i was reading a post about the exclusion of working class feminists over at zooeys blog, and it reminded me to write about podcasting.

do many of you use this? someone explained it to me very recently so im very new to it. it’s a bit like myspace + blogs + mainstream content plus.

basically, to listen to podcasts, (which are usually audio files like mp3s, from what i understand, although they are sometimes video), you have to download and install podcatcher software (theres a few available free, i dl’d iTunes). then theres all sorts of podcasts to download, for example, current events, and satire, and comedy, and music. you can have a look and see the amount of stuff available here, and here.

there are people who make regular programs, and if you like them you can set up your podcatcher to subscribe. you can also download or stream an individual program without subscribing. if you do subscribe, then every time you turn your podcatcher on, it will automatically download all the new content from your subscription programs.

and not only can you download other peoples podcasts, but you can create and broadcast your own. the podomatic link above has a facility for people to upload and share files. imagine what we could share, speeches, music, poetry, accounts of personal history (oral history), news, lessons/lectures, satire, etc. its got such possibilities!

i’ve seen mp3 players for under a tenner now as well, which means people can transfer their audio to their portable mp3 players and listen to the podcasts at or on the way to work etc. very very handy for those who dont have regular access to a pc to check blogs etc.

anyway - are any of you using these already? what do you think?

i have seen some slanging going on, and mostly i am guilty of not calling it out. partly because i dont want to police other peoples behaviour, partly because i don’t know how to confront them, partly because i just havent seen it, what with most of that sort of stuff going on in comments threads which i tend to avoid.

where i have tried to confront the behaviour i’ve seen and disagreed with, it has always gone badly. like last year when i was accused, over several blog posts, of chucking someone out of the club, among other things. because i objected to exactly this sort of thing, calling names, misogyny, classism.

so if i say something then im guilty of “more feminist than thou”, and chucking people out of ‘the club’, but if i dont then im condoning their views. rock. hard place. not great choices really - defend someones behaviour even if i dont agree with it, or condemn them publicly. and you know, recently i tried to discuss something privately with another blogger, and that went badly too. so there isnt even the option to contact someone privately and talk it over. i need a better way of dealing with this stuff.

on women bloggers being silenced - im not even sure which women have been silenced, and who by, and what for. do people really shut down their blogs because someone criticised their choices? i feel increasingly like i cant write about anything i care about for fear of upsetting someone, silencing them, making them leave feminism and/or stop blogging. ive wanted to talk about childbirth for ages but im nervous that ill silence other women, just by talking myself. so instead i self censor. there is something really wrong with the way this is working out.

has anyone really shut their blogs because of what another blogger/commenter has said to or about them? do we have to all agree all the time? i think that perhaps the reason why people have shut their blogs is not because they feel ‘chucked out’ by any other feminist, but because they want to get rid of what they have written, for whatever reason. i shut a blog last year. i didnt get bullied out of posting, i wanted to hide what i had already written from people who were harassing me and who i thought would break my anonymity. i didnt want them having access to information about me. when other bloggers shut down their blogs, i think it is because they too dont want anyone to access their posts, their writing.

found out about this at Scorpio Risen, link to BBC article here

“Dean was found guilty of two counts of causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, one count of raping a child under 13 and one count of sexual assault on a child under 13. “

“causing or inciting a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity” sounds like an insinuation that the child was consenting. but she was under 13 and he is an adult and a known child rapist.

i resent the wording of that charge which seems to ’share blame’ between rapist and victim.

with reference to this post at Persephone’s Box.

I’ve been thinking a lot about doing this recently. I’m fed up of seeing radical feminists being trashed for stuff that isn’t true. I’m fed up of seeing bullshit about how we’re all white, all middle class, don’t listen, don’t think, all in some damn stupid clique, all judgmental, all hating, all repressed, all religious, all the rest of it.

I think of radical feminism as a way of seeing. It’s a huge part of my life, something I can’t switch off any more than I can switch off my thoughts. But it’s not all there is to me, or to us.

So stuff you may or may not know about me, because i’m sick of being talked about like i’m a fucking cartoon:

i’m white, but i’m working class
i live on incapacity benefits
i started work at fourteen, started smoking at twelve
and i was a fourteen year old drunk
i left school as soon as i turned sixteen, but i went back to do most of my exams in the summer
i have no idea how much acid i’ve taken, but there are vast bits of my memory lost to it
one of my best friends was murdered and i miss him desperately
until the last few years all my best friends were men
i have no relationship with my mother
i have two tattoos, which i got when i was 16, and 17
and i got totally groped by the tattoo guy both times
i co sleep with my two children, and i am still breastfeeding my 20month old
i had an unnecessary c section delivery for my first, and fought hard to achieve a home birth with my second
i love horror flicks, and video games, and knitting
i used to be into gore movies
i have only ever been in a church for ’special occasions’, like other peoples weddings
i am an atheist, and have always been, although my mums mum bullied her into christening me
i love the smell of cloves and cinnamon and i like to bake cupcakes very late at night
i hate being told what to do
i’ve been raped many times, sometimes by people i thought were my friends
i’ve exchanged sex for drugs, for food, and for shelter, and i’ve given it away just to cheer mates up when they were down, because it was the only thing i thought i had to offer
i’ve had short flings with other women, which i ended because i was scared
i’ve had sex in more public places than i could even be bothered to remember, with men and women whose faces i barely remember, let alone their names
i have let groups of boys experiment on me because i didnt think i had a choice, and i thought if i just went along with it they would like me
im an ex drug addict
and i often think about starting up again, even though i’ve been straight for more than five years
i’ve been homeless, several times
i’ve posed for pretty graphic and dumb nudie pics, for boyfriends and friends
i’ve also made homemade porn
i’ve seen quite a lot of porn, videos, and magazines, some of it very disturbing and hardcore, and i watched it all for kicks
when i was very young i used to pose naked in my bedroom window
i’ve attempted suicide many times, but the last time was when i was seventeen
i used to use sex to self harm

so theres a bunch of stuff about me that is contrary to what some people would like to believe. i wish id had that easier, porn free, well off life that some people think it must have been. i wish it had been that way. but im getting so fucking tired of people making these assumptions about us all, like maybe we had one bad boyfriend and thats what turned us into crazy rabid radfems. GET THE FUCK OVER IT.

and if you think stormcloud was fucked up? no more than what i see all the time from some others on the ’sex pos’ ’side’. fucking grow up already.

When I began studying feminist thought, I knew it would change my life. I had always been something of a feminist, believed in women’s equality. But I had no idea how embedded gender roles really were, how everything around us reinforces gender. Through feminist thought I discovered a huge body of work about race, sexuality, (dis)ability, poverty and class, trans issues.

..

Feminist thought, and the thought I have been exposed to through feminism, has changed my life. I understand full well the meaning of the personal is political. my question is, how can it not be?

Read the full post at thinking girl

(via Daniela)