On 4 June 1913, Emily Wilding Davison travelled to Epsom Downs to watch the Derby, carrying two suffrage flags – one rolled tight in her hand, the other wrapped around her body, hidden beneath her coat. She waited at Tattenham Corner as the horses streamed past, then squeezed through the railings and made an apparent grab for the reins of the king's horse, Anmer. In the Manchester Guardian the next day, an eyewitness reported: "The horse fell on the woman and kicked out furiously". News footage shows racegoers surging on to the track to find out what had happened.

Davison suffered a fractured skull and internal bleeding, and as hate mail against her poured in to the hospital, she remained unconscious. She died four days later. Thousands of suffragettes turned out on the London streets dressed in white, bearing laurel wreaths for her funeral. They marched four abreast behind purple banners, urging them all to fight on.

There has always been speculation about Davison's intentions. The return train ticket she was carrying, for instance, offered as evidence that she didn't mean to die. But there's no doubt she was prepared to make dangerous sacrifices for women's rights. As Fran Abrams writes in her book Freedom's Cause, Davison had been imprisoned repeatedly for her suffrage work, had gone on hunger strike and been force fed numerous times.

In 1912, when she and a large number of other suffragettes were imprisoned in Holloway, there was what Davison referred to as a siege – the doors of women's cells were broken down by guards – and she determined that one big tragedy might save her sisters. Davison threw herself over a balcony, was caught by some netting, then immediately tried again, launching herself down an iron staircase. This led to two cracked vertebrae, and a thwack to the head, but the authorities were unmoved. She and the other women continued to be force-fed, regularly and brutally.

Emilie Clark: “Sweet Corruptions” (all images courtesy Morgan Lehman Gallery)
This article originally appeared on Hyperallergic.

An exhibition features microscopes, jarred specimins and hands-on research stations from the Victorian era


It wasn’t easy being a female Victorian scientist. Even if you got a place to work beyond your home, it was unlikely you would ever receive an academic position, or any sort of wide recognition for laboratory success. It’s this “in-betweenness” that has fascinated artist Emilie Clark and prompted her to develop a series of exhibitions called Sweet Corruption. It’s also involved her saving her family’s food waste for a year and putting it on display.


The latest in the Sweet Corruption series is opening next month at theNevada Museum of Art, and follows an exhibition at the Lynden Sculpture Garden in Milwaukee earlier this year and one in 2012 at Morgan Lehman Gallery. All have involved not just researching Victorian scientists, but also using this mode of practice as a way to go out into the field on her own and turn her studio into something of a laboratory. The New York-based artist’s exhibitions, while including her detailed swirling watercolors, also involve installations with microscopes, jarred specimens, and hands-on research stations.

“One of the things that excites me about working in the way that I do is that I think that if done seriously, artists who work in close dialogue with science have the ability to create a kind of third space — a space that is not strictly science and not strictly art,” she told Hyperallergic. “The art can teach the viewer how to consider the science from an alternative perspective, while also teaching how art can occupy a place of knowledge and communicate through its particular media.”




Watercolor by Emilie Clark in “Sweet Corruptions”

For the Nevada exhibition, she’s focusing on the work of Ellen H. Richards, a 19th century chemist who was the first female student at MIT, and was especially focused on sanitary engineering. She also introduced the term ‘ecology,’ literally meaning “Earth’s households.” Richards was especially curious about the idea of controlling different “parts” contained in air, water, and food into a whole.

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/28/exploring_the_world_of_victorian_female_scientists_partner/

In her HuffPost blog post "The Assumption of Heterosexuality When You're a Feminine Lesbian," femme blogger Megan Evans mentions that gay men often tell her that she is "too pretty to be gay." Megan's experience resonates with me because some people find it necessary to "educate" me about how, in their expert opinion, my sexual orientation is not congruent with my physical appearance. I have also been told that I'm "too pretty to be a lesbian" and other versions of that assertion, such as, "But you're pretty; you shouldn't have a hard time finding a boyfriend," or, "You don't look gay." Most people who spew such nonsense expect me to delight in their backhanded praise and are surprised when I inform them that telling someone that she is too pretty to be a lesbian is actually not a compliment. Believing that there is a point on some arbitrary scale at which a woman is too attractive to be gay is based on the assumption that heterosexual women are inherently better-looking, and that's just plain homophobic.

To be clear, I am not writing this piece to toot my own horn. This is not one of those tortured-pretty-girl, Samantha Brick-type posts. I do not think that some peoples' beliefs that I am too pretty to be gay are based on how "beautiful" I am according to some superficial measure of what is deemed aesthetically pleasing by the dominant culture. In fact, as a biracial woman, society is constantly bombarding me with messages that my hair, lips, and thighs are not as desirable as Pam Anderson types with lighter skin; straight, blonde hair; and an unattainable figure. Rather, I believe that people are often confused by my femininity, because the prevailing stereotype is that lesbians are simply not feminine. Just think back to last year, when Florida's former Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll stated, in response to claims that she was involved in a lesbian affair, "Black women that look like me don't engage in relationships like that." The lack of femme visibility, as Evans documents in her blog post, as well as homophobia, misogyny, gender norms, and heteronormativity contribute to this stereotype. When feminine lesbians challenge existing stereotypes that all lesbians are masculine, it short-circuits peoples' brains.

But let's look at one of the roots of this stereotype a bit more. In 2008 CoverGirl cosmetics signed Ellen DeGeneres as one of their spokesmodels. While CoverGirl considers DeGeneres to be attractive enough to represent their brand and join the ranks of other famous CoverGirls like Sofia Vergara, Rihanna, and Christie Brinkley, people often say that DeGeneres "looks gay," and that her more feminine wife, Portia de Rossi, is "too pretty to be a lesbian." So why is it that some people believe that DeGeneres looks like a lesbian, but her wife does not fit the mold? Why would some people think that DeGeneres is "attractive enough" to be a CoverGirl but still consider her beauty substandard enough to clearly mark her as gay?

I would argue that the answer is found in Ellen's short hair and masculine-inspired wardrobe. Society frowns upon female masculinity. If lesbians are believed to be more masculine than their heterosexual counterparts, and society views female masculinity as unattractive, then people might conclude that heterosexual women are better-looking.

Canadian novelist and professor David Gilmour ran into some trouble when he told interviewer Emily Keeler, “I’m not interested in teaching books by women.” He went on to explain that he simply didn’t love women writers enough to teach them. The one woman writer who did meet with Gilmour’s approval, Virginia Woolf, was too sophisticated for his students. He preferred the prose of the manliest of men — Hemingway, Roth, Fitzgerald, Elmore Leonard, Chekhov. There’s an unforgettable bit about eating menstrual pads — what would we do without Philip Roth?

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Gilmour’s preferences, to which he is entitled, suggest that excellence is a singular proposition. They suggest that the measure of excellence remains gender, reinforcing the desperately dated notion of white heterosexual male literary superiority.

Conversations pointing out that he is sexist are rather pointless. The sky is also blue. Today David Gilmour is the whipping boy but he is one of many people, within the academy and beyond, who have rigid, sexist ideas about what best represents modern fiction. We shouldn’t indulge in the convenient notion that he is an outlier, or a lingering remnant of the old guard.

Gilmour’s comfort in expressing his preferences so confidently, and his wide-eyed surprise at the negative response to them, are indicative of the literary culture that has, for so long, held up a singular standard. We return to this problem over and over again. There is a direct line between a syllabus like the one Gilmour might use to teach modern fiction and the table of contents of many major magazines publishing today. All the counting we do and the calls for diversity are sincere attempts, however futile, to change this calcified culture. Gilmour isn’t the problem here. Rather, we need to continue to focus our attention on the systems that produced him and those who think like him — the system that failed Gilmour so completely that he seemingly cannot fathom loving a woman writer enough to teach her work. He doesn’t deserve our outrage. He demands our pity.

“VICTORY! Supreme Court decides: Our genes belong to us, not companies,” declared the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who with the Public Patent Foundation filed the suit.

Mary-Claire King, the pioneer who first established the genetic basis of familial breast cancer and pinpointed the BRCA1 gene in 1990, told the New Scientist two days following the ruling, “I am delighted. This is a fabulous result for patients, physicians, scientists, and common sense.”

The Court’s unanimous decision in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., held that, “A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated.” Specifically, that invalidates some (but not all) patent claims held by Salt Lake City firm Myriad Genetics, which has held a near-monopoly on BRCA1 and 2 testing through its Sanger sequencing-based BRACAnalysis test. But more generally, the ruling invalidates all such claims on natural human gene sequences, some 4,000 of which have been patented.

Without question, that finding is a victory for women, who now can get a second opinion before making the drastic decision (as Angelina Jolie recently did) to undergo prophylactic mastectomy or ovariectomy in light of negative test results. It’s a victory for healthcare consumers in general, who can anticipate lower cost diagnostics and more competition in the genetic marketplace. And it is a win for researchers, who can pursue their studies unfettered by the threat of litigation.

In Philadelphia, the anti-victim-blaming protest SlutWalk has been officially renamed “SlutWalk Philly and Pussy Division present: A March to End Rape Culture” in time for the 2013 event this Saturday, September 28.

The organizers explained their reasoning behind the name change in an open letter recently posted online. The letter reads, in part:

In 2011, at SlutWalk NYC, a white woman in attendance brought a sign on which was written a John Lennon and Yoko Ono song lyric: “Woman is the n**ger of the world.” As you might imagine, this deeply offended many people. The woman who held the sign was asked to take it down, and the national and international SlutWalk communities began a serious discussion on the role that race plays in SlutWalks. Black Women’s Blueprint published an open letter declaring that they, as black women, cannot identify with the word “slut” and many came forward in the African American community and in other communities to express the same or similar sentiments.

For some communities, the word “slut” is a term they have not been called and cannot relate to in order to reclaim it in any capacity. Systems of oppression have colonized, commodified, or otherwise rewritten their sexualities for centuries, making acts of sexual violence against them a permissible and far too often, expected, occurrence. These are the people who are perhaps the most affected by the victim blaming SlutWalk stands against, regardless of any “slutty” dress or behavior, they are considered by some to be “asking for it” simply by being who they are.

We have decided to put the word “slut” in the background of the title of the march this year out of a desire to include all those who experience rape culture and want to fight it with us and to bring together as many communities and organizations in Philly and the surrounding areas as possible. We are calling this year’s march simply “A March to End Rape Culture,” as the concept of “rape culture” has been one that has been identified in many forums and communities to describe the cultural forces which conspire to make it so that sexual violence occurs so often, and with so few of the perpetrators being held accountable for their actions.

- See more at: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/09/26/slutwalk-philly-changes-protest-name-to-a-march-to-end-rape-culture/#sthash.zjtJ7PZ0.dpuf

And then the conversation turns to gender, and the strong shift of both the Clinton Foundation and CGI’s focus in the last few years to equality and opportunity for women and girls around the world – in sync with her mother’s work at the U.S. State Department. “It used to be a separate track, but we moved away from that a few years ago because we realized everything we do is related to women in some way.” The word, she says, became “think about gender” in as many of the CGI commitments as possible – and this year, about two-thirds of all partnerships developed at CGI involve women and girls or gender issues.

“I certainly feel that responsibility,” says Clinton, who later adds that “the invisibility of girls and women is staggering.”

Clinton acknowledges the work of “young feminist bloggers who are trying to figure our how to create a safe space to take action gender based violence here at home.” Some of her work with both CGI and CGIU is aimed at “trying to help impassioned young women, and to be as involved as I can be in helping to figure things out.”

She discusses small farmers and land rights for women in Malawi and Rwanda, early childhood investments and gender education, peacemaking initiatives and the possibility of the generation free from HIV/AIDS – zeroing in on statistics that show that African-American women may actually see a decline in life expectancy in the U.S. “unless we stop this silent AIDS problem.”

Austin Wedding photographer Larry Busby is so desperate for a girlfriend, he's willing to pay a finders fee of $1,500 to anyone who can help him find one (there's an extra $1,000 in it for you "if this turns into marriage&quot .

But just because he's desperate doesn't mean he doesn't have a long, highly offensive series of very specific demands.

On his website, Sleepless in Austin (mirror), Busby, who naturally goes by his stage name Romeo Rose, lists all the things he needs the girl of his dreams to be — or not to be — before he can agree to date her (sic throughout).

First off, the girl needs to be "attractive." Duh. But what constitutes attractive?

I like girls that are thin, or with a toned or athletic build. A average build is fine too, just as long as you are not over weight. I will not date a overweight or fat girl.
All right, but now what does "overweight" mean?

I like girls that are 130 pounds or less. Of course weight needs to be in proportion to their height, as long as they aren’t considred overweight, they should be fine. Being overweight is a total dealbreaker with me.
So no healthy women. What else?

Spend time on Twitter or Reddit, or anywhere on the internet for that matter, and you’ll learn lots of new words, or new meanings for older ones. Often, the new words will appear in the printed equivalent of a spittle-infused diatribe, by a party using the words to make a point, or to wound. And the new words will often appear with other words that should not be uttered in polite company, which is why this post will not include a lot of links.

In recent weeks, one of those words seems to have exploded in usage: “misandry.” From the Greek “andro,” meaning “man,” “misandry” is the hatred of men and boys.

“Misandry” is being used, mostly by men, to complain about perceived advantages* given to women, much the way “affirmative action” has been criticized for giving preference to previously underrepresented minority groups. “Misandry” is, of course, the counterpart to “misogyny,” the hatred of women.

Online, “misandry” seems to come into play most often as reaction rather than action. For example, a Forbes column discussed outrage over some rather coarse performances at a recent tech show, saying that, far from the sophomoric pranks’ being misogynist, as some were claiming, they were actually misandrist.

Of the two terms, “misogyny” is the older one. The Oxford English Dictionary traces its first appearance in print to 1656, though that citation was from a dictionary, implying the word had been around enough by then to make it into a dictionary. “Misandry,” by contrast, is traced by the OED to an 1882 magazine article: “No man whom she cared for had ever proposed to marry her. She could not account for it, and it was a growing source of bitterness, of misogyny as well as misandry.” (Italics added.) Some sources trace it to 1871.