Posts tagged feminism
Britain is in trouble,” he tells me. “Britain is in deep trouble. The privatising is out of the control, the militarising is out of control and the financialising is out of control. And what I mean from that is you have a cold-hearted, mean-spirited budget that the Queen just read; you have working and poor people under panic, you have this obsession with immigration that tends to scapegoat the most vulnerable rather than confront the most powerful. And it is not just black immigrants, but also our brothers and sisters from Poland and Bulgaria, Romania; right across the board.” He isn’t ranting. He doesn’t rant. He smiles, he growls gently, he leans in and whispers conspiratorily. There is an upside, he says. “Britain has a rich history of bouncing back too.”
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“I think race matters deeply but it is in many ways denied,” he says. “The form of institutional racism and informal racism is very much there. White supremacy is very much alive in Britain. If you scratch below the surface you can still see how race matters. It is not as raw and coarse as it is in the US. You have 10,000 professors in Britain and 50 professors of colour. Ten women. This is pathetic; this is ridiculous. The ‘meritocratic’ brothers and sisters say: ‘It’s just a matter of merit and if they were doing the work you would have a higher percentage.’ And you say: ‘Please, get off the crack pipe.’ There are brilliant black and brown people who could gain access to these professorships. Something is happening.”
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What of America? “We elected a black president and that means we are less racist now than we used to be. That’s beautiful. But when you look at the prison industrial complex and the new Jim Crow: levels of massive unemployment and the decrepit unemployment system, indecent housing: white supremacy is still operating in the US, even with a brilliant black face in a high place called the White House. He is a brilliant, charismatic black brother. He’s just too tied to Wall Street. And at this point he is a war criminal. You can’t meet every Tuesday with a killer list and continually have drones drop bombs. You can do that once or twice and say: ‘I shouldn’t have done that, I’ve got to stop.’ But when you do it month in, month out, year in, year out – that’s a pattern of behaviour. I think there is a chance of a snowball in hell that he will ever be tried, but I think he should be tried and I said the same about George Bush. These are war crimes. We suffer in this age from an indifference toward criminality and a callousness to catastrophe when it comes to poor and working people.
Brother West laying it down via the Guardian, as always, in the truest manner to humanity. The man is neither academic nor celebrity but a crusader for justice (LISTEN: Brother Ali - Letter to My Countrymen Featuring Dr. Cornel West).
“I wanna be like that too.”
good:
Video: What if Gender Roles in Advertising Were Reversed?
- Pete(r) Karinen wrote in Business, Media and AdvertisingAdvertising would feel slightly more ridiculous if men were sexualized the way women are… but only slightly.
This video is an excellent start. But cognition needs to lean towards action. Not only should we ‘think critically’ as the video suggests, but we should reject products and companies that support the subjugation of either gender. If you think, there’s no way the prevalence of ‘rape culture’ and advertising are linked, you’re doing it wrong.
Filmed by the first women’s filmmaking collective in rural Zambia, Hidden Truth is an intimate portrayal of the effects of domestic violence on women and children in Samfya, a remote region of Northern Zambia.
Please share.
This is why women and children MUST be the focus of all development efforts. This is why we must support the UN MDGs.
Is this a fair wind for employers who have a responsibility only to short-term profit? It seems so; under the hellfire rhetoric of triple-dip recession, workers’ rights recede into myth as we race, ever faster, to the bottom. When profits rise, will rights be reinstated? Even now David Cameron is in Europe, seeking to pull us out of its progressive employment legislation.
PETA is part of the problem.
Their new strip tease awareness quiz is one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen. Yeah, … she actually strips.
PETA: you’re doing social justice wrong, particularly by continuing to sexualise girls in education.
H/T: K Starnes
19 plays
A must read for anyone involved in ANY struggle for equality or justice.
This is how we create awareness. This is how we stop being brushed off for being ‘too sensitive’ (etc.) by the patriarch.
If the link doesn’t work, listen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21520385 (tumblrbots are not being conducive to posting!)
H/T K Starnes
Follow our live coverage of the day and share your pictures and video with us - click on the picture for more (via One Billion Rising – live coverage | Society | guardian.co.uk)
Amazing photos and coverage - a must see.
‘Women are no longer Afraid of cows’
On this day in 1918, British women (over 30) gained the right to vote in the Representation of the People Act.
To commemorate the progress of women’s liberation, watch this amazing ‘old timey’ 12-minute documentary, 1890-1930: Emancipation of Women.
A must for all feminist-types.
Great read. My partner and I’s story has yet to be played out, as he’s currently in the 3rd year of sacrificing his career as a satellite engineer so that I can obtain my doctorate (with another year to go). Here’s one thing that’s absolutely true about work and marriage: when you’re married, you make trade offs, and mostly this means one sacrifices while another gains. No matter how you determine who sacrifices and who gains, you always hope you’ve made the right decision based on complete gender equality - an equality that does not reflect the reality of the professional world, especially in the case of academia.
internationalwomensinitiative:
My youngest brother was born with health complications that made it necessary to have one parent caring for him full-time. My mother assumed this role, and never returned back to work full-time once her maternity leave was finished, in order to care for my brother. This decision made sense…
I often make reference to this article from the Guardian about why women leave academia and why Universities should be worried when I post about my PhD blight - yes, I mean blight, not plight, as it’s become more of an infection I’m always fighting off than a difficult situation. The article is fantastic either way; if you are an academic (male or female) or academic-in-wanting, it’s a must read. The statistics show by year 3 (British PhDs are 3-4 years typically) the number of women who want to go into academia drop from 72% to 37%, and the article details why excellently.
Yesterday, a big name political economist came to Manchester and met with me to talk to me about my thesis. I don’t envy big name academics; there’s so much pressure when your title begins with ‘Distinguished’ instead of just ‘Professor’. I get that there are issues with travel, exhaustion, many new names, new faces, and new places to adjust … but if you’re going to meet with a PhD to discuss research, the least you can do is treat her better than a ‘fan girl’.
It didn’t go well, tumblr. Hopes were dashed; interest was feigned, and expectations were dwindled. The worst thing about meeting this big name political economist was that for the days leading up to, I actually started to reconsider going into academia instead of the international civil service, mostly out of the sheer respect I have for this person’s distinguished career.
But all these mind games, these egos, these inward reflections of well-you’ll-never-be-as-good-as-I or I-don’t-think-you-interpretted-my-framework-properly, what person (male or female) willingly subjects themselves to that?! To hierarchical subjugation based on status, to such belittling, just disregard for commentary.
At least with international civil service, if you’re wrong, you’re told you’re wrong; if you’re being an ass, you’re told to shape up; if you’re blowing hot air for 20 minutes, you’re openly and publicly mocked. I know it’s not all green pastures in the civil service but the sort of open-faced, self-acknowledging pomp is not tolerated - the charter says we are equal, and, we are.
Point is: with academia, you never know where you stand, and that’s part of what (theoretically) drives you to keep publishing, keep improving, keep striving. But it’s also what makes academia incredibly unrewarding, isolationist, and self deprecating. With civil service, you check in and check out, knowing whether you’re paid to be an ass or you’re paid to be an arbitrator - you know where you stand.
As us women types gain confidence in role in the professional world, we’re realising we don’t have to take the shit that’s dealt out at the highest levels of academia, BUT academia does need to worry about retaining us to meet their demographics and quotas. So what’s it gonna be, yeah?
Black Girls Code will change the world.
Our film is a semi-finalist in the Focus Forward Film competition!
Please go here, to watch and vote!
You can vote by watching the film. In the right hand corner, a “vote” button will appear. Simply click on this to cast your vote!
By taking young girls of color and introducing them into the fields of science and technology, Black Girls Code bridges the digital divide!
They introduce ALL women of color. Native American, Latino and Asian American.
Help us change the world! Let the world know about Black Girls Code. If we win an audience vote, we have the chance of having this short, 3-minute film distributed world-wide to all major film festivals as well be being represented on the Focus Forward platform.
You can find out more about Black Girls Code by visiting BlackGirlsCode.Com
PLEASE SIGNAL BOOST AND VOTE!
The ‘best song with my name in it’ has been replaced (previously Flogging Molly).
This post is a simple, happy aside from the fact that my teaching prep for this week REQUIRES I tumbl.
Tumbls. SWEET TUMBLS.
Have you any favourite tumblr images of constructivism, postcolonialism, feminsim, or poststructuralism?
Mr. Very Important was going on smugly about this book I should have known when Sallie interrupted him to say, “That’s her book.” Or tried to interrupt him anyway.
Rebecca Solnit, “Men Explain Things to Me.” (via utnereader)
Continuing with today’s theme (like there’s a daily theme, ha!) is this gem, which is WAY better than the previous article snippet I posted. Presented without commentary; this woman has a sheer beauty with words.
Every woman knows what I’m talking about. It’s the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men’s unsupported overconfidence.
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inspired by the work of SAUL BASS, ART GOODMAN and DAVE NAGATA.
hitchcock typeface by MATT TERICH. tumblr theme by MATTHEW BUCHANAN.
