feminist blogs

I was gutted to get an email “from” Jo Brand this morning (for some reason I get New Labour emails) telling me how terrible David Cameron is, you know, just in case I was thinking he’s so similar to Blair I might just vote for him for a change of scenery. Jo Brand! Why?!

I’ve also just realised I now have two posts about the Tories in a row. Maybe I am in need of Jo after all…

According to the Times, because David Cameron’s Etonian background didn’t go against him.

Yet Cameron won the Conservative leadership in spite of, and not because of, his privileged education. His new job is a sign, not that Old Etonianism matters, but that it does not. Most grassroots Conservatives, it seems, simply did not set much stock by where he went to school. That is surely proof that the old class divisions are slowly becoming irrelevant.

Only in a genuinely classless modern society could you do this to a young man and not inflict lasting damage to his electoral prospects.

Perhaps instead of “classless” he means “without class consciousness”. But then again, aren’t we talking about the Tory party anyway?

nail hit head; it is ridiculous to suggest that people get married solely because it’s financially rewarded, and if this reward isn’t exclusively for married couples, the institution will crumble into the dust. And even if that was true, who cares? What really is the qualitative difference between a couple cohabiting and committed to each other, and a couple in the same position with a different legal status, a piece of paper, and the memory of a party? Answers on a postcard please.

I’ve been ambivalent about marriage, having something of the traditional fairytale princess story still lingering in the back of my brain from when I was little, I suspect. As a baby feminist I was utterly against it for me, but not militantly advocating its downfall. Then I went through a stage of thinking it’d be kinda nice-in-the-icky-way to marry Matt, what with the wedding/dress potential/romantic ideal of it all. Now, away from the fluffiness of New Relationships I’m thinking (no less committed to Matt by the way) that it’s all a bit of a scam, an something I can do without, and society can do without. As evidenced by this icky quoting of Ferdinand Mount in yesterday’s Times;

“All the research shows that being married, with all its ups and downs, is by far the most effective way of making young men law-abiding and giving them a sense of purpose and self-worth.”

Nothing like an admission of the supposed responsibility of young women to control young men to put you off marriage eh?! Funny how the mental and physical effects on women of unhappy marriages are never weighed up when assessing the costs and benefits of marriage for society.

As for gay marriage, I think it’s pretty much won regardless of the language. How many people will say they are “civilly partnered” and refer to “partners” as opposed to talking of being “married” and “husbands” or “wives”? It might take time, but the battle over semantics and status will be creepingly won, I think, on the basis of a rejection of the cold language in favour of the traditional language. I’d be interested to see research into the differences between the relationships of lesbian and gay couples who are married and those who aren’t, to see if this magical “marriage effect” that supposedly improves straight men’s lives translates out of the heterosexual sphere.

Excellent article by Nick Cohen on the CND’s betrayal of anti-fascist principles in inviting Dr Seyed Mohammad Hossein Adeli, the then Iranian ambassador, to its conference, and throwing out Iranian protestors. Well worth reading.

One point, however, that caught my eye. Women’s Rights Activists not feminists, Nick?

Religion isn’t treated like politics. It’s acceptable, normal even, to attack someone for political beliefs they hold, within the sphere normally given that label; conservative, liberal, socialist, whatever. But criticising religious beliefs is seen at best as rude, at worst as racist (see Islamophobia Watch) or bigoted. The privileging of religious belief as untouchable, giving the holder the right not to be offended, is visible everywhere; criticism of Workers’ Liberty for attacking Islam, RESPECT attacks on Peter Tatchell for daring to call out Mohammed Naseem’s homophobia, and now this.

What next, Life of Brian DVDs pulled from sale? Can I make a case that Narnia’s message offends me as an atheist and see if DVDs of the TV series get pulled? Not fucking likely…

go vote for OWFI here so they can win 20,000 euros please please please.

Ta.

“Most of my Latino and black people who are struggling to get food, clothes and shelter in the hood are so concerned with that, that philosophising about freedom and socialist democracy is usually, unfortunately beyond their rationale. They don’t realize that America can’t exist without separating them from their identity, because if we had some sense of who we really are, there’s no way in hell we’d allow this country to push its genocidal consensus on our homelands. This ignorance exists, but it can be destroyed.

Nigga talk about change and working within the system to achieve that. The problem with always being a conformist is that when you try to change the system from within, it’s not you who changes the system; it’s the system that will eventually change you. There is usually nothing wrong with compromise in a situation, but compromising yourself in a situation is another story completely, and I have seen this happen long enough in the few years that I’ve been alive to know that it’s a serious problem. Latino America is a huge colony of countries whose presidents are cowards in the face of economic imperialism. You see, third world countries are rich places, abundant in resources, and many of these countries have the capacity to feed their starving people and the children we always see digging for food in trash on commercials. But plutocracies, in other words a government run by the rich such as this one and traditionally oppressive European states, force the third world into buying overpriced, unnecessary goods while exporting huge portions of their natural resources.

I’m quite sure that people will look upon my attitude and sentiments and look for hypocrisy and hatred in my words. My revolution is born out of love for my people, not hatred for others.

You see, most of Latinos are here because of the great inflation that was caused by American companies in Latin America. Aside from that, many are seeking a life away from the puppet democracies that were funded by the United States; places like El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru, Columbia, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Republica Dominicana, and not just Spanish-speaking countries either, but Haiti and Jamaica as well.

As different as we have been taught to look at each other by colonial society, we are in the same struggle and until we realize that, we’ll be fighting for scraps from the table of a system that has kept us subservient instead of being self-determined. And that’s why we have no control over when the embargo will stop in Cuba, or when the bombs will stop dropping in Vieques.

But you see, here in America the attitude that is fed to us is that outside of America there live lesser people. “Fuck them, let them fend for themselves.” No, Fuck you, they are you. No matter how much you want to dye your hair blonde and put fake eyes in, or follow an anorexic standard of beauty, or no matter how many diamonds you buy from people who exploit your own brutally to get them, no matter what kind of car you drive or what kind of fancy clothes you put on, you will never be them. They’re always gonna look at you as nothing but a little monkey. I’d rather be proud of what I am, rather than desperately trying to be something I’m really not, just to fit in. And whether we want to accept it or not, that’s what this culture or lack of culture is feeding us.

I want a better life for my family and for my children, but it doesn’t have to be at the expense of millions of lives in my homeland. We’re given the idea that if we didn’t have these people to exploit then America wouldn’t be rich enough to let us have these little petty material things in our lives and basic standards of living. No, that’s wrong. It’s the business giants and the government officials who make all the real money. We have whatever they kick down to us. My enemy is not the average white man, it’s not the kid down the block or the kids I see on the street; my enemy is the white man I don’t see: the people in the white house, the corporate monopoly owners, fake liberal politicians those are my enemies. The generals of the armies that are mostly conservatives those are the real Mother-Fuckers that I need to bring it to, not the poor, broke country-ass soldier that’s too stupid to know shit about the way things are set up.

In fact, I have more in common with most working and middle-class white people than I do with most rich black and Latino people. As much as racism bleeds America, we need to understand that classism is the real issue. Many of us are in the same boat and it’s sinking, while these bougie Mother-Fuckers ride on a luxury liner, and as long as we keep fighting over kicking people out of the little boat we’re all in, we’re gonna miss an opportunity to gain a better standard of living as a whole.

In other words, I don’t want to escape the plantation; I want to come back, free all my people, hang the Mother-Fucker that kept me there and burn the house to the god damn ground. I want to take over the encomienda and give it back to the people who work the land.

You cannot change the past but you can make the future, and anyone who tells you different is a Fucking lethargic devil. I don’t look at a few token Latinos and black people in the public eye as some type of achievement for my people as a whole. Most of those successful individuals are sell-outs and house Negros.

But, I don’t consider brothers a sell-out if they move out of the ghetto. Poverty has nothing to do with our people. It’s not in our culture to be poor. That’s only been the last 500 years of our history; look at the last 2000 years of our existence and what we brought to the world in terms of science, mathematics, agriculture and forms of government. You know the idea of a confederation of provinces where one federal government controls the states? The Europeans who came to this country stole that idea from the Iroquois. The idea of impeaching a ruler comes from an Aztec tradition. That’s why Montezuma was stoned to death by his own people ‘cause he represented the agenda of white Spaniards once he was captured, not the Aztec people who would become Mexicans.

So in conclusion, I’m not gonna vote for anybody just ‘cause they black or Latino they have to truly represent the community and represent what’s good for all of us proletariat.

Viva la revolution!”

Immortal Technique - Poverty of Philosophy

What a load of contradictory right-wing bollocks.

What’s the point in voting down a motion that, whilst not asking CUSU to do anything beyond asking NUS to do something, is a statement of principle against attacks on the welfare state, and then moaning about how NHS funding is being pulled from a sports injury clinic students use?

Thankfully RESPECT didn’t get no-platformed (on the basis that the “test” for no-platform that formed part of the motion was an unfair representation of CUSU’s no-platform policy, not that the allegations were untrue, because, despite heroic defence from Cambridge RESPECT, most undoubtedly are), but motions defending the welfare state and against ultra vires laws (which curtail our rights to decide democratic what to do as a union!) were voted down, whilst our motion against the academic boycott of Israel was “not put” on the basis that it has nothing to do with students. I suppose it doesn’t, if said students are as blind as most Cambridge ones seem to be.

The problem with CUSU is the ever-raging debate about “students as students” versus holding political opinion and acting on it. There’s no reason why a strong, active union shouldn’t do both, working on welfare issues and representing student’s political views on the wider world are not mutually exclusive.

I was going to write a full report, but I’m just too disillusioned. Tonight we learnt that not all women are oppressed (why do we have a women’s union then?), that it’s offensive to suggest the Economist is rabidly pro-free market, that this motion is basically Islamophobic (how many different ways can we suggest it attacks Muslims with saying the I word?), attacking the “Muslim way of life” and imposing Western ideals on Iraq. Apparently there are those who agree with it, who disagree with the “rabid” wording; anyone know how you can condemn Islamism without actually appearing to condemn it? Perhaps if more people knew what Islamism is and why opposing it doesn’t mean hating Muslims, we might get somewhere. It was generally agreed the motion was offensive and inaccurate.

More tomorrow night after the CUSU marathon. I’m off to bed.

ooh, 3 hours to go and I’ve already been accused of petty student political fighting for submitting a motion critical of RESPECT’s policy (or non-policy) on a women’s right to choose. Not to mention how my motion on supporting OWFI against Islamists in Iraq has been forwarded for approval to the Islamic society. I have a feeling tonight is going to be very interesting…