Blog Carnivals Reminder

Blog Carnivals are regular collections of links to blog posts discussing a particular theme, usually limited to recent articles within the intervals between sessions of the Carnival. I’ve got links to the homepages of various feminist and feminist friendly carnivals in the Links section, but here’s a reminder of who’s hosting current sessions of the Carnivals. If searching for any blog carnival on any area of interest (chainsaw jugglers probably have one by now), you can always find details of hosts, submission deadlines and submission addresses at the Blog Carnival site.

24th Carnival Against Sexual Violence (fortnightly): Abyss2Hope (1st anniversary edition!)
38th Carnival of Feminists (monthly): Team Rainbow (39th: Laurelin in the Rain due June 6th up now)
2nd Carnival of Radical Feminists (monthly): Feminist Law Professors
7th Scientiae: women in science, engineering, technology and math (fortnightly): FemaleCSGradStudent
14th Feminist SF Carnival (monthly): Heroine Content (15th will be at Feminist SciFi – The Blog!)
Carnival of Bent Attractions (monthly-ish): TransAdvocate

FAQ: what do you mean by “Not my Nigel”? (feminist abbreviations/jargon)

Like any other field of debate and controversy, a lot of issues and positions in feminism end up being discussed so often that they are abbreviated for convenience into acronyms, initialisms and shorthand phrases that make up a jargon.

• “Not my Nigel” is shorthand for a common defensive reaction of many women to feminist observations and explanations of widespread sexist activity and sexist motivations, which is that while certainly some other men are oppressively sexist, their particular partners/sons/fathers/brothers couldn’t possibly be part of the problem.
  • i.e. “Not my Nigel! He’d never do anything like that”

  or more invidiously

  • “well sure, my Nigel says/does that but he doesn’t mean any harm by it”.

  (The feminist response is that truly one has no idea what sexist activities one’s Nigel engages in when performing manliness to impress other men (you think all those gropers and harassers tell their wives/mothers/sisters what they do?) and that not meaning any harm because “boys will be boys” is exactly the root of the problem.)

Below are a few common abbreviations/jargon terms. There’s a more formal academic list of terms at Feminist Lexicon, and you may find some of the differences/distinctions between their entries and this list instructive (for more on differences/distinctions see the Feminisms FAQ).

Glossary

| A-G | H-N | O-P | Q-Z |