Cross-post - Thank you for (not) breeding

Cross-posted at Ex-expat

This seems to becoming a weekly thing, ex-expat being pissed at something in the SST. Last week I was away from the computer to complain about yet another article in which women were told we should stop holding our for Mr Right bollocks. But sure enough the SST has again made my blood boil again with reports that New Zealand women are not not having children. Zuh? Unless I misunderstood my sex ed classes, I was under the impression that men were also needed to create offspring and ideally should be around to help raise them.

I am well aware that men's reproductive lifespan is far longer which is part of the reason for the undue focus on women's reproduction. However what is making my blood boil is the underlying assumption of this and other stories is that women are the ones that will take time out to raise a family.

And certainly as someone who is getting into her late 20s, I am well aware of the pressure for me to 'settle down' and 'sprog up.' Mostly it comes from other women for whom my status as a happy single is source of immense concern that I am may end up husband-less child-less and without a large mortgage on a big house.

But the simple reason is that I am not sure that I want a husband, a mortgage and most importantly I am in no rush to have children. Hell I am not even ready to have the conversation with myself about whether I actually want children. I do realise at my age this is something that I do need to think about. However it is my choice as to whether I wish to contribute to the gene pool or not and it is, or at least in my view, should be, the most important decision that I will ever make in my life. Unlike marriages which can be dissolved, it isn't like you can stuff a kid back in and ask for a refund if things don't work out. They are yours for life.

Which is why I don't understand how people can be so caviler about having kids. Whether it is to fix an unhealthy relationship or from people who have bought into the talks from their friends and family on the subject which always seem to gloss over the hard parts of parenting.

But perhaps it is because I don't have a dewy-eyed view of child-rearing. There is a 10-year age gap between my brother and I thus am well-aware of how much hard work children and babies are. Particularly because my family had a part-time parent. My dad worked in an industry that in between months of not working demanded 14-16 hour days for months at a time and often involved working in far-flung locations. When my brother was just a few months old Dad went to Africa for almost four months leaving my mother with myself, my six year old sister and no family in town. As the eldest child, it was my responsibility to help pick up some of the slack.

While this was a big burden for a 10 year old, there have been some bonuses. Unlike most of my friends, I have had some hands-on experience in dealing with these weird creatures we call babies. I can change a diaper and learned how to cook for the rest of the family when my mum was busy. I also learned that despite the best of intentions, single parenthood may become a reality whether by choice or circumstance and I should make no assumptions that parenting will always be a team effort in my decision to breed.

But as result of this experience, I do have immense respect for people who decide to breed, particularly if it they are doing it because they want to do it. Because along with all the fun parts of parenting it undoubtedly a hard and, at times, an incredibly isolating experience.

But I also have respect for those who choose or have foisted upon them the other option, to not have children. For those who wish to smash the glass ceiling in their fields, a child might hinder that goal and it is not my nor anyone's place to begrudge them their decision to be child-free. Because along with all the good stuff about not having children, to go against societal norms can be hard and, at times, an incredibly isolating experience.

Moreover I do wish that our discussions over babymaking would stop making the assumption that it is just women who should be making decisions about whether they want a high-flying career or a baby because as I said at the beginning of my rant, men have a role in reproduction as well. Also because there are real alternatives to the primary caregiver-loses-all option.

And again I find myself looking at my own experience to see that it can be done. During the course of his working life my father built a highly successful business from scratch. Because my mother was in full-time employment, it was my Dad who was the parent that was the primary caregiver for me when I was a baby and who was also the parent who often accompanied my sister and I on school trips when his business was quiet. He enjoyed the experience immensely however almost three decades later is sad that my upbringing is still viewed as being unorthodox. Although I can assure you that it was highly revolutionary back in the early to mid 1980s and did ensure some rather odd situations during my childhood.

But I do wonder how many other couples there are out there that are pursuing a 'third way' in child-rearing. Surely if our discussions on this topic are going to evolve past the gender roles of the past we need to see present alternatives to build a more just future for both genders.

How to Irritate Me

1. Call your debate amongst the minor parties "The Kingmaker", which is not only a ridiculous and sexist term, it's also highly inaccurate. Under MMP it's not about one minor party coalescing with one major party really, it's about several blocs of parties that shift around their alliances depending on the issue at hand (and of course naked political advantage sometimes).

2. Screen said debate, a vital part of our democratic process in an election year, on your new digital channel which most New Zealanders cannot get without shelling out some biggish bikkies for a new fangled box thing. Needless to say we don't have one in our house and I'd be interested to know if there are many people out there who do.

3. Make the debate available on the internet, which is certainly more accessible than your digital channel, but still not really a practical option for many (sadly me included).

4. Show it on your free-to-air station, you know, the one that is supposed to be delivering Charter Television, and Our Stories, and all that, and put it on at midnight. On a Sunday. And don't advertise it.

---

Shows like this debate are important. They are a part of our democracy, part of the scrutiny that politicians, their parties, and their policies should face from our media. To squirrel this stuff away in such a manner is disgraceful, especially as it seems to have been done in such a manner solely to big up the launch of TVNZ7.

Yes it's good that TVNZ is getting with the times and going digital. It's great that they are making their content available online and on demand. But they still need to do the basics, for the vast majority of viewers who are still looking at the boring old cathode tube during primetime, and in this case they are not.

Luckily Idiot/Savant has watched the debate for me. Perhaps I could get him to vote for me too?

Feel free to add links to your own reviews in comments, it's the only way I'll get an idea of what happened!

Monday Funday - Ack! Ack! Ack!

From Tampon Crafts (byline: for any time of the month) of course!

Being the Change and All That

Last night was Earth Hour. All over the world* people pledged to turn their lights off from 8pm to 9pm (local time) to show their commitment to reducing the parasitical impact humanity has on our planet.

In my house we gave it a go. We turned off most of the power switches in the house,and sat around by candlelight playing cards. After a while Wriggly needed a feed so we did that in the semi-dark too. It was good to turn the telly off for a night** and I think it reminded us that there are things to do that don't involve passively sitting around watching the box in the corner of the living room.

Engaging in individual activity as part of collective action, on a local, national or global scale, is a good thing, in my (never really very) humble opinion.

But...

Too much of this environmental action is about individuals putting their hands up alone, and frequently having to put their hands in their pockets. Take Air NZ's recent announcement that passengers can choose to offset the carbon costs of their flights. If Air NZ were serious about these measures they would simply make it part of the ticket cost, not an optional add-on. The costs as the airline has calculated them are quite low, relative to the overall cost of flying with Air NZ, so the only real advantage (to our National Carrier) that I can see for the separation is so they can use it as a promotional tool.

Deborah wrote an excellent post on this exact issue in relation to Ecobags a while back. Supermarkets are externalising the cost of a more sustainable approach to a small part of the overall packaging problem, by encouraging us all to buy reusable shopping bags. This is despite the fact that they could be shifting to using biodegradable plastic bags themselves. Even the Cook Islands' supermarket has greener carry bags that most in NZ.

And Maia has a new piece up at Capitalism Bad which points out that even union rags are falling for the soft, one-person-can-change-the-world, options here - for those on low incomes saving power is something they do in the first instance because it costs so damn much.

The capital-intense "solutions" so often suggested are simply not an option for many people. Even for those who do own their own homes the money to install solar water heating does not fall from the sky in great dollops everytime it rains. Nor is it an option to rebuild your abode to take advantage of passive solar. In fact even though in my home we try to be a bit green around the edges we have still not switched completely over to the low energy power bulbs - I'm just swapping over to them as the old ones run out, rather than just going around and changing them all at once. At $5 a pop they are quite a hit on the grocery bill.

As long as we have power companies that exist to make a profit, and aren't above a bit of Christmas Lights Competition Frenzy to do so, I'm not sure that we can make much of a difference, as individuals. What's necessary is to get larger organisations involved, like the Schoolgen programme Genesis Energy has started up to get solar power into schools (Hattip: Directions, the AA Magazine). If government departments get on board with real change to their resource use, as Idiot/Savant suggests the carbon neutrality policy will require, they could lead the way. It would be great to see the widespread adoption of sustainable practices by businesses, but I suspect few will put it high on the agenda unless it is, like the Ecobags case, good for their bottomline.

As individuals we can do a bit, but we can't do it all. To make real change, lasting change, it won't just be what we do in our personal time that shifts the balance.

* Well I'm going to be a bit sarky here and point out that probably it was mainly the wealthier parts of the world. After all a lot of the world doesn't have access to electricity at all.

** Even though Mean Girls was on! Luckily I have already seen it.

[image source]

Fat as a political weapon (cross post)

Cross posted at the ex-expat.

When I left university I was obese. I didn't bother stepping on the scales and avoided looking in the mirror because I didn't want to confirm what my size 26 jeans said about me, I was seriously overweight. I hated nothing more when well-meaning people would tell me that I was fine and that it is what is inside that matters to make me feel better. Because in reality, I felt terrible about my appearance and more importantly the extra weight was making me sick. I had frequent lung infections and asthma attacks, I could barely make it up a flight of stairs without having to stop and gasp for air moreover my blood pressure was dangerously high.

Not long afterwards I moved to Asia where I got used to label fat.

The locals were merciless with their use of the word, but to them it was as much of an idle observation about my appearance as my eye colour. However for the Charisma men fat had become a cruel weapon to use against me and any western women who dared challenge their views, particularly if the woman in question was calling them out on their misogynistic behaviour. To be fat was to be unfeminine, aggressive and unloveable, particularly in comparison to the local women. Fat was also a synonym for stupid.

My normal reaction was to give as good as I got, pointing out that their attacks were more a reflection of their own inadequacies as men rather than mine as an overweight white women. But the hateful words still seemed to stick. I hadn't realised how much I had internalised western women's bad press until I saw a group of white women performing on stage and thought 'hey they look kind of chunky.' This would have been a fair point if they performers in question were opera singers however I was watching ballerinas doing their thing.

And then the attacks on me stopped.

I could challenge the charisma men and not be accused of being a ballbreaker or stupid because I had lost 30kgs. Most of my weightloss was done the right way through going to the gym religiously and cutting out all the sugary and deep fried crap that I love from my diet. However sometimes losing weight has also meant skipping meals and sticking my fingers down my throat after a binge if I am having a bad day, which I know is just as unhealthy as downing a deep fried mars bar but it still gave me the result of feeling good and in control. Because for some losing weight isn't just a simple physical equation of increasing exercise and decreasing food intake but a complex set of, at times, irrational emotions.

Has it been worth it?

I have received plenty of compliments about the new look which I would be lying if I said didn't give me an ego boost. However the best change has been in how I feel. I have a lot more energy, I haven't touched my asthma medication in almost 2 years and my blood pressure is well within healthy range. I am reminded how far I have come when when I am loading 20kg weights onto leg press at the gym and realise how much stress that extra weight must have been placing on my body on a daily basis.

However the change I have the most trouble accepting is how my opinions are valued and respected more by men in particular as a non-obese woman than they were when I was overweight. I was reminded about this change when I read some of the comments that have been written about Kate Sutton, a young women who is standing for Epsom at the next election.

There are plenty of reasons that Kate, like any other candidate, could be attacked by her detractors. But instead of being challenged on her political views and experience, the one attack that Kate's enemies like to trot out with alarming frequency is the word that they know hurts her and just about every women on the planet the most, fat. But should a candidate's weight matter? Aside from when an overweight MP is fronting an anti-obesity campaign, which I agree isn't exactly the smartest political move, I can attest as former fattie that my brain works just the same at my current weight as it did when I was obese.

So why is fat used to attack a young woman candidate? Because everyone knows that there are very few women who can comfortably look at themselves naked in the mirror and think 'damn I am hot.' Our brains are hardwired to zero in our cellulite, flabby butts, wrinkles, grey hair, unevenly shaped breasts or zit and think 'god I look terrible.' So let's call this attack for what it is, a viscous and malicious way to put Kate and other young women in their place, out of the political sphere. The more thick-skinned would say that this sort of attacks are part and parcel of being a candidate, and something that women have to deal with if they want to run for office.

However as Deborah points out, women still vote and it is a stupid party that would throw away votes on such a trival issue as apperance.

Friday Feminist - Mary Daly

Our planet is inhabited by half-crazed creatures, but there is a consistency in the madness. Virginia Woolf, who died of being both brilliant and female, wrote that women are condemned by society to function as mirrors, reflecting men at twice their actual size. When this basic principle is understood, we can understand something about the dynamics of the Looking Glass society. Let us examine once again the creatures' speech.

That language for millenia has affirmed the fact that Eve was born from Adam, the first among history's unmarried pregnant males who courageously chose childbirth under sedation rather than abortion, consequently obtaining a child-bride. Careful study of the documents recording such achievements of Adam and his sons prepared the way for the arrival of the highest of the higher religions, whose priests took Adam as teacher and model. They devised a sacramental system that functioned magnificently within the sacred House of Mirrors. Graciously, they lifted from women the onerous power of childbirth, christening it 'baptism'. Thus the brought the lowly material function of birth, incompetently and even grudgingly performed by females, to a higher and more spiritual level. Recognizing the ineptitude of females in performing even the humble 'feminine' tasks assigned to them by the Divine Plan, the Looking Glass priests raised these functions to the supernatural level in which they alone had competence. Feeding was elevated to become Holy Communion. Washing achieved dignity in Baptism and Penance. Strengthening became known as Confirmation, and the function of consolation, which the unstable nature of females caused them to perform so inadequately was raised to a spiritual level and called Extreme Unction. In order to stress the obvious fact that all females are innately disqualified from joining the Sacred Men's Club, the Looking Glass priests made it a rule that their members should wear skirts. To make the point clearer, they reserved special occasions when additional Men's Club attire should be worn. These necessary accoutrements included delicate white lace tops and millinery of prescribed shapes and colours. The leaders were required to wear silk hose, pointed hats, crimson dresses and ermine capes, thereby stressing detachment from lowly material things and dedication to the exercise of spiritual talent. Thus they became revered models of spiritual transsexualism.

These annointed Male Mothers, who naturally are called Fathers, felt maternal concern for the women entrusted to their pastoral care. Although females obviously are by nature incompetent and prone to mental and emotional confusion, they are required by the Divine Plan as vessels to contain the seeds of men so that men can be born and then supernaturally (correctly) reborn as citizens of the Heavenly Kingdom. There in charity the priests encouraged women to throw themselves gratefully into their unique roles as containers for the sons of the sons of the Son of God. Sincerely moved by the fervour of their own words, the priests educated women to accept this privilege with awestruck humility.

Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father, 1973

Zoom Out

(Cross Posted at Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty)

Josie Bullock was working as a probation officer in a Maori-focused anti-violence programme. During the poroporoaki, she was asked to follow tikanga and sit behind the men. She refused to do so, and was given a formal warning for unprofessional conduct. She spoke about the incident to the media and was then dismissed.

Her case has come up for another round of media commentary, because the human rights tribunal has just found that she was discriminated against, and the warning was invalid, but offered no compensation.*

The media have quite loved this case, it's got many airings on Nine to Noon. Media and legal commentators get excited as discussing this as a case of conflicting rights, and attempting to cast the rights of Maori (who are invariably men) with the rights of women (who are equally invariably white).

There are other ways we could look at what happened. We could start with the prison system, where the programme was being run. A system that imprisons Maori at a rate far higher than Pakeha. Maori make up an even higher percentage of remand prisoners than they do sentenced prisoners, which shows that Maori are refused bail at a higher rate than Pakeha.

We could look at the women who support the men inside the prison system. We could look at how their work is rendered impossible and invisible. We could look at the effect that imprisonment has on those left outside.

We could look at the ways in which society condones and supports men's power over women, and men's violence against women.

For me, that means my starting point is that I'm fighting for a world without prisons, and without abusive men.

The effect of the media's narrow focus in cases like this, is to imply that there's a scarcity of rights and that if you want your rights you may need to trample over other people's.

It's vital that those of us who want more, those who are fighting for liberation rather than rights, reject this idea. Colonialism and misogyny are interlocking systems. We won't be able to dismantle one while the other remains in tact (and won't be able to dismantle either while capitalism is sitting there).



* This was a cowardly piece of shit ruling from the human rights commission. To state that an unfair warning wasn't the reason for dismissal, but the way someone dealt with the unfair warning was, is bosses nonsense, and shows the limits of legal redress.

More or Less

John Key's recent slagging of "bureaucrats", "navel-gazers"* and "paper shufflers" has got me thinking about the stark decision facing NZ voters later this year. It is not a choice I particularly like, but it seems no amount of banging my head against the wall will change the reality that either National or Labour will form the basis of our next government.

On the issue of the size of the public service, the National leader, and ostensible Prime Minister in Waiting**, has been quick to point out his party wants to cap the number of public servants, not cut it. However even if a growing population would not need a larger public service to support it, National has made mutterings about promising more police and defence personnel which would surely mean cuts elsewhere to balance it all out.

In my experience of dealing with employers, when someone says they want to cap the number of staff they also mean that they want to reduce their workforce by attrition, i.e. not replacing those who leave. If National do intend to do that as well then they will be able to radically reduce the number of social workers, school principals and Plunket nurses in quite short order.

Put simply the whole shebang comes down to this:

You cannot deliver significantly more with significantly less.

As Idiot/Savant puts it, "given that few people are satisfied with the present state of our public services (and the Opposition certainly isn't), cutting taxes at the expense of those services seems to be a very counterproductive idea." And The Standard has chipped in with their calculations of what size tax cut could actually be delivered by the quantum of "savings" the Nats have been talking about: an astounding 50c a week!

National have not yet released much in the way of policy, but we can examine the more general statements Key and his bretheren have been making in the media. Their overall themes are clear:

• National stand for less Government spending (otherwise how will they fund their tax cuts?)


• National stand for fewer public servants (see Anjum Rahman's post for an interesting discussion of who the Tories might be looking to cut).


• National stand for less public provision of services (meaning more private provision from our own pockets to meet the shortfall surely?)

There is simply no way that Key can honestly say that National will deliver more than those seeking re-election as our government in November. If New Zealanders vote at the ballot box to have less government provision then that is democracy, but I fear that National will only talk about their policies to accentuate the more and eliminate any specific mentions of the inevitable less.



* Not "naval-gazers" of course. I suspect National would want to fund a few more of them, to show their staunchiness on defence?

** Isn't that Phil Goff? /jest

56th Carnival of Feminists

The 56th Carnival of Feminists is up on Redemption Blues. As usual, there's some great stuff there. The carnivalista has written long and thoughtful comments about the posts she has selected; it makes for a dense and interesting read. Go get yourself a coffee, or a glass of wine, and settle in for an hour or two of excellent reading.

You will recognise some of the material there: Stef's wonderful post about the real life experience of abortion is in the carnival, as is my post about "Legal safe and rare" (both cross-posted here on The Hand Mirror).

Stuff We Haven't Written About Yet

But others have...

• Anjum gives her thoughts on the Josie Bullock decision from the Human Rights Commission.
• A brief post from Anne Else on AltTV's auditions for naked newsreaders.
• Hoyden About Town covers the really rather icky My Bimbo phenomenon, as does Anjum. Oh and Jess at The F-Word.
• Helen writes about the women of Tibet and their struggle.
• Poneke delivers some biting news media analysis.

Go getcha some good reading!

The Stigma of Childcare

When I was pregnant I very nearly had a rampaging argument with a person of my acquaintance about the possibility of putting young Wriggly into "daycare". A cataclysmic head-long crash of our opposing views was only avoided because I swerved to avoid the collision, as one often has to do to maintain friendly relations. But the argument bothered me so much I had nightmares about it afterwards, leaving me awake and angry in the darkness, frustrated at the dismissal of my thoughts and all that that signalled about my value as a human being.*

Now that Wriggly is here I'm revisiting these thoughts, as I consider the practical reality of dealing with my son on a daily basis, and thinking about how to maintain my own identity, and my career, at the same time as being the best Mum I can be.

During the nearly-an-argument "discussion" my verbal assailant subtly put forward the harsh judgement that seems to attach to mothers (rarely fathers in my experience) who avail themselves of the modern option of an early childhood centre was quick to surface. The acquaintance began by putting the case that home-based services are far better than centres. My friendly foe seemed unable to even hear my point that this option is fine, but very much a poor(ly resourced) cousin within early childhood education. While they are a growing part of the sector, and receiving more of the recognition they deserve, they are funded at a lower rate than centre-based services, and the quality of provision is still patchy. Improvements have been fantastic so far, and I have every expectation they will continue in the future.

However it soon became apparent that the reason that this point about the superiority of home-based services had been raised was because the person I was debating with clearly believed that the only real option should be for the mother to stay home full time. Using a home-based option was just the best of a bad lot, a lesser of many evils.

When I mentioned research that shows that even around 7 hours a day in a centre has been proven to not be detrimental to a child, my opponent countered by saying they were aware of research that said such children had great social difficulties at school. This seems very counter-intuitive to me, as the child would be more used to the larger groups of children they would encounter at school, and more experienced at interacting with others. Certainly school teachers I have talked to have often told me that they can pick the kids who have been through quality early childhood services within a week of term starting.

What really bugged me was how eager this acqaintance was to curtail my options, as a person. By advocating for a situation where I would effectively be tethered full time** to my child I felt it was a denial of my identity as anything other than a mother. There was constant mention of the "sacrifices" that "we" would have to make (there was no mention of the father in this conversation at all I should say).

Of course sacrifices (or "changes" as I prefer to think of them) will be inevitable. My partner and I have radically, and irrevocably, changed our relationship and our lives by adding a third person to the equation; one who will be almost utterly dependent on us for years to come. But to suggest that I should have to jettison any life outside the home, any existence separate from my child, is just something I cannot get my head around.

I refuse to accept harsh judgement from this acquaintance, or anyone else, because I might put my child into an early childhood service (home-based or centre-based) prior to the age of 5. We will make decisions as a family that suit all three of us, and as much as possible try to accomodate everyone's wishes, mine included. If this means some time each week for our kidlet to romp around with fellow small children, learning from qualified teachers in a stimulating environment, then I fail to see how that could be a bad thing.




* As opposed to my value as a milk machine.
** And by "full-time" I don't mean 9 to 5, but 24/7.

How to support breastfeeding (cross post)

(Cross posted at In a Strange Land)

The Labour government in New Zealand has proposed legislation to support breastfeeding. Specifically, employers will be required to provide private space for breastfeeding mothers to feed their babies, or to express milk. There will be flexibility for small employers, but workplaces with more than a few female staff will be expected to provide space. For anyone who is getting grumpy about this 'extra cost' imposed on employers, I'm guessing that it could be as simple as providing a screened off area in the lunchroom, or even just access to an office with a door that can be closed a couple of times a day.

I can't help thinking that this is tinkering around the edges, and that the government is still refusing to follow through on its alleged commitment to supporting breastfeeding. As I have written before, when commenting on the Baby Friendly Hospital initiative, it takes time and effort to establish breastfeeding. For the first day or two or three after giving birth, a mother's breasts produce colostrum, and the milk only comes in at day two or three. That can be a painful and difficult experience, but it's also exactly when you need to learn to get the baby latched on and drinking. You need lots of support and help, and ideally, you need to be able to do nothing except concentrate on your baby. But what do we do with new mothers at that time? We ask them to leave hospital.

There are plenty of women who find breastfeeding easy, who have support at home, who don't have other children to run around after, who don't need to get up and prepare meals and wash clothes and clean the house. For them, leaving hospital at day one or two or three may not be a big deal, and may even be highly desirable. I know that all I wanted to do when my eldest daughter was born was to get out the door and take her home, especially after the other bed in the room I was in was filled, with a mother who had the telly permanently on the soaps. But many, many women need to have support and help with establishing breastfeeding, and that support and help is most readily available in maternity wards and units.

If the government is really committed to supporting breastfeeding, then it needs to fund maternity wards properly, so that women can stay in hospital for more than a day or two if they need to, in order to establish breastfeeding. Alternatively, they need to fund out-patient services properly, so that new mothers can access help with a phone call, twenty-four hours a day.

Monday Funday - Hum Along

Yeah, yeah, so it's nearly 9.30pm on Monday, but in my defence it is a public holiday :-)

Formula Debate (Cross post)

(Cross posted at Real Mummy)

Before I get started I want to make it clear that I do not have any problem with people who need to use formula for whatever reason. I do not even have a problem with people who choose to use formula for any reason, so long as it is an informed choice, made with the knowledge of the difference between breast milk and formula. This is not intended to beat up those mums at all (but I will look at mummy wars in postings to come).

Lily is now a little over 8 months old and I continue to breastfeed. It is easy - free (bonus for a SAHM) and works well for us.

What I am finding interesting is that breastfeeding support follows something like this:

Pre-birth: 'Oh you are going to breast feed, aren't you, it is the best for the baby...'

Birth: 'It is so great that you are giving breast feeding a good go, it is the best for the baby...'

3 months: 'Great that breast feeding is working so well for you, it is the best for the baby. So, when do you think you might introduce a bottle - it will help baby sleep through, give you a break...'

6 months: 'Wow, you have been so good with breastfeeding. So when are you going to start weaning?'

8 months: 'Oh, still feeding then, will you stop at a year?

1 year: *uncomfortable silence*

Why does this happen? Why is it great to start feeding your baby, but then have to move onto a formula so that other people feel comfortable? And why do some people feel uncomfortable about such a thing anyway?

For the record, I used to think it was a bit icky when people fed past 2 years. I still don't think it is a choice i would make, but now I can see why they might choose to feed. Not to mention the longer you feed, the better the health benefits are for the mother!

I think that it is no coincidence that the general societal acceptance of weaning onto formula at around 6 months occurs at the same time that formula is allowed to be advertised. Currently formula companies cannot advertise new born products. Most maternity carers are very limited in the information they give so they can push breast feeding. That means that many people who need advice on formula early on, when their milk supply is low or non existent for example, cannot access information easily.

Then at 6 months they suddenly come out of the woodwork - ta da! Formula time! So it becomes more normal to give formula than to breastfeed.

There is even an ad for a 'follow-on' formula for babies over a year - so you can be sure as to give your child all the nutrients they need.

Perhaps their parents haven't heard of food? You know, vegetables and fruit and well balanced meals? Why are they guilting parents into getting something they don't actually need?

So, next time you see someone feeding past 6 months, a year, 2 years... stop and think about why you feel the way you do, especially if it is negative. Chances are that the feelings are created by advertising, rather than from something you really believe.

Blog of the Week: Elsewhere

Welcome to 'Blog of the Week', a new feature here on the Hand Mirror. Each week we will be linking to a different blog by a New Zealand woman, to draw wider attention to the many awesome things women are saying.

I'm going to kick this off with Else Woman, by Anne Else. Anne Else was heavily involved with the women's liberation movement in New Zealand in it's earliest days, and she was one of the co-founders of Broadsheet. She's written some really important books on New Zealand women, including False Economy, which looks at paid and unpaid work in New Zealand. She also edited Women Together, a history of New Zealand women's organisations, which is essential for anyone interested in feminism.

One of the real weaknesses of feminist writing on blogs, is that it is so dominated by younger women. It's fantastic to have someone with so much knowledge and experience posting as well, and everyone should go read her.

Friday Feminist - Theodora Episcopa

Theodora Episcopa

Easter

Note the date on the right hand margin of the drawing. How much longer with this cartoon be relevant? I found it here.

Anyway, I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Easter. Thank goodness for public holidays when the weather is good!

"Legal safe and rare" - what does it mean? (cross post)

(Cross posted at In a Strange Land)

I have read a couple of pieces recently, written by women who have made the abortion decision, one in the Adelaide Mail, with a follow-up blog post, and one by Stef, the Ex-expat, cross-posted at The Hand Mirror. Neither of the women had the abortion light-heartedly, both of them took responsible decisions, and both of them say something very interesting about shame.

Audrey and the Bad Apples says:

It makes me incredibly sad that the point of my article has been proven - that women won't speak out without guilt or remorse over something like abortion because the reactions she can expect to get are ones of hate, ignorance, judgmental assumptions and sanctimonious bullshit. I'm especially offended by the suggestions of some that I am 'bragging' in the column; that I'm boasting about what I've done, that I'm flippant, that I'm 'wearing the abortions like a badge of honour' - when what I'm ultimately doing is refusing to wear them as a badge of shame.

And Stef says:

I feel the need to write about abortion from a slightly different perspective, someone who has had one. I do so not because I am proud of having one nor because I want to encourage others to follow my decision but because I refuse to be ashamed when I admit that I have had one

Don't read the comments thread on Audrey's Adelaide Mail piece - it's pretty vile, but there is some amazing support for her decision. There are no negative comments on Stef's thread, possibly because some of us leapt in straight away with support, possibly because what she wrote was just so damn sensible.

So perhaps the determination of these women not to feel pressured into feeling ashamed, not to buy into some self-disapproval reflecting what they took to be society's disapproval, was not really necessary, given all the support they got.

That would be the positive way to look at it, to think that society really doesn't condemn abortion any more, but I think it's not just positive, it could even be seen as positively pollyanna-ish. Aside from the anti-abortion crowd, even people who say that they support a woman's right to choose often tag it with saying that abortion should be "legal, safe and rare", a tag that I think is inherently contradictory. And that exposes those who use the phrase as not really accepting abortion, as being deeply ambivalent about it. Sure, women should be able to access abortion, but really, they shouldn't use it at all. The unspoken justification is that abortion is wrong, that it shouldn't happen, but they will accept it as an evil necessity.

I also suspect that people who use the phrase haven't given thought to what making something legal, safe and rare actually entails. When it comes to minimising abortion, then we need easy access to effective contraceptives, and good education about contraceptives. Abstinence won't work; the genie of sexual freedom is long out of the bottle, and it won't be going back. In any case, who really wants to return to the repressed and repressive world on the 1950s?

Even then, contraceptives do fail. So we need easy, reliable access to the emergency contraceptive pill. But that's not failsafe - I have friends who ended up pregnant despite using both condoms and the ECP. They had twins.

My friends were lucky - they were in a position to continue the pregnancy. But many women aren't. If the "legal safe and rare" crowd really want to make abortion rare, then they need to ensure that women are not penalised for continuing the pregnancy. And that will entail ensuring that mothers have adequate financial support, that young children can be well fed, clothed, housed and educated. A woman faced with an unexpected pregnancy should not need to engage in feverish calculation about whether or not she can actually support a child, if people really want abortion to be rare. Alternatively, mothers need access to high quality child care, and flexible work, so that they can continue to work, and support their children themselves. Even then, they would need to have social supports available too, so that they can get a break from the demands of parenting and working, and juggling, juggling, juggling all the time.

"Legal safe and rare" entails a huge cost, and a significant re-organisation of the way society works. I suspect that many of the "legal safe and rare" crowd don't want to pay that cost. Instead, the tag is, I think, a quiet dogwhistle. Those who oppose abortion can at least feel that the utterer really does oppose abortion too, but accepts it as an evil necessity, while those who support abortion can feel that at least they will not be on the barricades again, defending a woman's right to choose. And those who are ambivalent can hear their ambivalence reflected right back at them.

None of what I have written deals with the morality of abortion. It's just about the way that we regard abortion. The morality of abortion is a different matter, and it's an issue that has been well rehearsed, over and over again. I don't propose to go there now. Maybe another day, maybe not, depending on what is happening in the countries where I live, maybe nothing until next year's blog for choice day. If you do want to argue the toss on it, have the decency to read some of the considerable philosophical literature on it first - start with Peter Singer's Practical Ethics, and then try Rosalind Hursthouse's Beginning Lives.

I like it!

At last, a positive story about the effect of having children on mothers' intellectual abilities.

There really are benefits to having children.

Mother-hating

I'm not entirely sure what I think yet about United Future MP Judy Turner's move to have compulsory DNA testing to determine paternity. It seems from the Herald article about it this morning that the main motivation is to allow men to prove or disprove their biological fatherhood, without the need for the mother to consent to the taking of a sample from her child. The Herald states:

Ms Turner said it would cut down on costly, lengthy court challenges for those trying to prove parenthood and stop mothers effectively thwarting such requests by refusing to give consent.

The article implies throughout that mothers are at fault - they refuse consent for the taking of DNA samples, "thwart [children's] right to know their genetic background and history", deny men who suspect they are the father rights of access and involvement in the life of their possible child, and of course they lie about who the dad is and make the wrong man liable for child support payments. The Herald sheets home the blame by quoting "international research" (but no mention of a source) indicating that up to 10% of birth certificates have the wrong biological father on them. You'd be forgiven for drawing the conclusion from this article that mums are conniving nasties of the worst kind, who inexplicably hate the biological fathers of their children.

In some weird ironic twist Turner's most recent blog entry is about postnatal depression. Maybe if some people weren't encouraging a culture of mother-blaming PND would not be quite so widespread...

Legal changes of this sort prompt some conflicted thinking in my muddled mothery mind. On the one hand I think it is important that fathers are able to be actively involved in the lives of their children, unless there is a good reason not to allow this (like abuse). We should be encouraging Dads to consider themselves full parents, not someone with less responsibilities and involvement than Mum.

But looking at it from the other side, is a DNA relationship all that makes someone a parent? In my own extended family there are a number of child-parent relationships which have formed despite a lack of genetic input from the parent. These days step-parents are not that uncommon, and in many cases they can be closer to the child than their "real" mother or father. The same can also happen in adoptive situations.

And isn't the language in the Herald article rather treating the child involved as if they are the property of their biological progenitors? I'm aware that sometimes these paternity debates, and acrimonious battles over child custody, come up in the context of the breakdown of the parental relationship. Parents fight it out to "win" at divorce by denying the other parent access to their children, and the little ones become basically another chattel to be divided up, along with the furniture and the CD collection.

I'd feel more comfortable about Turner's proposal if it wasn't couched in language that appeared to take sides. It will be interesting to see how other politicians respond and whether they take the low road too.

Looking and Seeing

Take a couple of minutes out this morning and please go do this quick test. There are really only two questions and I'd be very interested to know if anyone could honestly answer "yes" to the second!

Follow-up post coming on this topic once people have had a chance to do the test.


Tipping my hat to Alas on this one.

A forgotten story in the abortion debate

Cross-posted at The Ex-expat

I have mulled about whether to post on this issue due to the heated nature of the debate. Like DPF I agree that New Zealand's current laws are an ass and should be updated however the ugliness that would ensue from the debate ensures that the laws and procedures will not be modernized. At present medical abortion (non-surgical abortion) is only available at four clinics in New Zealand (Auckland Medical Aid Centre and Wellington, Masterton and Dunedin hospitals) despite being a far less invasive and traumatic procedure than the surgical option. Doctors still have the right to deny treatment which seems incredibly unfair given we still give treatment to cricketing stars who get smashed and abuse hospital staff or a drunk driver who has killed two people.

Reading through the comments on the thread that are obviously written by people with no experience of dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, I feel the need to write about abortion from a slightly different perspective, someone who has had one. I do so not because I am proud of having one nor because I want to encourage others to follow my decision but because I refuse to be ashamed when I admit that I have had one and also to discuss the ramifications of some of the policies these commentators seek to emulate.

Because like all my good stories, this one starts in Asia where the local condom production is not as good as back home and I found myself pregnant. I did my best to contact the male with whom I had had a casual fling but he was not answering his phone and I was left to make the decision by myself. I was living alone in a foreign country thus did not have the means to support a single mother lifestyle nor give the baby up for adoption in a society that still frowns heavily upon non-married sexually-active women. I was also taking medication for my skin that amongst its many side-effects also causes severe fetal abnormalities thus my decision was a humane one.

However getting an abortion proved quite difficult because abortion in that country is technically illegal. My gynecologist would not perform the procedure due to the heavy fines imposed by the state. However she referred me to another clinic that did perform the procedure. After doing my research, I was confident the clinic was legit and went through with the procedure but not before coughing up over $1000US in bribes and medical fees plus a *boyfriend* to sign off on the procedure before I would be *permitted* to have one.

Looking back on the procedure I have thought about what could of happened if I didn't have the knowledge to know what I was looking for in a clinic nor the option to fly home if I couldn't find a place I trusted. It could have been something really messy, as could the option of carrying to term a baby I wasn't ready to have.

I often wonder if those who cling to the idea of adoption as the first port of call in any unplanned pregnancy realise what an immense physical and emotional trauma this is. I know that the movie Juno did a good job of celebrating the option for those who decide to go through with adoption. But if you look at the film it is obvious that the title character has a large net of people to love and support her through the tough physical and emotional process of giving a baby up for adoption. Not all of us are in the position to be able to go through with a pregnancy, the birth and giving the child up for adoption and to seek to dictate that we all should go through with pregnancy is as barbaric as forced abortion. Because despite all the popular romance attached to pregnancy, it seems to me to be an extremly stressful process on the body not to mention giving birth itself.

But just because I am pro-choice doesn't mean I am pro-abortion. I certainly don't advocate abortion as a form of birth control and I doubt any woman who has gone through with the procedure would. Despite claims to the contrary, the procedure is not easy nor pain-free. Yet given that in the early stages of a pregnancy (1st and early 2nd trimester) the fetus does not have features we would associate with a human nor could it develop them without help from the inside of the womb, this small amount of pain both to the fetus and mother outweighs the trauma of a forced pregnancy and for some who are adopted out a life-time knowing that they weren't wanted.

I strongly suspect that New Zealand's climbing abortion rate is due in part to an influx in Asian students who are predominately young and for whom abortion is a first port of birth control because they know no different. Most of my local women friends in Asia were all well educated and middle class. However none of them carried condoms nor knew how to use them because such knowledge would brand them a slut by their boyfriends. Yet they could never go through with a pregnancy in a culture where one is not considered an adult until they are married and where the importance of bloodlines ensures there a thousands of (mainly) girls languishing in orphanages.

I met a number of now-grown kids who were adopted out to families in the west in previous decades and while a number are doing great as adults, there were also a number for whom the trauma of adoption into a foreign culture has created very sad, lonely and angry individuals.

As for the long-term effects of abortion, in my case it has been very little. The only time I get particularly angry or upset about it is when dealing with people who seek to label my bedroom antics or judge my decision as akin to murder. I know a lot of hoopla has been made of research that shows that women who go through with them do suffer from a higher rate of depression. Which maybe the case, however a strike against abortion is not necessarily a point scored for adoption nor motherhood. Just a reflection that an unplanned pregnancy really sucks when the circumstances are not right.

Blog Against Sexual Violence Day 2008 - April 3rd

abyss2hope is hosting the second annual Blog Against Sexual Violence Day this year. It's on the To Do list here, and hopefully other NZ bloggers will consider contributing too.



Thanks to blue milk for the heads up.

More from the girls-can't-do-maths files

html will set us free

Who needs a head when you have html?

First reaction on seeing Jessica Valenti's feministing post on her new t-shirt was 'Want! Need!' Posting this image out of context here seems a little stranger though, echoing the whole 'skinny headless nekkid white woman' debacle that was Valenti's Full Frontal Feminism book cover all that time ago. Let's just knock this one on the head and assume that the missing brain-cage here, does in fact belong to Jessica's body. Or that of a highly-paid t-shirt model.

If only we didn't need more than html to end Teh Patriarchy. I have a feeling we might need xml too, or - fuck it - flash. Crap, we might even have to go all the way back to FORTRAN.

Feminism is hard work, dude.

The Hand Mirror Goes Public

Welcome to our blog, The Hand Mirror, which we hope you will enjoy reading.

We've been playing around with the look and content for a little while now and it is all finally ready to put out there to all and sundry.

The general concept is that this will be a NZ feminist team blog, although of course it will evolve over time to be whatever those writing here make it.

To get the boring admin out of the way, you can find out more about The Hand Mirror here, and specifically read our comment and link policy over here.

Thanks for visiting, we look forward to seeing you in our hit stats again!

How it works

'Nuff said.

From XKCD, via Alas, a blog.

Friday Feminist - Iris Marion Young

Cross-posted at In a Strange Land

The chest, the house of the heart, is an important center of a person's being. I may locate my consciousness in my head, but my self, my existence as a solid person in the world, starts from my chest, form which I feel myself rise and radiate. At least in Euro-American culture, it is to my chest, not my face, that I point when I signify myself. In Hindu philosophy of the body the chest is not only the center, but it has the integrative power among them.

Structurally, a person's chest can be more or less open, more tight or relaxed, and this often expresses a person as being withdrawn from or open to the world and other people. People who sit and stand straight, chest out, shoulders back, feel ready to meet the work in actions, and others judge them as upright, active, open. A person stoop-shouldered, bent, closed around this center appears to be withdrawn, depressed, oppressed, or tired.

If the chest is a center of a person's sense of being in the world and identity, men and women have quite different experiences of being in the world. When a woman places her hand over her heart, it lies on and between her breasts. If her chest is the house of her being, from which radiates her energy to meet the world, her breasts are also entwined with her sense of herself. How could her breasts fail to be an aspect of her identity, since they emerge for her at that time in her life when her sense of her own independent identity is finally formed. For many women, if not all, breasts are an important component of body self-image; a woman may love them or dislike them, but she is rarely neutral.

In this patriarchal culture, focused to the extreme on breasts, a woman, especially in those adolescent years but also through the rest of her life, often feels herself judged and evaluated according to the size and contours of her breasts, and indeed she often is. For her and for others, her breasts are the daily visible and tangible signifier of her womanliness, and her experience is as variable as the size and shape of breasts themselves. A woman's chest, much more than a man's, is in question in this society, up for judgment, and whatever the verdict, she has not escaped the condition of being problematic.

Iris Marion Young, "Breasted Experience", in Throwing like a girl and other essays in feminist philosophy and social theory, 1990

The 1950s called, they want their morality back (cross-post)

Cross posted at The ex-expat

As Deborah noted, Saturday was International Women's Day. Unfortunately the day was not used as an opportunity to celebrate how much progress New Zealand women have made in a short passage of time nor a call to work on issues that still inhibit women's freedom. Instead we had the National Council of Women lambasting young women for behaviour which is quite frankly none of their damn business.

But the kicker came in the Sunday papers where the SST declared that New Zealand women are too picky and are delaying having children until they find Mr Right. What a wonderful message our media is sending New Zealand women: that it is far better to procreate with any drunk, abusive, misogynist pig in your twenties than hold out for a smart, educated and respectful man in your 30s because there's a chance you may end up barren and alone. Charming and as we find buried at the bottom of the article not true.

Professor of demography Ian Pool attributes delayed pregnancy to workforce issues ie. that most women struggle to hold down a full-time job and a baby because many professional workplaces aren't welcoming of part-time work until your career is well-established and many professions are not welcoming of part-time work at all. I suspect that up until fairly recently, student loans would also have been a strong factor in women delaying childbirth. As unless they made a major a dent soon after graduation, stopping work to have a baby would have had an added cost of compounding interest on a women's student debt. The Student Loan scheme was introduced in 1992 and interest free loans were only introduced in 2006. That's almost 15 years where New Zealand had a policy that effectively penalized any educated woman wanting to take time out of the workforce to raise a family and these 'older mums' are part of that generation.

However while the discussion of social policies is fascinating, I find myself more infuriated by the none-to-subtle messages that the National Council of Women's comments, the man-drought meme, foreign fever and the Sunday programme is that it that New Zealand women have become too successful and need to be taken down a peg or two. So they are doing so by attacking their femininity and playing on an insecurity that both men and women have the fear of being alone.

But of more concern is that anyone should feel that they have the right to dictate to women what is the 'correct age' that they should be having children. As a taxpayer, I feel that ideally a couple should be a position where they are financially able to support their family and stable enough to ensure that the child's needs are taken care of. However that it is where my judgement stops. I don't care if a woman is 16 or 45, it is her decision when she feels she is ready to have children.

Unfortunately our media and more broadly our society seems to feel that instead of celebrating the different choices women have now, they should be lambasting women who aren't using this freedom to reproduce a standard of morality that we jettisoned for good reason.

The Disappointments of Politics

"I know that it's a wonderful world, but I can't feel it right now.
I thought that I was doing well, but I just want to cry now."
Wonderful World (a song), James Morrison

Over the years I've been involved in quite a few electoral losses, from minor political spats to local body and national level politics. The disappointment is often palpable, made worse so when the shape of an L on your forehead comes as something of a surprise.

The sense of anger and frustration can be heightened by an arrogant and triumphant opposition who wallow in rubbing their victory in your face. Sometimes you are aware of what you could have done differently, what might have been achieved if only you or your team had done x, y or z. On other occasions you are completely flummoxed by what went wrong, or you recognise that your side was just a casualty of bigger forces outside your control.

I have felt all of this most recently in mid-October, as a result of the right-wing swing that swept most of the nation's local bodies. I helped out with the local ward campaign for the centre-left in my area, and I really do not think that we could have done more. If we hadn't done all that we did then we would only have lost by a lot more. I don't know much about how City Vision campaigned in other wards, but the organisation as a whole was somewhat hamstrung by historical events that stubbornly defied my useless attempts at time travel.

However on the whole my reflection is that in some ways this is a good base for the centre-left to build from for 2010 in many local areas - in our case, we have a great group of people, we learnt a lot through this campaign about what works and what doesn't, and in the next bout we will not be (largely) new candidates linked to incumbents who are in turn shackled to an inglorious recent past foisted upon us by others on our ticket (and not even in our part of town). We will be connected to the community, even more so than now, and we will be challengers pointing out the injustices and the need for change to a public shocked by the nefarious acts of a right-wing council, and community board. Or so I hope.

For some time I put my game face on for others about October's result, but now enough time has passed that I can let my disappointments, and my worries, all hang out. The disappointments are largely for the individuals tipped out of office, or the new candidates who are unable to realise their ideas and potential. The worries tend to be more personal, and make me wish I had dreamt the whole sorry thing;

• I worry that the local body results are an oracle for the 2008 general election.


• I worry that opposition to the right-wing local regime will suck up my family's precious free time.


• I worry that the local versions of National and Act will have a very negative impact on my local community - on our library, our streets, our recreation centre, our parks, our transport system, our public assets, our utilities (especially water), our uniform annual general charge (as citizens of a poorer part of the city). In particular at the moment I am concerned that we won't get the traffic calming we desperately need on our road, which was going to happen any time about now. Not to mention the state of the pavements in this part of town, which I never used to notice before I had a wheeled contrivance to push about the place.

At least I am now over my initial reaction that we should simply up sticks and move towns. That would have been impractical and removed us from the fightback. The sweep across the country also indicates it would have been at best a temporary move. Even Red Heather lost the mayoralty in Palmerston North, and she was my little light in the darkness, until I found out she too was extinguished.

Disappointment, worry, despair, depression, anger, frustration, that odd feeling in the pit of your stomach that screams everything is wrong but it can't be changed right now; all of these are part of politics and I know that in my heart. But I wish I didn't have to experience them quite so often.

The lady meme (cross-post)

Cross posted at In a Strange Land

March 8 (yesterday) was International Women's Day, a day to celebrate the economic, social and political achievements of women. Little things, like getting the right to vote, and be educated, and run businesses, and stand for and gain high political office. The theme for International Women's Day in 2008 was Shaping Progress.

So you think that it might have been a good occasion for the National Council of Women in New Zealand to reflect on the progress that has been made by women in New Zealand, and to call for work on issues that still inhibit women's lives. Such as, access to affordable and good childcare and flexible working hours. Good issues to focus on, because as many of us have lamented, combining careers and children seems to be just about impossible.

But no. Instead, according to both the Dominion Post and the NZHerald, the message from the National Council of Women on International Women's Day was that women should stop behaving like blokettes, and start being ladies instead. The Council's spokeswoman says that New Zealand women have blazed through social, economic and political barriers, but there's no need for them to take on male behaviours, and try to prove just how equal they are to men by being blokettes. They should behave themselves, go easy on the drinking, and stop trying to act like men. At present, they seem to be confusing empowerment with what had been historically classed as the domain of stereotypical male behaviour.

What a curious message. But even more curious was the subbing in both the Dom Post and the Herald. The National Council of Women spokeswoman carefully used the word, "woman". I can't find their press release on line, but both newspapers quote or repeat these words:

Women need to realise that empowerment does not disenfranchise them from being a woman. Women need to know that it is perfectly acceptable to act and behave like a woman and not a `blokette' with something to prove to their male counterparts."

But the headlines are: "Be a lady - not a blokette" and "Blokettes told to behave like ladies".

Somehow, the word 'woman' has been lost, and the prissy word 'lady' put in its place. Perhaps the subbies were quietly sending up the statement from the National Council of Women, and pointing out that the Council is trying to control women's behaviour, in just the same way as people who insist that women must be ladies. There's every good reason not to be a lady - ladies' behaviour is carefully controlled and regulated, but women are free to behave as they wish, as the equals of men.

I'm not at all keen on lad and ladette behaviour; going out to get both drunk and laid just doesn't seem like much fun to me. And as the Council spokeswoman says, there are significant risks associated with the behaviours. Nevertheless, it seems odd that the National Council of Women thinks that International Women's Day is a good opportunity to reprimand women for their behaviour, or even that they should scold women at all. It has a hint of the second wave feminism vs younger feminism vs younger women disputes: "We fought so hard to get all these freedoms, and this is what you do with it?"

Well, yes. If that's the choice that younger women make, then perhaps we have to accept it. That's a natural consequence of obtaining freedom for women.

Then again, perhaps it's preferable to the Mai Chen reprimand. There's nothing quite like a mother of just one child, who can actually afford to pay for good childcare, telling other mothers that they lack commitment. "I can do it, so you can do it too!" All that shows is a complete lack of imagination about other women's lives. At least the scolding from the National Council of Women was based in concern for women.

Friday Feminist - Paula Treichler

Cross-posted at In a Strange Land

This essay begins with a joke:

Joe is a regular at his neighbourhood bar. One night he tells his buddies he's going to have sex-change surgery. 'I just feel there's a woman inside me,' he says, 'and I'm going to let her out.' A few months later, Joe - or rather Jane - shows up at the bar and introduces herself to her old buddies. Once they're over their amazement, they greet her warmly, buy a pitcher, and start asking her about the surgery.

'What hurt the most?' they ask. 'Was it when they cut your penis?' 'No,' says Jane, 'that wasn't what hurt the most.' 'Was it when they cut your balls?' 'No, that wasn't what hurt the most.' 'So, what was it that hurt the most?'. 'What hurt the most,' says Jane, 'was when they cut my salary.'

When I shared this with a medical school colleague, he got huffy: 'That's not a joke,' he said, 'that's feminism!'

Paula Treichler, "Aids, Identity, and the Politics of Gender", in Gretchen Bender and Timothy Drucker (eds), Culture on the Brink: Ideologies of Technology, Seattle: Bay Press, 1994, reprinted in Feminisms, Sandra Kemp and Judith Squires (eds), Oxford University Press: 1997

Turn and face the strain (cross-post)

Originally posted at In A Strange Land on 23rd Feb 2008, where there are also several comments from readers.

Like my gracious host Deborah, I too am living in a strange land these days, although I’ve managed this move without any actual physical relocation.

My days and nights used to be mine to command. Now I live at the beck and call of a tyrant, one who insists on using a foreign language that I am slow to learn. Wriggly has redefined how I see myself, and my relationships with others*. His tyranny extends to determining when I sleep and when I wake, even sometimes when I can eat, and the dictates of the Holidays Act and other relevant labour legislation simply do not apply in this area of employment. I’d like to think that one day I’ll benefit from Wriggly’s nepotism, seeing as how he is my son, although that slim hope of advantage seems a long way off at 3.13am.

On the whole I think I like this new life - certainly I am rather enamoured of the cause of all this change despite his obsession with sleep deprivation as a form of torture. I’m still working on getting that first genuine smile, but even without that I’m finding motherhood a rewarding experience.

The challenges of protecting and sustaining this new life have (so far) been very stimulating. I have always liked problem solving and planning, and dealing with Wriggly’s dictatorial nature has me thinking outside the square as never before. There’s a strange fulfillment in working out why he’s crying, and thus making a small baby happy, if even for a few moments. I’ll be back to paid work later in the year, but for now I’m mostly happy working out how to do things with only one free hand (or even on occasion no free hands) and getting a sense of satisfaction from managing a trip to the shops and back without assistance.

I’m also rediscovering the houseproud Julie who was buried under the stress of working a difficult job with longer than normal hours. I’d put housework in the Someone Else’s Problem** basket, we’d eat out whenever there wasn’t time or energy to cook, and generally I accepted that my home was going to have to be dustier and more cluttered than I really wanted. Now I can take control of all that for myself, at least as Wriggly’s demands allow.

But inevitably concerns of a feminist nature rear their heads, when one partner in a relationship is staying home to maintain the lives of three people and the other is out in the world earning the moolah to fund that life. Both are important, indeed vital, roles, but how to share them with some form of equity? Particularly when both members of this partnership have been living all our lives in a society which still tends to divide this stuff up along gender lines. If I hear one more person tell me “well that’s just the way it is” or “all women/men are like that” I may very well scream so loudly that Wriggly is shocked into silence for a good five minutes.

For now I am largely shelving my parity worries, as I focus on learning all the new skills that are suddenly necessary. Sooner or later the fair division of labour will have to be faced though, because already I feel my world has become somewhat smaller. Without the wonders of the interweb I suspect I’d have little to offer in the way of conversation except to comment on the bodily functions of babies. Even with the ability to read all about The World Out There online I find I generally end up talking about Wriggly sooner or later in every interaction.

And if I’m totally honest I do feel that I’ve gone from one stressful job to another, with little time off from the strain. While the core competencies of the two roles are significantly different, they have one key area of overlap - I find that the people I deal with most are constantly wanting something from me and often their desires are difficult to satisfy. As with my previous day job as a unionist, the best way to resolve the demands is usually to turn and face the strain as soon as possible. But that’s not always what I want to do.

I’ll keep navigating through this new land, for the rest of my life, and as the time served as a parent starts to mount up no doubt I will come to terms with how to embrace my new role without losing my old self. For now I’ll take my kicks from Wriggly’s gurgles and gurning, and accept that my payment will be in the currency of cuddles for some time to come.



* Eg, my parents are no longer my folks, they are Wriggly’s Nana and Grandad. Even the cat has a new moniker - Big Sister.
** Specifically the cleaners’ problem.

Introducing The Hand Mirror

The Hand Mirror is a bit of a home for NZ women of a leftward and feminist perspective to share their thoughts on whatever tickles their fancies.

Topics may well include any, all or none of the following:

feminism, local government, cupcakes, Joss Whedon's creations, national politics, female role models, sexist advertising, rape and other forms of violence, books, racism, education, human rights, cartoons, public ownership, parenting, cross stitch, science fiction, activism, the division of labour, abortion, paid and unpaid work, tino rangatira tanga, cats, language, homophobia, health, transport, environmental issues, unionism, international stuff, religion, tax, young people, whether or not the Prime Minister should wear pants when meeting the Queen*, science, the justice system, body image, capitalism, reproductive politics, social welfare, and cleaning tips.

Actually, I'm pretty sure there won't be any cleaning tips.
Although, if anyone does have any...
Ahem.

One of our aims is to encourage and promote women bloggers, primarily those who identify as from Aotearoa New Zealand, and not just those writing specifically within political blogs.

At the current time, the following writers are contributing to The Hand Mirror:

• Anjum Rahman (Stargazer) (added May 2008)
• Anna (added May 2008)
• Deborah (In A Strange Land)
• Julie Fairey
• katy (added April 2009)
  
• Lil'E
• Maia (Capitalism Bad; Tree Pretty and Alas, a blog)
• The ex-expat (The Ex-Ex-Pat)
• The bewildering case of Ms Enid Tak-Entity (Enid Tak for medium, Enid for short)
• Undomestic Goddess (Real Mummy)

Where another blog is listed after the writer's name, they may be mainly cross-posting here at The Hand Mirror from their own blog.

We also host an array of stellar guest posts, and to date have featured writing from (another) Anna, Anita, katy, Pauline, Labour MP Jacinda Ardern, Carol, Luddite Journo, katy again, Gina, Ms Giraffe, Stephanie Mills, and Rebecca.

If you would like to contact The Hand Mirror please email Julie in the first instance, julie dot fairey at gmail dot com.

* Answer: she (or he) should wear whatever they want and really noone should care.

Last updated Tuesday 5th Mary 2009.

The Hand Mirror's Comment & Link Policy

We want this to be a safe space for women, and indeed for those who are Other in an internet (and political) culture dominated by white heterosexual men of comfortable income and right-wing politics.

To that end we have established the following ground rules, which we expect commenters to kindly respect:

1. Comments that are abusive or link to abusive posts will be deleted. We're not keen on bigotry here at The Hand Mirror.
   
2. Disagreement should be written in a manner that does not demean either party. Although if you embarrass yourself we will probably just leave it there so everyone can laugh at you.
3. If you are unrelentingly obnoxious you may be banned. To date no one has been banned, although a fair few comment deletions have been made.
   
   
4. When we say "unrelentingly obnoxious" we include the distasteful practice of trying to out someone who uses anything short of their full name, either directly or indirectly, on this blog, be that person a blogger or a commenter. We extend the courtesy of respecting that people who don't blog openly under their own name do so for reasons of their own. For clarity, the only writers here who are currently out for blogging purposes are Julie (Fairey) and Anjum (Rahman).
   
   
5. Discussions about moderation decisions should be sent to email, not continued on the comment thread. You can email us via julie dot fairey at gmail dot com with queries about moderation decisions. Attempts to discuss them in comments will be deleted to avoid derailing from the topic of the post.
   
6. We are particularly interested in blogrolling other NZ women who are blogging, regardless of political affiliation (or indeed whether they are writing about politics at all). We will consider blog roll links to anyone who asks but of course reserve the right to decline to add your blog to our roll. This blog is not all about you, it's all about us. So there.

Individual authors can set the rules for their own threads, in addition to these, and moderate those comments to meet their whims.

Thanks for largely respecting these rules to date. We've made very few comment deletions, in the context of the hundreds of comments we get, other than one persistent troll who has gone away now. We appreciate your help with making this a good space for discussion and look forward to your future contributions to The Hand Mirror.

You might also want to check out a post in April 2009 about the nature of this community and what we want this blog to be like.

Last updated May 19th 2009.

Changes to comments policy made in August 2010, please check it out, will be updating this more fully soon.