this weeks playlist

Suzanne Vega - Solitude Standing
Amy MacDonald - A Wish For Something More
Blondie - Just Go Away
Texas - Say What You Want
- Pigtails Girls Rock 2
The Go! Team - Get It Together
Ladytron - Season Of Illusions
Santogold - Lights Out
Le Tigre- TKO
The Chalets - Sexy Mistake
Gaggle - I Hear Flies
Damone - Stabbed In The Heart
Guano Apes - Wash It Down
Queen Adreena - Sleepwalking
Bif Naked - The World Is Over
L7 - Scrap
Kittie - Flower Of Flesh And Blood
Snake River Conspiracy - Casualty
The Cardigans - Higher
Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi
Melissa Auf Der Maur - Taste You
Daisy Grenades - Dominate (Rob's Mix)
The Wendy Darlings - Enormous Pop
EULA-Dirty_Hands
Metric - Handshakes
Horrorpops - Walk Like A Zombie
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Black Tongue
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - Ridin' With James Dean
You Say Party! We Say Die! - Opportunity
The Donnas - Too Fast For Love

Fawcett Society- Don't Turn back Time march

Another Saturday in November, and another feminist event was happening- this time organised by The Fawcett Society in light of the impact that the government's cuts have had on women- there are 27 policies that affect women and currently female unemployment is at a 23 year high. Vital services such as abortion advice services and domestic abuse shelters are having their funds cut dramatically- and they were already struggling to survive.

There was a fifties theme- everyone was encouraged to come along in fifties fancy dress of some kind- I didn't on this occasion but many of the women (and men) that were on the march did- some in pretty vintage dresses, many with a head scarf and some with aprons, brooms and rubber gloves to give that real fifties housewife look!

The march met at 12pm outside of Temple tube station and there was apparently up to 2,500 people on the march at it's peak. The march set off around 12.30pm, and I was just behind some UNISON ladies, Million Women Rise and the London Feminist Network. The march went along the Embankment, and past Downing Street before finishing at Kings Charles Street, I felt in solidarity as I marched with the people around me, getting passed a song sheet- and we joined in singing together- one song in the tune of yellow submarine- "We won't take women's services away, services away, services away.." and other songs as well as simpler chants like "They say cutback! We Say fightback!"

The march seemed to be over really quickly as we all piled down Kings Charle's street to hear the rally. The started with Anna Bird and the chief director of the Fawcett Society, who then introduced us to a wide range of people with inspiring speeches. First up was the journalist Tanya Gold, choice quote-" no Mr Cameron. We will not calm down! Equality is a right not a luxury."

next up was Estelle Hart- the NUS Women's Officer, followed by comedian Kate Smurthwaithe who focused on abortion cutbacks, and the fact that Nadine Dorries wants to change sex education to abstinence education- ONLY FOR GIRLS...Heather Wakefield from UNISON was next discussing the strike on the 30th November.

There was Vivienne Hayes, the CEO of the Women's Resource Centre who took a more radical approach to her speech saying that she thought only women should be in government..then comedian Josie Long did an amazing (and funny speech) who spoke about her experiences of sexism as a female comedian and urged all to call out sexism everytime we hear it- to challenge it even if it's your friend's dad! There was also a speech from the Southall Bank Sisters and I think some others but I can't remember who they were!

Afterwards I went away feeling like I had been part of something good, and as I waited for the tube, I spotted Josie Long who then get on the same tube as me, so I worked up the nerve to actually speak to her and tell her how much I enjoyed her speech and she was lovely, she signed an autograph for me and seemed really touched that I had been nice about her speech! She told me about a project she had been doing with UKUncut and even showed me some photos on her phone! I wish I had of said something more to her really (like tell her to check out my radio show)! but you always think of it after don't you..

this weeks playlist

Martha & The Muffins - Echo Beach

Heart - What About Love

Feist - The Park

Suzi Quatro - If You Can't Give Me Love

Shocking Blue - Shocking You

Salt-N-Pepa - Push It

Courtney Love - But Julian, I'm A Little Bit Older Than You

Patrice Pike - Ridiculous Mess

The Raveonettes - Hallucinations

Aretha Franklin - Walk On By

Sheryl Crow - Make It Go Away [Radiation Song]

Liz Phair - Never Said

The Go! Team - Friendship Update

Ut - Griller

Cat Power - Willie

Imelda May - Psycho

Wetdog - Alibi

Flyleaf - All Around Me

Paula Cole - Comin' Down

The Sibleys - I Don't Smile (If I Don't Want To)

Dirty Love - Forgive me

Bunty - Eyeless And Crawling

The Breeders - Divine Hammer

Deborah Harry - Love With A Vengeance

Daisy Chainsaw - Lovely Ugly Brutal World

Elastica - Never Here

Amanda Palmer- Idioteque

FEM11

I was excited when I heard UK Feminista were holding a feminist conference in London, I made sure I could come by swapping my Saturday at work and bought a ticket as soon as I could.

FEM11 was my first ever feminist conference and certainly won't be my last!
I had to get up really early as I wanted to make sure I got there early to register (which was a good move as the event was sold out and soon after we had arrived there was a massive queue going outside the door)! The registers were set in alphabetical order by first name which caused some confusion for me as I paid with Paypal which is in my husband's name, so I was down with his name instead and for a tiny moment I thought I wouldn't be on the list!

There was a bit of time before the conference so I had a look around the stalls, most of them were charity and organisations so I picked up lots of leaflets including detailed booklets on the work of End Violence Against Women. I also spent lots of money on a stall but I won't say what as the things I got are Xmas presents :)

About 10am we made our way into the big hall which was packed solid with loads of people- of all genders, ages and backgrounds, it took us ages to find a seat! Kat Banyard of UK Feminsta then done a introduction to the event and we heard various speeches including an excellent and humorous one from Sandi Toksving including the epic line "If Rapunzel had hair long enough to let a man climb and rescue her, why didn't she make a rope and climb down herself?"

There was a short break and then it was time for the first seminar of the day. The one I picked for the morning session was a talk from The Fawcett Society about the impacts of the government cuts and promoting their Don't Turn Back time march which is happening next Saturday. It was quite a depressing talk highlighting the need for help for families, low income mothers, victims of violence and older women. The most distressing part was hearing about maternity discrimination in the work place from a speaker from Platform 51 including tales of women who were dismissed shortly after announcing their pregnancy.

Afterwards there was an hour for lunch, the cafe had a huge queue so Cara took me to a place nearby called Planet Organic which had an awesome range of vegan food- so I had a falafel wrap, some organic cola and a vegan muffin :) We also got to try some raw vegan chocolate which tasted AMAZING.

The afternoon seminar I picked was from the group Object who campaign against the objectification of women. The seminar was in the big hall again and this was very full up and for the most part I really enjoyed their talk, we got to see some videos of them in action including their Feminist Friday action in Tesco and challenging lad mags on the news. I mostly agreed with what they had to say, but find myself conflicted with their views on sex work. I don't agree with the idea of selling sex, but I do worry if we ban their advertising and so on, that we may make things worse for the women involved, and of course there is the whole issue of choice-if women want to sell their bodies this way- is that okay? I find the sex work issue a somewhat complex issue in regards to my feminist beliefs. I discussed it with Cara who was very much against sex work, and to my dismay this was when she also told me that she was against transgender people, I won't go into details here, but I was shocked and I really can't see her point of view at all, I could only agree to disagree, I thought of many things I could have said later on but it was too late :(

There was another short break and then back in the main hall all together for the final parts of the day "Feminist Question Time" where we had the opportunity to ask some select feminists questions on a variety of topics including politics and porn- there's a good blog about it here
and then the mayor candidate debate, which has also been blogged about better than I could here

Overall the day was very inspiring and gave me plenty of food for thought. It also made me realise more some of the conflicts in the feminism community (like the porn industry, working with men etc) which saddens me a little as even though we may have different views, we need to work together on the things we DO agree on to make a difference. I also thought the question and answer sessions weren't always as well organised as they could have been, but I could understand it must be difficult with a room filled with over a thousand rowdy feminists!

what you can hear this week

Everything But The Girl - I Didn't Know I Was Looking For Love

The Pretenders - I'll Stand By You

The Duke Spirit - Dog Roses

Fleetwood Mac - The Chain

Dido - Don't Think Of Me

The Sundays - Here's Where The Story Ends

Moloko - The Time Is Now

Shiny Toy Guns - Le Disko

Peaches - Hit It Hard

Morcheeba - Love Sweet Love

The Joy Formidable - Austere

The Distillers - Beat Your Heart Out

Alanis Morissette - Straitjacket

The Runaways - Cherry Bomb

PJ Harvey - Fountain

Siouxsie - Here Comes That Day

Tegan & Sara - Knife Going In

The Dollyrots - My Best Friend's Hot

Little Fish - Morning Call (acoustic)

Blood Red Shoes - Try Harder

Wendy Solomon - Happy Hour Final Mix

Bunty - Feel Sicko

Be Your Own Pet - Bicycle, Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle

Bikini Kill - I Hate Danger

The Long Blondes - Big Infatuation

The Sounds - 24 Hours

Nina Hagen - My Way

this weeks playlist

Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Want To Have Fun

alannah myles - black velvet

Ladyhawke - Dusk Till Dawn

Chicks On Speed - Shooting From The Hip

Soho Dolls - my vampire

Robots In Disguise - We're In the Music Biz

Le Tigre- New Kicks

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps

Joan Jett - (I'm Gonna) Run Away

Thomas Tantrum - Pshandy

The Donnas - Rock 'n' Roll Machine

The Birthday Massacre - Neverland

Hole - Dying

KT Tunstall - Universe & U (Acoustic Extravaganza Version)

Damone - Out Here All Night

Queen Adreena - Sleepwalking

The Dresden Dolls - Dirty Business

Tori Amos - Dark Side of the Sun

Paramore - For A Pessimist I'm Pretty Optimistic

FireBug - Season For Change

Working Class Heroes - When You Finally Stop Prentending

Bunty - Are We Doomed

Skunk Anansie - Weak

Garbage - Push It

Jyl Millard - Ace Of Spades