I know which Kylie I prefer

Kylie Northover is not the right answer. They wrote this article. Should you be uninterested in following the link and reading the whole article, let me summarise the main gist:

- Female performers are only as good as how attractive the writer finds them. Older female performers are embarrassing because they aren’t, in the opinion of the author, hot. Because they are no longer considered hot they should retire lest anyone be confronted by the horrifying spectacle of an older woman performing or being in the limelight. If they can’t retire they could take a job as ‘a judge on British reality show The X Factor. It’s a nice, dignified role, befitting an elegantly maturing pop star.’

- Kylie Minogue is an ancient 42 years old.  She should ‘pack away her breasts’ and ‘unhand the shorty-shorts’ lest she turn out like… Madonna. Kylie should really just wake up and realise that, like all women, all she is worth is what she looks like – and Kylie Northover doesn’t think she looks all that great.

I’m too tired to say anything more than: fuck this sexist, age-ist shit. If you wanna be a journalist surely there are better ways to do it than attacking other women.

Lubna al-Hussein – Legend

I’ve been meaning to write about this woman for ages so, despite my timing being a wee bit on the lagging side, here goes!

Lubna al-Hussein, a Sudanese journalist, was arrested along with 12 other women in July 2009 for wearing ‘indecent clothing’ – read, trousers – in a Khartoum restaurant. This ‘crime’ can be punished by up to 40 lashes, and 10 of Lubna’s co-accused received 10 each.

Lubna was ordered to pay a fine – which she refused to pay on the grounds that doing so would legitimise the charge. Instead she was sentenced to jail for a month; however she was released after only one night when supporters paid the fine without her permission. Lubna wanted to make a clear point about this discriminatory, oppressive law, and resigned from her position with the UN because it would have granted her immunity to the charge.

Before the trial she even sent out invitations reading, ‘Sudanese journalist Lubna invites you again to her flogging tomorrow.’

What a legend.

On another note, a belated shout out to the group of 34 imams and scholars in Mauritania who in January this year declared a fatwa against female genital mutilation. I’m not usually a fan of fatwas, but this one seems ok!

And to finish, a nice quote from the suffragette Rebecca West all the back in 1913, ‘I myself have never been able to find out precisely what a feminist is, I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.’