Recently in Bad-Ass Women Category

Big Think, a site dedicated to fostering discussion outside of the "talking heads" model, has a series of interviews with women scientists. We're going to be featuring them on Feministing in the coming weeks, so be on the look out.

Above, Dr. Bonnie Bassler - a professor at Princeton - talks about the challenges associated with being a female scientist.

Via.

Rebecca Traister has written a profile of Feministing crush subject Rachel Maddow for The Nation. A tiny taste:

Unlike her beautiful, bilious conservative female counterparts or the cocksure boys-on-the-bus analysts, however, Maddow didn't get here by bluster and bravado but with a combination of crisp thinking and galumphing good cheer. Remarkably, this season's discovery isn't a glossy matinee idol or a smooth-talking partisan hack but a PhD Rhodes scholar lesbian policy wonk who started as a prison AIDS activist.

SWOON.

Read the rest here.

Newly-appointed UN human rights chief Navanethem Pillay has long been an advocate for women. A co-founder of women's rights organization Equality Now, Pillay also served as President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and was the first woman of color on the High Court of South Africa.

Pillay replaces Louise Arbour in the position.

Read more about Pillay here and here.

Thanks to Martha for the heads up.

Because I certainly do. And my crush was re-established last night when I got to see her in action (along with Paul Rieckhoff) at Lizz Winstead's Shoot the Messenger. It was bad-ass. Since a video of the show won't be up right away, I figured I'd get my Maddow-fix elsewhere for now. Above is a somewhat recent video of her take on McCain's birth control stumble, which also features the super cool Nation editor (and fellow outer borough native) Chris Hayes. Enjoy!

We've posted before about India's Gulabai Gang, but it's even better seeing them in action!

Is this some kind of comic book? A woman in Iraq protested by holding up a naked picture of a woman in front of her while dressed in hijab. She was making a statement against the US soldier use of x-ray machines to look under female clothing to ensure they are not strapped with explosives.

Jaberi explained that she was protesting her treatment while going through the various security checkpoints on the way to her job at the Iraqi parliament building. It was the scan that Jaberi particularly objected to, because, she said, guards are essentially able to see a woman naked as she stands in the scanning booth. The picture she displayed actually looks like a naked female alien, blue-tinted and bald, because the scanner doesn't see hair or clothing. What it sees is the body itself, plus the dark outline of any jewelry or, presumably, any concealed weapon.

Hmm, sounds a little creepy right?

via NPR.

Moon Duchin, a 1993 Westinghouse finalist, is one cool woman. After Duchin's success in high school, she went on to Harvard to study math and kick some patriarchal ass:

[B]ut even as she pursued a fairly traditional track for a promising young mathematician, she was becoming suspicious of the traditional great "Men of Mathematics" (to quote a famous book title) concept. "Does it hinge on specific people or is it inevitable it will come out that way?" she asks. The Great Man model of a genius working alone in his garret "started to seem like it was obscuring some of the important community aspects of mathematics, and like it was controlling who would even think to enter the field," she says. Duchin stuck it out because of her 7-year-old dream and "adolescent stubbornness," but "it wasn't always easy to see my way through. Meanwhile, I'd picked up an enduring interest in cultural practices and philosophical issues in science."

So at Harvard, Duchin wound up double majoring in math and women's studies. She did a mathematics research thesis, and also one for the women's studies department looking at "Why the notion of genius is so attractive with thinking about math and how it functions, and what it does to math as a field," she says. "Lots of people think this is a non-social field—would math come out differently in a society with a different social organization?" While she's not trying to debunk the existence of genius ("there really are people you meet in math and you learn about who just synthesize things in ways that other people don't have access to with any investment of time"), the Great Man theory "definitely stilts the narrative. A real intellectual history is harder to do but it illuminates the math very differently."

Oh, and if that isn't enough to win you over - Rush Limbaugh once called her a feminist ringleader in one of his trademark rants. Hot.

Thanks to David for the story!

Here's some baffling news. The Boston Globe reports in "The freedom to say 'no'," that women "just aren't interested" in science and engineering.

When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.

Huh. For folks who "aren't interested" in the sciences, we sure do seem to be winning a lot of awards in the field. In fact, the top three prize winners in this year's prestigious Intel International Science and Engineering Fair were all girls.

Pictured above, Sana Raoof, 17, of Muttontown, N.Y., Yi-Han Su, 17, of Taipei and Natalie Saranga Omattage, 17, of Cleveland, Miss., won for projects on the Computation of the Alexander-Conway Polynomial on the Chord Diagrams of Singular Knots, Efficient Hydrogen Production Using Cu-Zn-Al Catalysts Prepared by Homogeneous Precipitation Method, and Development of Biosensors for Detecting Hazardous Chemicals, respectively. Whew. What was that again about girls not liking science?

Thanks to Cathy for the link!

No, but I can always love her more. Mary J. Blige has started a women's group to help women develop confidence and increase success in their careers.

via.

Mary J. Blige and Steve Stoute, who founded a youth-oriented brand-consulting firm, say they're setting up the Foundation for the Advancement of Women Now.

The foundation will concentrate first on the Yonkers, N.Y., area where the 37-year-old Blige grew up. The charity will fund scholarships, grants and programs that help women gain confidence and skills to succeed in their careers.

Bad-ass.

Mary's songs always gave me more confidence.

Mildred Loving passed away last week, a black woman who had married a white man and couldn't live in the state that she resided in, without getting arrested because interracial marriages were illegal. That was in 1957, not that long ago. After returning to Virginia, they were charged and sentenced for engaging in miscegenation and had to relocate to DC where they filed a motion against the judgment which led to ultimately striking down anti-miscegenation laws nation-wide.

I have never been a big fan of marriage, but if the government wants jurisdiction over marriage and it is considered a protected right, when someone legally can't get married it is a violation of their guaranteed rights. It is pretty crazy that this was only a few decades ago, but the battle for marriage rights continues today.

(h/t Angry Black Bitch)

Check out Rebecca Traister's latest: An interview with Amy Poehler and a review of Baby Mama that puts the humorless feminist stereotype to rest. (Finally.)

I have acne, my knees are round, my left breast is bigger than the right one, my abs are not flat (and never will be), but surprisingly enough, I’m OK with all of these things. Two years ago, though, I would not have been. I am a girl who has gone from being obese to weighing practically nothing. While I did not necessarily suffer from anorexia, I dangerously flirted with the disorder. I felt as though my entire body was socially inadequate, so in high school I determined that the only way to be accepted was to be skinny like all of the celebrities that were in my home state of California. In a mere year and a half I lost 70 pounds, at the end of it I looked like a skeleton and was in critical health. After years of therapy and seeing a nutritionist, I am finally at a healthy weight. Now as a college freshman in Texas, I try to promote more realistic expectations of the female form through my work with the campus Women’s Center.

At V to the 10th in New Orleans, we had the privilege of attending a panel regarding body issues that was lead by Rosario Dawson (RENT), Kerry Washington (The Last King Of Scotland), Ali Larter (Heros, Legally Blonde), and Amber Tamblyn (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants).

This is horrible news:

The Triqui indigenous community of San Juan Copala, which declared autonomy on January 21, 2007, has suffered the bitter loss of two young women. Felicitas Martinez, age 20, and Teresa Bautista, age 24, were traveling in a rural part of Oaxaca state on route to the statewide meeting “For the Defense of the Rights of the Peoples of Oaxaca,� when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle late Monday. The gunfire killed the two women, and wounded three others in the vehicle, a man and wife and their three-year-old child, the Oaxaca attorney general’s office said in a statement.

Did you catch that? They were 20 and 24 years old, respectively. For me (someone who works in journalism), this news was a stark reminder that being an independent lefty journalist means very different things and carries very different burdens depending on where you live and the color of your skin. These women were infinitely braver and more dedicated than I will ever be.

The community radio station they worked for is called La Voz que Rompe el Silencio (“The Voice that Breaks the Silence�).

Feminist Peace Network has information on which authorities to contact to demand an investigation into the murders and punishment of those responsible.

I know y'all love Michelle Rodriguez, because Girlfight was named over and over in our favorite feminist movies thread. And I thought she was great in her (all-too-brief) role on Lost. So I wasn't surprised to read her awesome response to repeated prying questions from journalists about whether she's secretly into girls.

She explains: “I picture [the journalists] turning into pigs, slime coming out the side of their mouth, and I picture them jerking off. I don't answer those questions.

“I just keep it to myself and it's nobody's business. If I wanna f**k a girl, a boy, a dog, that's my business. That's why there's bathroom doors."

She adds: "What the majority of (people) want to know is what I'm doing with my vagina, and I think that that's sick.

"What do you care who I'm dating? I can tell when somebody just wants to know about sex. And it makes me sick."

She is rad.

(h/t Jezebel)

Last week the U.S. Board on Geographic Names voted to to rename Squaw Peak in Arizona for Lori Piestewa, the Hopi woman who was killed in combat in Iraq in March 2003. Cecelia notes that because the word "squaw" has long been used to denigrate Native women, the name change to honor Piestewa is especially welcome.

From a Rolling Stone profile of Piestewa:

The attack made Jessica Lynch famous. U.S. Special Forces later plucked her from an Iraqi hospital and rushed her to safety, and the media seized on the daring rescue to create a tale of American heroism and valor. But the real story of what happened in Nasiriyah that day -- and the clear warning it offered of things to come -- involves a different soldier, one who gave her life to protect her friends. Lori Piestewa, born and raised a Hopi on the Navajo reservation in Arizona, became the first American woman to die in the war, and the first Native American woman ever to die in combat on foreign soil. Only twenty-three years old, Piestewa saw herself as a Hopi warrior, part of a centuries-old tradition developed by a people who once resisted an invasion and occupation by the U.S. military -- much as the Iraqis are doing today. She went to war, but she believed above all in peace, in doing no harm to others. "I'm not trying to be a hero," she told a friend just before the invasion. "I just want to get through this crap and go home."

At the V to the 10th in New Orleans, activism is the word of the weekend.

Playwright and founder of V-Day, Eve Ensler, informed us that "Our destiny will not be changed by the people on top." In other words, this weekend was all about the grassroots movement. We can no longer rely on elected officials to eventually come around and see the light on issues that affect women worldwide; we must take back the power, motivate allies to increase our strength in numbers, and develop our own solutions.
Besides visiting the amazing Activist’s Lounge where a ton of feminist and environmental groups were giving out information, we sat in on a number of panels, one being the fantastic discussion "From New Orleans to the World: Women in Conflict Zones."

We followed a line of women (and a few scattered men) into the Superdome early Friday morning. After being thoroughly searched and promising never to turn on our video camera, we were allowed admittance. The entrance was decorated with a selection of feminist art pieces such as poster board sized pages of a graphic novel entitled, “Oh fuck, I’m a Victim.� In it, artist Vicki Rabinowicz depicts a woman who is followed, kidnapped, and raped. In one frame, she is drawn small enough to fit in her attacker’s hand as he masturbates onto her entire body then flushes her down the toilet. At the end of the strip we discover that the victim is the artist and that she drew this on her 28th birthday, tens years after the attack. Not all of the pieces were as jarring though. To the left lay a ball of bras (think office ball of rubber bands) roughly five feet tall. The only thing holding this work together seemed to be the very godforsaken wired hooks of each boulder holder. Along the back wall was a timeline of shirts, bags, posters, and other promo items representing performances from around the world. Near that was an altar with lit candles to honor those who fell to final rest when Katrina hit.

Past the welcoming gallery inside is where we all met. We were an international collection of women and girls. Represented in the audience and on stage were activists from Bosnia, Kenya, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Iceland, Afghanistan, France, Guatemala, The Philippines, Iraq, and displaced Americans from New Orleans.

So I don't know about you, but I am a HUGE fan of the HBO series the Wire. I haven't written about it much because I was watching it mostly in the month that I was not present here due to personal issues. Ironically, the Wire ended up being the reason I had to move out of my apartment because the not-so-well man living below me thought that the Wire was my actual life which was how he justified that I was trying to have him killed. Yes, he thought I was running a drug cartel out of my house and he knew about it and I was therefore trying to have him killed. But I digress.

I have so many favorite Wire characters that it is hard to rank them. But I have to say for those of you who have seen season 4, Felicia Pearson, who plays Snoop is awesome. She is one of the most terrifying characters ever written into television. Interestingly, she is not a trained actor but was discovered by Omar at a bar (you can here about it on fresh air) and was one of the local Baltimorians included in the HBO hit. Somehow my homies at Wiretap were able to get an interview with her which is apparently very hard to do. Check it out here.

Depictions of sexuality and gender are very complicated in this HBO series. From gay gang bangers to lesbian cops you get the full gamut of gender and sexual identities. I think the honesty of Felicia's character and the subtle ways she resembles other women's lives is notable to say the least. Her character is not a common one and therefore I think makes it groundbreaking.

Who is your favorite Wire character? (You can have more than one, hehe).

Last month Parvin Ardalan, a famous Iranian feminist activist, was given the Olaf Palme prize for outstanding achievement. She was however banned from leaving the country to accept the award. Instead she left a pre-recorded message. We are late to this-but enjoy.

Some of those issues sounds familiar don't they?

Wajeha Al-Huwaider, a women's rights activist in Saudi Arabia marked International Women's Day this past weekend by defying the ban on women driving. Bad. Ass.

Sorry I couldn't find a video with English subtitles, but there is some translation of what she's saying here.

A couple of you have asked in comments and emails for some occasional cheer-up posts, to temper all the bad news we've been getting. So here you go...this is my favorite happy-making video. (Yes, I know I've posted it before, but it never gets old to me.)

Juno star and Oscar-nominated actor Ellen Page isn't afraid of using the f-word.

From an interview with The Washington Post: "I call myself a feminist when people ask me if I am, and of course I am 'cause it's about equality, so I hope everyone is. You know you're working in a patriarchal society when the word feminist has a weird connotation."

And then I swoon.

Thanks to Andrew for the link.

I saw Leslie and the Ly's live tonight. It was amazing. Their rendition of "Midwest Diva" nearly reduced me to tears of joy. Leslie Hall does all Midwest ladies proud. (Especially those of us from Iowa.)

I also nearly passed out upon discovering that Leslie is a fan of Feministing. Swoon!

Leslie and I strike our fiercest "I'm from Iowa, bitch" pose. (Photo by fellow Midwest diva Kay Steiger)

Tori Shoemaker and Cheyenne Byrd, two eighth graders in St. Louis protested their school's abstinence-only education program by wearing shirts to school adorned with condoms, reading "Safe Sex or No Sex." For daring to speak out, they were suspended for two days from school. The superindent said the shirts were inappropriate and a "distraction" at school. Yes, because a "distraction" in the form of free speech is clearly much worse than spreading dangerous misinformation about sex to teens. Uh, wait...

So kudos to Tori and Cheyenne - you two are heroes in our book.

In her Zapotec village in Mexico, women aren't allowed to vote, attend town assemblies, or hold elected office. But Eufrosina Cruz decided to run for mayor anyway.

The all-male town board tore up ballots cast in her favor in the Nov. 4 election, arguing that as a woman, she wasn’t a “citizen� of the town. “That is the custom here, that only the citizens vote, not the women,� said Valeriano Lopez, the town’s deputy mayor.

Rather than give up, Cruz has launched the first serious, national-level challenge to traditional Indian forms of government, known as “use and customs,� which were given full legal status in Mexico six years ago in response to Indian rights movements sweeping across Latin America.

“For me, it’s more like ‘abuse and customs,�’ Cruz said as she submitted her complaint in December to the National Human Rights Commission. “I am demanding that we, the women of the mountains, have the right to decide our lives, to vote and run for office, because the constitution says we have these rights.�

The "use and customs" law was enacted in 2001 as part of a series of reforms after the Zapatista uprisings. But, especially given the major role Zapatista women played in the revolution, it's important to note that it's not (as the Newsweek headline implies) as if indigenous rights and women's rights are diametrically opposed. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Rebecca Solnit attended this year's encuentro (or "encounter"), where Zapatista women speak about the state of the movement. She quotes one woman as saying:

This slipped passed us, but last week Cambridge, MA voted in it's first black lesbian mayor, making her the first in the country.

The city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has made history after the city council chose Denise Simmons to serve as the first black lesbian mayor in America.

Gay political activists in the US praised Ms Simmons' selection by her fellow city councillors. Her predecessor, Ken Reeves, was also gay and black.

The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which campaigns to increase the number of LGBT elected officials, said: "We are enormously proud of Mayor Simmons. Like Mayor Ken Reeves before her, she is among our community's trailblazers. Today is a day to celebrate another broken glass ceiling."

Ms Simmons has served on the city council since 2001.

I originally read this on Perez Hilton! *ducks*

Thanks to Jessamyn for the link.

While everyone is asking why it took so long for Jodie Foster to come out of the closet (maybe because it's none of our damn business), it's great to see she's gone public regardless.

I also want to take this opportunity to give Foster props for playing such strong feminist characters in her movies (The Accused, Panic Room, and her most recent The Brave One). What's your favorite Jodie Foster flick? (I think mine is Contact.)

Check out the fabulous Amanda Marcotte's interview with the also fabulous Miriam Pérez, doula, writer, blogger and Senior Advocacy Associate of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. And the rest of Amanda's podcast rocks too (as always).

Within the first time in the comic book character's 66-year history, a woman is serving as an "ongoing writer" for Wonder Woman, reports the New York Times.

With issue No. 14 hitting the stores a couple of weeks ago, Gail Simone began her new title. Her thoughts on the character:

“She’s just the best kind of person. . . She was a princess who didn’t need someone to rescue her. I grew up in an era — and a family — where women’s rights were very important, and the guys didn’t tend to stick around too long. She was an amazing role model.�

Awesome.

Aretha and Annie are here. This has got to be within the top three feminist music videos of all time.

Thanks to Michael.

Every time I read about feminist activism in India I can't help but start to get really excited and want to jump up and down and point and say, loooook, look what they are doing! But you can't really help it when a group of women get together in pink saris, call themselves a gang and fight against injustices done to their communities.

Meet the Gulabi gang, via BBC.

The pink women of Banda shun political parties and NGOs because, in the words of their feisty leader, Sampat Pal Devi, "they are always looking for kickbacks when they offer to fund us".

Two years after they gave themselves a name and an attire, the pink women have thrashed men who have abandoned or beaten their wives and unearthed corruption in the distribution of food grains for the poor.

They have also stormed a police station and thrashed a policeman after they took in an untouchable man and refused to register a case.

Now I will say the story itself is alright, but it is always a little annoying when reporters put in their sexist, infantilizing two cents. I mean I was willing to look over the fact that they called the leader "feisty." When are aggressive men ever called feisty? But then to further qualify this tone, he goes on.

The pink sorority is not exactly a group of male-bashing feminists - they claim they have returned 11 girls who were thrown out of their homes to their spouses because "women need men to live with".

That is also why men like Jai Prakash Shivhari join the "gulabi" gang and talk with remarkable alacrity about child marriages, dowry deaths, depleting water resources, farm subsidies, and how funds are being stolen in government works.

Why are women that work for the rights of other women labeled as potentially male bashing? I am going to assume as this is written in the Indian and British media that this description is greatly influenced by Western feminisms bad PR that made it overseas. Either way, amazing story.

Thanks to Katherine for the link.

OK back to my male bashing. . .

but, I have always thought nuns were really cool, to be honest. I mean something appeals to me about a simple life away from the consumer marketing of mainstream culture and the woes of relationships with men. But the whole, anti-woman, anti-choice, anti-gay, dogmatism kinda makes it a bad choice for anything other than sociological study on how religions make some people act crazy.

But this story does stick out to me, because it transcends some of the awful, bad, terrible communications strategy/PR of the Catholic church and gives us a sense of something real.

The real geekery of a nun.

Her cell phone has a custom ring tone. She frequents the Internet's most popular social networking sites. She gets jittery when she can't check her e-mail or post on her blog. She communicates with her family mostly by AOL instant messenger. And she's a 50-year-old nun.

Sister Anne Flanagan has been a Daughter of St. Paul for almost 30 years, and lives with five other nuns in a convent upstairs from a Catholic bookstore near Chicago's Magnificent Mile. She teaches Bible study classes, edits Catholic books and magazines and roams the Internet looking for cool technology, although, she wryly notes, "a vow of poverty tends to limit one's access."

A nun excited about Wired. C'mon, that is pretty cute. The interview is worth a read, she talks about online prayer and mobilizing environmentalism through religion.

Via.

Courtesy of Dept of Special Collections/UCLA Library

In lieu of an interview this Saturday, I thought we could use this weekend's post to give shout outs to bad-ass women you would like me to interview. Let's pay tribute!

Please include their full name, their website if they have one, why they kick ass, and why you find them so inspiring, and I'll get working on interviewing them.

Holla!

Women fighting on the front line in defense of Kurdistan play an important and vital role in the movement. They are fighting for the rights of Kurd women and Kurdish autonomy.

The women are mostly former Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters who say that they now pursue more of an educational and co-ordinating role in support of Kurdish women’s rights. Airstrikes have become a regular hazard as tensions rise between their outlawed organisation and the Turkish Government.

Treated as equals by their male counterparts on the battlefield as well as in the political arena, women fighters are trained to use Kalashnikovs, grenades and other weapons before being dispatched in mixed and single-sex units.

The best women fighters are also able to climb up the ranks to positions of command, with the “self-defence� armed wing of the PKK operating an obligatory 40 per cent female quota.

A look at many of the revolutionary struggles through out history, women are often asked to join the frontlines to fight for their countries. Most wars have allowed women to leave traditional gender roles. But when the war is over, it is all "get back in the kitchen!" So I am apprehensive when women die for the cause, as often the cause doesn't end up serving them.

At first the Turkish Army did not take the women rebels, who have been part of the PKK’s armed struggle since it was begun in 1984, seriously.

“Then they realised that the women are as tough if not tougher than the men,� said Ms Surbuz, an attractive woman with short, bobbed, brown hair.

“After this the soldiers stopped distinguishing between the male and the female fighters. I think they are now more afraid of the women because the women are more disciplined and they will never surrender.�

“We will either kill or be killed,� she added. “For me it is freedom, success or death. It is simple.�

I don't know. Amazing on one level yes. But sacrificing so many bodies for the nation and female bodies at that, I have issues with that. This battle has been fought for a long time. Will Kurdistan be a feminist state?

via TimesOnline.

I always like interviews with bloggers, because it helps to debunk some of the myths (like we get paid, LOLZZZ) or that we believe that the revolution will be internetized. I especially like interviews with the bloggers I read on the regs. So go check out this interview with Pam from Pandagon and Pam's House Blend. She breaks down some of the myths of political blogostopia. (Wow, I just made up a lot of words.)

She's only the 11th female Nobel Laureate in Literature ever. My colleague Phoebe, who's a serious Lessing fangirl, has more:

She's best know for The Golden Notebook which is usually hailed as a feminist text, but is just as bold an experiment in literary form. (Side note, check out this audio snippet of her reading from the book.) I highly recommend her Children of Violence series, which has some of my favorite writing about women struggling to maintain identity within political movements.

Remember the judge in Nebraska who banned the word "rape" at a rape trial? (Cough, asshole, cough.) Remember the bad-ass woman who refused his order? Well, she's suing.

The accuser in a sexual assault case is suing a judge because he barred the word "rape" and other words from the trial.

The federal court complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Lincoln, Neb., claims Lancaster County District Judge Jeffre Cheuvront violated the accuser's First Amendment right to free speech by barring her from saying words including "rape," "victim" and "assailant" during the trial of Pamir Safi.

Good for her, cause that was some bullshit. By the way, there have been two mistrials in this case because of the controversy over the language ban. Prosecutors are planning on seeking a third trial.

A Wrinkle in Time was a huge favorite of mine. I fucking loved Meg. She was smart, but reassuringly imperfect. In 4th or 5th grade my class took a trip to New York to meet her. It was great. Except a certain boy I had a crush on accidentally stabbed me with a pencil. You can still see the scar on my palm. That part sucked.

Anyway, great series of books. Very sad news.

This interview in Pitchfork with the fabulous, Sri Lankan via GB, M.I.A. bangs out just what she thinks is wrong with the way that she is portrayed in the US media. That perhaps the US media focuses on the "who" is behind the production and lyrical genius of M. I. A., as opposed to recognizing that she is responsible for her own creativity.

M.I.A.: Yesterday I read like five magazines in the airplane-- it was a nine hour flight-- and three out of five magazines said "Diplo: the mastermind behind M.I.A.'s politics!" And I was wondering, does that stem from [Pitchfork]? Because I find it really bonkers.

Pitchfork: Well, it's hard to say where it originated. We certainly have made reference to Diplo playing a part on your records, but it seems like everyone plays that up.

M.I.A.: If you read the credits, he sent me a loop for "Bucky Done Gun", and I made a song in London, and it became "Bucky Done Gun". But that was the only song he was actually involved in on Arular. So the whole time I've had immigration problems and not been able to get in the country, what I am or what I do has got a life of its own, and is becoming less and less to do with me. And I just find it a bit upsetting and kind of insulting that I can't have any ideas on my own because I'm a female or that people from undeveloped countries can't have ideas of their own unless it's backed up by someone who's blond-haired and blue-eyed. After the first time it's cool, the second time it's cool, but after like the third, fourth, fifth time, maybe it's an issue that we need to talk about, maybe that's something important, you know.

She is awesome. However, in response to Diplo not helping her mix the album, well I heard maybe that is not true, but who knows.

Hotel mistakes Nobel laureate for bag lady

She was wearing a Mayan dress, the traditional attire of indigenous people in central America, and the hotel's response was also traditional: throw her out.

The woman was Rigoberta Menchu Tum, who was asked in an interview before receiving her Nobel Peace Prize in 1992,

Q: Do you personally feel the effects of racism?

A: Definitely. During the last summit in San Jose in Portugal, with all the Central American Presidents present, the Guatemalan delegation threatened to leave the summit if I entered the main session to present a document on the development of Guatemala.

It was inconceivable to them that an indigenous woman, self taught, born to a humble family in the mountains, who ate roots and leaves, didn't go to school and who has no professional title would appear there. It was the greatest shame. The racists won't stand for the presence of a person who is not of their race and convictions.

She also said, in the same interview, "We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism."

It is always nice to be reminded that when women suggest they need more rights they are protested, slapped, exiled and/or censored. Bangladeshi poet, author, feminist and activist Taslima Nasrin was barraged by protesters, at a book reading in South India, accusing her of suggesting changes to the Quran.

Dozens of Muslim protesters led by three lawmakers attacked an exiled Bangladeshi writer at the release of her book in southern India on Thursday, calling her “anti-Islam,� and telling her to go back to her country.

About 100 people burst into the Press Club in Hyderabad, shouting insults at Taslima Nasrin and ransacking the place, throwing chairs in the air and overturning tables.

Organizers pushed them back, and Nasrin escaped unhurt. In the melee, one of the protesters slapped her, witnesses said.

via AP.

(picture via WAPO)

Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, a black woman in 1944, refused to give up her seat on a Greyhound bus headed to Baltimore. She was arrested and jailed for her bold move, but her contr