African women blogging this week

Mama JunkYard who has been on a blogging hiatus is back and is disgusted by the use of vague, incorrect and ‘less offensive words’ and images to sanitise women's bodies and emissions when terms such as ‘feminine hygiene products’ are used to describe sanitary towels and tampons or when blue liquids are used in sanitary towel television advertisements. She wonders why this is the case and thinks the aim is to ‘is to sell us a product without actually having to delve into the so-called yucky-ness of the matter’.

Mama Junkyard also writes about her love for colloquialisms in the English language while listing her favourites such as ‘let's be ‘avin’ u’ from Yorkshire which means ‘let's go’ and not ‘a challenge to fight or a cheap pick-up line’ as one would have thought.

After being described an Afro-French chick by a blogger who tracked back on a post she wrote about the current situation in France, Black Looks writes about her amusement and amazement and while asking whether the blogger has been watching too many re-runs of Pam Grier movies, she wonders at the need to use the word ‘chick’ to describe women.

Bronwyn writes to say she has discovered a new love – fast cars – which is surprising to her as she has always been one of those people who thought watching cars going round and round in a circle for hours was boring but now finds motor racing exciting.

One African Woman describes an incredible and inspiring young man who she recently met and who works with other young people in the slums of Nairobi and whose enthusiasm and verve she says reminds her of the idealism of her youth and how jaded she has become.

Molara Wood hopes the writer Atukwei Okai who could not participate at a Ken Saro-Wiwa remembrance event held in London last week was not denied a visa as has been the case for several African writers coming to the UK for special events. She gives a couple of examples when this has been the case.

Kenyan Pundit reports on the latest gossip in the run up to the Kenyan Constitutional Referendum and says the latest is that the Yes Campaign is totally running scared and are seeking to use their influence in court to prevent the Referendum.

While giving an example of how patriarchy works, AfroFeminista describes a particular kind of man, full of braggadocio, chests puffed out who will approach women they have nothing in common with and who they expect to be charmed by their uncalled-for attention and how women have been socialised to accept this behaviour.

Afromusing has a remarkable quiz quiz on her blog, Understanding Prejudice which I attempted and whose results left me stunned just as much as she and other people who have done the quiz were.

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