#DickheadDetox: Nicholas Cage

Nicholas Cage, noted arsenugget, has a serial history of domestic violence.  His only arrest, as far as I'm aware, happened in 2011 but the charges were dropped 3 weeks later. Christina Fulton, the mother of Cage's eldest son Weston, sued the actor in 2009 for financial compensation over a house. The lawsuit alleged emotional abuse during the relationship.Cage has been sued numerous times for all sorts of shit, not to mention the pesky issue...

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Why We Oppose Votes For Men

This keeps getting retweeted through my feed. It makes me giggle every ti...

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What's at Stake: Nothing Less than the Liberation of Women

This is written as part II of Feminisms Fest: Why it Matters.Feminism Matters. Feminism has always mattered. There has never been a point when feminism doesn't matter.And, what's at stake is nothing less than the full liberation of women. I find it incredibly sad that we are still asking this question; that the endemic nature of male violence is still so unacknowledged that we have to preface every discussion on the experience of women survivors...

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Feminism and Me: Feminisms Fest 2013

I have always been a feminist. It is a label I chose for myself as a teenager, back before girl power was invented and New Kids on the Block were cool. My original feminism was about equality: women were equal to men and all we needed was the laws to force misogynists to stop being misogynists. The older I get, the more I believe that "equality" is nothing more than a smokescreen to prevent the true liberation of women [and all oppressed minorities]....

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On Sisterhood: Kris Radish's The Sunday List of Dreams

I've blogged incessantly about my love for Kris Radish's My Elegant Gathering of White Snows which is fairly obvious considering I named my blog after it. I've been too scared to read anymore in case they aren't as good. I was totally wrong. I'm about 15% of the way into The Sunday List of Dreams and it is fabulous. I'll write a proper review later but I love this bit so much I had to share it now:It is female communion. That astounding crossing...

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On Being StewieGriffinsMom

Today, I learned that Seth MacFarlane hosted the Oscars last night. I  try to avoid this type of crap at all costs but its impossible to miss considering my Twitter feed is full of hatred for MacFarlane and his misogyny. Why people think he's funny is beyond me. I'm equally perplexed by the number of people who don't understand that my Mumsnet name : StewieGriffinsMom is meant, you know, ironically and not because I actually want to be defined...

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The Guardian, Reeva Steenkamp and Celebrity Culture

The Guardian is currently running a particularly distasteful article which claims that Oscar Pistorius "wants to contact" the family of Reeva Steenkamp. The only part of this article which isn't offensive is that they've actually remembered to name Reeva Steenkamp; the woman Pistorius murdered by shooting her 4 times. The fact that I am actually grateful that the Guardian remembered to name Steenkamp makes me so very angry.Hannah Curtis wrote...

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Silent Sunday

Today, is one of those glorious sunny days but I have no kids so I'm spending the day in bed reading lovely books and watching ridiculous movies. I forget how much alone-time spent doing nothing really can have such a positive effect on my health. It's a precious gift everyone needs.I'm halfway through reading Rose Tremains The Way I Found Her and Barbara Kingsolver's Pigs in Heaven but I can't quite finish either because I suspect both are going...

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The Round-Up V: Blogs I've Enjoyed This Week

The Song of Lilith at Pass the Flaming SwordThe Manketplace of Broideas at FemonadeCan Twitter Make White People Less Racist at Dogs and ShoesMurders without Murderers: Reeva Steenkamp and the Myth of the Sudden Snap at The GlossNo More Page 3: The Top Ten Excuses I have Heard Against Signing It at Gavel! DiscussA Sliver of Silver in Silver Linings Playbook: A Look at Mental Illness in Film at The Feminist WireSufragette Shitty at the Kraken AwakesSexism...

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Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible

The Poisonwood Bible was the most recommended book on the Mumsnet Feminist Book Club board when I started my #readingonlybookswrittenbywomen. Honestly, you'd think I'd admitted to kicking puppies for shits and giggles due to the level of shock by my admittance that I hadn't read it.For those heretics who have not yet read it, The Poisonwood Bible is the story of an American family who travel to the Congo as missionaries in 1959. The father is an...

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Marie-Louise Gay's Stella and Sam

Marie-Louise Gay's Stella and Sam series are some of my favourite children's stories. I love Stella's imagination and her utter joy at life. I love the simplicity of Stella and Sam playing together and the beautiful stories Stella tells Sam: about being Star of the Sea, Queen of the Snow, Fairy of the Forest and Princess of the Sky. I love Sam's never-ending questions and his innocent trust in the infinite knowledge of his big sister.These books...

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#DickheadDetox : Jack Nicholson

Until now, the only thing I knew about Jack Nicholson is that he dates very young women [hello creepy] and it was in his house, whilst he was present, that Roman Polanski raped a child. I think it's safe to say he's not a nice man. I've read rumours linking him to domestic violence and sexual assault. He's also pro-life.Yesterday, @smashthep tweeted a link to a Guardian article in 2000 detailing a lawsuit alleging a physical assault by Nicholson...

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I am going to RadFem 20123.

I've been worrying all week about writing this post. It feels dishonest not to write it but, at the same time, I find the anger that labelling oneself a Radical Feminst induces frightening. I have a half-finished blog post on my thoughts on radical feminism, socialism, and intersectionality that I actually don't want to finish writing because I would feel obligated to publish it and I'm not sure I'm ready for that. At the same time, it does feel...

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A Personal Account of Domestic Violence

Normal 0 0 1 661 3769 University of Edinburgh 31 7 4628 10.2006 0 0 0 I am publishing this on behalf of a friend who wishes to remain anonymous; as does her friend she is writing about: My friend Anna’s criminal case against her violent husband has been dismissed. He was expected to at least have some sort of community service, a fine and probably some sort of restitution, but he walked away without even a caution.Anna, my friend since university, told me about a year ago that her marriage was going through a rough...

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#DickheadDetox : Cee Lo Green and that pesky issue of VAW

Last week, Tilly Jean wrote a fabulous critique of Cee Lo Green's Forget You  and the unrelenting misogyny in the song. I can not describe how much I loathe men who toss around the word "goldigger".  Just bleurgh.Tilly Jean's blog fired a synapse in my brain and I thought I remembered Green recently being arrested for VAW. I was wrong. He has multiple arrests for VAW : threatening his then wife in 2001 and rearrested for...

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#Dickheaddetox : Jeremy Irons Supporting Child Rape

Turns out Jeremy Irons is a creep who belongs in the #Dickheaddetox too. Apparently, women should feel honoured by middle aged men perving all over them and teenage girls shouldn't be encouraged to feel like "victims" when raped by creepy old men. Bleurgh.Read more here and here.&nb...

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Don' cha Wish Your Girlfriend: Reinforcing the Patriarchal Fuckability Test

I loathe the PussyCat Dolls' "Dontcha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me". Lyrically, it's a master-class in woman-blaming culture and passing the Patriarchal Fuckability Test. This just got retweeted into my TL and I love it:Pony Pony Tangerina‏@ColeyTangerina: DONTCHA WISH YOUR GIRLFRIEND WAS uninterested in competitive beauty standards that undermine the solidarity women need to end patriarchy.Blondie are the same. The lyrics of some of...

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Nick Cave is a Better Feminist than Feminists

Obviously, the Nick Cave is a better feminists than feminists theory has been around for a while. He was blithering on about it in an interview in New York Mag in 2010. This is the full quote:You write a lot about sexual neurosis, which has gotten you into some trouble. Do you consider yourself a feminist?  Well, I don’t consider myself not one. I’m not a misogynist, so you can dispense with that. I think I’ve done wonders for the feminist...

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#DickheadDetox:Edward Furlong is Back in Prison

Edward Furlong was jailed on Friday. The Daily Mail is reporting that his arrest follows a violation of his probation following his breach of a restraining order taken out by his ex-wife in 2010.  EOnline and TMZ both claim he was jailed for breaching his probation after breaching a protection order taken out by his ex-girlfriend who was arrested for assaulting in October 2012 and January of this year.Furlong will remain in jail until a review...

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Rape Victims Deserve Anonymity. Not rapists.

(Image from here)I don't know why we keep having to have this conversation. Anyone with an ounce of common sense and compassion should understand why rape victims deserve anonymity and why men charged with rape, like people charged with any other crime, do not deserve anonymity. But, it's come up. Again. This time the issue was raised by Maura McGowan, who is chairman of the Bar Council of England and Wales. I would have thought that the chairman...

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The Round-Up IV: Blogs I've enjoyed this week

These are blogs I've read this week. Some are new and some are old but they've all made me think.The Top 50 Influential Women Writers from For Books Sake: Books By and For Independent WomenLaw & Order: Special Victims Unit by ShakesvilleThe Politics of Selling African Art Mostly Collected During the Colonial Era to Private Collectors (Netherlands) by Africa is a CountrySex and Feminism: Who is Being Silenced by Adriene Sere for Said ItGynocide:...

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The Mommy Blogger: Apparently, they're Destroying Feminism

(Image from here)This morning I awoke to discover that the real problem with feminism right now is Mommy Bloggers; not male violence against women, endemic poverty, the destruction of reproductive rights or the fact that we still don't have equal pay for equal work despite the legislation being in place for years. Nope, it's Mommy Bloggers who are ruining feminism for feminists.Now, I do disagree with Amana Manori's definition of feminism as I don't...

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@planetpavs on VAW: These are her words, not mine!

I tweeted this last night and it got massively retweeted as if the words were mine: "If women could end #VAWG by themselves, we'd have done it by now. Men must stand up, your silence = complicity." They aren't. It was the lovely Planet Pavs who wrote it. I just retweeted it unthinkingly without her name attached.&nb...

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Another Celebrity has been arrested for child rape.

And, all I can think is "wow, ITV are actually removing Michael Le Vell from Coronation Street pending the outcome of the trial". Seriously, how fucked up is that? My first response is that a major television program is taking an actual stance on a man charged with child rape. I thought they'd go for the old "we can't possibly say or do anything until a conviction has been secured" twaddle which let's rapists get away with rape. Le Vell...

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