Posts by Jolisa
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Nice link, Ian - thanks! I'm with Greer on Disquiet. Hard to overlook the crimes committed against grammar in pursuit of a pretty slender plot. Although I think the pizzle image was a singularly clever one, and would give the writer that much, at least.
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My reading of the point of the legislation was that it was targetted more specifically at a certain kind of people trafficking that was supplying overseas dancers to the strip joints than as a general feminist policy opposed to the nature of stripping
Yes, not an argument about the rights and wrongs of stripping, more about the economics and mechanics of supplying that industry with workers. But certainly hammered out (and explicitly) within a rhetorical context of human rights and women's rights, and in full awareness of how economics affect employment options for women in particular:
"In times of economic downturn, it is even more important to tackle this issue. When there are economic hardships there is an even greater danger of criminal activity, like human trafficking and sexual abuse," said [the Minister of Social Affairs].
And, from elsewhere:
Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, the politician who first proposed the ban, firmly told the national press on Wednesday: "It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold."
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I want to second Giovanni's recommendation of One Dimensional Woman too (and not just because he kindly supplied me with my copy -- grazie, comrade). Read it, if for nothing else, for the exhortative chapter title Socialism Must Not Exclude Human Sensual Pleasure from its Program! which I immediately wanted to screen-print as a propaganda poster, except I couldn't settle on the perfect image to go with it.
Also, it's a very quick and provocative introduction to a number of questions and distractions floating around at the moment, all coalescing around the "problem" of feminism.
It also includes an excellent excerpt from an interview with Toni Morrison on the subject of teen pregnancies and "unwed mothers," that belongs over on Emma's thread.
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pantaloons?
Knickerbockers. Or perhaps bloomers?
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And that wasn't Julie Bindel doing handsprings over Iceland's strip club ban, it was me. I'm agnostic on the subject of sex work as feminist praxis, but deeply intrigued to see a country try to make national policy around a point of feminist principle (yes, yes, for one definition of "feminist," and not one universally understood as such - but bear with me for a moment).
It's a thought experiment in the flesh, as it were. What I'm wondering is: who will miss the clubs, and will they miss them badly enough to do something about it? If so, what? In other words, if you were starting from a neutral position, would you always and everywhere evolve a culture in which the primary vector of casual cash-based sexual commerce was the ritualised display of female body parts? Or might you wind up with something different?
Iceland is not a blank slate, by any means, but it's at least experimenting with the possibility of being one, and I kind of like that. As far as I can see, no-one's getting hurt so far. I think we should watch this space and not be all pre-judgey about what it means and where it could go.
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I think Lady Gaga's doing a bit more than getting her tits out. She's much more interesting than that.
Ooh, spill! In particular, what is she doing that is more interesting than what Madonna was doing (omg) 20 years ago?
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Brilliant!
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Probably NSFW portrait of Greer at 60. Hot damn! I hope I look this befuddled, unruly, and demented* when I'm posing nude for the National Portrait Gallery at that age.
Er, not that it's all about appearances or anything, of course, and yes, I know, "show me the distinguished bloke writer whose NPG portrait has him wearing nothing but a cheeky smirk" etc etc.
But still, the sizzle!
*ETA: Nowra's words, not mine, and not about this particular image, just for the record.
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That is some top-notch high-grade 24-carat invective there. And righteous too.
Reckon! Vicks Vaporub-quality fury. There's a fair amount of rhetorical throat-clearing before she gets to Nowra, but that only makes for a more satisfying yield of hawkable loogies when she finally deals to him. (Mixing my oto-laryngological metaphors a bit there but it works).
I still would love to read the original piece in its entirety, since my suspicion is that the dodgy stuff is all up front and some of the rest may in fact be favourable. (His partner sprang readily, and quite wittily, to his defence.)
But oh, the irony of him tossing ageist and appearance-related slurs her way, by way of a warm-up for his reappraisal. I'd forgotten Greer's classic line about how "women have very little idea how much men hate them" -- until then. (Generally I'd forgotten the sensation, too; lulled into a false sense of security by the men in my life who demonstrably do not hate women).
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On the Louis Nowra dis of Germaine Greer, I rather enjoyed Helen Razer's hilarious/ furious response. Contains jolly excellent swears and a few leg-crossingly disturbing mental images, not least the one about Clive James.
Shame the original article isn't available online; it would be interesting to see if the rest of it was anything like that opening salvo, or if it was creatively edited to bring more publicity to the (aptly named, in this instance) Monthly.