Backward and in high heels

My friend Mary Ellen Foley – who blogs at M E Foley’s Anglo-American Experience Blog – shared a story with me.

So I went to a Tai Chi class today, taught by an Englishwoman who has studied Tai Chi for years, including various stints in China (one as long as 6 months), and she told some stories, including the one about how she went over there to study with a particular master and found that he didn’t like her, didn’t like women, probably didn’t like foreigners — he clearly could teach her a lot of stuff, but she wasn’t welcome and he made sure she knew it.  But she was determined to win him over, so one day she came early, picked up a bamboo broom (bundle of bamboo sticks tied together with the leaves left on at one end of the stalks), and started to sweep the leaves from the courtyard where they were going to be practicing.  The master came up, clearly unhappy with this, said something in Chinese that she didn’t understand, and took away the broom.  Hmmm.  Then here he came with a different broom, with a very short handle, and indicated that she should sweep the courtyard with that, which was a lot harder, because you had to bend over so far to do the work, but she did it.

When the translator showed up, he told her that the problem was that the long-handled broom was only for men; the short-handled one was a woman’s broom.

Wo.

I agree with this sentiment

Oh hai, I found that photoshop of me – the one that Michael Nugent reported on last week in his post Slymepit members struggle with the ethics of removing photoshopped naked image. I wasn’t looking for it, I was looking for something else, but the location of the something else was the location of the photoshop. I had vaguely thought it was gone, but no, it’s just that it’s not embedded there any more. That was clear from Michael’s post, but I had read it somewhat hastily.

Members of the Slymepit website have spent the last few hours struggling with the ethics of whether to remove a photograph, newly posted, of an identifiable person’s face photoshopped onto the body of a naked woman.

The Site Administrator’s decision: “I have deleted the tags which embed the image, but left the link. Note: this is a picture of a naked old lady’s body onto which the head of [named person] was photoshopped. Feel free to visit the link and see for yourself, but there is nothing useful to be gained by doing so.”

Oh, sure there is. There’s the pleasure of feeling contempt and loathing for a woman you hate. Totally useful!

What I was looking for was the origin of a cryptically quoted phrase in a tweet.

blackford2Now that’s what I call feminism. Also guts. Find somebody calling me despicable, then quote it without attribution on Twitter. Free speech at its finest. Philosophy on the front lines.

So I was curious, so I googled the phrase, and it went to a page at the slime pit where they were discussing the photoshop, so I found the photoshop.

Trigger warning, if the body of an old women is the most disgusting thing you can think of. The photoshop.

I apologize to whoever the woman is in that picture. I don’t actually find her body disgusting, believe it or not. What I find disgusting is this kind of shaming.

[Note: don’t run to the tip jar. You’ve been doing that lately as it is, so treat this one as off the record, or something.]

 

LGBT rights are not un-African

Peter Tatchell says no, the new Commonwealth Charter is not a big victory for LGBT rights.

Not surprisingly, the Commonwealth Charter does not include any specific rejection of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. This was vetoed by the homophobic majority of member states. They blocked its inclusion.

This makes the Queen’s charter signing even less of a big deal. It is certainly not the breakthrough for LGBT rights that some people are claiming.

Yemisi Ilesanmi says the same thing on her Facebook page Freedom to Love for ALL: Homosexuality is not un-African. [Read more…]

Imagine it was Mitt Romney

Via Dana who found it via Kylie, a Facebook note by Harriet Page. I know, not everyone is on Facebook. But that’s where it is!

She introduced it with

This week I wrote a response to the several occasions on which I had been challenged on my feminism by men and women who felt that I was misguided, wrong, aggressive or unhelpful in my responses to what I viewed as sexist behaviour.

Been there. Many times. I can remember heavy sighs back in the early 70s when I pointed out some (to me obvious, indeed blatant) bit of everyday sexism. And of course have been there again just lately, with people who consider themselves feminists nevertheless going into Full Outrage mode because I had the gall to criticize something sexist that Michael Shermer said.

(Really. Imagine it wasn’t Michael Shermer who said it. Imagine it was Mitt Romney. Imagine Mitt Romney was on a talk show and the conversation turned to the scarcity of women in politics. Imagine Mitt Romney said: “It’s who wants to stand up and talk about it, go on shows about it, go to conferences and speak about it, who’s intellectually active about it; you know, it’s more of a guy thing.” Imagine I did a blog post saying that was a sexist stereotype, and a particularly damaging one at that. Would there have been the same kind of outrage from the same people? [Read more…]

Hard times for the bully business

Sometimes bullying people just doesn’t work out, even if you do it on the internet, and even if all you’re doing is posting pictures of naked girls without their permission.

The founder of a so-called “revenge porn” website has been ordered to pay $250,000 (£170,000) in damages for defamation.

Hunter Moore was found to have made false claims about the chief executive of an anti-bullying website.

Mr Moore used Twitter to falsely claim James McGibney was a paedophile who possessed child pornography.

Mr Moore’s website used to post naked images of people without their permission. He closed it in 2012.

But three days later he was at it again. [Read more…]

Hamza Tzortzis three years ago

A Twitter friend pointed out this post about Hamza Tzortzis from October 2010.

The Q&A session started with the announcement that whilst the Brothers in the audience were allowed to address the speaker directly, the Sisters had to write their question on a slip of paper which was then passed down to the front and vetted before being answered. Unbelievable. Perhaps what is more unbelievable is that the practice is being defended, and not labelled the outright misogynistic behaviour that it is. This was posted on the Islamic Society group page on Facebook. [Read more…]

A round-up of commentary on the UCL fiasco

Naturally Maryam is all over the UCL dustup.

Sex segregation not miscommunication

Sexual segregation at a UCL event is a scandal

Institutional incompetence or moral cowardice?

That one is a statement by the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain.

The Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain was horrified to learn of sex segregation at an Islamist-organised event in University College London last weekend.

Whilst the behaviour of the organisers is wholly predictable (it has since come to light that UCL were repeatedly informed of their intention to segregate the audience beforehand), the university’s failure to uphold such a fundamental principle of equality as non-segregation is staggering. [Read more…]

This was not the first time

Student Rights tells us about several university events in London that have been promoted as “fully segregated.”

This even includes events featuring Tzortzis at UCL, with the audience at an event attended by our researcher Rupert Sutton at the School of Pharmacy in October 2012 seating women at the back of the hall and men at the front.

During 2012 Student Rights also logged several events which were advertised in this way, with a speech given by Dr Khalid Fikry at London Metropolitan University in June pronounced “FULLY SEGREGATED!!!”

In January the same was true at London South Bank University, where an event encouraging non-Muslims to attend was advertised as “100 Per Cent Segregated”. [Read more…]

A large container of assorted girls

Well there’s one good thing about gender segregation, as Maureen pointed out in linking us to this news item about three men arrested on suspicion of sexual assault and false imprisonment at an Islamic girls’ school in Lancaster – it’s a handy way to collect all the girls in one place for ease of access.

Officers are investigating a single alleged incident last Tuesday involving a small number of girls at Jamea Al Kauthar in Lancaster.

A 40-year-old from Bolton and two men from Blackburn, aged 30 and 53, are in police custody.

So was it halal?