Sour grapes from Family First

On the day that many people are celebrating the first marriages able to be made between same sex partners in Aotearoa New Zealand, Family First have got their grump on.

They've sent out a really odious email, which I'm going to share after the jump because you probably don't really want that kind of hateful lying in your day, but just in case you do,you'll wan to click on the Read More, when you get there.

Instead of celebrating that more people are now able to enter the institution they claim they value highly, they are making sour aspersions that incest, polygamy and self-marriage (why would it be terrible to love yourself?) are coming, when today's change of forms to inclusive language does nothing of the kind.

If we cannot recognise the changing nature of marriage, and that it is not an institution carved instone on the back of the Ten Commandments, then Family First should also be advocating a return to bans on marriages between different racial groups, different religions,  and the need for the consent of any female parties.

Alright - make with the clicky if you have the resources to be disgusted, otherwise here's a picture of a puppy with a Hello Kitty and a cupcake:

changing names

there's this whole discussion happening about women changing their names after marriage, again.  there's a good rundown of how this discussion started & how it developed here (via here).

mostly i feel really bemused by these discussions and how much passion the issue generates.  i've noticed that posts on the topic tend to be some of the most commented on, it seems to be a thing on which everyone has a really decisive opinion which they don't hesitate to share.

it has traditionally been a western issue.  for many women in the east, changing names was never a thing.  you got given your name at birth and that was the name you had until you died.  and naming conventions also vary in the east.  for many cultures, there isn't any such thing as a surname or family name.  you have your own name(s), and this may be connected to your father's name, or not; it may be connected to the name of the village/district where you were born, or not.  but it's not necessarily a name that passed on from generation to generation, and certainly not something that needs to be changed on marriage.

but globalisation has tended to change some of that.  because many eastern cultures absorbed the notion that western cultures were more advanced and modern, they have adopted some of the cultural norms of the west.  with the result that women who were never expected to change their names on marriage are now pressured to do so.  the societal pressure that was so absent is now building & has been for some time now.

for women of eastern heritage growing up in the west, the pressure is pretty much the same as women of western heritage.  women who migrated to western countries were forced to take their husbands names in order to enter the country.  they weren't allowed a choice, there was no respect for nor even acknowledgement of their own traditions.  and many of their sons and daughters have lost the knowledge that women kept their own names as of right.  so often, it's not a topic of discussion but just a given that the name change will happen.

for me, it's that loss of our traditions, that pressure to absorb a cultural practice that is not authentic  to me nor of any value, that rankles the most.  it's the fact that i had to battle a borrowed pressure (as if we didn't have enough of our own to push back against) that totally annoys me.  at the heart of it is the hypocrisy: so many oppressive cultural traditions that need to go are defended on the basis that they are "traditional", but when you try to use the argument that name-changing on marriage isn't "traditional" for us, was never part of our culture, then suddenly "tradition" doesn't matter anymore.  heads i win, tails you lose.

i don't believe in shaming women for choosing to change their names, just as i hate any kind of societal pressure or expectation that they must or should change their names.  in an ideal world, women would be able to make that decision without being judged for it.  and we certainly wouldn't have to be drawn in to face pressures created by other cultural traditions, as an act of cultural domination.

That awkward moment when someone asks me to sign the Family First Protect Marriage petition

I spied her clipboard from across the room, as she drew it slowly from her bag.   Noting the image across the top of the petition sheet, my heart sank.  It was the Family First Protect Marriage petition and it had no good purpose being anywhere near me.

"You'll sign this won't you?  To protect marriage!"

"Ah no, I've already signed the other one, the opposite one, in fact."

Shocked look.

"But, but, but, you're MARRIED!"

"Yes, and I think any two people who love each other should be able to marry.  Let's make it open to more people, and share the love."

"Oh."

We both found something else important to do elsewhere.

---

Opposite sex marriage is simply not under attack.  It doesn't need to be protected from same sex marriage at all.  Marriage is about a commitment between people* which has meaning for them.  What I might think about their marriage is irrelevant.  What happens in my marriage doesn't impact on anyone else's marriage, or civil union, in any way.  What does Family First think they are protecting marriage from?

Tonight a friend of mine, who happens to be gay, mentioned to me how he appreciated my support because this doesn't affect me.  In a way it is easier for me to be out there about my views, precisely because it is not about me;  there is no criticism of the way I live my life, of the person I am, in all the many awful arguments against marriage equality that I have seen.  I really feel for those out there who are on the frontlines of this in a way I am not; many of whom will not want to be even having a battle, and shouldn't have to be, to justify who they are.

There are many many people who support marriage equality, for reasons of justice and fairness, and just down right treating everyone as a full human being.  We should be making the world better than it was when we arrived, for those who come after, and marriage equality is one little way to help.

---

For those interested in the debate and vote on the first reading, estimates so far is that it is likely to occur at around 8pm Wednesday night.  There is a celebration rally going from Civic Square to Parliament tomorrow also, from 12noon.   There is a great deal of activity on Facebook in support of Louisa Wall's Bill too, not least longstanding group LegaliseLove, the adorable Can these otters holding hands get more fans than Protect Marriage NZ? (the answer is YES THEY CAN), and a range of pages showing that support is definitely not restricted to Pakeha queer atheists, but is rather more widespread than that: Tagata Pasifika for Marriage Equality, Christians for Marriage Equality Aotearoa NZ  and Straights for Marriage Equality in Aotearoa NZ (SMEANZ).

Currently the Bill looks likely to pass its first reading tomorrow night.  The process from there is that it goes to Select Committee for public submissions.  After that it gets a second and then a third and final reading in Parliament.  After the third reading it is officially law.



*  I'm pretty open-minded on the issue of polyamorous marriage.  I think it has had a bad reputation because it has most commonly been seen in societies where women do not have high status and has thus been a tool for oppressing women, but it doesn't have to be that way imho.  This is not really a post about that though.


Comment direction:  No hate in the comments thanks, plenty of other places on the interweb for that, sadly.  There have been a lot of amazing posts about this issue over the last few weeks, not least from my co-bloggers, so you may wish to share the ones that particularly appealed to you in comments :-)

Love isn't Love isn't Love: The Marriage Game

Love is love is love. That's the game we're playing now. That's what the images say, uniform toilet-symbol representations of binary genders in three different (two person) combinations. Conventionally attractive white young photographed kisses in three different (two person) combinations. Still more - usually young, usually conventionally attractive, usually white - couples photographed in couples, professing how just like anyone else they are, how they pay their taxes and eat toast in the morning and how they're just like anyone else. Our love is just like your love. Love is love is love.

This is the game we're playing. This is the game to get marriage.

We're used to games. We've played them all our lives, played them for survival from the first slight difference bubbling in our consciousness, played them later in press releases and on parliament grounds. We've accepted compromises, concocted strategies. We know we will always have to do this. Sometimes there are winnings. Sometimes we play together and stay together, ready for the next round. Games aren't all bad.

We always play to the same goal. Love is love is love.

Except ours is love is a society that ignores it, that discredits it, that overtly oppresses it. Our love is in secret, or with a never ending shame, a belief that maybe, maybe, it should not be. Our love is a brazen fuck you, our love is a show of pride. Our love is us just wanting, just wanting our love to be like your love. Our love is wanting our love to never be like your love. Our love is never in a vacuum. Your love and our love never started on equal footings. Our love is having to hide our other differences to make us more normal, make us more ordinary, to gain an acceptance of our love you will never have to work or fight for.

You can choose your pieces. You can be yellow or green or red or blue. Sometimes you can be a boot or a dog or an iron or a car.

Make no mistake. This is a game for ordinary people. A game for normal people. A game for people who look good in the newspapers, people who the average kiwi can relate to. No-one likes it, but it's what we have to do to win. Jostling at the edges, or maybe staying home, will be those who will never look good in the papers, but found in the queer community a home of sorts, or those who were never welcome even there. We'll pick up our placards and we'll march, because we know this fight has to be fought, this game has to be won. We may even have a share of the winnings, or we may have a penalty deducted. It won't have been our fight. It won't have been our liberation.

This is the game to get marriage. But does the winner take all? Who has to fold up the board and put away the pieces? And will you, and your winnings, be on our team for another round?

Marrying for social change

Homosexual law reform in the mid 1980s was hugely formative for me.  In my mid-early teens, it was the first time I realised I wasn't always going to agree with my brilliant father.

I was convinced consensual sexual activity between men should not be criminal.  Dad broadly agreed, but, like households all over Aotearoa, debate raged.  He "didn't know any gay men" and "didn't want to see New Zealand go too far."

I was yet to think about my (hetero)sexuality, or have any attractions to women that I called sexual.  But my out gay chemistry teacher was repeatedly verbally abused for "taking it up the arse" by some of my classmates, and his classroom defaced with spray-painted graffiti hate.

The pinnacle of the arguments between my father and I involved my asking him how he would feel if a male couple moved in next door, and we could see them kissing one another good-bye in the morning, in the same way my parents kissed each other good-bye, every morning.

Dad said that wouldn't be ok with him.  When I told him he was homophobic, he laughed and said "no, I'm not.  We wouldn't move."  My relationship with him changed, because I thought he was wrong and I found his views truly offensive.  Much as I continued (and continue) to love him.

The debate Aotearoa is about to have about Marriage Equality (and yes, that phrase is deliberate - everytime it gets called "gay marriage" we leave out trans people, lesbians and bisexual people) is going to be heated, make no mistake.

Queer people will have to listen to homophobes telling us there is something wrong with loving someone of the same gender, that "homosexual relationships" are not normal.  This will be painful and horrifying and dangerous for queer people in ways it will be difficult to describe to our straight friends.

I don't want to get married.  I don't want the state to have anything to do with who I share my bed with, or my life with.  I don't believe monogamous long-term relationships are "better" than other ways of loving.  For me, a relationship's worth comes from how the people involved treat one another, the room there is to grow and explore together and independently, the joy that comes from connection.

But I know that this Bill will make a difference for queer people in Aotearoa.  Just as Homosexual Law Reform did in 1986, the Human Rights Act in 1993, the Civil Union Bill in 2004.  We would not even be able to have this discussion, in 2012, about marriage equality without the activism that set the context for those earlier legislative changes.  Every time we have these debates and voices for increased equality win, the world becomes a little safer for queer people. 

But the debate itself won't be safe for us, which scares me.  Not for myself - I have a privileged - which should be an ordinary - existence as an out queer cis woman.  I have control over where I live, and who I live with.  My employers know my sexuality, so does my family and everywhere I volunteer and participate in activist work, and I am surrounded by beautiful, loving friends with all kinds of identities.

For that gay kid coming out in Te Awamutu, this debate will be terrifying.  For that closeted bisexual public servant, this debate will be painful.  For that lesbian who wants to leave the church and her husband with her children, this debate will be life-threatening.  For all of us who don't look like the gender norms we're supposed to, this debate will be dangerous.

Social change comes at a cost.  Activism isn't always easy, or safe.  Let's look after each other while conservative New Zealand tries to argue we're not the same as everyone else.  And let's remember this is just one step to respect, justice and equality - not the step.  We have more work to do yet.

It's time

Well actually, it's past time.  But now is still good.

If you want to vote on this poll, (screenshot above taken at 11am) it's at this Stuff article.

On straight people 'sacrificing' their weddings

To straight people pledging not to get married until same sex marriage is legally recognised: please, don't do it for me.

If you want to get married or don't want to get married, that's okay. If you don't want to get married because you believe marriage is tainted by being only available to certain people, I understand that. If you don't want to get married as an individual protest: well I think it's ineffectual and I actually find it irritating, but that's your right, but don't pretend you're doing it for those who never asked you to do it.

I confess I don't really understand the whole idea of "I'm going to sacrifice things I have that other people can't". If we lived by that maxim I'd never go to the movies, never use transport, never eat a nice meal, never wear new clothes. The world's set up that some people have things other's can't: we can and should fight that, but we can't just opt out of it.

If you want to support queer rights, ask some queer people what they want you to do. Maybe some will say "don't get married" - we're not exactly a monolith, but I'm confident they'd be a minority. If you asked me, I'd ask for you to help me paste some posters, for $50 towards printing (maybe you could opt for cheaper chair covers), to like and share a facebook page, to challenge transphobia and homophobia where you see it, to join a march, to tell any young people close to you that it is okay, it really is okay. You can do one or more of those and still get married - see, much less of an imposition on your life.

Don't assume that our priorities are the same as yours, or what you assume yours would be. Don't assume that we all have the same priority. Don't assume that we want to get married, or that we don't.

Don't assume there's some clear dividing line between equality and oppression, when some queer people can marry now and some relationships will almost certainly be ineligible for state recognition when same sex marriage is recognised, and marriage rights won't change so many things anyway.

If you're in a situation where marriage carries important practical benefits, where it is necessary for you to obtain healthcare or immigration status, please don't screw with your life like that. Not only do I not want to see that happen to you, I'd honestly rather be putting my energy into activism, rather than worrying about the needless 'sacrifice' you've made.

These types of actions, however well intentioned, always feel like an appropriation. Actions that make it all about the straight couple. Actions that we're supposed to feel grateful for, that we're supposed to appreciate, that we're supposed to owe you something for, when most of us never wanted them in the first place.

Enjoy your marriage, your civil union, your handfasting, your pissup, your relationship unaccompanied by an event, whatever. I'll be wishing you well; if I know you well enough I'll be there, taking advantage of the free food. And when you get back from your honeymoon, or recover from your hangover: well, I could use some help on a poster run...

the framing is damaging

[i wrote this post early last week, but ended up with a severe infection that meant i've been offline for several days. re comments: i'm leaving them open for now, but because i'm still not well, may turn them off because i don't have energy to deal with them. but please recognise that this is not an easy topic for me and my reaction to certain comments may not always be pleasant.]

it starts off with the story about a yound woman forced into marriage with threats of deportation and a bunch of lies, imprisoned in her husband's house for two months, and receiving death threats from her father. all of which is awful. this is a newsworthy story, it's important issues around forced marriage are brought to light, and the dominion post was the first to bring this particular story to light.

now there are issues around the framing of this story. it's presented as a pakistani story, when in effect it's a nz one. the issue isn't so much one of culture as it is of power and control. in other words, as was eloquently pointed out by a commentor on facebook (not me), the key factor is the desire to have power and control over the lives of women. the methods to exert such power and control may vary - but often not as much as you think. for example, threats of deportation and the withholding of passports is also a tool used by white men, as are death threats.

i found this comment at the end of the dom post article really troubling:

"It is not to say that the entire community acts this way, there will always be exceptions to the rule, but on the whole, women are given their place in society and in the family and as long as they adhere to that, they're fine.

"The minute they don't they face great odds to succeed or are deemed to have brought dishonour and shame to their families/communities and are ostracised or, in the worst case scenario, killed."

see, the exception to the rule is apparently the muslim families who don't force women into marriage, according to priyanca radhakrishnan (and yes this is the same priyanca whose experiences i shared on this blog and also asked the standard to do the same). or perhaps she means the whole ostracisation/dishonour thing. it's a little hard to tell.

but you know what? my experience is something quite different. yes, of course domestic violence exists in the muslim community. it exists in all communities. it's an issue that needs to be raised and discussed, which is one of the reasons why i dragged my sorry butt across the country - with a very capable partner - doing workshops with muslim women, the last of which was in auckland almost 2 weeks ago.

but i reject the notion that it is inherently more of a problem in muslim communities than in other communities. and i reject the notion that the vast majority of muslim women live in conditions as described by priyanca above, or that she has any right to generalise like that about women's lives based on the fact that her organisation gets to see the worst of society rather than the best of it. if we were to extrapolate nz women's living conditions from the state of our refuges, then i'm sure we could draw similar conclusions about nz culture. in fact, here's a canadian piece that makes some similar points (hattip to facebook).

the fact is nz has a huge issue with violence across the board, but that doesn't mean that, bar a few exceptions, nz women are subjugated. we should never diminish the importance of dealing with domestic violence and finding solutions. but i don't believe that we will find those solutions by generalising this way about a whole culture. as was really well pointed out on facebook (again, not me), this kind of framing helps to reinforce the stereotype of brown women as backwards and oppressed.

having to live with that stereotype is really restricting, and is almost certainly a factor in this: the double disadvantage that ethnic minority women face in attaining leadership roles. it can also lead to disadvantages in the health system as women of colour as seen as less capable, and their words are not taken as seriously (yes, i have concrete examples of this). it can lead difficulties in even getting a job. reinforcing that particular stereotype has costs.

i have raised this issue regarding shakti before. it's not a new concern for me, and i'm not partciularly interested in making personal attacks. it's an issue of concern that needs to be raised, because it not only affects the lives of all women of colour, it also affects the accessability of the service for women who need help.

well, following up on the dom post article was this one from the herald, which quotes the executive director of unicef. he felt the need to refer to this comment:

"It is an outrage that, under the cloak of respect for the culture and traditions of certain communities, there are authorities which tolerate forced marriages although they violate the fundamental rights of each and every victim.'

now i don't know about other countries, but there is no-one here in nz that i am aware of who is using the cloak of respect to tolerate forced marriage. if mr mckinlay believes that kind of thing is happening here, then i would ask him to name and shame any such people, because i'd be as much p*ssed off with them as the next person and would like to see them outed.

and if he knows that it is not true of nz, that neither the authorities nor any community leaders or community organisations are asking for forced marriages to be treated with respect, then he should plainly say so. but if he did say so, then that whole quote would actually be meaningless in a nz context and he wouldn't have need to point to it at all. leaving it as it is strongly gives the impression that there are people here who are pleading special treatment for this particular crime.

this is the point where i lost my cool in the facebook discussion, and i don't apologise for it at all. it's tiring and incredibly frustrating to have to continuously deal with this kind of framing, whether it's from an employee of the UN or from an organisation run by brown women for brown women. regardless of the fact that both organisations do incredibly good work, neither of them are above criticism.

as regards the actual issue around legislative change, i know i've done a post on this previously, discussin how existing nz law could be used to deal with these issues. the problem seems to be more with getting those laws working properly in the context of dowries and forced marriages. unfortunately i can't find that post at the moment, but if i do, i'll put up the link.

So let's get *this* straight (or otherwise)

This image has been floating round on my Facebook feed over the past few days, and it's not the first of it's kind. And I understand what people are reacting to, and that it's primarily a reaction to the hypocrisy of those who view same-sex marriage as a threat to their - generally unrealistic - ideals of mixed-sex marriage. But that doesn't make me comfortable with that; as a queer woman one thing I really have zero interest in doing is critiquing the validity of other people's relationships. Sure, some of the practices listed above may be unethical (and others I'd need more information to determine, which I don't care to seek out) but that makes them relationships with bad things going on in them, not non-relationships.

And yeah, it's tempting to turn around, when someone says that queers are destroying traditional marriage (which is, apparently, a bad thing) and list all those examples. But that means letting people who think there are valid and invalid relationships (and that same sex ones fall into the latter category) define the terms of the argument. And the next thing you know, we're falling over ourselves trying to prove why our relationships are valid - we've been together for twenty years, we're completely monogamous, we have three kids, we own a house, we celebrate a big family Christmas...

Our relationships may be all that, and they may be none of that. They're valid because we say they are. And I don't begrudge Britney her 55 hour marriage one fucking bit.

i have given you my soul; leave me my name!

[crossposted]

i've been inspired by annanonymous' post on naming to reflect on my own choices of names as a parent. she makes the point that:

The names which top the 2011 lists are indeed fairly middle class, and the trends in their popularity suggest that 'generic' is what parents are after: they're choosing names that don't stand out too much. There's actually a lot of comfort in conformity.

while this may be true of the western world, the opposite seems to be the case in the indian subcontinent (and particularly india & pakistan). of course i don't have research to back this up, only my own personal experience. but that experience strongly suggests that having a unique name is the over-riding factor for this group of parents. they will try to find a name that no-one has heard of.

i wonder if this is because families are generally so much larger there, so the likelihood of a name being used by cousins, nephews, neices, uncles, aunties, brothers and sisters for their own children are pretty high. since they don't want to have double-ups with relatively close relations, they try to find something unusual.

since there's such a variety of names anyway, based on the many languages and historical influences, no-one actually cares if a name is easy to spell. also, many naming traditions in the region don't include a "family" name - there isn't a common name that everyone in the same family has. so there isn't that sense of conformity that you might find in a western tradition.

which is not to say that there aren't rules. giving names is a very serious matter for muslims. there are quite a body of writing and thought around giving names to children. the name should be one that has historical significance - ie one that was held by a person of good quality who led an exemplary life. hence why the most popular boys name in the world is mohammad (in many spelling variations), though very few of them are actually called by that name. it just forms a part of their full name. as a side note, i've often wondered why christians in the english-speaking world don't use "jesus" as a name much more often. it seems to be used in the latino culture a lot more.

names should also have a good meaning and not be an embarassment to the child. in fact, it's seen as the right of a child that the parents should choose a decent and sensible name. so, even if names are chosen because they are unique or unusual, parents in the indian subcontinent do make an effort to ensure that it won't be a cause of ridicule. not that i believe anyone should be ridiculed because of their name, but i guess it's a protection of the diginity of the child.

a name is the most important part of a person's identity, but one that they initially don't get to choose. and while many do choose to change it in later life, most commonly married women in the west, that initial name does seem to form a part of who you are or how you are defined. there isn't really any other way to do it - children aren't able to make a decision about it until they are at least a few years old, and at that age are likely to make a decision they'll regret later in life. so one of the most important things about you is beyond your control, at least for quite a few years. and even then, changing a given name is likely to cause some hurt to the parents who took the time to choose it for you.

names are such a contentious issue - any post about changing names on marriage will often be attract the most comments on feminist websites. it's something that many of us intrinsically place a lot of value on. it's something about us that we want other people to get right. i think my name is pretty simple, being only 5 letters, but i keep a list of all the ways people manage to get my name wrong when i say it to them over the phone. it includes angie, angela, eugene, as well as some not so nice ones. and i make an effort to say it very slowly and carefully, because i know that as soon as people hear the first syllable, they stop listening and assume the rest. the fact that i have a very kiwi accent and they can't see i'm a woman of colour helps in their assumption that i have a traditional european name.

the pronunciation of such a simple name is also an issue. the average nz'er wants to say the first syllable with the same pronunciation as the word "an" as in "an apple", though the correct pronunciation is "un" as in "unforgettable". the second syllable comes out as "jim" even though it's quite clearly spelt "jum" and i take the trouble to say it that way. i certainly don't mind people who make a first attempt without having heard me say it getting it wrong. but it does bother me when i've said it for them, slowly and clearly, and they insist on saying it wrong. grrr.

as for my own children, i bucked the trend of unusual names to go for very traditional and common ones for my own children. in fact, i decided on the name for my first child when i was 15 years old, having read about the most famous historical figure to hold the name, and admiring her greatly.

it is apparently traditional in some cultures for the paternal grandparents to choose the name, or for the father to do it. i find this really difficult - my own position was that i was the one who had gone through all the pain and hardship of bearing and giving birth to this child, which should surely result in my having the right to choose the name. pretty one-sided i guess, but at the time, i felt really strongly about it and couldn't have borne the thought of someone else choosing a name for my babies.

Right to Life's candidate questionnaire

Feel free to answer for yourself in comments, regardless of your intentions to stand for Parliament :-)

 If elected to Parliament at this general election, would you:

1. The Crimes Act states that an unborn child does not become a human being until it is born. Would you support legislation that would give legal recognition to the status of an unborn child from conception as a human being endowed with human rights, the foundation right being an inalienable right to life?

2. The Care of Children Act provides that a girl under the age of 16 may have an abortion without the knowledge or consent of the parents or guardian, Would you support an amendment to the Act that would protect parental rights by requiring that an abortion may not be performed on a girl under 16 without the consent of the parents

3. The Care of Children Act provides that a girl under the age of 16 may have an abortion without the knowledge or consent of the parents or guardian, Would you support an amendment to the Act that would protect parental rights by requiring that an abortion may not be performed on a girl under 16 without the knowledge of the parents.

4. Oppose legislation that would give doctors the right to kill or assist in the suicide of their patients [Euthanasia].

5. Support the right to life of every individual from conception by opposing embryonic stem cell research that entails the destruction of human embryos.

6. Uphold the state of marriage as being exclusively for a man and a woman. 

 What does number 6 have to do with the "right to life"??

I would have got away with it if it wasn't for those pesky teachers

Another <3 in the direction of Judy Horacek.

ETA:  There's quite a bit of friendly debate about this cartoon in comments - feel free to join in!  

A Royal Spectacle

I adore the spectacle of weddings.  There's just something about seeing the fruition of all that planning and intricate work that gets me most times.  Few events are more complicated or more brilliantly realised than a royal wedding.

We have but one television in our house, and so in a spirit of compromise we are currently avoiding the royal wedding coverage in the lead-up, with the understanding we will switch stations come 10pm for the ceremony itself. 

Although I like weddings I don't really hold a candle for monarchy, British or otherwise.  How can anyone really justify an approach to human beings that is all about birth determining worth?

So all these media comments about the "progress" the British monarchy has made with this wedding leaves me a bit cold.  Kate Middleton is still referred to, over and over again, as a "commoner".  I thought she was a person, silly me.  Then there's all this faff about whether or not she's a virgin.  NOT OUR BUSINESS.  And finally, the suggestion I heard from one TV3 commentator that as a future queen Kate may have been required to undergo a fertility test.  No one even mentions whether or not William goes to the altar with cherry intact, or has active swimmers.  (Not that I want them to.  Screwed up my face in dismay just typing that.)

One slight plus which warmed my cold dead egalitarian heart when someone pointed it out on twitter;  Elton John can not only go to an event packed to the brim with the powerful of Britain and beyond, he can also take his partner with nary a glance askance.  That is progress, although it's got naught to do with the monarchy imho.

Maybe next time there's a Big Deal royal wedding we'll see a female guest in trousers. 

There's lots of awesome tweeting and live blogging all about the show, so I'll leave it there and go get my wedding fix. Also:  fascinators!!



Looking for a picture for this post I thought I'd just have to go with some regal looking cupcakes, but no there was quite an array of royal wedding cupcakes on offer.  I find cakes iced with pictures of real people a bit creepy myself, but each to their own.

Two ARGHs in one morning is two too many

ARGH the first, was the news, via Russell Brown on twitter (@publicaddress), that Bronagh Key is down on the royal wedding invite list as "Mrs John Key."  I don't know who is responsible for this but it really bugs me that anyone gets to be differentiated from their partner by only one little "s".

If that's genuinely what Bronagh wants to be referred to then that is her choice, and I'll shut up about it (publicly, no doubt I'll mutter into my cereal about it privately).

But if it's been imposed by anyone, or just assumed, then that sucks.  Russell thought it was better than being John Key's +1, however I'm not so sure.  Both seem to me to indicate she's just an appendage, not a person in her own right.

ARGH the second, totally didn't have to be an ARGH.  The Unnecessary ARGH if you will.  Dr Tiso pointed me to an awesome set of bathroom scales (right) which are not only pink (win), fluffy (extra win) and decorated with a shiny star (ultra mega win), they also don't feature numbers but instead wonderful friendly words like "Perfect", "Hot" and "Ravishing."  The Yay Scale is the work of Marilyn Wann, a body acceptance activist who wrote Fat? So! and has done some great stuff with Healthy At Every Size (aka HAES).

So where's the ARGH in that, pretty awesome right?  Sadly this isn't the order I read about this Cool Thing in.

First I stumbled into a savage "review" (who reviews bathroom scales?) all about how the Yay Scale was apparently not so yay because it was Encouraging Unhealthy Eating Habits.  The reviewer has been put right in comments, although there's no response to the well made points about the positive nature of the scales.

I was particularly galled by the idea that those who wanted to know their weight might inadvertently purchase the Yay Scale and have to live in ignorance of their mass!  ZOMG False Advertising the Like of Which Has Never Been Seen Before!  Except if you count almost the entire fashion and beauty industries, basically.  But I digress.

Now I'm hoping for an ARGH-free Monday.  Might be lucky and get away with a few minor GRRRRRRs.

India's disappearing girls

The Economist and New Internationalist are both currently running articles about the skewed gender ratios that are being seen in India. While I have seen a lot written about this issue in China I haven't read about it in the Indian context before. If anyone out there knows more about the situation in India it would be good to know if you think these articles are fair.

The Economist has both a leader and an article about this issue.

The article talks about the downward spiral that is being seen for women as the ratios become skewed:

The impact on Indian society is grim. You might have thought that scarcity would lead to girls being valued more highly, but this is not happening. One measure is the practice of giving dowries. Almost no one, rich or poor, urban or rural, dreams of dispensing with these. Rather, as Indians grow wealthier, dowries are getting more lavish and are spreading to places where they were once rare, such as in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, in the south. In Kotla women huddled around Sakina shake their heads when asked to imagine life without dowries: “then nobody would find a husband”, they say.

A skewed sex ratio may instead be making the lot of women worse. Sociologists say it encourages abuse, notably in the trafficking of the sort that Sakina first suffered from but is now ready to pay for. Reports circulate of unknown numbers of girls who are drugged, beaten and sometimes killed by traffickers. Others, willingly or not, are brought across India’s borders, notably from Bangladesh and Myanmar. “Put bluntly, it’s a competition over scarce women”, says Ravinder Kaur of the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi.

The New Internationalist article focuses a bit more on the situation of young women who are forced or choose to move to other parts of India to marry.

Men from Haryana and Punjab are being forced to go in search of brides to distant West Bengal and Bihar. The language is different, the customs are different, the food is different. But the brides, poor girls, travel to these distant states because they are poor. Their parents can’t afford the dowry demands in their home states. Now for a Bengali or Keralite girl to marry a Haryanvi groom is like a Sicilian girl being dispatched to Siberia. Everything is different. It’s a whole new country.

But for the girls, apparently, it’s not all gloom and doom. If you ask people questions without a preconceived agenda, the answers will often surprise you. They certainly stunned me.

A group of girls from Kerala, where dowry demands are huge, decided ‘to screw Keralite men and their avaricious families. Why allow your parents to be humiliated and pauperized with dowry and wedding demands when there are families desperate for girls elsewhere? These North Indian families are willing to give our parents money to take us into their families as brides. First of all, that was unbelievable. We thought, why go through the degrading, shaming practice of parading yourself before arrogant Kerala grooms and their revolting parents.’

So these girls opted to be daring. To fly away, over a thousand kilometres north, and settle in a new land. And although the food is different and the language and customs strange, they’ve adapted. They’ve decided this is definitely not worse than a dog’s life with no dowry back home. What’s more, they write home and tell others it’s not such a bad deal, come join us.

Comment direction: The problems identified in these articles are directly related to the role and status of women in Indian society. Comments should broadly address this topic. I have also edited the original post so that it is more focused on this.

The name's the thing

A question:  Will the rise of social media mean fewer women change their names on marriage?

Finding people on Facebook relies largely on knowing their name, or recognising it in someone else's friend list.  And usernames for Twitter are often based on a person's name.  In some social media cases you can't even change the username at all after you've set up your account.  Your username, and thus your real life name if they're related, becomes a marker of your presence and a trace of your wise (or not) thoughts. 

Not changing your name when you marry* has been stereotyped as the preserve of the professional middle class woman, who is possibly motivated by feminism, but more likely seeking to continue her "brand" in her chosen career.  I suspect there are in fact quite a few cultures where keeping your name is more common than changing it, but in Aotearoa New Zealand I still get called Mrs more often than Ms. 

Your thoughts, dear readers? 


*  Does anyone know if there's any data yet on name changes with civil unions?

marrying herself

hmm, i'm not sure exactly how to feel about this:

A 30-year-old Taiwanese woman has put an unusual twist on the traditional white wedding by ditching the husband part and marrying herself.

Office worker Chen Wei-yih said she wanted to show other single thirty-something women that they were not failures, media reported.

“I was just hoping that more people would love themselves,” Chen said.

Chen splurged on her $5,700 solo-ceremony, renting a banquet hall, hiring a wedding planner and photographer and inviting 30 of her friends to witness the event....

“It’s not that I’m anti-marriage. I just hope that I can express a different idea within the bounds of a tradition,” Chen said.

it's a strange paradox, to prove one's self-worth as a single woman by going through the ultimate ceremony of couplehood. i suppose it's a way of making a point, and i guess a "celebrating me, as i am" type of party would have seemed a bit vain & egotistical. and yet, the latter is actually what she's doing, and i think it's a good thing to be happy with what you've achieved in life so far, and to be happy with who you are and how you are. now that is definitely something to celebrate.

News bite: Solo mums raise police bashers

Yes, I've probably extrapolated slightly too far, with my headline, but it really isn't that far from what Family First appear to be saying in this media statement:

...Fatherlessness is a major contributor to increasing rates of juvenile violence,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“Scientific research is unanimous on a number of conclusions regarding family structure – that strong marriages increases the likelihood that fathers have good relationships with their children and lowers the risk of alcohol and substance abuse, domestic violence and child abuse,”

“Conversely, parental divorce or non-marriage appears to increase children’s risk of delinquent and criminal behaviour, amongst other factors. One only needs to observe proceedings at the Youth Court to see the effect of fatherlessness.”

“According to The Heritage Foundation, an influential US research institute, an analysis of social science literature over 30 years shows that the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers. A state-by-state analysis indicated that a 10% increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes lead typically to a 17% increase in juvenile crime. The research found that criminal behaviour has its roots in habitual deprivation of parental love and affection going back to early infancy.”

“Research has shown time after time that the father’s authority and involvement in raising his children are great buffers against a life of crime,” says Mr McCoskrie.

“There are other factors such as violence in the media, the ‘rights’ culture being fed to young people, and the undermining of parental authority which are contributors, but family structure is a crucial place to start.”

“Violent crime will continue to increase as long as we downplay the importance and significance of having two parents, a mum and a dad, committed to each other and to their children.”

Click through for the whole thing.

Wife as waste of space

Cactus Kate has highlighted a truly awful sexist motoring column by Eric Thompson, which you can read if you want to soil your eyes with an ill-judged rant about how women should be banned from driving 4WD vehicles.

Unsurprisingly, Kate agrees with Thompson, in her usual barbed style that involves kicking her sisters, hard, with her spiky stilettos at every opportunity. It's another chance for the Cactus to show that she really doesn't seem to like children, mothers, or indeed other women very much at all.

The comments that follow Cactus's post mostly expand on this theme, although with some notable disagreement, thank goodness. The view that is particularly bugging me tonight, from the post and the comments, is the idea that married women who aren't in paid work and are raising children are not contributing anything of value to their relationship or family.

We've seen this view from CK before, and no doubt will again. I don't expect my post to change her mind. Perhaps the only thing that will change her mind is being in that position herself; partnered up and not in paid employment for some reason, be it child-related or otherwise. And she's pretty clear that's not on her agenda, ever, so I guess that's that then.

But for other people who seem to not notice the very real value that someone not in paid work adds to a household, there are quite a lot of points I could raise, including:

• The caring, nurturing work - not necessarily just children either, it could be about parents who need extra attention, other family members, friends, and of course the paid partner. It's my observation that often this stuff, which is vital to maintaining friendships and family relationships, is more likely to be carried out by an at home partner, to the significant benefit of both. As small scale as sorting all the Xmas presents, as big as nursing someone who is terminally ill, this is unpaid work that can be arduous, dirty, annoying, rewarding, time-consuming, and is essential. Much of it can't easily (or cheaply) be contracted out of either, and even if you can arrange it getting someone else to do it can fracture relationships irreparably.
• Volunteer work - can even bring significant kudos to the paid partner, not to mention the community benefits. While I personally think it is enough that it often gives you a sense of achievement, a chance to contribute meaningfully to something you care about, skills, friendships and contacts, it is perhaps worth mentioning to the more Cactus-minded that volunteer work by the unpaid can also provide vital networking opportunities for the paid partner, not to mention they could even claim some involvement on their CV by association.
• Running a household - no longer as full-on as in Jane Austen's time, but nonetheless often significant. Particularly during renovations, just ask my least-favourite Listener columnist, Joanne Black. Making sure the bills are paid, there's enough food to eat, the toilet gets unblocked, the bed linen is clean, the holiday gets booked, there are clean work clothes, the neighbours don't hate you, the mail is cleared... you get the idea. Add children to the mix and this work expands exponentially. Even if you pay someone else to clean, cook, shop, nanny, there's still always unpaid work to be done in this area, not least coordinating, paying and instructing any paid workers helping out.
  

Readers can no doubt add more stuff to the list.

It bothers me that Kate's language is all about married women who she reckons sponge off men. It's almost as if it's in the wedding vows: "I promise to take as much as possible and give as little as I can get away with, at least until I'm likely to get a significant divorce settlement, at which point I will stop giving anything at all."

I don't know if I've ever seen a marriage that has worked like that, even the ones that have ended before death do them part. Maybe it's because I also don't know anyone who sends their children to Kings. Or has a 4WD and never goes off-road.

News bites: Hippity Hop Hens

An article by Kate Ellis on the Australian On Line Opinion website:

Apparently post feminist women are reinventing hen’s nights in order to (re)claim a male activity while men are becoming more “classy” with spa visits and golfing days. Yet for Hannah Pool, the hen’s night is a traumatic, humiliating experience where feminists are expected to disregard their political beliefs. Pool contends that the first step in reducing the “very specific tyranny” of a hen’s night is to make them bunny ear free.

My cousin just got married and I was invited to his fiancé’s hen’s night:

Yes, its dress up PLAYBOY BUNNY!!! Ears provided for those who think they are not the dress up type ...

*Groan*

...Although still partial to a halter neck I’m feeling a bit troubled by Third wave feminism’s evolution into post feminism. I feel like girl culture is letting us down.

The current crop of girl bands, such as The Pussycat Dolls as they sing “don’t you wish your girlfriend was hot like me”, has got me depressed. There are so many contradictions regarding empowerment, girl culture, consumerism and the same old subjugation.

My soon to be cousin’s Playboy-themed hen’s night was a great text to think these ideas through. The Playboy bunny has become a ubiquitous symbol in modern life and has taken on new meanings of sexual self possession...

Click through for the whole article.