Saturday, 25 August 2007
I want to play too
Ah, she sighs and thinks ‘in my next life, I want to be one of them’.
A what? What is she thinking? Give up hard fought-for and hard-won power, to have it bestowed by the power of gender?
Yes!
Trade what psychoanalysts have called a ‘veiled sex’ for a dangly bit and two gelatinous round things in a sack of skin.
Why?
They have more time to play. The world just ‘goes on’ for men. Women organise the social events of their joint life – if they have a partner. If they don’t have a partner, there is usually a sister/cousin/mother/aunt who keeps them connected to the family unit and keeps things happening.
At work, men sprout ideas like mushrooms and there’s usually (a female) office junior who will come along behind them and assist with the detail. Even if men do manual work, they usually come home from work to a community where there are women (or at least a woman) who does most of the cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, filing/fucking etcetera (Those letters, when used as an acronym, form that evil word “WIFE”) .
This is not why I want to be a man in the next life. The reason is that men have more TIME. This is time that they use to “play”.
What do I mean by “play”? No, get your mind/s out of the gutter.
Time to read “tech-blogs”, build model toys, collect eclectic facts (factoids) in their heads. A man in a relationship, without children, usually spends more time luxuriating around the house – reading books, watching TV, playing computer games – than the female partner. She is usually organising shopping, social activities, doing extra work from home and other things.
Because of this work/leisure – brain down-time – differential, I would give up being a woman and become a man. I want to play too.
As is evident from the above: all the years of feminism and equal opportunity have not changed the ‘division of labour’ or ‘time spent doing domestic duties’.
There’s a long way to go.
A what? What is she thinking? Give up hard fought-for and hard-won power, to have it bestowed by the power of gender?
Yes!
Trade what psychoanalysts have called a ‘veiled sex’ for a dangly bit and two gelatinous round things in a sack of skin.
Why?
They have more time to play. The world just ‘goes on’ for men. Women organise the social events of their joint life – if they have a partner. If they don’t have a partner, there is usually a sister/cousin/mother/aunt who keeps them connected to the family unit and keeps things happening.
At work, men sprout ideas like mushrooms and there’s usually (a female) office junior who will come along behind them and assist with the detail. Even if men do manual work, they usually come home from work to a community where there are women (or at least a woman) who does most of the cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, filing/fucking etcetera (Those letters, when used as an acronym, form that evil word “WIFE”) .
This is not why I want to be a man in the next life. The reason is that men have more TIME. This is time that they use to “play”.
What do I mean by “play”? No, get your mind/s out of the gutter.
Time to read “tech-blogs”, build model toys, collect eclectic facts (factoids) in their heads. A man in a relationship, without children, usually spends more time luxuriating around the house – reading books, watching TV, playing computer games – than the female partner. She is usually organising shopping, social activities, doing extra work from home and other things.
Because of this work/leisure – brain down-time – differential, I would give up being a woman and become a man. I want to play too.
As is evident from the above: all the years of feminism and equal opportunity have not changed the ‘division of labour’ or ‘time spent doing domestic duties’.
There’s a long way to go.
Monday, 6 August 2007
Don’t… Just Don’t Get Married
If you have read this blog before you will be aware that I am not in favour of marriage. This is not some theoretical opinion either, my partner and I actually got married in December 2006.
This meant that from February (when we announced our ‘intentions’) to December of 2006 almost every conversation with family revolved around the socially sanctioned ritual of transferring ‘ownership’ of, and financial responsibility for, the woman to the man. Why else do you think the bride’s (read “sacrificial woman’s) family pay for everything?
Ah sure, I forgot! We’re supposed to be living in egalitarian times where ‘his’ family share the cost. Good luck telling that to his separated parents who immigrated from England in the 1960s and lived as a pretentious, nuclear family in a major capital city.
I was aware there was a level of need and that his parents/family would need some support. For months before the event, I argued for them to have their meals provided for them whilst they were here – because I knew my family were capable and they weren’t. We didn’t only have to feed them: they had to be assisted to get here and accommodated whilst they were here.
The whole process displaces the identity and possessions of the woman. I gave up my bed and we moved into the spare room. Then, the night before the event/sacrifice, I had to leave my home and go to where my family were staying because HIS family were in OUR unit and my family could not ‘sleep-over’ so I could get up from my own place on the day of the wedding.
Everything was organised to within a second – and all of it organised by me. Yet his family have this “opinion” of me. To them – as has become obvious from conversations with them and things they have said about me: “I am the needy, ‘dependent’ woman with whom their ‘poor’ first born has fallen in love”. (Or, perhaps I am the evil, wicked disabled women who has “trapped their first born”…and they are waiting for me to die or for the spell to be broken.)
I do not imagine this!
His father asked, when I was going to meet him, if I needed “blended food” (Can’t trust those rampant spastic, potential in-laws, they might gag on the salad.). I should have lived up to his stereotypical, preconceived, view of me by drooling on him when I first met him. Instead, I calmly answered questions about “what I would ‘bring’ to the relationship” or “whether I was intending to ‘enslave’ his son as my carer”. I should have followed my instincts and dismembered him at the first meeting. Then he would not have gone on to ask “if [I] was having a colostomy bag put in?” when I had a pain relief delivery system put in for hip pain, or whether this “interfered with my ability to achieve pleasure?”.
You are not misunderstanding the text - this is what my partner’s father said!
Then I e-mailed; the rest of the family advocated; and he apologised.
But there remains this unspoken atmosphere around them and I just wait for the next member of my partner’s family to reject me because I’m “differently-abled” (Polite-speak for “use a power wheelchair”.).
I did not have to wait long. On the same visit to meet the father, we also met my partner’s sister, her partner and their two children. They were away on holidays so we had to drive two hours to see them, then have chips and water on the beach. Of course, we “couldn’t possibly go to [their] house because ‘there are steps everywhere’”.
Yet, when his sister came to see us, in the midst of our moving house, and my family cooked roast lamb, she invited them to visit and drop by for coffee in the “little coffee shop that is near by”. If this is not selective inclusion/exclusion I do not know what is?
As if two family members with their feet wedged in their throat were not enough…..??? No, no, there has to be more…until the last has fallen.
The sister overseas, who I have not met (Yeah, I escaped from one of them!) invited us to meet them in America for Christmas. The airfares alone would cost $10,000 and we have a mortgage. And, after the other incidents, from meeting/interacting with the rest of his family, I not in a hurry to meet another one. I’d rather protect myself from the “slings and arrows”.
Next it was the mother… My partner had been away for work for a week and my mother came to stay. This was partly because we had only just moved into our house and got the toilet seat to be something close to the right height. The shower still was not right and was almost dangerous for both me and my workers.
Oh, did I mention that I have workers who are funded by the Government? They do all of my personal care, cook meals, clean and do the laundry.
Yes.
So, when my partner got back from his work trip, his mother asked “How his respite was?”!!!!!!!!! OMG
No-one has ever been so rude and hurtful to me in my entire life.
This certainly brought out the family’s ‘real’ feelings about me. The brother even defended the mother and proved himself no more aware of his brother and my living situation than the rest of my partner’s family.
When challenged on her illogical thinking that her son is my carer and would need ‘respite’, his mother said that it was a logical assumption because she “does use ‘respite’!”. Let’s not forget that she and her aging husband also refuse any form of home-help that might make her life easier!
Then I tried to “build a bridge”. Now I just want dynamite!
I was chatting to her on-line and she said that I was her [wait for it] “Daughter-in-law” and that she would have never treated her “Mother-in-law” this way and that I should respect her as my “Mother-in-law”.
Aaaah! Aaaaah! Why would anyone want to get married? How horrid that people think they have a right to treat you rudely? Or that they would assume to dictate the way in which you should relate to them?
I have distanced myself from them and will not speak to his family again. But it still hurts. And they don’t see how much they are hurting my partner by utterly refusing to see me as a person – they only see my disability and construct untrue assumptions about our life together.
This is why people should not get married. If we were just “shacked up” they would not have any reason to make such invasive comments. I would not have felt compelled to relate to them and could have avoided them.
This is why we no longer tell people that we’re “m-----d” (I can’t bear to even write the word.). We just say we’re partners………..and, I’m giving the ring a rest in the drawer. The socially constructed expectations that are bound by the little jewel encrusted gold band are too odious to endure.
This meant that from February (when we announced our ‘intentions’) to December of 2006 almost every conversation with family revolved around the socially sanctioned ritual of transferring ‘ownership’ of, and financial responsibility for, the woman to the man. Why else do you think the bride’s (read “sacrificial woman’s) family pay for everything?
Ah sure, I forgot! We’re supposed to be living in egalitarian times where ‘his’ family share the cost. Good luck telling that to his separated parents who immigrated from England in the 1960s and lived as a pretentious, nuclear family in a major capital city.
I was aware there was a level of need and that his parents/family would need some support. For months before the event, I argued for them to have their meals provided for them whilst they were here – because I knew my family were capable and they weren’t. We didn’t only have to feed them: they had to be assisted to get here and accommodated whilst they were here.
The whole process displaces the identity and possessions of the woman. I gave up my bed and we moved into the spare room. Then, the night before the event/sacrifice, I had to leave my home and go to where my family were staying because HIS family were in OUR unit and my family could not ‘sleep-over’ so I could get up from my own place on the day of the wedding.
Everything was organised to within a second – and all of it organised by me. Yet his family have this “opinion” of me. To them – as has become obvious from conversations with them and things they have said about me: “I am the needy, ‘dependent’ woman with whom their ‘poor’ first born has fallen in love”. (Or, perhaps I am the evil, wicked disabled women who has “trapped their first born”…and they are waiting for me to die or for the spell to be broken.)
I do not imagine this!
His father asked, when I was going to meet him, if I needed “blended food” (Can’t trust those rampant spastic, potential in-laws, they might gag on the salad.). I should have lived up to his stereotypical, preconceived, view of me by drooling on him when I first met him. Instead, I calmly answered questions about “what I would ‘bring’ to the relationship” or “whether I was intending to ‘enslave’ his son as my carer”. I should have followed my instincts and dismembered him at the first meeting. Then he would not have gone on to ask “if [I] was having a colostomy bag put in?” when I had a pain relief delivery system put in for hip pain, or whether this “interfered with my ability to achieve pleasure?”.
You are not misunderstanding the text - this is what my partner’s father said!
Then I e-mailed; the rest of the family advocated; and he apologised.
But there remains this unspoken atmosphere around them and I just wait for the next member of my partner’s family to reject me because I’m “differently-abled” (Polite-speak for “use a power wheelchair”.).
I did not have to wait long. On the same visit to meet the father, we also met my partner’s sister, her partner and their two children. They were away on holidays so we had to drive two hours to see them, then have chips and water on the beach. Of course, we “couldn’t possibly go to [their] house because ‘there are steps everywhere’”.
Yet, when his sister came to see us, in the midst of our moving house, and my family cooked roast lamb, she invited them to visit and drop by for coffee in the “little coffee shop that is near by”. If this is not selective inclusion/exclusion I do not know what is?
As if two family members with their feet wedged in their throat were not enough…..??? No, no, there has to be more…until the last has fallen.
The sister overseas, who I have not met (Yeah, I escaped from one of them!) invited us to meet them in America for Christmas. The airfares alone would cost $10,000 and we have a mortgage. And, after the other incidents, from meeting/interacting with the rest of his family, I not in a hurry to meet another one. I’d rather protect myself from the “slings and arrows”.
Next it was the mother… My partner had been away for work for a week and my mother came to stay. This was partly because we had only just moved into our house and got the toilet seat to be something close to the right height. The shower still was not right and was almost dangerous for both me and my workers.
Oh, did I mention that I have workers who are funded by the Government? They do all of my personal care, cook meals, clean and do the laundry.
Yes.
So, when my partner got back from his work trip, his mother asked “How his respite was?”!!!!!!!!! OMG
No-one has ever been so rude and hurtful to me in my entire life.
This certainly brought out the family’s ‘real’ feelings about me. The brother even defended the mother and proved himself no more aware of his brother and my living situation than the rest of my partner’s family.
When challenged on her illogical thinking that her son is my carer and would need ‘respite’, his mother said that it was a logical assumption because she “does use ‘respite’!”. Let’s not forget that she and her aging husband also refuse any form of home-help that might make her life easier!
Then I tried to “build a bridge”. Now I just want dynamite!
I was chatting to her on-line and she said that I was her [wait for it] “Daughter-in-law” and that she would have never treated her “Mother-in-law” this way and that I should respect her as my “Mother-in-law”.
Aaaah! Aaaaah! Why would anyone want to get married? How horrid that people think they have a right to treat you rudely? Or that they would assume to dictate the way in which you should relate to them?
I have distanced myself from them and will not speak to his family again. But it still hurts. And they don’t see how much they are hurting my partner by utterly refusing to see me as a person – they only see my disability and construct untrue assumptions about our life together.
This is why people should not get married. If we were just “shacked up” they would not have any reason to make such invasive comments. I would not have felt compelled to relate to them and could have avoided them.
This is why we no longer tell people that we’re “m-----d” (I can’t bear to even write the word.). We just say we’re partners………..and, I’m giving the ring a rest in the drawer. The socially constructed expectations that are bound by the little jewel encrusted gold band are too odious to endure.
Monday, 30 July 2007
I tried
Ok, I was determined I would not follow social norms. I would be polite and use my best communication skills, diplomacy and patience in all interactions with my partner’s family.
You know how you hear stories of ‘horror in-laws’… Well, I always thought people were being precious and slightly selfish for not getting along with people. I wasn’t going to be like these people.
However, as I’m not aiming for sainthood and as displacement of my personhood has always brought out the fighter in me, I realise that I cannot do it. I cannot get on with his family.
Oh, yes! I forgot to mention: I have a disability and, as no other people I have met before, his family have become FIXATED with this “physical” characteristic of mine. They see me only through the lens or, in their cases, lenses of disability. There must be enough “lenses” between them and me to stop a nuclear war-head. (I know that “nuclear war-heads” are now a bit passé and I’m showing my age. Perhaps I could up-date the metaphor by speculating that the “lenses” might even provide insulation from “weapons of mass destruction”). Thick……..these “lenses” are multiple and super thick!
One by one they have managed to do things that can only be categorised as anti-social. We’re not just talking the odd faux pas. No, no, these are major insults ranging from the fact that I might not be able to eat solid foods to a suggestion that my partner, when away for work, was away for ‘respite’ (Although I [through my workers] actually do most of the washing, ironing {that too} etcetera.).
So I have decided to say, “I tried” and to remove myself from all communication with them.
You know how you hear stories of ‘horror in-laws’… Well, I always thought people were being precious and slightly selfish for not getting along with people. I wasn’t going to be like these people.
However, as I’m not aiming for sainthood and as displacement of my personhood has always brought out the fighter in me, I realise that I cannot do it. I cannot get on with his family.
Oh, yes! I forgot to mention: I have a disability and, as no other people I have met before, his family have become FIXATED with this “physical” characteristic of mine. They see me only through the lens or, in their cases, lenses of disability. There must be enough “lenses” between them and me to stop a nuclear war-head. (I know that “nuclear war-heads” are now a bit passé and I’m showing my age. Perhaps I could up-date the metaphor by speculating that the “lenses” might even provide insulation from “weapons of mass destruction”). Thick……..these “lenses” are multiple and super thick!
One by one they have managed to do things that can only be categorised as anti-social. We’re not just talking the odd faux pas. No, no, these are major insults ranging from the fact that I might not be able to eat solid foods to a suggestion that my partner, when away for work, was away for ‘respite’ (Although I [through my workers] actually do most of the washing, ironing {that too} etcetera.).
So I have decided to say, “I tried” and to remove myself from all communication with them.
A Real Live One……
Blog post for the week of13 July… Woow Friday the 13th and it feels like it. Having been in hospital since Tuesday, today I had my suspicions confirmed: I was being treated for pain but the cause was poorly identified. Well, you could say ‘wrongly’ as different parts of the body are “different parts of the body”.
However, my doctor is good and believes in working with other people. This is how another doctor became involved. This was a “real live one” – someone who I met many years and who has had many, many, many years of experience treating people with my disability.
This doctor performed the gentlest examination I have ever had and declared the excruciating pain to be a bilateral copying of a condition I already had on the other side. Of course, this makes perfect sense to me as when the pain and degeneration started on the other, the symptoms were exactly the same.
Later in the day, the diagnosis was confirmed by x-rays. If it is possible, the x-ray confirmation of the “real live one’s” diagnosis was almost anti-climatic as I already relieved to have a diagnosis.
Knowledge really is power because as soon as I knew what was causing the pain I understood it.
However, my doctor is good and believes in working with other people. This is how another doctor became involved. This was a “real live one” – someone who I met many years and who has had many, many, many years of experience treating people with my disability.
This doctor performed the gentlest examination I have ever had and declared the excruciating pain to be a bilateral copying of a condition I already had on the other side. Of course, this makes perfect sense to me as when the pain and degeneration started on the other, the symptoms were exactly the same.
Later in the day, the diagnosis was confirmed by x-rays. If it is possible, the x-ray confirmation of the “real live one’s” diagnosis was almost anti-climatic as I already relieved to have a diagnosis.
Knowledge really is power because as soon as I knew what was causing the pain I understood it.
Monday, 14 May 2007
Pain
Sometimes, as we age and change, our bodies betray us. First we might think it is stiffness, then soreness, then we enter the treadmill/s of doctors, tests, questions and very few answers.
For women, it’s hard. The earth and life flow, as energy, through our bodies and when the body hurts this flow is interrupted and redirected. Energy gets blocked by painful parts, or it gets diverted into trying to carry on and adjusting to the pain. The body becomes stressed as there is less energy to accomplish the tasks that women perform everyday.
If you have a body with which you have already had to make compromises, because of differing abilities, energy is already being used (and abused) at a higher rate to get through every day. This alone is exhausting. Then the body decides to add a little change to the mix and this is challenging and painful. Change demands that you surrender control of part/s of your body and what it can do. At first you fight and think, “No, this is not happening”. Then you might try ‘flight’ by taking pain treating medication. (“Pain treating” not ‘pain relieving’ because nothing really gives relief or “pain control”, as doctors like to say. And sometimes you take medication only to find that the effects it has on your mind take more energy than the ‘pain’ itself.)
Boarding the fast moving train of change is like being flung from a sling-shot towards the void of the unknown. When this void is a black hole of pain in a changing body, there are invisible sharp pins, like those used in voodoo, that come hurtling at you at great speeds. These are pins of pain. Originating within the body or joints, they leave a tearing, burning sensation that cannot be seen. It can only be felt. The pain/pins hit you and your body stops. You might want to keep going but you cannot. These invisible pins of pain feel as if they are tearing the flesh from your joints and bones.
If this pain could be seen, it would be red and bleeding torn flesh, with tight bands of sinew and muscle, stretched, sometimes broken. The thing is, it is continuous. There is no calm and healing time. There is only tearing and not tearing and you learn to live with it. You also learn to live with the fatigue it causes and, if it is not the fatigue of the body dealing with pain, there is the fatigue of the drugs you take to try to ease the pain.
This is why, when a surgeon says “we can take that joint out and replace it with metal”, you think ‘yeah, bring it on’. There is almost a sadistic pleasure in knowing that the muscles, nerves and tendons that have been cause the pain are going to be stripped from the joint and sliced and diced at the surgeon’s will.
Where surgery is an option there is the possibility of relief. But some women manage pain, change and life for the latter half of their lives. These are strong women. But then, there is a saying that “What does not kill you makes you stronger”. Sometimes I have thought I would stop breathing and die from the pain…
I haven’t died yet……….so I must be getting stronger.
For women, it’s hard. The earth and life flow, as energy, through our bodies and when the body hurts this flow is interrupted and redirected. Energy gets blocked by painful parts, or it gets diverted into trying to carry on and adjusting to the pain. The body becomes stressed as there is less energy to accomplish the tasks that women perform everyday.
If you have a body with which you have already had to make compromises, because of differing abilities, energy is already being used (and abused) at a higher rate to get through every day. This alone is exhausting. Then the body decides to add a little change to the mix and this is challenging and painful. Change demands that you surrender control of part/s of your body and what it can do. At first you fight and think, “No, this is not happening”. Then you might try ‘flight’ by taking pain treating medication. (“Pain treating” not ‘pain relieving’ because nothing really gives relief or “pain control”, as doctors like to say. And sometimes you take medication only to find that the effects it has on your mind take more energy than the ‘pain’ itself.)
Boarding the fast moving train of change is like being flung from a sling-shot towards the void of the unknown. When this void is a black hole of pain in a changing body, there are invisible sharp pins, like those used in voodoo, that come hurtling at you at great speeds. These are pins of pain. Originating within the body or joints, they leave a tearing, burning sensation that cannot be seen. It can only be felt. The pain/pins hit you and your body stops. You might want to keep going but you cannot. These invisible pins of pain feel as if they are tearing the flesh from your joints and bones.
If this pain could be seen, it would be red and bleeding torn flesh, with tight bands of sinew and muscle, stretched, sometimes broken. The thing is, it is continuous. There is no calm and healing time. There is only tearing and not tearing and you learn to live with it. You also learn to live with the fatigue it causes and, if it is not the fatigue of the body dealing with pain, there is the fatigue of the drugs you take to try to ease the pain.
This is why, when a surgeon says “we can take that joint out and replace it with metal”, you think ‘yeah, bring it on’. There is almost a sadistic pleasure in knowing that the muscles, nerves and tendons that have been cause the pain are going to be stripped from the joint and sliced and diced at the surgeon’s will.
Where surgery is an option there is the possibility of relief. But some women manage pain, change and life for the latter half of their lives. These are strong women. But then, there is a saying that “What does not kill you makes you stronger”. Sometimes I have thought I would stop breathing and die from the pain…
I haven’t died yet……….so I must be getting stronger.
Monday, 30 April 2007
Men and Laws – Women and Knowledge
As the story goes…………….ancients have it and with fiction spun
I’m not religious but this is what was written/said,
“1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” (John 1:1)
From this comes the assumption, not feast of, that laws were (are, on a percentage basis) made by men, who thought/think they might be channelling some leader (of men).
They carved these laws on stone tablets and worshipped them. Used them to make other men subservient and women goods and chattels to be “owed” and “sold” by men, as Levi-Strauss.
But the law makers grew careless and left their stone tablets lying around.
Enter women
“Yes, you could use the stone tablet to ‘club’ him while he slept……”
Those carvings had symbols that kept repeating and forming patterns. Was it code? Ah, to break the code!
There were lots of symbols for ‘good’, ‘evil’ and ‘power’.
The code seemed to relate to how people should live: rules and laws. Yet, nowhere in this code could the women find reference to their power.
As the women came to understand it more, they saw that the code inferred that the men had power over them! And this made them angry….
….all the more reason for using the stone tablets as weapons on sleeping men.
-----------------
Through the ages
Men have used these laws to abuse and enslave other men and women.
The property of women – well, they had none because it was their fathers’, brothers’, uncles’.
If women wanted to inherit any family estate, she had to marry a man and get him to do it for her.
-----------------
Time moved slowly
Women began to organise themselves and discuss how they could undermine the rules and power of men.
They got educated; took jobs; and formed secret societies.
Men became frightened and tried to write new laws ….
But the women had learned the language used to frame these statutes that the men thought mighty and fought back using the same language.
Present
Women use their knowledge to continue fighting to have the laws applied equally.
A tricky thing has happened, though.
The ideas and ways of sharing information, using the Internet – first developed by the United State Military – led people [They were originally only men.] to starting making information even more available.
Governments wanted to publish their laws and rules.
Guess what?
Women already had computers: for organising workplaces, families and social threads.
Now they could access laws!
They could read laws and know when the makers of laws – men – were breaking them.
Women, thus, found that “Knowledge is Power”
They used their knowledge of laws to form “watch-dogs” and organisations to make men follow the law.
With knowledge and change came respect from others and new laws were writ.
Aaah, the powerful combination of women and knowledge over powers thousands of years of rule by men and laws.
………if only it could occur!
References
John 1:1, “The Deity of Jesus Christ”, 2007. On-line Parallel Bible http://bible.cc/john/1-1.htm (Accessed: 16 April 2007)
I’m not religious but this is what was written/said,
“1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” (John 1:1)
From this comes the assumption, not feast of, that laws were (are, on a percentage basis) made by men, who thought/think they might be channelling some leader (of men).
They carved these laws on stone tablets and worshipped them. Used them to make other men subservient and women goods and chattels to be “owed” and “sold” by men, as Levi-Strauss.
But the law makers grew careless and left their stone tablets lying around.
Enter women
“Yes, you could use the stone tablet to ‘club’ him while he slept……”
Those carvings had symbols that kept repeating and forming patterns. Was it code? Ah, to break the code!
There were lots of symbols for ‘good’, ‘evil’ and ‘power’.
The code seemed to relate to how people should live: rules and laws. Yet, nowhere in this code could the women find reference to their power.
As the women came to understand it more, they saw that the code inferred that the men had power over them! And this made them angry….
….all the more reason for using the stone tablets as weapons on sleeping men.
-----------------
Through the ages
Men have used these laws to abuse and enslave other men and women.
The property of women – well, they had none because it was their fathers’, brothers’, uncles’.
If women wanted to inherit any family estate, she had to marry a man and get him to do it for her.
-----------------
Time moved slowly
Women began to organise themselves and discuss how they could undermine the rules and power of men.
They got educated; took jobs; and formed secret societies.
Men became frightened and tried to write new laws ….
But the women had learned the language used to frame these statutes that the men thought mighty and fought back using the same language.
Present
Women use their knowledge to continue fighting to have the laws applied equally.
A tricky thing has happened, though.
The ideas and ways of sharing information, using the Internet – first developed by the United State Military – led people [They were originally only men.] to starting making information even more available.
Governments wanted to publish their laws and rules.
Guess what?
Women already had computers: for organising workplaces, families and social threads.
Now they could access laws!
They could read laws and know when the makers of laws – men – were breaking them.
Women, thus, found that “Knowledge is Power”
They used their knowledge of laws to form “watch-dogs” and organisations to make men follow the law.
With knowledge and change came respect from others and new laws were writ.
Aaah, the powerful combination of women and knowledge over powers thousands of years of rule by men and laws.
………if only it could occur!
References
John 1:1, “The Deity of Jesus Christ”, 2007. On-line Parallel Bible http://bible.cc/john/1-1.htm (Accessed: 16 April 2007)
Monday, 2 April 2007
Women and Power-Tools
Why don’t women choose to enter building, plumbing and electrical trades?
This is the question that has begun to circulate in my brain as I try to organise renovations so that we can move into the first home we have purchased. (It’s not a “new house”. It’s our “first house”.) We don’t want much – a ramp, new bathroom and move the toilet.
However, whenever I make phone calls it’s always men who answer the phone and, despite priding themselves on their decision-making prowess, the men taking my phone calls would never start a nuclear war – or any kind of war, for that matter, because they would never make the “decision” to ‘push the button’.
(Here’s where I need a slight disclaimer. We have found a builder who has been good and has given sound advice about rotting walls; using slopes to save distance for the ramp; and saving money on council planning. But then I work with his wife – so there could be a reason for this cooperative behaviour.)
As a person who believes in “evidence-based-practice” I looked at the evidence. It’s damning. Women are not taking trade apprenticeship places. This graph from Women in Australia 2004 (Australian Government: 2004) shows the career directions of young women when they leave school, and it’s blatantly obvious that the ‘Built environment’ and ‘Engineering/processing’ are NOT the chosen careers of young women.
Link to graph
http://us.a2.yahoofs.com/users/43c8d20bz1c51e995/1f62/__sr_/d2c9scd.jpg?phgNPEGB_VdWjxjm
Graph 6.1 Discipline Group, Female Vocational Education and Training Students, 2001*
* Study or training related to a person's career or occupation, or undertaken to improve job or career. Source: National Centre for Vocational Education Research 2002, unpublished data, Annual Apprentice and Trainee Statistics 2002, Adelaide.
The same chapter goes on to show the gender of apprentices between the ages of 15 and 19. Again the great disparity between males and females is obvious.
Link to graph http://us.a2.yahoofs.com/users/43c8d20bz1c51e995/1f62/__sr_/e2f5scd.jpg?phgNPEGBJjhUvQZp
Graph 6.2 Apprentice and Trainee Training Rates* by Sex and Age 15-19 (at 31 December), 1996 to 2002
*Derived from NCVER Apprentice and Trainee statistics and ABS labour force data (December 2002). Training rates are calculated on the basis of employed persons. Source: NCVER, Annual Apprentice and Trainee statistics 2002, unpublished data.
This is the question that has begun to circulate in my brain as I try to organise renovations so that we can move into the first home we have purchased. (It’s not a “new house”. It’s our “first house”.) We don’t want much – a ramp, new bathroom and move the toilet.
However, whenever I make phone calls it’s always men who answer the phone and, despite priding themselves on their decision-making prowess, the men taking my phone calls would never start a nuclear war – or any kind of war, for that matter, because they would never make the “decision” to ‘push the button’.
(Here’s where I need a slight disclaimer. We have found a builder who has been good and has given sound advice about rotting walls; using slopes to save distance for the ramp; and saving money on council planning. But then I work with his wife – so there could be a reason for this cooperative behaviour.)
As a person who believes in “evidence-based-practice” I looked at the evidence. It’s damning. Women are not taking trade apprenticeship places. This graph from Women in Australia 2004 (Australian Government: 2004) shows the career directions of young women when they leave school, and it’s blatantly obvious that the ‘Built environment’ and ‘Engineering/processing’ are NOT the chosen careers of young women.
Link to graph
http://us.a2.yahoofs.com/users/43c8d20bz1c51e995/1f62/__sr_/d2c9scd.jpg?phgNPEGB_VdWjxjm
Graph 6.1 Discipline Group, Female Vocational Education and Training Students, 2001*
* Study or training related to a person's career or occupation, or undertaken to improve job or career. Source: National Centre for Vocational Education Research 2002, unpublished data, Annual Apprentice and Trainee Statistics 2002, Adelaide.
The same chapter goes on to show the gender of apprentices between the ages of 15 and 19. Again the great disparity between males and females is obvious.
Link to graph http://us.a2.yahoofs.com/users/43c8d20bz1c51e995/1f62/__sr_/e2f5scd.jpg?phgNPEGBJjhUvQZp
Graph 6.2 Apprentice and Trainee Training Rates* by Sex and Age 15-19 (at 31 December), 1996 to 2002
*Derived from NCVER Apprentice and Trainee statistics and ABS labour force data (December 2002). Training rates are calculated on the basis of employed persons. Source: NCVER, Annual Apprentice and Trainee statistics 2002, unpublished data.
(Yes, despite the deceptively similar colouring, the bottom line represents the dismally low numbers of women in apprenticeships or trades.)
Another study, this time by the New South Wales Premier’s Department’s Office for Women found that
In the Higher Education sector (which provides degree and graduate courses), 56.6% of students in Australia were women. In 2006, 57.1% of Bachelor’s Degree students were women, and 51% of Postgraduate Degree students were women11. At the lower postgraduate levels, 64% of all persons enrolled in a Graduate Diploma or Graduate Certificate were women, and 51% enrolled in Masters and higher degrees were women.
In 2006, amongst those studying for a qualification in the Higher Education sector in Australia, women made up the majority of students in courses related to Society and Culture (69% of enrolments), Health (72%) and Management and Commerce (55%). Men made up the majority of students studying Engineering and related technologies (90.2% of enrolments in this field) and architecture and building (82.3% enrolments).
The same study also found that
Trade Apprenticeships continue to show an under representation of women. In NSW in 2006, there were 6,576 women in-training as a trade apprentice, comprising only 13.5% of this group.
(NSW Premier’s Department: 2007)
These figures demonstrate that trades are still dominated by men.
It was when I was looking for a tiler that I became acutely aware of the dearth of common sense and decision-making ability. As a thinking person, I KNOW that you need to order the tiles a month in advance to allow for availability. So I wanted a tiler to go and measure the space and tell me how many tiles to order.
I didn’t want the tiler to choose the tiles – just measure the space.
This is what happened
Tiler no 1:
He answered the mobile with a kind of mumbled grunt and (because the conversation was so bland, useless and uncommunicative) I’ll supplement that parody of it that I e-mailed to my partner
….."well I really need to know what the job requires before I can quote. call me in a month. no, no call me in a week. when is the builder starting? yeah, yeah call me when the builder starts so I can go around and have a look. {I like to do 'blokey' stuff and cos I'm simple and can't use a calculator I can't work out a quote 'til I sniff the corners and lick the floorboards or, at least, drag me knuckles around a bit, scratch me balls and grunt whilst leaning on the wall and vaguely touching my penis.} yeah, call me then and I can start about a week from then"……
It was a great relief when a tiler just happened to put his card in our letter box and…he could speak in sentences and even offered to come around and talk about the job. He also offered to go to the house and do a measure and quote.
When we finally do settle the purchase and get the keys to the house, it will be this tiler that I’ll be calling.
This is to say nothing of looking for the fact that I still need to find someone to move the toilet or build a base for the bed. But for that, I do have ‘contacts’ and I’m using them.
All of these interactions highlighted the fact that women are not entering these trades. (Or if they do, they are treated as something of a ‘sceptical’ and featured in News Articles like this on Sarah who went “From soprano to apprentice carpenter at new trade institute” (http://www.skillstech.tafe.qld.gov.au/about_us/media_2006.html#1 Accessed: 2 April 2007).
I could only wish for some clear thinking, organised women to be available as trades people. Maybe sometime in the future…………..
References:
Australian Government, Department of Family and Community Services, Office for Women. 2004. Women in Australia (http://www.ofw.facs.gov.au/publications/wia/chapter6.html Accessed: 2 April 2007)
New South Wales, Premier’s Department, Office for Women. 2007. “Women, Education and Training – New South Wales” (http://www.women.nsw.gov.au/PDF/FS2007/Women,%20Education%20and%20Training_OFW%202007.pdf Accessed: 2 April 2007)
Queensland Government SkillsTech. 2006. Media Releases (TAFE) SkillsTech Australia “From soprano to apprentice carpenter at new trade institute” (http://www.skillstech.tafe.qld.gov.au/about_us/media_2006.html#1 Access: 2 April 2007)
Another study, this time by the New South Wales Premier’s Department’s Office for Women found that
In the Higher Education sector (which provides degree and graduate courses), 56.6% of students in Australia were women. In 2006, 57.1% of Bachelor’s Degree students were women, and 51% of Postgraduate Degree students were women11. At the lower postgraduate levels, 64% of all persons enrolled in a Graduate Diploma or Graduate Certificate were women, and 51% enrolled in Masters and higher degrees were women.
In 2006, amongst those studying for a qualification in the Higher Education sector in Australia, women made up the majority of students in courses related to Society and Culture (69% of enrolments), Health (72%) and Management and Commerce (55%). Men made up the majority of students studying Engineering and related technologies (90.2% of enrolments in this field) and architecture and building (82.3% enrolments).
The same study also found that
Trade Apprenticeships continue to show an under representation of women. In NSW in 2006, there were 6,576 women in-training as a trade apprentice, comprising only 13.5% of this group.
(NSW Premier’s Department: 2007)
These figures demonstrate that trades are still dominated by men.
It was when I was looking for a tiler that I became acutely aware of the dearth of common sense and decision-making ability. As a thinking person, I KNOW that you need to order the tiles a month in advance to allow for availability. So I wanted a tiler to go and measure the space and tell me how many tiles to order.
I didn’t want the tiler to choose the tiles – just measure the space.
This is what happened
Tiler no 1:
He answered the mobile with a kind of mumbled grunt and (because the conversation was so bland, useless and uncommunicative) I’ll supplement that parody of it that I e-mailed to my partner
….."well I really need to know what the job requires before I can quote. call me in a month. no, no call me in a week. when is the builder starting? yeah, yeah call me when the builder starts so I can go around and have a look. {I like to do 'blokey' stuff and cos I'm simple and can't use a calculator I can't work out a quote 'til I sniff the corners and lick the floorboards or, at least, drag me knuckles around a bit, scratch me balls and grunt whilst leaning on the wall and vaguely touching my penis.} yeah, call me then and I can start about a week from then"……
It was a great relief when a tiler just happened to put his card in our letter box and…he could speak in sentences and even offered to come around and talk about the job. He also offered to go to the house and do a measure and quote.
When we finally do settle the purchase and get the keys to the house, it will be this tiler that I’ll be calling.
This is to say nothing of looking for the fact that I still need to find someone to move the toilet or build a base for the bed. But for that, I do have ‘contacts’ and I’m using them.
All of these interactions highlighted the fact that women are not entering these trades. (Or if they do, they are treated as something of a ‘sceptical’ and featured in News Articles like this on Sarah who went “From soprano to apprentice carpenter at new trade institute” (http://www.skillstech.tafe.qld.gov.au/about_us/media_2006.html#1 Accessed: 2 April 2007).
I could only wish for some clear thinking, organised women to be available as trades people. Maybe sometime in the future…………..
References:
Australian Government, Department of Family and Community Services, Office for Women. 2004. Women in Australia (http://www.ofw.facs.gov.au/publications/wia/chapter6.html Accessed: 2 April 2007)
New South Wales, Premier’s Department, Office for Women. 2007. “Women, Education and Training – New South Wales” (http://www.women.nsw.gov.au/PDF/FS2007/Women,%20Education%20and%20Training_OFW%202007.pdf Accessed: 2 April 2007)
Queensland Government SkillsTech. 2006. Media Releases (TAFE) SkillsTech Australia “From soprano to apprentice carpenter at new trade institute” (http://www.skillstech.tafe.qld.gov.au/about_us/media_2006.html#1 Access: 2 April 2007)
Monday, 19 March 2007
the cerebraL VACUUM CLEANER
She didn’t know as she struggled into the, once-to-be-worn, dress that the tugging on her scalp was not caused by the tightly pulled hair and flowers on her head. She thought it was just “pain for beauty” and the anxiety having called people together to witness a ceremony. Subtly pulling, first at her hair, then at her scalp, cutting a small entry point (similar in kind to the small entry point of her vagina. They were all related to the day/event.) through her skull and accessing her neurons was the cerebraL VACUUM CLEANER.
You don’t believe her?
She had already felt the strange, draining sensation as she had been organising the aforementioned “event” but after …..she knew.
There was ‘slack’ to be taken up.
She already paid her power and gas bills. But now she had to organise the investment home loan, the legal aspects of buying a house, mortgage repayments, insurances – including medical insurance because, of course, he wasn’t – groceries, cleaning, ironing, teach him how to cook or give him a reliable recipe book.
She was beginning to feel the strain and the drain on her brain. This having a live-in partner was like having a vacuum cleaner attached to her brain. He started using her brain power and it was like a cerebraL VACUUM CLEANER. When they bought a car, and she bargained the sales person down, it was sport. But when it came to house, loans and life he was sucking her brain dry.
Not her body. Not her sexuality. Not her creativity. It was her he drained.
She tried to instruct him, so he could share the thought-processes needed to progress their life together. But then she became ‘principal doer’ … and instructor, too. So she tried to lead him along. It was hard work and sometimes led to sheer physical exhaustion, where she would just feel that the cerebraL VACUUM CLEANER had sucked her energy levels dry.
It also made her less creative because she had less energy. Doing the “life stuff” as in “Women Do” http://womenandthought.blogspot.com/2006/12/women-do-now-im-trying-really-hard-not.html, took a lot of energy. Yet, she seemed able to produce more energy and started this blog www.womenandthought.blogspot.com
Life continues and she clings to her feminism. Therefore, when he forgot three things in a row, it was like “three-strikes and you’re out”.
They talked it through and he committed to try to live more “in the moment” and remain connected to the real world.
If this sounds like your world, there is a way ahead. All relationships are continuous negotiations and you can say, “no, we need to share the load”.
You don’t believe her?
She had already felt the strange, draining sensation as she had been organising the aforementioned “event” but after …..she knew.
There was ‘slack’ to be taken up.
She already paid her power and gas bills. But now she had to organise the investment home loan, the legal aspects of buying a house, mortgage repayments, insurances – including medical insurance because, of course, he wasn’t – groceries, cleaning, ironing, teach him how to cook or give him a reliable recipe book.
She was beginning to feel the strain and the drain on her brain. This having a live-in partner was like having a vacuum cleaner attached to her brain. He started using her brain power and it was like a cerebraL VACUUM CLEANER. When they bought a car, and she bargained the sales person down, it was sport. But when it came to house, loans and life he was sucking her brain dry.
Not her body. Not her sexuality. Not her creativity. It was her he drained.
She tried to instruct him, so he could share the thought-processes needed to progress their life together. But then she became ‘principal doer’ … and instructor, too. So she tried to lead him along. It was hard work and sometimes led to sheer physical exhaustion, where she would just feel that the cerebraL VACUUM CLEANER had sucked her energy levels dry.
It also made her less creative because she had less energy. Doing the “life stuff” as in “Women Do” http://womenandthought.blogspot.com/2006/12/women-do-now-im-trying-really-hard-not.html, took a lot of energy. Yet, she seemed able to produce more energy and started this blog www.womenandthought.blogspot.com
Life continues and she clings to her feminism. Therefore, when he forgot three things in a row, it was like “three-strikes and you’re out”.
They talked it through and he committed to try to live more “in the moment” and remain connected to the real world.
If this sounds like your world, there is a way ahead. All relationships are continuous negotiations and you can say, “no, we need to share the load”.
Monday, 5 March 2007
AWAs – An Acronym for Abolishing Women’s Awards
Remember “Work Choices”? The Government television advertising promised better, more flexible choices, ‘work choices’ for workers and employers.
Well, the statistics are starting to roll in and employers are getting more flexibility and power, as they negotiate Australian Workplace Agreements that erode the privileges, and hard-fought-for and won gains of workers.
The Your Rights at Work Campaign (http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/), researched and funded by the by the ACTU has released these figures:
51% cut overtime loadings
63% cut penalty rates
64% cut annual leave loading
46% cut Public Holiday payment
52% cut shift work loadings
40% cut rest breaks
46% cut incentive based payments and bonuses
48% cut monetary allowances
36% cut declared public holidays
(ACTU:2007)
While these are an appalling array of loses to any workers, the truth is that they are hitting female employees hardest. Women, who form the majority of the casual and/or part-time work force, are, of course, the majority being affected by the introduction of Australian Workplace Agreements.
This is why this post reframes acronym to the more accurate “Abolishing Women’s Awards”. “Work Choices” and AWAs have abolished the concept of “Award Wages” for women who work as casual or part-time workers.
It is not just the ACTU, a somewhat radical voice, proclaiming this dissolution of working conditions. Academia has also been producing similar results from research into “Work Choices” and AWAs. David Peetz, in The Impact on Workers of Australian Workplace Agreements and the Abolition of the ‘No Disadvantage Test’ found that
"For men, the difference between earnings under the two systems was not significant, but women on AWAs had hourly earnings some 11 per cent less than women on registered collective agreements. This is a noteworthy figure considering Minister Andrews’ earlier claim that women earned nearly a third more on AWAs than on collective agreements. The gender pay gap was worse on AWAs: where as women on registered collective agreements 90 per cent of the hourly pay of men on such agreements, women on AWAs received only of the hourly pay of men on AWAs." (p.11)
Clearly women are either being exploited in the bargaining process or are simply not as experienced and “hard-nosed” at staring bosses in the face and rejecting offers that undermine their pay conditions and economic viability in the workforce – not to mention the fact that the Australian Government undervalues the economic contribution women make to themselves, children, households and the economy.
Or there could be a reason which is being overlooked because it is hidden under cloaks of patriarchal economic values, such as “male bread winner” and the fact that the income of women in relationships is seen as ‘secondary’. This, of course, is not true as a mortgage or rental payments plus lifestyle can no longer be achieved or sustained on a single income.
This blatantly obvious economic fact doesn’t seem to have reached the majority of the male-psyche, although more men are awakening to the economic reality. However, the necessity for women to work, and earn “equal money for equal work” seems to have completely slipped from the economic reality radar of the Howard Government. Perhaps John and Janette should mingle in suburbia and see the impact of declining wages, rises in the cost of housing and childcare and the increasing percentage of weekly earnings spent of commuting costs or petrol.
Now that would make for highly rating reality TV.
Yet, the Australian Government seems determined to ignore the real cost, in negative terms, to workers and, particularly, women. It would seem that Government Ministers and their advisors are no longer reading the newspapers either, as Meaghan Shaw wrote, in the Sydney Morning Herald, on 14 February 2007 that “[t]he impact was particularly harsh for women, whose real ordinary-time earnings fell by 2 per cent in the first six months” after the introduction of “Work Choices” and AWAs. This is just one example of the negative cover received by AWAs and the impact they have on women, yet the Australian Government have stubbornly refused to act to redress the ways in which “Work Choices” actively discriminates against women.
The cynic in me wonders why, as we approach International Women’s Day on 8 March with the theme, at least in Queensland, of “Looking After Yourself at Work”, the Howard Government is actively (further) disenfranchising 53 percent of the population who are women and who vote?
References:
ACTU, “Your Rights At Work” http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/ (Accessed: 5 March 2007)
Peetz, D. (2007) The Impact on Workers of Australian Workplace Agreements and the Abolition of the ‘No Disadvantage Test’ www.econ.usyd.edu.au/download.php?id=4301 (Accessed: 5 March 2007)
Shaw, M. (2007) “Women are hardest hit by workplace laws”, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 February 2007.
Well, the statistics are starting to roll in and employers are getting more flexibility and power, as they negotiate Australian Workplace Agreements that erode the privileges, and hard-fought-for and won gains of workers.
The Your Rights at Work Campaign (http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/), researched and funded by the by the ACTU has released these figures:
51% cut overtime loadings
63% cut penalty rates
64% cut annual leave loading
46% cut Public Holiday payment
52% cut shift work loadings
40% cut rest breaks
46% cut incentive based payments and bonuses
48% cut monetary allowances
36% cut declared public holidays
(ACTU:2007)
While these are an appalling array of loses to any workers, the truth is that they are hitting female employees hardest. Women, who form the majority of the casual and/or part-time work force, are, of course, the majority being affected by the introduction of Australian Workplace Agreements.
This is why this post reframes acronym to the more accurate “Abolishing Women’s Awards”. “Work Choices” and AWAs have abolished the concept of “Award Wages” for women who work as casual or part-time workers.
It is not just the ACTU, a somewhat radical voice, proclaiming this dissolution of working conditions. Academia has also been producing similar results from research into “Work Choices” and AWAs. David Peetz, in The Impact on Workers of Australian Workplace Agreements and the Abolition of the ‘No Disadvantage Test’ found that
"For men, the difference between earnings under the two systems was not significant, but women on AWAs had hourly earnings some 11 per cent less than women on registered collective agreements. This is a noteworthy figure considering Minister Andrews’ earlier claim that women earned nearly a third more on AWAs than on collective agreements. The gender pay gap was worse on AWAs: where as women on registered collective agreements 90 per cent of the hourly pay of men on such agreements, women on AWAs received only of the hourly pay of men on AWAs." (p.11)
Clearly women are either being exploited in the bargaining process or are simply not as experienced and “hard-nosed” at staring bosses in the face and rejecting offers that undermine their pay conditions and economic viability in the workforce – not to mention the fact that the Australian Government undervalues the economic contribution women make to themselves, children, households and the economy.
Or there could be a reason which is being overlooked because it is hidden under cloaks of patriarchal economic values, such as “male bread winner” and the fact that the income of women in relationships is seen as ‘secondary’. This, of course, is not true as a mortgage or rental payments plus lifestyle can no longer be achieved or sustained on a single income.
This blatantly obvious economic fact doesn’t seem to have reached the majority of the male-psyche, although more men are awakening to the economic reality. However, the necessity for women to work, and earn “equal money for equal work” seems to have completely slipped from the economic reality radar of the Howard Government. Perhaps John and Janette should mingle in suburbia and see the impact of declining wages, rises in the cost of housing and childcare and the increasing percentage of weekly earnings spent of commuting costs or petrol.
Now that would make for highly rating reality TV.
Yet, the Australian Government seems determined to ignore the real cost, in negative terms, to workers and, particularly, women. It would seem that Government Ministers and their advisors are no longer reading the newspapers either, as Meaghan Shaw wrote, in the Sydney Morning Herald, on 14 February 2007 that “[t]he impact was particularly harsh for women, whose real ordinary-time earnings fell by 2 per cent in the first six months” after the introduction of “Work Choices” and AWAs. This is just one example of the negative cover received by AWAs and the impact they have on women, yet the Australian Government have stubbornly refused to act to redress the ways in which “Work Choices” actively discriminates against women.
The cynic in me wonders why, as we approach International Women’s Day on 8 March with the theme, at least in Queensland, of “Looking After Yourself at Work”, the Howard Government is actively (further) disenfranchising 53 percent of the population who are women and who vote?
References:
ACTU, “Your Rights At Work” http://www.rightsatwork.com.au/ (Accessed: 5 March 2007)
Peetz, D. (2007) The Impact on Workers of Australian Workplace Agreements and the Abolition of the ‘No Disadvantage Test’ www.econ.usyd.edu.au/download.php?id=4301 (Accessed: 5 March 2007)
Shaw, M. (2007) “Women are hardest hit by workplace laws”, Sydney Morning Herald, 14 February 2007.
Saturday, 17 February 2007
Domestic Versus Global
Have you noticed how, in domestic arenas such as families, housing, bill paying, clothes buying and other financial matters, women are the ‘movers and shakers’.
Women usually choose and organise house purchases and manage complex and tense negotiations.
That’s why I didn’t post last week. I was working on organising a house purchase with my partner.
Yet you move to the global arena and you see men running the countries, economies and policies. Surely this begs the question of where they get their experience from. Of course these men have degrees and have had experiences in business and world trade as professionals. However, these ‘professionals’ usually have partners or significant others or female personal assistants who undertake the day to day activities of life – such as paying bills and collecting the dry cleaning.
There are an infinite ways of approaching this topic but I would rather pose a question. How can men, who are not in the habit of running their domestic finances, fulfil the responsibilities of running global economies and politics?
This is why we should seriously question the ability of a Texan landholder to rule America and bring peace to a war-torn Iraq.
Women usually choose and organise house purchases and manage complex and tense negotiations.
That’s why I didn’t post last week. I was working on organising a house purchase with my partner.
Yet you move to the global arena and you see men running the countries, economies and policies. Surely this begs the question of where they get their experience from. Of course these men have degrees and have had experiences in business and world trade as professionals. However, these ‘professionals’ usually have partners or significant others or female personal assistants who undertake the day to day activities of life – such as paying bills and collecting the dry cleaning.
There are an infinite ways of approaching this topic but I would rather pose a question. How can men, who are not in the habit of running their domestic finances, fulfil the responsibilities of running global economies and politics?
This is why we should seriously question the ability of a Texan landholder to rule America and bring peace to a war-torn Iraq.
Monday, 5 February 2007
Getting things done or not
Sorry, but this week’s post is about those “Martians” (as in Men Are From Mars; Women Are From Venus) and whether they get things done or not. In a way it relates to a previous post called “Women Do”. The difference being that women do get things done quickly and – not all but a lot of – men do not get things done at all, let alone quickly.
For example, there was a Human Resource issue, regarding training advice in hygiene protection a few years ago and some men were asked to deal with it. There were meetings; there were talks; there was a dismissal and a review of training processes. Then all was quiet and it seemed the issue had been resolved.
However, as this issue involved vulnerable people, a woman kept watch to see if the issue would rear its head [phallic pun intended] again. It has.
(A sombre piece of information is that the issue seems to precipitate from a woman, the trainer, who seems to hold an unshakeable belief that certain people who are vulnerable are also ‘dirty’ and cannot be touched – except with gloved, latex-clad hands.)
So we return to the same training room two and a half years later.
The ‘woman who watches’ now gives all who visit that training room a “pop quiz” after the event to see if latex has been mentioned. After a training session this week, the same thing happened. People were advised not to touch the intact, non-infectious skin of healthy people, who are vulnerable, unless they are wearing gloves.
The ‘woman who watches’ rang the men and one said, “oh god, wasn’t that fixed last time?” The other said, “We’ll have to check that out and get back to you”.
This is but a sample of wide spread male malaise. “No child will live in poverty…” springs to mind. How many wars and conflicts have been the last – with a promise of world peace reigning supreme?
Now that I live with a man I am well aware of how often they do not get things done or have to be reminded. I ask myself “if women are a species of doers and reminders, what might happen if we ruled the world? …but we’d still have to pay the telephone bill :-)
References
Mars and Venus website http://www.marsvenus.com/ Accessed: 5 February 2007
For example, there was a Human Resource issue, regarding training advice in hygiene protection a few years ago and some men were asked to deal with it. There were meetings; there were talks; there was a dismissal and a review of training processes. Then all was quiet and it seemed the issue had been resolved.
However, as this issue involved vulnerable people, a woman kept watch to see if the issue would rear its head [phallic pun intended] again. It has.
(A sombre piece of information is that the issue seems to precipitate from a woman, the trainer, who seems to hold an unshakeable belief that certain people who are vulnerable are also ‘dirty’ and cannot be touched – except with gloved, latex-clad hands.)
So we return to the same training room two and a half years later.
The ‘woman who watches’ now gives all who visit that training room a “pop quiz” after the event to see if latex has been mentioned. After a training session this week, the same thing happened. People were advised not to touch the intact, non-infectious skin of healthy people, who are vulnerable, unless they are wearing gloves.
The ‘woman who watches’ rang the men and one said, “oh god, wasn’t that fixed last time?” The other said, “We’ll have to check that out and get back to you”.
This is but a sample of wide spread male malaise. “No child will live in poverty…” springs to mind. How many wars and conflicts have been the last – with a promise of world peace reigning supreme?
Now that I live with a man I am well aware of how often they do not get things done or have to be reminded. I ask myself “if women are a species of doers and reminders, what might happen if we ruled the world? …but we’d still have to pay the telephone bill :-)
References
Mars and Venus website http://www.marsvenus.com/ Accessed: 5 February 2007
Monday, 29 January 2007
I'll be your Prostitute whenever you want me
This week’s blog post is a very sad tale of social naivety and Government sedition.
There once was a single, independent woman who had a job, lived alone in an apartment and had lovers over for her pleasure. Sometimes they were the same lovers; sometimes different. The one constant was that they arrived; pleasured her and left. She was satisfied, they were satisfied; and the Government imposed no financial penalty.
However, the independent woman met “hot minute man” (Remember him from an earlier post? And he’s not “hot minute man” because it’s all over in a “hot” minute it’s because he’s impetuous and makes life-changing decisions without thought to the cost. More on that in previous posts or later……..) and decided to take him in to share her space.
All was fine. They kept all monies separate: paid half the rent each; half the bills each; shared food bills and eating out. Ever so often they even leapt into each others beds and let their libidos run wild across fields of tinglingly erotic flesh.
They were CAREFUL. They knew the RISKS and the RULES.
The woman was always one to accept a dare. So when “hot minute man” said, “I know you’ve got ‘issues’ but when you’ve dealt with them we can get married”. Well, that was a dare. What were her ‘issues’? Could she name them? Were they important?
Marriage had never entered her schema. She had always kept that part of life’s progression out of her life plan because the thought of marriage and disability were things she couldn’t bring together. Getting an education, becoming independent, working, having lovers, they fitted with disability but she had never brought marriage to the front of her thoughts because it required ‘another’s’ acceptance of her as she was, who she was. She had not considered it.
The surprise of the offer was a shock [see “Objection”] and she could not gather her ‘issues’. She said “yes” and the die was cast. The decision was made on a hot and heady January night in the tropics where the perfumed gardens and intoxicatingly fresh smell of soft summer rain and the topical environment did not foreshadow prostituting herself to him when the Australian Government deemed that he took possession of her by marrying her.
………..skip wedding plans, preparations and the fateful day…………
Freshly back from a frightening honeymoon where the true realisation of what they had done began to sink in.
When they went to tell Centrelink – it hit them like a shotgun blast and the pellets of their foolish ignorance of Government rules and societal expectations tore their tender flesh and caused their hearts to bleed.
He had a part-time job so she kept some entitlements to independent income. But his job changed; his income increased; until Centrelink passed all responsibility for her over to him. She became (in the fiscally, patriarchally cold and calculating eyes of the Government) his possession, to keep and provide for.
She could not be a waitress, cleaner or do menial jobs – which she would have – as the disability prevented her from taking up these occupations. In her head, the words of the Clout song “Substitute” rang out loud and long, but now days she substitutes the word ‘prostitute’:
I’ll be your prostitute whenever you want me
I’ll be your prostitute whenever you need me
Because the Australian Government has made her so. The Australian Government has declared that if someone with a disability dared to live with someone – and have sex and sleep with them – then the able-bodied wage-earner becomes financially responsible for the person with a disability. The Australian Government does a very good job as a “pimp” and makes a tidy saving. It the case of these two people, taking into account the earnings from the job she got, the Australian Government saves $10000 per year.
She tried to put it behind her. He tried to put it behind him. They moved on.
She got a job which she really likes and intends on keeping.
However, had they not got married; were he employed to care for her and take her on outings, she would be entitled to over $10000 more per year from the Government.
As with all good gothic tales of dark and gloomy outcomes, there’s an ironic twist here. As well as losing $10000 per year by being married, or “living in a marriage-like relationship” she also loses access to her Pensioner Concession Card. This means she cannot purchase medication (and she needs a lot, with degenerative hips and INTENSE pain) at a reduced rate, but losing the Pensioner Concession Card also mean that she loses eligibility to the $12000 to $15000 wheelchair that she uses to independently mobilise.
Thus because they cannot afford the medication and the power-wheelchair: she becomes the archetypal trapped chattel sitting at home waiting for he whom the Australian deems as her ‘provider’ to come home and “have his way with her”
Is this not the Australian Government stripping all people with disabilities of their rights to ‘freely’ enter into sexual relations?
Oh no, only once a week “we have disabilities and do not want to become dependent”!!!
Is this not the Australian Government stripping this woman of her rights and prostituting her to the man?
She says in her head:
“I’ll be your prostitute whenever you want me
I’ll be your prostitute whenever you need me………..
John Howard says you have to pay for pleasure from me”
There once was a single, independent woman who had a job, lived alone in an apartment and had lovers over for her pleasure. Sometimes they were the same lovers; sometimes different. The one constant was that they arrived; pleasured her and left. She was satisfied, they were satisfied; and the Government imposed no financial penalty.
However, the independent woman met “hot minute man” (Remember him from an earlier post? And he’s not “hot minute man” because it’s all over in a “hot” minute it’s because he’s impetuous and makes life-changing decisions without thought to the cost. More on that in previous posts or later……..) and decided to take him in to share her space.
All was fine. They kept all monies separate: paid half the rent each; half the bills each; shared food bills and eating out. Ever so often they even leapt into each others beds and let their libidos run wild across fields of tinglingly erotic flesh.
They were CAREFUL. They knew the RISKS and the RULES.
The woman was always one to accept a dare. So when “hot minute man” said, “I know you’ve got ‘issues’ but when you’ve dealt with them we can get married”. Well, that was a dare. What were her ‘issues’? Could she name them? Were they important?
Marriage had never entered her schema. She had always kept that part of life’s progression out of her life plan because the thought of marriage and disability were things she couldn’t bring together. Getting an education, becoming independent, working, having lovers, they fitted with disability but she had never brought marriage to the front of her thoughts because it required ‘another’s’ acceptance of her as she was, who she was. She had not considered it.
The surprise of the offer was a shock [see “Objection”] and she could not gather her ‘issues’. She said “yes” and the die was cast. The decision was made on a hot and heady January night in the tropics where the perfumed gardens and intoxicatingly fresh smell of soft summer rain and the topical environment did not foreshadow prostituting herself to him when the Australian Government deemed that he took possession of her by marrying her.
………..skip wedding plans, preparations and the fateful day…………
Freshly back from a frightening honeymoon where the true realisation of what they had done began to sink in.
When they went to tell Centrelink – it hit them like a shotgun blast and the pellets of their foolish ignorance of Government rules and societal expectations tore their tender flesh and caused their hearts to bleed.
He had a part-time job so she kept some entitlements to independent income. But his job changed; his income increased; until Centrelink passed all responsibility for her over to him. She became (in the fiscally, patriarchally cold and calculating eyes of the Government) his possession, to keep and provide for.
She could not be a waitress, cleaner or do menial jobs – which she would have – as the disability prevented her from taking up these occupations. In her head, the words of the Clout song “Substitute” rang out loud and long, but now days she substitutes the word ‘prostitute’:
I’ll be your prostitute whenever you want me
I’ll be your prostitute whenever you need me
Because the Australian Government has made her so. The Australian Government has declared that if someone with a disability dared to live with someone – and have sex and sleep with them – then the able-bodied wage-earner becomes financially responsible for the person with a disability. The Australian Government does a very good job as a “pimp” and makes a tidy saving. It the case of these two people, taking into account the earnings from the job she got, the Australian Government saves $10000 per year.
She tried to put it behind her. He tried to put it behind him. They moved on.
She got a job which she really likes and intends on keeping.
However, had they not got married; were he employed to care for her and take her on outings, she would be entitled to over $10000 more per year from the Government.
As with all good gothic tales of dark and gloomy outcomes, there’s an ironic twist here. As well as losing $10000 per year by being married, or “living in a marriage-like relationship” she also loses access to her Pensioner Concession Card. This means she cannot purchase medication (and she needs a lot, with degenerative hips and INTENSE pain) at a reduced rate, but losing the Pensioner Concession Card also mean that she loses eligibility to the $12000 to $15000 wheelchair that she uses to independently mobilise.
Thus because they cannot afford the medication and the power-wheelchair: she becomes the archetypal trapped chattel sitting at home waiting for he whom the Australian deems as her ‘provider’ to come home and “have his way with her”
Is this not the Australian Government stripping all people with disabilities of their rights to ‘freely’ enter into sexual relations?
Oh no, only once a week “we have disabilities and do not want to become dependent”!!!
Is this not the Australian Government stripping this woman of her rights and prostituting her to the man?
She says in her head:
“I’ll be your prostitute whenever you want me
I’ll be your prostitute whenever you need me………..
John Howard says you have to pay for pleasure from me”
Sunday, 21 January 2007
Women thinking about money…$$$$
A long time ago when flowers grew in the bottom of every garden – alongside the tomato and bean bushes, lettuce plants and cabbage, beside the dunny but in front of the clothes line, to try and mask the dunny smell – women might not have had to think of money. Most women had “men”/”husbands” and, if they didn’t they were spinsters who lived with their parents (fathers - men) or their married sister/s who had “men”/”husbands”.
It was these “men”/”husbands” who thought about money. They earned the money; dictated how it was spent; organised housing or shelter (which the women duly decorated and made liveable on the money they were given for the purpose). Men bought and sold cars, houses, investments.
Women kept their heads nicely in the sand and remained ignorant of money. Mostly they were lucky and were not left in debt by deserving men.
But…… there came a time when women wanted more than household slavery and child-bearing. The feminist revolution (remember that…………aahhh – a wistful sigh) woke them up and women realised the connections between money and power.
Present
That was the past and this is now.
Women do think about money. Or, if they don’t, they should, because as the “Women’s Institute for Finance Education” www.wife.org so aptly state it on one of their bumper stickers: “A man is not a financial plan”.
Women need to start thinking about money in High School. Will they be able to afford to go to university? What kind of job do they want? Where do they want to live and with whom? Do they want a car? Life now demands that you plan your finances very carefully.
And yet, women are still losing out and ending up with sexually transmitted debt http://www.wire.org.au/womensinfo/women_and_debt.php when relationships break up. Women are also not always taking full control of their own or shared finances.
There are, however, some women who are sharing the financial decision-making, making their own financial decisions, or taking the leading role in making decisions for the partnership/relationship in which they share financial interests.
This, after all, would seem quite logical [Yet is still “radical” and unthinkable for some men.] as women now earn money, pay bills, organise childcare, or health insurance, or other related expenditure. Women have their names on mortgages and loan documents and need to be keeping an eye of their future. Women are also more likely to exercise discipline and scrutinise financial transactions then men.
So let’s continue thinking about money and have more financial successes, similar to those of the Grameen Bank, founded by Muhammad Yunus, who received The Nobel Peace Prize 2006 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2006/yunus-lecture-en.html . This bank lends to women in poor countries to enable them to establish business and become financially independent. Demonstrating the financial responsibility of women is the fact that very few ever default on their loan.
This is proof that when women think about money, or have the opportunity to exercise financial responsibility, they take the matters seriously and can succeed.
References:
The Women’s Institute for Financial Education http://www.wife.org/ accessed 21/1/07
Women and Debt http://www.wire.org.au/womensinfo/women_and_debt.php accessed 21/1/07
Mohammed Yunus – Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2006/yunus-lecture-en.html accessed 21/7/06
It was these “men”/”husbands” who thought about money. They earned the money; dictated how it was spent; organised housing or shelter (which the women duly decorated and made liveable on the money they were given for the purpose). Men bought and sold cars, houses, investments.
Women kept their heads nicely in the sand and remained ignorant of money. Mostly they were lucky and were not left in debt by deserving men.
But…… there came a time when women wanted more than household slavery and child-bearing. The feminist revolution (remember that…………aahhh – a wistful sigh) woke them up and women realised the connections between money and power.
Present
That was the past and this is now.
Women do think about money. Or, if they don’t, they should, because as the “Women’s Institute for Finance Education” www.wife.org so aptly state it on one of their bumper stickers: “A man is not a financial plan”.
Women need to start thinking about money in High School. Will they be able to afford to go to university? What kind of job do they want? Where do they want to live and with whom? Do they want a car? Life now demands that you plan your finances very carefully.
And yet, women are still losing out and ending up with sexually transmitted debt http://www.wire.org.au/womensinfo/women_and_debt.php when relationships break up. Women are also not always taking full control of their own or shared finances.
There are, however, some women who are sharing the financial decision-making, making their own financial decisions, or taking the leading role in making decisions for the partnership/relationship in which they share financial interests.
This, after all, would seem quite logical [Yet is still “radical” and unthinkable for some men.] as women now earn money, pay bills, organise childcare, or health insurance, or other related expenditure. Women have their names on mortgages and loan documents and need to be keeping an eye of their future. Women are also more likely to exercise discipline and scrutinise financial transactions then men.
So let’s continue thinking about money and have more financial successes, similar to those of the Grameen Bank, founded by Muhammad Yunus, who received The Nobel Peace Prize 2006 http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2006/yunus-lecture-en.html . This bank lends to women in poor countries to enable them to establish business and become financially independent. Demonstrating the financial responsibility of women is the fact that very few ever default on their loan.
This is proof that when women think about money, or have the opportunity to exercise financial responsibility, they take the matters seriously and can succeed.
References:
The Women’s Institute for Financial Education http://www.wife.org/ accessed 21/1/07
Women and Debt http://www.wire.org.au/womensinfo/women_and_debt.php accessed 21/1/07
Mohammed Yunus – Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2006/yunus-lecture-en.html accessed 21/7/06
Monday, 15 January 2007
A Twist on Nature/Nurture 1
This post is numbered because it’s a topic on which more than one post might be written.
Over the recent Christmas/New Year/Summer Holidays – there are so many names for these particular holidays, it’s difficult to choose one, so I’ll include several – I returned to my family’s home in a rural setting. Like every rural place in that part of the country it was dry and the clouds would come tantalisingly close – make thunder even – but no worthwhile rain has yet quenched the earth.
On this property there were lots of jobs to do. You have to feed the animals dry food brought from town in the four-wheel-drive, start engines to supply them with water, check troughs, check fences, generally keep an eye on everything. All of these jobs were done with precision, routine and responsibility.
Other things were done too. The house cleaned, washing and ironing done, everyone who came to the boundary gate/door was asked in for refreshments, food or bedding for the night. Whatever their need, it was met. The same as whatever were the animals’ needs, machinery needs, and fence maintenance needs… these were met.
Nothing strange about this, it would seem, and to me there isn’t – but there’s something that has not yet been stated. The majority of this work was done by women. My sisters, on vacation from other jobs, were the ones doing the work and filling in whilst our mother, who usually does these jobs, was recovering from surgery.
There was one man permanently present – my partner – but he was a bit occupied with being my personal carer (Remember: I say I have a disability in the “about me” section.) and doing the ironing: oh the ironing!
To better understand the work and other activities, I used the often-used term “double-duty” and inquired of him as to how it was going? He asked me to teach him the “lie of the land” and we later did fencing, where I proved that one does not have to be able to do, or ever have done, to be able to instruct. I sat in the four-wheel-drive and instructed him on fixing and straining a fence.
Fixing and straining a fence is a skill that my sisters and I learned from our father and mother. In this way, we were raised or ‘nurtured’ in the skills of the land. However, if there were other men present, they might insist that ‘nature’ prevail and women sit back and let the stronger of the species, men, do the fencing (and not lift a finger to clear the table or wash-up). This is good when a post needs to be put into the ground or for heavy lifting.
But what stuck me, and what I finally understand, is that I come from a family where gender divides and work roles are all mixed up. They always have been in my family. When there was one man, one adult woman, who were a couple and young women and girl children – their 5 daughters – this is what was always going to happen. After all, the man can’t do all the outdoor tasks; and the women and girls would go through an obscene amount of wool and cotton if they sat around knitting and crocheting.
(Did I mention I hate craft?)
Although beneficial in instilling an “I/women can do anything attitude”, this lack of gender conditioning has meant that discrimination and the marginalisation mentioned in last week’s post cut the psyche deeply and are particularly obnoxious.
By exploring this microcosm of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’, it can be argued that all women should be given opportunities to be nurtured by nature: to use their bodies to experience the satisfaction of doing physical labour for themselves and not be excluded.
Most importantly, when women are instructed in the ways of being in both masculine and feminine worlds, they become strong, smart women who can change their own car tyres and check the oil and water.
Over the recent Christmas/New Year/Summer Holidays – there are so many names for these particular holidays, it’s difficult to choose one, so I’ll include several – I returned to my family’s home in a rural setting. Like every rural place in that part of the country it was dry and the clouds would come tantalisingly close – make thunder even – but no worthwhile rain has yet quenched the earth.
On this property there were lots of jobs to do. You have to feed the animals dry food brought from town in the four-wheel-drive, start engines to supply them with water, check troughs, check fences, generally keep an eye on everything. All of these jobs were done with precision, routine and responsibility.
Other things were done too. The house cleaned, washing and ironing done, everyone who came to the boundary gate/door was asked in for refreshments, food or bedding for the night. Whatever their need, it was met. The same as whatever were the animals’ needs, machinery needs, and fence maintenance needs… these were met.
Nothing strange about this, it would seem, and to me there isn’t – but there’s something that has not yet been stated. The majority of this work was done by women. My sisters, on vacation from other jobs, were the ones doing the work and filling in whilst our mother, who usually does these jobs, was recovering from surgery.
There was one man permanently present – my partner – but he was a bit occupied with being my personal carer (Remember: I say I have a disability in the “about me” section.) and doing the ironing: oh the ironing!
To better understand the work and other activities, I used the often-used term “double-duty” and inquired of him as to how it was going? He asked me to teach him the “lie of the land” and we later did fencing, where I proved that one does not have to be able to do, or ever have done, to be able to instruct. I sat in the four-wheel-drive and instructed him on fixing and straining a fence.
Fixing and straining a fence is a skill that my sisters and I learned from our father and mother. In this way, we were raised or ‘nurtured’ in the skills of the land. However, if there were other men present, they might insist that ‘nature’ prevail and women sit back and let the stronger of the species, men, do the fencing (and not lift a finger to clear the table or wash-up). This is good when a post needs to be put into the ground or for heavy lifting.
But what stuck me, and what I finally understand, is that I come from a family where gender divides and work roles are all mixed up. They always have been in my family. When there was one man, one adult woman, who were a couple and young women and girl children – their 5 daughters – this is what was always going to happen. After all, the man can’t do all the outdoor tasks; and the women and girls would go through an obscene amount of wool and cotton if they sat around knitting and crocheting.
(Did I mention I hate craft?)
Although beneficial in instilling an “I/women can do anything attitude”, this lack of gender conditioning has meant that discrimination and the marginalisation mentioned in last week’s post cut the psyche deeply and are particularly obnoxious.
By exploring this microcosm of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’, it can be argued that all women should be given opportunities to be nurtured by nature: to use their bodies to experience the satisfaction of doing physical labour for themselves and not be excluded.
Most importantly, when women are instructed in the ways of being in both masculine and feminine worlds, they become strong, smart women who can change their own car tyres and check the oil and water.
Monday, 8 January 2007
Limiting Choices …leading to marginalisation
2007 breaks upon Australia and the world with various political, social and economic pressures vying for the lime-light. There’s the fact that the opinions of Americans are against further involvement in Iraq – and the Australian Government is still supporting “The War on[/of] Terror”. The Queensland Government have changed disability funding and people with disabilities no longer have access to Adult Lifestyles Support Package funding, which assessed and funded people to live independently in the community. Instead, the Beattie Government has moved towards “capacity funding” and is building 20 “bed” institutions. If everything else is cyclical it seems that institutionalisation is too. First there was “De-institutionalisation”; now we witness a Labor Government annihilate individual choice/autonomy and trap people with disabilities in archaic models of support – such as group homes and institutions.
I tread the spun-silk line between myself and other, and choose to write about:
- an over-heard conversation,
- working women and
- the voice of dissent from a former Australian Government Minister
as they come together in a neat parcel and are still related to women, thought and how limiting or limited choices leads to marginalisation and - if you’re in a particularly dark and gothic mood – annihilation.
As annihilation is best to be avoided, this post will try to navigate a path that does not intersect with such ‘absolute’ finalities.
1) On New Year’s Day, I was sitting with my partner, overlooking the ocean in a Queensland coastal city, and over-heard two women with young babies discussing childcare options. It was quite clear that these women were part the growing number of couples who can only afford for one partner to be off-work for more than 6 weeks or a couple of months at the longest, as they have mortgages and loans to pay.
One woman was very organised and had booked in to childcare when she was only 4 months pregnant. I had this mental image of a foetus, in utero, lining up for mass produced bottle feeds. (I support childcare and women’s rights to work.) The other startling fact that this organised woman revealed was that she had been offered a full-time childcare place over others who were on the waiting list for part-time childcare. She observed that if you only wanted part-time childcare you probably just got pushed down the list in favour of those seeking full-time childcare and, therefore, being more lucrative option for providers.
The fear in the other, slightly less organised woman – who probably took a more organic approach to life, in that it was ok to actually be holding and bonding with the baby before seeking childcare – was tangible as she almost panicked about having an unsettled baby and a longer-than-expected wait for childcare.
1) Here we have the contradiction in the socio-political and economic ethos under which we live. Women have a right to work; to earn money; advance their careers and; attain professional, personal and financial goals. There was a brief time in the 1980s and 1990s when working women could ‘attain’ the “great Australian dream” of owning their own home.
This is rarely, if ever, the case now as it takes two salaries to sustain a mortgage and reasonable lifestyle. In this case, it can be argued that women are being socially and economically coerced into couple-dom to secure their financial future.
Yet, if women happen to have a disability, and be entitled to social security payments, they will be stripped of these entitlements upon becoming part of a couple. The point here is to highlight the connection between people with disabilities being forced back into institutions – out of sight, out of mind – and the disparity that fails to acknowledge people with disabilities as workers, part of communities, families and couples.
The muse is difficult to control today and keeps rambling off on tangents. Perhaps this is because there are so many interlinked topics vying to appear. And – I even tried using numbers.
Women who are in couples need to work to help sustain the economic progression of the couple. Yet, they are also expected, by the Prime Minister, John Howard, to be mothers of children and the netting that binds the family unit.
No wonder the talk of “double-duty” is growing louder. (One can hope…..)
3) And we finally move to the voice of dissent from a former Australian Government Minister. Bronwyn Bishop is quoted in The Sunday Mail as saying that the Prime Minister “is treating women like fools” in not implementing changes to childcare funding and places. Ms Bishop says “I was absolutely concerned with making sure women who are struggling for money were not worse off”.
As has been illustrated above, it’s a very steep and slippery slope that forms the continuum of worse off, maintaining equilibrium and advancing in a social, economic and political sense.
The questions that remain might be:
- Can women find time in their busy lives to work towards change?
- Can people see beyond the individualism being forced upon them to work towards collective change?
- And, will we ever see the cycle change/return to times when marginalisation and social justice issues are back on the political, and therefore, social agenda?
Or perhaps that should be, can we, the public, push them back onto the social and political agenda?
I’m not holding my breath!
References:
Weaver, Clair. 2007 “PM treating women like fools: Bishop”, The Sunday Mail, January 7, 2007: page 2.
Monday, 1 January 2007
The Start of 2007 - holidays
The woman who writes 'Women and Thought' is taking a break from thought and indulging in other pursuits. These pursuits may be hedonistic and/or relaxation focussed, however there are still 'thoughts' involved...
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