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highlyeccentricWomen's Honi successfully reminded me of why I avoid activists in general and feminists in particular.
ed for the uninitiated: Honi Soit is the Sydney Uni SRC paper.
1.
2.
3.
Here Endeth The Rant. [/rant]
ed for the uninitiated: Honi Soit is the Sydney Uni SRC paper.
1.
I admit it. I'm one of those terrible people who think a 'Women's Edition' is daft. Not because i think it's unessecary to discuss 'women's issues'. But I have a problem with
-the fact that these issues are presented as 'women's issues'. This gives the impression that they only concern women. Like the only reason a man should care about high rates of violence about women is because women are jumping up and down about it. Violence against anyone should be everyone's concern, and if particular sectors of society are vulnerable then it should be everyone's 'issue'.
these 'women's issues' are just as demeaning to men, really. If a man only gets a job because he's a man (as opposed to female candidates), what does that say about his skills? If a culture accepts violence agaisnt women, it is also a culture in which it's accepted that men can only express themselves through violence; all this business about men thinking of nothing but sex, men sorting out problems (with each other or with women) through violence just because that's what men do is as much part of what i've heard called a 'repressive cult of masculinity' as it is part of the culture of denegration of women.
-while it is argued that we still need 'women's editions' and the like because these problems are still prevalent in society, we've been having that sort of thing for a while now. Isn't progress about moving forward? Honi has the report of the women's officers every week, but why are these diatribes about rape, women in the workplace, etc, saved up for the women's edition? Are they so unimportant to the general populace that we need a whole edition to get people to care? If that is so, that's a sad state of affairs. Not that removing the women's edition would necessarily be a step forward; but if ever have a feminist rant I'm sending it to the regular Honi first.
-the fact that these issues are presented as 'women's issues'. This gives the impression that they only concern women. Like the only reason a man should care about high rates of violence about women is because women are jumping up and down about it. Violence against anyone should be everyone's concern, and if particular sectors of society are vulnerable then it should be everyone's 'issue'.
these 'women's issues' are just as demeaning to men, really. If a man only gets a job because he's a man (as opposed to female candidates), what does that say about his skills? If a culture accepts violence agaisnt women, it is also a culture in which it's accepted that men can only express themselves through violence; all this business about men thinking of nothing but sex, men sorting out problems (with each other or with women) through violence just because that's what men do is as much part of what i've heard called a 'repressive cult of masculinity' as it is part of the culture of denegration of women.
-while it is argued that we still need 'women's editions' and the like because these problems are still prevalent in society, we've been having that sort of thing for a while now. Isn't progress about moving forward? Honi has the report of the women's officers every week, but why are these diatribes about rape, women in the workplace, etc, saved up for the women's edition? Are they so unimportant to the general populace that we need a whole edition to get people to care? If that is so, that's a sad state of affairs. Not that removing the women's edition would necessarily be a step forward; but if ever have a feminist rant I'm sending it to the regular Honi first.
2.
The assumption touted by femists everywhere is that work = liberation and home life/ motherhood = patriarchy. This really annoys me.
There was a Radar article a while back on the growth of religious piety amongst today's youth. A Barnies congregation member told the interviewer that, when she'd explain in a tute that she had a deep desire to be a mother, a Rabid Feminist stood up and told her to get out of the room and that she was not fit to be at university.
I myself have had to fight not to be horrified by high school girls who seem to have no career aims beyond marriage and motherhood. These girls aren't just the product of religious brainwashing, though. Of the two greatest examples of this type I know, one is a fervent pentecostal christian. She has aims aside from motherhood- she wants to become a worship leader and a Christian recording artist. Are these goals less admirable because she wants to be a mother first? The other such woman I knew was an avowed atheist; she wanted to, and I believe she did, marry her boyfriend, work on her family property and sell handmade furniture she and her boyfriend made. It's not that Beth and Tash have no aims in life; it simply doesn't mean tertiary training and a 9-5 job, and motherhood was top on their agenda. (And isn't that a better environment for kids than being rushed to and from childcare for the first years of life?)
Sass' article in Honi this week complained that the government was 'paying women to get out of the workplace and back into the maternity ward'.
Now, I've read Marion Maddox. I'm not silly enough to think that the Howard Government isn't favouring male-income families. If you're in a low income bracket it's actually financially beneficial for mum to stay at home and breed like a rabbit. I believe you're even assessed for tax by dividing the husband's income in two- an excellent way to go down a tax bracket. Certainly, this is a problem that needs to be addressed.
But what I object to is the idea that a woman should not stay at home with her children. My mother indoctrinated me well (she probably began this during the decade or so she stayed at home to raise my brother and I). One of the most important reasons children are not high on my list of goals is that I firmly believe children should be raised in the home until school age, and I suspect I'd go mad. Of course in todays world a man should be able to stay home, and should feel as much obliged to do so as women. But logistically speaking, in any future I envisage I have either no career, or something very flexible, ergo it would make sense for that to fall on me. Anyway, I digress.
Why can a woman not chose to make motherhood her career? Is raising children somehow less worthy of her time than corporate bastardry?
If it's disgraceful that the government is bribing women out of the workforce, isn't it just as disgraceful that many mothers, particularly single mothers, are forced into the workforce as soon as their youngest child reaches a given age, and that that age is getting lower by the day? If a mother opts out of paid employment because government subsidies and tax cuts make unemployment a better option, does that mean that another women who choses to leave the workforce in order to become a mother should not recieve income support to allow her to carry out this choice? Perhaps we ought to look at the low pay rates which make the first woman's employment impractical, or at the lack of support for struggling two-income families. But in supporting a woman's right to make her own choices, ALL options need to be included.
Until it is acceptable for anyone, mother or father, to stay at home to care for children, until the day a human being is no longer defined by his or her choices in paid employment, equality is only equal rights to the rat race. The roots of this cause lie both in the established order of things and in the attitudes of those who are pushing for change.
There was a Radar article a while back on the growth of religious piety amongst today's youth. A Barnies congregation member told the interviewer that, when she'd explain in a tute that she had a deep desire to be a mother, a Rabid Feminist stood up and told her to get out of the room and that she was not fit to be at university.
I myself have had to fight not to be horrified by high school girls who seem to have no career aims beyond marriage and motherhood. These girls aren't just the product of religious brainwashing, though. Of the two greatest examples of this type I know, one is a fervent pentecostal christian. She has aims aside from motherhood- she wants to become a worship leader and a Christian recording artist. Are these goals less admirable because she wants to be a mother first? The other such woman I knew was an avowed atheist; she wanted to, and I believe she did, marry her boyfriend, work on her family property and sell handmade furniture she and her boyfriend made. It's not that Beth and Tash have no aims in life; it simply doesn't mean tertiary training and a 9-5 job, and motherhood was top on their agenda. (And isn't that a better environment for kids than being rushed to and from childcare for the first years of life?)
Sass' article in Honi this week complained that the government was 'paying women to get out of the workplace and back into the maternity ward'.
Now, I've read Marion Maddox. I'm not silly enough to think that the Howard Government isn't favouring male-income families. If you're in a low income bracket it's actually financially beneficial for mum to stay at home and breed like a rabbit. I believe you're even assessed for tax by dividing the husband's income in two- an excellent way to go down a tax bracket. Certainly, this is a problem that needs to be addressed.
But what I object to is the idea that a woman should not stay at home with her children. My mother indoctrinated me well (she probably began this during the decade or so she stayed at home to raise my brother and I). One of the most important reasons children are not high on my list of goals is that I firmly believe children should be raised in the home until school age, and I suspect I'd go mad. Of course in todays world a man should be able to stay home, and should feel as much obliged to do so as women. But logistically speaking, in any future I envisage I have either no career, or something very flexible, ergo it would make sense for that to fall on me. Anyway, I digress.
Why can a woman not chose to make motherhood her career? Is raising children somehow less worthy of her time than corporate bastardry?
If it's disgraceful that the government is bribing women out of the workforce, isn't it just as disgraceful that many mothers, particularly single mothers, are forced into the workforce as soon as their youngest child reaches a given age, and that that age is getting lower by the day? If a mother opts out of paid employment because government subsidies and tax cuts make unemployment a better option, does that mean that another women who choses to leave the workforce in order to become a mother should not recieve income support to allow her to carry out this choice? Perhaps we ought to look at the low pay rates which make the first woman's employment impractical, or at the lack of support for struggling two-income families. But in supporting a woman's right to make her own choices, ALL options need to be included.
Until it is acceptable for anyone, mother or father, to stay at home to care for children, until the day a human being is no longer defined by his or her choices in paid employment, equality is only equal rights to the rat race. The roots of this cause lie both in the established order of things and in the attitudes of those who are pushing for change.
3.
The idea that rape is something that only happens to women is preposterous. Yes, women do make up a majority. But as long as the discussion on rape is limited to the way men treat women, there is a neglected group of men who are suffering- not to mention victims of domestic violence in lesbian relationships, on whom there was an article in UR last year.
The idea that only women have body image problems is likewise blinkered; again, women are a majority, but while we dominate discourse on the issue, the numbers of men with eating disorders and the like is growing.
Yes, there needs to be discussion on these issues, yes women as a majority of sufferers deserve special attention. But as long as these problems are percived as problems only for women, we're propagating a discourse of vitimised women and masochistic men. Significant minorities get attention in all other aspects of society- why not here?
The idea that only women have body image problems is likewise blinkered; again, women are a majority, but while we dominate discourse on the issue, the numbers of men with eating disorders and the like is growing.
Yes, there needs to be discussion on these issues, yes women as a majority of sufferers deserve special attention. But as long as these problems are percived as problems only for women, we're propagating a discourse of vitimised women and masochistic men. Significant minorities get attention in all other aspects of society- why not here?
Here Endeth The Rant. [/rant]
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 12:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 01:01 pm (UTC)I'm very keen to have several children as well as a career - I'm glad there are definite role models in my field who have juggled the demands of both!
...she said while on a break from alternating knitting and dissertation work. Living the dream, baby.
(I'm guessing Honi is a newspaper or something? Because yeah, I agree on that too - I think in the majority of cases, partitioning anything gender-related in that way tends to belittle it rather than give it prominence, as well as implying that the rest of public discourse is for men only.)
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 01:12 pm (UTC)good on you for wanting kids and career :) Personally I suspect I'm going to want at least one of the creatures eventually... But i'll deal with then when it happens.
As a student at women's college, we get a lot of speakers talking about how they juggle their high flying careers with being supermum. We had one who said she'd opted out of motherhood because she didn't feel she could do children justice. I'd like to hear from someone who was 'just a mum' sometime too. There's an ethic that says to be a great feminist you have to be able to juggle both- if you're only a mum you're submitting to patriarchy, if you don't have kids you're cheating yourself. *shrugs* i think that all three and everything in between need to be both acceptable and supported.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 07:22 am (UTC)and what're you knitting?
i tried knitting once. i'm even less a knitter than a sewer... and that's saying something.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 10:25 pm (UTC)I'm knitting a shoulder bag, it's big and plain and dark red... it's the first real thing I've knitted, so I wanted to start on something simple.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 11:47 pm (UTC)erm... the whole lack of draft thing is going to be fun for you :)
Me, I'm doing a BA majoring in French (useful, but kinda dull) and Medieval Studies (useless but fascinating).
that's going to be a very cuddly shoulder bag, being red wool and all... :)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 04:22 pm (UTC)That sounds like an interesting degree. Languages and history are both very cool.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 10:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 10:52 pm (UTC)hah, true, i've vaacuumed my room all of three times this semester. so possibly there's something in the forcible-tidying-up theory
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 11:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 03:10 pm (UTC)Nicely written and thought out.
A few thoughts come to mind:
For the letter I wrote for my course on the life and letters of the apostle Paul, one of the issues the "Troasians" were facing was divisiveness between the Jewish and Gentile believers. At one point, I had the idea cross my mind to write two letters, one to each specific group to address them individually, so that my argument for them being equal and all worshipping together could be appropriately tailored for how much they'd been steeped in Jewish traditions. Resmate who was also in the course pointed out that idea was flawed, as while the ideas written within the letters preach unity, the presence of separate letters belies that ideal.
In my mind, saying "we are all equal" and yet having a women's issue seem to speak different messages.
On the questions of motherhood and such, my mum's perspective on such things has been that she wishes simply to be given the choice to do which she pleases without being looked down upon for either decision. She decided to stay home with my brother and me from the point, and that's been something that has been really neat. There's something about being a key role in the process that shapes your children, I think. And also mum took us around on great field trips, too.... =D
On an interesting note, mum told me recently that she'd read an article that calculated that the cost of raising a child these days from 0 - 18 is approximately $180 thousand, [this'll probably be in either CAD or USD, but meh.] and that daycare made up approximately $54 thousand of that.
At first I had the thought of ditching the whole sex-based prefix to "issues" -- ie make issues simply issues, not necessarily men's or women's or so. Make them human issues. I think that idea has great merit. Though, there is the complication of what do with very male-/female- specific issues, such as prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, toxic shock, erectile dysfunction, etc. Issues such as breast cancer, rape, stay-at-home parent and so on, while often viewed as women's issues/concerns, are the ones that fall under the "issues" umbrella, where they are neither exclusively concerns of one particular sex. Perhaps the solution is to keep the notion of exclusive issues, but to reduce them to what really is women-only and men-only issues.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-27 11:26 pm (UTC)working upward through your post...
who says prostate cancer is a men's only issue? if men are going infertile i'd say that should worry a few women. Vice-verse for ovarian cancer. Why are you including breast cancer in everyone's issues and not erectile dysfunction. (I can think of a few reasons why the latter might upset women :P). And even if a problem can only happen to one gender, once that's your partner or mother or brother or father or sister, does that mean it's not your problem?
so your mother never returned to the workforce? mine got bored once joel was at school, and found work as a way of staving of the desire to have more babies! Then I guess with your family traipsing all over the place, not being employed would be far more convenient all round.
i emailed dad the link with instructions to print the rant out for mum. I think she'll be flattered.
Now I'm gonna tidy this rant up into probably two separate articles and try and get Honi or UR or even the Bull to publish them.
*constructs some idea of what the assignment might have been, so that the explanation makes sense* you got all exited about this letter but never explained what it was :P
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 03:17 am (UTC)Ah, sorry, Paul letter assignment was to write a letter to the city of Troas (a real town Paul visited), that had fictitious issues put together by the prof. I'll send you the thingy, and I can do the same to anyone else who might be interested.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 04:04 am (UTC)i figured it was something like that :)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 10:49 pm (UTC)Yeah, apparently something like 5% of cases happen in men. It happened to this one guy I know, actually. Weird.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-03 10:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 05:41 am (UTC)On a more nosy note, I'm curious about what you hope to do in the future, especially after reading this part: in any future I envisage I have either no career, or something very flexible.
Wanna share? Or is it private?
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 05:47 am (UTC)Academia strikes me as rather flexible... take a couple of years off and then start again; also possible to write dull books from home (granted i'd go nuts without some form of childcare, but i'd prefer family daycare, or babysitting or something).
Other than that... I might work for the church. Most jobs in that area are flexible, there's a lot of part-time work around, and so on.
I'm so glad you guys like my rant. My feminist friends regard me with suspicion.
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 05:54 am (UTC)And suspicion?? What do they think you're going to do, explode and shower them with reasonableness??
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 06:13 am (UTC)i might Betray the Movement or something...
no subject
Date: 2006-04-28 07:55 am (UTC)Or perhaps not, in this case :P