The fight for feminism – Vicky Beeching

The Twittersphere is often a nasty place. I fell in love with social media back when I lived in California and the social media revolution was first born on the West Coast. I quickly fell out of love with social media when the police had to move me out of my apartment overnight due to rape and death threats. These were sparked by me simply being a woman who put her head above the parapet on issues of gender equality.

Twitter is not the problem. Porn is – Tanya Marlow

Porn is normal, and by normal, I mean that it has become ubiquitous, not that is is healthy. I was once party to a conversation where soldiers’ wives were choosing the best porn magazines to send to their men away at war. One soldier’s mother had helpfully sent a few magazines to her daughter-in-law. They were chatting about it like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Caroline Criado-Perez: ‘Twitter has enabled people to behave in a way they wouldn’t face to face’ – Guardian

I ask Criado-Perez why she thinks social media has unleashed this plague of misogyny. “It’s been going on for millennia. Women have always been put in their place and kept there through the threat of sexual violence. What social media has done is enable people to behave in way they wouldn’t face to face. There’s a feeling that they are anonymous and people can’t find them, and there’s also research into how people need to see a face in order to feel empathy, and if you don’t have that then you feel you can fire off this sort of stuff.”

When we are more interested in evangelical in-fighting than serious issues of justice – Rachel Marie Stone

Even as I’m writing posts like the one on chaining laboring inmates, I know that they’ll get only a little attention.

And that’s fine. I don’t write what I think will be popular, I write what I think is true and important.

But it does annoy me that when I write posts about ‘biblical’ gender roles or bikinis or modesty or whatever the issue of outrage du jour happens to be, the sparks of interest fly.

A theology of women? What did Pope Francis mean? – Washington Post

“A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary. The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother.” 

“The role of women doesn’t end just with being a mother and with housework …we don’t yet have a truly deep theology of women in the church. We talk about whether they can do this or that, can they be altar boys, can they be lectors, about a woman as president of Caritas, but we don’t have a deep theology of women in the church.”

How the government’s legal aid cuts will affect victims of trafficking and domestic violence – New Statesman

For charities working with victims of trafficking, the ongoing failings in the government’s approach are deeply worrying. Dr Russell Hargrave of Asylum Aid explains:

“Most victims of trafficking are terrified of the consequences if they ask for help. It’s difficult to exaggerate the hold that traffickers can have over them, so victims need to know there is support there when they need it. “But the current system falls way, way short. And instead of trying to improve the way people are treated, the government is restricting access to legal aid for anyone who needs to challenge the system’s myriad failings. I can’t see trafficking decisions improving, only more victims being abandoned to their fate”.

‘Lads’ mags’ given cover-up deadline by Co-operative – BBC News

The 4,000-outlet retailer said it was responding to concerns by its members, customers and colleagues about images of scantily-clad women on covers.

Titles such as Front, Loaded, Nuts and Zoo have been given a deadline of 9 September by the Co-op.

Find out more about the recently-announced cross-denominational Kyria Conference, taking place in London on October 12th.

Finally, are you a woman under the age of 40 who was ordained before the age of 35? If so, the Young Clergy Women Project Europe may be for you. A Facebook group to offer support, share ideas, and chat to colleagues.