February 2009 Archives

“The notion that women have to want sex to enjoy it has been a really misguided idea that has caused havoc in relationships over the last 40 years.”

Grey matter all over the living room, courtesy of Hoyden About Town.

Edit: Twisty at I Blame The Patriarchy managed to get further before brain ejection.

Click on this link.

Watch the clip*. (There's no sound so you don't need to worry about that.)

... (letting you watch it a coupla times)

We're on that ball of rock. Makes me feel small and insignificant, in a good way. How about you?


*it's satellite camera footage of a penumbral lunar eclipse.

*not strictly true, but nowhere I looked online.

EDIT: not 2 seconds later, Ken found a torrent of their entire discography. How wonderful is my husband, and how disgusting are the banner ads on torrent sites? Have closed the tab now, and will look at photos of Ken and the kitties while the torrent downloads...

And seeing as the sound quality on that video is a bit ropey, here's another, with better sound.



EDIT 2: just to add; I want Aimee Echo's hair. And shoes (she has a pair of Grand Nationals!!!1!1!!!). And wardrobe. And voice.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I got an email reply from the Chief Executive of my local authority, with regard to the Map of Gaps campaign. What I neglected to mention, because while I did notice, I gave it no further thought, was that the email I got had been Cc'd on to other people, all of a political persuasion. Today, I opened gmail to find a response from Andy Kerr, MSP. Again with the block quotes...

Dear [Depresso]

Many thanks for sending me a copy of the e-mail which you sent directly to Archie Strang at SLC.

I have now received a copy of the response which Archie Strang sent to you in response to your e-mail about the provision of services in Scotland for women who experience rape, domestic violence, forced marriage or other violence.

The points you raised in your original e-mail have been raised by the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament. In a statement at Christmas, Iain Gray draw attention to the fact that the SNP were not doing enough for victims of domestic abuse and reiterated that the Scottish Government must take a lead and tackle domestic abuse. He pointed out that there was a duty on the Government to make this a priority, instead of hiding behind the Local Authority Concordat in which Alex Salmond simply tries to blame local Councils whilst leaving Councils under-resourced in this area.

Scottish Women's Aid has recently highlighted that only 5 Councils have made domestic abuse a priority, while 9 Councils made no reference to domestic abuse at all in their Single Outcome Agreement with the SNP Government. 21 Councils in Scotland have made no commitment at all to addressing domestic abuse.

Given this situation, it is the Labour Party's view that this is an issue which the Scottish Government must take on board. In a report, entitled "The Post Code Lottery of Violence Against Women - Support Services" published by End Violence Against Women in partnership with Equality and Hume Rights Commission in 2007 included "It is apparent that where Government steers provision a more consistent geographical spread is possible. In contract, where decisions are left to localised decision-making the postcode lottery is reinforced".

The present Government's approach on this issue contrasts remarkably from the previous administration. The Equality and Human Rights Commission recognised that the direction of the previous administration was the way forward and they said "that they welcomed the Scottish Government's gendered approach to domestic abuse which recognises that this crime is committed predominantly by men against women and that women's experience of violence is intrinsically different to that experienced by men. It is important that this approach is not diluted as local public bodies take this issue on".

The Labour Party will continue to press the SNP Government to give clear national direction on this issue and to ensure that the services are available across Scotland and not simply in particular local authorities.

I hope the above is helpful.
Yours sincerely
Andy Kerr MSP

Considering that it was the form email that you can send directly from the Map of Gaps site, I'm surprised that I got the initial response, never mind this. All I can say is, they've proved they can talk the talk, now they have to walk the walk. And I really hope they do.

Perhaps I'll make this part one of a series... You never know, I might even remember to follow up!

Today's jolly jape centres around this shirt:

Which comes from this site. [sarcasm]Girlfriend or date just not putting out? Forget the flowers or wine or rohypnol! Kill her instead! [/sarcasm]

Or, more ominously, if you're a woman who sees a guy wearing this shirt; say yes or you're dead!

If you've clicked through on the link to the seller, can I now draw your attention to the 'Contact Us' link? It's on the top right, beside Customer Service and Blog. I'm not looking at the blog; the spiel to sell this delightful garb is sorely lacking in received grammar and punctuation.

And the email that's sitting in the inbox, festering quietly like a box containing still-warm dog shit?

To: customer services
From: Depresso
Subject: Dead Girls Don't Say No

Nor do they say yes, so not only is it necrophilia, it's rape. And maybe, when thousands of women aren't raped and murdered every f**king day by strange men, men who claim to love them, men who think that they can, your shirt might be funny. Until then though? Offensive. So not funny or goth or horror. Maybe horrific.

Also, learn to love the apostrophe. An angel loses its wings everytime it gets missed out.

Ahthangyou.

Not having a television, I haven't been watching Universtiy Challenge, though I did hear the captain of Corpus Christi, Gail Trimble, on Women's Hour yesterday morning. Much is being made, it would seem, of the winning team being led by a woman, and a woman who's clearly intelligent. Apparently, she correctly answered more questions herself than any other person in the history of the show. I wish her gender wasn't such a big thing; if she was male there would not be this circus. Anyways. I got to the Daily Male's article about her, and the comments are overwhelmingly positive (though still with the middle-class, right-wing, misogynistic overtones you get inured to on that site) but there are a few that attempt to be critical of her personally; this particular one takes the prize:

Yep, the woman knows her onions alright, but of wha use is it in reality. I think many people will actually be suspicious of someone of her ilk for reasons of why? has really she got a life? what will she actually do with this knowledge?

Many will think, come back in 10 years time when you have done something really worthy, saved the planet, found a cure for aids or nursed a terminally ill cancer patient. Then, these same petractors may just well be more impressed.

- smileywiley, Yorkshire, 24/2/2009 0:08

Given that Ms. Trimble is studying Latin (the article doesn't go into that at all), I think it's safe to say that very few environmentalists or AIDS researchers would seek her professional input. Ditto cancer care nurses. But, were that to happen, yes, I do agree that those petractors *cough* would be very impressed, as would the rest of us.

I have no stomach, just now, for getting into why she doesn't want to "seem too clever", or indeed why a woman being so intelligent and publicly so is news-worthy. I'm not long out of bed, gmail's not working so I can't see what my MPs form email to the Map of Gaps campaign is like. Yes, I know provision of services is better in Scotland than anywhere else in the UK. Believe me, I know. But the national helpline is only open 6pm to midnight. The helplines run by the centres are open for about 2 - 4 hours each day. For face-to-face support, there can be a long waiting list. The centres and the helpline are dependant on volunteers, and I know from experience that not all employers are sympathetic to voluntary commitments, so it can be very hard to be a volunteer. My point is, service provision could be much better. The centres and the national organisation are doing as much as they possibly can to support survivors; the change has to come from local authorities and government.
And after writing all that, gmail's working now. My email reply has actually surprised me! I do hope that Mr. Strang, the Cheif Executive of the local authority, would have no objection to the content of the email being reproduced here...

The Single Outcome Agreement for the South Lanarkshire Partnership is currently in the process of completion and will include an explicit commitment to tackling Violence Against Women.

We are currently in discussion with the two Women’s Aid groups in the area with a proposal to undertake an independent review of services provided in order to maximise the opportunities to provide as comprehensive a service as possible in the current financial climate.

South Lanarkshire Council, in partnership with Strathclyde Police, have also made a considerable investment in safety advice for women who want to remain in their own homes, including investment in mobile technology and community alarms.

We also fund a service – Doorway – which is responsible for raising awareness and training staff to improve understanding of the impact of domestic abuse and the response to women and children as a consequence of this. Doorway has also undertaken local research in terms of understanding the issues for older women, women from an ethnic minority background and disabled women and training and awareness programmes have been developed focusing on their issues.

As part of our partnership work, we are also reviewing referral pathways (in partnership with GIRFEC (Getting it Right for Every Child) and Child Protection) to ensure referral processes are simplified and that women and children get an appropriate response when seeking service. It should be noted that this aims to improve response to all women and not just those with children. The effectiveness of this will be monitored through our Community Planning arrangements.

I would strongly recommend clicking through to the Map of Gaps and emailing your local authority representative.

Ruth's got the tag gun out again...

USING ONLY ONE WORD! It’s not as easy as you might think! Copy and change the answers to suit you and pass it on. It’s really hard to only use one word answers.

1. Where is your cell phone? pocket
2. Your significant other? abroad
3. Your hair? awesome!
4. Your mother? home
5. Your father? computers
6. Your favourite thing? husband
7. Your dream last night? bad
8. Your favourite drink? coffee
9. Your dream/goal? books
10. What room you are in? living
11. Your hobby? reading
12. Your fear? unnamed
13. Regrets? regrettable
14. Where were you last night? bed
16. Muffins? vegan
17. Wish list item? ticket
18. Where you grew up? Stirling
19. Last thing you did? blogged
20. What are you wearing? slobby
21. Your TV? none
22. Your pets? Patches
23. Friends? scattered
24. Your life? dull!
25. Your mood? unremarkable
26. Missing someone? Ken
27. Car? none
28. Something you’re not wearing? shoes
29. Your favorite store? charity
30. Your favorite color? purple
33. When is the last time you laughed? earlier
34. Last time you cried? forgotten
35. Who will resend this? unknown
36. One place that you go to over and over? loo
37. One person who emails me regularly? Ken
38. My favourite place to eat? Ichiban
39. Why you participated in this survey? tagged
40. What are you doing tonight? gaming

Right, I'm supposed to tag 5 more folks, but that didn't really work the last time. So, do it if you want, and drop a link in comments?

The new Star Trek movie's set for release in May. I was feeling ambivalent about it, and then I saw the trailer...



The first woman in the trailer is taking off her top, presumably because she instantly succumbs to Kirk's massively magnetic masculinity. The second woman appears to be a fleeting shot of Uhura, and the third woman is a screaming blonde. Who no doubt also succumbs to Kirk's massively magnetic masculinity. I have no idea of what the plot of the movie is, though it's safe to say that the Enterprise saves the universe at the end. Given that the trailer shines no light on the plot, I can only assume it's scant at best and only there to give them a reason to have spectacular explosions and dramatic fights with the baddies (the Klingons? Will they have the foreheads? Or the gravy-like fake tans?), as Kirk sleeps his way through every female member of the cast. Not only is it not coming over as a movie for anyone other than het white men, it's also not coming over as a film for Star Trek fans.

I won't be rushing to see it. Not even if everyone cited on the wiki page recommends the script, even Leonard Nimoy. And I think Viacom or Paramount, whoever owns the rights to the franchise now, has taken on board the thing about odd-numbered Trek movies versus even-numbered ones. And made them all shite. I remember Nemisis, all too clearly.

The wiki has no mention of a plot outline, either. What's up with that?

Also; the marketing for this movie seems to be beyond anything I've ever seen for Trek, even way back when it was good (First Contact); fragrance? For reals? Three, named Pon Farr (mate or die! MATE OR DIE!!!! or kill your best friend.), Tiberius (gak. It's right up there with the Burger King fragrance.) and Red Shirt. Again, for reals? Red Shirt? (Wear this and be the first to die?)

I think I'll just find the DVD movie of Battlestar Galactica, instead. And wait for Caprica to show up.

It belatedly occured to me that the 12th was an anniversary in two ways.

It was exactly six months since Ken and I married, and while things haven't gone how we had hoped, we're working on fixing things and will be stronger and happier for it. I can't quite believe that it's only been 6 months.
It was also a year since I saw the Smashing Pumpkins play Glasgow.
If you have to ask which of the two above events is more important to me, perhaps this visual aid will answer for you.*dribbles* my husband is so lovely... And look how gorgeous! I'm so lucky... *sigh*


Though next time I see the Pumpkins, I'm going with Ken.

The best Target Women yet, I do believe.

The fake science of skincare (cosmeseuticals, is it?) used to have me yelling at the telly. Now that the telly's gone; shelves in Boots, ads in magazines, poster ads on bus stops...

If you've been keeping up with my Twitter feed, and/or keen-eyed enough to notice the passing reference in the last post, you'll be aware that my hair has changed colour. Allow me to embark on a photo cavalcade of vanity...

About 8 months ago, my hair looked like this (after getting it cut and blow-dried by a hairdresser):

My hair grows pretty quickly, so after a couple of months, it looked like this (I promise you, it is a bit longer than before; it wasn't straightened in this one!)
And thusly, it stayed like that, getting longer, until November last year when I took a notion to cut it all off. Which I did. Mostly myself, with Ken's help at the back, at 10pm on a Tuesday evening:
As you can see above, the roots were growing in quite badly and I was getting very bored with the colour. Colours. So decided to try Schwarztkopf Live Colour in Mystic Violet. The box implied that my hair would be purply, it came out a very reddish brown. You can't see the red tone, but it's there, I promise you:
About the time I did that 25 things meme, I was thinking about changing the colour again, and mentioned going blue. To do that, I would obviously have to lighten my hair quite a lot, so I had a bash at it with a home bleaching kit. Results were... interesting. See my Hello Kitty cup? It's thermal. No more stone cold coffee! (mad staring eyes because I was so tired):
I decided to get professional help with it before I wrecked my hair, so spent 4 hours at the hairdresser yesterday. End result:
I keep thinking of Andy Warhol when I glance at myself in the mirror, but I'm sure that'll pass. I'm trying to train myself towards Gwen Stefani instead, because she's kick-ass and awesome*:
And just because I love my new hair so damned much, here's another one. The blue dye... I might have a go sometime, but just now I love being blondie so much that I think I might just stick for a while.
*Fun fact: this lip colour (by Rimmel) came from Poundland. It also apparently boosts the volume of ones lips (?) so it feels all minty cold on my lips but hasn't noticably made my lips more Angelina Jolie-esque.

Unless you've been otherwise occupied under a rock on Saturn for the last coupla weeks, you have probably heard that R&B pop sensation Rihanna was 'allegedly' assaulted by her partner, performer Chris Brown. I'd never heard of him before this. Nor do I want to hear of him again, but anyway. In the hairdressers' yesterday afternoon, I had the dubious guilty 'pleasure' of being given a recent copy of Star magazine to read while the chemicals did their thing and set up home in my blood stream. (Yes, I'm now carting about enough hydrogen peroxide in my blood to be dangerous to the pre-born!) There was an article that breathlessly described what 'facts' were known about the assault, accompanied by photos from earlier that same night. If only they hadn't insisted on reporting that she allegedly threw the cars keys out the window, escalating the arguement; they'd have managed to avoid victim-blaming, even tacitly.

I don't want to get into the horrible violation of her privacy that this was reported with her name - if she was 'nobody', we wouldn't know her name because in cases like that victim's names just aren't. Also, if she was 'nobody', chances are we'd never hear about it anyway. A young male star beating up his partner? Meh. Who'd be interested? Who'd care? It wouldn't sell papers, it wouldn't generate traffic to tmz or perez hilton or whatever. And, in effort to avoid a heart-broken conniption, I'm actively not looking for the photos of her injuries that have been leaked.

The thing that concerns me most, now that this is public is this: what if she decides to go back to him? Yes, I know it defies logic and that it's pretty unlikely. But it's a common pattern in abusive relationships. He will possibly inundate her with apologies, promise that it'll never happen again, that things will be different, really, this time won't be like before. And it's so easy to believe it. An abuser doesn't just start hitting their partner one day. They work away on them, a stealthy drip drip drip that erodes their self-confidence, their belief that they are worthy of anything, anyone else. By the time an abuser first raises a hand, the mental and emotional damage is pretty much done. And it doesn't matter if keys were thrown or not; it almost certainly would've still happened. There is no right answer when it comes to an abuser; you are always, always, always wrong. So to blame her for provoking or precipitating the fight isn't worth the energy to think about.

So, what if she does go back to him? Shouldn't she be allowed to make her choices without villification? Because that's surely what would happen; half the people commenting would be saying that she's making a mistake, it'll just keep happening, the other half would be saying that she musta done something to provoke him because she wouldn't accept that from him if she wasn't to blame, and will see it as vindication of Chris Brown in particular, and abusers on the whole.

I do hope that she chooses to stay away, and recovers from this and becomes a stronger person for it. I also hope that she chooses to do that when she is ready to do so; exactly the same as any other person who is in an abusive relationship. It hurts, deeply, when people don't or won't understand that.

Life stinks and the grass is green.

Things wot I have blogged about, made all pretty, like.

wordle

To expand on a tweet I made from my bed this morning...

Nadine Dorries won the Readers' Representative of the Year in the Spectator Magazine's awards recognising Parliamentary achievement. She was nominated for "addressing the issue of term limits for abortion with a ‘tenaciousness and passion that caught the public’s attention in a remarkable way’. [He] applauds her for explaining how the 1967 legislation has resulted, against the intent of the original act, in half a million abortions being carried out each year and for her courage in carrying on in the face of hostility from her opponents." (source)

She was also nominated for, but didn't win, in Channel 4's Political awards 2009. The category in which she was nominated is for "the member of opposition parties which MPs feel has made the most useful contribution in 2008."

These nominations are because of her determination to restrict abortion rights for all women to a maximum of 20 weeks. She is apparently also one of those folks who think that women just turn up at abortion clinics on a whim, a bit like buying a pair of shoes in a sale, or getting a haircut. Or use it instead of contraception. Because, as we all know, women who choose to end a pregnancy just haven't thought about it enough, and need more time to really think about what they're doing. She'll be asking for forced viewings of ultrasounds, next...

Her well-worn arguement of doctors working to save a 22 week foetus while other doctors are working to end a 22 week pregnancy in the same hospital!!!!111!!!!!1!111!!!! is just so wrong-headed. Asking why that's allowed to happen is the wrong question. Why is the termination taking place? Could it be... well, the first answer is 'NONE OF YOUR DAMNED BUSINESS' and that's the only answer that's acceptable.

Yes, efforts have to be made to ensure that a pregnant girl or woman isn't being forced into an abortion that they don't actually want, but no-one gets to decide for anyone other than themselves.

So what the fuck are MPs, the representatives of the people who happen to want fair abortion access, doing encouraging her ridiculous, hateful position?

I feel another conniption coming on...

Judge locked up rape case witness.

Legally speaking, the person who is raped is a witness to the crime. I don't know why the BBC reporter didn't give the headline of 'Judge locked up alleged rape vicitm'. But again, semantics. I'm not going to bother complaining to the Beeb this time.

But what the fuckity fuck was Roger Craik thinking? Why did he not give her a break when she was clearly becoming distressed?

The charge of rape against her has now been withdrawn; probably because she felt that she could not continue. I wouldn't be surprised if she also felt that Mr. Craik would find the defendant not guilty, seeing as he treated her so insensitively.

I'm just loving the quote at the end of the article, from the Crown Office. (emphasis mine)

"The decision to remand the witness in custody overnight was taken by the court.

"Through our Victim Information and Advice service, we have endeavoured to be supportive towards this witness at all times, as we would with all vulnerable witnesses.

"Having received her complaint, we will work alongside the Scottish Court Service to look into the case."

I can't help but feel that treating a witness (the alleged victim of a crime) like a criminal is about the most unsupportive thing that can a justice system can do.

I have to go and have a conniption now, do excuse me.

Ads like the ones Sarah uses here make me feel all crazy, but not in an OMG CHOCOLATE!!!11!1!! way. More an OMG HOW STUPID DO YOU THINK PEOPLE (women) ARE???!?!?!?!?!!!?1? way. I'm going to go gnash my teeth some.

FYI, these ads (the ones over here aren't a whole lot better) put me right off chocolate. I refuse (militantly!) to buy any chocolate that has the calorie count in big numbers on the wrapper because, dammit, eating nice food that I want to is not a sin! Give me my body weight in Green & Black's Cherry and I'll prove it*!


*as my body weight may increase over the time I eat said weight of G&B cherry, this may be an ongoing point to be proven.

Hmmm... Life's been kinda quiet lately. Not much to blog about. Except, that's a bare-faced lie; I was at Rape Crisis during the week. And did I mention that I saw the CPN (community psychiatric nurse) last Friday? They were both the first meetings, so there's not a lot to say so far; it was mostly me explaining the problems I've got, what I want to change and the other person saying 'OK, we'll get to work and see what we can do'. I feel like I've spent quite a bit of time being 15 again, in my head, but I'm hoping that that will pass.

I've watched about ¾ of the 3rd season of Battlestar Galactica and I have to admit that my vision got a little on the blurry side when Starbuck appeared to die (except I know she'll be back because no-one ever really dies in good science fiction. And I've seen some season 4 spoilers.)

Earlier, Mum took me to Infinite Ink and I'm booked in on March 1st to get my third tattoo. It's my birthday present from her. I think that means that I officially have a cool mum... She revealed that if she was going to get one herself, it would be a bee on her big toe. It appears that she's also pretty fearless when it comes to pain!

I made soup, for the first time EVAR (yes, I know) earlier. Following a suggested recipie card from Sainsbury's, I boiled up a sweet potato and a parsnip in some vegetable stock, added a little bit of ginger (but more than I think I was meant to) and then some sweetcorn, squizzed it all with the hand blender 'til it was unlumpy and then ate it. And it was good! I won't die of scurvy yet, or beri-beri.

I just came across this post at Women's Glib via Feministe, as I was getting signatures for my guild in WoW last night, someone called me a 'fella'. Even considering that both my and Ken's avatars are female. Best I can guess is that either the other player assumed that the people on the other side of the computer screens were male (which I would imagine most WoW players are, but not all by any means) or that they just didn't even think about the meaning implicit in their use of the word. [Off topic; I had to really stop myself from informing someone earlier on trade chat that hoding a PhD is merely a title, not an entitlement to a woman, blonde or otherwise. I have to share it here, because if I don't get it out somewhere, my head my implode.] The other thing that was memorable about making the guild last night was that not one person commented on the guild name; Vegan Cupcakes. The tabard has a cupcake (or muffin, I suppose) on it too. I was also surprised to see that there are so many characters named Vegan on the EU servers.

Also, this post at Kittywampus is food for thought, especially as I've long wanted a daughter, should I have a baby.

Clara Rockmore

There's a couple of glaring factual inaccuracies in the narrative, but I think the Mariachi-style brass more than makes up for that.

I've been tagged to post 25 random things about myself, by Ruth.

1. I can roll my tongue. I haz the gene.

2. My brother may have recently bought me a ticket to see Eddie Izzard at the SECC in November. Well, he bought two and told me about it, but didn't actually say it was for me, but I'm hopeful!

3. I pick at my nails often, especially when I'm bored or anxious.

4. When I was about 16 or 17, I started wearing all kinds of different coloured nail varnish, before everyone else. They were mostly by Stargazer and in 6th year, I had about 70 or so different colours. Yellow included, but I only wore it once, as looking like a 60-a-day smoker wasn't that great.

5. Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica has finished downloading and I'm fighting the temptation to watch it all in one go. OK, so I've already watched the first 3 (4?) back to back...

6. Sometimes, I have been known to buy a newspaper for the crossword.

7. I hope to be making and selling journals/diaries by the end of this year.

8. My favourite kind of glitter is the silver holographic type.

9. My tongue used to be pierced.

10. One day, I will own a copy of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness on limited edition triple-gatefold vinyl.

11. When I was little, my various ambitions included astronaut and librarian.

12. I'm considering dying my hair blue.

13. As a wedding gift, Ken built me a theremin.

14. To go with that gift, he got a copy of a Clara Rockmore DVD; it sent both of us to sleep within about 25 minutes.

15. I've loved the theremin ever since I heard it on Classical Gas, an occasional series on Classic FM back in its early days. It also featured pieces of classical music played on toy instruments; I wish I could get copies of them now.

16. When I was abut 8 or 9, I got a pair of red pixie boots. I adored them so much, I wore them every minute I could. They dyed my socks and my feet red.

17. The first night I had a brace, all I could eat was custard and bread.

18. I haven't shaved my legs in weeks, and I often don't bother to pluck my eyebrows, but the little spiky hairs on my chin are got as soon as I feel them.

19. I've already picked the name for my little girl. Ken likes it too!

20. We're screwed if we have a boy. Name-wise, I mean. But we both want a girl.

21. I'm considering getting another tattoo, in a couple of weeks. If money was no object, I would probably be more or less head to foot ink!

22. I'm thirsty.

23. I hope to be living in New York in the not-too-distant.

24. My favourite essential oils are neroli and vetivert.

25. This past while, I've been having trouble sleeping before about 3am.

Flicking through my reader earlier, I happened upon this at Sociological Images. If it's not immediately clear, it's an ad for an ISP called Bell. Notice that the image in the ad is from what is supposed to be an anatomical textbook; nothing pornographic about that. Notice the body parts cut out of the image; breasts, the external genitalia, the ovary and what appears to be the stomach.

The stomach...?