way legal evidence for murder.

According to the Guardian,

Italians shrug off extramarital sex, yet they are prim in their attitudes to premarital sex, at least outside the stable context of fidanzamento (engagement). They use the same words for boyfriend and fiance.

So many were taken aback to learn that, by the time she was arrested at the age of 20, Knox had had sex with seven men. They were less outraged by how this information was obtained: Knox was told in prison she was HIV-positive and asked to write a list of her lovers. Before she was told that a mistake had been made, the list was passed to investigators, one of whom passed it to a journalist.

Amanda Knox may or may not have committed this murder, and I certainly do not know whether she did. However, two men have also been convicted and rarely even mentioned. That Knox is a woman, and a woman with some sexual history, appears to have damned her.

I came across an article entitled '25 health tips women doctors want you to know'. I thought this may be interesting - or at least more interesting than how to emulate the latest look from the latest celeb, so I started to read.

To say it was disappointing is somewhat understating the matter. One tip told me to use moisturiser. Another to walk rather than take the lift. Another to eat plenty of calcium. Then one tip was to buy a vibrator. While this may be good advice, the explanation behind it was infuriating! It said that some men are not good at foreplay, and if this is the case with 'your man', then rather than be frustrated, get a vibrator instead and you won't have any problems any more.

On so many levels, this is dreadful! Firstly, many women are single, many are with women not men. Heterosexist presumptions still prevail everywhere. Secondly, still calling it 'foreplay' separates it from 'sex' as if they are two completely different matters, with one building up to the other rather than it all being one whole experience. And thirdly, if your partner is bad at sex, or does not understand your sexual needs or desires, then that is something to work on with them, have fun exploring and mutually learn about. Saying, 'oh he's not good at that bit' is kinda letting him off the hook, let's face it!

If your male partner was having trouble enjoying sex with you, you can be sure the magazines wouldn't advise you to get him a blow-up doll or simulated vagina, it would tell you 'how to please him' and exactly what you should do to make sure he was happy.

By all means buy a vibrator, and enjoy it. But don't take advice just because it comes from a doctor in a magazine and use it to substitute a partner with good technique rather than talking to that partner about the problem and what you do and don't like.

I very rarely read women's magazines these days, and if I do it tends to be the Chat and Take a Break type when I'm ill, rather than the beauty / fashion ones. But whenever I do look at those - usually in a doctor's waiting room - I see that the same old messages we have always had from them are still there.

A few weeks ago I made some photocopied flyers to surreptitiously slip inside teenage and women's magazines in shops. They counter some of the usual crap messages we get from these publications, and question their content. If you want to get hold of any of these flyers I'd be happy to send you some if you send me an SAE to

Pippa, PO Box 4663, Sheffield, S1 9FN

It's small actions like sticking the flyers in the magazines that can actually make a real difference. When we are feeling powerless in the suffocating patriarchy around us, knowing that a woman or girl somewhere who might never have been allowed to challenge the presumptions of heterosexuality, the fascist beauty standards around us or the everywhere-written laws of body hair, who bought that magazine today, may get some relief and empowerment from the words they unexpectedly find stuffed inside, really does help.

Penelope Trunk, a woman in America, was widely condemned after sending the following tweet:

I'm in a board meeting. Having a miscarriage. Thank goodness, because there's a f**ked-up 3-week hoop-jump to have an abortion in Wisconsin.

1. it was insensitive to those who had had miscarriages and were devastated about it,
2. that it was an inappropriately detailed message, which her many followers did not want to read, and
3. that she was heartless and abortions are bad.

I think these are all different points, and the former certainly has more validity as a criticism. A miscarriage can be an utterly awful experience for a woman who wants the baby. And indeed women who aren't sure. There is huge grief, loss, fear and hopelessness. Penelope Trunk herself has experienced such a miscarriage, and said on her blog

there are many women who want the baby and have a miscarriage. I was one of them. I cried for days. I get it.

I am four months pregnant. But the baby is dead, inside me, and must be removed. I am devastated. I always knew this could happen, in the back of my mind. But you are never prepared for something like this to happen.

To all of you who said I should not be happy about having a miscarriage: You are the ones short on empathy. Any woman who is pregnant but wishes she weren’t would of course be grateful when she has a miscarriage. [...]

But if you have ever had an abortion, which I have, you would know that a miscarriage is preferable to an abortion. Even the Pope would agree with that.

But if you have just miscarried a wanted child, I can only imagine how awful it would be to have read it.

On to point 2, it was detail that people did not want to know, it was gory and personal, and who wants to hear the details of that?

This is where I defend Ms Trunk absolutely. Women's bodily functions are normal and natural, not dirty and shameful. I talk openly about my periods, about the joys of using washable sanitary towels, and about having endometriosis and PCOS and the problems that come with that. About spending 4 days of each cycle in agony and unable to move. About the amount of blood that comes out.

As a teenager I was as coy about it as everyone else my age was. But then after several years of medical tests, investigations, interventions and surgery, I realised that it was ridiculous that I was not supposed to talk about *that*, whereas if the problems I was experiencing were in most other parts of my body, people would not shrink away from hearing the details.

For centuries, women have been taught that their periods, along with other 'women's things' should be kept quiet. And why should they? One of my favourite things is reading feminist radical menstruation writings and looking round the Museum of Menstruation site. Partly because I like breaking patriarchy's rules, and partly because it is fascinating.

I have no doubt that while some people would prefer I kept it all quiet, I have every right to talk about bleeding, and I will continue to do so.

Why, then, should Ms Trunk *not* talk about her miscarriage? If I want women to be free to talk about periods, breastfeeding, childbirth, and other 'women-only' subjects, so we all know we are not alone, then miscarriage must come into that too. She should not have to keep it quiet in order to not offend the sensibilities of delicate men who are reading. Miscarriage is a fact of life, and it is often painful and messy and emotional. And the more women feel able to discuss it, the less isolated and alone other women will feel, whether the miscarriage is, to them, a relief or a profound loss.

The third point is perhaps the most enraging. How dare she feel relief at miscarrying? How dare she be planning an abortion at all? How dare she complain about abortion provision?

I'm not going to use this post to argue about why women deserve ultimate control over their own bodies. But we do. I hope I'm preaching to the converted, but if not, the debate occurs in so many places that it should not be necessary here.

Ms Trunk's situation does, of course, brings up issues of access to abortion. For a woman to have to be relieved to miscarry, because getting an abortion is so fraught with difficulties, is a really appalling situation.

I will not condem Penelope Trunk for sending that message. Not at all. At worst, it was perhaps insensitive, but this is a woman who was miscarrying in the middle of a board meeting. She might have been relieved, but it would nonetheless have been a difficult, awkward and painful situation. Sometimes women need to stop putting everyone else first and express themselves as they need to.

She had every right to feel relieved when she realised what was happening, and she should never made to feel shame at feeling that, nor should she be, or feel, silenced by others who find it distasteful.

Her body was going through something that millions of women experience. Some of those women are devastated, others are ambivalent, and some are glad. Some, like Penelope Trunk herself, miscarry more than once and feel very differently about each instance. And this is all common.

I recommend this post on the subject at DoubleX. She says,

not talking about a miscarriage or an abortion—or all the complicated feelings that can get rolled up in both—because it's just too personal is fine. But not talking about it because no one else ever talks about it—so maybe we're just not supposed too—is not.

Firstly, it really helped me. The encouragement that I am doing ok, I am doing good things, and I am making a difference, even if I can't necessarily do the 'outside' things.

And secondly, that it touched so many people. Not especially that my words helped, but that talking about disability and feminism seems such a rarity, and that many people were reading about it for the first time. I'm so glad I could do that, and I'm so glad that it provoked thought for some and reassurance for others, but we need much more!

I mentioned on my main blog that I had posted here, and one of the commenters there said,

Isn't it a shame that writing about disability and feminism and inclusivity is something that is still a remarkable thing?

I appreciate that some groups have limited resources, or not much choice of venue, but seriously, if you are a feminist group and you are not meeting in an accessible place, what are you thinking? Would you meet somewhere that excluded other groups of women? Some kind of white-only venue?

You wouldn't, because, even if the founding members of the group were all white, you would know instantly and instinctively that this went against every human and feminist value you have ever held. You would not want to associate yourself with a venue like that, nor would you want to support that venue in any way. If you did meet there, that would give out a message to black women that they were not welcome, so they would not enquire about the group, which might give you the impression that black women did not want to join the group, so it was ok, for the moment, to meet there. This might eventually give you the false impression that actually, meeting in a white-only venue wasn't so bad, black feminists weren't trying to join so it was less of an issue than you had predicted, and after all, the room hire is free.

You know, reading that, that it's wrong! And meeting in an inaccessible venue is the same. Even if no disabled feminists have enquired about the group, this may be because they know they can't use that venue. Or maybe they even turned up, waited outside for a while when they couldn't get in, then went back home. What if one of your regular members becomes disabled? Will they be no longer welcome?

However, overall there was a really positive message from the commenters to my original post, which is that online activism is relevant, is important, and does make a difference. Raising awareness, taking action and sharing stories and experiences can all be done extremely successfully online, and even more effectively than in real life at times. This is a good reminder to me, and to all the women who responded who also have limited spoons, whose uses have to be carefully chosen.

Kitt, in the comments, said

I know disabled feminists have a lot to offer - we have been forced to plumb the depths of our ingenuity to do the things we want to, using as few spoons as possible, and to choose our battles because we simply have to prioritise everything, everyday. Feminism has always benefited from the ingenuity of women - letting disabled people in will only add to this. We are another voice in the choir that will make the song sweeter and stronger.

But then last year, I did it. I made greetings cards from some of my photos, wrote encouraging messages inside, and posted them to the people I had chosen. It was easy, creative, and actually felt like a good reason to be in a Post Office queue.

I would have loved to send cards to everyone in their campaign, but I knew the postage would be prohibitive, so I had to decide on who I would send to. I went for sending cards to all the women in the campaign, and sending one to Binyan Mohammed, who was a British resident being held in Guantanamo Bay.

So when my booklet for this year's Greetings Card campaign arrived in the post yesterday, I instantly read through it and started ticking the pages of the ones I wanted to send cards to.

Again, I will focus my attention on the women. Amnesty says:

Our Greetings Card Campaign brings people across the world in touch with each other in a simple way - by sending a card with a friendly greeting or message of solidarity to someone who is in danger or unjustly imprisoned.

Below are 32 stories about people around the world who have suffered human rights abuses and would benefit from a card with a friendly greeting or message of support.

Between 1 November 2009 and 31 January 2010 we'd like you to write to as many of them as you like and remember that just one personalised message will mean the world to a prisoner in a cell or a family waiting for news of a loved one.

Amnesty has checked with each potential recipient that it will be safe for them to receive cards, and even if you only send one (there really is no requirement to send all 32!), it can make a massive difference to somebody out there whose situation is otherwise dire.

Some examples of people you can send cards to this year are Justine Masika Bihamba in the Democratic Republic of Congo who has found herself and her family under attack because of her work for a women's rights organisation. In September 2007, soldiers forced their way into Justine's home while she was out, and tied up her six children, aged between five and 24, at gunpoint. One of the soldiers kicked her eldest daughter in the face, breaking her tooth. He then attempted to rape Justine's 21-year-old daughter.

Having failed to do so, he sexually assaulted her with a knife. Although Justine and her children were able to identify the soldiers, they have not been arrested or brought to trial. Workers at Justine's organisation have regularly been threatened and attacked because of their peaceful work against sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Another woman is Sonia Pierre in the Dominican Republic. She is a human rights defender and has been threatened and harassed as a result of her work to stop discrimination against the Haitian community in the Dominican Republic. Sonia is executive director of the Movement for Dominico- Haitian Women (MUDHA), which works to combat the anti-Haitian prejudice and racism that is an everyday reality for many migrant workers and Dominicans of Haitian descent.

Then there is a group of 9 women's human rights defenders in Nicaragua. They are Ana María Pizarro, Juanita Jiménez, Luisa Molina Arguello, Marta María Blandón, Martha Munguía, Mayra Sirias, Violeta Delgado, Yamileth Mejía and Lorna Norori. They belong to various organisations that work with survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse; promote sexual health and promote the rights of women, children and young people.

They are facing legal proceedings for their involvement in the case of a nine-year-old girl who was raped and made pregnant in 2003 and obtained a legal abortion in Nicaragua. In October 2007 a non-governmental organisation backed by the Roman Catholic Church lodged a complaint against the nine, accusing them of concealment of rape, crimes against the administration of justice and other misdemeanours. We fear that the complaint is because of the women's human rights work and their activism to ensure the right of women and girls to safe and effective sexual and reproductive health services.

They list so many people whose lives you could help by a simple action. You can put as much work or money into it as you want to, really! Send one card to one person, or get your whole community to write and send cards to everyone!

As you can tell, I believe strongly in this campaign, and will be posting my own cards off in the next few weeks. I'm also going to be photocopying some of the booklet and sending pages out with the zine orders I get until the campaign ends. If you have the spoons, give it a go.

A woman called Christine Miserandino was trying to think of a way to explain to her best friend exactly what it was like to live with a chronic illness, and came up with the Spoon Theory to give her an idea of what her life was like.

I find myself quite regularly using it, e.g. "I was planning to do that, but I don't have enough spoons". It is also becoming more well-known and well-used by other disabled people I know. It's very simplified, yes, but it gets the message across, as long as the person you are mentioning it to knows what you are talking about.

Friends and family are aware enough of my health problems to understand when I have to cancel things, or rearrange them. But these days, I am much less involved in feminist activism than I ever have been.

This is definitely spoon-related, and also directly related to my main local feminist group meeting in an inaccessible venue for so long that I gave up arguing with them about it. (They now meet somewhere which may be accessible, but they're not sure. I feel so thoroughly disenamoured with them that I'm not willing to test it out).

But I have also found that while individual feminists can be very understanding with my lack of spoons on a day-to-day basis, it sometimes seems less acceptable when it interferes with my ability to attend actions, protests and meetings.

I have it when there is a feminist action going on which I am not well enough to get to. I think of little else the whole time I should be there, I berate myself and feel thoroughly miserable. It then doesn't help when it is implied at a later date that those who did not attend were not committed enough, didn't care enough, aren't good enough.

This is far from universal, and many, many feminists have, or are developing, a really good understanding of disabled politics and the issues affecting disabled women. It is also not unique to feminism. The same attitudes can prevail in general lefty politics, the peace movement and more.

But historically, a lot of feminism has failed to address disabled issues. To quote from a blog post I wrote many moons ago,

Feminism needs to integrate disability politics, needs to embrace disabled women and our experiences, to be fully feminist. Excluding disabled women from feminist academia, analysis, activism and community not only is crap for the disabled woman, it prevents feminism from becoming all it needs to be to liberate women.