Solidarity

I sat up tonight pottering around and playing on the internet. I was trying to show some solidarity to Leith, who is up working just like he has been every night this week. But in actual fact all I did was snicker audibly at people's twitter feeds, fart surreptitiously a few times, and go to bed. Despite making him a cup of tea, I am clearly lousy at solidarity.

 

Cherchez la Femme - Part 2

Ok, so I utterly failed at writing up Cherchez la Femme the next day. And yes, I am a lazy and haphazard blogger. Also, beyond an immediate whole-hearted endorsement of the evening, as I pondered the event, and discussed some of the ideas with friends and loved ones over the following view days, it took me some time to organise my thoughts. For feminism is complex, it operates in many different spheres simultaneously: personal, professional, social. It touches on understandings of free will, and the role of the environment in shaping subconscious associations, and how you understand yourself as an agent in the world. The degree of responsibility you feel towards others. And I am constantly flummoxed by the murky and mysterious ways in which these ways of knowing and of being interact. As someone dear pointed out to me recently when genuinely curious as to why I would feel so strongly about a feminist cause, my life doesn't show any signs of having experienced disadvantage based on my gender. So why am I so upset?

But I don't want to have an emotional or intellectual outpouring here, nor get too philosophical. Nor will I go into the detail of the night itself. Mel has already done so as articulately as anyone could wish. I enjoyed the night thoroughly, and thought it entirely worthwhile. That said, I'll be honest, I wanted some answers from Cherchez la Femme, and I didn't get them. I got a lot of ideas to ponder instead. And later on, I got questioned about the case for feminism and female disadvantage. Because all the women at Cherchez la Femme were educated, employed, stylish, assertive.

And so the best possible response I can offer to anyone, man or woman, who may wonder what need there is for feminism in our Australian society today, is a simple imaginary exercise.

• Imagine you have grown up in this world a girl. 
• Think about what things adults might have said to you as a child. How important is it to be told you're pretty? How often do you hear that, as opposed to some other praise?
• Imagine you wanted to run around and get muddy and swear and yell. How might that have been responded to by your parents and teachers?
• Imagine reading some of the most exciting profound literature of your youth about wondrous worlds beyond your door. What do the men in these books do? How about the women? How many of the adventurers and protagonists and heroes are men? You're not one.
• Imagine the schoolyard and fighting for the sought after downball courts. Would you win them? What would it take?
• Imagine going into the 7-Eleven to get some milk for your Mum pretty regularly. You pass newspapers, chocolate bars, and a rack of magazines with breasts all over them. You're only little, do you stop and wonder why there are no magazines with men on them? Or is it simply that those ladies are pretty?
• Imagine learning history at school. History is the story of things men have done. There aren't really any women in history. No one seems to notice. You don't. At least, not yet.
• Imagine that despite playing sport all week, when you turn on the television all the players are men. You're not one.
• Imagine being at high school.  Imagine you always do better on tests than the person you have a huge crush on. Do you think he's cool with this?
• You're told to be polite and ladylike to your superiors. You're told that this will be necessary if you want to get ahead in the world. You're told it's not fair but it's just the way it is. Polite and ladylike means non-confrontational.
• Imagine the hierarchy of popularity amongst your friends is determined by their degree of popularity with the opposite sex. As in, whoever the boys like best is who the girls will also defer to. If you haven't already, you may start to say to yourself, what the fuck?
• Imagine that you're not allowed to do things your brother is because you're more likely to be assaulted. Everyone acknowledges that it's not your fault that you're more vulnerable. But you have to take responsibility for it. You are told to dress modestly, act discreetly, not take risks. People say this because they love and care for you. Truly. Who then is left to complain to?
• Imagine that critiquing the bodies of your gender is a passtime that is done by your friends, your peers, the media and society both publicly and fairly constantly. 
• Imagine reaching for the new remote and trying the wrong button, only to have it gently but firmly taken from you before you even get a chance to look at it twice.
• Imagine a world in which young women will opt to be photographed in porn-style poses for a clothing store or a website; they find it empowering. You know you're not a kill-joy that you wouldn't find it empowering at all, but others may not see it that way. But many of those others are the intended consumers of those images, and you are not.
• Imagine you can get a job as easily as a man can. Imagine knowing that despite working your arse off and being damned good at your job, you are paid statistically less than you would be in the exact same role if you were a man. Your boss would be offended if you suggested as much to him. Probably almost every woman's boss would be. But the women are still paid less, including you.
• You're less likely to be promoted regardless of performance. Your reproductive organs make you a risk to a business, regardless of your plans for them. This is fairly commonly accepted.
• You're less likely to both have a family and reach the upper echelons of your field. Your partner isn't.

Please, if you haven't already, imagine some or all of these things.  Imagine that you are generally very happy. You are in a loving relationship of equals. You are respected by your friends, colleagues and family. You work hard. You have fun. And you have a problem with the way the female gender is constituted in the world. This is what it is for me to be a feminist. It isn't always angry and ranty, but sometimes it is. It isn't whingy and it isn't anti-fun, unless your idea of fun requires an imbalance of power. It isn't blaming the men or the women of our generation for creating these power dynamics, but it does require the men and women of our generation to take some responsibility for changing it, and for men this means changing it away from their advantage. It is an act of recognition that there remains a problem. 

So do it. Imagine you have grown up, and live, as a woman in the world. And then tell me whether there's still a need for feminism in Australia.

Cherchez la femme

Tomorrow night I'm going along to Cherchez la femme. It's the first of a monthly series my excellent friend Karen has organised as a soiree to discuss feminist issues, and I am very proud of her for having the chutzpah to get something like this started.

I'm not quite sure what to expect. So many of my attempts to participate in a feminist dialogue end in disillusionment and frustration, and yes anger, at the dogma that can often dominate these discourses. But here's what I'm hoping for tomorrow:

• I'm hoping to meet assertive intelligent women. 
• I'm hoping there'll be lots of men there. I know so many men that I would call progressive, and would call themselves progressive, but I honestly don't know how many would be likely to opt to spend their Tuesday nights participating in the issues directly in this kind of forum. I'm guessing not many.
• I'm hoping that there'll be genuine heterogeny, a vast difference of experience and opinion, and that the only thing people are agreeing on is the fundamental drive for equality of opportunity for women, with all the nuances that can entail. 
• I'm hoping to laugh and have a few beers.
• I'm hoping for acceptance without conformity.

I'll report back tomorrow.

Fuck yeah Autumn!

How good has the sky been lately? ALERT: RHETORICAL; IT'S BEEN AMAZING.

Admittedly this freaking heat wave has got me all bejiggedy, and so far I've managed to refrain from running around with my hands flailing above my head, screaming "We're all gonna die! We're all gonna die!". But only just.

But I can forgive the world for a late April that has me dripping with sweat as I ride to work, because of the ridiculous Renaissance skies. They're all fierce blues and shards of glaring sunlight and clouds! Clouds like we haven't seen in 13 years of drought. Big, voluptous, bucolic clouds. Clouds in every single kind of grey, piled and heaped and teetering on top of one another. Clouds that streak across the sky like they have somewhere else to be. Clouds that pouffe about and mosey along as though they been blown from the hookah of Lewis Carroll's caterpillar.

And deep charcoal clouds, laden with rain and bombastic with lightening. My only sadness is that too few of the storms have unleashed themselves over central Melbourne. But it is wonderful to wake every day to these glorious, ever-changing, magnificent skies. Nice one, Autumn.

Things I am becoming increasingly obsessed with, despite having mostly had indifference to them in my youth

Hehem.

1. Cooking. Notably, cooking for friends and loved ones.
2. The weather. Particularly wind patterns, cloud movements and storm fronts.
3. Caramel. Different ways of making it. Opportunities to consume it.
4. Small cute things. Including children. *frets that life is following an all too stereotypical trajectory* *eats some caramel*

As a counterpoint, here are some things I am indifferent to, despite having obsessed over them in my youth.

1. My nose.
2. The size of my bum.
3. Being a person of enormous significance in the world. Fame. Glory. etc

Throughout the course of my life thus far, my consistent obsession remains: Potatoes. Scrumptious potatoes. They never let you down.

The Lobby Romance

About a month ago I moved in with Leith to an apartment in Parkville. There have been lots of good things about this move, and some adjustments to living in such close proximity to others, but one aspect I'm particularly enjoying is The Lobby Romance.

The Lobby Romance is between a young Asian woman and a young Asian man. They might be late teens or about 20 or so. Young Asian woman (let's call her YAW) clearly lives in the building, but I'm not sure where. I suspect she lives with her parents. YAM is her gentleman caller, and is pretty clearly not allowed upstairs or into her apartment.


To the casual observer they are incredibly sweet.

Before I moved in here I would sometimes arrive at around 10pm-ish and pass The Lobby Romance on my way up. It wouldn't happen often but it would usually consist of one of two scenes:

Scene 1 - YAW and YAM are sitting on the ground at the edge of the path leading to the door to the building, having one of those quiet, intense, couple-y conversations. 

Scene 2 - YAM is outside the building up leaning against the glass and YAW is seated inside leaning against the lobby wall, and they are having a quiet, intense, couple-y conversation over their mobiles.

Once I came in and they were both seated on the ground inside the lobby, side by side, talking and I had to skirt around them to get to the stairs. But they are never slobbery and gropey, they just talk long into the night.

They are oblivious to the world around them and I try to be as unobtrusive as possible. Leith tells me that The Lobby Romance has been going on some two years now, and has its share of ups and downs.

Since I've moved in I've only seen them once or twice, but in the last few days there has definitely been drama afoot. 

On Tuesday we got home from the gym, sweaty and sore, and came up to witness The Lobby Romance in a moment of crisis. YAW and YAM were in scenario 2, she inside and he out, talking on their phones. Only she had tears streaming down her face and he was literally pressed up to the glass, looking shattered. Despite it being quite awkward for Leith and I to barge into this in our sweaty shorts , I felt terribly rude just being there in the midst of this scene, since it's perfectly obvious they have nowhere else to go.

We executed a very quick change upstairs and headed back out in search of food. I had commented to Leith that it looked like they were breaking up, but he assured me that they just went through these phases from time to time. It was funny, because we'd never acknowledged The Lobby Romance to one another before, although we were both abreast of the latest details.  At a glance it appeared that she was calling the whole situation off.

Anyway, we headed back downstairs and passed through the lobby as quickly as we could. The scene was basically the same but maybe a little bit worse and more heart-rending even than before.

And then tonight we came home at about 11:30 and YAW and YAM were embracing on the stairs, in one of those 'home from the war' embraces. Not bent over or tonguing or anything, just holding each other very close and stroking hair and nuzzling into necks and so on. And there was a few tears and a palpable air of relief. We just edged past them on the stairs as silently as we could. 

And internally I did a little high five to the world, because I didn't want them to break up. These two people who I've never even made direct eye contact with, let alone spoken to - I really really want them to be happy! They are putting in the hard yards, let me tell you.

So it would appear that The Lobby Romance will continue, same time tomorrow (I hope)...

An idea so crazy it just might work - Part 2

As promised, I am reporting back. 

So I remained completely sober through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and most of Thursday (until about 7pm). And let's not forget that I didn't drink on the previous Saturday or Sunday either. 

There were both positives and negatives, as follows:

Positives
Slept well
Exercised more
Saved some money

Negatives
Had a shocking headache all week that felt like dehydration despite guzzling water
Skin went berserko

On Thursday I had a couple of beers with dinner, and yesterday I had some decent Chianti with lunch, and beer and wine with dinner plus a post-comedy show whiskey. Didn't feel any different to the other days. I think I got a bit high on sichuan peppers, but that's another issue.

The only other comments I'd make are that not drinking didn't affect my enjoyment of being out at night with friends at all. No difference. I could note that I didn't stay out late so this wasn't really tested, but in fairness, I don't really stay out past midnight anyway these days. Now where did I put that blanket? My legs are getting a chill.

On a seperate note...
I've been getting some, er, interesting commenters in recent weeks, and so have decided to begin moderating the comments for purely pragmatic reasons. I don't intend to censor anything that is actually relating to the content of the posts, just the links to the porn sites. Sorry about that folks.