The Magic Wand of Logic Strikes Again

Below is my blog post for tomorrow's Sunday Mail, cross posted with love.

-------

As I write this, the Productivity Commission is submitting its final report to the Federal Government into the feasability of an Australian Paid Parental Leave scheme.

Amid fears that the Great Global Financial Crisis (tell me, how long do you suppose it will be before GFC makes its way into the Oxford?) will prevent such a scheme being implemented in the immediate future, Rudd is being cagey about whether or not we can expect to see mention of it in the May budget.

I believe Rudd when he claims he remains committed to the idea of paid parental leave (after all, it’s not only the socially responsible thing to do but it carries a degree of political expediency) I’m annoyed by the umming and ahing about affordability given that the Government has just splashed around $42 billion in their economic stimulus package – a third of which is expressly designed to be spent on material trifles and more stuff that we just don’t need.

Meanwhile, Australia continues to be one of only two OECD countries without a system of paid maternal or parental leave. Proponents of such a scheme like myself face an uphill battle against the whinging of miserly citizens who just love repeating lines like “if you want to have a baby, pay for it yourself” and “I raised my kids without any financial handouts and I managed it!” and then, my particular favourite, “it’s just typical of this generation – always wanting things without having to work for them, expecting everyone to support them!”

Join me as I systematically destroy these arguments with a wave of my magic wand of logic!

1. If you want to have a baby, pay for it yourself.

Ah yes. This old chestnut. In an ideal world, people would plan for children. In my ideal world, they’d require licenses and thorough background checks – but that’s a fantasy that will have to sadly remain on the shelf with other impossible visions of reality, like a world without obnoxious motor racing events, elective cosmetic surgery or Bert Newton’s scary-clown-on-acid face that he likes to pull out occasionally.

But I digress.

Children would be carefully prepared for, saved for, cherished, loved, provided with excellent and free education, treated equally no matter their gender, appearance, race or abilities. And every week, parents would have just enough to make sure their wee little precious ate a hot meal every night and slept in fresh sheets.

Such a reality does not exist my friends. Babies aren’t ordered from the stork. Mostly, they arrive unexpectedly. And incidentally, there’s a vocal minority of people out there who just love to remind that if they DO arrive unexpectedly, you have no business getting rid of them.

We live in a global village. We pay taxes. We band together to help victims of terrible tragedies. Yet we have a remarkably callous attitude towards helping to raise the future members of our society. We’ll throw around lofty, arrogant criticisms of other people’s parenting skills and the ragtag antics of some rude, nasty little children, but we absolve ourselves of responsibility to raise a society rather than a family because if they’re not your kids they’re not your problem.

Paid parental leave won’t see the tax man personally knocking on your door to take $500 from your piggy bank to give to Jane Fertile, mother of 12, who lives across the street in her three story golden roofed house that’s been built on the backs of hard working Australians who have to fund her ‘lifestyle’ choices.

What it will do is make having and raising children easier for ALL people who choose to do so in our society – and the last time I checked, the majority of adults were still eventually going through the rigmarole of biological imperatives.

Magic Wand of Logic: 1
H8ers: 0

2. I raised my kids without any financial handouts and I managed it!

Interpretation: My life was bloody difficult at times and I had to get through it, so if any of you young strumpets think you’re about to get an easy ride of it you’ve got another think coming! Of course, our economic climate was less risky then and it wasn’t as necessary for both parents to be working because back then you could buy a house for a handful of magic beans (whereas now I’m pretty sure the bank carves out a chunk of your own soul just for the down payment), so it was easier for the mother to stay at home while the father did his manly duties and paid for everything unless you were a single mother in which case you both struggled AND were vilified by the community, that is if you didn’t have your baby forced into adoption, and besides it wasn’t the done thing for mothers to work so the system itself was far more accommodating of them staying at home and also The Female Eunuch hadn’t been written yet so they just sort of accepted their lot in life unlike now where women understand they have opportunities and rights and that there is life outside of children and we can have careers and that if we lived in a society which placed as much emphasis on fathering as it does on mothering then we might actually progress forward a little bit and also that just because something used to be one way and now it isn’t doesn’t necessarily make that a bad thing, I mean it used to be considered completely acceptable to make black people sit on the back of the bus and Aboriginal people weren’t even legally recognized as people until 1968 which is just astonishing but people just thought it was normal and now things have changed which is a perfect example of how society is supposed to progress because we are intelligent human beings and wanting things to remain the same all the time is the sign not only of an uninquiring mind but a stagnating species, but none of that matters because if I had to bloody well raise my kids by myself in an entirely different social world to this newfangled modern one, then you bloody well can too.

Seriously. The world is different now. Society progresses. It’s supposed to. Take that. Accept it. Build a bridge and get over it.

Magic Wand of Logic: 2
H8ers: 0

3. It’s just typical of this generation – always wanting things without having to work for them, expecting everyone to support them!

Yes. We do expect people to support us. Because we expect to support other people. But it’s not true that we don’t want to work for things. While we’re quietly entering the work force and paying our taxes and contributing to society in the manner of responsible young citizens, we’re also not complaining about having to fund the pensions of senior citizens, the disabled, the homeless, the accidentally unemployed. We don’t mind our taxes going towards hospitals and roads (well, I mind mine going towards roads because they never seem to do anything to accommodate bicycles, which are a perfectly valid form of transportation and are in fact superior to cars in every single way and anyone who rides a bicycle is the bestest and deserves to be addressed as Your Excellency and given more treats than those who opt for polluting four wheelers who all frankly deserve to wait in long traffic queues while yet more road works take place and they are resolutely refusing to catch the bus) and schools – because these things form part of the foundation of our society.

Which is ironic, because children basically ARE the formation of our society. Raising them properly should be the number one priority on every thinking citizen’s agenda. Supporting the raising of them is paramount. I don’t plan on having kids any time soon, so batting for paid parental leave is hardly sitting around and waiting for a handout to add to my collection of other Things I Have Made People Give Me Without Working For Them. But I value the idea of children being given the best opportunities that they can be. And I believe that allowing parents to share taxpayer funded leave at home with their child before returning to work to continue contributing to the country’s economy and workforce is absolutely vital.

H8ers, wanting paid parental leave for the nation’s working parents doesn’t make me selfish and grabby. It’s being AGAINST it that marks those things in a person.

Magic Wand of Logic: 3
H8ers: 0


I fully expect the Productivity Commission to back up their findings last year regarding paid parental leave, and recommend a respectable system for Australia to adopt.

But I will be sadly disappointed if Kevin Rudd waylays the system for the immediate future because the GFC is rearing its ugly head – a situation, might I point out, that was not created by the youth but by those very same people who so escape criticism when the greedy stick is enjoying its daily round of pointing accusations.

'Writing this post made me mad'

I'm in the middle of a long post about an art exhibition I officially opened the other night called Cunts and Other Conversations. But I have to rush off for a photo shoot *ooh la la* for some of our Fringe show promotion. So more on that fascinating topic a bit later today.

I saved an image from the Age website the other day. As Clem Bastow says over at The Dawn Chorus, there often doesn't seem much point in highlighting anti female sentiments on picture and word links on news websites. They'll continue unabated no matter what we say.

But I think that to ignore them (which Clem happily doesn't do) is to allow them, and to contribute to the slow permeation of these ideas in our culture - which is exactly why people feel there's nothing offensive about allowing their daughters to watch women bump and grind on Saturday morning video hits but find the idea of taking them to a sculpture exhibition of 140 placid, resting vaginas the height of vulgarity and, dare I say it, sexual perversion.

It also contributes, to a lesser extent, to the reason why some people have reacted so abhorrently to the Rihanna/Chris Brown case - behaving as if somehow Rihanna must have asked for it or provoked him in some way. I mean....WTFF? I've written my column on that for this Sunday's paper, so look forward to some cross posting on the weekend with further points drawn out that I couldn't fit in due to space constraints.

So here's the image:



'I' 'do' 'not' 'understand' 'why' 'it' 'is' 'that' 'so' 'many' 'news' 'reports' 'about' 'rape' 'include' 'quotation' 'marks' 'as' 'if' 'somehow' 'already' 'preparing' 'for' 'the' 'moment' 'when' 'they' 'can' 'gleefully' 'reveal' 'the' 'female' 'bitch' 'boner' 'killer' 'was' 'lying' 'as' 'chicks' 'do' 'because' 'they' 'want' 'to' 'see' 'men' 'suffer'.

If you're going to bother sub editing a news report about a rape charge, you'd think you might actually have the journalistic integrity to give creedance to the fact that, while it may or may not be true, it's certainly not your place to insert little flappy air fingers around the pertinent points as if somehow it's a chore to be reporting what's obviously not only false but part of a larger conspiracy put together by man hating lesbians or sluts in self denial.

FFS The Age. I know you're going for the whole shabby Daily Telegraph look now with your shadowed captions on the leader photos, but it's really not necessary that you lower yourself quite to their swamp level yet.

Quick Hit: Real Women Have Been Known To Gestate Foetuses, But In A Different Kind Of Box

Just a short one this morning as I'm about to duck off to rehearsal for my Fringe show: for Adelaidians, it's listed under the music section of the Fringe Guide and it's called Ashes To Ashes: Songs of Loss and Longing. More details to come, plus a you tube video of Emily and I singing our very awesome version of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire"...

But I digress.

I'm used to the Daily Telegraph falling short of quality journalism, or even journalism itself. But this headline really irked me yesterday, and I think you'll see why.


Yes, because of course we women are just shebots stumbling around blindly until impregnation (coupled with intention to see it through) occurs and our Real Woman switches are activated.

This falls into the same camp of idiotic lunacy that has people (mostly women, I might add) claiming that 'real women have curves' and 'men prefer real women (rather than sticks, HARHARHAR EAT A CHEEZBURGER LOLLIPOP HEAD!!!!!one11!!silentq!)' and then the more ubiquitously claimed 'all women want to have babies and if you don't you're either lying or there's something wrong with you'.

Honestly. From It Girl to Real Woman? See Nicole Grow! See Nicole Leave Behind The Folly Of Youth! See Nicole Discover What's Really Important! See Nicole Become....A Real Woman!

I know it's pointless to get angry at stupid tabloid headlines, but it's this kind of systemic and subtle messaging that's the reason people still believe a woman's primary function in life is to push babies out and claim it as the greatest thing she could ever possibly do.

I don't know, what do all the Real Women think out there? I mean, the ones who've had babies and have therefore earned the right to join society as a fully fledged human being?

Nuts to you, the Tele.

A slut by any other name

I've been following the case of British parents Chantelle Steadman and Alfie Patten with interest since the whole sad, sorry affair was splashed across the world's newspapers.

I'm most struck by the intense double standards being demonstrated by commentors and opinion columnists. I wrote about it for the Sunday Mail yesterday, and have included my column below.

As I only have around 650 words to play with, I unfortunately had to leave out a lot of my thoughts about it. Honestly, I feel like you could write a thesis on how this is just another example of the horrendous way single mothers are treated in our society, especially by people who revel in making assumptions regarding the economic status and intentions. Why isn't it possible that Steadman became accidentally pregnant? Why do people assume they know so much better because, 'based on all the evidence' (as if spurious opinion columns and supposition somehow amounts to evidence), Steadman MUST have 'gotten herself pregnant' to bludge off of the welfare system, get herself a tax payer funded house and live off benefits for the rest of her life? ("I mean, look at her family - it's *exactly* what they're doing...")

It seems to me that the only reason a 15 year old girl would *deliberately* (and again, who are we to say this is what happened - everything Steadman has said publicly contradicts the image society wants to paint of her as a manipulative slatternly whore only after the public dollar) become pregnant is to fill something else missing in her life, or because she's been misled to think it's fun and cute, or because that's what she sees other people around her doing all the time. How can people not have sympathy in a situation like this? Is it really because it's that much more fun to pull out the old Slut Stick and wave it accusatively in her face?

More to the point, how can society abrogate responsibility for cases like these when we perpetually parade confusing ideals in front of impressionable young minds? The emphasis on sexiness and sexual adventurousness couple with availability are vastly at odds with the Disney Princess version of femininity that is also shoved down our throats. Fuck, I don't even know what I'm supposed to be behaving like half of the time - that is, if I listened to society's directions on the kind of woman I'm supposed to be.

It also ties into this notion of how women are supposed to engage with sexuality. I believe strongly that the social imperative intends for us to be sexually available, open, adventurous and willing - but that this should all only ever be performative. We're not supposed to actually engage with sex. Sure, we're supposed to enjoy it - but only within the strict parameters of how modern sexuality has set it out for us. Basically, we're supposed to enjoy performing it; we're not actually supposed to seek it out for ourselves, experiment with our desires or admit to just plain old liking it.

And if we like having it with multiple partners? Well, we're trying to compensate for some great emotional absence. We're lookin' for love in all the wrong places. We're degarding ourselves, selling ourselves short. Better be careful ladies....because this is the quick detour to becoming a slut.

My friend and I were discussing this the other day. She thinks that if people knew her sexual history - and could apply it to someone who didn't present themselves as well as she does - then she'd automatically be labeled a slut. But no one who saw her in the street would ever assume that.

On the flipside, women who dress in a certain way, regardless of their sexual practices, experience or history, will have others assume slutdom simply because they fit the paint by numbers picture we have of the sexy harlot.

And as I point out in the column below, the only thing society ever needs as ammunition against a woman is the merest sliver of her sexual history. When I wrote for the paper about my experience with abortion, I was called all manner of things. This one insight into my past made people feel they had the right to call me a whore, a slut and - in the most vile of insults I could possibly imagine, and one that was thrown at me more than once, the most recent of which was only last week on my Sunday Mail blog - a human toilet.

I admire Tracie Egan (of Jezebel's) attempts to reclaim the word slut. Sometimes I wonder if that's the way we should be going. But then I think that the history of that word is so vile and represents so much about the way women have been oppressed because they choose to have sex in a way that other people don't approve of that there is no way it could ever be adequately reclaimed.

One of my favourite arguments regarding sluts comes from Emily Maguire's Princesses and Pornstars. I don't have the book on me now, but it goes roughly something like this: "The real definition of a slut is a woman who's having more sex than the person calling her a slut thinks she should be having."

Anyhoo, much more musing on sluttiness to come. I've been thinking about it a lot lately - perhaps I'll write a book about it and make it my Obligatory Feminist Tome.

Column on Chantelle and Alfie below.

-----

BY now, most people will be familiar with the tale of British teenagers and new parents Chantelle Steadman and Alfie Patten.

Patten and Steadman are re-creating roles in a greater narrative that has existed since time immemorial. They're each fulfilling Every Parent's Worst Nightmare.

One is that their teenage daughter will fall pregnant. The other is their teenage son will have his life ruined by being "trapped" into fatherhood.

And although it is nobody else's business, in a high-profile case such as this one, the public can't wait to get stuck in. Patten's baby-faced naivete and limited understanding of the world has evoked both sympathy and shock in people.

In contrast, Steadman has been demonised for being older (the allusion being that she is predatory) but also sexually experienced. News outlets have been quick to report that not only do three other boys believe they are the baby's father, it's possible Steadman may have already had sex with up to eight others.

While Patten has been cast alternately as "baby-faced", "wide-eyed" and "innocent", Steadman – a 15-year-old girl – has been almost fiendishly referred to in comments on legitimate news sites as a "slut", a "whore" and a "slapper".

Her sex life has been paraded for all the world to judge. While she denies having slept with anyone other than Alfie, one can't help but feel pained that she feels she has to clarify it for strangers in the first place.

But as so often happens, one only requires the slightest knowledge of a girl's sex life to barge in and claim ownership over the entire thing.

Naturally, there have been very few questions regarding the morals of the eight boys she allegedly slept with. Attitudes regarding sexually active boys (high fives all round) and girls (a trip to the naughty corner with a big scarlet letter pinned to her shirt) sadly prevail.

Typical of these online judgments is that of "rd", found on ParentDish:

"No matter who the father is the poor baby seems destined to be the child of a slut. If all of these boys have had sex with her, I feel sorry both for the baby and Alfie Patten. It would appear that a DNA test is in order." (AA's note: It's a good thing we have such concerned folk like RD around to inform us, gravely, what's 'in order' to prevent good men being fucked over by skanky hos.)

Just as society teaches us that girls who sleep around are "sluts", so too have we learned that men, especially young men, are never first in line to claim a baby – particularly from a casual encounter.

Doesn't it then seem unprecedented that not one but eight other boys are now putting their hands up to claim fatherhood?

I don't suppose the copious amounts of cash being thrown around by the British tabloid press have anything to do with it, nor the newfound interest in financial negotiation being demonstrated by Alfie's "father" Dennis (who recently stated he was considering an offer to reveal the DNA results live on TV).

It's very easy for people to paint Chantelle Steadman as the slatternly temptress in this scenario. After all, we've been doing similar to unwed, underage mothers since humankind first pulled itself on to its hind legs and learned to grunt.

But if Patten wasn't part of the equation, this wouldn't even be a story. Steadman would just become yet another statistic of teen pregnancy, reviled just by her neighbours rather than the world.

It's a tragedy Patten may have become a father at such a young age. But it is no less a tragedy that Steadman has become a mother.

We talk about sexual equality as if it somehow exists. Yet how can it when there are still significant numbers of people out there who can, in the same breath, sympathetically tut at how Patten's life has been ruined (secretly hoping that the DNA test helps him "dodge a bullet") while labelling Steadman as nothing more than a cheap tramp?

Because if I recall correctly, it still requires the involvement of two people to make a baby.

-------------

Signed,
A Slut According To Some

School for Seduction

A brief post as I'm on my way to rehearsals for my...drum roll...Fringe show. Details on that to follow, but any Adelaide locals who are interested should keep the 5th, 6th and 7th of March free in their diaries. Look forward to a night of entertainment and picking up after yourselves! Etc.

This one has been doing the rounds for a few weeks now but I finally got around to watching it today. And it's a doozy!




"Seduction can happen anywhere. Your car. The woods."

Image via Cleoland.

Farley seems like a nice chap, don't you think?

Last Stop: Heathrow.

And let's hear it for airport lounges. I honestly believe one of the best preparations I had for this trip was a Qantas Gold Club member card. Seriously. I'm sitting here drinking a free vodka and tonic while all of the proletariat recline in uncomfortable plastic chairs yonder. Does it get better than that?

Ahem. /gloat.

My international travels are (for the moment at least) over. I'm feeling a complicated mass of emotions upon returning to Australia, not least of which is sadness at the tragedy currently tearing through Victoria. What unimaginable horror must have swept after all those people? I'm not usually a browbeating prison supporter, but I swear to Bejeezus, if they catch any suspected arsonists in relation to this they better be prepared to put the bastards away for life. Mother. Fuckers.

So as I wait for the flying kangaroo to whisk me from this multicoloured land back to the dust ravaged wastes of Kansas, I have taken the time to compile a handy dot point guide to my three months 'on the road'. And PS? Apparently if your luggage is drastically overweight, it pays to be honest and up front about it. The very fact that I offered happily to pay for what was probably an excess of about 50kgs was what led my equally congenial check in clerk to wave the fee - "No one EVER offers to pay!"

Score.

AROUND THE WORLD IN A WHIRL OF GLORY:

Passport stamps: 6

Pairs of shoes almost entirely worn through: 2

Litres of alcohol consumed....: 56

....Of which how much was Spanish vino.....: 30

....Enjoyed with handsome Spanish men: 24

Books bought, read and shipped home from Dot's house: 16

Hours spent impersonating old Yorkshire ladies while in London: 86

Hours spent playing Nintendo DS Mario Kart with Phil: 57

Hours spent being beaten by Phil at said DS game: 56

Kilograms of clothes and other assorted items I don't need but bought anyway: 30

Number of loans called in to the Family Bank: 1

Amount of camels I am apparently worth in Marrakech: 50,000

Hot love affairs: 2

Amorous incidents of an entirely regrettable nature: 1

Potential husbands met: 1

Percentage of increased risk of lung cancer due to lax smoking laws in Barcelona: 57

Correlating love for Barcelona and its lax smoking laws: 100 million

Number of hours spent in transit: 70

Number of flights missed: 2

Accidentally: 1

Number of hours until I am back in the antipodes: 24

Number of months until I return to Barcelona for to convince a certain Chilean slice of wonderful to marry me: hopefully not too many



And on that note, I had better rush to the plane before I miss it!

Normal feminist rants will resume in a few days when I touch home soil. I know, I know. I've really been letting the side down....

Final Countdown

It's fucking FREEZING in London. After snowfalls brought the country to its knees on Monday, the air is now sharp with winter chill. It's horrendous. Apart from having to leave the Two Funniest Men In The World, I shan't be sad to say goodbye to this god forsaken place.

Tomorrow I'm returning to Barcelona for four days of hot lovin' with the Chilean and some serious Spanish bicycling and drinking of the wine. Hooray!

Home on Monday. I am a mixture of ready for it and devastated to be finishing up. Time is like a rubber band. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was sharing a cup of tea with my friend Nai and putting the finishing touches on my suitcase. But everything that's happened since then - all the wonderful people I've met and the places I've fallen in love with (and in) - seem to have happened over a lifetime. I can't quite believe it's all ending.

Next trip: South America with the aforementioned funny men and my BFF Mtk. Saving plan starts now...