A few links

I've written about Post Secret before. People send in their secrets on a postcard, and each week the website owner puts up new postcards (US time). They're usually beautiful, and heart-breaking, and sometimes strange. But this week was a mother's day issue, and they are even more heart-breaking than usual. There are postcards from mothers and postcards from children; there are postcards of joy and postcards of pain. They're really beautiful and they make me cry. Together they make an important and powerful statement about the reality of mothering now.

I do a lot of driving for work, so I listen to National Radio (currently undecided on Kathryn Ryan, but I like her voice and the fact that she's not a Linda Clark style middle-class liberal). Today I just happened to hear an amazing interview on Checkpoint. Susan Burdett was raped a murdered a dozen a year ago. The inteview was with her brother. He talks about how he stopped seeking revenge. I'm not even religious and I'm praying that nothing like that ever happens to anyone I love, but if they did I hope that I can find a similar sort of peace.

Lastly a link from Interesting Times - I'm so happy to see another New Zealand feminist blogger. She ties together a whole lot of fascinating threads on the way immigration laws affect women.

The first thing this topic made me think of though was the Sri Lankan teenager (unnamed in the media) who sought asylum in New Zealand with her grandmother after suffering sexual abuse at the hands of several relatives. There were a series of scandal and screw-ups around the case, including the immigration minister obtaining - and publicising - legally priviliged information and losing her job. She ended up being deported. What I can honestly say was one of the most harrowing images I've seen was her been pushed in a wheelchair across the airport, sedated and handcuffed. She was, of course, vindicated.

There isn't really a conclusion to this post; obviously immigration controls reinforce the status quo, and that works against women. I'm not sure whether immigration controls are by definition sexist - though in practice that is definitely how they work out. I can say, though, with complete confidence, that women can only be liberated in a world where everyone has freedom - and that includes freedom of movement.

Go read the whole thing.