Toronto’s Meghan Murphy Meltdown: A Case Study in Media-Driven Social Panic – Quillette

Is Murphy a Nazi? A war criminal? Perhaps a hooded KKK leader who appeared at the podium under a burning cross? Well, not quite. Meghan Murphy is a young Vancouver-based feminist activist and writer who says out loud what most Canadians think: that the rights of trans women must be balanced against the rights of girls and women as a whole, and that the admission of male-bodied individuals into spaces where women are vulnerable is an issue that can’t be resolved by screaming slogans or Tweeting emojis. As National Post columnist Chris Selley wrote after he attended Murphy’s Toronto event, the substance of her speech wasn’t even that controversial. The true scandal was out on the street, where progressive hypocrites yelled at Murphy’s feminist supporters in the way that Westboro Baptist Church members berate women entering an abortion clinic.

It is an understatement to say that this issue is rich with irony. Consider, for instance, that, in response to Murphy’s speech, leaders of Pride Toronto may ban the city’s public library from inclusion in 2020 pride events—to go along with the existing ban on police participation in Pride’s annual parade. Yet when you watch a video of Murphy’s fans leaving the library on Tuesday night, what you see is a group of professional police officers defending a group of besieged feminists, while a bunch of unhinged woke men scream at them.

Source: Toronto’s Meghan Murphy Meltdown: A Case Study in Media-Driven Social Panic – Quillette

The first fairytales were feminist critiques of patriarchy. We need to revive their legacy

The women who created the first fairytales were far more radical than the Brothers Grimm have led us to believe.

Performed and recited in literary salons, from 1697 the fairytales of D’Aulnoy, Comtesse Henriette-Julie de Murat, Mademoiselle L’Héritier and Madame Charlotte-Rose de la Force were gathered into collections and published.

D’Aulnoy and her peers used exaggeration, parody and references to other stories to unsettle the customs and conventions that constrained women’s freedom and agency.

The conteuses created the archetypes of our classic fairytale heroines: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel. They were bestselling writers in their day, their popularity continuing into the 18th century, circulated throughout all levels of society by publication in the Bibliothèque Bleue, a series of cheaply printed and readily affordable chapbooks.

In the 19th century, when the Brothers Grimm began their project of collecting and publishing folktales, they dismissed the conteuses as inauthentic, as not representative of the voices of the common volk. But the Grimms’ theory that fairytales had a linear relationship to folktales has been exposed by scholars as a nationalist – and masculinist, as the teller was usually an illiterate female – bias. A furphy.

Source: The first fairytales were feminist critiques of patriarchy. We need to revive their legacy | Melissa Ashley | Books | The Guardian

Migrant sex workers in top of the south deported

Five migrants have been sent home since September for unlawfully working in the sex industry in Nelson and Marlborough.

READ MORE:
* More than 350 foreign sex workers turned away at New Zealand border 
* Exploitation of migrant workers a focus for immigration minister
* Teen sex contract deemed as prostitution

During an investigation last year, INZ visited 57 small owner-operated brothels across the country. No brothels were visited in the top of the south.

As part of that investigation, 66 migrant sex workers were identified. Of those, 36 were on visitor visas, two on student visas and the remainder on resident visas.

All sex workers but one were Chinese nationals.

Source: Migrant sex workers in top of the south deported | Stuff.co.nz

Strip searching laws ‘should be clearer’, says NSW Deputy Coroner

The inquest into six deaths at NSW-based music festivals has found that there should be limitations on strip searching, and that its legality “should be carefully reviewed”.

RLC head of police accountability Samantha Lee said: “We know strip searches are causing great harm to the community and now we have the Deputy State Coroner confirming that this invasive practice is having a devastating impact on young lives.”

“The proposed changes recommended by the Deputy Coroner are far from radical, but merely reflect parliament’s original intent that such an invasive procedure be only utilised in the most exceptional of legal circumstances.

Source: Strip searching laws ‘should be clearer’, says NSW Deputy Coroner – Lawyers Weekly

Ignite Her Curiosity: 75 Children’s Books About Girls and Women Who Love Science

A Mighty Girl’s top picks of children’s books about real-life women of science and fictional stories about girls who love science!

Source: Ignite Her Curiosity: 75 Children’s Books About Girls and Women Who Love Science | A Mighty Girl

How we are failing victims of Family Violence

[ed: or How to maximise your compensation payout in a patriarchy]

Tip 1

[I]f you want to maximise compensation for personal injury you should ensure you are injured at work, or in a car accident, or at least in circumstances where you can bring a public liability claim against an insured organisation. Even for sporting injuries in NSW, the maximum amount payable as a consequence of a single incident is $171,000 which exceeds what is available to you as a victim of crime.

Tip 2

If you must be a victim of a criminal assault, you should avoid being assaulted in NSW, where the financial assistance available is the lowest in Australia.

Tip 3

The next tip is to ensure that your assailant is a stranger rather than someone who is well known to you, such as an intimate partner or other family member.

[S]tudies indicate that intimate partner violence is the leading contributor to death, disability and illness in Australian women aged 15 to 44.58 It would therefore appear that compensation schemes which are skewed to assist victims of crimes committed by a stranger are skewed to assist male claimants rather than women.

Tip 4

Ensure its a one-off assault with visible physical injuries, not ongoing abuse over years causing psychological injury.

Tip 5

The final tip is to ensure that you are a capable adult rather than a child or person with a disability or other vulnerability and that you, or those who care for you, have the capacity and presence of mind to report the crime to police and health services and lodge a claim within the prescribed time limit. Of course, if they are the perpetrators of the violence against you, this is particularly problematic.

 

Rather than empowering women to leave violent and abusive relationships by providing an effective compensation scheme or at least adequate welfare payments and supported accommodation, avenues of financial and practical support for women are being increasingly restricted. Meanwhile, the government is instead backing microfinance arrangements to assist women to leave abusive relationships, knowing full well that these will leave women further indebted into the future despite being touted as life-saving. This systemic refusal to fairly compensate women for the impact of male violence on their lives or to provide them with any viable means of escape is truly the patriarchy at work.

Source: Printed-Final_Kerr.pdf

Courageous, inspired a generation

Dr Beatrice Faust, AO (1939-2019): Founder of the Women’s Electoral Lobby

Dr Beatrice Faust (known as Bea), feminist, political campaigner, journalist, author and academic, died on October 30 at the age of 80, after becoming ill at her home in Churchill, Gippsland.

Bea was one of the first women to campaign for civil liberties, abortion law reform and sex education. In 1966 she co-founded the Victorian Council for Civil Liberties, mainly to campaign against censorship laws. She was best known for being the founder of the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL) in 1972.

Beatrice Faust with her novel "Women, Sex and Pornography" in 1981.

Source: Courageous, inspired a generation

‘Parental alienation’: the debunked theory that women lie about violence is still used in court

Parental alienation is wielded by fathers’ rights groups and continues to have credibility in the family law system, writes Zoe Rathus.

Source: ‘Parental alienation’: the debunked theory that women lie about violence is still used in court

If the government tracks women’s periods, why not track male ejaculation, too?

Missouri, which has a population of over 6.1 million people, has only one abortion clinic. For rightwing zealots, however, that is one too many. An administrative hearing was held this week to decide whether the state can revoke the license for Planned Parenthood’s St Louis clinic; a ruling is expected in February. If the license is revoked Missouri will become the first state without a functioning abortion clinic since 1974.

As it turns out, the DHSS is so concerned about women’s health it has been keeping spreadsheets tracking the date of Planned Parenthood patients’ periods, in an attempt to figure out which of them “had undergone failed abortions”. Let me just repeat that: American government officials are tracking the menstrual cycles of thousands of women. But, you know, it’s for their own good so don’t worry about it.

Source: If the government tracks women’s periods, why not track male ejaculation, too? | Arwa Mahdawi | World news | The Guardian