we watched this documentary tonight about sexual violence on women and girls in the democratic republic of congo (former zaire).

there are no words for this.

The bodies of women and girls always have been battlefields in wars,
cos with destroying women, nobody wants to marry them, nobody takes care of the farming,
the kids get traumatized- it´s in fact a very effective way of destroying a whole community and society.
They have hospitals where women can get medical help, they can only take "the hard cases" as there are so many who have suffered and still suffering sexual violence. After the hospital they have to send the women back home, again in danger:
"there is no where we can go"

The leader of the hospital said; if the international society knows of this, the UN, and all kinds of media have written about this dramatic situation, how can it just stay like that?
Everybody knows about it, and nothing changes.

This is where we sit again, f* don´t know what to say or do
this is a homepage giving some information about, there is also a petition to sign

in the meantime it just feels so fake thinking about a current discussion about a phenomena called "new feminism" taking place in Germany
it started with some books called "alphagirls", etc.
the main threads seemed to be like:
- the twenty/thirty-something girls woke up and realised, hey we don´t feel unequal treated anymore, but there are much more subtile structures of discrimination nowadays- find out about and act against
- old feminist stuff is not hip- Alice Schwarzer (one of THE feminist icons of Germany) is out and not up to date; the new feminists want it to be fun, be sexy (porn is ok) and still want to claim equality
- how the heck to put having kids, drinking caffe latte with friends and making career in a 24 hour day, (and to look good in the same time)
-...
Important points so far:
Read two critisisms of this "movement" lately:
1: feminism light: the autor claims the new feminsim is kind of wannabe
- it stays just wannabe-provocative in the sex-corner
- or gets caught by the "nice girl trap" (girl still want men to approve them- so they bring on appealing behaviour again, as they have learned and always done it)

2. Mely Kiyak critisises the new feminism as far away from reality
and just a debate from christian, white, middle-class women who think about which kindergarden is best or if parental leave fits together with their life plans
forgetting that there is quite big group of women in the country who are not eben able to ask those questions as they only fight for enough money to live, being allowed to go studying, or getting out of violent relationships.
priviledged women write about feminism, without taking the battle especially of migrant women into consideration, which is often also a battle of class and ethnicity than just gender.

in the new we-women-feeling, those were left out who were not considered as "we" anyway?

i´m off to suomi

now

the other afternoon
´ve been sitting with a friend on my cosy couch trying to finish some papers
we just all had some nice summer lunch
cooked potatoes, "quark", fresh vegetables and some smoked salmon
love it
with six girls
like nearly every day

thought about how much it has become a lifestyle of us
to work, eat, shop, go running,... together

and how it can be so home, ordinary, yet special
but also hard, sometimes, to allow people being close to you

we´ve been some days in beautiful france, bourgogne
small car, small house in the mountains, some girls, good food
loads of garlic and wine
no make-up and being as loud as we want to
yes, good days

got a new link: zimmer 117 is a group of photographers
from this city and the capital
some are friends
all are talented indeed