Harry Potter Padma Patil

Harry Potter actress Afshan Azad -- who plays student Padma Patil in the wizard flicks -- was threatened with death by her father and brother.

Abdul Azad, 54, and his son Ashraf, 28, appeared in court Tuesday to face charges that they threatened to kill the 22-year-old actress, according to the BBC. Ashraf was also accused of assaulting his sister and charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm.


The attack allegedly happened May 21 in their Manchester home. The next hearing is July 12.

Afshan will appear in the final films of the saga, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, to be released in two parts.


This is a sad story to hear. I am sure this stems from the fact that in some families, it is believed that the men "own" their daughters/sisters and can use them at will to better the position of the males in the family.

Here and Here are two excellent profiles of Dorothy Height, Civil Rights activist and feminist. She died this morning at the age of 98--80 of those 98 years dedicated to professional social justice work and advocacy. She was one of the few women allowed at the Men's table when many of the landmark protests and rallies were planned during the 1960's.

She was famous for her hats and dressing well to demonstrate the inherent dignity and worth she knew everyone deserved.

Barack Obama, in a statement earlier this morning, called Height "the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement and a hero to so many Americans." She was also an advocate of dressing to impress — she said, "I came up at a time when young women wore hats, and they wore gloves. Too many people in my generation fought for the right for us to be dressed up and not put down." (Jezebel)

She is also credited as one of the first Civil Rights and Women's Rights activists to engage in intersectional justice work. Or, as the NYT puts it:

"Ms. Height is widely credited as the first person in the modern civil rights era to treat the problems of equality for women and equality for African-Americans as a seamless whole, merging concerns that had historically been largely separate. "

Ms. Height, truly was a remarkable human being--and we need more like her to continue the work for social justice and equity (as well as equality).

Femivore: Back to Earth Movement and a Feminist Sensibility

Check out this interesting article about femivore's (feminist locovores/do-it-yourself-ers) or radical homemakers.

Here's how Peggy Orenstein defines the movement:

Femivorism is grounded in the very principles of self-sufficiency, autonomy and personal fulfillment that drove women into the work force in the first place. Given how conscious (not to say obsessive) everyone has become about the source of their food — who these days can’t wax poetic about compost? — it also confers instant legitimacy. Rather than embodying the limits of one movement, femivores expand those of another: feeding their families clean, flavorful food; reducing their carbon footprints; producing sustainably instead of consuming rampantly. What could be more vital, more gratifying, more morally defensible?

As you may know if you've followed this blog, I love to garden, I like to compost and I'd love to keep bees and chickens, but that's not going to happen for me for quite a while (as I've decided to return to graduate school to get a Ph.D. and I'm back to urban apartment living). I enjoy these things and I'd like to get more self sufficient in terms of learning how to can/freeze my produce, I'd like to learn how to made cheese and soap, but I know that sewing is just not in the cards for me, let alone trying to be a completely self-sufficient homesteader. Sometimes I think that "radical homemaking" especially in cases when the "wife" starts to homeschool is far too close to traditional (read: oppressive with little economic self-sufficiency) homemaking for me. I generally view all extremes with suspicion. So, what do you think? Are femivores really radical homemakers or just Betty Draper's grandmother in the making?

Rielle Hunter Finds Her GQ Spread "Repulsive"

Rielle Hunter isn't pleased with her GQ spread.

"She said she found the photographs repulsive."

In one photo, Hunter has her tummy exposed as she lays with Frances Quinn, her 2-year-old daughter with former Democratic presidential candidate. John Edwards.

I think this is a perfect example, of why women need to have more control of their image. I feel that all women should request that they have the final say of all printed photos.

I also think that we should also say no to suggestive pictures. This would solve many problems if the sexy photo was never made in the first place.

Black History Month: Harriet Ann Jacobs

Harriet Ann Jacobs (1813 – 1897) was a slave who published “Incidents in the Life of A Slave Girl” in 1861 under the pseudonym Linda Brent. The book chronicles the hardships and sexual abuse she experienced as a female growing up in slavery. Jacobs fled slavery in 1835 by hiding in a crawlspace in her grandmother’s attic for nearly seven years before traveling to Philadelphia by boat, and eventually to New York. Jacobs was active in feminist anti-slavery movements.

Black History Month: Buffalo Soldier

Cathay Williams (1842 – ) was the first and only known female Buffalo Soldier. She was born into slavery and worked for the Union army during the Civil War. She posed as a man and enlisted as Williams Cathay in the 38th infantry in 1866. She was given a medical discharge in 1868.

I just wanted to point out that there were trail blazers before us and they will trail blazers after us.

Tyra Banks Says Goodbye to Talk Show

After five seasons, two Daytime Emmy awards and too many girl-power episodes to count, Tyra Banks is announcing the end of The Tyra Show.

“This will be the last season of The Tyra Show,” Banks tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I’ve been loving having fun, coming into your living rooms, bedrooms, hair salons for the past 5 years.”
Wrapping at the end of its fifth season in the spring of 2010, it will be lights out for the show that brought viewers memorable weave-exposing, cellulite-revealing and tear-jerking moments.

Well, I think the show ran its course. I felt she said what she needed to say. She had some great episodes, but she also had a lot of random non-informative episodes also.

Book Review: Not Becoming My Mother

Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl is a cute interesting book. At about 105 pages it is a quick read. The book discusses how one woman changes her perception of her understanding of her mother after reading her mother's letters and journal entries after she is dead. The author describes how her mother provided and anti-example of what type of women to be.

This book helped me appreciate my mother a little more. I don't have the best relationship with my mother. There are was no cookie baking and hugs in my house. Yet my mother did produce a good citizen and a good solider. In many ways I live my life as the Soldier's Creed, because that was one thing my mother did well, be a soldier, . So America can be happy for that. So in away, my good citizenship lessons have served me more in my travels then I think cookie baking and hugs ever would have.

Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?

Eating disorder activists Claire Mysko and Magali Amadei's have written a new book, Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?

The book deals with the anxieties and fears women have regarding pregnancy weight and the celebrity baby-bump watching phenomenon that is making these fears (and expectations of losing "baby-weight" two weeks after giving birth) more and more common.

Jezebel gives a good account of the research found in the book here. But reading Jezebel's comments kind of freaked me out more than the snippet of the book!

Here's a couple:

as a recovering anorexic that didn't tell her doctor about her ED past (because of insurance issues, but that's a whole other post!), i completely agree that pregnancy & the associated weight gain/loss
obsession can wreck havoc on you. i was pretty seriously underweight when i got pregnant and ended
up gaining 42 much-needed pounds. and of course, getting scolded by my doctor and nurses.

i became so fixated on the weight that i had a severe relapse. as in, i was back in my pre-pregnancy
clothes 2.5 weeks after giving birth because i simply didn't eat. and even my family, who knew about my
ED, were just so impressed and constantly cooing about "how quickly i lost the weight!". it wasn't until
months later that anyone realized i was back to being under 100lbs.

so please, if you know a friend of family member has/has had an ED, try to talk to them and make sure
they aren't absorbing these terrible messages.


Another:

I will admit that part of the reason why I don't want children is the weight gain and everything else it
does to your body.

I'm heavy, but short and shapely (think a shorter, much darker version of Joan). I'm finally at a place
where I'm mostly comfortable with my weight. I finally stopped weighing myself every other day, but
that's only because I found out that my scale is off by several pounds and haven't purchased another
one.

I know this isn't realistic, but my goal is to simply stay the size I am now for the rest of my days.
Knowing that a pregnancy can alter my body and make it impossible to get back to my smallest size just
isn't acceptable for me. And my skin scars at the tiniest thing. So my future child would cause me to
become this great big whale with authentic markings and push me into the official "Plus Size" section,
preventing me from ever slipping into designer clothes.

I just made myself really depressed. And realize that I have serious body image issues. Damn

WOW! Seriously, wow! I really do want to send out healing energy to those two commenters--so in no way by quoting from them do I want that taken as criticism and I'm really glad that they shared regarding this issue. Birth and pregnancy is a major life-transformation as well as physical transformation and adding this crazy making celebrity obsessed standard of bikini body ready two weeks, a month, six weeks into the equation is cruel and dangerous. We've covered this issue before, but in times like these, where a Senator states in a committee meeting on CSPAN that maternity coverage isn't necessary in a health-care package, we really do need to take some stock in how birth and pregnancy are viewed, in pop-culture and in those important value statements, health-care budgets (yes, your country's budget is a statement of VALUE).

The anti-abortion advocates like to sweep under the rug the fact that serious complications from pregnancy can result in a woman's death or her overall health (think permanent blindness, diabetes, the diminishment of heart, kidney function, and liver health, let alone a host of other problems). This move to systematically hide the side-effects of a complicated pregnancy is political--only dirty sluts have abortions, afterall, goes the refrain. Coupled with celebrity baby-bump culture, healthy and wanted pregnancies (and the realities of birth, unaided by baby-nurses or nannies) can be quite shocking to new mothers (and supportive fathers). Healthy pregnancies, pregnancies that encounter complications--both are extremely hard on the body and sometimes spirit, but that has to be swept under the rug, hidden from view. Considering that a sitting male Senator doesn't see the necessity for maternity coverage to be included in mandates for healthcare policies, its little wonder that the realities of pregnancy and child-birth are so removed from the cultural framework.

The pressures for perfect baby-bumps (which I think means, stick thin arms/legs, perfect basketball like roundness about the abdomen--and if you gain too much weight, which most celebrity watchers thought Salma Hayek did, you get ridiculed)--are now considered standard for all women. Nothing ever goes wrong in pregnancy--those slutty feminists need to shut up already. And of course, healthcare policies don't need to cover a silly thing like maternity care, isn't that elective, like a nose job or breast enhancement anyway? Ugh, the stupid burns. I think that studies and books like "Does This Pregnancy Make Me Look Fat?" are needed and whether or not you intend, or never intend, to become a biological or adoptive mother, think about checking out Mom's Rising an advocacy group that seeks to enact progressive policies that support work/life and family balance--ideas that are good for single, child-free people as well as marrieds w/ children and single parents as well.