Yeah that’s *right* I reported your facebook group!

Yowsa: “Don’t Kanye Me or I will Chris Brown You and Tiger Woods your Mother”. You know what though – I’m not linking to that group. Go check it out on Facebook and report it. I am sick to fucking death of ‘Chris Brown’ being used as a joke and now a fucking verb. The douchehound beat the crap out of his girlfriend. He bit her and slammed her head into the dashboard. That’s not fucking funny.

Oh yeah, if you’re not inspired to ‘report’ yet: the cartoon currently in the left hand top corner has Kanye’s infamous moment with a speech bubble that says “Imma let you finish @tigerwoodswife…but Chris Brown did the best celebrity domestic violence beating of all time, of all time”

First take the plank out of your own eye…

So there is an article published in the SMH today:

Muslim Feminists deserve to be heard by Randa Abdel-Fattah and Susan Carland.

The article is a great read. The comments however would be funny if they weren’t real. A bunch of entitled Dudes turning up to dismiss the words and ideas of these women (words and ideas that are articulate and backed up with you know, actual fact and example, rather than say a cock) all the while banging on about how it’s FACT that in Islam women’s words and ideas and beings are worth nothing. Not like here. Where we’ve just told you you’re morons with nothing to say worth listening to.

Also these men seem to have some mysterious familiarity with the Qu’ran and or ‘Islamic Law’: it’s FACT says Joel that ‘under Islam’ women do not have souls. Well geez Joel, if it’s ‘fact’ you ought to be able to cite something surely. Or do you mean Current-Affair-Style ‘fact’, Common Sense Everyone Knows So I Don’t Need No Proof Style ‘Fact’.'Under Islam’ says Joel, women are not equal. They are property. Hey…that’s kind of like how the bible talks about women huh?!! (Does anyone remember the story of Lot? Or David and Bathsheba? Abraham and Sarah…and Hagar?? Those are the few I thought of just off the top of my head).

“Unmititgated rubbish” says Nick Stone, who *surely* knows more about Islamic Feminism than Islamic Feminists! Islamic feminism is an oxymoron, says Nick. Orientalism, says Nick, has nothing to do with it. Well I guess if these women put forward an articulate argument that Orientalism has *a lot* to do with it, but you have a cock and say outright that it doesn’t then you win. Hey, it sounds to me like your logic is based on ‘I have a cock and you only have a pussy, take your pussy-brained ideas away from me offensive pussy-owner!’, and yet you’re criticising a form of government I’d wager you have little real experience with because (you postulate) it’s logic says that men are better than women. That’s kinda funny isn’t it!

“Combining the worst elements of man-bashing feminism and anti-West Islamic resentment” says Thesode. “I wish the campaigners you mention the best of luck” he continues oh-so-charitably, “but don’t blame the West for atrocities committed in and by Islamic society”. See having read the article myself I can’t see that the authors did any such thing. But you *are* the man I guess. A man who spells dignity as “diginaty”, but a man nonetheless.

“The article makes informative points”, Whine Lover condescendingly begins, before condesendingly continuing “but unfortunately makes the same straw man argument that it accuses others of making. This insult to the reader diminishes the impact of what could have been a thoughtfully reasoned point-of-view”. I’d argue that the ‘reader’ might want to develop a bit more intestinal fortitude if s/he is so egregiously offended by ‘Actually, hi, we’re doing a lot please don’t assume we’re all downtrodden morons’. And I’m not entirely sure that someone making the point that they’re continually offended by other people’s incorrect assumptions needs to pander to our precious-petal ‘feelings’ in order to not diminish the impact. But, hey, you’re the man. Feel free to keep telling those Muslim Women Fools who’s boss. While telling them they’re stupid not to realise that Islamic men think they’re better than them. Oh the irony…would be funny, except that it’s NOT.

Ok, well I’d love to continue giving you examples of obnoxious Western readers completely ignoring the wonderful points made in this article and reinforcing that they don’t have to listen to no silly foreigners and their dumb-arsed-bitch words, and their whacky religion that doesn’t treat women as equal (because Christianity’s record on this is fucking stellar isn’t it?) if they can’t even see that their own menfolk disrespect their thoughts and words, all “I have a cock and I SAID that Orientalism has nothing to do with it. OK!!”, but it’s making me very angry and I have a lot to do today.

I just…all this ‘your religion’, ‘your society’ crap. AS IF WOMEN ARE EQUAL HERE YOU KNOBHEADED FUCKWITS! And do you THINK you could at least LISTEN to the perspectives of a woman who is an Islamic Feminist before you decide she knows shit about shit because she’s just a man-bashing feminist/witless tool of Islamic Patriarchy and crap all over her in your Egalitarian Western Way? No, thought not. Because HERE we respect women you dumb cows! OK?

Sometimes p.m.s…

I used to think p.m.s was a load of codswallop. I’d never experienced and being an arrogant teenager I felt it was just an excuse for bad behaviour (because if *I* didn’t experience it, it *couldn’t* be real, right?).

Then after I gave birth to my son I had periodic startling periods of feeling so low and flat – just out of the blue – that I thought perhaps I had some kind of depression issue. Eventually I realised (after several years of this happening monthly) that this coincided with my periods. I had a low ’stretch’ of time, a short reprieve, my periods, two days of sickness then back to ‘normal’.

I’ve found that it has varied over different stages of my life – on certain types of pill it changed and I felt aggressively angry just before my period, on other pills I found it somewhat stabilised though I had severe headaches for two days before my period. Sometimes when I get my period it is sheer heady relief, other times I’m quite ill, other times I feel unexpectedly sad for a day or so. Sometimes it’s a minor intrusion on my routines, others it’s massive and takes some serious management.

Without the pill, with the accumulated knowledge of how it can affect me, and keeping an eye on the timing of my cycle, when things are running smoothly I can ‘note’ a certain sadness, connect it to the fact that it’s about a week before my period, and nothing more eventful than that comes to pass. Other times, if I am overwhelmed, stressed, sick or exhausted I find it an intensely emotional period of time: I have to ‘coach’ myself to keep going as I feel flat, low, tired, uninspired, ready to cry, like a failure, small things hit me hard, and it can seem certain that an ‘ambiguous’ comment was intended as a put-down, or I see ‘always’ and ‘never’ examples in regular behaviour ‘You never…you always…I’m always…’ when generally speaking I steer clear of ‘always/never’ stuff.

A friend has said that essentially that pms stretch of time is just one where you’re lower on resources, things that you ordinarily manage to cope with though they are legitimately hard just become that much more irritating or exhausting. That it’s actually all very understandable: women are juggling a shitload of tasks/roles and sometimes, when you add extra physical factors in you’re lower on patience: you’re just *over* it.

This month’s frankly is an arse. I’m tired – I’ve worked hard to get my son ready for high school and it’s not ‘feet up and relax’ time, the work is constant. He’s turned thirteen and while I feel happy for that I think it, in combination with starting high school is raising certain issues: I’m *tired* of being a single mum and having to be two people with only one person’s resources. I’m angry at his father for being a flacky fuckwit and not supporting miniFP in *any* way. I’m angry at having to do it all alone, I’m angry at the fucked up choices I have to keep making. I’m nervous about how it’ll turn out. I still feel wonky from a bout of food poisoning two or three weeks ago (after a six week bout of bad asthma) – my stomach sporadically feels ‘off’ and sore. I’m not getting enough sleep. I’m anxious about going back to uni and how it fits in. I’m anxious about long term plans and whether I can acheive career goals in the time I want to. I’m anxious that I’ll make a wrong decision somewhere and it’ll *cost* me. I want to be able to make certain plans but circumstances mean I can’t do that for a long time, and the decisions that affect whether I *can* are out of my hands. I wish I could simply take this time to mother/mother and work the hours I’m working and use my spare days to ensure the house and family run smoothly, or to study one subject rather than add two fourth year law subjects to the mix, but that’ll cost me. I’m anxious about the short term and the long term and it’s very hard to keep an even perspective on the issues I’m trying to think through given that the ‘low’ phase has started. It’s like you’re standing on fairly even ground usually – it’s difficult, you’re having to juggle, you’re tired, but you’re managing…then when pms is added to *bad* months/stretches of time, it’s like you’re still trying to juggle but while you have to keep your eyes up on what you’re juggling, someone’s shifting the ground around underneath you and you’re certain you’re about to fall/it’s all about to come crashing down, and that sense of uncertainty makes you continually jumpy so someone says something and you’re like ‘WHAT???What does THAT mean? Do NOT be giving me shit!’ when if you could just feel the solid ground again, catch your breath and get back to your usual juggling routine you’d be more sure of yourself so wouldn’t necessarily hear things as being negatively loaded.

It’s exhausting and feverish and it means constantly having to talk yourself down/talk yourself through. So basically I just WANT MY FUCKING PERIOD TO START. Because of course I always get to this point and go ‘Hey…sick, hormonal, anxious, tired…FUCK!!! What if I’m pregnant??’

Anyway, off to do some housework. If I can’t restore order to my mood then I’ll restore some to my room.

21st Downunder Feminists Carnival is here

Next month apparently the Carnival will be here. Which will be interesting! I’m slowly going mad with High School demands and then I realise I must have volunteered for this last year when it seemed my Feb/March would be ‘free and easy’.

Still – nothing like a challenge, eh?

A teenager in the house?

I’m off to bed for the night. But when I wake up tomorrow morning my son will be a teenager.

High School

Seriously. I don’t know how long we can keep this up.

We’re getting up an hour earlier than we used to. He’s getting home at the same time. Every night he has solid homework for *at least* two subjects. Every night. This is a kid with special needs, for whom school is exhausting in ways it simply is not for other kids.

He comes home and he’s buggered – up early, out the door carrying a massive bag (with his tiny tiny frame), off on public transport, new subjects, new ideas, more writing than I’ve ever seen him produce, new friends, new social challenges, home, unpack the bag, figure out if everything’s come home, realise he hasn’t eaten recess or lunch, quick ‘defrag’ time – ‘Tell me about your day’ (I need to get him talking so I know where things are at and so I know if he did the work, what the homework is etc). He does the homework while I rifle though the stuff he has/needs for each subject and tidy the house and cook and clean and help with homework. He finishes (under pressure) around nine. Takes him a while to get to sleep.

Get up and repeat.

We’ve done the Friday sort-out – going through the list of requirements for each subject, checking notes, diarising, list making, piles for ‘next week’, piles for ‘homework to be done over the weekend’, uniforms to wash, things to buy, things to photocopy, timetables to change (AGAIN)…

And most of you people have done this before. HOW do you keep doing it? Does it get easier? Cos right now I feel like I’ve been ‘on’ full time, all week. And this is *without* adding my study back into the mix. But if I don’t, I don’t graduate, my income doesn’t go up and I stay swimming in circles. On the other hand swimming in circles and getting him through seems better than trying to swim a ’sure course’ forward and potentially burning myself out, risking his progress, our relationship, the smooth running of the house etc. Fuck these fucking choices.

Quick hit: Sam in the City “It’s all the chick’s fault…AGAIN

Under the headline of

The 15 mistakes that ruin romance – and how to avoid them

we have a regurgitation of some dudes writing on how chicks are still single – cos they’re whiny, clingy, have baggage, are sluts, fall for the wrong type, exercise too much, exercise too little…that pretty well wraps it up.

All in all = women are all the same, men are all the same. Women are single cos they’re women and women are deeply fucked up and annoying, unlike men who are awesome and don’t need to change. And when women date arseholes, that’s because the woman is fucked up, nothing to do with the guy. QED

What are your gloomy-offfice-day pick-ups?

So I just *could not* get moving this morning. I was so tired and flat! I was reading over my journal and realised that I was sick for around 6 weeks before Melbourne, and before that was exams and before that was the breakup and before that was the stress before the breakup. My body is damned tired and I’m trying to get back into exercise, but my muscles are protesting.

So I knew I needed to trick my body into a good mood. First stop? Large strong cap with flourless chocolate cake. Still wasn’t enough. Then I put on ‘9 to 5′ by Dolly Parton and ‘Groove is in the Heart’ and I was well on my way to a reasonable mood, bouncing around in my seat and looking forward to my lunch time swim.

Just wondering what other people’s music/food solution to a funk of a mood is?

Sam in the city on ‘the orgasm gap’

I really should *never, ever, EVER* read “Sam in the City” no matter how faux-progressive she promises or tries to be.

Up front let me say I don’t have the time or the inclination to follow up on her sources and so to comment on those. This is purely about the sort of logic with which she compiles her random tidbits, gives it a title and calls it an ‘article’.

But I’ve got to wonder: of the women nowadays who believe they own their own sexuality (because they sleep with plenty of men and engage in one-night stands), who do they think owned it before? The men? Their parents? The local council?

Yes. The men, the parents, the church, society. Oh the local council oh hardy har har.

You know, despite the *tone* you even think she might inadvertently hit on a good point: that the ’sexual revolution’/'raunch culture’ has produced abundant benefits for hetero dudes and some rather mixed blessings for many hetero/bi women: giving head to a guy WHEN YOU WANT TO and feeling you’re entitled to enjoy it *is* great – but if the ‘revolution’ (for hetero women only) *only* means that they are *allowed* to play to men’s fantasies all day and every day and that meanwhile the concurrent judgments on *their* character, and the character of those who don’t enjoy it continue unabated and with often disastrous consequences, well it’s less of a revolutionary revolution, and more of a repackaged marketing ploy for masculinity and blokey consuming heterosexuality surely.

So there is a lot to be discussed in relation to the ’sexual revolution’ and women: the slut/stud dichotomy, ’slut shaming’, the right to say ‘no’ – at *any* point, and have *that* be fully respected and deferred to, as well as yes, a respect for women FULL STOP, not JUST a respect for their desires and wishes when it happens to coincide with a particular male wish that she get on her knees and enjoy it. I don’t wish to be put in the same camp as Sam here – I’m no crusader for the ‘Good women bake cookies and keep their knees TOGETHER’ camp: I want a respect for women who like it vanilla and a respect for women who like it kinked to the hilt, respect for women enough to know that they all might like it in all kinds of ways/not at all depending on time/context/various considerations, respect for women enough to know that sexual desires and sex acts *do not define them as a type of person*, respect for women monogamous and poly, single and into casual sex, I want respect for women in the sex industry, and for women who don’t like sex at all at all ever, who consider themselves asexual and I want respect for gay/bi/trans* women, I want respect for rights to choose to *be* sexual at any given time and to choose *not* to be sexual/sexualised at any given time.

You’d hope that Sam would be getting into this sort of stuff, but no. It’s a bit of a rant about how the dudes are lapping up the benefits ‘from the club to the bedroom’ – ie/ all dudes are the same, all men exploit, all stripping is exploitation, all sex is exploitation of women, women ‘gift’ sex ‘to’ men, well Hey there Tony Abbott.

While the men are calling these women “loose” (not empowered), the women are failing to understand what the fuss is all about.

“Why can’t I have sex like a man?” they ask. “I have sexual needs too!” the women lament. “But I wanted it just as much as he did … so what’s the freakin’ problem?”

To Tony Abbott, virginity is a “precious gift” that should not be thrown away … least of all before marriage. But to the rest of the women engaging in casual sex, aside from swapping a slew of sexual diseases and feeling used and low the following day, there’s another issue that no amount of casual sex or “owning female sexuality” can combat: “the orgasm gap”, denoting the fact that women are not getting their fair share of pleasure in the bedroom.

Ok now STOP. You’ve lost me and left me in a blind funk of rage before you even introduce your topic du jour. Excuse me while I ask a couple of short clarifying questions:

a/ The rest of the women engaging in casual sex? Is Tony Abbott a woman engaging in casual sex? Or…well what does it mean?

b/ SWAPPING A SLEW OF SEXUAL DISEASES????? Holy FUCK lady! You’re trying to negotiate the flaws of the ’sexual revolution’ and you decide that all women who ‘engage’ in casual sex are not only SLUTS, but DIRTY, DISEASE RIDDEN, DISEASE SPREADING MENACE-TO-SOCIETY SLUTS??? And you want me to take you seriously as trying to engage with an issue of the imbalance of power between men and women

c/ ‘feeling used and low the following day’. Uh…presume a lot will you? The only way you can assume that a woman MUST feel used and low the day after casual sex is if you think we are all the same, emotion over body, desiring a miraculous love from every shag, secretly wanting marriage and babies where we foolishly deluded ourselves into thinking we wanted to fuck.

So okay, let’s engage with ‘the orgasm gap’ shall we? Personally I think Lily Allen said it better (hat tip to WP and her choice of ‘It’s Not Fair’ at Hoyden Karaoke last weekend) and with much more space for complexity and nuance. It’s entirely possible to love someone who still doesn’t ‘get you off’ – and entirely possible that while you might love them that it’s problem enough for you to resent it and potentially move on – that it’s a legitimate concern to have. And lest I (or Allen) be considered bitchy and judgmental and ‘down on men’ the song is *not* about men trying and failing to achieve a female orgasm for their partner, it is about this guy just not caring about her orgasm – she puts in, he gets off, that’s it for him. Say hello to a frank discussion of ‘the orgasm gap’ – do we have to call it that? It makes me think about hiring policies and employees. Though where the scenario Allen describes is in play, some affirmative action might not go astray.

Researchers from Stanford University have discovered that, while the men are getting off most of the time with a big climax and a smile on their faces, the women engaging in casual sex and random hook-ups are being left without a happy ending (let alone a follow-up phone call!).

I’d be interested to see how much better the researchers found that women in long term relationships were doing in terms of getting what they need from men, but as I said I don’t have time to go hunt all that down right now, and anyway, her presentation of it is horrific enough.

As Paula England, a professor of sociology at Stanford University, recently said, “The orgasm gap is an inequity that’s as serious as the pay gap, and it’s producing a rampant culture of sexual asymmetry.” Yeouch.

(As a side note, I really think ‘Sam’ uses ‘Yeouch’ as a substitute for ‘I simply do not understand this sentence or have the faintest idea of how to meaningfully engage with it’).

Can I just note before moving on that it can only be seen as an issue ‘as serious as the pay gap’ in the context of FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS – I’m ALL FOR orgasms, I’m like ‘Go orgasms, it’s your birthday’ or something to that effect (sorry Willow for butchering Willow-talk). And it is indeed bullshit, and I think it does have major implications for sex, for (hetero) relationships, and (hetero) hookups, for heterosexuality etc, and plays into all kinds of serious stuff.  But really – and here I guess I’m broadening pay gap to include sweat shop labour/lowly paid menial tasks etc – you can still feed/house/cloth/seek medical attention if you don’t have enough orgasms, and it’s somewhat harder without money. YES – serious issue. But yes, undue conflation as far as I can see. Any counter arguments? Happy to hear them.

When it comes to returning favours, the women aren’t getting much satisfaction either, with the study finding that women dish out oral sex during 80 per cent of hook-ups, while the men do it back only 40 per cent of the time.

So what’s going on?

Michael Kimmel, author of Guyland, says it’s largely the women’s fault and equates it to doing the housework.

“Men don’t pull their weight on either front because no one makes them,” he says.

A/ giving oral sex is not always about favours, but can be intensely pleasurable for the giver, however B/ yes, I imagine in a lot of hetero relationships there is an inequality in attentiveness which is definitely not cool. But as to WHY is it a big mystery? Hello there partiarchy, male entitlement and the idea that sex is all about the dude blowing his wad. HOW THE HELL CAN YOU TURN THIS INTO A SUPER-SLEUTH ISSUE? and of course, without undue delay C/ OF COURSE IT’S FUCKING WELL WOMEN’S FAULT – IT ALWAYS IS FOR SAM’S “EXPERTS”!!!

But back to the WOTS. Owning your own sexuality and dishing out oral sex are all about choice. Of course no one wants to feel bad about themselves the following day when they discover that doing it like a man wasn’t as easy or fulfilling as they were once led to believe.

The solution?

By Christ woman! Is it (and I would strongly suggest the affirmative) AT ALL possible that the issue is not that ‘doing it like a man’ wasn’t as easy or fulfilling as we were led to believe, but perchance that doing it with particular men (and indeed for many women with men full stop) is not as easy or fulfilling as we are constantly TOLD to believe?

The solution? Well may I suggest a few – sex with women, sex on your own, sex on your own terms, sex where if the guy is REALLY gonna roll over once he’s ‘done’ that the deal is he well and truly looks after you first, sex with guys if you enjoy sex with guys with men who are NOT selfish bastards? Frank discussions? Ditching men who don’t care, since as Allen says ‘It’s not fair and I think you’re really mean!’ – see despite the slamming of feminists as anti-men, FEMINISTS can point out that NOT ALL MEN just ‘fuck’ you, come and roll over – that there are many men out there who are caring and attentive, sexually generous and secure AND that there are for women multiple options in terms of WHO they have sex with, how, when and under what conditions they do it – and hey, that’s true just as much in casual encounters as relationships I’d wager. I’m not suggesting that it’s easy for women to negotiate these things, cos ‘Hello patriarchy’ but I am honestly sick to fucking death of Sam insisting that a/ all women are straight b/ all men are straight c/ all men are selfish pigs and can’t be expected to *change* that…oh there are so many generalisations I’d be here all day cataloging them.

The one guy who suggests that men in this scenario might want to make some effort has this to say:

“Always call a woman the day after sleeping with her and make her feel good about having let go with you – even if you don’t want to see her again or she doesn’t want to see you again.

And just when you thought *that* was offensive – don’t you know, take time and care to ensure she enjoys everything as much as you, just call her cos she doesn’t really want orgasms, she’s just insecure and needs a call – you get to his REASON for the suggestion:

Don’t ruin her for other guys.”

And THAT is the fucking ball game right there. It’s not about her, it’s never about her, it’s about you, your cock and looking out for other dudes. Chicks are just the commodities you trade.

Fuck you Sam, and fuck your fucking ‘experts’.

Child support

So miniFP’s dad has never paid regular or in any way substantial child support. For years there was nothing, then sporadically he’d call and promise the world and I’d see a couple of $50 payments then the novelty would wear off.

I did say ‘I don’t care about the money, get yourself together and be there for miniFP’, however how you can just not give a fuck whether your child has enough to eat (AND not be around, AND move to Germany) is totally beyond me.

For years I’ve left it to ‘fate’ – I’ve never called the CSA to get them to chase it up. Once, years ago, there was a mysterious $1000 deposit. It was backpayments they’d chased from him – given his allocated rate was $27 a month, that tells you how long it’d been since he bothered forwarding an amount that covers say miniFP’s bus fares, or my banking fees and a couple of loaves of bread. Per fucking month. And do you know what happened then? It turned out his Mummy had paid the money and expected me to psychically devine this fact and to call her and THANK her! Uh…sure…thanks lady for bailing out your dickwad of a son. Thanks for providing what HE should have. Thanks so fucking much for being so very kind as to loan to your idiot son what he was OBLIGED to pay towards his child’s support: guess what? It’s not a fucking gift!

Bitter? Whatever. Angry? Hell, yes.mIt’s just that when you call yourself a father and you dare to get up in my face about how AWFUL it was *for you* when you nipped back from Germany to marry your new wife and you (for the first time in your child’s life) picked him up from school to take him to your wedding and found he was enrolled (gasp) under my last name (hey, I raised him on my own since he was nine months, it was MY hair he vomited into sick with asthma, MY feet he shat all over after bowel problems) you’d kind of think that you might have trouble sleeping at night (or at least be too ashamed to have a fucking screaming tantrum at me on the first day of your honeymoon) if you had been withholding the measly fucking $27 a month you were supposed to pay because you’re a liar and a lazy shit and evade paid work so you don’t have to be arsed either working or paying for a tiny fraction of your kid’s food. And when miniFP cries himself to sleep at night because his Dad can’t be bothered being a Dad (to him), and because his little brother won’t remember him next time you’re out on a flying visit your parents pay for, and you haven’t contributed financially are you even there to hug him better? No, I really didn’t think so.

So today I called the CSA for the first time in what? Over a decade. Just to check in, just to say ‘Hey, you know that piss poor amount? Well you know, I’ve just about bankrupted myself again trying to give miniFP a halfway decent start to highschool, do you think you could call FuckFace and ask what’s up with that?’.

Turns out they’ve been calling, they’ve been talking, they’ve been trying to sort something out. To hear what I wonder? “Well I really can’t be bothered you see! For me to support my first born son (even nominally) I’d have to cut back on the fags and…well…I like them…a lot. So I think I will not thanks”.

Go on. Talk to me about how unfairly biased towards women the legal system/child support system is. I double fucking dare you.