“Rainy days and Mondays/Misogyny always get me down”

I live not too far from my boyfriend. Sometimes he stays here. Sometimes I stay there. Mid week though, sometimes I’ll pop over for some quality time and either he’ll drive me home, or I’ll walk.

One night a few visits ago, I got wigged about the walk home. It was particularly late and I had one of those granny carts with me, with a squeaky wheel, and I wasn’t wearing my ’stealthy shoes’…I couldn’t quite articulate why I’d been fine to walk home other nights, but not this one. But I managed the whole “I’m not feeling comfortable about the walk past the bush” explanation…which is true…but not all of the story, not that I even had *words* for what the story was…I just knew I didn’t wanna walk that night, and it wasn’t about tiredness/convenience.

Walking over there tonight (before it got dark) in a shortish dress I suddenly realised what was bothering me. In this dress suddenly men are tooting and honking and staring – not cos I look particularly hot, just cos “Chick. Bare legs!”, so I was pondering masculinity and the consequent strange attitudes to women – take a random sample of passers by and they’ll perve and honk at my 30+ legs which are blindingly white and show my love for food, but in another setting those same dudes will absolutely slag women my age for daring to show their thighs in public. So one minute my thighs are “Woohoo – sexy”, next minute their cause for nausea, all dependant on…what exactly? The mood of the guy? The company he’s in?

Anyway (bear with my rambling brain) I started to think of baring my thighs in summer as activism, that’s right ppl, check em out…they’re curvy, and pretty well shaped, but they’re also squidgy (which, let’s be honest, feels pretty nice) and white – they don’t look like Barbie legs, and I’m not gonna forgo a doughnut if I feel like one, spend hours at the gym then fake tan it up before I feel I have the *right* to bare legs in summer. It’s HOT in Australia in summer! So I figure, right…bare the thighs more often, the more often ppl see ‘real’ thighs, *perhaps* the more they’ll realise the ideals are…are, like totally fucking ridiculous…right? Maybe? *Sigh* Probably not. Whatevs.

Anyway, I also felt kinda naked in this short dress, exposed, like you know, it might be taken as an invite to attack me for me to walk..alone…in a dress which happens to be shortish…in summer…in Australia, where we like to point the finger at everyone else for having bad attitudes towards women, conveniently ignoring our own damning stats. I hated that it crossed my mind…but I dunno. I’ve read the rape cases…and *BAM* – just like that it hit me. Part of the reason I don’t wanna walk home at night in the dark after visiting my boyfriend? Semen. It will still be on my body, and say if I get raped (a possibility always on my mind when I walk alone at night) and the medical examination finds my boyfriend’s semen as well as that of whoever attacked me…that gets raised in court. I’ve read this shit. The implication seems to be, well, slut, if you had sex once tonight, then walked around on your own, you’ve only got yourself to blame, cos a/ if you did it once you’re clearly *up for it, no questions asked* (they never do seem to distinguish between sex and rape) and/or b/well, men are like rabid dogs, and they’ll smell *sex* on you and then, well, we can’t expect them to be responsible for their behaviour or act like decent human beings, can we?

Anyone who thinks I’m being a psycho bitch feminist? I defy you – read the effing rape cases and then get back to me. Read the sentencing of Bilal Skaaf (the guy accused of ‘masterminding’ a series of organised gang rapes across Sydney) if you please, where in distinguishing the actions of these men who organised by mobile phones, the judge was at pains to distinguish it from other (less repugnant goes the implication) gang rape cases where drunken men *siezed an opportunity that presented itself*. You! Women? That’s what you are to the legal system…an opportunity to rape. If you’re there and they ’seize the opportunity’…well…what can we say? Unlucky girls…you presented the ‘opportunity’.

So, y’know..it gets to me. I walk home from my boyfriend’s house at night – which is actually a damned pleasant walk in summer – and the legal system that’s meant to protect me as well, since, you know, it *claims* to be all neutral and protect everyone equally, has cast me, by their own comments in rape cases as an opportunity to rape, who deserves it for being a slut in a short dress who had sex once already that day.

More on this (more well thought out, I promise) sometime soon. Tonight I’m going to bed.

And the people called “Total Bullshit”

As it was prophesied, so it came to pass that on November 24, the good people of Australia united in a fervent cry of “I call total bullshit, Howard”.

And it was a beautiful sound. And the Lord saw that it was good that Howard be defeated with abundant humiliation. And all the people rejoiced singing praises to the shiny happy faces of Rudd, Gillard and McKew. And the people danced like Maxine and shouted that henceforth should this date (and this dance) be known as wonderful, and they decreed that all their sentences should start with “and”, and not “x is” like on the evil Facebook.

And the techno-fool whose name is sometimes called Fuckpoliteness prophesied that soon in this very place would appear a vision (complete with drunken camera work and foolhardy left wing commentary) of that moment where Howard was cast down and Rudd raised up in his place – so it shall be when the effect of the spirits wear off and she can function without tears of exhaustion, hysteria and joy.

Thus spaketh Fuckpoliteness and all those who see good.

(Translation?? Howard lost the election: “Suffer in the jock area, arsewipe”)

What she said

Below is the link for an article which pretty much sums up the attitudes of those people in Australia who have spent the last eleven years protesting, worrying, ranting and writing about their concerns with the ethics and the implications of the policies of the Howard Government.

 This Saturday we go to the polls in what is an absolutely monumental election, so much turns on the outcome of our votes. There is only one more sleep and I am not sure *how* I will get myself to sleep tonight. I am at work, trying to focus, but my palms are sweaty, there are butterflies in my tummy, I am excited and nervous.

 Anyway, I could use my work time to write an article on exactly what this election means to me, and to the future of this country, but a/ my bosses would prefer I get the fuck on with my work, and b/ I doubt I could say it any better than the article you can link to below.

 Brought tears to my eyes…all you social justice advocates and lefties not in Australia, all you bloggers and readers concerned with ethics and equity, keep everything crossed for a Liberal defeat (nay, a smashing) tomorrow…the implications of this election will be enormous, and will have huge effects on many of the most vulnerable groups in our society…so please, please, please, wish us luck!!!

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/11/20/1195321779089.html

Talk to you after the election!

What sort of country do we want to be?

A quick rant on bureaucracy

Given that I have a child with special needs, and given that his father has fucked off overseas, and has never paid child support (oh, sorry I lie, he does pay $20 a month which covers my bank fees), the Government gives me some financial support to acknowledge the fact that, as a single mum, I’m kinda rooted prospects wise.

 

So I’ve taken that assistance and have finished a degree, I am halfway through a second and I have, by hard work, luck, support, privilege and bloody mindedness found a job which is not casual, which is reasonably flexible, which pays reasonably well (any work means you lose almost all of your benefits mind you).

 

Recently the Government decided to make changes to the Welfare system (in general, let’s save the truly evil changes to Welfare legislation regarding Indigenous families being cut off for another post).

Now…dig this…the Government will give you 8 grand if you have kids. The Government WANTS more kids in the country – not Asylum Seekers children mind you, nor kids raised by same sex parents, nor kids raised by one parent (when the courts decided that it was in fact discrimination to refuse to allow same sex couples or single women to access IVF treatment, the Government granted special dispensation for the Catholic Church -!!!- to go before the Court as an ‘interested party’ to argue against such access marking an alarming collapse of the boundaries of separating religion and politics). The Government wants women to stay at home, they are big on marriage and have devised and implemented tax breaks which reward marriage and raising children within marriage, tax breaks which work when the woman stays home and does her job. The Government doesn’t (or didn’t until they realized they were going *down* this election – please, please, pleae) support paid maternity leave. So they want more kids, but only within the context of heterosexual marriage. They argue they are being supportive of women’s choices (their choice to stay at home and look after their family, not so much their choice to have kids and a career, or a career and no kids)…but even if we believed them, this doesn’t stand up in the face of the new laws for Welfare.

 

Under these new laws, parents raising a child on their own  must undertake at least fifteen hours of paid work a week once their child turns six – study does not count. When the laws were introduced it was on the premise that those already on the benefits would not be affected….this turned out not to be true, and was a major factor in my decision not to start Honours, and to instead go find ‘real work’. (With a Bachelor of Arts and a High Distinction average, with my lecturers and tutors telling me I could succeed in postgraduate studies and beyond, I got a job first in a pharmacy, then making sandwhiches in a deli.)

Now there are two issues here: the political and the personal. Politically I am infuriated that parents who are trying to do their best for their child have their ability to make choices about how best to parent said children taken away from them or at the least drastically limited by the requirement of finding fifteen hours work a week.  If study counted towards this “Activity Requirement” that would be one thing. But it doesn’t. We don’t want single mums getting uppity ideas now. So work….fifteen hours huh? Well with a six year old you probably don’t want to be working full time if you don’t have the support of a partner to work with you around school drop offs, pick ups, cooking, cleaning, time with your child etc. So part-time? A-ha-hah-hah…good one! Permanent part-time work in Howards new ‘work choices’ environment? No, casual is what you’ll be looking at.

 

As a veteran of casual work let me say it goes like this: “Sure you can have exactly fifteen hours working around your kids hours at school…though…you work quite well. Could you stay back tonight? And tomorrow night? What’s that?? No?? Well I can totally let you go if you’d prefer…oh good. Thanks. Also, it’d work better for me if you could do these hours, and perhaps take on an extra day. But mmm…business is slow this week, I don’t need you til Thursday. Oh I’m sorry to hear you kid is in the hospital. But gee I’m glad I don’t have to pay you sick leave.” Oh yeah – under the new legislation? You aren’t allowed to leave a job for any reason that the Government doesn’t approve of, and issues of ‘unfair’ requirements or family commitments don’t count as reasonable. If you leave a job your payments can be suspended for eight weeks. That is enough time to be evicted. For your child to go without medicine while sick. Not to mention what this kind of stress does to a parent.

 

So politically I think it is appalling to punish people for parenting a child on their own, and really, to punish their children. Could we for once step aside from the moralistic bullshit finger wagging of A Current Affairs et al and ask the question “But what sort of society do wewanna be?” Do we want to be a society who brands single parents as welfare milkers popping out babies for cash? Do we want to then put children of single parents at risk by creating real risks of extreme poverty? Do we want to put these kids at risk by putting their parents under such strain that inevitably there will be negative repercussions on their parent’s physical and mental health? Or do we want to say we live in a democracy, and as such there are some families who will need our support. If we support them properly they will take part in supporting others? Just a thought, just throwing it out there…I really think we’ve lost sight of the question of “What sort of country do we want to be” right across the board in contemporary Australain politics and society and I think that our failure to keep that question in mind will haunt us for a long time to come.

 

Now…the political aspect is appalling, and I hope like hell that Labor has a plan to help single parents gain access to education and childcare to help them build real prospects, rather than dangling financial ruin over their heads to scare them into casual jobs floorsweeping while their kids stay home alone.

But the initial point of this blog was just the supreme, bungling idiocy that is welfare bureaucracy.  Even if you accepted the premise that it’s ok to do this to people (punish them for not being married, punish their kids for having one parent) take a moment to ponder the ridiculousness of the following:

About once a fortnight I get a call saying I MUST attend a day long seminar at the Centrelink office (45 minutes away on public transport). If I do not, my payments will be cut.

I call, I explain, slowly and patiently that I work five days a week. They say, “Sure, well, we can reschedule, but you will have to attend one of these seminars”.

I ask “Why? What is it about?”. They say, “It’s about the new changes to Social Security laws”. I say “Oh, I know all about that, as soon as they came in I researched them and contacted Welfare Rights”. They say, “You will still have to attend.” I say I can’t as I am working five days a week. They say, “Ok, we’ll call to reschedule”. (Is your brain bleeding yet? Having flashbacks to the Who’s on First skit?)

About a week later I field a call (at work) from a different staff member. I explain again that no, I can’t really see the point in taking a day off work to travel across town to sit in a crowded room to hear someone explain in little words something I know about already.

They say “Oh but you also have to sign a Participation Agreement” – I say “What for?”, they say, “To say you will look for fifteen hours work a week”…[pause] “I work twice that already on a permanent basis” they say “If you don’t sign this agreement your payments could be cut. So, let me get this straight. I have to take a day off from work to go to an office far away to hear a speech about something I already know about and sign a piece of paper that says I will do *half* of what I am already doing??? Aaaaaand – then they said, “You will also have to start coming to the office each fortnight to tell us what you earned that fortnight”…[long pause]…[in brain]: You fuckers realise what permanent part time means right? Means I get the same amount week in and week out, if I am sick, on holidays, at work, at a funeral, WHATEVER…I. STILL. EARN. THE SAME. AMOUNT. EVERY. FUCKING. FORTNIGHT…so you could save us all some time, talk to my bosses and we don’t have to chat except a couple of times a year…but now you want me to drop down in my hours or take time off work, to come and tell you to your face the amount I’ve earned this fortnight which is, has always been, will always be the SAME???

WTF.

 

So seriously I was ready to snap when I fielded another call at work.  In the end I was so angry I was about to say “I tell you what, I will write you a fucking essay on the new laws, on the pros and cons and the social implications, comparing and contrasting it with the laws that went before – if at the end of that I get a mark of less than 85%, I will attend, nay I will GIVE the seminar and bake cookies for all who attend”…close to death by aneurism I choke out my issues reminding myself it isn’t this woman’s fault…and she says “Oh, hey, how about I post you out your participation agreement?”[stunned silence]

“Um, yes, that would be great” (it’s only taken 12 months at least fifteen calls to come up with this brainstorm). Then I broach the reporting, carefully, quietly (as if I am talking to a dangerous animal) “Um…since I work five days a week, and I have a child with special needs and I don’t drive…is it possible to keep reporting over the phone?” [since it’s the same fucking amount each fortnight anyway]…she says “Yes, you would be eligible to keep reporting by phone.”

 

FUCK!!!! I mean, totally I’m doing the crazy happy dance of relief…but really…should it have been that hard??? And really…I am fucking lucky. What of all those people out there working casual work, whose hours change and who are subject to the moods and whims of their bosses, who have to trek across town to do what can be done over the phone (and what do they do with their kids in this time, and what if they work five days, when do they get the time to do it?), or who are harassed by their bosses and quit to have their payments cut. It is pretty hard to save for a rainy day on welfare. Who get sacked unfairly and have no redress if they work for a small company? Whose hourly rate went down when the new laws came in? Whose kids are sick or suspended from school so they lose their job?

 

What sort of country do we wanna be? What sort of future do we wanna create? Do we really wanna be the country that says *some kids* deserve to be looked after and have a happy experience of childhood, and some don’t because their parents aren’t married? Or do we wanna stop this bullshit of dividing society into deserving and less deserving, stop painting welfare as handouts to bludgers and start looking back to ideas of assistance to ensure adequate care and futures of promise? Do we wanna punish single parents or help them to be the best parents we can? Do we wanna play talkback radio/current affairs scaremongering and hatefests or do we wanna say none of that matters, what matters is the sort of country we want to be and we want to hold our heads high and say we look after people, we look after each other? And this? Just the tip of the iceberg.

 

What sort of country do we wanna be? One where First Australians are ignored, silenced, reduced to a ’special category’ rather than given self determination and the chance to be actively included in plannning and shaping the future of Australia. One in which Indigenous health and mortality rates are ignored, or treated as an Indigenous problem rather than a national health crisis? Where our response to concerns raised over Indigenous children’s welbeing is met by slapping some more laws down rather than funding more resources? Or one where we say “We have failed, we will do all we can to redress inequality, to improve access to resources, to listen, to raise health standards by extra service provision, to tailor education to specific needs, to offer scholarships, to heed the Indigenous activists, doctors, lawyers, authors who are asking us to listen and act”? One where we say “Wasn’t me” or where we say “I’m sorry”. One where we lock kids up in the desert for years at a time because their parents brought them here looking for a better life? Or one that says “We can do better than this for fellow human beings”? One who says “Well, fuck the rule of law, David Hicks was definately doing something dodgy”, or one where we fight for the protections offered by following due process? One where deaths in custody get swept under the rug, or one where we have as many inquests as it takes until it stops? We need to stop looking at each other and pointing the finger, stop shouting about special interest groups, and lefties and dole bludgers and queue jumpers and ask ourselves, really, really ask ourselves what sort of country do we want to be?

I’m not Erin Brokovitch, I’m not a hero, I’m still not a bad mum.

One of the things I wanted to mention is that I’m the single mum of a special needs child. I’ve been thinking a bit about the ways in which parents of children with special needs write/talk about their children. It’s like if we want to discuss it being difficult we need to preface it with a long spiel about how precious our child is to us, how much we love them, as if that is in some kind of doubt, as if raising our frustrations puts our status as loving parent in doubt.

Trying to write without doing the same kind of prefacing feels a bit wierd. (And let me be clear that I am not having a go at parents for doing it – I get it, I think it is the same kind of instinct that makes me get apologetic when explaining Autism, because so often people don’t ‘believe’ you) But I guess I’m wondering what would be so wrong with a parent/caregiver talking straight out about how difficult it is in a really direct, matter of fact way. 

I was thinking about it when a friend was telling me about her take on the Steiner view of Autism – they feel that Autistic children are angels in human form. I laughed and said “Well sometimes the ‘angel’ is Lucifer” – but seriously, beyond a quip I do wanna make some points about this. It’s pretty condescending, to the parents and to the child.

I do wanna know if anyone who says this has ever had to contend with a child screaming bloodcurdling screams of rage and frustration for two hours because you insist they go to the bathroom before bed.

I wonder if they’ve looked at their child, and seen the ’snap’ that seems to happen, the moment at which you know there is nothing you can do to get your child ‘back’ in the conversation, that they have gone to a totally ‘other’ place? I wonder how many of them have experienced a child being unable to cope with physical affection? With flies? Unable to sleep til midnight on a regular basis?

I wonder how many of them are judged on the behaviour of a ten year old in their care who cannot wield cutlery properly?

To step away from my experience (and I will be going back) – try telling some kid with Autism they are an Angel in human form when every day contains so much confusion, so many hurdles and difficulties, when often the cannot understand the words and behaviours of other people or make themselves understood?

I just don’t know how many times carers get to tell their stories without it being turned into a straight to tv midday screened fucking telemovie – I can see it now, I’d be cast as some kinda matyr – an Erin Brokovitch…the scenes with my child would be set to oh-so-soft, heartwrenching background music. And what would happen? Everyone would go “Oh, how brave”.

Of course I would be played by some impossibly beautiful woman with a colt-like figure, a beautiful sadness in her eyes, but obviously not the bags that are there in real life, obviously not the look I *do* get on my face when I have migraines or muscle cramps. That’s not pretty. My son would be pictured drawing, little heroic battler, played by some child with longish hair and big eyes, prone to silent staring (my son is not, and god love him I sometimes wish he would be cos I could do with a few minutes of silence). Of course, as in Ms Brokovitch’s case, I’d be a smart-arse to the bikie with a heart of gold who lived next door, who would fall for me in five minutes, make himself the carer in my place, love my child as much as I did and sacrifice his lifestyle for mine so that I could pursue a glamorous career ending ultimately in the perfect work/life balance where we’d all live together happily ever after. Ask yourself how realistic a scenario this is when there are times *I* don’t even want to be around my son’s behaviours.

Now, no doubt – children with special needs and parents and carers who care for them should be acknowledged for the massive challenges they face and handle. But romanticising in the telemovie way turns it into some kind of hero narrative, which seems to me to take the focus off the issues at hand, of struggle and lack of support, of exhaustion and loneliness.

I don’t know why I feel like this needs to be said, but I do think personal narratives that lay it out there are valuable. I didn’t sleep properly for about seven years. I got continual headaches, back aches, muscle cramps etc for most of that time. I developed anxiety issues after years of lack of sleep and played chicken and egg trying to figure out if they were the result of my life circumstances, or if they were latent issues. The lack of sleep and the frustration of hitting a point where I felt like I was snapping at my child all the time, combined with the pressure of balancing time with him, working to earn money and pay bills and trying to finish my studies pushed me to a point where one night I again couldn’t sleep and I had the fleeting flash of thought “If I killed myself this would stop”. This isn’t a personalised plea for help. You don’t need to call the Department of Community Services. I took that pretty seriously and two years later haven’t had the same thought. The ‘drama’ of that moment isn’t the point.

The point is that special needs kids and their carers do not get the support that they need institutionally or financially, and strong, capable, loving parents are being ground down ever day. The point is also that when we are expected to keep our stories ‘nice’ and ‘cuddly’, when we are expected to sanitise the narrative or run the risk of being branded a ‘bad parent’, a ‘concern’, or being accused of not adequately loving our child, part of the pain, frustration and exhaustion is missed out on. I don’t want to be feted as Erin Brokovitch, but I do want people to understand what it is really like, what it is like to look at a child you have loved with ferocity since before they were born, to look at a child you decided to raise in a positive, loving way and just want so much for their behaviour to stop for two seconds so you could hear yourself think that your blood pressure is through the roof, you are shouting, you lose your temper completely, you know you’re making it worse but you just keep going because the snowball effect of living with never ending frustration and agitation have to have an outlet sometime. I want them to know that the most reasonable, loving, positive parents in the world, parents who delighted in parenting every day, can get ground so far down that they have flashes where they have a sudden urge to slap their child to shock them enough to stop, and have to fight hard not to give into it, or that they get so desperate from lack of sleep that a person who loves life, abhors the idea of suicide suddenly has a flash through their brain of “If I killed myself this would stop” scaring the bejeezus out of them. And my son’s issues are mild on the Autistic spectrum.

I don’t have the solution – I don’t have to, I’m busy coping and working hard at building a succesful life for myself and my son. I’m just telling you what it’s like and that I believe that sharing these sorts of stories has value in clarifying for others what it’s like, and for people who go through it to relate to. I don’t think we should have to sanitise it in order to feel like we are capable, amazing parents. I wrote half this post a week or so ago. I wrote the rest because on a day where I have come home from work sick with exhaustion and feeling fragile, planning my son’s favourite meal which takes forever, he’s lost the plot because he can’t make a rubber band ball, and after forty minutes of continual whinging which was tipping me over the edge I asked him again, firmly to please go into his room as I needed some headspace. So he’s spent a few minutes angrily throwing a ball against a wall in the hallway for five minutes, and now that I’ve asked him to stop, he’s slammed the door to his room and is probably trashing it. Dinner is still on the stove, I won’t get the headspace I needed, and there is no white knight/happily ever after scenario by which a magic wand is waved and all my problems are solved.

I call total bullshit

Reading the wonderful M.LeBlanc on BitchPhD I came across the phrase above “I call total bullshit” – I love it. It’s so friggin direct, and it brings to mind the card game which is a nice allegory for politics at the moment. You can just see them at the table, thinking, shit I am lying my arse off but if they buy it….wooHOO!

Since the time drew nigh for this latest Australian Federal Election the Coalition (Liberal/National parties) has announced that, if elected, they will *do something* about climate change – not sign Kyoto, not specify what exactly they *would do*, but they would do something and it would be BIG, allright?? How dare you doubt the government who refused (and still refuses) to sign Kyoto, who advocate(d/s) the building of nuclear processing facilities, who supported uranium mining in Kakadu?? Frankly Howard is insulted by your pessimism and doubt.

Also, Howard has now changed his tune on *special interest groups* – you know, women, the poor, gays and lesbians, and well, the actual owners of this land we call Australia, Indigenous Australians. How? Well, no, he’s absolutely still going through with the military occupation of certain Aboriginal Communities, and no he isn’t about to change the laws banning alcohol (or get them printed into Indigenous languages, and make efforts to ensure that people KNOW why they are being arrested). Nor, if elected, will he say “sorry”, as in his *white male hetero wisdom* he’s decided that it’s purely symbolic, and what’s needed is practical reconciliation – ie/more Aboriginals in jail than ever before. “We ain’t done yet! The Howard brand of practical reconciliation has more to do”. (See You Just Think That Because You’re a Radical post for the attachment outlining what the Howard government has *really* done for “practical reconciliation” in this country)

Suddenly after refusing to engage with the issue Howard has announced that, if fucking electedthere will be 12 months of paid maternity leave for all women. Hallelujah right? NO…the Government will not be paying for this, the business will…now given that we know that many businesses either cannot or consider that they cannot afford to pay this, the inevitable outcome will be discrimination against women of childbearing age (which, let’s face it, extends from adolescence, to late forties) in favour of men. So the Government looks good for supporting this (after 11 years of refusing to) without having to do a SINGLE THING, and the upshot? More discrimination. Oh you are a true friend of women Howard. Of course, as my conservative boss pointed out (tongue in cheek) Howard could merely be trying to help out the women over childbearing age – though you know, if you’ve been unable to build your career in any way before that, what exactly are your chances of getting a job in your fifties?

Now he’s announced an end to the discrimination against same sex partners in terms of superannuation access – that’s right, if elected. BullSHIT Howard – you have said you are *conservatively tolerant* to gays, I’m not sure if you’d even know what transgendered meant, and at the last minute you are Lord of the Gays by announcing that you *will* do exactly what you promised three years ago and didn’t fucking deliver on? Excuse me if I don’t swallow your horseshit point scoring. If you meant it, you would have done it already…and quite frankly given your loose relationship with the truth in general evidenced over the last eleven years, and specifically the fact you promised to do this three years ago and haven’t I DON’T BELIEVE YOU!

In each of these areas, he has taken a tokenistic stance. After damaging the cause of reconciliation irreperably, he now wants to use it as a slogan to get re-elected, but not if it will cost him anything. He has commited to paid maternity leave – to SOMEONE ELSE (business) paying, someone we already know WON’T pay, someone we’ve given free reign to with Work Choices. And he’s now trying to trade off a broken promise to establish his gay-cred. Wow. Too little far too fucking late? I’m sorry, but you simply CANNOT actively disparage and ignore and damage communities you have maintained are dangerous *special interest groups* that Australia *will not and should not* be *beholden to* and then expect me to believe the cards in your hand are what you say they are. We KNOW BETTER ARSEHOLE! On the 24th November this year you are going to hear a resounding cry of I CALL TOTAL BULLSHIT.

Sam does Sam

So Sam in the City fashions herself after Carrie Bradshaw, despite lacking any of the wit and charm of that character, and despite being a truly awful writer. However, she holds herself out as something of an ‘expert’ (ahem) on the ‘issues’ of the modern [read hetero, 'post-feminist' - ie anti-feminist] women, dating and sex. This usually manifests itself as such cliched crap as when it’s “okay” to kiss or have sex on a first date, irritating in itself as even this less “serious” topic is laden with gender expectations, implications about your moral character and the future of any relationship should you kiss or (god forbid) fuck on your first date.  

The thing (correction, one of the things) that shits me about her posts are that she frequently bites off more than she can chew – in fact, more than she ever fucking INTENDED to chew. So, what she’ll do is crap on for a few sentences, throw out an age old gender cliche, ask two or three fuckwits she knows what they think, make a couple of shithouse assertions,then opens it up to let the masses. She also frequently seems to be the apologist for women’s existence, taking up the “men’s position”, or rather, the fuckwitted males position before they need to do it for themselves. As in her conclusion that women are attracted to power, men to looks, her hints to men on how to ‘reel a woman in’ by manipulation of emotions etc.

So today?? “Do ex-wives (or husbands) deserve 50 per cent?” – as in payouts upon splitting. Well, you would think that for a topic this serious and sensitive that Sam would hit the books, right? NAW man, why do that? She’s a “sexpert”, therefore, she can crap on about a subject which causes hurt feelings, anger and bitterness to come out of the woodwork.

First she mentions Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, talking about the “whopping” 50 mill Mills stands to gain in the settlement (not, in fact 50% of Paul McCartney’s fortune, though I understand the confusion given the use of the number 50). So “poor” Paul is feeling sad at the media coverage…so I hear is his ex who is being called a whore and a gold-digger, who has had a visit from the Bobbies to inform her she’s had some serious death threats. Anyway, this is not about Paul and Heather right? I mean WTF do celebrity marriages have to do with the rest of us and the issue Sam claims to address?

So she craps on about various celebrities, contradicting earlier ‘points’ and just generally being both a knob and a shithouse writer, then…then we get to the argument surely?

Well she raises the abolition of no fault divorce, which she attributes to ‘individuals’ being manipulative and contriving fake scenarios in which they could show the ‘fault’ of their partner, with absolutely NOTHING to back up this claim. I would suggest that a massive change in family law had something more at its basis than a concern that some individuals were rorting the system in order to wrangle out of their marriages. Of course, she manages to make the point that it’s easy for many to walk away, leaving their ‘innocent’ spouse behind and make a packet. She’ll claim it was gender neutral, but it’s not…not when the media diatribe, the men’s rights clamouring, and the word-in-the-pub bitterness is all about the women making money out of men, not when she’s already written on women partnering up for money and power. Step one in opening the floodgates to the hard done by misogynist pricks to come forth with their tales of woe from which to generalise. 

Then she asserts (again with nothing to back it up) that the divorce rate is 400 percent (or four times, though admittedly that does sound slightly less apocalyptic) than forty years ago…you know, back in the days when Australia didn’t ever really say ‘no’ to violence against women, not even in tokenistic ads, back when you ‘just didn’t’ leave. The only thing she offers in this post in any way resembling a “conclusion” is that it might be easier to strengthen relationships and marriages rather than fighting them out in courts.

 Mmm…thanks for such a simplistic solution with absolutely no suggestions about what form such an effort to do so would take. Absolutely inspired. No WONDER you are a relationships expert!!  

She raises “domestic relationship agreements” – a non-marriage type of prenup. Surprise, surprise, she raises it in the context of a man “protecting” himself from a woman. This is entirely consistent with the rest of her implications about the motivations of women and the dangers for men that women present. Now I’m a big advocate of the independantly legally advised prenuptials, I am a massive advocate of independant finances. However, I know from working for a law firm that all of this is contingent upon sufficient education, pragmatism, and the sense of self preservation. I also understand that women are at a disadvantage again. When we have lower income capacity, we will not have the same negotiating clout. Factors that complicate any attempt at a simplistic and generalised stance on issues of marriage, divorce and prenuptials include gender, race, class, religious beliefs, education, world view. None of these were taken into account in Sams “assessment” of the issue.

So, in failing to engage with any such issues, in doing her usual trick, ask a psuedo question, give a psuedo answer, she opened up the comments section with:

 Do you think ex-wives or husbands deserve 50 per cent? Do you think domestic relationship agreements for domestic couples are necessary?

I have included some fragments from the charming comments section below. I truly believe her comments section reflects her target audience, the mentality, ethos and world view of her audience and her writing. Here goes:

As for DRAs [domestic relationship agreements] I don’t see the point – ever met a woman that was capable of sticking to her word???

Not frikkin likely so why bother paying for a DRA

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great topic sam!! It’s such an interesting one, considering I have just been through a messy divorce and had to give up about 40 per cent of everything which I definitely do NOT think she deserved.

I do not know what the law should be, but all i know is that the court definitely favours the women, especially when there’s kids involved, and there are no winners, sadly.

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The divorce laws are from an ancient time of housewives and low divorce rates, these days it should be every man or woman for themselves.

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Am I bitter, sure.

Do I resent the legal system? YOU BET!

Moral is guys, if it looks like getting bad, hit first. Hit hard and make it a complete knock-out. Don’t bother trying to be nice of decent. There’s no upside to it for anyone but lawyers.

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Most women in this country still have the gold-diggery mentality when it suits them

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Mmm…Thanks Sam, thanks SO very much…with women like you writing, the Men’s Right’s Activists and their hateful misogynistic vitriol are hardly necessary. While you pass yourself of as a harmless sexpert, you play right into the hands of misogynistic arguments, while holding yourself up as a women’s writer. If you’re gonna tote yourself as a tee-hee, harmless blonde woman who likes to talk about dating, then stick to topics in which you don’t induce so much hatred. It is possible to write about dating and sex without being such a fuckwit, without continuing to beat women over the heads with the rules they have to obey, with the labels they need to fear, with the stereotypes that they are greedy gold-diggers. It isn’t like the SMH needs you to be such an anti woman writer – they already have Sam de Brito for that.

How to have a successful mainstream newspaper blog

I hate, loathe, despise the blogs of Sam in the City and Sam de Brito of the Sydney Morning Herald. They both shit me to tears, to varying degrees, and for some of the same and some differing reasons. However I noticed that Sam de Brito’s has won, and Sam in the City’s has been nominated for a Weblog Award.

So, they are great at appealling to the lowest common denominator. Good for them! Just wondering if I can glean any lessons from them as to how to improve my chances of mass appeal.

Step 1/ It would seem that (and this appears to be a crucial step) I should take down the political message on my header and replace it with a personal picture of myself exuding a highly gendered sense of a stereotypically “hetero” “sex appeal” far greater than that which I actually possess. As a man, clearly this would come from being MA-CHO, as a woman, looking as non threatening, but simultaneously like the tired traditional version of “men’s ideal” as possible. Perhaps I could get one of those cheesy Westfield store ‘makeovers’ in which I come out looking like an oil painting of a porn star?

Step 2/ Change the title. Clearly, being a female I need to strip away all pretence of political engagement (and DEFINATELY that totally unladylike bad language) and instead go for some ride-on-the-coattails, done to death imitation of a succesful women’s novel, movie or tv show….Sex in the Suburbs? Desperate OfficeWorkers? The Bitch Wears Prada [actually, I kinda like that one].

I could (as done so many times, so very cringingly) try to write in the style of Bridget Jones without acknowledging my blatant theft of ideas and style…

Day One. Gosh! Got harrassed on train again. Whoopsy daisy! Meant to stop. Must try a little harder to avoid the unavoidable. Make sure I don’t raise it in polite conversation or bring politics into it. Must blame self. Dieting will help.

Day Two. Three fights over gender, two bottles of gin and a tragic singalong. Feeling FAT!

3/ The type of blog. Now whether a male or female writer, one simply must make all sorts of gender generalisations, mostly about de wimenz. If I was a male I might make them provocatively offensive, jutting my jaw in the air while I say things like rape is worse for a man than a woman (and decry any political agenda or misogyny the whole time), or bang ON and ON about how women are all the same and need to be lied to, need to be more polite in bars, don’t care about the emotions of men (HELLO???You ever READ a women’s mag de Brito? They do nothing else OTHER than try to decode and manage men’s emotions).

BUT…given I am in fact a WO-MAN, I must take a different approach to my gender stereotypes. Gigglingly, shyly, flipping my newly blond hair extensions with my hands given a makeover by horridly chunky gel nails, I must raise a couple of semi-questions “tee hee hee, are women, do you think into power instead of looks?”, ask two random passers by and draw my conclusion from their answers “golly gee, YES, women are ALL the SAME!!! They are into POWER, not sex! They will shag men to get along cos they HATES to have the sex! [Intriguingly the same load of CRAP de Brito writes about, though he charmingly concludes that women in dating are all prostituting themselves for the flowers, drinks and meals he seems to think we all want/demand/get/refuse to date/put out if we don't get...but I degress]

“Women like MANLY men, not “Metros” [they CERTAINLY don't like WOMEN...and UGH feminists? How UGLY and last season and totally irrelevant, cos you know, like despite rape and domestic violence stats and a general lack of bodily autonomy etc, we're like EQUAL now!??] But you know, I asked two people, how could my generalisation be wrong? Tee hee”.

Funnily enough the conclusions of the two blogs, while claiming to have different aims, while getting there differently, whilst couching it in different language, propogate the same gender myths. THEREFORE, if I want to succeed in a mainstream newspaper blog, if I wish for my genius to be rewarded, I must (male or female) expound on the topic of WOMEN, what they *are*, *how* they feel, *who* they wanna boink, and most importantly I must not forget that they are ALL the SAME!!! Yes! It is true, I asked two people passing my office and they said, like, TOTALLY all women are the same!

4/ I must seek out a target audience who have insulting opinions on gender issues, and I must pander to them. I must put out a provocative sentiment, couching it carefully, then sit back and wait for the controversy and hate to ROLL in. In this way I avoid the work of having to say anything of intelligence or significance, avoid the responsibility for the vile and disgusting sentiments raised (see dredgirls earlier comment on this blog quoting a guy regarding punching his “Mrs”, see almost any days comments section on their blogs) and can rely on the joyful celebration of generalisations and misogyny to ensure that the numbers come rolling in.

 Ah, fuck it, I can’t be arsed with this bullshit anymore. I feel ill.

The last train out of Sydney

Not so much a post as a quick complaint – catching the train last night to visit family I get to the top of the stairs, dragging an enourmous suitcase, child in tow and get asked by a guy what station we’re at.

I’m a bit startled, thinking he’s missing his stop, but I answer and find a seat. I notice his friend when I sit down as we are separated by a few seats, and the aisle, but are facing each other and he’s looked at me. I immediately put my head down and I think about the reaction I’ve had to them. I have immediately gleaned that they are both drunk, possibly stoned (massively red eyes), tres blokey, absolutely enourmous, “good looking” I suppose in that footballer type of way.

I don’t wanna make eye contact given my vast experience with drunken men on trains. Anyway, I dig out my book and I hear the first guy (not the one facing me) say “Stop staaarin maaaan”, but don’t really register or think anything of it. I look up at some point, and we make eye contact and I give the look – I’m sure women out there know the look, it’s well rehearsed – the ’smile’ that is acknowledgement of eye contact, enough not to be rude, so as not to be challenging and provoke abuse, and not enough to encourage conversation.

I start thinking about my wariness and where it comes from (a good 20 years of awareness of danger, of random “drive-by” harrasment in its various forms, but I wanna analyse whether my reaction is “fair” or not). So I start thinking, Well, he’s totally enourmous, like Holy Shit, this guy could knock my teeth out without cracking a sweat. Then I think, well, shit, that isn’t his *fault*, he can’t help being enourmous. But you know, having been followed, having been hit, having read the rape stats and having had numerous unpleasant, though less physically violent interactions, I can’t “help” my radar going off, and I can’t “help” thinking of his size in this way.

I can hear the guys talking, and it’s all football and grog talk, but I decide I don’t mind the guy facing me, he shows some awareness of his surroundings etc and makes a few quips as to the other guys idiocy. Anyway, I’m deep in my book and I hear the first guy say “Stop starin man, you’re embarrassing yourself” and my eyes flick up and I make fleeting eye contact with the second guy who’s looking embarrassed and telling his friend to shut up.

I go back to my book, still not thinking much of it, when I hear the first guy (slurring and loud) say “Whaddya starin at HER for? She’s a [missed this word]. SHE don’t wanna suck no cock.”

Now, let me say I don’t know who the “she” he was talking about was. It was, by all indications, either me, or the girl sitting one seat ahead of me. I went back to my book as I was most certainly not wishing to make eye contact now. The second guy was really pissed with his friend and telling him to shut up as he was embarrassing him. It kept going for a while.

I don’t know who it was they were referring to, but it hardly matters does it? I mean “she don’t wanna suck no cock”??? WHERE do I start? Well, you know, I certainly don’t wanna “suck” yours you moronic arrogant cunt, in fact I wish it was detachable by velcro so I could toss the fucking thing out the window. But “what” was it that either I or the other girl “was” that meant definitively that we didn’t wanna suck no cock? A lesbian? A mother? A brunette? An adult?

And CHRIST – imagine, if you can, what joys might lay in store for the “type” of girl, judged as wanting to suck cock. What stimulating and witty conversation she would have been treated to. What slow, drawn out, delightfully playful seduction. What romance and laughter. It sounded very much like it would have been a case of “Knees, bitch”.

It’s really bizarre to me, that it is this kind of blanket judgment as well, like you either like to “suck cock” and therefore will do it anytime, anywhere, on command, indiscriminately or you just don’t. I kinda wanted to point out that even for those who do actually enjoy fellatio, it isn’t like liking chocolates, that you don’t see one whilst strolling around and go Oooh, might just pop that in my mouth because it *is* a “cock”.  

I don’t know…I don’t know where exactly to go with this – I don’t feel personally offended by this guys judgment, I don’t give a toss. I also know that he didn’t spring from the ground a fully formed misogynist prick, that the area he grew up in, the family, the school, the books/movies etc he interacted with had an impact on the way he views and talks about women.

I guess I’m not trying to offer some kind of theoretical conclusion, I just think that there is value in telling these incidental stories of casual discrimination and harrasment that get levelled at women everywhere and everyday, that it *happens* with no warning, you can’t *avoid* shit like this. I think sharing these kinds of anectdotes, and having a look at the attitudes behind them have value just for women to reassure themselves that it’s ok to be angry, to relate to one another in the fact that while you wanna say “Get fucked” you know you are taking a big risk. I think it’s valuable to guys in hearing the everyday stuff and in thinking about the crap we put up with and ways of negotiating it amongst their friendship circles. Because it isn’t just up to *women*, it isn’t a *women’s issue*, as Figleaf, of Real Adult Sex [a blog] says, feminism is about making the world better for men and women.

Women’s Mags

Ok – ENOUGH!

The other day I went to a doctors surgery and I read through a copy of a “womens” magazine. You know the ones? The ones with the “raunchy” sex section? With suggestions like “When you’re going down on him [cos it's always assumed it's a him] try pouting and moaning like a porn star. HOT!”

So anyway, having waited forty minutes already I thought I’d check it out. Fuck me.

Under the banner of something like “Are you GOOD in bed? Do you wanna be GREAT in bed?” it had about eight suggestions. Two stuck in my mind as particularly outstanding – one for being so galling, the other just made me laugh out loud.

 So girls, when you are going to have sex and you are ashamed of your body because it doesn’t look like a taut skinned pre-pubescent boy’s body, what you should do to make the sex “hotter”, to be “great” in bed is to lie on your side facing away. Get him to lie behind you, lift your leg and let him enter you from behind. That way you don’t have to be worried about all the ‘bits’ of your body that you are ashamed of. That way he can get off without ever having to look at your hideous disgusting women’s body.

I am NOT making this up!

The second??? This being the one that made me laugh, cos the one above is so NOT funny…”Don’t be afraid to initiate sex”. ???…….????????????

Wow. Now I know that I am a feminist and I am over thirty so perhaps it is alzheimer’s kicking in, but was I ever afraid to initiate sex? Is it something women are afraid of? Or should be afraid of?? See the article said “I know this one sounds scary girls” then it went on to say you didn’t need to be so bold as to say it, to ask for it, or just to get on with setting it in motion…”anything you do that makes him think of sex” (like not killing him dead) is good to initiate sex while protecting your gigglish girlish innocent persona.

They are talking (as they always do) about sex in the context of a relationship…what sort of a relationship do you have where if you wanna have sex with your partner you have to wait til they initiate it??? What exactly is your boyfriend (cos only hetero relationships get a look-in in these mags) gonna do, what is he gonna think if you grab him, kiss him and push him up against a wall? Is he gonna freak that he’s dating Sharron Stone and your gonna go get the icepick? Are we still after all this time being forced to choose between playing damned whores and gods police? Sluts or timid little ladies who blush and only have sex because they are doing someone a favour?

So…given the above I thought maybe I should start up a regular column for women so we can know what our men want (stay away from other women girls, unless you’re pashing your female friend in the pub for ten bucks and the guy’s amusement) and can plan ahead to ensure that we are great in bed.

PART ONE OF HOW TO BE A SEXY, HOT HETERO GIRL:

 First I suggest taking a good look at your body. If you are female, chances are you have some flesh. That is wrong, out of place and disgustingly unsexy. You could of course choose to kind of grab it in chunks, tie it back with rubber bands and enter the room sideways like a crab so he is amazed by the tautness of your skin and can’t see all the wierd rubber bands.

This then requires that you choose certain positions in order that he doesn’t see your back. Also do NOT let him touch you. While the feel of hands running over your skin might be sexy, this is not about you. You are here to do a job and to fit in with current stereotypes of beauty. Straddle him carefully, facing him. Tie him up so his hands can’t wander. Then proceed to move carefully so as not to begin pinging rubber bands across the room.

The added advantage of tying his hands up is that he then can’t touch you “down there” – cos we all know how gross it is down there. That’s why labial cosmetic surgery is so popular. But that’s a topic for another day. 

 For today, consider the rubber bands. If this is too high maintenance, you could always try starving yourself til ‘acceptably’ thin, saving a fortune from your low paying, non-threatening job, and investing in surgery to cut away all that disgusting womanly flesh. This is the only true method to ensure that he can have sex with you from in front and behind so he will not get so bored with you. It’s a worthwhile investment in becoming a hot hetero girl.