rainsinger's avatar

2015 Women & Movies

. Film, Uncategorized

Living in the southern half of the planet, the long hot summer holiday months give me time to process my year of movies – and hopefully highlight some titles that other women may have missed out on.  Usually, I try to pick just 10 of my favourite “women-interest” films to share, but couldn’t cut down my initial ‘longlist’ of 30-odd films into a ‘shortlist’ this year, and have ended up with random ramblings in no particular order.

Forced to pick just one of the 5-Star offerings to highlight on my front page, I have chosen one of the Academy Award nominations for the Best Foreign Language film category:

mustang“Mustang” from Turkey. 5-starindex
Five orphaned teenage sisters splash about on the beach with  male classmates – innocent childish fun at the end of the last day of school before summer break. A neighbor passing by, reports what she thinks is illicit behavior to the girls’ family. The family overreacts, imprisoning the girls inside the house, subjecting them to endless lessons in feminine roles as preparation for arranged marriages. As the eldest sisters are unwillingly married off, the younger ones plan escaping the same fate.

I could find few faults with this movie, the ensemble cast were stellar in their performances, the direction and camera work powerful, in getting across messages with minimal dialogue, and the love between the sisters was a joy to behold.

Trailer available on  YouTube

As for the rest of my 2015 Women’s movies list, see over the page…..MORE—>

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

WordPress censors GenderTrender. Gallus Mag responds

. Uncategorized

4thwavenow's avatar4thWaveNow

4thWaveNow reached out to Gallus Mag of GenderTrender after WordPress dumped the site yesterday. In her most recent post, Gallus Mag  broke the full story of a Canadian MTF trans activist who has launched “human rights” complaints against a group of women’s salon workers who were unwilling to touch and wax male genitalia. GallusMag revealed other details about the activist’s prior social media activities, some of which pertained to underage girls.

GenderTrender’s importance as a groundbreaking investigative reporting outlet covering the excesses of transgender activism cannot be overestimated. The site has also served as an incubator and launching pad for many other bloggers and writers; 4thWaveNow’s founder counts herself among them. The loss of GenderTrender is a huge blow. It is also the latest casualty in a growing clash between–on one side, a loose coalition of feminists, parents, gay and lesbian people, detransitioners, free speech advocates, and many supporters; and…

View original post 1,206 more words

rainsinger's avatar

Open Letter to Stonewall

. Uncategorized

radlesfemsurvivor's avatarRADLESFEM Survivor

Open Letter to Stonewall

Dear Ruth Hunt
Remove the L from LGBT

We demand that Stonewall removes lesbians from the list of groups you claim to represent as a national LGBT organisation. Since its foundation, Stonewall has rarely represented our interests. Now, in your single-minded campaign to promote the trans political and ideological agenda, you not only fail to represent us, but you actually promote lesbian invisibility – and lesbian erasure.

Lesbians are biological women who are sexually attracted to, and have sexual and emotional relationships with other biological women, only. Being a lesbian is primarily about sexuality: it is a same-sex attraction. Stonewall no longer accepts this basic, socially-accepted definition of lesbians. In fact it defines homosexuality as ‘attraction to the same gender,’ not biological sex.

As a consequence you support the absurd idea that male-bodied persons can be lesbians, and you demand that they be accepted as such…

View original post 844 more words

rainsinger's avatar

“Top of the Lake” Miniseries (2013)

. Uncategorized

Top of the LakeWhether you are a fan of crime thrillers or not, there is plenty to engage in this miniseries, as it is an atmospheric, slow-paced & thoughtful detective drama, (not a standard action-packed crime thriller) beautifully filmed in rural New Zealand with a top cast.

Detective Robin Griffin has returned to her childhood home in small-town New Zealand, to visit ill family, and also as an excuse to get away from a recent workplace crisis in the city.  Robin finds 12-year-old Tui, pregnant and trying to kill herself in a freezing New Zealand lake.  However, young Tui suddenly disappears the next day and through investigating the disappearance, Robin finds herself  embroiled in small-town secrets, including one of her own teenage experiences.

Some minor gripes of mine included casting American actress Elisabeth Moss in the lead, with a disappointing performance in her role as a ‘detective from Sydney’ against a much better supporting cast of Australian and New Zealand talent.  Secondly, I have never thought highly of Jane Campion as a writer but its better than her being Director.

Nonetheless, despite these minor quibbles, the story works well and the scenes involving the women’s lakeside commune are an interesting distraction. Recommended as well worth a watch over a few evenings.

 

 

 

rainsinger's avatar

London Road (2015)

. female hatred, Film . , ,

London Road 2015

Recommendation: A Must-Miss.

I would recommend avoiding this film about the 2006 Ipswich (Suffolk, UK) murders of five prostituted women, from the perspective of the residents of the street where it happened – London Road.

I understand that London Road was the main site of street prostitution in Ipswich, and the film opens with an explanation that the real words of the residents of London Road from interviews were used, of their reactions and how they were affected by the murders and the subsequent investigations, culminating in one of the residents of the street being charged and convicted of the murders.

The real words of this local community were used and put to music, (and not very good music either) along with poorly choreographed group routines. I did not realise that Musical was one of the genres listed for this film, along with Adventure. I mistakenly thought it would be a dramatised ‘true crime’ film.

Presumably the “adventure” component referred to the development of a London Road resident’s association, repetitive (and musical) statements about how distressing and upsetting it was to live next door to a murderer’s house with police tape cordoning off the road etc and seeking counselling for their distress.

This all culminated in a community celebration, developing a ‘London Road in Bloom’ garden competition, complete with speeches thanking the police for finally getting rid of the “girls”. One of the ‘pillars of the community’ stated that if she had the guts, she would shake the murderer’s hand to thank him for what he did.

Is it appropriate to celebrate and sing about the deaths of five young women?
Trivialising it down to an appalling level by turning it into a musical garden party.

Apart from being an insult to the women and their families, there is nothing to recommend this film in regard to acting, direction, scripting, the music or choreography. The best thing about it is that it seems to only be on limited cinema release, on the arthouse film and festival circuit.

For those who may be interested in learning about the 2006 Suffolk murders I would highly recommend watching BBC One’s 2010 three-part miniseries, dramatising the events from testimonies of those directly involved, and titled “Five Daughters”.

rainsinger's avatar

Good, Bad & Mad women-in-Crime: Women-in-Action (2)

. Film

This sub-collection, focuses on women as lead characters in crime/thriller films, both as the ‘Good’ cop detectives, or as the Bad or Mad (or both) villainesses.

From her first appearance in nineteenth-century novels, the female detective/sleuth has been enormously popular with women audiences, including an impressively large collection of lesbian crime-mystery stories.  In contrast to their Magical Amazon sisters, these women are not presented with having magical unique powers, but are women using their wits and intelligence as their primary assets, as well as having a focus in life beyond the boringly domestic.   The heroine is often presented as a successful, self-confident woman whose determined inquiries, intense curiousity, refusal to take No for an answer, and attention to detail, often outshines the work of professional (male) detectives.  Many of the most famous in pop-culture fiction are  spinsters ( Jane Marple), widows ( Jessica Fletcher),  very young (Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars),  or lesbians (Kate Delafield, Stoner McTavish).

One common theme in all these types of women is that their professional interests and romantic ones rarely compete for attention.   In other words – their minds are usually focussed on the job, and not entirely unhappy about it.  They are ‘Outsiders’ and do not seem to bear much conflict between ‘career’ and ‘womanhood’ as defined through a relationship with men. Possibly, as good as it gets for genuinely independent female role models in pop culture under male supremacy.  Like their Magical Amazon sisters, you don’t see these women behind a keyboard or a mop.  The large sub-set of lesbian crime fiction however, does usually  include more successful blending of career with romance, than main(male)stream versions do.  Possibly because for lesbians in romantic partnerships, conflicts between ‘work’ and ‘home’ is less problematic.

For women readers/viewers the popularity of violent crime fiction,  I suspect it is even more complex.  Julie Bindel once wrote on this topic at The Guardian “Many of the most gruesome crime thrillers are written by women – and lots of us love to read them too. What attracts us to these violent stories?” Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Re-Membering (via Radfem Hub)

. feminism . , , ,

“Continual complicity in the crime of Goddess-killing is mandatory in the Man’s world. Our refusal to collaborate in this killing and Dis-Membering of our own Selves is the Beginning of Re-Membering the Goddess –”
Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, Mary Daly, (1978)

“There was a time when you were not a slave, remember that… You say you have lost all recollection, remember . . . you say it does not exist. But remember.
Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent. “
Les Guérillères, Monique Wittig, (1971)
Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Magical Amazons: Women-In-Action (1)

. amazons-warrior-women, Film

This collection, includes female action heroines, where women leads take some action, from kick-butt, to crime sleuthing.  I must admit that like many other women, I have also loved TV shows and films with strong kick-butt women leads,  but as Mary Magoulick writes in “Frustrating Female Heroism: Mixed Messages in Xena, Nikita, and Buffy” that “In spite of their female characters’ strengths, these shows contain troubling and sexist messages in images and plot lines that neither advance nor celebrate feminism.”   Despite this — No matter how much misogyny,  (overt or covert) is actually present, many women adore films of this type.  Every generation seems to have a favourite of their youth, eg Buffy, Xena.

The loyal fandom amongst women represents to me, not watching “feminist” role models – but just a simple expression of ‘relief’ from the far more blatant In-Your-Face misogyny of our everyday lives, and the other 99.999% of sexist propaganda hate speech in populist-culture, and mainly arising from the natural desire of women to see women experiencing epic adventures and in any role but the traditional ones.

As one character said on a Wonder Woman episode:  “You’ll never see her,  behind a typewriter”.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Nothing personal, just politics.

. female hatred, feminism, politics, transgender

Here we go again. The trans- ‘debate’ has been tripping across several blogs in recent times. IBTP banning dude comments was announced, but was subsequently explained as still including trans-males. Last I saw, bloggers were free enough, for the most part, to define their comment inclusion/exclusion criteria any way they – personally – see fit. It’s a personal thing after all. I have no problem with others setting personal boundaries with exclusion/inclusion rules – what gets up my nose, is when they try to claim it as some sort of political policy statement. Get your words right, if you are including trans-males in your personal inclusions definitions in your personal space, then say so up front, and stop trying to pretend its radical feminist. It is not, never has been.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Rape Culture Films, or Men Behaving Badly

. female hatred, Film

Man (sic) was once called the “Tool-Maker” species, (until they found other species make tools too) but is more like the “Tale-Teller”. We tell stories. But throughout known history, females have not been considered human, not part of the ‘Human Condition’, and our stories are rarely told without male censorship or manipulation. In this section, I use ‘rape-culture’ very loosely, to cover all normalised male-dominance culture, of both social cultural violence as well as physical violence varieties of Man’s Inhumanity to Woman.
Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Women’s ‘Revenge’ Films

. Film

One of my favourite genres of all, films where women “return fire”, usually for rape/assault, but also for other forms of male violence-against-women, occasionally revenge for men’s betrayals in other forms, eg setting up women to take the fall for crimes. These films may, or may not, include female kick-butt action – but my group of favourite revenge-flicks refers mainly to those films where the main themes and storylines, revolve around women taking action against male abuse, (and ‘win’) regardless of any action/violence content.

I have several favourites in no particular order, but with a preference for the rarest of all – women’s ‘collective’ revenge films, in which several women band together and work-as-a-team or form vigilante groups. In these films, I am struck by the film’s representation of female solidarity and teamwork beyond friendship. Indeed, often the women do not like each other.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Personal Vs Political Woman-Hatred

. female hatred, feminism, lesbian-hate

I am having a ranting, stream-of-consciousness moment on a late night. I’ve also been reading on the internet too much lately, looking for distraction, maybe even some fun, but unfortunately I have become bored with incessant feminist sniping.

First up, there is the sniping about lesbian feminists being too bossy or het-bashing, or trying to convert other women. Seems many straight women have a personal horror story or two, about a lesbian friend, making sexual advances towards them. A woman friend who they had known for some time, and even loved as a friend, in a non-sexual way. To me, this scenario, or context – begs an interesting question – if a close male friend, who you loved in a non-sexual way –had made sexual advances from say, misreading your signals, would you be so repulsed, disgusted, ready to puke or be so angry and offended? I suspect not. I suspect such men would be given the benefit of the doubt, for friendship’s sake, of having made an honest but embarrassing mistake, just “got the wrong idea”, and would be let down gently, with a sincere no, but thanks anyway.

The moral of this tale is lesbian sexuality is disgusting. Speaking of vulva-phobia, as being talked about over at UndercoverPunk’s blog.

Then there is the common defence when the stereotype cartooned “hairy ugly lesbian” is raised. Het feminists are quick to take on board the hairy-legged, daggy, dykey stereotype image – but always qualify it with ” Apart from being a lesbian…”, or “I’m not a lesbian, but all the rest is true ….” Careful sisteren, your Pavlov’s Dog style conditioned gag reflex is showing.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

KING KONG THEORY by Virginie Despentes

. books, female hatred, feminism

This book is one woman’s story and thoughts on how her life and her ideas on the Female Human Condition, has been shaped by her experiences of sex, rape, prostitution and working in the porn industry. As such, it is a personal story, not an academic treatise for feminist political debate. Although much may be lost in translation from French, reading it to me, felt like sitting down with a woman friend to just simply listen to her talk about her life, the universe and everything, including various side-tracks and tangents. Sometimes nodding along, sometimes frowning, but fully engaged from start to finish.

Virginia Despentes became moderately famous in Europe around 2000, with the release of her rape-revenge fantasy ‘girl-buddy’ film Baise-Moi based on her book of the same name.  It is classic French film noir in its dark-side themes around sexual violence, but also weaves in threads of the heart of female friendship, in its portrayal of the bonding between the two women.

Her book starts with a chapter titled A Gun For Every Girl, and speaking as a girl who grew up in the 70s and came-of-age in the late 80s, from a working-class French background. Virginia as a young woman took many things about women’s lives for granted as she says she grew up with the idea that girls were as clever as boys, and:

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Biology and Destiny

. feminism, reproductive biology

As a natural scientist, this Nature vs Nurture, or the ‘Biology-is-Destiny’ debate has always annoyed me, simply because it is assumed that for a characteristic to be biological, or ‘natural’, it therefore must be ‘fixed’ or immutable, unchangeable.

Biology is NOT Destiny, for any species. This is fact, not speculation.

Nature is dependent on change and adaptation, not fixed in concrete, stone or genetic hard-wiring.  That is species-suicide, or at least species-stagnation, even for plants. Adapt or die.   Its an even more ridiculous concept when relating to homo sapiens sapiens – our species has not lived as a purely biological organism for uncounted millennia. Layers upon layers upon layers of civilisation, religion, tradition, education, culture, language, abstract thought etc have almost wiped off the physical biological map most of ‘fixed’ biological instincts and drives belonging to our evolutionary ancestors. Our species has made both conscious and unconscious decisions regarding biological processes ever since it crawled out of the primeval slime.  Along with many other so-called ‘higher’ species, particularly of the mammalian kingdom.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Sex and Destiny: Sexuality

. female hatred, reproductive biology

“The mythology of the female orgasm could be considered the last ideological push of the heterosexual establishment…….Nothing however, could disguise the fact from women at least, that,
where male sexual response tends to the mechanical,
female response continues to manifest as unpredictable and variable…..
A man who knows which buttons to press to get his partner to come….is seeking to produce in his partner stereotyped factory orgasms rather like his own….

Only lesbians were able to handle the idea that female sexuality might not be symmetrical with male sexuality, and that reconstructing it to fit, might result in a net loss of delight.” Germaine Greer, The Whole Woman – 1999    

On one level, I have often been amused by sex researchers’ attempts to scientifically describe female sexuality in terms of male sexuality.    As a young woman discussing sexual matters with others, I was often struck by our lack of words with which to articulate our feelings and discoveries, whether lesbian or heterosexual.  Nothing that was used to describe male sexual responses seemed to ‘fit’ what I, or other women, had experienced.

Almost, but not quite.

This reconstruction of female sexuality to parallel that of males, including describing lesbian sexuality in terms of some kind of “mirror-image” of male homosexuality, does seem to parallel the reconstruction of all female biology.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Sex and Destiny: Gender identity

. female hatred, lesbian-hate, transgender

 “The phenomenon of the drag queen dramatically demonstrates such boundary violation. Like whites playing “black face”, he plays at incorporation of the oppressed role without being incorporated in it.” Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology – 1978

Many of us who grew up in the liberal/humanist/socialist tradition often accept male-born transgendered people as ‘women’ because of a complete mind-boggling insanity denying the facts of biology, physics and chemistry.  Socially constructed insanity I might add. Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Sex & Destiny – Part 2 – Reproduction

. female hatred, reproductive biology

With the female components of biological reproduction, the final chapters of reconstruction are almost complete with the introduction of assisted reproduction technologies and associated laws governing them. Childbirth was one the first to be reconstructed by males into an institution for male benefit, leading to the tortured deaths of millions of women over more than two centuries in Europe, as pointed out in Adrienne Rich’s Of Woman Born .

Birthing had to be at male convenience, and by male design, whether of domesticated animals or of women.  It was treated by men as similar to a stubborn bowel obstruction, as that is how their bodies work. Males can’t do it – therefore it is an aberration, a ‘Misfit’ piece of awkward non-male and therefore non-human biology that needs some sort of surgery to ‘fix’. If physical surgery/reconstruction won’t fix it – then social surgery will have to do.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Sex and Destiny – Part 1 – Mating

. reproductive biology

As we saw in the previous parts of the series, there are two main reproductive strategies for all living organisms –  the smaller, mobile, high-risk approach aimed at quantity of offspring, versus the nutrient-rich, larger, less mobile, in-for-the-long-haul approach for quality of offspring. Both approaches have costs and benefits, to individuals and to whole populations and species. Sometimes these two main reproductive strategies are unbalanced over the population, and in humans, to the detriment and “cost” to the female of the species.

Patriarchy has been reconstructing females and societies to conform to male (ie human) biological preferences and strategies for millennia, and convincing females that the male strategy is the only strategy.  Biology may well be Destiny, but it’s male biology. Culture may also be Destiny, but it’s a male culture.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

War of the Sexes – Part 2

. reproductive biology

Part 2: COST-BENEFITS or “Do-the Add-Ups & Take-Aways”or who pays the “cost”? and who gets the “benefit”?

From Part 1 “.. In summary, from primordial times, this binary form of reproduction has resulted in very different methods and strategies, for each to maximise its chances of successful offspring”.   

While there are numerous speculations on why sexual reproduction, and diploidy (ie double-stranded DNA) evolved, one of the more common lines of thought, is that asexual reproduction, or cloning, especially single-stranded,  is doomed to failure over time.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

War of the Sexes : Part 1

. feminism, reproductive biology . ,

Part 1 NUTRITION, SURVIVAL and REPRODUCTION

The first Law of Nature on Earth, is that sufficient numbers of individuals of organisms must survive long enough to reproduce.   If not enough survive,   if not enough reproduce, the species dies out.   Since all living things die, Nature selects for those groups of organisms which have successful ways of not just surviving,  but reproducing. The most misquoted, misinterpreted and misunderstood section of Charles Darwin’s discussion of Natural Selection in evolution is “survival of the fittest”.   It should more appropriately be read as ‘survival of the fit enough’.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Gene Thieves – Misogyny in Sci-Fi

. books, female hatred

A warning post, in case anyone feminist-minded, is accidentally sucked in to reading this.

The sci-fi thriller ‘Gene Thieves’ by Maria Quinn is being hailed in book reviewer circles, including in the Lawyers Weekly.

I could not get past page 70-something after the surrogate mother is killed, because the woman-hating misogyny was so depressing.  A near-future world where women are still nothing but pornified fucktoys, air-headed bimbos and walking incubators. And of course, all the men are Heros – with a capital H – (especially the lawyers).

My only excuse for picking it up was the blurb synopsis sounded interesting.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Postcards from the Plate (Part 3)

. female hatred

Food as Language.

Food as Porn.

“In some recent poststructuralist work, food (and the mother’s breast) has also been specifically associated with words and self-representation (or identity). This association is foregrounded in Kristeva’s scenario of abjection in which food symbolically competes with words. But we also find it articulated in recent work addressing prohibitions or disciplinary protocols used to control groups who might other wise be perceived as unruly. Less well theorized, but certainly evident in a wide range of narratives about the forging of individual, national and diasporic identities are more positive definitions and descriptions of food as consolidating communities or genealogies ranging from the family to the nation…. – Cross-Cultural Perspectives On Women, Identity, Food – University of British Colombia Workshop, 1998

Food as Language? Food for Thought, indeed.

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Postcards from the Edge of the Plate (Part 2)

. female hatred

“…the egg the female brings to maturity is a complete feeding mechanism…..the devaluation of the milk that has no price-tag is part of the generalised devaluation of women’s bodies and contributions to the nourishment of the race, a devaluation that is now reaching its nadir in a distorted attitude to food on the part of women themselves……..The pattern of devaluing women’s contribution is as old as human civilisation. Clearly food production and consumption have changed vastly since industrialisation, but the devaluation of women’s contribution remains a constant.”– The Whole Woman, Germaine Greer, 1999

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Postcards from the Edge of the Plate (Part 1)

. female hatred, feminism

“Food as a passion, a gift, a means of revenge, even source of power –….Women weigh up the loss of a lover, or the loss of weight; they consider whether hunger and the thought of higher things are inextricably linked; they feast and crave and die for their appetites, or lack of appetite” – The Anger of Aubergines : Collected Stories of Women and Food – Bulbul Sharma, India, 1998

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Divide and Conquer

. female hatred, feminism

Tho we all share commonality as women which unites us, we must also be willing to hear out the pain that has divided us. There is no way around it. There are no shortcuts. We must understand how the patriarchy divides and conquers us.

None of us gets a free ride. We are all discriminated against and oppressed by some difference the patriarchs have singled out, other than just being women. This is what divides us. So we don’t get the option of ignoring it. We must listen to the pain of what it means to be a woc, a lesbian, a mother, a single or childless woman, or a senior, and …. So we must be willing to hear each other’s pain of how the patriarchy attacks us in special ways. – Luckynkl (possibly paraphrased from published works)

Continue reading →

rainsinger's avatar

Sex, Gender, Lies, Hate

. female hatred, transgender . ,

I was reading a recent issue of Rain and Thunder http://www.rainandthunder.org/, in particular an article “Gender as a Hate Crime” by Dianne Post, who mentioned that:

“When I was lobbying for the inclusion of gender in the Arizona hate crimes statute many years ago, the man who spoke before me said that crimes against women are so common that if they were included in hate crimes, it would overwhelm the system and no one else would get any attention.” Continue reading →