Ana’s Comments (group member since Jan 08, 2016)

Ana’s comments from the Our Shared Shelf group.

Also, I don't think Gayle was replying to you. I also don't think she was self-promoting, but thanks for the concern.

The OSS admin team kindly begs to differ on that point, Lorelai. :)
What Gayle did, and subsequently prompted us to flag and delete her post here, was indeed self-promotion, and it is far from being the first warning that she's got. It is the final one, however. We have a fairly strict policy against self-promoting in OSS for the sake of transparency and management, and we actually feel that we have not honoured it by allowing Gayle to breach the rule over and over. She shall be banned and so will whoever who blatantly refuses to respect the rules.

Otherwise, let's keep this thread focused on music. None of us admins enjoy playing the bad cops role, but sadly enough sometimes we are forced to. :)

I really, really love 'Rebel Girl' by Bikini Kill. One of their members founded The Julie Ruin, which is in a very similar genre. :D

Count me three (yeah, well, many more than that really, hehe) on just being firmly pro-choice while not necessarily pro-abortion. I've always thought that it's one of those things that, for a variety of reasons, you really do not want to see yourself having to make a real decision about. I'm guessing that the toll, mental health wise, will be much heavier for some women in comparison to others. I hope I never have to find out what it feels like.

Out of curiosity I went on yesterday to read as much as I could possibly understand on music and dancing in Islam. It seemed to be a reliable source of information but for a non-believer, and I presume even for your average Muslim, it truly is confusing. The frontier between haram and halal seems to be, other than the obvious content of the lyrics and some other predictable no-no's, on whether the music is played to a gathering with the explicit purpose of providing entertainment. Then again they listed quite the long list of specifications to provide some additional guiding in establishing the criteria.

Something that really struck me was how the web stated that if you were, say, a tourist going through a certain area where such a gathering was taking place and you 'accidentally' heard the music, or even heard it with no intention of stopping there and amusing yourself, then there was no problem. One would think that when you need like one and a half pages to dictate on this-and-that, maybe you are trying to regulate something which is inherent to human nature.

The funniest thing is, there *is* music in Islam. What about the Sufi Dervish? What about Nasheed? Yesterday I saw a Nasheed for children where the girl (we're talking cartoons) danced while singing a song called 'Bismillah'. Why shouldn't she? The song has no particular meaning for me as a non-Muslim, but I can only guess that young Muslim children enjoy those short clips. Music and the joy it brings, from a religious point of view, can be yet another way of getting closer to God. Now, I get that twerking to the latest Beyonce's hit may not be welcomed, but still, just let people be.
Not that other Abrahamic religions haven't had, and still have, loads of crap that they should unload.

Also now that I'm thinking about it, I have a couple of friends with whom I normally speak in English (none of us are native, however), and they got this partly funny, partly weird habit of calling me bro/dude/man. O//O I have tried to correct em and tell them to call me sis/girl/whatever...but they don't drop it. I get that for them it comes from a place of extreme trust and friendliness., and it's not like I care an awful lot. It sometimes feels a little bit, uh...odd? Ahhh, haha. I know I only let them two get away with it, anyone else and it wouldn't fly, LOL.

Yeah! Do what you want with your life, right? By all means, don't listen to a single song if you think that's wrong. But don't force your belief system into others. That's why I believe that religion has to be 100% separated from the state. Not just Islam, mind you. Every single religion.
My apologies, however. I do not wish to hijack this thread.

But Mary, even within Islam there is a big controversy regarding music and dancing.
Also, I fail to understand why singing and dancing could be harmful for women. Well, for human beings. It has not a drop of logic. At the very least, there should be places for those of you who do not agree with that rule. Such as the performers in that Happy clip.

But i do have a question for the girls or women of the group.

While i have never experienced or witnessed men cat calling to the point where they start to get aggressive or mean i can recall as a teen witnessing other boys whistling or cat calling teen girls while they pass by in their cars. But the girls themselves would yell back and smile as it seemed they liked the attention.

So do you think this behavior is something that should be addressed on both ends of the spectrum? I mean, as a teen boy i could imagine if you got a response that was positive from your cat calling that it would send a message that maybe some girls like this kind of thing and thus wouldnt be much of a deterrent. If some girls do like the glaring, whistling, cat calling because they like the attention than what is the answer to this problem for women who dont want that kind of attention?

Quite the legitimate question, James!! I know I've had it myself...when I grew older! Not that I would have enjoyed any sort of harassment when I was a teen, but I'm sure some small part of me would have enjoyed the attention from guys my age. You know, the part that needs a self-esteem boost that day.

...In fact, I cannot say I don't have those days nowadays sometimes! It's a tricky question, but as some members mentioned above, maybe there's this line which of course is different for anybody until which you can view the whole thing as a compliment. If someone who is more or less my own age looks at me for a couple secs and smiles, or even says something very mild, like, 'you're cute' or things like that...that is OK for me. I would not do it because I would die from embarrassment, haha, but that's me. Now, if they take it further or start heavy from the beginning, that's where it gets ugly.

Luckily I haven't had too many cases of cat-calling. It does irritate me a lot when they're elderly men, and in those cases I do answer back and I'm pretty, uh, nasty myself. Well, not nasty, but you know what I mean. Doesn't hurt that I know it's safer with them, I guess, but I do. I tell them that they should be ashamed to be leeching after a girl who could easily be their granddaughter and that they're disgusting old pervs, and leave.

I would say that, as always, communication is key. We have to talk to our children, pupils and minors. We have to teach them the word 'respect', and that it goes in both directions. It's not that difficult if we, well, cut the bs short already. Sadly, that's too much to ask from us humans. Or is it? ;)

Gerd wrote: "Breastfeeding is illegal?
Guess we have to put that right up to such dangerous activities to society, like, breathing...

Feels like this world is getting more stupid by the day."

OMG, why would you think that? Please, don't exaggerate (LOL, right?)

Would just like to agree with the rest of you that it is so stupid that we're in the XXI century and breastfeeding is still an issue everrrrrywheeeere. Let me add another example -earlier this year, a woman was told to leave a certain monument in my hometown because she was doing inappropriate stuff...why, yes, she was feeding her baby. A female security staff member told her to leave!! While I am sure she was probably following orders from the establishment, uhhhh, what is wrong with this world??
As long as the mother isn't sprawling on the bench / shop / whatever, with a come-hither look while she squeezes her other breast in your direction, I honestly don't understand where's the problem.

That being said! I'm single, childless and not even remotely interested in kids right now, but I've read several articles on motherhood just like I try and read more stuff on women, and I've noticed there's this tendency coming from some women to turn breastfeeding into this oh-so-divine-thing, the absolute best that your baby could have, so you should totally be breastfeeding, and if you choose not to, well ehhh maybe you should think twice, and if you can't, oh we're sorry but you're not a cool mom.
Perhaps I got the wrong vibes? I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Overall, in Spain I've seen this attempt to spin motherhood into this mystical thing, this trend, and ironically enough I've seen it coming from certain hip, intellectual groups of women -writers and the likes. I think that's a regression, or could be. But maybe I'm wrong.

You're not getting on anyone's nerves, but you also have obviously not read the rules for these boards, Mr. Michael. Self-promotion is forbidden here, so you might as well apologise for that instead of for whatever your book contains. I fail to see what has your book to do with feminism, but even if it had, this post would be closed and archived all the same.

Locked and archived

This is definitely very helpful for many of us, myself included! Just wondering whether this doesn't fall within the 'please just add these books to The List' category. Hmmm, but it's ok for me, since what you're looking for is, as you very eloquently put it, a 101 curriculum of sorts.

Adam wrote: "Ross wrote: "Emma Wrote: "It's harder to accomplish a vague or unspecific goal."

This is true but what we are trying to achieve is a paradigm shift. specific goals are good but they can be limited..."

But I guess celebs' voices are important because they sort of empower the rest. Case in point - last week I wrote and published an article on heteropatriarchy in a Spanish online cultural mag. Now, I'm truly happy that it did get more clicks than I would have thought, even some comments from friends and was shared a couple times. But that was it.

Was my article mediocre? Uhhh, well, I'm not in a place to say that - I'd rather let readers offer their feedback, haha. But I don't think it was too bad. In fact, maybe it's quite similar to what you can get from any celeb without specific academic knowledge on the subject.

However, because I'm just your girl next door, aka a nobody, it has already sunk into oblivion. See? Celeb voices matter, mostly because of the attention they can draw upon stuff.

I must confess I know virtually nothing about the Ghostbusters Their name tells me that they, well, hunt ghosts, but that's about it. Well, and the music LOL. I don't think I'll go watch the movie, but just because I never really go watch superhero movies and the likes. I might consider it because of the controversy, as long as I don't find more appealing movies.

That being said, those people who just dislike the movie because of other reasons are fine in my book, but the trailer is full indeed of unapologetically sexist individuals. I just don't understand. There is this dumbass saying that f*cking feminazis are the worst cancer to mankind or some flippant crap like that. Words fail me. What pleasant people they must be. Not.

Thumbs up all the way.

Kodak wrote: "I'm not livid. I'm annoyed, but at least the arse of Britain has probably realised no one likes him, don't trust his politics, and just generally don't take him seriously.

Hopefully someone will s..."

True that. Eek. Hopefully the Tories know better. It'd be the cherry on top of the icing.

So now Farage has resigned as leader of his unpleasant bunch of...oh, sorry, meant to say political party. Yup.

...I would be livid if I were British. Livid. God knows we don't have much to be proud of in Spain when it comes to politics, but what is going on there is a record low.

Good evening everybody!! :) Yay, so we finally know. :D

¡Para los miembros hispanohablantes! Me temo que todos los precios en Iberlibro comienzan a partir de los 13 €. Por una vez, Amazon es la mejor opción, por 9-10 € por la versión en tapa blanda o la versión Kindle. :)

Back to English, yay, Kodak, I read Just Kids already but had noone to talk to about it, so I'll join you in that one.

Oh, and I'm gonna see her live next Friday 8 in Madrid. :)

Hehe! Well, I'm sure we could find a more feminist boss name, but in the meantime, da boss she is. ;)

Hey hey Cem! Oh, I just came back home and I'm in for a couple hours of study, but it seems like Emma still didn't come make the announcement? As soon as she is here. I bet it won't take her too long. :)

Well, judging by the results of the poll we've got a winner, however we would like to wait for the official announcement by the Boss. ;)

Is it really over, though? Admittedly I've been reading pretty much every article by The Guardian these days, but I'm starting to get the feeling that this could be stopped. At least, as long as no one invokes Article 50. Cameron will not do it, and his successor will have a difficult decision upon him or herself, even more so now that we know that Northern Ireland and Scotland are likely to try and become independent. I'm not talking about a second referendum - I'm talking about the British Parliament exercising its sovereignty and refusing to issue the A50.

Agnes wrote: "I'm living in uk around 10 years I never use any benefits I pay taxes and NI . And now I was been called "Polish scum " you know what . I don't care what those people think about me . I know my rig..."

Ewwwwww, Agnes. So damn sorry to hear that. At least you know who's the real scum there.

With regard to closing this thread, ahhh, I suggested so myself and in fact we've given some thought to it (I mean, as the admin team), but for now we think it can stay. We're keeping an eye on it, or at least I know I am, as we should with all particularly sensitive topics. :) Hope it helps!