http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/ Spinifex Press en-us Fri, 30 Jul 2010 01:56:00 GMT 1440 CPG-Nuke Dragonfly Spinifex Press News http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/images/headback.png http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/ http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Blogs/display/mode=display/id=30/Far be it from me to be overly optimistic, and sometimes being a feminist means being cranky at cranky-making stuff out there, but it does seem that the F word is making a comeback of sorts – or perhaps it never really went away, it was just drowned out by bad press! Obviously working at a feminist press and having a degree in women’s studies, I’m attuned to “women’s talk”, but everywhere I turn at the moment the words “feminism” and “gender” are being widely used. And not just at events like the one to celebrate the brilliant essay, Temple of The Female Eunuch: Germaine Greer Forty Years On, by Monica Dux in Kill Your Darlings (in response to the cranky-making essay by Louis Nowra in The Monthly) or in a phone call to the wonderful Women’s Bookshop in Auckland, whose owner Carol says she’s spoilt for choice at the moment. In the letters pages and opinion columns of the paper; on TV shows as distantly removed as The Circle to Q&A. In writers festival and film festival programs. In books and essays. From an acquaintance who’s part of a “women’s group” and on the tram. Not to mention as the buzzword of Election 2010 here in Australia. But more of that in a minute. And I’m not the only one feeling positive. Author Emily Maguire commented on Radio National’s Book Show yesterday that she doesn’t brook the question “What’s wrong with feminism?”, countering that she sees feminism in all aspects of life: “There isn’t just one monolithic movement, but it’s out there everywhere…”. So have the feminists taken over? With a new female PM it kind of feels like it. Not that there’s a sudden flurry of feminist legislation or the like, but certainly a sense of “It’s (about) time”. The “gender agenda” is being questioned in the campaign, and despite attempts to sledge using the F word (Julie Bishop on Julia Gillard “coming from a background of a left-wing feminist”) the general consensus seems to be that it’s about the policies not the sex of the candidates that really matters. Despite real, cranky-making stats about women’s participation in industry and pay inequity etc, there are plenty of strong, feminist women in our businesses, unis, schools and media, so it makes sense that “feminism is everywhere”. Let’s hope we can see this as a strength in our politicians and leaders. That strong, intelligent women are seen as critical to a strong, intelligent society. But back to the fun stuff. It’s gatherings of women using the word feminism as a means of coming together that excites me. I don’t think this would have happened a decade ago, when the F word seemed stigmatised, deemed bad, at least in polite company. Two great new Melbourne initiatives are Cherchez la femme and Women of Letters. The first, a salon, with the emphasis on women and the issues of the day. In a pub, fun! The second, a monthly forum which “brings together Melbourne’s best and brightest writers, musicians, politicians and comedians in celebration of the beautiful lost art of letter-writing”. So popular is it that tickets sell out within days and a bigger venue is being sought. And these gatherings are not just full of lefty 30-somethings weaned onto feminism at the breast of Greer, there are loads of younger women, happy to grab onto the label or not, but all up for a good yarn, interested in power, strength, intelligence and, even, humour. So it seems feminism is thriving in multitudinous and multifarious ways and that women (and men) of all ages are getting into the mix. Kate Jennings concurred at a recent talk in Melbourne, saying she has hope for future generations and that “every generation comes to feminism in their own way”. She even joked about the “pepto-bismal pink” she sees little girls dressed in left, right and centre, predicting a backlash: “they’re the radical feminists of tomorrow!”. So with all this positivity, I’m somewhat bemused by the upcoming IQ2/Wheeler Centre debate entitled, “Feminism Has Failed”. Ok I realise debates need to be oppositional, yet this premise seems overly negative. But it’s the line-up that mystifies me most. I won’t name names, but take a look and draw your own conclusions. There is however one place remaining, so my recommendation: email the organisers with your suggestions of who you’d like to see on stage!Friday, July 30, 2010 (01:56:00)http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Blogs/display/mode=display/id=29/Watching the ABC’s Four Corners programme, Heart of Darkness last night I was struck by the fact that this massive level of rape going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo is really a civil war against women. The DRC has been continuously exploited as a nation for its mineral wealth by Western countries and the minerals that make our mobile phones vibrate are just the latest theft of wealth (background reading on the Congo). The DRC is not alone in its high levels of rape against women. In Nigeria women fear to use the communal toilets because they fear sexual assault. And what about our own countries where despite laws on the books against rape, it is a crime that occurs daily? The UN is ineffective. They have reduced the word rape to a bureaucratic acronym that makes you feel nothing: GBSV. I’ve had many a friend scratch their head wondering what this might be short for. Amnesty has put out many press releases about violence against women all around the world. Still nothing happens. In the meantime, pornography is sold on street corners and in milk bars and petrol stations. Girls and women are increasingly sexualised. So-called progressive males keep up their call for an end to censorship so they can get their rocks off. They call for legalisation of prostitution so women can be legally sold a hundred years after the end of slavery. And that acronym: gender based sexual violence. Let’s call it for what it is. A perfectly good and understandable four-letter word: RAPE. It is violence against women. It is a war against women. On every level of civil society: between nations, within nations, within communities and families – it is a civil war against women.Monday, July 26, 2010 (20:24:18)http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Blogs/display/mode=display/id=28/Spinifex intern Kate Page wonders how much nuptial equality and inclusion we can really take As a socially progressive heterosexual single mum (with lots of relatives touting a step- prefix), I say: let’s shake the heterosexual foundations of marriage. And yes, I deliberately leave out any religious affiliation, because let's face it, 60% of us choose not to marry within religious institutions these days, so the religious argument must be dead and buried. Julia Gillard would surely agree, being of no specified religion, and yet, her stance is aligned with that of her predecessor Kevin Rudd. Julia and the Party have opposed same-sex marriage and in doing so promote a culture of marginalisation around this issue. This is a human rights issue and one of legal and economic equality. This is an issue of personal autonomy and the right to choose. Sixty percent of Australians support same-sex marriage. A recent senate enquiry received 11,000 submissions in support of same-sex marriage (the largest number ever received in a senate enquiry) yet our two major parties are refusing to listen. By staying where we are on this issue, we are effectively saying that the quality of committed relationships and the quality of love relationships between same-sex couples is lesser than that of the heterosexual community. I stumbled upon an article that opposed same-sex marriage and reprimanded proponents for using “rhetoric”, like “inclusion”, “tolerance” and “equality” when forming their argument. If you laugh in a confused kind of way here, I am laughing with you. I wonder how many articles in support of same-sex marriage this writer would have needed to read before these three words stood out? Living in Australia, in a democracy, inclusion, tolerance and equality should be for everyone. Yes, I am stating the obvious. And it does seem out-of-date to be grappling with this issue today. Personally I hold great optimism that we will legalise same-sex marriage before too much longer. The argument against carries little weight and quite simply, is not aligned with the views of the majority of Australians. Mexico City recently legalised same-sex marriage and in the four months since the bill was passed, 271 same-sex couples got hitched. (That is two or more weddings per day.) A gay friend of mine is looking forward to Australia legalising same-sex marriage. She says, “it’ll be a busy year of weddings for me”. Let's hope when it does happen we don’t overwhelm ourselves with too much tolerance, inclusion and equality!Wednesday, July 14, 2010 (05:05:28)http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Blogs/display/mode=display/id=27/A blog by Spinifex author Betty McLellan In Australia, as in all other democratic countries, we’re expected to believe that the principle of Freedom of Speech covers everyone. When I took a closer look at the topic of “speech”, however, I saw that, far from being a universal privilege, speech is free for some but not for others. There’s a kind of power elite made up of mainstream men in influential positions in politics, business and the media who enjoy the power of speech while the rest of us get to listen. We’re bombarded with their words and are supposed to be fascinated as they speak to, argue with, praise and support each other. The current debate in Australia over the mining tax is a classic example. The debate is between the federal government and the big mining companies, with the media largely siding with the mining companies. We, the people, are the audience. Players on each side of the debate are using “ordinary people” to make their case but neither is actually asking us what we think. On one side, the government is arguing that the tax is necessary because the Australian people own the mining resources and should get more benefit in terms of money for the government to use to improve infrastructure. On the other side, mining magnates are arguing that the tax will have a negative effect on the Australian people in terms of fewer jobs and lower quality of life when mining companies are forced (by the mining tax) to close down their operations and withdraw their financial support from communities. Both sides are quite happy to use us, “ordinary Australians”, as pawns in the debate but neither party will listen to, or be influenced by, anything we say. This is indicative of how so-called freedom of speech works in modern democracy – powerful governments, business leaders and the media exercising their right to speech, while the rest of us are silenced. So, what about the principle of Freedom of Speech? Arundhati Roy was right when she said in her 2004 City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture: “… the doctrine of Free Speech has been substituted by the doctrine of Free If You Agree Speech”. Most people in society have access to speech when their speech agrees with that of the power elite, but the voices of those who disagree are silenced by being ignored or trivialised or misrepresented. The dissenting voices of radical, political feminists are among those who are silenced. In Unspeakable: a feminist ethic of speech, I contend that, for speech to be free, it must first be fair. All citizens in democratic societies must have equal access to speech - they must be free to disagree, criticise, express their opinions AND BE HEARD - if the principle of Freedom of Speech is to become a meaningful concept. Unspeakable is available in print format from OtherWise Publications and will be available next week as an eBook from SpinifexWednesday, June 30, 2010 (06:44:53)http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Blogs/display/mode=display/id=26/So Julia Gillard is Australia’s first woman to be PM. I hope she receives better treatment in that position than some of the other women who in the past have been sent in to clean up the mess! I hope she is treated with the respect she is due. Over the last three years Julia Gillard has shown her toughness and her ability to deal with the rough and tumble of Australian politics. In fact, she has really shone through. When she first became Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, I was dubious. Although pleased to see her in the position, I was not sure that she would be more than a sop to voters who thought there should be a little more equity in politics. But she has proven me wrong. That’s not to say that she is perfect, but until women are also permitted flaws in public life, we have come nowhere. I hope she can be a good leader; the kind of leader Australia needs; someone thoughtful and frank; someone who listens. I hope that she is not saddled with too many expectations, because one person, one woman cannot fix all of society’s ills. I hope she can be a real person in a difficult job.Wednesday, June 23, 2010 (23:36:37)http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Blogs/display/mode=display/id=25/Susan Hawthorne, co-director of Spinifex Press, writing from the US after attending the Stop Porn conference in Boston. A QUIT PORN campaign is what we need to get the consumption and production levels of porn down. When QUIT started sending out their message about smoking, many more smokers were quietly killing themselves (and the effect on others was not insignificant). Do you remember when we used to be able to smoke on planes? How you could end up on a flight from Melbourne to London in the no-smoking section and still have smoke blown all over you because the next row was the first in the smoking section? Back then, even if you complained, nothing would happen. The same happens now with porn. Complain about its pervasiveness, and nothing happens because it’s seen as “normal”. So what’s normal? Beating up women in front of a camera? Tying women into stress positions – the same ones used to torture Iraqis in Abu Ghraib? Getting little girls to wear “I want to be a porn star” T-shirts? Calling women bitches and ho’s? In other contexts, these would be seen as hate crimes. Is it any different to beating up a person of a different class or ethnicity? How is torture in one setting considered a breach of human rights and when it’s done in porn called a turn on? How is wearing a porn star T-shirt different from the yellow star or the pink triangle? Think about it. Why is hate language against women okay, when it’s called vilification in other settings? If you doubt these statements above, then go and see these two films, The Price of Pleasure or The Pornography of Everyday Life. (A warning: these films might cause distress for some viewers.) Porn is streaming into homes and onto mobile phones as each generation of technology has greater capacity, is more individualised, and stills have moved to video streaming wirelessly. The US is “ahead” of Australia in saturation level, but not by much and it won’t be long before we begin to see what will become generational effects of high-consumption consumers. Where “the consumers become the consumed”, as Cameron Murphey pointed out in his talk in a workshop on Working with Men at the Stop Porn Conference in Boston last weekend organised by Gail Dines, author of Pornland and Rebecca Whisnant co-editor of Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Pornography and Prostitution. “Porn is bad for your health.” This is what Linda Thompson from the Women’s Support Project in Glasgow, Scotland discovered in her research. It’s long been known to be bad for women’s health. Sexually transmitted diseases and physical injury are obvious adverse effects for those involved in the production of pornography. Then there’s the post-traumatic stress disorders and the psychological effects of abuse. But these are not restricted to those involved in the production of porn. It is also an adverse effect for watchers, especially those who become compulsive watchers of porn. They lose their capacity to form (intimate) relationships with others. Cameron Murphey also pointed out that porn causes erectile dysfunction. Not surprising then to see the usual syndrome of technological failure creating a new market opportunity: and this time it’s Viagra. Then there are the apologists on the left who call for the dismantling of capitalism, but vocally support the profiteering of pornographers. Is this because it might hamper their enjoyment? As Betty McLellan in her book Unspeakable points out, that while free trade is bad and fair trade is good, the free speech is good and fair speech is bad when it comes to pornography. Is justice so tradable? Porn is about injustice. It’s about hatred. It’s bad for you (have a look at Norman Doidge’s book, The Brain that Changes Itself. Begin at p. 102 and read about the effects on adolescent brains). It’s bad for boys (see What’s Happening to Our Boys?). It’s bad for girls (see Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls). It’s bad for women (see Not For Sale). And it’s bad for men (see Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity). It’s good for capitalism. And for organised crime. It’s good for the purveyors of violence such as the military and those engaged in genocide. It’s good for a handful of corporate exploiters. In short it’s good for patriarchy. Who do you support? Perhaps it’s time to QUIT PORN.Tuesday, June 15, 2010 (02:09:00)http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Blogs/display/mode=display/id=24/A guest post by Getting Real editor Melinda Tankard Reist. Originally posted on Melinda's blog. What’s happening to our boys?: Maggie Hamilton’s new book When I first began turning my attention to the sexualisation of girls in the media and popular culture, a book that significantly echoed my own thoughts was What’s happening to our girls: Too much too soon, how our kids are overstimulated, oversold and oversexed (Penguin, 2008) by author, publisher and teacher Maggie Hamilton. Not long after, I approached Maggie and asked if she would be willing to write a chapter for my book Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of girls (Spinifex Press, 2009). I was delighted when she agreed. In her chapter ‘The Seduction of girls: the human cost’, Maggie combined research and her own thoughtful observation to analyse the impacts of the onslaught of sexualised messaging on girls. She explored the decline in imagination, slowing cognitive development, plummeting self-esteem, self-harm, performance culture, sexual assault and how girls were socialized to be objects. Since then Maggie and I have shared a few platforms and friendship has developed. I am blessed to have the support of a woman of her calibre. Maggie has now turned her attention to what we are doing to boys. What’s Happening to Our Boys?: At Risk, how the new technologies, drugs and alcohol, peer pressure and porn affect our boys will be launched in Sydney today at a private event, following by public events during the week. Increasingly, as I traverse the country speaking about the effects of a toxic culture on the health and wellbeing of girls, I’m asked about boys. What can be done for boys? It has been helpful to be able to point to Maggie’s book and say, this will be a good place to start. What’s happening to our boys? is a major and in many ways overdue resource to help us address the problems boys are facing, which cannot help but improve the situation for girls. This is an interview I did with Maggie in the lead up to the launch. Maggie, what inspired you to write this book? While we’re increasingly conscious that girls are vulnerable to a whole range of issues, we do tend to assume that boys can cope with whatever they’re faced with. But this isn’t necessarily the case.. Parents were constantly telling me really sad and concerning stories about incidents with their boys. Many were distressed they hadn’t seen these issues coming and, because they hadn’t faced these things themselves, were unsure of how best to respond. So it seemed like a good idea to take a closer look at our boys’ lives. I’m so glad I did – it’s given me a much more intimate sense of what boys are dealing with. What is happening to our boys? The marketers have realised boys are the last untapped demographic, so they’re spending millions to market to boys. We’re going to be seeing this in everything from the entertainment industry, to fashion and toiletries, to name but a few. Already this push is impacting our boys. We’re seeing a growth in anxiety around looks and possessions from preschool on. The boys as young as eight or nine who I spoke with were very preoccupied with having the right gear, and worried that if they didn’t they’d be seen as a loser. So by the time boys hit their teens we’re starting to see a spike in body issue concerns and self esteem problems. Basically our boys are going down the same track as girls in experiencing anxiety and self-loathing – perfect for advertisers, but not so great for our kids. We’re also seeing the growth of secret lives as there’s so many ways boys can do their own thing, often right under parents’ noses. The growth in violence in video games is also affecting our boys, as is their growing addiction to online gambling and other unhelpful activities. Do you think we have been ignoring the welfare of boys? One of the big problems for boys is that there’s a whole range of issues we hadn’t dealt with for boys before the 21st century issues bit. We still have a long way to go to nurture boys more. Before they can be strong and independent, they have to be nurtured. Yet we tend to be more hands off with boys, which means they have to find their own way. We also need to pay more attention to promoting reading and communication skills from early on in the home. This can make a huge difference to a boy’s confidence, but still isn’t happening to nearly the level that’s needed. Boys also have the right to a rich emotional life, especially as they’re living in a far more emotionally complex world than previous generations. When you then add in the challenges of cyber-bullying, increased levels of violence in games and in the playground, the pressure to look a certain way, act out, concerns around body image, the pressure to drink and how to operate in an increasingly sexualised environment, you begin to realise this is a lot for any kid to deal with especially when parents aren’t up to speed. Why have they been so neglected do you think? Boys (and men) tend to keep on going regardless, which isn’t always ideal. So when we look at them we assume everything’s fine, when this mightn’t be the case. We’ve also become a little blind where many male issues from health to relationships are concerned. When we neglect our boys, everyone is impacted – families, future partners and children. What was the most confronting thing you learnt about what boys were doing? The explosion of pornography and the very easy access boys have to this material – sometimes at home, on their phones or at a friend’s place. It’s more than concerning when you realise just what they’re accessing – everything from bestiality to the deflowering of young girls. Studies show that repeated exposure to porn shuts down a boy’s feelings, and may even lead him to become a sexual abuser. Scratch the surface and you see just how many boys are viewing porn, and increasingly as a group activity. This isn’t just an activity high school boys are into. Increasingly primary school boys are getting into porn, and boys are also watching it together. Porn gives them a new language, a new way of relating, which can lead to significant harm. I understand you had to take a break in the middle of writing the book because what you were finding out was so disturbing and you weren’t entirely prepared for that. Can you tell us more about what that time was like for you? This has been a very hard book to write in some ways. I love working with boys and find them astonishingly expressive, but sometimes when you’re aware of what they’re up against it can seem overwhelming. I kept asking myself how come we moved so far from our duty of care? It was a pretty dark time, but then I had to remind myself that we can’t afford to despair. Ultimately I believe there’s lots we can do, but we can’t be complacent. We need to act on everything we see that we know is unhelpful to our kids. It’s not just the seduction of billboards, magazine and movie ads, and MTV clips we need to be concerned about. We need to be aware of how easily young boys can access porn, for example. “We’re now seeing kids sexually active way under ten, because of access to porn, or their parents’ own behaviour”, John, who works with troubled youth, told me. “I’ve seen many cases where porn is readily left around the home, where it’s part of the family culture. Then you’ve got parents who carefully stash their porn away, and kids have a way of finding it”. How is boys’ behaviour impacting on girls? I think boys and girls are equally vulnerable – especially in the sexual arena. While boys can’t get pregnant and don’t face the same slurs a girl who is perceived to be overly sexually active faces, and have more ways of protecting themselves, we can’t be naive about the fact that boys are increasingly vulnerable to sexual assault. This doesn’t in any way lessen our concerns around the growing predatory behaviour we’re seeing towards girls. We have to face the fact that boys are now also stalked by determined often aggressive young girls who are encouraged by cultural messaging which teaches them to act in predatory ways . They send countless inappropriate texts to boys to try and gain their attention. It’s not just photos of low tops girls are sending around. This makes it very difficult for boys to know how to respond as it can seem very enticing. At the same time, boys consuming porn can place our girls at risk – and not just teenage girls. In one Brisbane primary school a seven-year-old girl was sexually assaulted over two months by a boy her age. Hitting her and threatening to kill her if she spoke out, the boy repeatedly forced this young girl to perform oral sex. In another school a group of six-year-old boys banded together and were forcing classmates to perform various sexual acts on them. According to one youth worker, “We are now seeing children grooming younger kids for sex, there’s a real seduction pattern going on. A lot of this appears to be exposure to porn”. What is your message to parents of sons? Love and nurture your boys, encourage them to be part of all the good things the new technologies and popular culture have to offer them, but don’t be naive about the dangers. To educators? I think there’s no doubt we need more men in the education system. Our boys lack good role models. There’s no substitute for a wealth of good men in their lives. What a wonderful thing it would be to have a positive recruitment drive for bright engaged young men – good for boys and girls. To policy makers? More work needs to be done on the 21st century issues boys face and how we can protect them. Making the Advertising Standards Board more accountable and more aware of the new issues we’re facing would be an excellent start. The growing violence in video games needs to be regulated and soon, as does the increasing blurring of sex and violence in games. We also need a strong and clearly drawn regulatory framework with which to deal with pornography now so available to our children. To the community as a whole? For too long we’ve seen boys as problematic. We get cross when we see skate-boarders and boys involved in other activities. Strong communities are inclusive. They accommodate and celebrate the needs of their citizens – and that includes our boys. It’s not hard, but it does need time and effort – resources that are well spent. The role of adults has always been to protect our young – that still stands, so we need to have the courage to be good gate-keepers, to question material we know to be harmful to our kids – if we don’t then who will? Click here to listen to Maggie Hamilton on Life Matters, Radio National.Friday, June 04, 2010 (06:05:00)http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Blogs/display/mode=display/id=23/Meanjin editor Sophie Cunningham writes on how women sit outside language in this expanded version of her editorial from Meanjin 2-2010. I recently attended a lecture held at the Law School of the University of Melbourne. French feminist Luce Irigaray was being beamed in from Paris and she was, despite the inevitable technological hitches, awesome to behold. She was talking about natural differences versus constructed ones. She drew a link between culture’s preference for constructed relationships and the world’s inability to deal effectively with climate change. She said (and forgive me if I’m misquoting her slightly): “Patriarchy has failed in its duty to manage the Earth. It is ethically unfit to do so.” I first read Luce Irigaray thirty years ago, and found her theory that language was constructed in a way which excluded women very powerful and relevant. It seems to me, in the thirty years since I began to engage with feminism, the treatment of women has become worse. Consider the following list of the ways in which women have been publically but, it seems, acceptably humiliated in this country in the last few months. Louis Nowra described Germaine Greer as “a befuddled and exhausted old woman. She reminded me of my demented grandmother who, towards the end of her life, was often in a similarly unruly state.” Louis Nowra is, as journalist Caroline Overington pointed out, only ten years younger than Greer—so he can take the comment about his grandmother and shove it. Here is the fabulously badly behaved Helen Razer on the subject: “Greer attracts violent spittle of this type not because she is a polemicist, but because she has a cunt. Her every utterance or teeny, tiny op-ed column is the subject of scrutiny and fuel to the flame of what is, let it be said, pure hatred of feminism … Greer DARES to say what we’d all be thinking several months later on the occasion of Steve Irwin’s death and she is called a hag. She DARES to write an informed history on the young male as visual object and she is called a dried-out old cougar. Fuck off. She’s a bright and occasionally charming old ratbag who is far more erudite than most of what passes for an Australian ‘public intellectual’ and should be revered. Greer may have done her utmost to change the world. Sadly, she was unable to undo the boring sexism that drives so many Australian female thinkers into silence.” Around the same time senior sports commentator Peter Roebuck wrote the following in the Sydney Morning Herald: “Whatever the reality of her life, supposing reality makes an appearance now and then, Lara Bingle stumbles from public relations disaster to public relations calamity. Restaurateurs complain about her manners and the poor company she keeps. Fashionistas talk of her headstrong ways and dubious customs. Moreover she seems intent on boosting the sales of all those magazines purchased by the female of the species. In short, she craves attention and courts controversy. Yet Michael, the class act of the pairing, seems besotted. Beauty and danger have always been a potent combination.” Christine Nixon, whose judgement on 7 February 2009 was undoubtedly questionable, has had to endure headlines such as ‘Police commissioner ate while Victoria burned’. As critic and blogger Kerryn Goldsworthy wrote on her blog: “Let me get this straight: Christine Nixon is to be crucified for taking an hour off, when she wasn’t even rostered on, in order to have dinner—but it’s cause for gasps of meeja admiration when the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition goes AWOL on a nine-day bike ride, taking yet another opportunity to wobble his budgie at slavering photographers and horrified truckies for the entire length of the Hume Highway … ask yourself how much more vile, ignorant, sniggering, misogynist fat-hate Nixon would be copping even than she already is if she were to emulate the Leader of the Opposition and say, in defence of the shocking crime of having an evening meal, ‘I’m just being myself.’” Australia Post released its Australian Legends of the Written Word stamp series. Five men, one woman (Colleen McCullough). Only three of the thirty-four finalists of the Archibald Prize for 2010 were women (one of them, Kate Benyon, is a favourite artist of mine). The judges of the Miles Franklin Award put out a long list with three women and eight men. The short list, which was announced in late April, included only two women. The winner will be announced on 22 June. Last year, after a similar proportion of men and women on the long list, no women made it to the short list. Much of the commentary around this in 2009 argued that you can’t pick a list based on political correctness—an argument I’d swallow if women writers published that year had not included Helen Garner, Joan London, Amanda Lohrey, Eva Hornung and Andrea Goldsmith. Last year not a single female lead singer was included in Triple J’s hottest 100 survey. Catherine Strong explores the implications on this in her essay ‘The Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time 2009 and the Dominance of the Rock Canon’ in this issue. I could go on. I won’t. I’ll just say this: either women can’t sing, paint, write or think as well as they used to—certainly not well enough to offset their tendency to become less beautiful with age—or we live in a culture that does not like the things women say or does not know how to hear them when they say it. In other words, Irigaray is right. Women sit outside language.Thursday, May 27, 2010 (04:21:19)http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Blogs/display/mode=display/id=22/you can tell we no longer know our classics a postmodern breakfast of Greek and Latin μετα− meta-: Greek preposition meaning with or after data: plural of datum (past participle of the verb dare to give) Latin for a thing given or granted, something known or assumed as fact, and made the basis of reasoning or calculation μεταdata is definitely after: after the date of my dictionary, printed in 1977 metadata is the data that comes with or after the book a whole world of information and facts attached to an eBook with ones and zeros a spreadsheet of working days column after column after column after column after six columns of ISBNs two ways of listing the title long blurbs and short subject matter and keywords prices in different currencies dimensions in metric and imperial an excerpt and its source a review and its source and more … and everyone wants something different I’m after and after I’m over itThursday, May 20, 2010 (15:34:51)http://www.spinifexpress.com.au/Blogs/display/mode=display/id=21/Belgium's lower house of parliament last week voted for a law that would ban women from wearing the full Islamic face veil in public. Yesterday South Australian Senator Corey Bernadi called for the burqa to be banned in Australia, warning that it was emerging as a "disguise of bandits and ne'er-do-wells” after an armed bandit used one for disguise in Sydney this week. His blogpost has been countered by Islamic groups concerned that to ban the burqa risks limiting Muslim women’s interaction in society. The “full Islamic veil” is the burqa which covers the entire face and body, and covers the eyes with meshed cloth; the niqab is similarly full covering, but leaves the eyes clear. For visuals of the varying forms of veiling see this BBC site. Several European nations are holding similar debates, with legislation mooted in France, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands. Last month French President Nicolas Sarkozy ordered legislation calling the veils “an affront to women's dignity unwelcome in France”. In northern Italy a Muslim woman has even been fined under anti-terrorism laws for wearing a burqa in public. The debate has played out in France for the last two decades, and a great resource is Bronwyn Winter’s Hijab and the Republic. The news in Belgium has been widely reported, with multitudinous opinions. Take for example the French imam who supports such bans. Hassen Chalghoumi is quoted in the UK Telegraph saying that women who wanted to cover their faces should move to Muslim countries where covering was a tradition and that "The burqa is a prison for women, a tool of sexist domination and Islamist indoctrination". There is however a distinct lack of feminist voices – let alone Muslim women’s voices – on the issue. And it’s a divisive one. Australian journalist Virginia Haussegger weighed into the argument last year with a column which won her some support but gained her a lot of criticism, particularly from other women. It led to a brilliant debate at ANU with Haussegger alongside Julie Posetti and Dr Shakira Hussein who both made a big point of declaring their respect for Haussegger, while respectfully disagreeing with her. And Haussegger did make some decent points about why the topic should be discussed, hinting at the reasons such conversations get so heated, divided and ultimately undecided. But really she wasn’t preaching tolerance and understanding, rather more of the “them and us” argument that overtakes, arguing that a ban on the burqa would send a clear message that, “Here all women are free and equal participants in our society. No woman need cover her face or hide her identity.” Of course all women should be free and equal participants in all societies, but we need to be very clear that that is what we are arguing for and not using persuasive ideals to promote other agendas. Over the past week – and indeed whenever this topic raises its head – there has been much made of “safety” – the dangers of women in burqas driving, or the risk to bank staff serving women in burqas, but to me this also seems like a diversion. You can question the issue of “choice”, the appropriateness or otherwise of displays of religiosity in a secular society, or modern interpretations of the Koran, but not to obfuscate underlying arguments driven by fear, racism or control. And of course to call for a ban of anything is to create polarisation, rather than solid debate or understanding. As Reed Brody, European press director for Human Rights Watch, said in response to the Belgian legislation, "Bans like this do more harm than good". Geraldine Brooks deals eloquently with the issue of veiling in Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women and summed it up aptly to me, “I wish politicians wouldn't keep trying to solve social problems through the bodies of women. Khomeini makes Iran look more Islamic overnight by ordering women into the veil, Belgium makes its immigration issues disappear overnight by ordering them out of it. No one wants to tackle the serious issues of underlying inequality. It's all so superficial and a real time waster and attention suck when the real issues are women's education, forced marriage and FGM. Let's see Belgium tackle those issues.”Thursday, May 06, 2010 (23:24:00)