Friday Femme Fatales No. 50

Break out the balloons and the streamers - we reach a total collection of 500 women bloggers. (Yes there are millions out there, this just seeks to highlight a nice range of them and give them a bit of publicity.

Why "femmes fatales?" Because these are killer posts, selected for great ideas and great writing, general interest and variety.

First off, unusually, I'm going to start with a whole blog, rather than a particular post, since it would be unfair to single any one out: Reading Middlemarch is a group blog of women (at least I think they are all women) reading George Eliot's masterpiece, and reflecting on it as they go. A great idea - and it would be fascinating if someone wanted to do something similar with a feminist classic - say The Female Eunuch? (Just a thought... I'm already committed to a variety of projects for about 23 hours a day.)

Turning back to the politics - well I have too, even if with a heavy heart - but let's start with a positive story: on Avast! Feminist Conspiracy! (which proves from its title that irony is alive and well in America - whew!) an account of the campaign of Tammy Duckworth, "a disabled combat veteran and a woman of color, running on the kind of democratic platform that many of us joined the party for".

Also on a note of celebration, Mikaila on The Pan Collective (a women's blog "on Caribbean life" makes her first blog post, celebrating Jamaica's first female Prime Minister - the Honorable Portia Simpson Miller.

Now I think Hecate on her blog should stop pulling her punches, say what she really thinks, as on the case of the Wiccan high priests versus a Great Falls, South Carolina town council. "The basic premise is that if xians aren't allowed to shove their religion down everyone else's throat, then the xians are being persecuted," she says.

Belledame222 on Fetch My Axe (know the feeling) reflects on sex, porn, oh, all those issues around sex-positive feminism.

Turning to the artistic side, Lisa Call is, I guess you'd say, an artistic quilter, or an artist who quilts...? Forgive me; not my area. But she's tracked the movement of her Welcome to Parker and given us a peak.

Then to the heartbreaking work - in this case medical - side. On Lost in Sasazuka, Kim is a final-year medical student on placement in the "deepest darkest Northern Territory" (Australia). And this is her quite technical, but deeply moving, account of the attempts to treat a young child, a case of 'third world' lifestyle - dirty water & overcrowding, managed with with 'first world' knowledge and resources.

Staying in warmer parts, That Girl in Samoa attends a movie premiere, a rather special premiere, of the the first Pacific Island feature length film, Sione's Wedding.

Finally, a fun link for readers who have lots of computer power to burn - mine is still groaning. (If you're on dial-up DO NOT CLICK.) On i-Anya Angela Thomas has a Tibetan-themed music sim.

And next week, we'll continue on, towards the 1,000 mark....

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If you missed last week's edition, it is here.

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Please: In the next week if you read, or write, a post by a woman blogger and think "that deserves a wider audience" (particularly someone who doesn't yet get many hits), drop a comment here.

It really does make my life easier!