Archive for January, 2012
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Rape: Myths and Media
31 Jan 2012
Alison Saunder, head of the CPS yesterday warned that the demonisation of young women is contributing to the failure to secure more convictions of suspected rapists. In an interview with the Guardian she states that a debate needs to be opened up about the myths and stereotypes that jurors bring with …
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You Ignorant (Hard-Working) African
28 Jan 2012
There is an interesting anecdote doing the rounds at the moment, written by Field Ruwe, a Zambian novelist and journalist currently based in California. It tells the story of a chance meeting on a plane between Ruwe and 'Walter', a former IMF official now working in a similar capacity for …
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Riding the Waves
24 Jan 2012
Feminism is in flux these days. As the waves lap at the shore, generational differences are crashing into one another and creating a lot of white water. I’m not old enough to remember the start of the second wave, but I am almost certain that there would have been conflict …
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The Threat of Open Content
20 Jan 2012Its been an interesting few days in digital activism. First on Wednesday Wikipedia, Reddit and BoingBoing shut down together with very public protests from Google, Craigslist and Mozilla over the proposed SOPA and PIPA acts, this was rapidly followed by a raid on MegaUpload, a file transfer system for large …
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The Congo and Conflict Minerals
19 Jan 2012
On December 9th, Joseph Kabila was re-elected President of the Democratic of the Congo. Overseen by international observers, this was the first ever election organised from with the DRC... and it was a whitewash. With serious electoral irregularities being minimised and ignored by the international community, the election was a …
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Porn, Rape and Consent
14 Jan 2012
A really interesting twitterspat broke out yesterday over this article on the anti-porn men blog, with several feminists becoming rather enraged at the perceived denial of agency and objectification of women in the sex industry as base materials for the extraction of a commodity as well as the concept of "implicit rape". Sophie …
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Rising to the Unionist Challenge
14 Jan 2012
The last few days have been a remarkable display of kack-handedness, arrogance and sheer stupidity on the part of Unionist politicians. Attempting to seize the initiative on the Scottish Independence Referendum, Cameron set out a range of parameters under which he was prepared to consider allowing the kind of question that …
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Thatcher: A Feminist Retrospective
13 Jan 2012
With the Iron Lady released in cinemas last week, prompting protests by some of her victims, there has been a wave of renewed interest in the evil cunt, including attempts to portray her as some kind of feminist icon. Thatcher was no feminist icon - she had no feminist principles and once …
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Culture and Class
10 Jan 2012
Over on искра/iskra, Kit Withnail has been thinking over the whole "chav" culture and the way in which it is looked down and the snobbery associated with the use of the term. I have problems with the whole "classism"(discrimination on the basis of class) narrative. Class is a relationship to the …
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Limmy: What the fuck happened?
09 Jan 2012
UPDATE - 12th November 2012 A blog reader, who happens to work in a sandwich shop got in touch with me last month, to tell me that Limmy had been in, they had discussed his work, and she mentioned that - although she had heard good things about his television …
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Housing Benefit Changes: Crisis and Effects
04 Jan 2012
New research was published by Shelter this week revealing that approximately 1 million people - 2% of the adult population, have taken out at least one payday loan to help pay their mortgages or rent this year. Approximately 7 million (15%) have taken on debt of one form or another …
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Pornography: Ethics and the Industry – Part 2
02 Jan 2012
As described in Part 1, up until this summer, I had always been critical of porn without ever viewing its contents, watching the "Price of Pleasure" which included scenes from porn films as well as outtakes showing the aftermath of filming. My next foray into the world of porn came …