I am tired of playing the role of the Approachable Feminist, and this International Women's Day I urge feminists to embrace their anger uncompromisingly and without dilution, writes Clementine Ford.

International Women's Day is often seen as a time for celebration, and in large part it is. On March 8, women gather in all kinds of assemblies around the world to honour the huge advances we've made in the last century.

Typically, there are speeches given designed to encourage good feelings and optimism - two things that are sorely missing in the lives of feminists. If only we could take a pill every morning that would make the world a little easier, a little calmer and a little bit more rewarding. Alas, doctors are very careful about prescribing Valium, which is just one of the many injustices we face as women.

Of course, with International Women's Day comes the usual asinine bleating about "WHAT ABOUT THE MEN?! WHEN'S INTERNATIONAL MEN'S DAY YOU SEXIST BUNCH OF HARPIES?!?!"

Um ... that would be November 19. Because in the sea of national and international days paying tribute to the mostly masculine dominated legacies of war, you couldn't just let women have one day in the whole calendar to honour our own fallen soldiers in the ongoing battle for our liberation. Thanks, guys.

Nose art is a decorative painting or design on the fuselage of a military aircraft, usually chalked up on the front fuselage, and is a form of aircraft graffiti. Although wildly painted squadron insignia was common in World War I, true nose art did not occur until the Second World War. At the beginning of World War II, before the idea of painting an image on the skin of a plane arose, crews of the United States Army Air Force (USAAF) pasted pages from Esquire Magazine, Men Only, and Look magazine on the nose section, fuselage, and tail sections of the B-17 bombers known as Flying Fortresses. By the end of the war, there was such a demand for artists, who received up to $15.00 per aircraft, that nose art could be called an industry

It's a step forward in the necessary integration of abortion into other forms of OB-GYN care: Feministing reports that the nation's first-ever birthing center/abortion clinic has opened in Buffalo, N.Y. The clinic, run by Dr. Katharine Morrison, offers a traditional slate of gynecological services, including abortion up to 22 weeks, under the name Buffalo WomenServices. But they also have a freestanding birthing center called the Birthing Center of Buffalo, where women who want a nonhospital birthing experience can go while having the benefit of being attended by a certified nurse midwife and an OB-GYN who has admitting privileges at the local hospital in case of complications.

The place was set up with an explicitly feminist point of view, and it sounds like they go beyond the call of duty in making sure their patients are emotionally, as well as physically, cared for. "In our clinic, we have RNs, LPNs, social workers, counselors, and trained medical personnel, in addition to our physicians, to assist our patients," the general information page reads. But having a single clinic provide both birthing and abortion services doesn't need to be rooted in feminist ideology. Having a single place to go for all your pregnancy needs instead of sorting patients out depending on their preconceptions about outcome is just plain common sense. Being able to go to the same doctor to give birth and have an abortion at different times in your life is likely comforting for patients. And if you're not sure what you want to do about a pregnancy when you first discover it, it's going to feel easier to go to a clinic for counseling that understands all the options and can provide them in-house as well.

Lupita Nyong’o won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress last night, for her powerful role in 12 Years a Slave, directed by Steve McQueen. Go Lupita!
But lately I’ve been feeling a little fatigued by the “Oh-my-god-Lupita-Nyong’o-is-so-beautiful-I-can’t-DEAL-WITH-IT” attitude.

The current fad-like coverage of the Kenyan actress, overshadows the more interesting aspects of her background; the things that do not get reported. True, I assumed she was a nobody until this slave narrative film, but a quick skim of Wikipedia reveals the stuff that the media isn’t all that interested in.

Black and white people alike are enamoured with Nyong’o for, what I believe, are different reasons. Black people are proud that Nyong’o crushed it in her portrayal of Patsey and I’m personally excited that we’ve got another black woman winning major acting awards. White people seems to be most preoccupied with Nyong’o's exotic looks and I think that’s something we, as a society, need to address.

For those who didn’t know, Lupita Nyong’o was born in Mexico City and hails from an affluent family of artists, doctors and scholars. She attended Hampshire College, here in the states, and graduated with a degree in film and theater studies. She’s also a Yale graduate and a polyglot, fluent in several languages.

What I was excited to know was that Nyong’o actually wrote, directed and produced a documentary, in 2009, called In My Genes, where she investigates how Africans with albinism experience life in the predominately black Kenya. I was stoked to know this because all I’ve seen of Lupita Nyong’o, is how beautiful she is on every red carpet she walks. Which is wonderful because Nyong’o is indeed quite beautiful! But she’s also extremely talented in other, more important ways.

I’m also weirded out by the onslaught of white people who are just plain gob-smacked by her exquisiteness. I’ve received an enormous amount of trending Facebook articles from various fashion sources that seem almost amazed by how beautiful Lupita is. It irks me that people don’t find it ironic how Nyong’o has preformed one of the most gut-wrenching representations of an enslaved black woman. Her character, Patsey, shows the reality of an enslaved body; this body is allowed to be ogled, worked to death, beaten, and raped. This body does not belong to Patsey and for some reason, it feels as though Nyong’o's body doesn’t belong to her either.

Vienna: A survey of 42,000 women across the European Union suggests that about one in 10 have been the victims of sexual violence, and half of them reported being raped.

Described as the largest of its kind, the survey released today by the EU's Agency for Fundamental Rights is the most ambitious effort yet to gauge the extent of sexual violence and harassment experienced by the 186.6 million women in the EU's 28 nations.

The survey suggests that more than 100 million women were subject to sexual harassment broadly defined in 11 categories ranging from indecent exposure to inappropriate requests for a date.

Only one woman in seven reported their most serious incident of intimate partner violence to police.

Released on International Women's Day, the EU survey was based on face-to-face interviews with women aged between 15 and 74 in all 28 EU countries.

It was conducted from March to September 2012 by a consortium headed the UN -affiliated European Institute for Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and the UN Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, and had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.5 per centage points.

Among the findings:

By Emily May and Courtney Young

What's the biggest myth about street harassment? That men of color comprise the majority of offenders.

It's a myth as old as this nation: the idea that Black men are more likely to be sexual predators -- especially of white women. Consider D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, that builds an entire narrative on the idea of the black brute. From the Scottsboro boys to Emmitt Till, history as well as popular culture, the justice system and virtually all other facets of American society still hold the deeply entrenched notion of Black men as people to be feared.

But the myth doesn't stop with history. In a recent New York Times article, a White woman living in a mostly Caribbean community (Crown Heights, Brooklyn) gets physically assaulted by a Latino man and wonders if it's her fault, as if moving into a mostly Caribbean community was the city-dwellers equivalent to "asking for it." A few years ago, a woman, also writing for The New York Times, reported on her experience doing aid work in the Congo and hearing repeatedly from other European aid workers that sexual harassment, violence, and rape in those areas "is cultural," instead of, as she duly notes, "a tool of war." The myth that Black and Latino men are innately sexually aggressive is one that extends beyond our national borders.

Yet despite widespread studies showing that gender-based violence happens across socioeconomic lines, and years of organizing to dispel this myth, the notion that men of color are the face of street harassment holds strong, like a virus. Over here at Hollaback!, we've collected over 5,000 stories of street harassment and through listening, we've learned a few things:

W.E.B. Du Bois was a man of many achievements. In 1895, he became the first African American to earn a Ph.D at Harvard; he co-founded, in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; his influential 1903 book on race, The Souls of Black Folk, is considered a classic in its field. He was also a tireless civil rights activist. In 1914, his soon-to-be 14-year-old daughter, Yolande, left the family home to study at Bedales School in England. He wrote her the following letter of advice soon after her arrival.

New York, October 29, 1914

Dear Little Daughter:

I have waited for you to get well settled before writing. By this time I hope some of the strangeness has worn off and that my little girl is working hard and regularly.

Of course, everything is new and unusual. You miss the newness and smartness of America. Gradually, however, you are going to sense the beauty of the old world: its calm and eternity and you will grow to love it.

Above all remember, dear, that you have a great opportunity. You are in one of the world’s best schools, in one of the world’s greatest modern empires. Millions of boys and girls all over this world would give almost anything they possess to be where you are. You are there by no desert or merit of yours, but only by lucky chance.

Deserve it, then. Study, do your work. Be honest, frank and fearless and get some grasp of the real values of life. You will meet, of course, curious little annoyances. People will wonder at your dear brown and the sweet crinkley hair. But that simply is of no importance and will soon be forgotten. Remember that most folk laugh at anything unusual, whether it is beautiful, fine or not. You, however, must not laugh at yourself. You must know that brown is as pretty as white or prettier and crinkley hair as straight even though it is harder to comb. The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin—the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world. Don’t shrink from new experiences and custom. Take the cold bath bravely. Enter into the spirit of your big bed-room. Enjoy what is and not pine for what is not. Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself. Make yourself do unpleasant things, so as to gain the upper hand of your soul.

Above all remember: your father loves you and believes in you and expects you to be a wonderful woman.

I shall write each week and expect a weekly letter from you.

Lovingly yours,

Papa