Paper thin



from here via ffffound

 It's true. I am.

I seem to have an alarmingly good ability to think and act in a manner that is so utterly selfish...and then, as I suppose most people do, feign justification - if not to everyone else, at least to myself.

Societal rules and constructs regarding care responsibilities typically necessitate that women are self-sacrificing; one's role as a mother is not without marked compromise and indeed, subsequent judgement. 

We are expected to endure, suffer in silence and persevere irrespective of our feelings.

A large part of me agrees, in so much that I feel that surely the wellbeing of my children is to be given primacy over my own? However, what if the two are intrinsically connected, and the hollow ghost of a mother is no more beneficial than if she were to act as she felt ... and not as she thought she should feel...?

Feminism encourages us to challenge those rules that bind us. But this becomes part of the dilemma - while I feel that the societal rules that may limit us and our actions are rigid (but movable) it is difficult to encourage others to see that this may be the case. And while I know that our willingness to push these boundaries is shaped by our experiences, I recognise that this can be both a limiting, and expansive experience.

on being a feminist bride, and other awesome stuff I write on other people's blogs. yeah.

image from Juju mama

A post I wrote on Mia Freedman's site, Mamma Mia regarding feminist brides and virginal white, being given away and promising to 'love honour and obey'.

The question posed by Mia was something along the lines of, "were you a feminist bride"... and Mia cited an example of her own interpretation of traditional marriage rites, her bridesmaid carried Mia's son down the aisle, as a fair rejection of the 'well, I'm not a virgin' assumption from days past.

My response:

Yeah, I’d like to think I was a feminist bride, even if it wasn’t a conscientious choice to be ‘a feminist bride’ – I just wanted to do things our way.


So… we got married at home, in our backyard, without about 70 or so guests (and that was a massive number blow out). We stood around and had beers with our mates before the ceremony, and then the celebrant asked everyone to assemble outside and we came out together, me, N and my daughters. It was lovely. He wore black jeans, a shirt and volleys, I wore a dress my mother and I made from black fabric and some gorgeous white lace – not what I had originally intended to wear! (I wanted to wear jeans and a tshirt!) But what we created from some fabrics that we found and loved.

We catered ourselves, asked a few friends to make some desserts.

We didn’t have rings. Neither of us are that in to jewellery, so it was a pointless exercise, exchanging rings.

We asked each of our dads to read some hilarious excerpts from a couple of books a friend gave us, ‘dont’s for wives’ and ‘donts for husbands’.

In place of the traditional giving away, the celebrant asked our friends and family if they would support us in our lives together, to which there was a resounding, and heart warming ‘YES!’

There was not a hint of ‘honour and obey’, rather, heartfelt words, and “do you promise to be a fabulous husband”… I laughed and joked the whole way through… it was a beautiful, glorious interpretation of a traditional rite that I had all my life advocated doing away with.

OMG, and the flowers! So N had brought home stacks of fluffy white chrysanthemums from his work, and we had lots of vases of chrysanthemum spread around the house. It was beautiful… I ended up with a bouquet (!) because there was 3 gorgeous roses out the front of my parents house, from a bush called ‘Julia’s rose’ (my sister’s name, I think I gave it to them when she was born?) that the night before I asked my mum if she could cut and bring over for a bouquet.

And we didn’t have a wedding cake – instead a dessert table. Cos I love dessert. So it was amazing, beautiful. A great day had by all. The whole thing was very mutually planned and organised too – I think that’s significant. Because I’m a terrible decision maker and not prepared to shoulder all/the bulk of the responsibility for what is supposed to be *our* day. Plus, obv N wanted a say in it, to us that seemed completely normal but I understand that often, brides don’t want their groom involved at all.

AND WE DIDN’T HAVE BUCK’S/HEN’S NIGHTS. Again, a mutual decision, but this whole ‘last night of freedom’ thing is bullshit, insulting and demeaning to the commitment we were making (and had already made) to each other.



And… I read offbeat bride and East side bride - both fairly religiously, as great blogs that were incredibly reassuring for knowing that it was ok to do things our way, because the important part of the day was not how the photos looked, or whether my shoes or hair or *everything* was perfect, but rather, the vows. The presence of friends and family and the commitment that we were fortunate enough to be able to make to each other.

Incidentally, I have read in a lot of places (particularly offbeat bride, because that's where I frequently read stuff) comments women made about their justification for changing their name being that they 'were not particularly attached to their surname' and that they 'wanted to have the same surname as their children'.
I didn't change my name, never had any intention of doing so, and nor was it expected of me by either my husband or my family. Why? Because I like my surname, I'm quite attached to it because I've lived with it for 31 years, and wasn't about to sacrifice this for another (albeit nice) name in honour of a cultural tradition I don't endorse.
And... I *do* have the same name as my children, because they have my name. If we had more, they would also have my name, it's not really a question for either of us, and as such I wonder if the comments that women make with regard to 'not being particularly attached to their surnames' come from the assumption that they will change their name as they get older?
I don't care if people know or not know that N and I are married; that wasn't the purpose of the exercise. So in this sense, name changing seems like a superfluous exercise.

on Germaine Greer, feminism, and Bingle's well, bingle

image from Wack! Art and the Feminist Revolution exhibition, from 2007

An opinion piece published in the Herald Sun the other day suggested that not only was feminism a great big fat failure, but it was also responsible for "appalling rates of teenage pregnancies, damning numbers of divorces, and more unhappy and exploited women than ever". Further, Germaine Greer's "numbingly dreary, poorly written guide" (The Female Eunuch)  was completely unsuccessful, as evidenced by factors such as the size of female Olympic volleyball player's bikini bottoms, and the Bingle/Fevola issue. Bingle is generally criticised as being some kind of sexual predator, preying on an innocent (!) then-married Fevola and the whole scenario was used as an example of how "feminism hasn't really worked, so could Germaine Greer please shoosh" (I'm paraphrasing) and as a woman who, as Alan Howe suggests "are tugging hardest at the reins that hold back their gender".
Ergh.


He also lambastes Greer for changing her opinion, and expressing said new opinion publicly, accusing her of being as media hungry as the 'big-breasted b-grade celebrities' she has previously criticised (more paraphrasing, but you get the general idea).
And this, then, is the bit that I don't understand - surely we, as intelligent, thinking people, are allowed to change our ideas and opinions? Just as society changes and evolves, surely so are our interpretations of different issues affecting society?

Furthermore, how is it that Greer is solely and wholly responsible for the failure of feminism? Surely the undoing of the works of the sisterhood are more the efforts of a patriarchal society (one that it is all too easy to succumb to) than the failures of either Greer personally, or the feminist movement as a whole?

While accept that Greer is generally conveyed as an abrasive old bat, and I'm not about to defend her for her public commentary (she's more than capable of doing this herself) what she does do, and does very well, is challenge popular discourse on an issue, regardless of whether or not she anticipates this will be well received within popular media. That is, she opens the possibility to new ideas, different modes of thinking, and a general challenge to society-at-large to question whatever the current 'group think' on an issue may be, and in doing so, effectively moves undiscussed issues (such as the female body) in to public discourse (as she did with The Female Eunuch).
Finally, I don't think she's completely responsible for the 'Greer' image we receive in the media, as a crotchety old cranky ex-pat with too much to say and not enough media to say it in. I do, however, think that the media generally take great pleasure in portraying her as such, not the least of which (as we see in Howe's article, and echoed within reader comments) is used as a validation for the media-as-a-whole's rejection of feminism and for fixating on the body and women-as-sex-objects/inferior to men and therefore the root of all evil within society... etc.

As though oppression is the fault of the oppressed, for letting themselves be exploited.



Get real.

Frida Kahlo image from here (and originally sourced from Britannica)

'your mum' jokes don't work so well on your kids

N's parents came around and 'helped clean'. Now, while I accept my house is untidy (cleaning and folding washing isn't a priority for me, OR anyone else in this house) the whole experience was...demoralising at best. N's mother made a great deal of the amount of clutter and dust everywhere - while doing little to actually resolve any of these issues.
I endured it by rearranging my bedroom, cleaning out my wardrobe (necessary - I could barely close the doors) and vacuuming under my bed. My dad helpfully replaced the broken tap and leaky showerhead, and my little brother helped paint the back room with N and his dad. Oh, to have been one of them.

So, I spent international women's day cleaning my house (and refusing to feel guilty for not being a better housekeeper) in preparation for an upcoming wedding. Ironic, no? I'm still trying to scrub the stench of horrible, hateful anti-feminist behaviour from my body (fortunately, I can now do this in the bath - thanks dad!). Might have to cut my hair shorter, or something.


At any rate, my mother, who is an expert on such things, says that wearing a white, repurposed wedding wedding dress will look like I'm not taking the whole thing seriously. Of course, the white wedding dress could also look too earnest, and I'm starting to feel that I lose either way. Thus, she informs me the only thing I can convincingly wear with my sooper-dooper-awesome shoes ("drag queen shoes, as my mum called them) is black. Minimal, a-line, v-neck black.
Now, rationally I know this, but when shopping patterns I found little that really jumped out at me and said, "OMG WEAR ME WHEN YOU GET WEDDINGED" ... .hence I am still looking.
Knowing, of course, that I will more than likely resort to the black dress.

Meanwhile, still clinging to hope, I also like this

Oh, fuck.

I was just looking through the offbeat bride and was reminded that according to the Marriage Act 1961 our celebrant is obliged to say some crap about how, in Australia, marriage is a legally binding blah blah between a MAN AND A WOMAN to the exclusion of all others.
Now, I don't. agree. with. this. at. all.

It completely contravenes my feelings regarding love, people, and the notion that the heart knows no gender boundaries, and that marriage should be a right for all regardless of sex or sexual identity. It is at odds with everything I am trying to raise my children to understand - that laws do not dictate love (within reason: we're not talking child brides here, peoples - but then, I tend to think of this as something that is the product of religion more so) so I am at a bit of a loss as to how to circumvent this problem in our ceremony.
I'm not at all comfortable with the exclusive nature of the Australian Marriage Act.

Currently I'm trying to get my head around how I, as a feminist, can not only endorse, but actively engage in something that effectively deliniates one group of society from another, based on something as arbitrary as who they love. Not sexual preference, but love. Because to me, that's what it ultimately boils down to: N and I have (gloriously) realised that we are at a point in our relationship where we've decided, that "yeah, this is it, and it's awesome" and others, who also reach this point, cannot (legally) express this in the same fashion.
Kind of rough, isn't it?

Further, associated with marriage are all sorts of patriachal symbols that I wish to thoroughly disown. I've thought about this somewhat, though, we can condemn the symbols that oppress us, or we can reclaim them, call them our own and effectively repurpose them to represent what we want. It's the same logic I use with my frequent use of very naughty swear words.
Thus, marriage becomes not about possession and submission, but rather, strengthening and sharing the bonds of love, not just with each other, but with everyone else - friends and family alike. And I suppose that's why my family and N's family are overjoyed that we're doing this - (in my mother's words, "about bloody time") because then they too can join in (join hands? Figuratively speaking, NOT literally) and say something along the lines of "hey this makes me really happy".

I just don't like that it's so damned exclusive. And so, I continue to voice my discontent.

So, apart from blathering on about how I never planned a wedding, never dreamt of my wedding day, never envisioned myself getting married (when we played weddings at school, I was the celebrant, when we played mums and dads, I was the crazy aunty that visited occasionally from some far off corner of the world and bought the most AWESOME gifts - and wore funny hats)... and have even outwardly stated that "I don't think I'll ever get married"... but, you know, like in that Ms Jackson song, "forever never seems like a long time till you're wrong".
Mind you, I'm quite happily wrong about this.

please bear with me while I open my mouth and spew forth a pile of unintelligable gibberish

I really loathe those days when I feel I swing a pendulum between talking too much (and saying very little) and not talking (and still, saying very little). There is no middle ground here, simply a dire case of foot-in-mouth, and uncomfortable silences.
Case in point - today, when, during a meeting with other Honours students and their supervisors, I felt I either babbled incessantly, or stared at the table intensely, hoping someone else would say anything so that I wouldn't feel the need to continue to blather on about nothing in particular. Fortunately, my supervisor appears to be quite empathetic to this unfortunate condition, as she rescued me on more than one occasion. She's like me, I think, in a short, intense personality kind of way.

Now, because I'm terribly vain, I like to think I'm intense in a Peaches kind of way. Of course, Peaches is brilliant and intense and a musical god, but still, I'd like to think there were parallels between the the more abrasive and challenging aspects of her public persona (she makes no apologies for who she is, indeed, she challenges people to question their presumptions and preconceptions) and myself.
I wish.
Ha!

Picture courtesy of The Scenestar

So inspired I am by Helen Razer's blog, http://badhostess.com/ that I felt the need to blog about this here. Because ranting to no one in particular is what I do best.

Ms Razer describes her experiences while buying an RCA lead, and what seems to be an inevitable and entirely predictable exchange with male sales assistant, who acts in such a way as to assume that he wasn't aware that people with vaginas were allowed to go to school and might (God forbid!) know things.
My last experience in this sphere was while trying to establish the cost of replacing the battery in my car's remote control. I spoke to a automotive locksmith, and explained that I had sawed the remote open along its seam with a steak knife, pried the battery off, and that while one of the contacts was already broken (the result of being dropped too many times) I had established that fashioning a makeshift contact out of some tin-foil seemed to work just fine, and can I use a regular battery and would you sell me one please.
With an over-exaggerated sigh, he explained to me that these remotes were single use only, and couldn't be opened (in spite of me telling him I already had) and that purchasing a replacement battery was a mistake because it was NEVER GOING TO WORK BUT WHAT WOULD YOU KNOW BECAUSE YOU ARE JUST A STUPID GIRL. Well, the last bit wasn't actually spoken aloud, you know, but rather, tacit in his tone and slow manner of explanation. So, very patiently, and equally as slowly, I explained to him that not only was I confident it would work, but that at least attempting to fix the unit was preferable to obediently handing over wads of cash that I simply don't have - something I am sure he seemed to think was the only thing I was actually skilled at.

So, steeled by his arrogant presumptions, I called in to a local supermarket, bought a battery and replaced it, sticky tape, tin foil and all. And it works fine. So you know, nyeh nyeh, etc.