Weekly round-up and open thread

It’s been a while since the last weekly round-up from The F-Word. Here’s one to keep you reading through these strange and uncertain times with site editor favourites from the last few weeks.

As always, linking to articles does not mean endorsement from the F-Word and certain links may be triggering. We welcome debate in the comments section and on Facebook/Twitter but remind readers that any comments containing sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic or disablist language will be deleted immediately. If you notice that we’ve missed out any important articles from the past couple of weeks, feel free to let us know.

A feminist reading list on care, crisis and pandemics (Awino Okech, Medium)

Relaxation of UK abortion rules welcomed by experts (Aamna Mohdin, Guardian)

Argentina sees at least 6 femicides during coronavirus quarantine (Natalie Acoba,al-Jazeera)

Sex work, Covid-19 and the UK lockdown (Paige Murphy and Tayler Hackett, Verso blog)

The “All-Consuming” Emotional Labor Caused by Coronavirus – and Shouldered by Women (Andrea Flynn, Ms Magazine)

Coronavirus cabaret: the online show combating social isolation (Kyri Evangelou, Max Thurlow and Charlie Phillips, The Guardian)

Why bisexuality is a threat to TERF politics (Lois Shearing, medium)

COVID-19 does not cause homicide – abusers do (Susie Marwood, women’s aid)

Stigma towards sex workers is growing because of the coronavirus pandemic (Frankie Miren, Independent)

From the article: “It’s an age-old trope. Sex workers as the ultimate vectors of disease. In the 19th Century, Britain’s contagious diseases act allowed any woman suspected of selling sex to be subjected to a forced examination. During the Second World War, sex workers were cast as predatory petri dishes, malignant spreaders of STIs among the guiltless troops.”

The Black Female Medical Professionals Fighting Coronavirus (Tomiwa Folorunso, Black Ballad)

Are sex workers the original feminists? A brief history of UK sex worker activism (Ray Filar, Verso)

Women locked down with their abusers need refuge (Dawn Butler, gal-dem)

Karen, Please! (Clarkisha Kent, Essence)

From the article: “[N]ow “Karen is a slur” has logged on to become the latest example of white women not knowing how to read the room and most certainly having so much extra time on their hands in this age of social distancing that they must fabricate a crumb of oppression—which is crucial to maintaining the illusion that is their collective fragility and maintaining the balancing out that is their perpetual victimhood.”

Stop blaming ordinary people for the UK’s pandemic failures (Adam Ramsay, openDemocracy)

Lockdowns Mean Millions of Women Can’t Reach Birth Control (The New York Times)

Court allows Texas to ban most abortions during coronavirus crisis (New York Post)

It is not only coronavirus that risks infecting society – our prejudices do, too (Frances Ryan, The Guardian)

Jo Verrent on access, advocacy and expertise in a time of uncertainty and change (The Space)

From the article: “The ridiculous irony is that many of us disabled people are experts in this new terrain we all find ourselves in. Yet instead of being consulted, involved, listened to and leading, we find ourselves shoved once more to the back of the queue as the clocks roll back 40 years and all that we campaigned for is lost.”

The ‘Dishy Rishi’ outpouring is about one thing: unconscious bias (Poorna Bell, Independent)

Coronavirus: Women in England can now get abortion pills by post following Department of Health U-turn (Sophie Gallagher, Independent)

If You Have Anxiety and Depression but Feel Better During Coronavirus, You’re Not Alone (Laura Bradley, Daily Beast)

I honestly don’t think the Labour report could be any worse (Chanté Joseph, gal-dem)

Finally, one of our editors, Ania, reviewed The Daughters of Fire, a ‘queer road trip’ film, for Club des Femmes.
From the article:
“Every time we fuck like that, we give patriarchy the big fat queer finger.”

The image is entitled “Isolation” and is used under a creative commons license with thanks to Fabio Barbato on Flickr. It is a photograph of an older person standing alone in the window of what appears to be a flat block. They have tightly curled grey hair and they are wearing a blue dressing-gown with a pink floral pattern. They are reaching out of the window towards a pigeon that is perched on the window ledge. A houseplant sits next to the person on the window sill.