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Gender

Anonymous Comrade writes

"Tank Girls: the Frontline Feminists"

Christine Aziz, Independent

These women have come from around the world to bring down Iran's ayatollahs. So why were they bombed by the West? Christine Aziz visits their
desert HQ

As the coalition bombs hit the flat salt plains on the north-eastern border of Iraq, members of a little known, female-led Iranian army huddled in a bunker. While the earth shook, showering dust on their neatly pressed khaki headscarves, 25-year old Laleh Tarighi and her fellow combatants tried to protect themselves.


Eighteen months later, recalling the terror of being attacked by British and US bombers during the invasion of Iraq last year, Tarighi, a former pupil of Parkside and Hill Road School in Cambridge, says: "We were puzzled more than afraid. We knew our officers had sent messages to the Pentagon insisting that we were neutral and shouldn't be attacked. We were only in Iraq to overthrow the Islamic fundamentalist regime across the border in Iran."

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Tank girls: the frontline feminists

These women have come from around the world to bring down Iran's ayatollahs. So why were they bombed by the West? Christine Aziz visits their
desert HQ

28 December 2004

As the coalition bombs hit the flat salt plains on the north-eastern border of Iraq, members of a little known, female-led Iranian army huddled in a bunker. While the earth shook, showering dust on their neatly pressed khaki headscarves, 25-year old Laleh Tarighi and her fellow combatants tried to protect themselves.

Eighteen months later, recalling the terror of being attacked by British and US bombers during the invasion of Iraq last year, Tarighi, a former pupil of Parkside and Hill Road School in Cambridge, says: "We were puzzled more than afraid. We knew our officers had sent messages to the Pentagon insisting that we were neutral and shouldn't be attacked. We were only in Iraq to overthrow the Islamic fundamentalist regime across the border in Iran."

"Caliban & the Witch" Presentation
Silvia Federici

Listen to Silvia Frederici's talk about her new book, Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation.


This is an audio recording from Federici's presentation at Fusion Arts in New York City on November 30, 2004. It's in five parts.

"Gays Ponder Bush Victory:

President Takes One Quarter of Gay Vote, Stunning Some Activists"

Lou Chibarro Jr., Washington Blade

Gay rights leaders pored over the numbers behind President Bush's
victory over Senator John Kerry in Tuesday's election to assess
whether gay marriage provided the president with the hot-button
social issue he needed to propel him to a second term in the White House.

"Intersections:

The LGBTQ Role in Society, the Struggle and Socialism"

Badili Jones

The discussion of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgendered and Questioning (LGBTQ) movement
concerns a movement of profound difference that
in and of itself is a convergence of differences
centered on the question of sexuality and gender
variance. Homosexuality and bisexuality is about
sexual orientation while transgenderism is about
gender. These differences at times intersect one
another.

Over the course of time these movements
for recognition and liberation have joined. This
movement has come to be commonly known as the
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgendered, and
Questioning Movement. Another term that has
gained common usage, especially among youth has
been the term "queer." "Queer" specifically
refers to a particular development and direction
of identity, culture and community that has
expanded to include all whose sexual life and
sensual social identities depart from the
heterosexual mainstream. Historically, the term
"in the life" developed in the African-American
community to have a similar meaning as "queer"
has in the overall community.

hpwombat writes:

"Nihilism and Women"
High Priest Wombat, KSC


The practice of nihilism is to attack the totality without hope that progress will occur. We are not advancing into a better society, despite the rhetoric from the left. What are our options? Do nothing and accept the conditions that are given to us from one ideology or another? Pretend that working for reforms and creating social services will somehow make a difference as the present order recuperates our struggles? Wrap ourselves into roles of the victim or the martyr and push ourselves into the service of suffering and misery?


The present order is a failure, we cannot escape its totality, there is no where to hide. We have no hope in changing society as it is, so it must be destroyed. We must free ourselves from its perpetuation, it is in our interest to do so. All other options are acceptance, critical or not. We need not be limited in our struggle and our actions must expand to all aspects of life.

Yoshie writes:

"Winning the Culture War, Losing the Class Struggle"

Yoshie Furuhashi


The Culture War is over, and conservatives have lost. No less an authority on the conservative camp in the Culture War than Paul M. Weyrich declared in 1999: "I believe that we probably have lost the culture war. That doesn't mean the war is not going to continue, and that it isn't going to be fought on other fronts. But in terms of society in general, we have lost. This is why, even when we win in politics, our victories fail to translate into the kind of policies we believe are important." If we have won the Culture War, though, why are we in such bad shape?

"Patriarchy, Civilization and the Origins of Gender"

John Zerzan, Green Anarachy #16 (Spring 2004)

Civilization, very fundamentally, is the history of
the domination of nature and of women. Patriarchy
means rule over women and nature. Are the two
institutions at base synonymous?

Contributions are sought for a new volume on masculinities in popular music.
Placed at the intersection of the now well-established field of popular
musicology and the increasingly important area of masculinity studies, the
collection seeks to address how masculinities are constructed, represented and
problematised within popular music acts and genres.

Georgia House Outlaws Genital Piercing For Women

Associated Press, March 25, 2004

ATLANTA -- Genital piercings for women were banned by the Georgia House
as lawmakers considered a bill outlining punishments for female genital
mutilation.

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