Volunteer to be an ethics teacher

I am now an ethics teacher in our local primary school. I'm teaching the course during scripture time, as an option for those kids who would otherwise be in non-scripture, where, according to policy in NSW, the students are to receive no instruction during the Special Religious Education (SRE) timelot.

Hence ethics. It is way of ending the discrimination against primary school students who don't enrol in the SRE options available at school.

The ethics course doesn't teach atheism. I think you'll find all profesions have an element of teaching profesional ethics. The course is about critical thinking. About creating a community of inquiry in which to explore ideas respectfully, to challenge assumptions and try to work out together what might be right and wrong in given situations. It is an exercise in thinking. The students really enjoy it.

At the moment the course is available for students in Stage 3 (Year 5&6). At our school nearly a third of Stage 3 students are enrolled in ethics. The course for Stage 2 will be available in the middle of the year.

The course is devised and delivered by Primary Ethics. They are looking for more volunteer teachers, to help deliver the course. At our school Stage 2 and Stage 3 have SRE at the same time, so we'll be needing more teachers too.

Primary Ethics offer lots of support. They provide teachers with good training and lesson plans. They have done an amazing job of getting the program off the ground with little money. The volunteers are all committed and wonderful.

The ethics teachers I've spoken to say they find being involved is very satisfying. They learn from the students, and enjoy being involved in the school community.

It takes some time to do the training (a day at home, two days at training), and once you are teaching, it take some preparation time for each lesson, and the lessons run for about 40 minutes, depending on the school. If you can volunteer, click here.

http://www.primaryethics.com.au/volunteers.html

Sing and Swim

Either I have too many children, or we have too many activities. That was my thought for Wednesday. On picking the kids up from school, going straight to the next activity, and prepared to go back to school after that for Meet the Teacher Night, dinner in the slow cooker, I asked the children if we could withdraw from the band program. That one program means five appointments a week for one child, and four for another. (Two of those are the same appointment for them, but the whole thing adds up to seven a week for me.) And practice. And money. My life would be so much simpler if they just weren’t in band. But no.They love band. And they love dancing. We’ll get used to the new routine, they said, as I had said to them that morning. It’s just hard to get the new routines started up, but we’ll be OK. I said that to them before I was at home alone feeling like my mind had snapped.

Of course, I don’t want to give up any of my activities - my new job one day a fortnight, teaching ethics at school, uni study, and helping with Mamapalooza - and neither do the children. But I’m not convinced.

So far, with all activities not yet factored in to the term, I have two days where I’m supposed to be in two places at the same time. Morning lessons, before school, aren’t as early as last year, but leave less time for packing lunches and getting back to school. On different days this week I’ve been to school four, five and six times. Going to school twice a day is a slow day.

After talking to the children I decided to not stress. That didn’t mean I stopped stressing.

Thursday I went to withdraw money to pay rent. I went to the shops, got to the ATM and didn’t have the card. Went home. Got another card. Went to other shops, returned kids’ dance pants, bought drumsticks (not the chicken variety), went to ATM and ATM swallowed old card. Got home. Found my card in my wallet. Put the garbage out, even though it wasn’t garbage night, and had an early night. I’m thinking every night needs to be an early night.

I’m holding tension in my jaw, so I starting singing while making dinner - I’ve been making good dinners every night. Singing just split my lip and gave me a headache.

Friday I went for a swim.

I don’t have room in my head for what’s happening in Greece, what’s happening to Dexter, or planning more playdates for Banjo, or organising a sleepover for her - Clancy thinks it is unfair if Banjo has more sleepovers than she had at her age. We have three girls in one bedroom and our sleepovers usually are just swaps with another family with a similar set-up. Banjo wants to join the recorder group and choir at school. That might fit OK. But no to Japanese and tennis lessons. Clancy’s friend has Tourette’s and has added physical tics to her verbal ones. Matilda needs pointe shoes. Whole new worlds for me.

So, if we’re not cutting back on activities, here’s the plan. Other people can bake on the weekend and prepare for the week. Other people can occupy themselves while I get some work done. So long as the washing is on the line (particularly the absorber we need to wash most mornings and have back on the bed each night) I’ll be regularly singing and swimming to repair my mind and keep body and soul together. I don't know if I'll join the singing group - that might be one appointment too many. I can sing, walk, stretch, swim, on my own if I need to. It’s either sing and swim or sink and swim.

A step in the right direction

Fair Wage Australia announced yesterday a wage increase for workers in the community sector, a predominantly female workforce; a step towards equal pay for women and society valuing care work.

It means pay rises of 19 - 41% to be phased in over eight years. Many community workers work in government sectors, however, the implication for community workers employed by smaller community centres (such as the one I've been involved in) is yet to be seen.

Eliabeth Badinter - Is intensive mothering a step backwards for feminism?

I’ve written about this before, but the book has just been released in English in Australia. .
You might have seen this article in the Good Weekend.

http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/life-style/nutrition-and-wellbeing/the-child-king-20120130-1qoqf.html


In 2005 Judith Warner published a book called Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety. In it she compared mothering in France with mothering in the USA. Warner spent her first three years of motherhood in France, where there is a free public health service, extended maternity leave, affordable nannies, affordable pre-schools, everybody sends their kids to the local public school, and the working week is capped at 35 hours. Mothers lived a balanced life and there was no mention of guilt. Returning to the USA she found mothers depressed, stressed, obsessed with trivia, unable to afford the quality childcare that could release them back into the workforce, trying to be perfect, looking and feeling old and tired, and blaming themselves for their inadequacies. In the USA mothers are constantly questioned by media messages and children are the centre of the family’s lives. In France, children eat in the kitchen and play in their rooms, while adults talk together in the loungeroom. In the USA children have delegated playrooms and the adults schedule adult time around them. Of course, in the USA, individual responsibility is championed, rather than changing to socially progressive polices.

Now, French philosopher feminist Elisabeth Badinter states in her book (released in Europe two years ago) The Conflict: the Woman and the Mother that motherhood as it is in France now is bad for feminism. She blames the environmental movement (cooking organic baby food and washing cloth nappies is time consuming), the focus on children rather than women, attachment parenting, the dietary advice to pregnant women, the advice to breastfeed for two years, and all the expert advice on raising children as if they are vulnerable creatures who can blame any psychological issues on their mothers. She says French women have caught the guilt bug.

She has a point.

Badinter says it is important for women to be financially independent. She’s not alone there.

She champions the mediocre mother, because the perfect mother doesn’t exist. Too right.

But, if things have changed for mothers in France, without a change in social policies, I think we can look to some other factors. Is the global financial downturn a factor in families’ decision making? Did women find that returning to work part time or after a break of a year or more meant they were on the ‘mommy track’, and they were taken less seriously in their careers? What about the fact that jobs with flexibility to allow for care work are the lower paying jobs? Is the increase in marketing of products and services to babies and young children a factor? Do mothers find satisfaction tending their children more intensively than past generations? Do mothers approach their child rearing more as a family branding exercise, or are mothers applying the skills they’ve learnt in business, academia and the workplace? Lets also look to other countries with comparable social policies. Are their mothers feeling guilty too? And why aren’t we looking at men’s roles in families and work? Are they downshifting and baby wearing? Are men concerned about their work/life balance and feeling guilty?

I disagree with her view about the green movement. We need to move towards sustainability in all areas of our lives, and to not consider this is naive at best. What’s the point of having children if the planet they inherit is unable to sustain human life? And what about community involvement and having a say in broader issues? As Erica Jong says, ‘Aspiring to be perfect parents seems like a pathetic attempt to control what we can while ignoring problems that seem beyond our reach.’

What Elisabeth Badinter is saying is similar to what I said in my article of April 2004, so it’s nothing new to me. Does intensive mothering take a lot from women, when the outcomes are unproven and, perhaps not truly related to the input? Would mothers’ energy be better spent doing something else? Something that wields more power, personally, collectively and politically? Is intensive mothering a step backwards for feminism? Did our feminist mothers work for women's rights so we could mother more intensively?

Or is Badinter just jumping on the mother bashing bandwagon?

What do you think?

I’d better read the book (which I feel like I’ve already read), then report back.

Feminist action now - Jan 2012

Two feminist stories from the Guardian.

Remember how, in the UK, after the News of the World scandal, there was going to be a media inquiry? Well, it’s happening. It’s called the Levenson Inquiry, and a group a feminist activists have just presented to them the ways in which women are unfairly depicted in the media, and what can be done to address gender inequality in the media. They talked about page 3 girls, women shown naked or near naked (one piece of evidence was censored to present to the inquiry, even though it was not censored when published in the newspaper), and how media reporting perpetuates myths about rape, and blames victims.

‘Four groups – Eaves, End Violence Against Women, Object and Equality Now – called on Leveson to back a ban on sexualised images in newspapers, arguing they would not be broadcast on television before the 9pm watershed.
The groups also accused some media outlets of perpetuating myths about rape, which they argued could prevent victims reporting the crime, and called for a tougher regulatory body. "The media creates, reflects and enforces attitudes in society," said Marai Larasi from End Violence Against Women, a coalition of 40 women's organisations. "Those who work in the media should be conscious of this and should actively seek not to reproduce attitudes which condone violence against women or girls."’


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/24/leveson-inquiry-sexualised-images-ban



The World Economic Forum meets annually in Davis, Switzerland. So, how many women are involved in these meetings where global decisions are made? Not enough.

‘Despite a new quota system demanding that the largest members send one woman for every four men, just 17% of the 2,500 delegates are female. Despite a push to encourage more women on to panels to discuss the issues of the day, just 20% of those invited to do so are women. The majority of panels, especially on key economic topics, are still dominated by (white) men.
Although the days are long gone when one female delegate was asked to leave an event because security assumed she must be a spouse without the required permit, the majority of the women in Davos are not there as participants. Only newcomers to Davos seem to consider this fact remarkable, with the odd feminist exception such as Helen Clark. The former prime minister of New Zealand turned administrator of the United Nations Development Programme called the female participation rate "pathetic". The leader who appointed so many senior women to her cabinet that Benetton ran an airport advertising campaign welcoming visitors to the "women's republic of New Zealand" called for organisers to commit to the millennium development goal of 30% female participation by 2015. "Or why not next year? They should just go and look for the women. In one stroke, participation would go up."
There is little support for such intervention among organisers, who argue that Davos merely reflects a world in which women lead just 3% of the biggest companies in the US and UK and make up 17% of its parliaments. Saadia Zahidi, the WEF's head of constituents who is spearheading the gender programme, calls this the "external glass ceiling" about which an annual meeting of top people can do nothing.
Roger Carr, the chairman of Centrica who is leading efforts to get more women appointed to British boards, agrees. "Davos is a special place populated by the most senior decision makers. The fact is that the number of women in that position is quite small. Davos is just the symptom of something that happened way, way back." Centrica sends just two delegates and both the chief executive and chairman happen to be men.’


http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/27/davos-women-future

The Equality Illusion: The Truth about Women and Men Today - Kat Banyard

After the controversy of the last two weeks, I’ve stepped up my reading of this book. Kat Banyard wrote it at the age of 25; it was published in 2010. She became a feminist at university, and has worked in grassroots organisations, helping refugee women, organising feminist conferences, and is a leading campaigner for women’s rights in the UK.

Here’s what she says about choice feminism.

‘ … it is crucial to that we don’t fall into the conceptual trap of confusing a process (choice) with feminism’s aim (ending the subordination of women). This produces a dead-end situation whereby almost anything can be justified as feminist simply by identifying that individual choice’ and ‘agency’ were involved. … But the question must always be: what impact does the practice have on gender relations as a whole? Does it help end the subordination of women - or does it further perpetuate it? That is the litmus test.’ (p 206)

She presents statistics to prove how unequal women are in the modern world, and not just white middle class women, but takes a global view, considering class, race, religion and everything. She reports on the grassroots feminist activity currently happening in the UK, by both young women and by men. A lot of the feminist action taken by young women is about the sexualisation of women as presented in mainstream media, and an objection to women being seen as sex objects in men’s clubs, lad’s mags, and advertisements. In short, young women in the UK are doing the same kind of work that Melinda Tankard Reist is doing through her Collective Shout organisation in Australia, resisting the movement to normalise pornography in our culture.

I’m interested to see she supports policies Sweden implemented in 1999 to criminalise the purchase of sex, and minimalise demands for a sex industry. Sweden also offers support for women to exit the industry. After the 1994 election, 45% of parliamentarians were women, so feminist issues were on the agenda. The new laws resulted in a decrease in trafficking and organised crime, and, the entry of women into prostitution almost stopped.

Banyard sees countries following suit (Iceland, Norway, France, and campaigns in the UK to do the same) as on the right track.

Today, it is Rwanda that has the highest proportion of women parliamentarians in the world, at 58% of seats. UNICEF reports that women holding 30% of parliamentary seats constitutes a critical mass that allow real action on issues of gender. Of the twenty two countries that have reached this level of female representation, eighteen used quotas.

She covers gender inequality and education in the west (the acceptance of sexual harassment in schools, and segregation in sport) and in developing countries (in South Africa a girl has a greater chance of being raped than of learning to read). She covers reproductive rights and the mother penalty, including the sticky floor of women’s work that allows them flexibility to care for children (cleaning, caring, clerical work, cashiering, catering). She covers body image, domestic violence, and interviews workers in the sex industry. (‘It’s hard to have a voice when you have a cock thrust down your throat.’) She says men like lap-dancing clubs because there are places where they can pretend feminism never happened.

I recommend the book to anyone who want to know what feminism is about today, as a first introduction or a way to engage with the big picture issues. It is book filled with hope. It is one of the better books on feminism that I’ve read.

The Year Starts Now

The holidays are over. We’ve caught up with friends, slept in and lounged around at home. We listened to Free To Be You and Me, and watched Singin’ in the Rain and My Family and Other Animals. We swam at the pool. We should be well rested.

But when I think about how much I plan to cram into the year, I feel like going back to bed. I’m doing three units at uni each semester, including teaching pracs. Starting a part time job. Some volunteering - teaching ethics and helping organise the Mamapalooza festival. I’m not on a management committee nor writing a cookbook, nor making things for a fete. I hope to be doing less volunteering at school. I’ll be taking up walking and swimming and stretching at home and giving up late night tv and reading blogs by people I don’t know.

The children’s activities have stepped up a notch. I told them years ago that they could do anything run at school, not realising just how much our school offers in extra-curricula activities, and now, well, they do a lot.

I’ve learned that I’m better on nine hours sleep than seven.

Matilda tells me I should filling the freezer with muffins for lunchboxes and dinners for when we come home late. She wants us to cull about half our possessions, before Monday. I guess the things we haven’t used in six weeks at home are things we don’t need to keep. And she wants us to join an eco challenge. We’re already pretty green, but, of course, we could do better.

I’m just hoping that we plod along according to schedule. No surprises. No fevers or falls or family emergencies, or any of the life changing events that happen when you are part of a family, with members young and old. Not this year. Or next. Can I just postpone the dramas for a year or two? Laugh at me now, but it is possible, isn’t it? Not probable. But possible?

A feminist event!

Thanks to my friend Michelle for telling me about this.

http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/priority/the_f_word.aspx

Separate sessions with Germaine Greer, and Naomi Wolf, then they join a forum discussion led by Jenny Brockie, with Clem Bastow and Eliza Griswold.

Seems like a much more grown up event than the last, stupid one I attended at the Opera House. I'm looking forward to a bigger, broader, more global conversation.

I'd like to go!

Mum thinks it is ok to break the law, because she's a mum

Jacinta Tynan, who wrote a piece when her first baby was six months old, saying how motherhood was easy and why do people complain about how hard it is, has now written a piece saying she considers herself exempt from the road rules because she has two children. Reading this, I thought she was being ironic, or sarcastic, but no. She genuinely believes she has the right to break the law, because she has kids.

'To the parking inspector who tried to slap a ticket on me the other day: an apology. I was in a clearly marked No Stopping zone and you didn't deserve my teary tirade. You had every right to threaten to call the police and to call for backup from not one but two supervisors. It's just that I had two children in the back of the car and I thought that bought me dispensation.

Ever since I became a mother, I have learnt to cut corners, ignoring not just traffic signs but all manner of procedures designed to make life easier because in my state they no longer do, and I brazenly now consider myself exempt. Surely No Stopping means unless you have babies on board and are attempting to drop off stuff at St Vincent de Paul, as I was. Surely parking limits don't apply when ferrying children to the park. Why can't I jump to the front of the Jetstar check-in when I have a baby in my Björn? Don't mums deserve to bypass the queue at Woolies?'

...At least that nice parking inspector understood. Much to my surprise, I was issued with a warning for that blatant misdemeanour. I won't park there again, I promise. But what a treat to have my circumstances taken into account.

I'm thinking she would be a parent who feels she has the right to break the road rules when dropping off or picking up her kids at daycare or school,even though they would endanger other people.

For the last six years I've been tearing my hair out most mornings and afternoons seeing parents break the road rules around the school. People who park on the crossing, or do a u turn on the crossing, or park in the No Stopping zones by the crossings. Drivers pulling into the school driveways while children are walking into or out of the school gates. The most dangerous part of our walk to and from school is using the school crossings. For six years I've sat on the P&C and we've regularly talked about ways to convince parents it is a good idea to follow the road rules around the school. We've talked about walking to school. Leaving five minutes earlier. Road safety. Explaining the reasons for the road rules. Setting a good example. Being seen by the members of the community as someone who obeys the law. We've called in the police and the parking police. When they are present on one side of the school, people just break the law on the other side of the school. We've collected the rego numbers of the cars whose drivers break the law, and phoned them through to the police. I keep suggesting that we ask for tax audits for all the parents who continually break the law around the school, but the Principal says no.

The comments on the piece are mostly about the parking spots for parents in shopping centres, and the usual parents feel entitled/what about childfree adults who pick up the pieces to and fro.

I feel like I felt when Fifi Box announced on The Panel that she doesn't vote - she sends her mother to vote for her. Shame on her, when so many women have fought for women's rights. Jacinta Tynan: you are giving mothers a bad name. Breaking the law is breaking the law. You have not the right to break any law that may seem inconvenient to you. I hope when your children are at school that you don't endanger other children because you feel your time is more precious than other people's lives. You should have been issued with a parking ticket.

http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/life-style/family-home/mumsonly-privileges-20120124-1qeo2.html