feminist news round-up 2.12.15

Photographer Annie Leibovitz releases Pirelli 2016 calendar

…and it features simple portraits of prominent women such as Amy Schumer, Serena Williams, Yoko Ono and Patti Smith. They have apparently been at this for years, but it has taken Amy Schumer and a coffee cup for mainstream media to pick up on it. Is this calendar raising the garage-shop tacky nudes to higher levels of art? Or is this just a black and white filter over our obsession with objectifying the female form? Perhaps the real question is: does anybody still use calendars anymore?

The WA inquest into Ms Dhu’s death continues

…and the court has heard evidence that the attending triage nurses thought the deceased was experiencing drug withdrawal rather than septic shock. The inquest into the death of the young Yamatji woman has so far heard that doctors declared her fit to serve time forty eight hours before her death, in spite of her failing health. Ms Dhu’s family and advocacy groups have accused the medical and judicial bodies of institutional racism, saying that she would have received proper treatment if she were white.

Clementine Ford is still fighting the good fight

… publishing a Daily Life column responding to criticism after one of her exposed online abuser’s was sacked from his job. In it, she reiterates that simple fact that ‘freedom of speech’ is not the freedom to threaten sexual assault, to harass or to send naked photos. To her critics, she points out that these are men who seem to enjoy ‘stalking women online to try to scare them into shutting up’. Sorry, guys, it’s not working.

Colorado Republican Representative absolves Planned Parenthood shooter of blame

…and instead suggests that men wouldn’t be moved to break in and shoot everyone if violence wasn’t already taking place ‘inside your walls’. JoAnn Windholz doesn’t mince her words, telling the Colorado Independent that Planned Parenthood are the ‘true instigators of violence’. The fall-out of the shooting has exposed the dark underside of conservatism in the United States. So far we have seen cases of mind-boggling spins such as Senator Ted Cruz claiming the gunman is a ‘transgendered leftist activist’ and comments from nearly everyone with access to a microphone, such as former Hercules actor Kevin Sorbo dismissing the seriousness of the shooting. There’s not much you can say to that, except, maybe:

Finally, Emma Watson reveals she was encouraged not to use the ‘f-word’

….‘feminism’. In an interview with Porter magazine, she said disobeyed direction not to mention feminism in her UN speech because it was ‘alienating’. The actress also credits her interest in fashion as helping her to develop her feminist identity. Sure, it sounds great to ‘use fashion as a means of expression’ when you’ve got millions of dollars behind you, but I’ve been wearing these clothes for two days now so I’m starting to think that my true self is a stale smell.