marshtide: (Rei - go on you know you want to)
2011-10-05 07:21 pm

Lesbians!

Reading Charlie by Margareta Suber. It's early 20th century Swedish lesbian fiction. It's pretty short, so I'll probably finish it today or tomorrow. Anyway, just have to say - o Charlie, be my drinking buddy?

Also, all the ladies plz to be having sex now? No wait, early 20th century. Longing looks and hands touching in suggestive ways it is then, I guess! (But rly, all the ladies.)
marshtide: (Mårran)
2011-09-29 08:19 pm

Ahahahahaha no.

Oh god. A brand of sweets is changing its packaging because it had one of those blatantly offensive asian stereotype things going on. NOW A DEBATE PROGRAMME ON SVT IS HAVING A THING ABOUT IT. WHY. HOW IS THIS EVEN A THING. THEY HAVE ASKED THE SWEDISH PUBLIC WHAT THEY THINK. I DON'T WANT TO HEAR WHAT THE SWEDISH PUBLIC THINK BECAUSE I HAVE A HORRIBLE SUSPICION I KNOW AND IT WILL MAKE ME SCREAM. ALSO SINCE WHEN WAS DECIDING WHAT IS AND ISN'T RACIST A DEMOCRATIC PROCESS FOR THE MOSTLY WHITE POPULACE TO HAVE AT.

Wow sorry that was a lot of caps.

But I have... feelings.

(Also in news on a completely different axis of fuckery one of the resource books we're using for both the written and spoken parts of the course & which mostly contains articles and vocabulary practice and things like that, contains an article about LGBT - ok, no, I'm being too generous, they were only talking about the L and the G - parents and their families. Because you know, equal adoption rights, ability to build a family in a variety of different ways, still limitations, it's a thing. The article was fine as far as it went, mostly an interview with a lesbian couple with small kids. But! It came with a debate question! Those are always so much fun. I love it when people debate my rights! Just LOVE it! Especially when the question is phrased like, IS SOCIETY READY FOR THESE KINDS OF FAMILIES? DO YOU THINK IT WILL BE BAD FOR THE CHILDREN? ....hey kristdemokraterna is it you sneaking around back there?

We didn't get around to the discussion in the lesson it was scheduled for, but I will be wearing my most homosexual t-shirts until further notice.)
marshtide: (Default)
2011-07-29 08:49 pm
Entry tags:

Yeah I am not done yet

Sergels Torg, the central square in stockholm, full of people. Really, really full of people.
[image: a crowd fills Sergels torg, central Stockholm, and sits on & against the walls and railings surrounding it.]

We spent today in Stockholm, running errands. In the evening there was a manifestation (I have no idea what to call this in English, watch my grasp of the language drain away) in the city centre to both remember the victims of the terror attack in Norway and to promote political openness. We didn't stay the whole course, because J was with us and super-tired, but we were there a while. The atmosphere was good. See above.

I'm glad we went.



Then Valborg went online. Oh no. Now people On The Internets, I gather, are saying it was TOO POLITICAL OMG.

It was organised by the social democrats' youth group, that is to say, the partner organisation to the one targeted in Norway.

This was an explicitly political attack. The majority of the victims were explicitly interested in politics. How the hell is it inappropriate to bring in politics? It seems deeply appropriate to me to keep talking about the things that these kids were interested in and working for. The alternative would seem far less appropriate.

By the way, Jonas Gardell said something that we've been thinking: that the thing to do in this situation is to be political. Support groups that help immigrants. Support groups that protect human rights. Support religious freedom and gender equality and queer movements and what the hell ever else makes the world a better place; examples in question picked because of arsehole responsible for the terrorist attacks' particular dislike for them.



Also, the "He Did It Because Of Computer Games" brigade have now deemed it safe to come out of the woodwork. Ugh.



I am so ready for Pride, by the way. We are going to have a party. And also go to seminars about racism and islamophobia. Take that, you fucking bastard.

(On which note, revised schedule to come tomorrow. Along with questions about food preferences etc.)
marshtide: (Katherine Hepburn - Sylvia Scarlett)
2011-07-03 07:39 pm
Entry tags:

O no not again

RFSL report that Maria Larsson (go on GUESS WHICH PARTY. GUESS.) has said, wrt the whole forced sterilisation for trans people thing that I've talked about before,

"Jag anser att man ska undvika att använda ordet tvångssteriliseringar, det leder fel. Man fattar ett beslut att man vill genomgå ett könsbyte. Barnperspektivet har också betydelse i den här frågan, barnet ska ha någon att kalla mamma och någon att kalla pappa."

tr:

"I think that one should avoid using the words forced sterilisation, it's misleading. One makes a decision to go through with a sex change. The child's perspective is also relevant to this matter, a child must have someone to call mother and someone to call father."

...

...

...

GO ON GUESS WHICH PARTY.

I had other things to say but I'm busy fuming.


ON THE BRIGHT SIDE a hedgehog just wandered by outside the window. :)
marshtide: (Rei)
2011-06-29 08:04 pm
Entry tags:

gay gay gay gay gay

Today is SUPER GAY. Utena film and s3 of Sailor Moon, oh yeah.

Sorry, I should really go away until I actually have something to say.

But you know!

Lesbians!

(Ok ok. snarp has the best comments ever to make about the Utena film and it was absolutely what prompted me to rewatch it. And having done so: yeah, totally on the mark.

Also unrelated to the link but wow Anthy really does have more than a passing resemblance to Gilbert from Kaze to Ki no Uta; brain broken. Utena as a whole is basically the child that was produced when all the really queer series from the 70s had a big orgy. Which they enjoyed very much, I should think.

Now I've said things. I'm scaling back my pain meds considerably so have a headache. Back to sailor moon. WITH LESBIANS.)
marshtide: (Oscar - a-ha!)
2011-06-17 10:05 am
Entry tags:

O Hagio Moto

page045detail

(This post sponsored by continued furious editing to try and make our talk SHORT ENOUGH OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WE COULD TALK FOR SEVERAL HOURS ABOUT THIS STUFF WE ARE HAVING TO CUT SO MUCH.)
marshtide: (Default)
2011-06-14 08:08 pm
Entry tags:

Health update. Also projects! My wardrobe is full of scrap fabric!

Operation date: 20th. It's confirmed. I'll be going in on the evening of the 19th, so basically once I'm done at BLYG I'm not even going home, we're just making sure we have all my hospital things with us that day and taking a cab there or something. It's good to have something to do through the day; hopefully it'll give me something to focus on other than being freaked out (seriously, hospital stays manage to combine a shocking number of my phobias and neuroses into one package of joy). Whether I come out on the evening of the 20th or on the 21st depends on how they think I'm doing.


ANYWAY. I have a plan for this summer, which is basically: do craft stuff! Make things! Especially make clothes, since we have no money to buy good things but can probably modify a lot of the boring stuff we have!

I've already posted the results of my jeans-patching experiment, but I've also been up to some other stuff.

1. Shoes for [personal profile] valborg. Well, decorating them. We found a pair of very plain white canvas shoes in a box somewhere (or something), which fit Valborg fine but were incredibly boring. Also, I raided the Red Cross's shop for huge numbers of buttons a few weeks ago without any particular plan as to what I was going to use them for.

Read more... )


2. A t-shirt for Valborg. It was actually going to be a birthday present, but there's been a lot of terrible going on lately and there was this week when she seemed like she really needed cheering up, so she has it already.

It's a pride t-shirt!

Read more... )


So that's what I've been up to lately. :) I've been having fun, anyway!
marshtide: (Parkvakten)
2011-05-29 10:23 am

The Christian Democrats delay rights for LGBT people. LGBT community unsurprised.

Source: RFSL pressmeddelande - KD fördröjer viktiga förbättringar för hbt-personer

So there's been work going on to change some of the more shockingly terrible aspects of Sweden's laws re: trans people - namely the whole "divorce and sterilisation mandatory" thing, omg Sweden, aren't we over this whole forced sterilisation thing yet, for serious - and also to make it possible for single women to get help with becoming pregnant in Swedish hospitals. Basically almost all the parties are for this; it is seen as a Good Thing. Well, YEAH.

RFSL say:

När RFSL under valrörelsen förra året genomförde en enkätundersökning bland riksdagskandidaterna svarade 87,5 procent att de var för en förändring av lagen om fastställelse av könstillhörighet i vissa fall på så sätt att kraven på att vara ogift, steril, myndig och svensk medborgare skulle tas bort. Alla partier utom två, Kristdemokraterna och Sverigedemokraterna, har på olika sätt deklarerat att de är för en förändring.


Translation:

When RFSL under the election campaign last year carried out a survey of the parliamentary candidates, 87.5 percent replied that they supported a change in the law regarding confirmation of gender assignment in certain cases in such a way that the requirement to be unmarried, sterile, legally independent and a swedish citizen would be removed. All parties except for two, the Christian Democrats (Kristdemokraterna) and Swedish Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), have in one way or another declated that they are in favour of a change.


(Sverigedemokraterna, for the record, are the anti-immigration party. They are also in favour women being, like, Real Women, which means at home.)

So I mean, what could possibly go wrong? Those two parties are tiny. They're both hovering around the line which you have to cross to actually qualify to be in parliament at all. The big parties? They're for change, even the Moderate party, which isn't exactly renowned for its progressive thinking (and got terrible marks on the aforementioned survey otherwise - think I posted about that one at the time actually). The department of health and welfare (socialstyrelsen) has also published recommendations to the effect of CHANGE THIS NOW. So it really should be getting changed.

But.

BUT.

There is a problem. Of course there is a problem!

In this case, the problem is called Göran Hägglund. He's the leader of the Christian Democrats.

And as the Christian Democrats are part of the governing coallition, he's also the minister for social affairs.

Guess which department has control over these questions. Go on! Guess! You will be so surprised.

Or, I guess, not.

Yeah, so Göran Hägglund, Minister for Social Affairs, head of a party with four percent of the nation's vote, is effectively blocking the opportunity to give trans people basic human rights and to give women not accompanied by a man the right to get fertilisation help from Swedish hospitals (ALTHOUGH his party got elected to parliament, as the article points out, using a slogan to the effect of "let the family decide more". Hur hur.). He is doing it via the political equivalent of sitting in a corner and going LA LA LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU. WHAT PROBLEM.

Let's have a big round of applause for the Christian Democrats!

"For a more humane Sweden" is another othe of the slogans they used last year, by the way.


(I leave you to guess how on earth I could possibly have got into an argument with some of their representatives on the street last year in the run-up to the election...)
marshtide: (Oscar - a-ha!)
2011-05-27 07:39 pm
Entry tags:

Yeah, and we're so going to go and watch Sailor Moon. And read the manga.

QUESTION: What are the femslash fandoms that people are around in right now? Or things with potential? I do know a bunch, but Valborg wants to know if there's anything she's missed that she might be interested in. I agree.

(Especially as a lot of the ones I do know about are american TV fandoms, and I am so completely out of touch with them, partly because I'm actually no good at sitting down and watching long episodes unless someone makes me. So the chances I've missed other ones are really high.)

We're friendly with many different kinds of media.

Help?
marshtide: (Default)
2011-05-23 09:02 am

(no subject)

1. I'm trying out 750 words at [personal profile] littlebutfierce's recommendation and have in fact written 800 words this morning. So we'll see!


2. En Riktig Kvinna is continuing to be both really useful and really depressing. I've been reading about the background of social darwinism and race hygine and how these ideas can be traced forward to a lot of the construction of difference - both between genders and other groups - we have going on at the moment. About how the ways of describing women's biology have changed over time in ways which cannot only be explained with scientific developments, but which seem to have a coupling to contemporary social ideals.

Another book which falls under the heading of: I did basically know this, but thank fuck for good structure. Not new ideas but ones that I now have a firmer grasp on, I think.


3. Queerness in manga, especially from the 70s. We have:

- Rose of Versailles
- Claudine
- Oniisama e
- Orpheus no mado
- Heart of Thomas
- A, A'
- They Were 11
- A Drunken Dream
- Marginal (later, but relevant)
- Kaze to Ki no Uta
- The Poe Clan
- Shiroi Heya no Futari
- Applause (slightly later, and of which we only have the prequel, Bruges)
- Maya's Funeral Procession
- Eroica

Earlier related things:
- Rows of Cherry Trees
- Princess Knight
- girls magazines & their aesthetic

Later related things:
- Utena
- Ooku
- Sailor Moon
- all the yaoi

Misc:
- Takarazuka

... that I can think of! I have a big folder on an external hard drive which isn't plugged into this computer right now, so I'm probably forgetting stuff, but tell us about our glaring omissions, please. Note that we're not just talking about stuff which is positive about queerness (though putting together a talk about homophobia in this stuff is a project for another time), or stuff which is in every way a brilliant story. If you have links as well, including to raws or raws with a summary of some kind, then I will love you forever. (I am on the trail of some raws of other series by Hagio Moto and Keiko Takemiya, we'll see - I don't have that much info in English about them though. *wry*)
marshtide: (Katherine Hepburn - Sylvia Scarlett)
2011-05-22 05:34 pm

Tidy-up: post 3W4D

Two leftover prompts:


1. [personal profile] eggcrack asked about my favourite people from Swedish history, and I have to admit that my understanding of Swedish history is still fairly surface. I do think that, for example, Queen Christina is completely fascinating - but I still haven't got around to reading up on her properly! And I don't even have so many more names.

On the other hand, we do have a great big book of Swedish queer history sitting on a shelf, as well as a number of feminist books which probably have some history in, so I should get working on my knowledge! I guess I'll try to remember to report back on my findings later.

(Actually, most of my understanding of Swedish history comes from Valborg's brother, who has a job related to this stuff, and it's slanted heavily towards "funny stories about kings." And from Valborg's parents, who mostly share information about more recent political history. Although this stuff can be really interesting, it hasn't really turned up any people who make me fantastically gleeful; though I'll admit that Olof Palme was really interesting, he also strikes me as more than slightly infuriating. For example.)


2. [personal profile] silveradept asked about intersection of identities (british, queer, feminist, nerd, in sweden). This is complicated because my identity is pretty unstable in some ways, but!

First: queer and feminist sit together comfortably for me. Although I've met feminists who try to make it into a problem, I haven't met them regularly, probably because I've been selective about spaces. The thing they don't always sit together well with is being a nerd, especially if I try to take myself out into mixed nerd spaces, instead of the internet ones I inhabit (which are generally either queer-dominated or female-dominated or both, and to some extent invested in equality).

Essentially it doesn't actually feel that safe to be visibly queer or to express feminist opinions in a lot of in-person nerd spaces I've found myself in.

I usually do both anyway, and then there's a fight and I go look for somewhere else to hang out, because man, life is too short. (I am, however, gratified to hear that one former group I went through this process with has apparently done some thinking after the event about things I said and the only unrepentant member has left in disgust.)

I've had huge problems finding a roleplaying group, for example, which isn't full of misogynistic bullshit or homophobia or both. I think I've only had one, actually. I don't think they don't exist, but I do feel like I have to look really hard, and if I wanted to put up a notice to try and find a group to play with right now I would probably do it in a queer space - not a general nerd one.


Second: Being British is actually an identity which I can use more easily now I'm in Sweden than I could when I was in Britain. It felt uncomfortable there, which has a lot to do with the way I was treated growing up - that is to say, I'm part Ukrainian, and it's often been used as a way to make me Not British Enough and therefore fair game for all kinds of bullshit. Children are bastards.

Extra context - growing up in the late 80s/90s with an eastern european surname in a tiny rural community where most other people had family roots in the local area going back a few hundred years. It was fantastic. There is also the thing where a surprising number of people have asked me in all seriousness which country I came from and complimented me on my English (even without having seen my surname, in some cases!). Being British is not really an identity that Britain likes to let me take for granted, but Sweden is quite happy to. Probably as a result of this I actually feel a bit more at home in Sweden, if only because I know where I stand; I have a definite identity as a British-born immigrant. People can hear from my accent that I'm probably British, and here I am. Ta-da.


Third: my queer feminist identity has actually undergone a good bit of development in Sweden too. I had read quite a lot of theory and fiction in the UK, and thought a lot about these issues, but somehow I've built up a much more systematic picture while I've been here. I've actually enjoyed reading feminist theory in Swedish even more than in English, which I do admit is more than a little perverse of me. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that moving to another country is the kind of change which, in some odd way, makes it easier to re-focus when it comes to other parts of one's life.

I think somewhat differently in Swedish than I do in English. I have different words and concepts. And I lack words for some things; that means I have to think around them. And that might be a good thing in this respect as well, in terms of examining concepts.




P.S. PRODUCTIVITY REPORT: I finished tidying the patio, which basically meant pulling up all the tiny trees that were trying to start growing between paving stones (other random dandelions etc. can stay, do I look like I care - but one has to draw the line somewhere, and that line is somewhere around "fucking lilac bushes everywhere"). I have cleaned a winter's worth of grime off the bench, table and windowsills out there. I have chucked a bunch of herb seeds (basil, thyme, dill, oregano, chives, parsley) all over everywhere that wasn't full of tulips, because we are basically really bad at flowers anyway and we eat herbs like you would not believe. And we went for a pretty long walk up to Val's parents on the other side of town; I was in the wheelchair for a lot of it, but I still feel kind of accomplished. (The wheelchair is basically perfect for my needs, because the moment I feel a bit like I'm starting to be in pain I can sit down, and then the pain calms down - if I have to first find a bench I'm generally in too much pain for sitting to really cut it by the time I get there and that's when I end up back in bed in a heap, whimpering.)
marshtide: (Rei)
2011-05-20 03:02 pm
Entry tags:

Recently read

Tiitu Takalo - I ringen ("In the ring") / Finnish title: Kehä

Finnish lesbian comic translated to Swedish. With girls who are boxers! Be still, my heart. It's a pretty simple story but it felt right, in a conflicted teenage kind of way - I'm hoping to find some more of her stuff to read soon (think there is at least one other volume in Swedish).

English version of Tiitu Takalo's website
marshtide: (Oscar - a-ha!)
2011-05-14 08:47 am
Entry tags:

Hey! Look over there!

Just to point out: Valborg & I have started actually using Robots in Tutus, our blog for all that is queer. We've got a whole bunch of things lined up, ranging from the ridiculous and sparkly to more serious analysis. (As previously noted, Valborg gravitates towards the former and I gravitate towards the latter, but we are not without crossover in these fields.) Recs, trope analysis, discussion of homophobia & transphobia in anime & manga, discussion of awesome individuals and historical movements/events/misc, queering robots, LOOK AT THIS PICTURE IT IS GREAT... and so on!
marshtide: (Katherine Hepburn - Sylvia Scarlett)
2011-05-12 01:02 pm
Entry tags:

Adventures in clothing, gender & mobility

Today I cycled TO TOWN. And back again! (We live in town, by the way, so "to town" means about 800-ish meters). This was a complex operation which, I have to admit, took a lot of time, because it basically consisted of me cycling a little way, finding a bench, and lying down on it for 5-10 mins, then repeating the process.

But I am ridiculously proud of having not only made it there and back again without breaking myself but ALSO having accomplished my actual goal there, which was to Buy A Pair Of Shorts. I even got a plain t-shirt while i was at it, to replace one of the ones that decided to spontaneously become more hole than t-shirt over the winter (cheap clothes do this distressingly fast, don't they).

Anyway, I bought shorts. I am not a great wearer of shorts, but having adjusted to the really low temperatures which we have here for most of the year, the modestly raised temperatures (OK, OK, 18+ degrees, I am also just a wimp about heat) we get for a few months in summer are distressing, so something has to be done. I have tried on many shorts! All different sorts! Styles! Lengths!

And it turns out that if I want to buy shorts, I need to buy man's shorts, because I am - wait for it - too curvy for women's shorts.

But men's are fine.

Sometimes the world astonishes me.

But yeah, this is basically because women's shorts are apparently designed to be:

- dainty
- very small
- for people with legs at least a third smaller than mine. at LEAST! any pair of lady-shorts that will sit comfortably on my legs will fall off because the waist will be twice the size of my actual waist.

To add to this, I have complicated and entirely queer feelings about gender, and specifically, about my gender, and I haven't figured out what works for me in terms of more casual clothes (if I'm going formal I wear a man's suit/suit with a fairly masculine cut, generally). After going through a stack of the most gender-neutral-looking women's shorts I could find, I was pretty fed up. But I thought, I have come all this way. It was a performance. I guess I'll try some men's shorts and then we can all have a laugh at the way my arse gets in the way of them doing anything good at all, possibly up to and including closing.

Because this is basically what I've assumed will happen with men's shorts, and trousers generally.

But the thing is: it turns out men's shorts are designed to be big. Like, baggy. So my thighs, hips and arse will all comfortably fit into a size 32 pair of men's shorts, largely because they actually have room left for the wearer to be able to move, which is apparently not a consideration for people with boobs. For some reason the waist-band is also fine, which is a bit of a mystery to me, but I'm not complaining.

So that was my adventure for the day! The next step is finding shoes that I can live with for the summer & that I can also afford.
marshtide: (Too-ticki)
2011-05-10 09:06 am

[3W4D] She's Kind of a Big Deal: Tove Jansson

Another image-heavy post, I'm afraid! This became some kind of odd scrapbook business. & Tove Jansson is essentially one of our house-gods, so there was no chance I was ever going to keep this brief.

Written for [personal profile] ar's She's Kind of a Big Deal: Women Worth Knowing About!


---


jansson_tove
She's Kind of a Big Deal: Tove Jansson
[Photo: a woman sits at a cluttered desk. She's holding a cigarette and looking at the camera.]


Who she was: Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki in 1914 to parents who were both artists. Her father was a Finland-Swedish sculptor (that is to say, a part of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland) and her mother was a Swedish illustrator.

Read more... )


What she did: Tove was both an artist and a writer, although she's mostly remembered for her Moomin books, which are by this time cultural icons. They're often reported to be about little white trolls who have harmless adventures and are very sweet. This is questionable.

Read more... )


Ways to appreciate her:

Books

Many of Tove Jansson's books are translated to English (and plenty of other languages). All of the Moomin story books are currently in print in the US and the UK, and the three picture books she did in the Moomin world are also in print in the UK, although possibly not the US.

A tiny publishing company called Sort Of Books is releasing her other books right now in the UK, and I gather a buch of them have been re-released in the US at the same time, though I'm not sure exactly which are available there. They've put out new editions of or translated for the first time:

The Summer Book (an old woman and her granddaughter spend a summer on an island together)
A Winter Book (a collection of short stories drawn from various different collections)
Fair Play (my favourite - a depiction of two women growing old together, living and working and travelling. a love story. kind of.)
The True Deceiver (a very tense, terrifying book, which takes place in a little village which is completely snowbound for the winter. A young woman who is seen by the village as an outsider moves into the home of an elderly artist on the edge of town. Full of deception and manipulation - but who is manipulating who?)
Travelling Light (Collection of short stories)

I'm kind of hoping that they'll pick out Sculptor's Daughter for release, which is one of her close-to-autobiographical books about her childhood. It has been published in English, but has been out of print for years; I did manage to find a copy in my local library when I lived in the UK, though!


Art

To see her artwork you need to go to Finland, which isn't something I've managed yet myself! (Even though it's just across the water.) The Tampere Art Museum has a collection of her works.


Associated reading: English

There's very little available in English when it comes to academic texts about Tove Jansson's work, biography, or anything else really.

But here's the one that does exist:

Tove Jansson Rediscovered, edited by Kate McLoughlin and Malin Lindström Brock, published 2007 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, is a collection of papers about many different aspects of Tove Jansson's life and work. The papers aren't of even quality, but many of them are brilliant. The essays cover disciplines from queer studies to art history and beyond.


Associated reading: Swedish

In Swedish there are, conversely, about a million books about Tove Jansson's life and work.

My personal favourites are the books by Boel Westin:

Tove Jansson: ord, bild, liv, published in 2007 by Schildts, is an extensive biography, well-written and full of great information and pictures.

Familjen i dalen: Tove Janssons muminvärld, published in 1988 by Bonnier, is an analysis of Tove's Mumin books.


Links: English

- A virtual gallery with information, art and photographs relating to Tove Jansson

- Information put together in connection with a Moomin 65th anniversary exhibition

- A collection of Tove Jansson's illustrations


tovefotografi008
[Image: A short-haired Tove Jansson looks off to one side of the photographer. She's holding her glasses, one arm of them against her mouth.]
marshtide: (Rei)
2011-05-05 11:33 am

Summer plans, news

After this weekend I'm going to get back to working on the main current project, which is to say, a talk that Valborg & I are going to be giving at B.L.Y.G. on queerness & 70s shojo, and also on getting up content on our shared blog, which is meant to be functioning as our public face linked in to any talks etc we might want to do, but which is tragically empty right now. (I'm completely identifiable in RL from the contents of this journal - seriously, there are not very many British immigrants to Sweden who are living in a lesbian partnership with someone called Valborg - but it's not meant to be a formal or focused space, so that's where the blog comes in.)

I'd have been charging at it this week but since Valborg has been loaded with a pile of birthday organising I figured she could use a period of grace. I think we have most of the info we need now to do a great talk and some fun posts anyway, so it's mostly structure, images, etc. now. (I've gleefully read ALL THE SHOJO HISTORY that exists in English, both good and dubious, and I won't get to use most of it in this case, so I'll probably turn a chunk of it into a post somewhere - blog or here or both.)

My function in this creative partnership is to be all serious and obsessively academic and Valborg's job is to thwap me lovingly over the head, remind me that it's meant to be fun, and add sparkles. I fear this will be a running joke. *g*



OTHER WILD SUMMER PLANS: Stockholm Pride is mostly free this year. I'd been planning to save birthday money and buy tickets, but I guess I don't have to now! In light of this information, anyone who thinks that hanging out with us in Stockholm in the first week of August and going to some incredibly gay talks, tours and misc. events sounds like their idea of a good time should plan accordingly. If I'm still not healthy by August we're hiring a fucking wheelchair, SO. We will be there. (There will definitely be things happening in English too, if this is relevant information.)



OTHER CURRENT EVENTS: I have an entrance test for Stockholm University's Swedish course in a couple of weeks, which is to see if my current level is good enough and which of their two courses (one which is prepatory for the other; the higher level one qualifies one to study at Swedish universities in Swedish). I'm getting a lift there and I also need to think about if there's anything I can ask them to provide for me to make the test easier, since really not well & doubt I'll be recovered by then.

If I'm accepted to the course I'll be studying in Autumn; if at all possible I'll be doing this with or without funding from CSN. The only completely unavoidable cost is a bus card, and I can probably get help with that from someone or other in the family.

After that I need to think about taking Högskoleprovet (a test which gives a grade you can use to apply for university), since if I can get a good score on that that'll put me in a bigger intake pool for normal university courses than a foreign grade would there are assigned numbers of places for students at universities: quite a lot of places for people with college scores, quite a lot for people who've taken the test, and not that many for people from overseas with a foreign college/university grade. Obviously that's not a relevant concern for the course I'm applying for now, since it's only for people from overseas.

I also have all these crazy dreams about being able to volunteer with Hallongrottan and similar if I study in Stockholm, but as Valborg points out, yes, I should do those things, but I should also remember not to break myself.

I'm pretty good at breaking myself, basically. But hey! I'm trying to learn better.



ETA OF JOY: I've just got my first birthday present, from Valborg: a year's subscription to the fabulous Swedish feminist magazine Bang! My face looks like this: :D
marshtide: (Mymlan)
2011-04-28 12:14 pm

[3W4D] Handboken by Karolina Bång

So today I'm introducing another member of my little personal pantheon of Swedish queer feminist comic artists (OK, I will grant you, it is a very specific pantheon): Karolina Bång! Handboken (The Handbook) is a mix of stories about people who fall outside of various norms, bits of queer & feminist history told in comic form, and bits of how-to guide to alternative relationships!

This time I've got a little selection of mostly one-page comics to offer you, about queerness, norms and boundaries. This post is NSFW & some comics deal with rape culture.


There's something that most girls have learnt...

Read more... )


Shake That Norm

Read more... )



The norm ghost: It's trying to get you!

Read more... )



The end of the nuclear family: A Utopia

Read more... )


Previously translated strips:

- Snapshots of a patriarchy: The myth of the stone age, by Liv Strömqvist
- Creativity - a comic about making things by Liv Strömqvist
marshtide: (Mårran)
2011-03-26 07:28 pm
Entry tags:

Queerness, for several definitions thereof

1. You've probably seen this around, but on the offchance, “Straight Male Gamer” told to ‘get over it’ by BioWare. How beautiful is this?


2. I know some of you are academically inclined when it comes to anime & manga fandom, and so I thought I'd ask around a bit - do you know any good articles or book chapters on shojo, particularly classic shojo, and even more specifically with a focus on queerness? Do you know of any good articles or book chapters on the historical traditions into which that particular brand of 70s shojo that I'm so interested in fits into? Do you know of any about its influence on later manga?

I have some material on all these things, various manga history books and academic papers, but one always misses things. And you guys are a smart and well-read bunch. ♥


3. Yesterday I imagined that I had picked up my wallet and put it in my pocket before we went to the shops. I had, in fact, put it on the microwave.

I seem to be putting a lot of things on the microwave lately, for no apparent reason. My only defence is that I'm still pretty heavily medicated...
marshtide: (Default)
2011-02-05 09:59 am
Entry tags:

Media consumption

Reading:

- work books (YA & children's books in English)
- Alison Bechdel's Fun Home (♥)
- Liv Strömquist's Prins Charles känsla (♥!!!!)
- Andromeda Stories

Comics and work things. That's my level. Prins Charles känsla is a comic about love, as in, what the hell is this bullshit anyway, and it's pretty brilliant. It also has footnotes and references! Hoorah! And it makes fun of Viktor Rydberg (amongst many others), which I am all for. Alison Bechdel presumably needs no introduction in these parts.

(I'm currently feeling a bit like I want to buy ALL the cool queer & feminist comics, by the way. Or at least read them. Any ideas?

Likewise, lesbian films/films with queer appeal?

And really good YA books. Especially if an audiobook version exists. I have nerds and I have people who like "everything except sci-fi" and I have people who refuse to admit to liking anything at all, alas, so...

I know. I never write, I never call, and then I come in here with a little pile of requests for help. And I never did say what kind of music I wanted when some of you so kindly asked. This is either because I'm a terrible person or because I completely ran out of concentration & room for coherent thought when I started working. Or both!)