Disgruntled customer

Dear Lush,

I wish to advise you of the sub-optimal performance of your "Wash That Man Right Out Of My Hair" shower gel, purchased from your online shop in the last month.  

While frequent applications have reduced the size of Winston Peters the smell has increased, and stubborn Bill English has hardly budged at all.  David Seymour persists, defying all logic.  I appreciate that Gareth Morgan has largely washed away, but that was always going to be an easy one given the recency and diminutive standing of that particular stain.

Even though it is a shower gel, I used it as a shampoo as well, to increase its potency.

I'm prepared to give your product two more weeks to prove useful.  If it has not had a meaningful impact on National's party vote by October 7th then I will be making use of your money-back guarantee, and I am prepared to pursue my rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act if necessary.

Yours sincerely
etc

Not Yet Time for a Lady Time Lord

Look I know it's probably unexpected, but I don't support a female Doctor Who.

Why would we do that?  Why would we pretend that it's ok for a shape shifting time-travelling immortal alien to be portrayed as anything, and by anyone, other than a (probably straight) white man who has spoken English from birth?

Sure Missy shows that Time Lords can change their bits, as Mr X pointed out to me, but really that just proves the point.  Missy/The Master is a villain character (usually) and they do all sorts of weird and Not Normal things, being female is clearly just another one of those aberrations.

Also what will we do with all the toilet seats in the TARDIS?  Will they have to be permanently glued down now?  Oh the (in)humanity!

Surely Doctor Who isn't The Doctor without a sonic screwdriver (don't mention Capaldi's sunglasses, sssshhhhh, never happened) and we can't expect a lady to carry around a manly tool of that type (penis compensator?) especially as her clothes won't have any real pockets.  Will she have a sonic silicon pot holder instead?  Can't see much lock picking and computery twiddling happening with that!

Finally, and this will be hard for some readers to accept, but our society just isn't ready.  There are still countries in the world where women have not yet been state leader, can't be lawyers, have little access to education, are barred from driving and even voting.  We should be working hard on all of that, not rejoicing at the mere breakthrough of a woman playing an iconic TV character who has inspired generations and is at the apex of the world's biggest English language fandoms.

Look away from the small beautiful victories and see how we still fail.  Despair at our lack of power, not stomp our feet as the cliffs crumble.

Do not, ever, hope.

I don't do comments here anymore - you can find me easy peasy on Twitter @juliefairey and similarly on Facebook.

Abortion, again

A few things it may help to understand, from my personal observations of being very anti-abortion until I was about 16, then increasingly pro-choice to the point where now I have badges and everything.

Embryo/fetus = baby?

Those who oppose access to abortion for other pregnant people, not just for themselves, often genuinely do see the embryo/fetus as equivalent to a newborn baby.  Science says it's not, and therefore it becomes a moral issue that should be up to the individual pregnant person.  There is heaps and heaps and heaps of science on this, seriously.  I'm not going to link it all, here's just one from New Scientist showing that the neural connections to feel pain are simply not there at 24 weeks gestation.*   

From my personal experience of a miscarriage at six weeks I know that what I lost was not a baby equivalent.  From my personal experience of ultrasounds through three other pregnancies I know that what I was pregnant with at 20 weeks was also not a baby equivalent.  From my personal experience of having three live babies I did not feel like what I carried was a baby equivalent until they were being born.  That's just my experience of course, which informs my decisions and actions and should not necessarily inform yours or anyone else's - which by the way further underlines my determination that the pregnant person gets to decide, not anyone else.

The importance of "innocence" 

There is a view of human adults that is common I've found amongst those opposed to abortion which assumes adults are not "innocent".  I was raised kind of Catholic, I went to a Catholic school for about 6 years, and I'm familiar with the concept of sin, particularly as they apply to women.  There are a number of ideas that go along with this - periods as punishment for women as a result of Eve's apple trick, the idea that menstruation is "dirty" in fact significantly dirtier than urinating or defacating and that those who are menstruating are also dirty, and some really screwed up ideas about sex as sin.  The view is that we are constantly corrupted from birth onwards, at some point, probably in our late teens, reaching a tipping point, as exhibited by the white (pure) coffins for children versus darker colour coffins for adults that are common in Christian-influenced cultures.

The unhelpful construction of Sex as Sin

The sex as sin stuff is particularly awful in my opinion, breeding a lot of the terrible attitudes we have about consent, body image, toxic masculinity and unhealthy attitudes to girls and women.  Sex is considered for reproduction only, which always makes me wonder if those opposed to abortion on that basis have sex during pregnancy or after menopause or if infertile (but I would never ask).  Sex for any other purpose, such as pair-bonding, pleasure, physical release, would be sinful.  Do you know who has pretty much certainly had sex?  Pregnant people that's who.  Can we be sure it was for procreational purposes?  Probably not** if they are seeking an abortion.  Sinners!

Innocent versus sinner - choose a winner!

By virtue of being unborn, an embryo or fetus is absolutely clean of sin, ie a total and perfect innocent.  So in a contest of bodily autonomy rights between a baby equivalent that is totally without sin and a pregnant person who probably sinned just getting pregnant, let alone all those others times, guess who wins?  A baby is always a Good Thing, an adult human, particularly a woman, not so much.

A lot of people however don't consider sex sinful, do think it's a good idea that every child is a wanted one, and are a bit iffy about the idea of forced pregnancy.  I tend to think that the pregnant person is a full human here and now, and is the best placed person to choose whether or not to continue that pregnancy, to become a parent or expand their family.  Whatever reason they choose to go ahead or not is a) enough and b) not my business.  

God has a Reason?

There's also a theme that comes across sometimes in anti-abortion missives, that we shouldn't second guess God.  If God wants you to be pregnant then there's a Reason and that should be respected and you should go through with it regardless.  God Moves in Mysterious Ways is not just a weird cover of a U2 song.  What if the embryo or foetus aborted was going to grow up to cure cancer?  (Never to undertake genocide or be a serial rapist, mind).  

This is how sometimes people who even oppose abortion on the grounds of rape or incest position themselves - a baby is always a Good Thing, therefore a baby coming out of the terrible thing that happened is God's way of making it right.***  Other people might think it would be traumatic to know that you are a parent to your rapist's child, of course, let alone have to deal with the sometimes awful experience of pregnancy, any physical resemblance the child might develop, an ongoing relationship with the rapist as the other parent, and so on.  

Surgery is gross

The ickiness of surgical abortion grosses people out. As too would pregnancy and childbirth (c section or otherwise) if they stopped to think about it much.  See also: Stomach stapling, brain surgery, removal of teeth that have roots that have grown around the jawbone (that one made you wince didn't it).  A lot of surgery is gross to non-medical people, and can be quite violent too.  It's one of the reasons they put us under anaesthesia, sedate us, put up a screen between the patient and the area being operated on, during surgery.  I had to have a version prior to the birth of my first child, to try to turn him in the womb, and it was a full on muscular attempt and that didn't even have any blood involved.  The pulling and pushing that happens to your body with a caesarean is intense, despite an epidural.  Surgical abortions are not unique in their grossness BUT the gross details of terminations have been deliberately and widely publicised by those opposed to abortion to up the ickiness factor.  

Add surgery is gross to innocent baby versus sinful wanton woman and you see where this is going.

The cruel twist here is that medical abortions are relatively non-icky.  They are not too dissimilar from a heavy period in most cases.  Yet NZ's abortion law and the stigma attached to abortion means that every year hundreds of terminations that could have been medical have to be surgical because of deliberate delays built in to the system to deny the pregnant person the right to choose.

At the heart of it all

It's distrust of women, innit?****   It's a failure to understand that women are full moral adults, just like men thank you very much.  And thinking women aren't equal well there's a name for that (Spoiler alert: it's sexism).  Here's a particularly egregious example of how this plays out in real life, from 2014 on Dominion Rd in Auckland. 

Often when I've asked people who are squirmy about abortion and consider the current law an acceptable compromise*****  they come down to an argument that they want the pregnant person to be really sure because it is such a big decision.  Yet similar legally enforced overbearing rigor is not routinely required for other big decisions like becoming a parent, having another child, picking a career, getting hitched, or buying an apartment in a 1990s Auckland building with monolithic cladding.  

If not the pregnant person, who else is in a better place to make a decision on whether to continue a pregnancy or not?  No one.  Seriously, no one.  NO ONE.  

The answer is so simple.  If you are opposed to abortion don't have one.  You don't get to make decisions with other people's bodies, and the law shouldn't enshrine that you can.

*  Terrifyingly I had to go down to the fourth unpaid Google hit for this - the first two unpaid were anti-abortion sites lying about the science.  The third was this possibly helpful (haven't had time to read the whole thing) factcheck article.**  Of course there are many people who need an abortion because a wanted pregnancy has become non-viable, which is awful and tragic and doesn't need someone standing outside a clinic with a judgemental sign for those going through that to feel bad.***  The other position sometimes held simultaneously is that women will just lie and say they were raped to get abortions just because they don't want to have a baby right now, which is FUN FACT why the NZ law does not include rape as a ground but only as a consideration, because back in 1977 they thought women would lie about rape to get abortions.  Oh the irony.**** And not just women, because anyone else who is able to get pregnant must have their judgement impaired by that pesky uterus too I guess. 
***** Which it is not, it was considered a victory against abortion even in 1977



No comments, I don't do comments anymore.  I'm easy to find on Twitter @juliefairey if you are so inclined.

A crack in the wall

I've been on a lot of marches, organised a few too.  I used to get very affected by the crowd feeling, overwhelmed, which isn't a problem when it's happy but was harder when it was angry or even negative.  I've built a wall (yes, a wall) now that I'm a parent that means I don't react as once I did, especially when my children are around.  I push it all away behind the wall, muttering "later, later", but Later rarely comes.

Today Later came a little for me, after the Auckland Women's March, when I came across a sexist arse in Aotea Square.  It was the Mansplainiest of Mansplaining.  A man with a megaphone yelling at those leaving the march, mostly women, about how good women have it, and how wrong we all are.

Because the problem isn't the disproportionate impact of poverty on women and other marginalised groups, or the over the odds rate of incarceration for indigenous people in colonised countries world-wide, or the economic inequality and injustice that in our own city manifests in people begging on the streets and children (usually with their mothers) living in cars.  The problem isn't the greed of some, the complicity of others, the oppression that is sexism, racism, discrimination on the basis of sexual identity, body parts at birth, income level, skin colour,religion, and the downright meanness of many.  No the problem is that women are stupid.

The problem is not that women are stupid.

At first I felt not much, as I had on the march - intellectually pleased by the turnout and seeing friends and family, proud of my kids with the signs they made, assessing in the back of my mind how this was playing out as a protest given my own experiences.  I was ok to walk on by, and to then feel bad about doing that because I knew I probably shouldn't.

But then this chap was just so earnest, and so misrepresented feminism and the issues and the arguments, and maybe I've been listening to the soundtrack of That Bloody Women too much lately but I yelled at him.  And then I went closer to him and yelled at him some more.*

I was shaking with anger and knew I needed to walk away.  A few bystanders clapped as I went back to the stroller and someone else yelled at him too.  He kept going, certain in his righteousness, with his red capped mates no doubt pleased he'd got a reaction.

I've seen this before, this supreme arrogance, and it has always got under my skin.  I'm reasonably articulate, it's been a large part of my jobs for years, but I can never find the words to move people like this one.  Not in the moment anyway.  Maybe he'll read this and maybe it'll have an impact but I sincerely doubt it.

Because whenever I've seen this before I've also seen in their eyes the dismissal of whatever I say.  Which, when you've lived a bit longer and had a few things happen to you and people you love, becomes what we used to call on the feminist blogs a few years back "denial of lived experience".

It's a dismissal, a denial, a calling untrue, of what has actually happened to you in your life, what you have actually seen and experienced.  So callous, so ruthless, a simple "no, that's not possible".  Or, more often the more sly refutation of "then why didn't you...".  All of it, all of it, saying what you know is true must not be.

That gets to me, down in my bones, in my very gut.  I can remember starkly a few other times; the argument in a politics tutorial where someone ended up telling me that a child of my acquaintance was choosing to be poor; the pleas to those who would observe a social justice march, walk alongside rather than join in, to come on board, met with sneers that told me I was dirt and my hopes ridiculous;  the shutters coming down on the eyes and the turning away when I was hurting and a peer didn't want to see it; the constituent who insisted on the unimpeachable veracity of information I knew intimately was completely untrue.

And when I got back to the stroller, and the two kids I had with me, my wall had a big crack in it.  Bits were leaking out.  And I couldn't do that right then, couldn't leak everywhere.  One of my children was oblivious, but the other was a bit confused and upset: "I don't like it when you yell at people Mummy."  "It doesn't happen very often though, does it?"   "No, but I don't like it."

A quick fix job on the wall then, rushing to squeegee up all the leaked rage and frustration, squeezing it back over the top to deal with Later.  Mortar of forgetfulness, brick of fake cheerfulness for the kinders.  I've done it before, I imagine most parents do, I'll do it again no doubt.  The wall was solid again.

Maybe it's more like a dam than a wall, maybe.  I shall work on finding a turbine for that anger to power, a positive outlet that creates energy rather than flooding the whole valley.  Maybe this is that.


 


*  And mis-spoke and said I was paid worse, when I meant I was treated worse, as unlike most jobs in Aotearoa NZ, the pay for my role is transparent and set independently by the Remuneration Authority, that's the bit I'm kicking myself for most, damnit.


I'm not doing comments on my posts these days.  I'm easy to find on social media if you desperately want to tell me what you think, under my name, Julie Fairey.

Labour leadership: Too many irrelevant judgements

1.  Why is it only the people who aren't straight white men who have a judgement based on something about their identity, something they can't change?

2.  To take the awful ones in order:

• "Too gay" -  his sexuality is far from the only thing about Grant Robertson.  If this is a reference to the purported concern that New Zealand won't vote for someone who isn't openly heterosexual to be Prime Minister, then the problem is not that Grant is "too gay" but that NZ is too homophobic.  What does "too gay" even mean?  
• "Too passed it" - nice to mix up the sexism and homophobia with a bit of ageism.  And shouldn't it be "past it"?
• "Too many teeth" - because we all know that the most important thing about a woman is her appearance.  ARGH!  

3.  King, Ardern and Mallard have not even expressed any interest in running for the leadership.  Yet they get used to portray Labour as more divided than it actually is (which is, it seems, somewhat divided, but not so divided as to actually have 9 different candidates for leader)

4.  Why not Minnie Mouse? ;-)

Rape Culture: We're soaking in it

NB:  These points may already have been made, and made well, elsewhere. I've been largely keeping away from the Roast Busters stuff as I have other stuff going on currently that leaves me in a bad place to be dealing with that.  Hopefully this adds to the discussion, and the progress we MUST make, rather than just being a repetition.  Strong content warning for sexual violence.

Roast Busters is not new.  It is not some heinous development in human history.  Human history IS Rape Culture.  Rape Culture is a norm of centuries' duration we are trying to change, to overcome.  Well some of us are, anyway.

Rape Culture seems particularly bad right now because you are all seeing it.  It was there all along, so saturating us that it is the air we breathe.

Rape Culture is a society where the first things many people will consider when they hear of a rape include role of alcohol consumed by victim, role of clothes worn by victim, lack of parental supervision of victim,
instead of the reprehensible actions of the rapist.

Rape Culture is a society where victim blaming happens constantly.  Where female friends of the rapists speak out in the media to deny the accusations on their behalf.  Where those female friends may have been raped too, in the same circumstances as those they deny, and they can't face that they were raped too, because that is just too hard to deal with.*

Rape Culture is a society where a public health promotion agency deliberately uses fear of rape to scare women into drinking less alcohol, in the process promulgating a number of really really super unhelpful myths about rape and passing them off as truth.

Most women (and I suspect many men) have rape stories; their own, or those of others who have shared with them, things they have seen, things they themselves have done.  For me they are the stories of others, or near misses, but the chance that I will be raped at some point in my life is really very high - 1 in 4 women and girls in New Zealand have had that awful dehumanising experience.  I read once that 1 in 5 New Zealanders have asthma.  Amongst women being a victim of rape is more common than being asthmatic.

And we don't need more research actually.  There is a whole lot.  I'm not well placed to link, but Scube did, and I'm sure others have heaps of good links they can provide in comments.

What we need is more action.  More action by the State.  NGOs, individuals, groups formal and informal all do what they can, but they do not having the resources, the status or the longevity of central government.  We know enough to act; act effectively, efficiently and make a real difference.  Yet we don't.

We don't when we are the Government.  We don't when we are the Police.  We don't when we are people of high profile with significant media platforms.  Denial is a way of coping, I guess, because otherwise we have to accept that what we did to others could have been rape, what others did to us was rape, what we didn't stop happening to someone we love was rape.  What we allow and even encourage is Rape Culture.

We're soaking in Rape Culture, and it makes it hard to see.  When these moments come we must examine our complicity while we still can, so that once this case has faded we can still see the edges of our own enabling, and stop.



*  I have seen this happen first hand, and have no knowledge that this is at all the case in the Roast Busters situation.

Guestie: The conversation Difficult Lemon is really fed up with having over and over again

Many thanks to Difficult Lemon, who you can find on Twitter, for this guest post.  She was inspired to pen this by recent local events and the Twitter feed of Melissa McEwan.  

[This is the conversation] I have had literally hundreds of times with various (white, heterosexual, cis) men who want to claim the label feminist by standing on a hill and pointing and saying 'there be sexism' 'there be racism' but resist any and all efforts to challenge individual incidents of sexism, ESPECIALLY if they themselves are being criticised.

1. ARE YOU SAYING MEN CAN’T BE FEMINIST?
Stop projecting your anxieties onto me. You’re a white male. You can do pretty much whatever you want. It’s a sweet deal.

2. WHY ARE YOU NOT A HUMANIST?
As long as there are men (and women, who are subject to the same negative socialisation), who would ostensibly be part of the "humanist" movement, yet retain a visceral and violent reaction to the feminine, there is no foundation for a sexless, "humanist" movement. This cross applies to anyone who tries to argue that the Pakeha party and the Maori party are moral equivalents and we should all just join the ‘equality party’. Bleurgh. 

3. WHY ARE YOU OVERSENSITIVE ABOUT RAPE JOKES?
Rape culture is real. You are not sensitive enough. These jokes are everywhere, unfortunately, and trying to keep my spaces clear of them is very important. The real thought police are those who made you think this kind of behaviour is normal, not the other way around.

4. WHY ARE ALL THE ACTIVISTS SO CRAZY, LOOKING FOR REASONS TO BE ANGRY?
People are angry for a reason. Try and listen to what they are telling you, fight through the defensiveness. This applies to white feminists like me too, our movement is pretty racist, we need to own that.

5. WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING ME?
Calling criticism attack is an age old de-railing strategy, so a conversation that should centre the life experiences of women comes back to you, and your hurt feelings. If you are a man and go into feminist spaces and make the discussion be all about you, this is a hugely damaging practice. Stop.

Grrrrrrr!

Anger, oh how often you have visited me lately, let me count some of the ways:

• The frequently women-hating reaction to Labour daring to suggest that they make take some deliberate, transparent and necessary structural steps towards lifting their number of women MPs.  
• Trevor Mallard baiting another MP in the House by calling him "cougar bait."
• People who don't lay out their arguments properly and then don't come to the meeting to discuss the issue so you never really know where they stand before you make the decision.
• Changing a law because some state agencies broke it and the solution to that problem is somehow to make it legal, with the consequence that a whole heap of people who should have privacy no longer will.
• Promulgation by supposed lefties of the antiquated idea that women are precious flowers who should not be sullied by the putrid compost of politics and the stale water of being politicians or something like that, this metaphor is tortured enough already without actually trying to get it to make sense.
• Reflecting on how unfair and wrong and conservative New Zealand's abortion laws and provision actually are, yet again.
• Cancer.  Always.  
• The increasingly dirty SkyCity pokies for convention centre deal.  
• Doctors who want to be GPs but don't want to prescribe contraception.  It's your JOB, yo.

Ok, enough ragey bullet points from me - what's angrifying you?

For Queen and country

Monarchy New Zealand have come up with a delightful suggestion for celebrating the birth of our likely future monarch, the great-grandchild of our current Queen; lighting up notable landmarks either blue or pink depending on the gender of the baby.

It appears that yes this is for real, and not, as a friend suggested, a post that has accidentally been published at Stuff instead of The Civilian.

Quite apart from the issue about why we would want to particularly do this, at all, is the very tired, very old-fashioned and very sexist insistence on colour-coding based on gender.   It's been getting steadily worse in recent decades,and this Is Not Helping.

The old-fashionedness of this rubbish is relatively new.     And what about thinking beyond two genders?  I sincerely hope that all the local authorities approached to take part in Monarchy New Zealand's bizarre idea have a good chuckle then offer a firm no.

masterchef fail

i've written many times over the years about masterchef - it's one of the few reality tv programmes i enjoyed watching.  and i tend to like the australian version more than the others, mostly because i really like the way they've done diversity in the past.

however.  i'm suddenly liking masterchef australia a whole lot less, and this promo would be why:



"destroy the joint" have decided to campaign against the ad & i really hope they get some traction.  the poll at the bottom of this article (if we can give any credence to this kind of poll) shows an overwhelming majority of people thinking the ad is sexist, which is probably more a result of the DtJ campaign than anything else.

but what's worrying is that some marketing/advertising people somewhere thought that this campaign was somehow a good idea.  i bet they're related to the people who thought up the latest stupid beer commercial airing on tv, which i'm not going to bother to describe further because it just makes me feel sick.

while it was great to see marvel withdraw their sexist t-shirts, sometimes it seems like a small win in an overwhelming tide of awfulness.  nonetheless, if you have the energy, here is the masterchef facebook page where you can register your views about this particular campaign.  given that they've been so open to diversity, maybe they can get around to stamping out the sexism in this particular ad.

Call me maybe

In a series of posts around the issue of the accountability of pseudonymous bloggers Queen of Thorns wrote this about Brian Edwards' position that not using your real name is cowardly:

You’ve also got privilege.  

You’ve got the privilege of being a person in a career, in a social position, in a financial situation, which mean that stating your personal political biases for the world to see doesn’t pose you any risk.  

You get to get up in the morning and sit at your computer and type whatever you darn well please into the text field.

I'm generally in agreement with QoT on the issue of pseudonymity (and I do love that word).  You build up a reputation under a pseudonym just as you do under the name on your official paperwork, and there is accountability in that.  Quite apart from the the fact that your real name could well be completely fictitious and the reader wouldn't necessarily know (Brett Dale There was once* a salutory lesson for me on this very blog).  I don't really want to rehash all the points about this which have been bouncing around the internet for much of the last decade or more, and are resurrected every time someone with the privilege QoT identifies above gets confused about anons and pseudonyms and how online commentary works.

What I do want to do is expand some more on the theme of real-name privilege.  I write under my real-name, although I have shortened it to just my first name on my Blogger profile.  My real name is easily discovered, is in some of the posts I have written, and is mentioned by other bloggers here in posts they have written.  I'm open about the fact that I am "Julie from THM" on my Facebook and twitter accounts, and in personal interactions.

For a long time, in the first few years of this blog, I operated much as if I had a kind of real-name privilege that was almost the reverse of what QoT outlines.  It was more that I was such a minor player in the Game of Life that no one would care what I wrote really.  However that more and more became an impossible position, particularly amongst the feminist community where I was starting to find that things I might write flippantly were being taken more seriously than I intended.  The fault was with my writing, not the reading of others, and I took stock and reviewed that.  What I write does matter, and that's one of the reasons I write less now, because I feel a sense of responsibility to craft my posts very carefully, and that takes time and effort that I often don't have to spare these days.

I've avoided blogging about the area covered by my day job (education unionism, particularly early childhood and primary school until about two years ago, now special education).  It's not that I don't care about it, don't see these subjects as relevant to feminism, or have no thoughts.  I don't write about them because I don't want anyone to erroneously think that my witterings here are constructed under instruction from my employer. 

But politics, oh beautiful wondrous politics, of the New Zealand national and local variety, I thought I could write about those beloved topics without anyone deciding my thoughts, blogged here, were in fact those of another.  They've got my real name on them after all, how could anyone give the credit to anyone else!  Then this happened (TL;DR Herald on Sunday journo assumes I am my husband's appendage).  And now I write even less than I did before, certainly far less frequently than I would like to and about far less than I would like to. 

There is definitely a gendered element to this, for me, which is why I chose the Groucho Marx glasses, nose and moustache picture to illustrate this post.  It's a disguise many women would struggle to carry off, yet it is the first Google image result for "disguise".  As a woman with Views I face more difficulties than many of my male peers. I am more likely to have them ascribed to other people in my life ("that must be what her husband thinks", "she's just writing that because her boss told her to", "that'll be what Labour wants her to say").  I am more likely to suffer abuse as a result of sharing my Views.  I have many male friends who blog.  None have had threats of rape, threats against their children, or many of the other not so lovely comments I've had here.  The phrase "Uppity Man" doesn't parse. 

Writing under my real name has also opened up new opportunities that a pseudonym couldn't have; in particular the chance to be on Citizen A, spread my ideas about feminist issues in other media, and make friends with other feministy types without fear if we meet up. 

And writing under my real name has curtailed what I write about significantly, as outlined above, in a way that is a major chilling effect for me.  Maybe one day I'll have the level of privilege that Brian Edwards has, when I use my real name.  But I doubt it. 





*  Brett Dale comments on this blog frequently, often somewhat tangentially to the actual post.  This doesn't bother me.  I was quite stunned to find out in a debate a while back though that "Brett Dale" is a pseudonym. 
  Apologies to Brett, I have him confused with someone else whose pseudonym escapes me.  If I remember I'll rewrite this to accurately reflect that.  Oops!

anita sarkeesian TED talk

i thought this TED talk by anita sarkeesian was worth sharing.  she speaks about the harassment resulting from her kickstarter project to raise funds for producing videos about the treatment of female characters in the video gaming industry.  this stuff is pretty well known now, but i thought this was a good summary:



it's really sad but entirely predictable that the comments had to be turned off on the you tube page due to the same harassment that ms sarkeesian talks about in the talk.

i'm particularly looking forward to seeing the videos when they go up.  you can find her past videos here, if you haven't seen them yet.

Not a good day for women in politics, or indeed women

Things that have riled me today:

1.  Mis-reporting of Julia Gillard's speech calling out Tony Abbott's misogyny - The speech did not begin with "I will not be lectured by this man..." at all, it began with "I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny."  Reinvention to turn it into a personal attack on Abbott, as opposed to a statement opposing the systematic marginalisation and covert hatred of women in the Australian political environment is NOT HELPFUL.

2.  John Key forgetting that the Greens have two leaders.  Guess which one he forgot?  

3.  Invisible women at the Labour Party Conference too it seems, at least according to the vox pop TV3 News undertook on Saturday night (all Labour party fellas, not online) and the photos of Saturday from the Listener (which I must say are very good pics).

4.  No resolution to the funding crisis threatening Auckland's 24 Hour rape crisis helpline, despite repeated promises from this Government, year after year, that they will sort it.  I've had an Official Information Act request in for further info on how they have been working on this, made October 15th, but as yet haven't received any actual information as it bumps around between Government departments.  Unacceptable that yet again essential services that primarily assist women are cut.  I'm very very tempted to suggest we divert some men's sports funding to cover this one.  

Ok, that's enough of my grumpiness - what's getting your goat today?

"The only winner out of this will be [Greens leader] Russel Norman."

Read more: http://www.3news.co.nz/Keys-weighs-in-on-Labour-leadership-row/tabid/1607/articleID/277255/Default.aspx#ixzz2CdNAKwjN

on mitt romney not getting it

as i wrote on my own blog yesterday, i spent the late afternoon/evening watching the US election results come in with a group of friends, along with the concession speech by mr romney and the victory speech by mr obama.

plenty has been said across media & the web about mr obama winning the vote amongst women, black, latino & young voters.  the democrat campaign team mostly did this with their on-the-ground campaigning, with mr obama making some pretty strong statements designed to appeal particularly to these groups both at the democratic convention & the televised debates.  it helped that he had enough sense not to make gaffes like the "binders full of women" statement, and i think it's so much easier to avoid those kinds of gaffes when you actually have views and values that are respectful of women (for example), rather than when you're trying desperately to hide the views you do hold in order to appeal to the electorate.

in the wider vote, it was a good night for women, with several more elected to the senate.  and it was particularly satisfying to see women defeat some of the more, how can i put it politely, idiotic republican candidates who had some rather unpleasant opinions on pregnancy resulting from rape.


but what really brought it home to me - this fact that the GOP is so out-of-touch with women voters - was mr romney's concession speech.  there is no doubt that he was generally gracious in defeat, and looked a much better loser than he ever had as a candidate.  but the point in his speech where he started thanking his family really hit a nerve with me, this bit in particular:

Also wanna thank Ann, the love of my life. She would have been a wonderful first lady. She's… She has been that and more to me and to our family and to the many people she has touched with her compassion and her care. I thank my sons for their tireless work on behalf of the campaign and thank their wives and children for taking up the slack as their husbands and dads have spent so many weeks away from home.

and i was yelling out at that moment "this.  this is the reason why he lost the women's vote".  to me it was just like tony abbott's housewives doing the ironing bit.  it's the limiting of women's roles, or more the absence of any kind of acknowledgement that women have many different roles in various different combinations, and each one of those combinations is as valuable as the other.

that little bit in mr romney's speech failed to acknowledge his own wife as a political campaigner, which she was, even if only on his behalf in a desperate move to appeal to women voters.  it failed to acknowledge that women are political and have a place in politics.  it may well be that his daughters-in-law stayed at home & managed the house & kids, and there's nothing wrong with that.  but there were plenty of women who were out campaigning hard, on the republican side as well, and it would have been nice to see any kind of acknowledgment of their efforts somewhere in the speech.  or even some acknowledgment that women's work in sphere's other than home & hearth is valuable and important.

sure, it was moments after a resounding loss, and mr romney certainly hadn't had time to absorb what the election results were so clearly telling him and the republican party.  and there's no point in wondering if he's ever going to get it, because he is now out of the picture.  but will the republican party get it?  as a lefty, in a way i hope they don't because it continues to make them unelectable.  but the fact is that they have won plenty of leadership positions, controlling the house and many, many state governments.  they will implement policies that severely impact the lives of women, and i actually think it's vital that they do get it.  it's time for them to understand the reality of women's lives, their aspirations and struggles.

it's pretty clear that mr obama does understand these things, in a much better way that mr romney does.  the disappointment is that he hasn't managed to translate that understanding into too many concrete policies.  it's not looking good for the next year or so either.  my main hope for his second term is some decent supreme court appointments, and some commitment to international treaties on climate change.  it would be nice if he could have really implement a foreign policy that didn't involve bombing other countries, but i'm really not holding my breath on that one.

some links

i've been reading some good stuff in the last couple of days.  i've been directed to some of it by twitter, some by facebook & some from various blogs.  apologies for the lack of attribution - it would take a while to find all the sources.

first of all, regardless of what you think of her politics or the stance she has taken regarding peter slipper, this speech by julia gillard is well worth listening to in its entirety (sorry, i can't seem to embed it, though i'm not so good at that anyway.

great piece at the guardian by a nigerian woman, in response to a dismissive tweet by caitlin moran.  avoid the comments which are pretty nasty, even for the guardian.  it's funny how people from the majority group suddenly want minorities to start defining themselves in any way at all, in order to talk about marginalisation.  suddenly we should all become "one people" and not highlight differences - as if somehow this would make the marginalisation go away.  of course it wouldn't, it just means that the majority group can keep acting like it doesn't happen, even as they themselves keep discriminating.

from the above piece, i was directed to this post at racialicious, telling us about the origins of the phrase "women of colour".  i did not know any of this history, even though i use that term constantly and have always found it to be a phrase of solidarity.

another excellent post at racialicious about intersectionality, and the problematic issues in framing re a documentary about violence against women in developing countries.  i haven't yet read an article linked to in the piece (pdf), but hope to get to it soon.

i also loved this translated speech regarding islamic feminism, but more specifically on decolonising feminism.  and possibly related (and possibly not), this is a post that shouldn't have had to be written, in defense of a young nz'er of palestinian heritage who recently won the AMP scholarship in a vote-off.

"Legitimate rape" is illogical cant

Content warning:  Rants related to rape, victim blaming, rape apologists, and ridiculous sex education that helps no one, all contained within.

"If it is a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down."

So said Republican nominee for the US Senate Todd Akin.  

"That whole thing" refers to pregnancy.  Mr Akin is saying that women don't get pregnant from rape.  And if they do then it wasn't really rape, it wasn't "legitimate rape."

The whole concept of "legitimate rape" appals me.  I believe that Mr Akin is meaning to say "real" or "genuine", when he says legitimate, but I can't help thinking of that other meaning of legitimate, which is "acceptable."  

It is not up to Mr Akin to decide what does and does not constitute rape, or even this bizarre sub-set of rape that he's carved out in his head.  Rape is sex without consent.  There is nothing legitimate, as in acceptable, about rape EVER.  And as for there being illegitimate rape, fake rape; there is NO evidence to suggest that false rape claims are made at any higher rate than any other level of fraudulent reporting, which tends to be about 5%.  

Many of the reactions I've seen to Akin's comments have been focused on the sheer biological illogicality of his claim that rape cannot result in pregnancy.  Yet that's exactly what I was taught in my teens at a school in New Zealand in the early 1990s.  I recall quite clearly during a health class a teacher (who was not a science teacher and I suspect very unsupported to run these discussions) telling us that pregnancy did not result from rape because the woman's body (only women can get raped you see) was simply not receptive, wasn't producing the correct juices, was hostile to the sperm.  This wasn't a biology class I hasten to add.  For a long time I believed her.*  

The point of this discussion was to refute the idea that abortion in cases of rape was even to be considered.  If you were pregnant it couldn't have been rape, "legitimate rape" as Akin would no doubt say, therefore no termination for you, evil slut!

Ellen and Minnie helped to dispel this myth.  You remember Ellen right?  Ellen Crozier?  She was Cheryl West, before there was Cheryl West.  You know who I mean, that Shortie nurse, the one who was Carla's good sister.  The origins of her daughter, Minnie, were shrouded in mystery for many a season on the Great New Zealand Soap, and it eventually turned out that that pregnancy was the result of rape.  

In my own life I've studied biology a fair bit, and I know, now, how untrue the line I was sold all those years ago is.  I know it also second hand from the bitter, horrible, experience of a number of women who have disclosed such stories in their own pasts; resulting in adoption, miscarriage, abortion, and keeping the resultant child and raising them well.  The feeling of being violated over again, in finding out about the pregnancy, and then having to make hard decisions with no correct answer due to the proprietary, selfish, harmful act of another.  

There are, sadly, so many myths about rape, and about reproductive health.  When one that seems so obviously wrong to us pops up let's consider that there will be those who have been taught the lie as truth and who may not yet have had the additional learning, or the life experience, to show them otherwise.  






*  She also helpfully told us, in the same session, that if someone wanted to rape us there was no point lying that we had our periods as the rapist wouldn't care.  It's odd what sticks in the teen brain through to adulthood.

A teensy tiny little bit of progress on the Tui ads. Maybe.

You may have noticed that the Tui beer ads have changed.  No longer are they as awfully sexist as they once were.  Now they are only very sexist instead.  Auckland Feminist Action, who raised the issue in the first place are on to it again, with the following statement from earlier this month:

Tui needs to try harder

Auckland Feminist Action gives the latest Tui ad an E for Effort, and invites DB to have a beer with them and discuss how to make an ad without dissing women.

Feminist Action is delighted that its campaign contributed to the sexist Tui brewery ad being taken off television and the Tui website, says spokeswoman Leonie Morris.

“We gave that ad an F for Fail,” she says, “but the new Tui ad, ‘Halftime distraction’, gets only an E for Effort. Tui needs to try harder.”

While the halftime ad doesn’t put women in the sexualised poses of the earlier brewery ads, the
women are portrayed as just as stupid and helpless. They can’t get a kitten off a tree branch barely above their heads, navigate city streets or paint a sign without falling off the ladder.

What ties these ads together is that the only people equal to the lead male characters are their
mates. Women are persistently excluded from equality in Tui ads. In “Halftime Distraction” a series of beautiful women can’t tempt the hero away from his mission - getting the beer for his mates during halftime in a rugby telecast.

Women are treated as distractions from the real thing: a men-only, testosterone-laden, beer-drinking sport session.

DB says camaraderie and irreverence are crucial aspects of the Tui brand. But the camaraderie is a superficial mateship, and the irreverence is expressed by treating women always as objects, rather than equals. “It’s no accident that women like these ads less than men, since women are always the target of the joke,” says Leonie.

“Tui refuses to understand why this is sexist. We invite them to have a drink with Feminist Action and discuss how to make women equal in their ads,” she says. “Tui needs to stop laughing at women and start laughing with them.”

Here's hoping DB takes Feminist Action up on that drink and, more importantly, on that conversation.

Abuse is not an argument

Putting to one side for a moment the merits (of which I think there are many) of Auckland Feminist Action's campaign against the sexist Tui adverts, what is up with the stylez of the pro Tui people?

A massive amount of vitriol has been spewed in the very precise and targeted direction of Leonie Morris, who put her name to the media statement and has since done some interviews, in particular on Newstalk ZB* and in the Herald.  The hateful responses, devoid of actual argument putting the counter position, are scattered across the interweb, and I know that people have also been calling and emailing Leonie's workplace to give her a hard time.

What kind of an argument is this?  To just make assumptions about feminists in general, and Leonie in particular, then use those stereotypes to dismiss the points Auckland Feminist Action are making? As if whether or not someone shaves their legs, or is a size 16, or their sexual orientation** is at all relevant to the matter?  There's also been a large dose of "feminists need a good hammering" type responses too, which honestly make me feel ill.

This has certainly been a case of Don't Read The Comments (DRTC).  And that makes me sad.  What kind of society are we living in where even raising concerns about some advertising, requesting that people think critically about the media they are consuming, gets you scragged across talkback and blogs and even motivates people to ring your place of employment to tell you off?

Particularly when you think about how people have reacted to the prominent bigotry of Establishment Men in recent times, you know who I mean; Paul Holmes, Paul Henry, Tony Veitch, Michael Laws, Andy Haden, Lockwood Smith, the list goes on and on.  Yes there are some people who call bigots out in unsavoury ways.  But they are far outnumbered by polite people like me (and probably you) who write ranty blog posts which at their worst have some swears in them, maybe sign a firm but non-abusive petition, or call to cancel their subscription to the offending media outlet.  What is it about challenging sexism, about being openly feminist, about taking on a beer company, that brings out the toxic frothing?

Kia kaha Leonie, you are doing good work.  I look forward to supporting Auckland Feminist Action's campaign here and elsewhere as I can, because all the hate has proven to me that we desperately need to take down ads like the Tui ones, and reclaim our country as a safe place for women to challenge sexism.



*  When I wrote this post the relevant interview was on the 3rd page of audio, it's probably on the 4th or 5th by now.  Sorry they don't seem to do direct links.
**  I have no idea what Leonie does with her legs, what size she is, or what her sexual orientation is, and I've worked with her on a couple of projects.  I don't need to know any of that.  If she wants me to know she'll tell me.  

MCP Watch: Richard Prosser MP

"Because our society, New Zealand society, Western society in general, has been hijacked by a conspiracy of Silly Little Girls. They’re everywhere; in the schools, in the media, in the public service, in the judiciary, even in Cabinet.

Everywhere we turn, the foundations of masculinity, the pillars of male-ness which have underpinned the construction and development of our very civilisation, are being undermined, by Silly Little Girls. And we are putting up with it."

From Richard Prosser's new book Uncommon Dissent.  (The above extract is via the Wellington Young Feminists' Collective's facebook page.)

Richard Prosser FAQs:

1.  Who is Richard Prosser?
A new NZ First MP, elected via the party list at the November 2011 election.

2.  What other antediluvian views does he hold?
Prosser is also a card-carrying Climate Change Denier, believes we should ban the burqa, and identifies as a "genuine freedom-loving, gonad-equipped, libertarian go-getter[s]".

3.  WTF?
See answer to question 1.

Feel free to discuss Mr Prosser's early attempt at the coveted title of Most Sexist MP in Our Current Parliament in comments, including, if you have access to the PDF ($26 to buy!!) sharing more quotes for our enlightenment and correction.

UPDATE:  Tallulah at The Lady Garden is suggesting a pigtail protest, along with knee socks and lollipops, which sounds like fun.  What say you? 

not quite so funny?

some anonymous person just posted a link to this clip on my blog, which i thought deserved to be shared more widely. it an interview with josie long about the discrimination she faces as a woman comedian:



i always find the "women aren't as funny as men" line quite telling. it's possibly because men are quite happy to laugh at male comics denigrating women, talking about their wives as irrational jailers who stop men from enjoying life at all. or any of the other sexist stuff that is supposed to be hilarious. but suddenly it isn't funny if a woman is doing something similar about men. they're not laughing so hard when it's their own foibles pushed out in nasty stereotypes for the entertainment of everyone.

surely if they find the one funny, they should find the other just as hilarious? but watching the audience reactions to female comics, the men are still laughing when the women talk about weight issues or how bitchy/slutty other women are, but quite a few barely manage a smile when she dares to turn her attention on to men.

so perhaps it isn't that the women aren't as funny, it's just that the man making that complaint just doesn't know how to laugh at jokes about his own demographic? could it be that this guy just needs to get a sense of humour?? or the better option is that they stop tolerating nasting shit about women that isn't actually all that funny either.