some links

i've been reading some good stuff in the last couple of days.  i've been directed to some of it by twitter, some by facebook & some from various blogs.  apologies for the lack of attribution - it would take a while to find all the sources.

first of all, regardless of what you think of her politics or the stance she has taken regarding peter slipper, this speech by julia gillard is well worth listening to in its entirety (sorry, i can't seem to embed it, though i'm not so good at that anyway.

great piece at the guardian by a nigerian woman, in response to a dismissive tweet by caitlin moran.  avoid the comments which are pretty nasty, even for the guardian.  it's funny how people from the majority group suddenly want minorities to start defining themselves in any way at all, in order to talk about marginalisation.  suddenly we should all become "one people" and not highlight differences - as if somehow this would make the marginalisation go away.  of course it wouldn't, it just means that the majority group can keep acting like it doesn't happen, even as they themselves keep discriminating.

from the above piece, i was directed to this post at racialicious, telling us about the origins of the phrase "women of colour".  i did not know any of this history, even though i use that term constantly and have always found it to be a phrase of solidarity.

another excellent post at racialicious about intersectionality, and the problematic issues in framing re a documentary about violence against women in developing countries.  i haven't yet read an article linked to in the piece (pdf), but hope to get to it soon.

i also loved this translated speech regarding islamic feminism, but more specifically on decolonising feminism.  and possibly related (and possibly not), this is a post that shouldn't have had to be written, in defense of a young nz'er of palestinian heritage who recently won the AMP scholarship in a vote-off.