Blogladesh

While you are doing whatever you are doing this lazy Sunday (I'm watching The Dish Presents: Weddings Gone Wild and drinking a Mountain Dew) three women are on a flight somewhere where I'm pretty sure Dew and the Dish don't exist. No neon yellow pop or trash tv round-ups? Why would someone go to such a place?

Siân, Josie and Eva are travelling to Bangladesh with Save the Children Fund to highlight the work they are doing in line with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Every year almost 9 million children under the age of five die. These three women will be tweeting, creating video and photo galleries and writing about their experiences in Bangladesh live and direct.

In Bangladesh, 36% of the population live on less than US$1 (64p) a day and 83% live on less than US$2 (£1.28) a day. Extremely poor households are often dependent on income from their young children and around 7.4 million children are engaged in child labor.

Almost 50% of Bangladeshi children under five years old are underweight or too small for their age. Approximately 2.4 million children aged 6-10, are not enrolled in primary school and the number of street children is estimated to be over 7, 00,000.

Every year around 250,000 children die in Bangladesh before reaching their fifth birthday. They die from things that can be easily prevented or treated like diarrhea, pneumonia and infections and from lack of proper maternity care.

What can we do to help? Make as much noise as possible. Follow these bloggers on their journey, watch their videos and re-tweet their story. You can follow Siân, Josie and Eva on twitter and RT using the #Blogladesh hashtag, because awareness is half the battle.

While I sitting here drinking my Dew and watching football (NotBlondeHusband has come home since I've started) and Blondie Boy is upstairs snug in his bed with his belly full and sleeping soundly, these women are on their way to experience a diametrically opposite situation.

So please read their stories, share their experiences, make some noise and help make a difference.

Flippity Floppity Fit

I love flip flops. LOVE them. The Scottish weather doesn't exactly lend itself to my favorite footwear, but believe you me I let my tootsies breathe in every chance I get while I can.

For the past two weeks, come rain or shine (it's still sorta warm) I've been rocking my new Fit-Flops. Fit Flop footwear is biomechanically engineered to help tone and tighten your leg muscles while you walk in them. Normal walking in Fit Flops can help:

- help increase leg and bottom muscle activity (up to 30%). (so you feel less ache in your hips and knees),

- absorb more shock than a normal shoe (up to 22%),

- help realign ground force reaction closer to your joints



I was a bit worried that they'd make my legs or feet sore, but seriously these are possibly the most comfortable shoes I own. I've been wearing them to the grocery, the shops and when I take Blondie Boy on walks. I have no idea if they are working my legs and bum out more, but I certainly am making more of an effort to go out on walks with Blondie Boy.





You can get other styles besides flip flops, like embellished sandals, shoes, clogs and how cute are these boots for winter? Definitely more practical for Glaswegian weather that is for sure!

Fit Flops are available worldwide and online, so if you are looking for a helping hand to get in shape that is comfy too check them out!

Transatlantic Blonde was provided this product for review.

Things I Don't Want to Forget Thursday

I've seen a couple bloggers doing "Things I Don't Want to Forget Thursdays" and just about everything I capture on video of Blondie Boy I don't want to forget and this is certainly one of them.

Filmed on a Kodak Zi8.

...and the winner is!

We had 22 entries to the Hipp Organic Giveaway, so we decided to write out the entries and let Blondie Boy pick the winner. Just so y'all know I do check-up and see if you actually are following, tweeting and disqualify any entries which can't be verified. We don't tolerate shenanigans in the Blondie household!

Without further ado the winner is.....


Video filmed on a Kodak Zi8.

Congratulations! Please be in touch within 48 hours or another winner will be drawn.

Congratulations and for those who didn't win Hipp Organic goodies are available for online and in most large grocery stores and pharmacies.

Wordless Wednesday

Feminist Friday Theme v.V: Cyborgs

I'm going to try something a bit different and hopefully if works, but maybe it won't. I'd like y'all to read Donna Harraway's "A Cyborg Manifesto" and then write a post about how it relates to you, your thoughts on the article or anything else relating back to the piece.

Since I'm sorta giving y'all homework, I'm going to give you two weeks to read and write. As always I'm happy to discuss any ideas with you before the post goes live on September 3rd.

The Friday Feminist Mom Roundup

Here's how it works. Write a blog about being a feminist mom, raising a feminist child, a rant or anything that falls under the realm of being a feminist mom. Come back and link your post and post the button on your blog.

That's it.

You don't even have to be a blogger to take part - just send me your post and I will publish it on my blog for you. You don't even have to include your name if you prefer.

When you've published it, come back on Friday and via a widget thing you can add a link to your post and share it with everyone. The link remains open for 5 days.

Visit others, comment if you like them or feel inspired by them. Just go out and encourage and support other feminist Moms.

The more support you give, the more you will get back! I can't wait to meet and interact with other feminist moms around the world!

Feminist Friday v.IV: Power of Words

Words are some of the most powerful weapons we have, but their misappropriation can be just as damaging. One of things that pisses me off the most is the misappropriation and misuse of the word "rape."

I'm pretty sure I don't need to go into a feminist analysis of rape and start quoting MacKinnon or Dworkin for us all to agree that rape is a horrible crime. We don't need to discuss radical vs liberal views on why it happens; it happens and it shouldn't, ever.

What pisses me off is when people take "rape" a word used to describe one of the most hateful and damaging crimes and use it to describe something completely inappropriate.

"Hey man, did you see the game last night? The Bengals totally got raped."

"Ugh, I hate Verizon my stupid phone doesn't work, they totally raped me."

Really? The entire Cincinnati football team was forced against their will to have sex? Verizon sold you a crappy phone and then you were taken into the back for non-consensual sex? Oh that didn't happen? You mean the Bengals just lost by a large margin and you over-payed for a piece of crap phone? You didn't actually mean rape at all? I didn't think so.

When you take a word which describes a despicable act and use it so casually to describe mundane and normal things, you strip the word of it's power. When you use that word so nonchalantly it normalizes the event it is meant to describe. When you use "rape" without even thinking about it you marginalize the millions of men and women who have been raped.

I know most people don't think before they speak; they don't mean to normalize and minimize the experiences of those who have been raped, but they are. When you take something that should never happen and use it to describe normal events you are trivializing what rape is.

So what's the point of my rant? Think before you speak. Choose your words carefully and make sure they mean what you are really trying to convey.

WORDS

Here's how it works. Write a blog post about being a feminist mom, raising a feminist child, a rant or anything that falls under the realm of being a feminist mom based or the theme for the week. Come back and link your post and post the button on your blog.

That's it.

You don't even have to be a blogger to take part - just send me your post and I will publish it on my blog for you. You don't even have to include your name if you prefer.

When you've published it, come back on Friday and via a widget thing you can add a link to your post and share it with everyone. The link remains open for 5 days.

Visit others, comment if you like them or feel inspired by them. Just go out and encourage and support other feminist Moms.

The more support you give, the more you will get back! I can't wait to meet and interact with other feminist moms around the world!