Well i guess I will just have to get myself into academia if i want to talk to other feminists....there just don't seem to be too many lurking around the streets of Ireland at present.
I remember, when I was young, how we could talk about little else. Nowadays our heroines write for the Daily Mail and wear lipstick.......its not that i want to wear dungarees again, its just that smug middle class women sporting lipstick just doesn't do it for me, no matter how radical they were in their youth. Not that i mind a bit of lippo........few shades in the bathroom and all.
So why is it important............because patriarchy and sexism just seem to be getting worse and I am sick of hearing about 'how men are abused too'....reality is that women in Ireland are regularly beaten, raped and killed. That the majority of women earn only two thirds of the wage of men, look in your local FAS centre is you don't believe me.
Sure some women in USA/UK/Australia/ Japan/ wherever, have made it in the world of business and finance. Yes and some female politicians have raised 7 children, continued to look immaculate and focused on their careers. For Josephine Soap.... feck all has changed.
The rising tide of single parents is predominately female, the rising levels of child poverty are from single parent households....lets get real about where poverty has shifted to, who holds the burden and what the outcomes are.
So yes, it would be nice to talk to other feminists about our agendas, but i guess that for me it is impossible to take my gender out of my class relations. Not to hit middle class women over the head with it, poverty versus life of comfort, but because the agenda for dealing with poverty can't be forgotten or subsumed within a polemic that addresses only one part of the whole.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Spare Rib Feminist Magazine 1972-1996
Like many women I missed Spare Rib when it closed its doors in the 1990s.
Sure Diva has taken over for young lesbians, the Pink Paper still reflects more male concerns, the thing that Spare Rib did was appeal to a lot of women across the board - activists.
What Spare Rib had, in one space, was representation of a diversity of women in the public sphere.
In the one place.
So you might be reading about Islam and feminism- turn a page- and young deaf lesbians, turn a page- and older womens networking; eco warriors, female rappers, parenting alone, disability, mental health, politics, trade unions, etc etc etc.
It made you feel like you were part of something, a movement if you like, albeit a disparate and disjointed one. It wasn't a place for conservative women, not really, though Bea Campbell's work on Tory Women, was fun and informative. It was a place to see what was going on. What the new debates were, who was organising what, and a central meeting place to get information on activism.
Yeah, so we are back to the right wing and liberal press, their representations of women, the objectification - like feminism didn't happen. It's so unfashionable.
Remember those 1970s outfits in granny's closet....how fashionable are they now......so too will feminism become de rigueur again.
So here we go, an on- line Spare Rib.....an Irish one at that, though it doesn't have to be.
Whilst feminist academics continue to bamboozle the majority of us with their 'paradigms'; how about a blog for women activists?
A blog for those who shave their legs and prefer men;
for those who love their fuzz and women too;
for those who ponder deeper recesses of sexuality;
for women of all abilities;
for adolescent women and octogenarians
.........for all of us;
menopausal, senile, breast feeding.........the mentally well, the slow to learn, the country girl, the city maid.......the celibate and the often laid.
A place to vent,
and let off steam,
a place to publish,
a queen serene,
a place for women,
in which to write,
what is bugging us,
in a blogging site.
Sure Diva has taken over for young lesbians, the Pink Paper still reflects more male concerns, the thing that Spare Rib did was appeal to a lot of women across the board - activists.
What Spare Rib had, in one space, was representation of a diversity of women in the public sphere.
In the one place.
So you might be reading about Islam and feminism- turn a page- and young deaf lesbians, turn a page- and older womens networking; eco warriors, female rappers, parenting alone, disability, mental health, politics, trade unions, etc etc etc.
It made you feel like you were part of something, a movement if you like, albeit a disparate and disjointed one. It wasn't a place for conservative women, not really, though Bea Campbell's work on Tory Women, was fun and informative. It was a place to see what was going on. What the new debates were, who was organising what, and a central meeting place to get information on activism.
Yeah, so we are back to the right wing and liberal press, their representations of women, the objectification - like feminism didn't happen. It's so unfashionable.
Remember those 1970s outfits in granny's closet....how fashionable are they now......so too will feminism become de rigueur again.
So here we go, an on- line Spare Rib.....an Irish one at that, though it doesn't have to be.
Whilst feminist academics continue to bamboozle the majority of us with their 'paradigms'; how about a blog for women activists?
A blog for those who shave their legs and prefer men;
for those who love their fuzz and women too;
for those who ponder deeper recesses of sexuality;
for women of all abilities;
for adolescent women and octogenarians
.........for all of us;
menopausal, senile, breast feeding.........the mentally well, the slow to learn, the country girl, the city maid.......the celibate and the often laid.
A place to vent,
and let off steam,
a place to publish,
a queen serene,
a place for women,
in which to write,
what is bugging us,
in a blogging site.
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