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The Wayback Machine - https://web.archive.org/web/20110113032650/http://zeroatthebone.wordpress.com/

Part one, part two, part three, part four and part five. I’ve been at this almost two years; I’ll finish it one day!

51. I am famous for my nostril-flaring abilities.
52. I am hardcore. The way you know this is that I do my sudokus in pen. (Sudokus are my favourite.)
53. I love hats. I’ve got a beautiful one that matches my hair, a pink one so small it clips into my hair, an enormous floppy pink one and more besides!
54. I can’t ride a bike. Bicycles do not sit easily for me as analogies for things one can return to easily, achieve easily.
55. My favourite Shakespeare is A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
56. I didn’t start biting my nails until I was about eleven, but I haven’t been able to stop since.
57. My big post-university plan is to travel around the US (and Canada a little bit), sleeping on family members’ couches.
58. Yeah, I have a really, really, really big family.
59. Giving people presents is one of the great joys of my life.
60. I don’t feel quite right unless there are many books about.

After over a year at both FWD/Forward and Feministe, and now the end of FWD/Forward, I’ve been thinking about the ways in which writers in the feminist blogosphere are sorted into groups, are monolithised. I’ve been thinking about this in terms of how the writers of those two blogs have been coded in particular.

For some reason unknown to me, people will insist on speaking of “the women of FWD” or “the ladies or FWD”. We are quite explicitly not all women, and even if we were, the assumption is a bit much. I have some problems with the conflation of “woman” and “feminist;” I think a gendered politics that makes many kinds of gendering fade into the background is a poor one. It also makes me uncomfortable from the perspective of this being a centring of a very Western construct of gender. Coming from a culture where oppositional binary pairings aren’t as much of a thing, it’s a fair bit strange to me. But, to get back to the insistence on misgendering we at FWD/Forward, it actually makes me boiling, boiling angry. The other fun thing is that people like to make assumptions that they know what all our disabilities are, or that no one from the blog has a particular disability, or that one particular person on the blog is the only one with a particular disability. Not even all of the writers know all of each others’ disabilities. Our lives and identities are not up for observers’ scrutiny, for the love of sweet pancakes.

At Feministe, it’s been a real struggle to get my identity as non-white recognised because readers will insist on speaking of Feministe as “one of the big white blogs”. If you’re more invested in a big monolith to shake your head at than anything else, that’s fine, but don’t go erasing and marginalising non-white people because you can’t be bothered to acknowledge our existence or ridiculously hard work. There is a real difference between pointing out the site as one that has a lot of white perspectives, or has reached a level of prominence in part because of its racial make-up in a way other blogs have not, and calling it plain old white. The other bizarre thing is the way I’ll write something not about America and a reader might insist that I am talking about America or that I’m American or something like that. I do not know why it is so shocking to learn people have Internet access in countries other than the United States.

Anyway, being subject to, or seeing other people being subject to, all this has gotten me thinking. Why is there this investment on the part of people who are supposedly doing social justice in presenting other people who are doing social justice in such narrow ways? The whole point is that we are different from each other and have different needs. We cannot accurately be assumed to be one thing.

Coding a group of people in a particular way is not a “safe bet” just because that coding is going to be predominantly true. Again, the point of social justice is that those who are left out by those notions of predominant identity or circumstance – whether those notions are true or not – are brought back into the fold. And over and over again, I just see the replication of those same dynamics we are trying to overcome.

It’s not just a matter of silly mistakes that don’t really count. It is actively hurtful to me to be counted out in my own spaces, where I am assured who I am will be respected, where the point is to work towards a global respect for who people are.

If you’re concerned about the narrowness of representation in social justice movements, it behooves you to work to expand those representations. But also? It’s going to keep being that way until you acknowledge the people who are already there. I can’t be represented, you can’t be represented, if there is an investment in our not being acknowledged as doing the work we are doing.

Just to point your way to comments on the meetup details post, where wet weather plans are being discussed. I think tigtog’s suggestion is a good one. If you can’t find us under the awning and the rain is coming down, that is where we will be. I’m sorry to say that I have to pop off now and won’t be around again until Saturday night or Sunday morning, so if there are any issues, you will have to discuss them in the thread there amongst yourselves.

the logo for the Down Under Feminists Carnival - the international symbol for 'female' with the Southern Cross in the centre

… I’m getting really silly with my titles.

One most Profligate Promiscuous Strumpet has given us the thirty-second edition of the Down Under Feminists Carnival! Very well done to her indeed. Do go have a read.

The next edition is over at my buddy Claire’s place. Details as to how to submit are over at the Down Under Feminists Carnival homepage, so head on over!

I wanted to remind you that there’s a Sydney meet up on Sunday. Please don’t be shy, come along! You cannot possibly be as nervous as I get at these things, trust me.

In the spirit of Downunderanness, I’m adding some more Downunderans to the blogroll!

adelaide from adelaide
bluebec.com
Boganette
Craft is the New Black
Fat Heffalump
Pondering Postfeminism
Profligate Promiscuous Strumpet

There are loads more great blogs out there, but I think that is sufficient for tonight. The blogroll needs some serious work. There is a lot of great reading to be had in the blogosphere, is there not?!

In other news, my surname change came through today. I went and changed my details with the university today, and tomorrow I’m off to the bank, library and such. It’s such a weight off my mind. I’ve been meaning to blog about what the change means to me, so perhaps I shall!

With my nose stuck in books. So many books. My Bitch stint is a lot of research. But you wanted to know about the blogging.

At Bitch, in my Iconography series:

The Rather Extraordinary Astrid Lindgren and Pippi Longstocking: ‘With sales numbering at about 145 million copies and, according to UNESCO, as the world’s twenty-fifth most translated author, Astrid Lindgren is about as formative as it gets. Who among us doesn’t love Pippi Longstocking?’

Picturing What the Kids are Reading These Days: ‘Gather around, children. It’s time for a story. Several, actually. I’ve been thinking about picture books, and how big an impact a story can have with just a few words.’

Harry Potter and the Girls Who Weren’t Chosen Ones: ‘It’s not Rowling’s fault in particular, but she’s playing into a pattern in which even the most unheroic boys in children’s fiction get to be the main character rather than the most fitting of girls.’

Tamora Pierce and All the Feminist Fantasy Heroines You Could Want: ‘Tamora Pierce is every feminist fantasy fan’s favorite, hands down. She writes engaging adventure stories with, for a nice chance, substantive engagement with social justice issues.’

Chloe Wofford, Toni Morrison, and Turning the Erased into the Iconic: ‘Born Chloe Anthony Wofford in 1931, Toni Morrison is one of the most iconic literary figures of the twentieth century.’

It’d Be a Crime Not To: ‘Discuss the women of crime, that is. Crime fiction is still seen as very much a gentleman’s genre, something at which fans of Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith, for a start, scoff vigorously (if scoffing can be performed vigorously).’

At Feministe:

What moves you?: ‘Is it a book, a place you like to contemplate the universe, a phrase, a person, a memory, an object, an idea?’

Books, books, books!: ‘I’m going to pick a few of my recommendations from what I’ve read over the past year, and then you can have a go in comments! There can never be too many reading recommendations.’ Yes, that is Tamora Pierce in comments. Not that I wrote about her specifically so that she would comment or anything.

Jayaben Desai, 1933-2010: She sounds like a pretty amazing person; go read up about her.

Happy New Year!: ‘If you celebrated, what did you get up to? And what are your hopes for this coming year?’

At FWD/Forward:

Spotlighting Kirstenbosch Garden!: ‘Do you know, readers, it struck me that I have never posted about South Africa’s Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden? As the Garden is both stunning and disability friendly, I do not know how this is possible! I must correct it at once.’

Also have some of my recommended readings because they’re rather amazing, if I do say so myself: 17 December edition and 24 December edition.

FWD/Forward has just ended; here is our farewell post.

It’s my second blogiversary here at Zero at the Bone. I had signed up for this WordPress account on 18 November 2008 and made my first post on 20 November, but I consider that it all clicked for me on 31 December.

It’s been another strange year for me personally, and my blogging life has not been easy, either. I’ve written some pieces I am proud of, have seen my work used in universities (and archived in the National Library), have jumped off from blogging to speak and write on social justice issues in other media, and have made and solidified many friendships. You know your blog is a big part of your life when you met a fair portion of your offline world friends blogging.

I love this little space. It’s mine to work out who I am and how I work in the world, and to explore the things that matter to me. I’m glad it matters to so many other people. I’ve long said that ZatB has the best commentariat one could ask for; thank you for your comments and your readership.

When I started, I had meant to keep this blog up for a year at minimum, and, having made my way through two, find that there is still much in my heart left to say. I called this blog Zero at the Bone because I wanted to keep the need for clear, passionate, at-the-bone engagement constantly in mind. I think I’ve been writing with that kind of integrity, but being true to one’s soul is always going to be a work in progress.

Hello, readers! I like chatting with you, so here is a space in which to do that. Is this a celebratory time of year for you? What have you been up to? Any Gregorian New Year plans? Anything else on your mind? What good books have you been reading? I would also like to use this thread as a Doctor Who Christmas special discussion thread, so of spoilers beware!

The blockquotes in this theme are a bit too close to the background colour, but alterations mean that the colour I pick comes through in people’s feedreaders, so I’m dropping blockquotes, I’m afraid.

I have a lot of love for the way ana australiana writes: All my friends are queering marriage:

“Vows, commitments, promises, alliances, dances, parties. How we do these things exceeds, as it always has, the commonly understood manifestation of marriage, family, community and public. Formal justice lies far, far behind and at the same time evinces the conditions of its possibility in these moments.”

At Viva La Feminista, Like (Un-Feminist) Mother, Like (Feminist) Daughter by utterly gorgeous guest poster Sally Mercedes.

“You don’t need the feminist label or a college degree to strive for women’s independence and feminist ideals. All my mother needed was three daughters to fight for, including one slightly obnoxious daughter who doesn’t let anything go.”

Queer Celibacy: Q is for Questioning by Neville Park is a really interesting post about tradition and community:

“How does this change our conceptions of queer sexuality? our political engagement? our notions of “family”? our wild Saturday nights at the queer dance party?”

Brown Girl in the World at The Trouble Is… keeps coming back to me:

“I worry for my daughters. I suppose that’s odd, as I don’t have children, but I worry nonetheless. I worry for those little brown girls in my future and I wish, how I wish, that I could change everything now.”

There is so much in Coloring Whiteness: POC Community Building and Mistaken Racial Identity by Wendi Muse at Racialicious:

“In the United States, color is a strange marker, particular because it rarely has as much to do with phenotype as it does one’s past. Of course facial features, skin color, and even speech patterns may be indications of racial and/or ethnic background, but it goes far beyond what is in the eye of the beholder. Beyond the factor of family trees, parentage being one of the biggest indicators of race (i.e. one may appear phenotypically white, but with one non-white parent, the possibility of whiteness dissolves), region, nationality, and language play huge roles as determining factors in the race game. In fact, despite markers of everything BUT non-white heritage in all other facets, including one’s appearance, like in the case of Nina Garcia, a last name of non-English origin can mean more than what literally meets the eye.”

Forget the Fail-mongers! by Fat Heffalump is really inspiring:

“For my whole life, I’ve been told not to be too ambitious. Not to get my hopes up too high. Not to have unrealistic expectations. Nobody important will ever listen to you. You can’t change things, you may as well just work out the best way to live with it. You’ll only regret it when it doesn’t go the way you want it to.”

My private parts are PRIVATE! by cate j at Questioning Transphobia is to the point:

“This vetting process is, of course, just another facet of cis people deciding whether or not you’re allowed to be a woman. If your vagina doesn’t match up to their (biased) expectations, then you’re relegated back to the “almost woman” category and looked upon as a kind of second class woman who can never match up the vaunted first class or ‘real’ women. You can guarantee that they will find flaws in your vaginal construction that invalidate your femininity, even though their OWN vagina would not stand up to such intense scrutiny.”

Connections by Ouyang Dan at FWD/Forward buoys me up in a big way:

“Thus, did my life take me in a direction I never saw it going, because I had just begun to grasp onto this part of me that was OK with identifying as someone who is disabled. Not only that, I had not really learned how to interact with other people who identified that way. I was shy about venturing out as any kind of public face, let alone as any kind of self-spoken authority. Who was I, I wondered, to pretend that what I had to say mattered?”

We’ve been pwned at the news with nipples is just scary, and something a fair portion of Australia could do with reading:

“We – the public and the media – have been pwned by the Howard, Rudd and Gillard Governments. They wanted us to hate asylum seekers, and now we hate asylum seekers. They wanted us to think that 692 people a year is a massive problem, and now we think that 692 people a year is a MASSIVE PROBLEM.”

My lovely friend Beppie at Hoyden About Town has Intersectionality and Privilege: Addressing the Squishy Bits:

“Not all questions have clear answers. Sometimes, there is no “right” answer. Sometimes, every “right” answer carries a little bit of wrong in it too.”

Phew! Hope you all enjoy, I’ve been saving these for months.

In blue on a white background, the DUFC logo: in a square with rounded corners, there is the "female symbol" with the Southern Cross inside, above which it says 'Down Under' and below 'Feminists Carnival'.

And the Gregorian year!

The thirty-second edition of the Down Under Feminists Carnival is planned for 5 January, 2011, to be hosted by Profligate Promiscuous Strumpet at, well, Profligate Promiscuous Strumpet. The Strumpet has been preparing most enthusiastically. There is still time to send in your submissions, to prof.prog.strumpet [at] gmail [dot] com for those who can’t access the blogcarnival submissions form.

Submissions must be of posts of feminist interest by writers from Australia and New Zealand that were published in December. Submissions are due on 2 January at the latest, but it’ll be easier on the good Strumpet if submit sooner rather than later, particularly during this busy time. Do spread the word!

Having trouble remembering to submit? Mary of puzzling.org has made a bookmarklet that will make DUFC submitting very quick and easy for Firefox users.

See the Down Under Feminists Carnival homepage for more.

Welcome to ZatB!

My name is Chally. This blog is mostly about life and social justice. You can contact me at chally dot zeroatthebone at gmail dot com. I also write at at Feministe, FWD/Forward and Radical Readers and coordinate the Down Under Feminists Carnival.

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