Feminism now - a snapshot

Before going to the feminist conferences I thought I would take stock of where feminism is right now. See what has worked and what work is still to be done, and how we might change strategy in order to make change happen.

Globally, women are doing badly. Girls still die due to gender neglect. In developing countries, boys are educated before the girls, taken for medical care before the girls, so girls miss out. Women and girls are trafficked into the sex trade. In their millions. And worldwide, millions of girls are 'missing'. We know where and why women are dying, or seriously damaged, in childbirth, and which countries have low infant survival rates.

We know that investment in girls and women is an efficient way of raising a family, and raising a community, out of poverty.

In the developed world we still have the glass ceiling. There is still a big gap between women's and men's pay. There is a big gap between mother's pay and non-mother's pay. Women are under represented on most boards, and governments. We know that having women in positions of power is healthy for companies.

Women are still sexualised in the media. Women are still the victims of assault and abuse, particularly by men. A few years ago the NSW Police Commissioner stated that women are fundamentally disrespected in our society.

We now live in a raunch culture where to be sexy is paramount as shown on music videos and advertisements. Sexy clothes and toys are marketed to small girl children. Some feminists are speaking out about this. Other feminists are concerned about joining the conservatives and wowsers.

The Association for Research on Mothering in Toronto is in crisis due to lack of funding. The Australian branch is contemplating a name change, to be more inclusive. Perhaps this is the way to go. Perhaps it would be better to focus not on mothering, but parenting or care work, which could be shared.

Books about feminism are still being published and there is still much work to be done. None that I have read really point in a direction that would make change happen.

Middle class women can outsource child care and domestic work to working class women. Men still don't share the domestic load.

Most women I know who have children, whether they have a partner or not, work or not, say at some point that the experiment of living in a nuclear family has failed - we should live in a community of women and children where people share the load and pool their resources. Men can visit or not.

The single best strategy for a women married with children to avoid poverty is to stay married. Single women can build their own financial futures. Not so easy for single mothers.

If there were more women in powers of position, would things move faster?

Although I identify as feminist, I'm starting the believe we need to take action without gender lines. It is not just women who care. It is not just women who care for children, for the earth, and about poverty or about wellbeing.

Do I believe that, as a women, I am better than a man at cleaning the house, doing the shopping, and raising kids? No. Do I believe that as a woman I have more of an affinity with the earth? No. Do I believe that men are smarter than women, more capable, and deserve to earn more money or hold more power? No. Do I believe that the issues facing women also have impacts on men and children? Yes.

I've noticed that the Sex Discrimination Officer often couches feminists issues in terms of men's health, or children's development or just plain wellbeing. Perhaps focussing on feminism, which obviously hasn't been working too well, isn't the way to go.

Do I want to spend time working out what kind of feminist I am (essentialist, radical, Marxist, socialist, eco), or just get on with the job of doing what I believe is right. Not because I'm a feminist, or because I'm a woman, or because I'm a mother, but just because I am a citizen.

What is very interesting is, that while I'm thinking about all this, there are two (yes two!) public forums coming up in which to discus feminism. WOW! Even the Essential Baby forum has been discussing feminism: Is feminism compatible with being a stay at home mother? 38 pages of responses.

So, while I'm renewing my membership to WEL, and joining Women's Forum Australia, have a look at the upcoming conferences.

http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/forums/index.php?showtopic=776783


Info about the conferences here:


http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=2&newsstoryid=4615

Why feminism still matters: A Sydney Ideas forum


The University of Sydney will host a panel of leading international and Australian commentators and political scientists to question how far women have really come in politics in the last 30 years.

The Sydney Ideas forum titled "Why Feminism Matters" will be held on Monday 22 March 2010 at the Seymour Theatre Centre and marks the month of International Women's Day.

In what promises to be a fascinating and robust discussion, the panel will debate the different approaches taken by men and women in politics, the impact women have had in shaping public policy and the political agenda in recent decades, and the role feminism plays in politics today. The panel will also reflect on the giant steps some women, including Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard, have made in politics but will also examine why the top job remains elusive for women.

The panel includes top commentators and political scholars from throughout the world including Professor Mary Fainsod Katzenstein (Cornell University), Dr Fiona Mackay (University of Edinburgh), Professor Karen Beckwith (US feminist scholar), Dr Sue Goodwin (University of Sydney) and Rebecca Huntley (Australian social researcher). The panel will be chaired by broadcaster and former Olympic swimmer Lisa Forrest, one of the first women to make the move from professional athlete to a successful career in the media.

'Why Feminism Matters' is an Arts Matters forum co-presented with the University of Sydney Arts Association and the Faculty of Arts.

The panel:

Professor Mary Fainsod Katzenstein is a leading commentator on contemporary US politics from Cornell University, USA. Katzensetein has extensively researched political activism and social movements, feminist activism in the Catholic Church and US military, social strategies on poverty and issues of prison reform and incarceration. She won the 1999 American Political Science Association's Victoria Schuck award for the best book on gender in political science for Faithful and Fearless: Moving Feminist Protest Inside the Church and Military. She has co-edited Social Movements in India: Poverty Power and Politics and teaches courses on incarceration both at Cornell University and at the Auburn Correctional Facility in New York.

Dr Fiona Mackay, senior lecturer in politics and Director of the Graduate School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Dr Mackay has provided research advice to women's organisations, politicians and government departments, and has represented the UK at numerous British Council international events on women, democracy and human rights. She has played an active part of the 50/50 campaign for gender parity in political and public life and also recently co-authored the book Women, Politics and Constitutional Change, and the forthcoming Gender, Politics and Institutions.

Professor Karen Beckwith is Flora Stone Mather Professor in the Department of Political Science at Case Western Reserve University in the United States. She was the founding lead editor of the journal Politics and Gender, and co-authored Women's Movements Facing the Reconfigured State (2003), and Political Women and American Democracy (2008). Professor Beckwith is the founder and organiser of the project The Comparative Politics of Gender, to be published this month as a multi-article symposium in perspectives on politics.

Dr Sue Goodwin, a senior lecturer in policy studies in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney. Specialises in research on women's participation in public policy and motherhood in contemporary Australian social and political contexts. She is the co-author of The Sociological Bent: Inside Metro Culture (2005) and Social Policy and Social Change (2009), as well as the forthcoming The Good Mother: Regulating Contemporary Motherhoods. Is currently working on another book examining how gender and class intersect in occupational choices and pathways.

Rebecca Huntley, writer, social researcher and alumnus of the University of Sydney. Huntley is the director of the Ipsos Mackay Report, Australia's longest-running social trends report, and authored Eating Between the Lines: Food and Equality in Australia and The World According to Y: Inside the New Adult Generation. She also contributes regularly to Australian Vogue.

Lisa Forrest, panel chair, was the first woman to host her own national sports program, ABC TV's Saturday Afternoon Football, before moving on to general reporting on The Midday Show with Ray Martin, Everybody on ABCTV and her own radio program, The Evening Show, on ABC Radio 702.

Event details:

What: "Why Feminism Matters" Sydney Ideas forum. Sydney Ideas is the University of Sydney's international public lecture series.

When: 6.30pm on Monday, 22 March, 2010

Where: The Seymour Theatre Centre, Cnr of City Road and Cleveland Street, University of Sydney

Cost: $20/$15 concession. Free tickets are available for University of Sydney staff and students at Seymour box office (not online).Please bring ID.

Bookings: Phone (02) 9351 7940.

Website: http://www.usyd.edu.au/sydney_ideas/

Contact: Katrina O'Brien

Phone: 02 9036 7842

Email: katrina.obrien@sydney.edu.au


http://feministconference.blogspot.com/

The F collective presents

F: A Festival, A Conference, A Future

Feminism: What’s it to you?

F is a conference to reinvigorate the feminist movement

F is a vision for our feminist future.

We invite you to join us for two days of lively debate, workshops and discussion about where we are from, where we are at and where we are going.

Bring your best ideas and your best friends.

Participate, create and connect.

Come!

When: 10th and 11th April 2010Where: NSW Teachers Federation½39-41 Reservoir Street, Surry Hills

feministconference.blogspot.com ½ f.the.conference@gmail.com ½

Parenthood on tv

Hey, look. In the US they're doing parenthood on tv and we aren't getting it here. We'll have to be satisfied with Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters and watching Parenthood, the movie (still good, and Jenny, there's a reference to the rollercoaster in this article).

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/heather_havrilesky/2010/03/13/parenthood_modern_family_parenting_shows/index.html

And the film called Motherhood starring Uma Thurman as a blogging stay at home NY mum looks like it won't be released here in cinemas. It will be available on DVD mid-April.

Boobs on the brain

A new advertisement for boobs on a woman's head to direct men's gaze from a woman's chest to her brain - have a look.

http://www.salon.com/life/feminism/index.html?story=/mwt/broadsheet/2010/03/12/forehead_tittaes

Will this help men take women more seriously??

Hillary Clinton calls for gender equality

http://www.salon.com/news/story/index.html?story=/news/2010/03/12/un_un_women_s_equality

At the UN Conference in Beijing Hillary Rodham Clinton repeats her call for gender equality.

"In 1995, in one voice, the world declared: human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights," Clinton said, recalling her own words in Beijing that were met by cheers from several thousand delegates.

However, Clinton said women are still the majority of the world's poor, uneducated, unhealthy and hungry, and they are victims of a "global pandemic" of violent attacks including rape. Women are also the majority of the world's farmers, but are often barred from owning the land they tend, and they suffer the consequences of armed conflicts even though they rarely cause them, she said.

"In too many places, women are treated not as full and equal human beings with their own rights and aspirations, but as lesser creatures undeserving of the treatment and respect accorded to their husbands, fathers and sons," Clinton said.

She was loudly applauded when she drew on her Beijing words and issued a new challenge.

"We must declare with one voice that women's progress is human progress and human progress is women's progress, once and for all," Clinton said.

This principle is "at the heart" of U.S. foreign policy, she said, stressing that "the subjugation of women" threatens U.S. security and "the common security of our world because the suffering of women and the instability of nations go hand in hand."

However, the comments question how US foreign policy supports conflicts that hurt women...

Feminism now - reviews in The Guardian - where to now?

I know I'm always referencing The Guardian, but the truth is I don't read regular discussions about feminism in the Australian media. This article is long, so be warned. What surprised me was mention of the momoirs, which I read, and intend to review. I've included the paragraphs here. It has given me something to think about.

The piece is mostly about the influence of raunch culture - Katie Price, Madonna, young girls who aspire to be glamour models, and women working in the sex industry believing they are empowered. What a big fat mess.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/06/charlotte-raven-feminism-madonna-price

Anyway, this Friday I am attending a conference called Growing up Fast and Furious - about how media affects the development of children. I'm guessing the experts will say the influence is detrimental and will be preaching to the converted. Any ideas for ways forward? My best hope is positive role modelling - showing children women who care about more than their own sexual attractiveness - women who work in NGOs, women who are professionals in their creative fields (and it would help if the judges on So You Think You Can Dance stopped talking about the girls being 'hot' and 'sexy' to the extent that it becomes totally meaningless - do they mean attractive or appealing or what? and that they didn't present women as sexual in contexts where it just isn't appropriate), women who do what they love rather than do in order in order to be desired (Hello Lara Bingle - ever heard of feminism??), and for the people who care about these issues to keep speaking out and offering real alternatives to the mainstream culture.

The conference: http://www.youngmedia.org.au/pdf/fast-furious-flyer_Dec09.pdf



How the 'new feminism' went wrong


"Completely sold on the myth of "self-invention", today's woman believes herself in control of her life, from birth to the present day. There's no governing philosophy, just an urge to assert her will. She doesn't know what she's doing, but she's damn well doing it.

Anyone who challenges or questions her will get short shrift, even our own children. A slew of motherhood memoirs portray the baby as a "rival consciousness". This memorable phrase was coined in Rachel Cusk's A Life's Work. Cusk's nuanced portrayal of maternal ambivalence was read one way by those seeking support for their perception of motherhood as an endless bad hair day.

Mothers are now more able to portray themselves as victims of their children. Brett Paesel says she was prompted to write her memoir Mommies Who Drink by the silence around motherhood and women's unwillingness to bear witness to their subjugation, "which feels like complaining". No one dares convey the rage evoked by the maternal requirement to put someone else's needs above their own? None except Stephanie Calman, author of Confessions of a Bad Mother; Kate Long, author of The Bad Mother's Handbook; Mel Giedroyc, author of Going Ga Ga – Is There Life After Birth? and so on and on. These controlling mothers seem to feel wronged by the autonomy of the people in their orbit. The fact that their children are separate beings with their own beliefs and habits seems like a dreadful affront. Female confessional writers seldom pay much mind to how it feels to be them. Far from being a golden age of female self-expression, this is the opposite. Real self-expression requires dialogue. With the other point of view excluded, candid authors are communicating nothing.'

I'd better start with that in looking at the momoirs, but that is for another day.

The books mentioned in the article are also reviewed here:

http://www.literaryreview.co.uk/smith_03_10.html

Women leave work for family, but do men??

A few times this week other mums have talked to me about how children need their parents even when they are at school, and especially when they are at high school. We've talked about how kids are holding it together during the day at school, putting on their best faces, doing what the teachers ask, negotiating their relationships with other kids, then when they came home, they collapse - it all comes out. If I expected my kids to be in care before and after school, and during school holidays, they'd hate it, and our relationship, aside from being rush rush rush, nag nag nag, would be awful. For the parents I know who want to be with their kids, but still want to work, the only job that seems practical is working as a teacher. Working longer than school hours and during school holidays isn't an option.

I must say, I've known men who stay home with kids, but they don't do nearly as much as the mothers - they might be with the kids during the day, but not book the swimming lessons, organise dinner, supervise the kids. And they are applauded for doing the minimal style parenting that they do. The mothers working full time or part time are still expected to do it all. And not because they have impossibly high standards.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/08/2839983.htm?site=thedrum

Can women train their children to share housework and child-caring responsibilities equally with women? Will we ever reach real equality for women?

Reporter Emma Alberici contemplates her career, and if anything has changed, when she sees her female peers leaving work to be with school-aged children. The double standard is still staggering. The comments are interesting too!

Thanks Michelle for passing this on to me.

Yes, we have a long way to go, to get everyone to do the menial work, the thinking work, and share the work of raising kids and running a household, giving an example of how we would like our kids to do it when they are adults. But we also, I suggest, need leave from work for care responsibilities, or community work or even a stint of international aid. It isn't just mothers who can care.

Women's History Month

Virginia Haussegger has a piece in SMH today about women's history.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/its-back-to-the-future-20100308-pqzx.html

Apparently it is Women's History Month, and there is lots we can learn about our foremothers' fight for equal rights. I didn't know about Zelda D'Aprano, who chained herself to the doors of the Commonwealth Centre to protest pay rates being based on gender.

Women's History Month has a website gathering resources. You can find it here.

http://www.womenshistory.com.au/

The rally to save ARM

I belong to an academic body called the Association for Research on Mothering (ARM). It operates out of York University in Toronto Canada, and there is an Australian branch. The Association runs conferences - 3 a year - one in Toronto, one in New York (with Mamapalooza) and one international. In Australia we have conferences every second year. They also publish journals twice a year, and other publications, as well as resources for academics who teach mothering units in gender studies courses. Its founder and Director, Andrea O'Reilly, is a main voice for mothers in Canada. You don't have to be an academic to be involved.

This week we received word that the Association is to close due to lack of funding. It was never set up as a research centre, so is not eligible for funding. York uni gives the centre an office. It is funded by other grants and membership fees and selling publications.

Women all over the world have been rallying to save ARM. We have been sending emails to York uni, talking about ways of raising the funds ourselves, possibly housing the Association at another uni. and asking people to buy the publications now. They need $20,000 to continue.

If you are interested in the continued existence of the Association for Research on Mothering please get involved now. If you never knew of their existence, now is the time to check them out. There is a Facebook page set up to support the group. They have their own website. Bloggers have been writing about what the Association means to them, and how sorely the loss will be felt.

Thanks. This Association has meant an enormous amount to me. That mothers are worthy of serious thought. That a group of academics connect with other mothering groups and are involved in social action. That I can read their publications and attend their conferences. That I found a home with them. That other women are thinking about how mothers can be feminists too. Can be activists and can support each other. And this Association is a driving force in the mothers movement. It was integral to the creation of the International Mothers Network.

I do understand that procedures must be followed, there are responsibilities to be met - accountability and fiscal management. I suspect the group may disband, and reform as a proper Research Centre, if we can't raise the funds to continue as we are.

I guess what we really need now is an Australian uni to house the Australian Research Centre for Mothering (our ARM branch was housed at UQ for the first few years, but now has no home). In the meantime, I guess the Australian branch can keep hosting conferences, where academics and practitioners can come together to share their research in all sorts of fields - medical, legal, culture, the arts, social policy, international issues.

Anyway, bloggers who say how I feel about ARM are here:

http://www.momsrising.org/blog/association-for-research-on-mothering-is-closing/

http://www.thestar.com/living/article/775217--mothering-research-centre-to-close

http://www.picklemethis.com/2010/03/03/the-association-for-research-on-mothering-and-me/

I'll put up others as I find them.

Closure of Association for Research on Mothering

News today that The Association For Research on Mothering is closing. This is due to lack of financial support from York University.

Lets hope another university sees the value in continuing the work and picks it up.

What are the implications for us in Australia?

No more conferences.

No more publications.

We will see if the Encyclopaedia of Mothering will be published - it was due to be released in April.

We were trying to build an Australian branch - The Association for Research on Mothering - Australia (I'm on the committee). We need to decide if we can continue without the mother group.

Very sad news indeed...

Unions to work on equal pay for women

In the Sydney Morning Herald this morning, reports that women's pay is worse than in 1985, when compared to men's. The first part of the article is reproduced here.


Women's pay worse than in 1985
BEN SCHNEIDERS
March 2, 2010

WOMEN'S lack of progress towards equal pay is to be placed on the federal election agenda, with unions set to conduct a public and political campaign calling for government intervention.

The ACTU executive will this week endorse a report stating that the issue of pay equity is to be the ''major union campaign priority'' this year, apart from the federal election itself.

Last year women in full-time jobs were paid just 82.5 per cent of men's pay - less than they were in 1985 - and the ACTU report highlights that fewer than 2 per cent of ASX 200 companies have a female chief executive and only one in 12 directors are women. The ACTU report says that, although women are now more likely than men to be university graduates, they earn $2000 a year less when they start work and continue to fall behind in wages and superannuation.

The union push will be a combined industrial, political lobbying and community campaign, the report says. It will demand improvements in paid parental leave and push for tougher government regulation of business.

The ACTU president, Sharan Burrow, said employers ''should be held to account where they fail to promote women or pay them the same as men''.

She said it was unacceptable that in a country as wealthy as Australia women's pay was on average 17 per cent less than men's. "Women continue to face barriers to fully participating in the workforce and it is unacceptable,'' she said.

Among the measures suggested are greater protection from discrimination due to family and carer responsibilities and better regulation of flexible work arrangements for women and men with caring responsibilities.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/womens-pay-worse-than-in-1985-20100301-pdkr.html

Lets hope the action is successful!

Aiming for the lowest standard??

A tv advertisement that has been banned from being shown, is being contested on the grounds that more sexist images are being shown on Video Hits in the morning.

Crazy Domains managing director Gavin Collins said the ad was "tongue in cheek" and blamed feminist bloggers for stirring up complaints. He asked for a review of the decision. "This decision makes no sense and is completely un-Australian – we're certainly not going to take this lying down," Mr Collins said. "Have you seen Video Hits on a Saturday morning? There are much more graphic and sexually explicit images on that show every week ... during a morning timeslot."

http://www.smh.com.au/business/marketing/dressing-down-over-ad-that-goes-too-far-in-boardroom-20100227-pa43.html

Well, sir, if you think the images in Video Hits are inappropriate, graphic and sexually explicit, then protest about it - don't copy it!!

And un-Australian? It is un-Australian to stand up for women to be presented respectfully? What's that about? Sheesh.

Inspiring quotes about mothering now.

I've come across some quotes recently, from maternal feminist writers I've read over the years, that sum up how I got onto this track, and turned me on to the mothers movement. Most of these are from the books I've listed in an earlier post.

The Australian blogger known as blue milk has compiled eleven quotes from feminist maternal thinkers. I'll include a sample here, but it is really worthwhile to read her eleven.

http://bluemilk.wordpress.com/10-plus-things-about-feminist-mothers/


3. They may have been living comfortably with their spouses for a decade, but when they become mothers, the gender inequality becomes more noticeable to them. These women are really trying to question how we do motherhood.
(To fathers who challenge this point, O’Reilly would offer a pop quiz: What is your child’s shoe size? When was their last immunization? What food won’t they eat? When is their next dentist appointment? What is their issue right now?) Real equality means men are doing that thinking, too. – Andrea O’Reilly


4. We’ve internalized the notion of rugged individualism so deeply that we believe we are solely responsible for our children’s health and well-being. And we believe that this belief, instead of being a sign of hubris or of despair, is an entirely normal and natural thing. This leads us to place terrible pressure upon ourselves – and gets our society almost entirely off the hook as far as responsibility for children and families goes.
Our “post-feminist” generation grew up believing we could do and be anything – and as young women it’s fair to say that we pretty much could. But all this ran aground once we had children. For many women it became very difficult to reconcile not just “work” and “family,” but our pre-motherhood and post-motherhood selves. The equal partnership marriages so many of us believed we’d entered into (so naturally that we didn’t even articulate it to ourselves at the time) changed once we became parents. Many women found themselves sweeping up Cheerios, picking up boxer shorts, and contemplating their husbands at the breakfast table through the protective screen of “his” newspaper. Many began to nurse a simmering rage. – Judith Warner

6. There was something so valuable about what happened when one became a mother. For me it was the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. . . . Liberating because the demands that children make are not the demands of a normal ‘other.’ The children’s demands on me were things that nobody ever asked me to do. To be a good manager. To have a sense of humor. To deliver something that somebody could use. And they were not interested in all the things that other people were interested in, like what I was wearing or if I were sensual. . . . Somehow all of the baggage that I had accumulated as a person about what was valuable just fell away. I could not only be me -– whatever that was -– but somebody actually needed me to be that. . . . If you listen to [your children], somehow you are able to free yourself from baggage and vanity and all sorts of things, and deliver a better self, one that you like. The person that was in me that I liked best was the one my children seemed to want. - Toni Morrison.

10. The ante on motherhood has been upped. June Cleaver had it easier: she could just send the kids outside to play. Nowadays, mom is not only supposed to raise children but raise them to an impossibly high standard. For example, when Dr. Stanley Greenspan introduced the concept of floor time for children on the autism spectrum, it was a specific treatment for children with specific needs. Now, mothers with healthy babies are supposed to commit to floor time and to feel badly if at the end of the day they haven’t done enough floor time with their babies. Oh, and vacuum the floor, too. Seriously, it’s extraordinary when you think of it how much energy goes into one child, extraordinary how much worry goes into one child. Educated, caring parents see a study — say, the one about not exposing preschoolers to television — then feel devastated about showing their newborns Baby Einstein videos. Somehow, in all of this we’ve put aside common sense. We rely too heavily on experts. We need to take the veneer off of motherhood. Here’s another thing I find fascinating about this time in our culture: we love for science to prove parenting theories right. Dr. Sears appeals to the science adoring, proof-hungry parent, but at the same time, he justifies his prescriptions by citing practices of primitive cultures. So, science and women in Africa prove you should wear your baby in a sling all day long. Does anyone talk about why women in Africa wear their babies? Because they are working all day long and they have no other place to put the babies. If they were given a choice, would they perhaps put the babies down more often? What the experts tap into is women’s profound ambivalence about how much this experience of motherhood should dictate their lives and their identities. – Meredith Michaels


These were sent to me by my friend Joan:

From the Swedish Ministry of Labor: “To make it possible for both men and women to combine parenthood and gainful employment, a new view of the male role and a radical change in the organization of working life are required.”


Nancy Fraser continued “The trick is to imagine a social world in which citizens’ lives integrate wage earning, care giving, community activism, political participation, and involvement in the associational life of civil society – while also leaving time for some fun. This world is not likely to come into being in the immediate future, but it is the only imaginable postindustrial world that promises true gender equity. And unless we are guided by this vision now, we will never get any closer to achieving it.”

Nancy Fraser, 1997, Justice Interruptus, p. 62.

So many fantastic and brave women working on this - I just want to tell everyone what is going on!

Cotton On withdraws stock

This is encouraging.

Kids Free 2B Kids announced that after public outcry regarding Cotton On's offensive t-shirt slogans for babies and children, and after Julie Gale, the Director of Kids Free 2 B Kids met with the CEO of Cotton On, they are in the process of withdrawing 40,000 items of stock. Campaigns are still being run against Supre and Roger David. And campaigns are being run about other issues too. More info here:

http://www.kf2bk.com/latest_news.htm&news_id=30


I just looked at the Roger David t-shirts and others that Melinda Tankard Reist has on her blog and I don't know whether to scream or cry - these are VILE! Please take action to have these taken off the market.

http://melindatankardreist.com.au/2010/01/women-blindfolded-and-gagged-the-latest-in-men%E2%80%99s-fashion-from-roger-david/

Favourite mothering songs

Here are the lyrics to some of my favourite mothering songs (more to come).

The first two are by Lisa Miller - a singer/songwriter from Melbourne. The third is by Lori McKenna, who is from the US. The fourth is by Laura Nyro, so was probably written in the 70s.

Lisa Miller - I Love You A Thousand Dollars

Well I admit there are times
I don't feel cut out for this game
Busier than I've ever been
While bored out of my brain
And as unglamorous as it may seem
To welcome the sound of a pre-school theme
And reading the paper is something to get excited about

Go on and make me ashamed to say
There's nothing more beautiful to me
The impossible softness of the sin
The part underneath his unformed chin

I could tell you

Well you ask why we do it
Why we put ourselves through it
Is there an intelligent case
Or is it as you suspect
For the survival of the human race
Well pick off that crumbed suit and off you go
To coffee with a friend or a new show
Whenever there's not much more to get excited about

Go on and make me ashamed...

'Cause I live in sleepy hollow
There's tears but joy follows
And it's so far from here
I could tell you..

So why don't you just turn the other way
Go back to your friends with so much to say
And try and find something to get excited about

Go on and make me ashamed...

And it opens a well of emotional colour
He calls out I love you a thousand dollars

I love you a thousand dollars
Like it's the biggest thing in the world
And it's so far from here

I could tell you...


Little Stars - Lisa Miller

Sometimes I feel like those little stars
We pinned above your bed
Now falling down by the bed
I just want to lie there
Forgotten and quiet
Away from this riot

But I'll never break your little heart
I'll never break your little heart

As constant as the old arguments
There goes another glass crashing down to the floor
Your face so flushed with innocence
How could I ever say
I can't take any more

'Cause I'll never break your little heart
I'll never break your little heart

And though your fingernail moon is gone
For most of the day you know it's there anyway
Just like my love for you shines on
Though eclipsed it may seem
By the things that we say

'Cause I'll never break your little heart
I'll never break your little heart

Your heart
What more is there
Your sweet heart
What more is there

Unglamorous - Lori McKenna

Understated, overrated side
Carnival ride
Curtains faded, threadbare rug's real nice
The baby stayed up all night

How wonderful
Rhinestones on black satin shoes
How beautiful
The one's I never get to use
No frills, no fuss, perfectly us
Unglamorous

Frozen dinner, jelly glass of wine
Tastes just fine
Two bread winners, five kids in short time
With eyes just like mine
How wonderful

Crowded dinners at the kitchen table
How beautiful
One TV set - no cable
No frills, no fuss, perfectly us
Unglamorous

No diamonds in our bathtub rings
Peanut butter on everything
No frills, no fuss - unglamorous
Unglamorous

How wonderful
A gravel road leading to a front door
How beautiful
Old wool socks on a bedroom floor
No frills, no fuss, perfectly us -unglamorous
Unglamorous
Unglamorous


Laura Nyro - To A Child

What is life?
Did you read about it
In a magazine?
Silent lies
Never give you what you need
Is there hope
For a mother
And an elf on speed?

Kiss the sun hello
Child in the park
Make your life a lovin' thing
I'm so tired
You're so wired
And I'm a poet
Without a poem
And you are my child

So serene
Read about us in a magazine
Then why are we
Crying by the washing machine?
Let's run away child
And follow a dream

Kiss the sun hello
Child in the park
Make your life a lovin' thing
The park is late
The wind is strong
The trees have eyes
And you are my song
My lovely song

What is love?
Child I am here
to stand by you
And you will find
Your own way hard and true
And I'll find mine
'Cause I'm growin' with you

Kiss the sun hello
God & Goddess
Make his life a lovin' thing
And if I smile as you reach
above the climbin' bars
To see the stars
You are my love
Child my love

The Equality Illusion- new book

A new book in the UK sets out the state of gender inequality today. Books like this appear regularly, here, in the UK and the US. Some gain more traction than others. Full of statistics, and meaning to be a wake-up call. I suppose if they make people aware that the problem is far from solved, then they do some good. Can you tell I've already read lots of them? That things are changing fast enough for me?


A review in the Guardian here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/21/the-equality-illusion-kat-banyard

Gender imbalance in media

Actress and mother, Geena Davis, has set up an institute to investigate and report on the gender imbalance in the media. While watching preschool programs and G rated movies with her kids, she noticed that male characters outnumbered female characters, and decided to investigate. See her findings here.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/entertainment/film/no-place-for-women-even-for-preschoolers/2010/02/21/1266687018352.html


And her institute here.

http://www.thegeenadavisinstitute.org/research.php

Here are their recommendations:

RECOMMENDATIONS BASED ON THE RESEARCH

1. G-rated movies and certain TV categories need more females as main characters, minor characters, narrators, and in crowds.
2. G-rated movies and certain TV categories need more characters of color, especially female characters of color as main characters, minor characters, narrators, and in crowds.
3. G-rated movies need to create more female characters with aspirations beyond romance.
4. G-rated movies need to create more women and girl characters that are valued for their inner character, too

Worthwhile!

And we all know that a woman has never won an Academy Award for Best Director. Maybe this year...

Good the see this issue is getting some attention.

Intensive parenting is bad for children

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/feb/07/parents-advised-put-children-second

Here is an article from the Guardian saying that focusing on your own relationship is better for kids than focusing on them. It claims that kids who get too much attention are more prone to become anxious and depressed.

Another strike against intensive parenting...

Motherhood in France sets Feminism back

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/12/france-feminism-elisabeth-badinter

An article in the Guardian about a French philosopher who states that the current trend of intensive mothering, based on breastfeeding, cloth nappies and experts advice on children's behaviour, is in danger of setting feminism back decades. And I thought France was one of the countries we could look to for getting it right.

Need to think again...

The Courage to Give Up a Dream

Most parents teach their children to dream, and to dream big. 'You can be anything you want to be'. I notice the trend in children's clothing with the slogans of Princess or Popstar. The message is, from so many movies and songs and other sources, anybody can be a star. You deserve it. You're worth it.

This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately, because the truth is that not everybody can be a star. In fact, most people who aspire to great heights, be they creative or sporting or academic, or in any career, will have their hopes dashed. Most people live ordinary lives. Most people who dream big at some point give up those dreams to live a normal life, a life of stability and responsibility. Does that make for happiness? I'd say that it depends on how graciously you can give up your dream.

One of the ways of being happy is to want what you already have. Dreamers don't do that - they want more, or something else, which is kind of insulting the people around them, who are content to be doing what they're doing and being ordinary. One of the ways to be happy is to be where you are, to be present. Dreamers don't do that either - they are somewhere else.

Now I should say here that I've just read the works of Salinger, who talks a lot about spirituality and how to be happy. Of course, we know, in his own life he shunned fame, and I admire him for that. We know about the impositions of fame; it is not for the feint-hearted. A theme of his work is how the little incidental observed moment of innocence can motivate a person to keep on going, to feel humbled and able to continue. It is the same kind of message mothers often talk about, or are told, that although it is difficult it all seems worthwhile when you see your child sleeping or when your child gives you a kiss etc. I'm not sure how realistic this is, or if it is just pat sentimentality and what is expected of mothers. When Salinger does it is seems significant and a revelation. When mothers say it, I'm not so sure it is enough. That's why I'm concentrating on the 'change what you can' part of the serenity prayer, in being active for change.

And, in Salinger's work, it is the clever, the intellectual and the high achievers who see the injustices and the inconsistencies and that life and art could be so much better. Those insights don't make for happiness. Knowing that you are the smartest person in the room certainly doesn't make for a happy life. The most intelligent people I've known have been depressive, alcoholics, drug addicts. As Salinger has Zooey tells Franny, shine your shoes for the fat lady, because the fat lady is Christ himself; being smug or unkind does not make for happiness.

Then I happened upon these messages from the GROW group - a support program for people with mental health issues. Reading their brochure they have a few sayings that could be helpful.

'The Overall Key to Mental Health and Happiness: Settle for disorder in lesser things for the sake of order in greater things; and therefore be content to be discontent in many things.'

This is particularly pertinent when you live with small children in your care. You certainly have to let go of the perfect house or your social life or your place on the career ladder to be with your children.

And another: 'I can be ordinary. I can do whatever ordinary good people do, and avoid whatever ordinary good people avoid. My special abilities will develop in harmony only if my foremost aim is to be a good ordinary human being.'

That message is so rare that it is almost shocking. We all think we are unique, special, and worthy of the best, but the truth is that we are also ordinary. So are our children. For people who are able-bodied and of sound mind, it is unlikely we are satisfied with being ordinary.

I'm thinking about this in the context of people who I knew had creative ambitions, as I did. I trained as an actor. I spent the twenty years before I had kids with writers, artists, musicians, actors, academics. Of all the people I spent time with, perhaps one has made it big, a few have had fleeting success. Some can periodically earn money from their talent. The people who succeeded weren't more talented, or more determined, or in any way more deserving. They were just luckier. Some found personal happiness and didn't need their dream anymore. Still others took a practical route of a stable job and responsibilities. Some became teachers. Some continue as amateurs or develop their talents as a hobby. Some never gave up on their dream, to their detriment.

Isn't that what growing up is? Giving up on the dream to be content with the ordinary? Living an ordinary life, without disappointment. And the dream may have been a life of wealth, of romance, of children. Very few people have all their expectations of life met.

Why don't we celebrate the ordinary more often? We might do so in photographs of people living in poverty, or in tribes in third world countries, but we don't do it for ourselves.

And I'm thinking about it in the context of mothers, who may have their own aspirations and desires that they can't pursue due to the demands of raising children, and I might add, the endless menial tasks involved in caring for children and running a household. If you do that work with a 'why me?' attitude, I'm afraid you're sunk. If you do it graciously, believing that it is OK to live a little life, an ordinary life filled with ordinary moments, there is a kind of greatness in that.

Now, I know there is a lot more to say. That this could be a gendered question, but I'm not sure that it is. That we want to give our children hope. That we want them to be happy, so, knowing their dreams will probably be unfulfilled, what should we teach them? And that we want to be happy ourselves. And while I certainly don't want to raise my housework to an artform, and I don't consciously do my housework as a blessing for my family, I do want everyone, not just mothers, but men and children and everyone, to see the honour and the value in all the little menial tasks that make up our ordinary lives. To see that no-one is too good or above doing these tasks. That it is as much a part of normal life as dressing yourself. That we can do these jobs consciously. That we are all worthy of them. And that it takes courage to give up a dream to do these ordinary things.

NSW Children's Commisioner

It is good to see an article this month in Sydney's Child by the NSW Children's Commissioner, Gillian Calvert. I bet most people don't know that this position exists. She has held this position for ten years - makes me wonder how well she is doing the job?


She says parents are stressed and anxious about their parenting, and that parents are doing it on their own - they need more support. That children need healthy relationships, and relationship require time. That the amount of information directed to parents is confusing. that modern life is faster, more complex, too competitive, too material and consumer oriented.

She says we need:
- paid parental leave
- family friendly work places
- mothers in the workplace
- affordable and accessible child-care
- improve after school care
- improve qualifications of child-care staff and improve staff-child ratios
- services to support vulnerable lower socio-economic parents
- improve conditions for Indigenous children
- support schools and value teachers
- less homework and scheduled activities and more time to play
- provide community spaces where kids can play and interact
- ensure we leave a healthy planet for our children to live on


All these things she says we need for children are the same things we say we need for mothers. And what we need to improve the wellbeing of men. How long is it going to take? We've been talking about all these issues for a long time.

The proposal she makes which is new to me is that we appoint an Australian Children's Commissioner, to be a voice for children's rights. Considering we hear little from the NSW one, I wonder if having an Australian one would be better.

What do you think?