Forget homohop, meet lesbo hop. Originally published at the New Statesman.
God Des and She holding non-suggestive objects
You haven't lived until you've seen a lesbian hip hop duo rap about best pussy eating technique to three hundred excited women. Best known for their appearance on lesbo-drama TV series The L Word, hip hop act God Des and She enchanted the crowd at long-standing London queer night Bar Wotever last week. Bringing a signature mix of rapped swagger and ovaries-busting soul - “You and me together we got that vibe/Plus I'm a ten and your girl is a five” - they ensured there wasn't a dry seat in the house.
Yet despite being regarded as queer hip hop “pioneers” by EvOn, another lesbian rapper and writer of the LGBT Underground blog, many in the audience of dykes, queers and assorted misfits had only vaguely heard of them before the show. Read More.
Despite women's progress, the norms that dictate that people should act along gender lines are stronger than ever. The rules of gender come first, humanity second. Genderqueers are transforming gender and challenging the constricting gender roles that limit everybody’s lives - I argue at openDemocracy.
A way too fabulous image of artist Del LaGrace Volcano
It's 1983. Controversial radical feminist Andrea Dworkin stands in front of a crowd of 500 men. In an act of now legendary feminist bravery, she challenges the men to a 'truce', a short, 24 hour period during which rape will stop. Dworkin tells her audience about the presence of rape in women's lives. She explains that every three minutes a woman is being raped, every 18 seconds a woman is being beaten.
“Stop your side for one day”, she says. “I dare you to try it. I demand that you try it.” Despite or perhaps because of the content of her speech, one man physically threatens her after the lecture.
Exactly 30 years later, everything and nothing has changed. Women are still waiting for the 24 hour truce. Two young men convicted of rape last week in Steubenville, Ohio, were sentenced to less than two years behind bars, whilst media coverage fixated on the damage to their reputations. The problems remain the same. But the ways in which feminists, queer and trans* activists and anti-gender campaigners oppose gender norms have multiplied indefinitely. Read more at openDemocracy.
Judith Butler, combining topical Jewishness with general excellence
Hello! I've been interning at the Jewish Chronicle for the last fortnight, writing news and consuming my own body weight in cake. As anyone within earshot of me at any point knows, I have a dream that one day I will be paid to do journalism. Until that point, however, I'm learning valuable life lessons - like not assuming it's ok to use someone's surname (complaint number 1), not accidentally misquoting someone (complaint number 2) and not calling someone a lesbian unless they say you can (complaint number 3).
The JC, as it is affectionately known, is a highly pleasant place to work. On morning one they put me at a desk and told me to get on with it. It's exactly the kind of working environment I like. I've been able to engage in quintessentially journalistic pursuits like finding my own stories, doggedly tracking down people to talk to and calling up Russia for a chat.
Here are some of the stories I've written. Also, look out for forthcoming exciting reports on how a flaming meteorite hit Siberia and what to expect at this year's Jewish Book Week (hint: it includes Judith Butler).
First off, a guy called Rodrigo Rosenberg set up an elaborate plot to bring down the Guatemalan government:
You've finally graduated, with a good combined degree in Humanities and Other Useless Studies. You spent your university years relatively well. You played sport for a team, you joined an orchestra. You had a social life. You're reasonably well rounded, and entirely sure that you can a: answer the telephone, b: send an "email" and c: talk to people without accidentally saying "cunt". Ready to take on the adult world of employment.
But the glorious, hopeful summer has now turned to October, and you're sitting in your parents' kitchen in yesterday's pants with a mysterious crust on your face (this bears no relation to my own life, I'm totally fine. Having a great time, actually). You're on your fifth cup of instant coffee and its only ten in the morning. You're flicking through the same unpromising job ads that you've seen every day this week. Most of them tell you neither what the job is nor who it would be for, but they do use plenty of fun, meaningless phrases like "self starter".
The fortnightly trips to the job centre take on a nightmarish air. The night before sign-on day you wake up in your sleep, soaked in sweat. Will you be able to convince the sceptical woman behind the desk that you are worthy of this week's £56.25? Difficult to say, when passing the test to keep your benefits depends on you accepting individual blame for the failings of the political system.
Of course, there's always an opening in recruitment consulting, bribing other people into becoming recruitment consultants. If you don't think about it hard enough, maybe you won't notice that its an empty, self-perpetuating job cycle created to give desperate graduates something to do. Sometimes these consultants even call you up, deliberately ignoring whatever sector it is you marked as desirable on your CV:
Consultant: "Would you like a mind-numbingly boring job that you have absolutely no interest in?"
You: "No, thank you kindly"
Consultant: "You are clearly a benefits scrounging loser. I read about your kind in the Telegraph."
I've never had a conversation like that, but it's only a matter of time.
In any case, from one work-shy feckless job-seeker to another, here are my five top tips for getting a job. They have served me admirably well in the past:
1. Start your cover letter thus:
"Dear Company,
I have no idea who you are or what you do, but frankly the position advertised is an insult to someone of my abilities. Obviously I am capable of filing, answering the telephone, and making tea. During my degree I had to write essays about dialectical materialism, for fuck's sake. Please, please, please give me this job, I really need the money."
2. Apply for unpaid internships. When they offer them to you ask if they'll pay you. If not, turn them down in an outraged email railing against slave labour, linking them to the wikipedia page for the principle of "a fair day's wage for a fair day's work". Repeat.
3. Turn down any job offers you receive. If they're offering you a job, it can't be that great a job. What's wrong with them? (See: Groucho Marx)
4. Write intimidating speculative applications to companies who don't have job openings. Threaten to leave the country if they don't create a job for you. Why should multi-billion pound businesses receive favorable treatment?
5. Whenever friends, parents, partners or bloggers try to give you well-meant job advice, laugh long and loudly. You have no need of their advice! Have you not sent five thousand applications this very week! Do you not have as much chance as anyone else of landing the BBC Director-General job (as and when George Entwistle vacates it)? Shout all these things aggressively, then cry and run out of the room.
If you fancy a brief meditation on the sheer wretchedness of humanity (or that represented below-the-line on Cif, at least), have a look at the comments. Suffice it to say that my choices of interesting young artists were, according to one delightful commentator, examples of:
"No skill, artless, derivative nonsense. Dishonest"
In any case, I totally rose above it by lying on my bed for much of the day feeling sorry for myself, resolving never to step outside the comfortable territory of gender related sarcasm ever again.
