Laurie Penny explains about feminism to a wondering world.

First of all there’s the subhead, which is probably not her doing, but it does rather set the tone.

Feminism’s focus on women can be alienating to queer people and anyone questioning the gender binary. But it doesn’t have to be.

“Feminism’s focus on women” – pause to savor that. How dare feminism focus on women? Other people have problems too ya know! And yet would BuzzFeed remark that anti-racism’s focus on people of color can be alienating? Would it fret that the labor movement focuses on labor?

I don’t think so. It’s only feminism that the libertarian left is so relentlessly eager to ostracize. It’s as if feminism has somehow … Read the rest

The IHEU has more details.

In what now appears to be a coordinated attack, at least one person has been killed and three people have been injured, in two attacks on publishing houses in Dhaka, Bangladesh this afternoon.

First, three men, all secular bloggers, one also a publisher and another also a poet, were attacked at Shuddho-Shor, a publishing house for progressive and secular books in the Lalmatia neighborhood of Dhaka. The attackers were armed with machetes and firearms, and it is likely the publisher Ahmed Rashid Tutul, who had received direct death threats from Islamists unhappy with output, was the primary target. The six or so attackers appear to have tricked their way in representing themselves as book-buyers.

The BBC reports terrible news from Bangladesh:

A Bangladeshi publisher of secular books has been hacked to death in the capital Dhaka in the second attack of its kind on Saturday, police say.

Faisal Arefin Dipon, 43, was killed at his office in the city centre, hours after another publisher and two secular writers were injured in an attack.

They are the latest victims in a series of deadly attacks on secularists since blogger Avijit Roy was hacked to death by suspected Islamists in February.

Both publishers published Roy’s work.

I can only swear and swear and swear.

Earlier on Saturday, armed men burst into the offices of publisher Ahmedur Rashid Tutul.

They stabbed Mr Tutul and two writers

Happy gendered Halloween, girls and boys. (Did you see what I did there? I put girls first. That’s very rebellious of me. Girls are supposed to come second. It’s boys and girls, not girls and boys. Isn’t that funny?)

The New York Times has such a fun scary story about how gendered everything is in kidworld, and how badly it fucks everything up. All that work we did, undone by marketers. Oh well – I guess we’ll just have to do it all over again! Or you will, because I’ll be dead by then, and your grandchildren will, if the glaciers haven’t all melted yet.

A web search for Halloween costumes of scientists produces only boys wearing lab coats and

There’s this:

And there’s this:

Notice anything?

The male figure is standing straight, hands in fists.

The female figure is at an angle, head tilted, one foot partly off the floor, one knee bent, palms outward.

Now this – a photo of women scientists who are spending eight days in an experimental capsule at Russia’s Institute of Biomedical Problems,

the latest in a lengthy series of tests carried out by institute specialists studying the effects on human physiology and emotions during life among the stars.

Well no, not among the stars. Outside earth’s atmosphere, but still 93 million miles from the nearest star. Anyway, the photo:

What on earth? They’re adult scientists, not teenage cheerleaders. Why are they bending their … Read the rest

Eaves Charity is closing down as of today.

Eaves has been a member of the End Violence Against Women campaign – an unprecedented coalition of individuals and organisations set up in 2005 who are calling on the government, public bodies and others to take concerted action to end violence against women.

But Eaves has been operational since 1977 and is particularly known for its specialist services for helping and supporting women victims of violence.

These include the Poppy project, the London Exiting Advocacy and the Alice project.

The Poppy project has supported some 2000 women victims of trafficking since its inception and helped 45 women bring their traffickers to justice, obtaining combined sentence of 423 years.

The London Exiting Advocacy

From the Independent: IS is shutting down gynecology clinics in Raqqa, clinics which are more than ever needed because IS is also raping little girls. A one-two punch.

Isis is believed to have ordered the closure of all women’s clinics supervised by male doctors in its Syrian heartlands in its latest assault on the rights of women.

A culture of rape, forced marriages for child brides, the persecution of doctors and the exclusive use of medicines for militants have resulted in a crisis for women’s health under Isis’s brutal regime.

According to activists, Isis has drastically restricted the work of male gynaecologists in accordance with its leaders’ belief that men and women should be kept apart at all costs.

Oy. Seen on Twitter –

I match 3 items under “you have a male brain if” and only 1 under “you have a female brain if.” I must be trans!

Or wait, maybe the list is bullshit.

 … Read the rest

At the Saudi embassy in Oslo today:

Ensaf reports that Raif was not flogged today – which is a big relief after the news that the flogging was going to resume. But that’s only this week…… Read the rest

News from Delhi:

Two young girls – a toddler and a 5-year-old – have been raped in separate attacks in New Delhi, police said Saturday, in the latest incidents of sexual violence against girls and women in India.

A 2 1/2-year-old girl who was playing outside her home was raped in a west Delhi suburb Friday evening, said Delhi Police deputy superintendent Pushpendra Kumar. Family members found the child lying unconscious and bleeding in a park three hours after she went missing during a power outage in the neighborhood.

Two and a half years old, grabbed and penetrated, then thrown aside in a park like so much garbage.

The rapes occurred a week after a 4-year-old girl was found

Reporters Without Borders last week:

Reporters Without Borders condemns the threats against news media and bloggers contained in a email that was sent to a score of Bangladeshi print and broadcast media outlets on 19 October, and calls on the authorities to take concrete measures to protect all those targeted.

Sent by Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT), a militant Islamist group that has claimed the murders of four bloggers this year, and signed by a person identifying himself as ABT spokesman Abdullah bin Salim, the Bengali-language email constituted a clear threat to all media that fail to adhere strictly to Islamic law.

The email included a demand for news media to fire all female employees and to refrain from publishing

Take that, Saudi theocrats: Raif Badawi has won the Sakharov prize.

The announcement was greeted on Thursday with a standing ovation at the European parliament in Strasbourg, France, but will be seen by Saudi Arabia as another diplomatic slight at a time when its domestic and international policies are coming under growing criticism.

What do you mean “but”? That’s an “and.”

Martin Schulz, the European parliament president, said: “I urge the king of Saudi Arabia to free him [Badawi], so he can accept the prize.”

And be free, and not be flogged, and be with Ensaf and their children again.

Named after the Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, the award was created in 1988 to honour people and

Jonathan Rosenberg has a cartoon. The protagonist looks kind of familiar…

You can support the cartoonist on Patreon.

 … Read the rest

Originally a comment by iknlast on Preserving the sanctity of the big tent.

Make a new twitter account using a man’s name. Choose a picture not of a person but one with masculine bent. Use that account at least a week, but longer is better.

My son actually tried this experiment in reverse. He gamed as a woman. And as a man in the same setting at a different time. His results were predictable, and eye-opening, even to someone like my son who was already fairly enlightened about the issue. The amount of hate he got was intense – and he wasn’t even talking about feminism or the rights of women, he was just playing a game as a … Read the rest

Chris Kluwe gives SZSW hell.

This week, you announced a decision so mind-numbingly shameful, it’s a wonder that the collective spleens of everyone involved didn’t spontaneously combust from the overload of self-loathing. I speak, of course, of your Neville Chamberlain-esque choice to cancel a panel on harassment in online spaces, featuring Katherine Cross, Caroline Sinders, and Randi Harper, due to (and I can’t believe I have to type this) overwhelming harassment from those opposed to said panel — i.e., Gamergate (a group you conveniently allowed to have their own panel without following any of the listed application rules, in a fascinating display of fear-profiteering that would make Dick Cheney blush).

Then, you inexplicably tried to justify the unjustifiable,

NBC News reports:

The popular South by Southwest festival said it was cancelling two panel discussions about harassment and the online gaming community due to threats of violence.

The decision prompted some big digital media companies, including BuzzFeed and Vox Media to withdraw from the festival — known as SXSW — in protest.

The festival — known as SXSW — said it had hoped that hosting the two panels “SavePoint: A Discussion on the Gaming Community” and “Level Up: Overcoming Harassment in Games” would lead to a “valuable exchange of ideas.”

However, it said SXSW had received “numerous threats of on-site violence” related to the programs in the week since the March 2016 SXSW Interactive event panels were announced.

Terrible awful horrifying news from Ensaf Haidar:

I was informed by an informed source, that the Saudi authorities have given the green light to the resumption of Raif Badawi’s flogging. The informed source also said that the flogging will resume soon but will be administered inside the prison.

It is worth mentioning that the same source had warned me of Raif’s pending flogging at the beginning of January 2015 and his warning was confirmed, as Raif was flogged on 9th January.

While I do not understand this decision especially as Raif’s case is still being reviewed by the supreme court according to a senior source in the Saudi Ministry of Justice and according to the statement of UK Foreign