The Sixth Carnival of Feminists is up. As usual, lots of good reading there.
Also, Jenn at Reappropriate has announced a new blog carnival: The Radical Women of Color Carnival. “All bloggers, especially women of colour, are invited and encouraged to submit or nominate posts that highlight being a woman of colour and/or issues associated with this collective identity.” Click on over for the details.
And while I’m on the subject, Bitch | Lab has announced another new carnival, The Carnival of Sex Positive Feminism, and is taking submissions.
Hmmmn… I wonder if it’s time for a Carnival of Fat?
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Let me just say that this has been THE best carnival so far — at least for me and my interests. The blogs highlighted were often exemplars of community building and exhibited a depth of discussion in the comments section that I found refreshing. Congratulations to Jen at http://www.reappropriate.com
I must ask, though. I’ve been plugging a carnival here, too. Is there something I have to do to get it highlighted front and center. I gave up on it and simply assumed that the topic is considered too marginal for feminists to be interested.
Which carnival is that, B.L.?
My guess is that you mean the Carnival of Bent Attractions. But I posted a link to the first CBA, and it’s my intention to link to subsequent editions as well, although letting me know about it never hurts.
If you’re complaining because the CBA was linked in a “link farm” post whereas this particular edition of CoF was linked in its own post, I assure you that’s because of the random chance of when I happen to post, and not an idealogical statement. Earlier today I accidently lost all the open tabs in my browser, so I didn’t have a big list of open links. But I did run into a link to the CoF while reading Reappropriate earlier today, and thought “what the hell, I better post this before too much time passes and it’s too late.”
Oh, wait, you mean the Carnival of Sex Positive Feminism. Oops, my bad. I’ll update the post to include a link to it.
On the other hand, I have to admit, part of the reason I wasn’t blown over with enthusiasm for this carnival is that I think your announcement post wasn’t well-written. First of all, the opening sentence (“Bitch has decided, after reading some ridiculous arguments about porn…”) made the whole thing seem kinda combative – as if the purpose of the carnival was to slag other feminists who disagree with you about porn.
Second of all, your announcement lacked a statement of purpose. (Contrast that to the The Radical Women of Color Carnival, which included a clear statement of purpose.) Not only would such a statement have alleviated some of my concerns about the purpose of the carnival, it also would have provided me with something to quote in my post linking to it.
I do respect you and your blog, and I hope you’ll take the above as it’s intended, which is constructive criticism.
I wonder if it’s time for a Carnival of Fat?
That would be Mardi Gras. Probably somewhat diminished this year. ;(
Robert’s joking aside, I think that a Carnival of Fat would be an excellent idea, and I would totally participate if you started on. Start One! NOW!
The link to the Carnival of Sex-Positive feminists in the main post is broken. Just sayin’
Oh please, let’s do a Carnival of Fat! I would SO be part of that.
Okay, let’s figure out how to organize a carnival of fat.
First of all, does everyone like the title “Carnival of Fat”?
Second of all, how frequently should we have it? I’d say either monthly or once every two months, at first, and then if necessary we can increase the frequency.
Third of all, what’s the theme, specifically? I’d say that it’s a carnival for fat acceptance, fat pride, criticisms of fat phobia, and in support of the Health At Every Size movement – and absolutely not for diet talk. Jakobpunkt and Kactus (and anyone else), how does that seem to you?
I would especially like to see a carnival that celebrates fat images–too few of those in this world to begin with. And of course fat acceptance is a given–and NO talk of diet or WLS unless it’s to discuss how those things have harmed us. Fat sex, queer fat sex, fat love, you name it. And it doesn’t sound like I’ve helped you narrow it down any, does it?
Amp, I think those are excellent first guidelines. I absolutely agree with you about the exclusion of diet/weightloss advice and anti-fat sentiment in general.
Once every month or two sounds great.
Kactus, I don’t think we need to *narrow down* the potential topics, after all the whole point of a carnival is to get variety. I think any of the topics you’ve discussed would fit into the general theme of fat-positivity.
This may be what I should write about for the carnival – but what’s talked about here seems to be either narrower, or through a different lens than the way I normally think of body issues.
Before I started reading this blog it would never have occurred to me to seperate my analysis of fat from my analysis of gender. To the extent that I was having a conversation with a group of women the other day, and when a man asked about one of his issues (around food more than fat), I just had to say “I don’t know, I can’t imagine what it’s like for men.”
I don’t think it’s just worse for women, I think fat and body issues are qualitively different for women than they are for men, and I’m not sure that looking through the lens of fat acceptance, or fat pride, or even criticisms of fat phobia don’t hide those differences.
I like the idea of a Carnival of Fat & will certainly contribute something.
In what qualitative ways do you think it’s different? I don’t necessarily disagree, I’m just curious as to what it is you’re getting at. Maybe that would make a good post for you to write for the first edition of the carnival. ;-p
In any case, I would hope that feminist analysis of fat and fat-related issues would fit into the carnival.
* * *
No one seems to object to the exclusion of diet/weightloss advice and anti-fat sentiments from the Carnival of Fatty Goodness (as I’m now thinking of calling it, if no one objects).
I also thinks that fat-as-sexual-fetish should be excluded, not because I have anything against people pursuing fetishes, but because I think it would be off-topic.
Any objections?
UPDATE: I’ve made a new post for discussing the Carnival of Fat; please post further responses and comments about the Carnival of Fat over there.
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