Those whose interest was piqued by Kaite Welsh's recent review of the new Laura Gibson album, Le Grande may be interested in Laura's new video for the album's title track. Directed by Alicia J. Rose, the video is inspired by and recorded at the The Hot Lake Hotel in the town of La Grande, Oregon. With its natural hot lake that billows smoke and mist across the land, a 200 year-old history and concealed setting, it initially captured Laura Gibson's imagination during one stay there and she wrote 'La Grande' on the premises.

Having never been captured on film until now, The Hot Lake Hotel had maintained its mysterious character for many years, from its early days as a Native American healing centre, until eventually being abandoned before its renovation a few years ago.

The overall feel of the video is haunting and eerie, not to mention a little bit reminiscient of Henry James' Turn of the screw

The experimentation of artists with the past, with black and white film and the bygone age of literature and film is not new of course, so I've strung together a post featuring some other examples of this latent tendency, which I hope you'll enjoy.

Florence + the machine recently went distinctly 1930s with the video to 'Shake it out', and the track itself was also used in this tribute to Pre-Code Hollywood.

Going back to earlier more silent times, this is clip of Clara Bow in the 1927 film IT

Which I have been introduced to by my friend Michelle, who does a blog about silent films.

I got the Siouxsie and the Banshees At the BBC boxset for Christmas, which includes a DVD of all the bands appearances on the BBC, including this perfomance of 'Peek a boo' from 1988. Whilst Siouxsie didn't specifically mention Clara Bow as an influence in this interview, she did point to Theda Bare and Louise Brooks, which would tie in with her look at this point.

I am dedicating this last clip to my friend Clare who is off sick from work at the moment, and who has the same haircut as Siouxsie had in 1988. Get well soon Clare...

Picture of Laura Gibson by Dani Canto, shared via a flickr creative commons licence.

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Want to cut through the commercial crap of Valentine's Day, but still do something a bit romantic?

Rather than getting your loved one a card, flowers or a stuffed toy, you might want to consider one of these virtual romantic gestures.

A selection of artists have each created cute message in a belljar, created by an artist (such as the one to the right, 'Some old fashioned romance', by Marie-Louise Jones). You can pay for the image to be texted to your Valentine, and Women's Aid received a donation.

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This is a guest post by CRASAC. Please take care reading on, as it may be triggering.

Neesha*'s Story is one of desperate despair, a childhood robbed, but it is also a story about hope, she has been at the very bottom and knows how it feels. Her message is simple, find help, it's out there.

Downstairs, I could hear them playing, I so desperately wanted to be there, playing with them... but I couldn't. was in the bedroom with the man who came into my life and took away my childhood. I was nine years old.

It started after my dad had passed away. My mum remarried pretty much straight away, and the man she brought into our home - my new stepdad - started abusing me.

It continued for seven years, every day for seven years.

With the sexual abuse, came mental abuse. I was changing, it was affecting me.

My dad was a brilliant man and I was grieving after his death. I was vulnerable.

This new man who came into our lives started telling me I'd done something wrong and I believed him. I used to try to work out what it was I had done wrong. But I couldn't work it out because I hadn't done anything, I was just nine years old.

He started scaring me, telling me I'd get chucked out of the house if my family found out. He would tell me that there was no-one around for us because my dad's not here and he would eventually kill us all. But he would keep me alive with him for a couple of days before he killed me too.

We're a big family, nobody knew and there was no way anybody would have known because people like him are very clever. They don't do it in front of everyone, they use very clever, sneaky tactics to do this.

It was affecting me mentally. I was becoming very bitter. My family didn't know, and I started to hate them as well, started to wish it wasn't me it was happening to.

But when I was about fourteen, I knew I had to stop it. I had become so bitter and twisted and angry by then. So I decided that when I was sixteen I would just leave home without telling anyone. And that's what I did. I just left home, didn't have contact with the family for years and years.

I didn't have a childhood at all. I can honestly say I didn't experience a happy day after my dad died and that's the truth. I was fearful all the time. I was anxious. I was agitated. I felt embarrassed. I hated myself you know?

I used to dress in baggy clothes and try to make myself not look attractive but at the same time I didn't feel I was attractive anyway compared to everyone else. I just hated myself.

I came to CRASAC when my doctor referred me for counselling. Really, from there I started getting help. But it's a long journey. I think what people need to understand is certain words, smiles, places, times, it all could affect you. It can bring everything flooding back.

I mean I love my child so much, more than anything in the world but giving her a bath will bring back memories for me and you're expected to... fit into a society of what you call 'normal people' but you don't feel normal yourself.

So I decided to talk about my experience to help others.

I've been right at the bottom as well and I know, and it makes my heart hurt to know people are like that, there's people like that who are feeling rock bottom at the moment and I just want people to know that there's help.

We're not just a number or statistic, we're living people who do need that help and we need to rebuild our lives because our lives have been shattered through no fault of our own.

And I'm doing this just to let people know that you can get through it, but you need all the right help in order to do it.

For Neesha, she decided to go on the journey to rebuild her life. You can too.

Ring this number to speak to us: 024 76 277777 Monday to Friday 10am to 2pm and Monday and Thursday 6pm to 8pm.

*Neesha is a pseudonym.

CRASAC were the winner of the Guardian charity of the year award 2011. This is a video about their work.

The image is a black and white drawing, or possibly an etching, of a woman, entitled "Sad Eyed". It was taken by URBAN ARTefakte and is used under a Creative Commons Licence

1 comment // Permalink // Tags: child abuse, rape crisis centres, sexual abuse, survivors, video

Hola feministas, happy Monday! As always, a post to pull together this week's links and bits and bobs. Feel free to use the comments as an open thread for discussion, or tell us of anything else we missed. As always, please note that us including a post here doesn't mean we endorse it, or even agree with it. It's just stuff that we've found noteworthy for one reason or another. If you disagree with any of them please do have at in the comments. And so, on with the show ...

• The Foreign Policy Association profile two inspirational Brazillian women - President Dilma Rousseff and Maria das Gracas Foster
• Jenny Morris on the 'logic' of reducing benefits for disabled children
• Tracy Clark-Flory at Salon on sexual abuse in BDSM communities
• TFW blogger Josephine Tsui in a podcast for CJSW: Good Girls Marry Doctors on "Yeah, What She Said!"
• Jane Fae: No Fly Zone for trans people in Canada
• Diary of a female IT consultant at GirlyGeekdom
• Why Men Always Tell You to Watch Movies: the scarcity of female voiceover work at the New York Times
• 'Don't call me 'babe' on the bus, please' at CiF
• LGBT Rights in Tunisia, A Year After the Revolution (Gender Across Borders)
• Larry Derfner on why American liberals should ditch the term 'Israel Firster'
• Question Time, QI and Mock the Week criticised by BBC diversity report (via the Guardian) (see our previous post on the issue here)
• When is French Elle going to put a black woman on its cover? (Jezebel)
• Committee's solution to attacks on female politicians: 'just get on with it' (Guardian)
• Feminist punk band Pussy Riot take revolt to the Kremlin
• Young girls forced into under-age marriages in London (Digital Journal)
• Fatemeh Fakhraie: Who Says I Can't be a Muslim Feminist?
• Hong Kong full page newspaper advert protesting the 'invasion' of pregnant women from mainland China, comparing them to a plague of locusts (China Hush)
• Ken Clarke announces an extension of UK Hate Crime laws so that murders motivated by hatred of the disabled or transgendered will have the same legal starting point as murders aggravated by race, religion or sexual orientation.
• Breastfeeding support: less is not more (Spilt Milk)
• Top Totty Beer Withdrawn From Parliamentary Bar (Huffington Post)
• Those who die to keep us safe: European Union's Frontex and the administration of immigrants (Tiger Beatdown)
• London Feminist takes the green ink to Ann Widdecombe's Express column
• (Trigger Warning: VAW, corrective rape) BBC News Africa reports that 4 men have been convicted and sentanced for the murder of a lesbian woman in South Africa
• The Safe Spaces for Women and Girls Writing Project launches
• Video from Davos: Sandberg sees Global Ambition Gap
• Hard Knock Life? Try Being A Teenage Indian Feminist by Erinn Dhesi
• The Guardian reports that benefit cuts and government rhetoric on disabled people are fuelling resentment and abuse aimed at disabled people
• Sarah Burke gets women freestyling skiing into the Olympics (documentary excerpt)
• The Daily Beast: Komen Incites Women's 'Tahrir Square Moment'
• UNFPA statement on Renewing Commitment to End Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting
• The government has rejected a petition to issue a posthumous pardon to Alan Turing, WWII war hero and computer expert, who was conviced of homosexuality and chemically castrated
• Open Democracy on Heterosexual Privilege in Higher Education

And last but very definitely not least:

• Alberta Council for Global Community celebrates their Top 30 under 30 for International Development. Celebrating young leaders in women's empowerment (featuring TFW blogger Josephine Tsui at No.18 - congratulations Jos!).

Have a great week!

Image courtesy of flickr user Kristjan Wager, used under a Creative Commons license. It shows a pavement stencil reading "feminism rocks" with a female gender symbol.

1 comment // Permalink // Tags: weekly round-up

This is a guest post by Sarah McAlpine, who can be found on twitter @sazza_jay.

This week I happened upon a website, Unilad, in which one writer ended a horrendously offensive with the now infamous line:

"And if the girl you've taken for a drink...won't 'spread for your head', think about this mathematical statistic: 85% of rape cases go unreported.

That seems to be fairly good odds."

Apparently this is supposed to be some sort of a joke, devoid as it is from any wit - although I can't imagine a circumstance under which you could describe the statement as funny.

Soon after reading the article, I informed them that it may break hate speech laws. They responded, not-at-all predictably, by asking me, "are you a dyke?"

Almost immediately the twittersphere was engulfed in outrage. Thousands were calling on the website to apologise and remove the offending content. It turned out UniLad's offensive content was actually the entirety of the website. Articles advising readers on How To Fuck Your Lecturer, informing you on The Problem With Slags and a particularly cheery anecdote called The Angry Shag which depicted smashing a woman's face into the wall during intercourse in order "to knock some sense into her".

They then removed the website and left an apology there; www.unilad.com, and on their facebook page, where commenters pondered the best way to punish humourless, lesbian bitches like me. One in particular involves raping us to death.

Since Wednesday, at least one of the students has come under investigation by their University. They obviously want to distance themselves from the scandal, and are keen to show that the website isn't a reflection of their campus culture.

They are perhaps a little optimistic. As a recent graduate I'd love to agree, and say that UniLad are a rare breed, that misogyny was about as common on campus as early starts and that the men are enlightened and respectful of women. Sadly, many students' experiences don't fit that narrative.

Whilst at University, I had the misfortune of meeting a 'UniLad' or two. They all had one thing in common- a complete and utter lack of any empathy for women. I'd go so far as to say that they didn't think of women as people at all.

One of the first phrases you're introduced to during Fresher's week is Faffing. This describes sexual intercourse with a first year student (or, Fucking A Fresher). The phrase is used almost exclusively against women, normally by older students. There are several Facebook groups dedicated to the objectification of female students- one at my University was run by the male members of a society wherein they could discuss the female members, and any sexual relations they'd had with them. Rape jokes are two a penny, and women are constantly referred to a sluts and whores. Many of these so called 'lads' have real issues with concepts such as 'personal space' and 'sexual autonomy'. Unwanted groping is par for the course on a standard night out.

What I'm saying is, sadly, there is a persistent and growing 'Lad' culture on our University campuses. UniLad is not that uncommon, and this is harmful, and dangerous to female students.

Last year studies showed that the attitudes of rapists towards women are reflected by mainstream 'lads' mags'. In fact, participants were unable to successfully differentiate between statements made by convicted sex offenders and those found in the likes of Nuts and Zoo. I can only imagine what they'd make of the articles found on unilad.com.

1 in 7 women will be seriously physically or sexually assaulted whilst at University. Rape is a terrifying reality for many female students. These so called 'jokes' on UniLad describe genuine experiences for women, and it's important that this story doesn't focus on one horrendous oh-so-funny comment about rape. It's about an entire cesspit of hatred, bigotry, homophobia and good-old fashioned sexism, an entire culture summed up in one hideous website.

Women have to live within this culture everyday, wherever they go. It has no place in the hallowed halls of learning, on our streets or in our homes. Enough was enough for me. That's why I called out UniLad, and why I'll continue to call out others like it until we see the back end of Lad Culture for good.

[The image is a photograph of a large group of women at a demonstration carrying a large banner with the words RAPE: A GLOBAL PROBLEM. It was taken by Chris Hacking and is used under a Creative Commons Licence]

15 comments // Permalink // Tags: guest post, rape, rape culture, unilad, university

"My clothes-shopping nightmares epitomise the way that, as a disabled woman, I am often treated as though I have no gender," writes DH Kelly, whose new feature for The F-Word looks at how clothes shops often fail to cater to disabled women, and what the reasons are for that.

She continues:

Clothes-shopping, style and presentation are not supposed to matter to me. I'm not even supposed to feel self-conscious about getting undressed in the presence of strange men. And those men, in turn, aren't supposed to think of me as a woman, not enough to feel self-conscious about getting undressed in my presence.

Have readers had similar experiences? Click here the whole of D H Kelly's feature and discuss.

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Conway Hall was once again crammed with feminists yesterday. People came from all over the country for Go Feminist. When the organisers wrote for The F-Word about this conference, a few weeks ago, they explained the motivation like this:

We do this as a response to feminism's most sustained critique: that it is not for all women. Although women from all backgrounds and communities identify with feminist beliefs, the movement still does not completely take into account their needs and realities. Too often in our feminist spaces, the voices of a few are privileged. Race is inadequately dealt with. Our spaces, both physical and virtual, are inaccessible to women living with disabilities. Trans women's involvement is actively discouraged.

The conference was a sustain riposte to this argument: among the many speakers on the main stage, we heard from women asylum seekers, deaf feminists, we heard from one of the women who ran a support group in the 1980s for black lesbian feminists across the country - painstakingly collecting any articles that referenced the existence of black lesbians, and mailing them out.

With the help of Julia and Nat, the whole event was livestreamed on the internet too - you can watch back all the plenary sessions online too, even if you weren't able to make it to London yesterday. (I'm spending this afternoon watching some of the sessions I missed!)

And I did a few little video interviews as well and blog posts which I hope give a bit more of a sense of what it was like to attend (apologies for the slightly shaky camera work at times!)

Of course, there were lots of F-Worders there too. I spoke to zohra about an intersectionality workshop we both took part in:

And Catherine explains about a session on women and the cuts:

Here's Bidisha, who compered the event:

Anyway, it was fabulous to see a conference that walked the walk on intersectionality. Amazing work, all involved.

0 comments // Permalink // Tags: cuts, feminism, go feminist, intersectionality

Michael Yardley, a Police Community Support Officer, has been jailed after admitting raping a 12 year old girl, as well as four counts of sexual activity. His defence was that he had become "unhappy in his marriage". Thankfully, most people with unhappy marriages do not console themselves by raping children, but this man did.

Yardley has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, and is on the Sex Offenders' Register for the rest of his life.

You'd think the rape of a child would be fairly unambiguous territory. Yet in the Daily Mail's report on the assaults, journalist Graham Smith twice refers to it as an "affair". He also describes the rape as them "having sex with each other on several occasions".

The girl is reported to have told police that she and Yardley were planning to move in together when she turned 18, and she may well have meant it. This does not make it any less a case of abuse and assault. Children have elements of their own sexuality, some of which they may express towards others. If a child behaves in a sexual way towards an adult, it is the responsibility of the adult to not take advantage of her. The adult's responsibility is to know that to respond in a sexual way is abusive, exploitative and highly inappropriate.

Hypothetically - because I know nothing of the victim in this case - a child expressing her sexuality overtly may be more vulnerable than most.

It's quite simple really:

If a child has a crush on you, an adult, don't rape them.

If a child tries to kiss you, don't rape them.

If a child cuddles you, don't rape them.

If a child sends you 200 text messages, don't rape them.

And if a child is raped by a Police Community Support Officer, don't write in a national newspaper that they had an affair. A child is not capable of "having sex with" an adult. Not ethically, not morally, nor legally.

(Hat-tip to @marstrina and @CathElliott for spotting and passing on the story)

[The image is a photograph of some stencil graffiti of an angry woman. It was taken in Lisbon by Manuel Faisco and is used under a Creative Commons Licence]

3 comments // Permalink // Tags: child abuse, Daily Mail, rape

Warning: this post discusses eating disorders and talks about experiences which some readers may find upsetting

"During the past decade, women breached the power structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic surgery became the fastest growing medical speciality. During the past five years, consumer spending doubled, pornography became the main media category, ahead of legitimate films and records combined, and thirty-three thousand American women told researchers that they would rather lose ten to fifteen pounds than achieve any other goal... inside the majority of the West's controlled, attractive, successful working women, there is a secret 'underlife' poisoning our freedom; infused with notions of beauty, it is a dark vein of self-hatred [and] dread of lost control." - The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf

My generation of young women has it easy in so many ways. We are the boardroom quota generation; the diversity audit generation; the technology generation, living in a world where the internet gives voice to our every complaint, and 140 characters can effect change. But we're also the anorexia generation. Around 1 in every 150 fifteen year old girls is anorexic, and I was one of them.

It seems counter-intuitive that greater financial and social power for women can be reconciled with ever-decreasing power over our own bodies. Yet as women have achieved greater equality at home and in the work-place, the demands we place on our bodies to conform, to correspond to our successes, become more and more debilitating. The discrepancy between perfectionism - at work, at home, physically - and anorexia is vast, and I don't wish to confuse ambition with a serious mental disorder, but the fact that you can trace this relentless pursuit of achievement across anorexics everywhere is indicative of a wider tendency of women in society.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's clear that my own anorexia was, among many other factors, born of a desire to really achieve something. The sense of impotency that enveloped my existence as a teenager was only briefly cleared by the control granted by self-starvation. But anorexia is a slimy, slippery beast; she offers you control, and then before you can catch a breath, you find yourself imprisoned. No power, no independence, no privacy; doctors and nurses poking at your ugly little body, and your parents getting more and more haggard, as all of your lives rapidly fall apart. And all the while, your very thoughts and feelings are mercilessly monitored by something alien within you, making every hour a sordid struggle, a lonely and relentless trudge.

Indeed, I asked Gemma, a fellow anorexic, whether she was looking forward to adulthood, and her response perfectly summarises the hypocrisy of the anorexic independence complex: "Yes! I'm looking forward to living my own life with much more independence, but I know that I must fully recover in order to be able to cope with this."

Why do we drive ourselves to such extremes for the sake of control? It's no accident that emerging from the abyss of anorexia coincides with many young women's discovery of women's rights activism. I speak as someone who found myself, unexpectedly, at a healthy weight, and just as suddenly found myself at the forming of a feminist organisation; the question of female power and the question of anorexic power are, to my mind at least, inextricably linked. My peers and I are told that we must grow up into one of a set of women, their outlines dictated by society: the working mother, the childless career woman, the stay at home mum, the spinster.

Of course, anorexia is much more complicated and varied than merely a product of pressure and impotency. I interviewed a number of other anorexics to get a picture of how they felt, and a definite thread comes through. "Lack of self-worth" and "inadequacy" are recurring phrases; one girl, Freya, told me, "I didn't feel I was as good enough a woman as I wanted to be... [I] thought losing weight would change that". Adulthood - womanhood - stretches unwelcomingly ahead: we're taught that we will never be, should never be, happy with ourselves, our lives, our bodies. So we start with our bodies. It's supposed to be the easiest thing to succeed at being, being thin.

All names have been changed.

Note: Anorexia nervosa is a classified mental illness. If you are worried about someone else's health, or think you might suffer from an eating disorder yourself, please, please seek medical help. Eating disorders can have terrible long-term consequences; they can kill.

B-eat, the eating disorders charity, offers information and advice.
NHS online also has lots of information and advice on treatment.

Picture by Santiago Alvarez, used under a Creative Commons License

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A reader who felt alienated by some of the comments left under Nat's recent post asks whether practising BDSM is incompatible with feminism.

Dear Laura,

I've been into BDSM for all my adult life and am mostly submissive. I'm also bisexual, and have "played" with and submitted to women in the past, not just men. I'm fairly new to feminism and although some feminists don't see an issue with BDSM, some certainly do, and it leaves me feeling intimidated and scared of being accused of not being a real feminist.

It seems for every person who says it's absolutely fine to be "kinky" there are plenty out there telling me my desires are just a by-product of the patriarchy, pretty much implying I don't know my own mind and body. Even if I was influenced in some way by patriarchal culture around me (I'm well aware I may well be) should I stop having the sex I enjoy because it offends some feminists? I don't think that's going to happen.

I managed to get through my teenage years without actually seeing a porn film so the vast majority of fantasies I have in my head are pretty much what I've had to cobble together myself. How the hell I got into BDSM I don't know but it's a very potent part of my sexuality and it's not going anywhere any time soon.

So, is it really OK for someone like me to join in feminist discussions and be taken seriously? Can a woman with my desires ever really be considered a feminist? Or, despite all that I believe in and how I behave outside my bedroom, does what I do inside it let the whole side down?

- Kinky Feminist

When you're new to feminism, it can be exciting and uplifting to find a community of people who finally "get it". Adopting the feminist label makes you feel like a part of this community and so it can be upsetting when you read things implying that you don't deserve it. However, feminism is a broad movement and there are as many different feminist viewpoints as there are feminists. There will always be someone for whom you're not "feminist enough". While this means both online and offline feminist communities may not be the 100% welcoming, supportive space you initially thought you'd found, it does mean that worrying about what other feminists think of you is a futile undertaking, and if you do feel uncomfortable around some feminists, there will always be others you'll get on with like the proverbial burning house.

For me, what matters is not whether you meet the feminist club entry criteria set out by a given feminist, but whether you do what you can in your own life to support women and tackle the various forms of discrimination we face. It may be that alongside any efforts you make in this regard, you also engage in things that some feminists and even you yourself view us unhelpful or rooted in patriarchy. Given that we've all been socialised into and have to live within patriarchal society, it'd be pretty amazing if you didn't.

A lot of feminists shave their legs, let male partners get away with not doing enough housework or buy clothing produced by women working in terrible conditions overseas, to name but a few activities that could be termed "letting the side down". They may prefer they didn't do these things, but for various reasons feel that it is too difficult to change, or they may not see them as problematic at all, again for a wide variety of reasons. But these activities don't negate their work to support services for single mums, verbally challenge everyday sexism or contribute to the local rape crisis centre.

No feminist is perfect, and as long as on balance you do more to help women than to hinder them (unlike women such as Nadine Dorries, whose anti-choice agenda and activities more than overshadow her speaking up about the lack of women on the BBC), you have just as much right as the next person to consider yourself a feminist and join in feminist discussions. Even if some people think the kind of sex you like is anti-feminist.

Personally, I don't think engaging in BDSM or submissive sex holds back women's liberation. As I've discussed previously, there are many different reasons why people enjoy BDSM, and I think it's simplistic and unhelpful to suggest that it always comes down to an assertion of male power over women and that BDSM therefore furthers gender inequality (although this may well be the case in some instances). Both non-BDSM and BDSM sex can be used to abuse, hurt and oppress women, and both can be enjoyed in a positive way that doesn't hurt anyone: it all depends on the individuals involved.

If you're happy with your sex life and don't feel the feminist arguments against BDSM hold up to your experiences, then that particular feminist theory needn't form part of your feminism. Focus on what matters to you, and remember: your opinion is no less valid then anyone else's.

Photo by VirtualEyeSee, shared under a Creative Commons Licence.

Want to Ask A Feminist? Email laura[at]thefword.org.uk.

21 comments // Permalink // Tags: ask a feminist bdsm sex

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