Carnival of Feminists No 10 - an extra-special one ...

It is now up on Indian Writing, and a very special carnival it is too. That's not just because it is a great collection of posts - although it is - or because it is on International Women's Day, but because it is taking the carnival on to a fourth continent. We've twirled through Europe, Australasia and North America, and now the carnival is visiting Asia.

Please help to spread the word, and of course visit it yourself!

You'll undoubtedly find some new bloggers there (unless your blogroll is already astonishing), and some fascinating new angles on old debates. For example, I was interested in Kaleidoglide's consideration of the abortion debate in America, Europe and India. That reveals the differences between issues for women in different countries, but then comes a similarlity. There's a continuing debate in Britain about the caesarean rate, but Blogpourri reveals that in India the rate in private hospitals is up to 70 per cent in private hospitals!! It seems this is a universal problem (at least in places with even modest wealth).

There's also "how women are like sea-turtles", Rwandan widows, "panic rooms" for abused women, and a fascinating post on how education has failed to deliver th promised liberation for Indian women.

Really, it is a must read.

More generally on the carnival, I don't yet have an African host (you can find the list of hosts on the home page, now running into July), but I would very much like to find one. Also a South American host, although I appreciate there might be a language problem there.

On that point, while I think the carnival needs to stay broadly in English - like it or not it is the most widely accessible language - there's no reason why it can't point to posts in other languages, if the host is able to read them and provide a brief summary. And should anyone be interested in starting a French, or Spanish, or Mandarin-language feminist carnival, I'd be happy to provide any help I could!