Category Archives: racism

Invasion Day

I’m a white Australian.  I live a much easier life, thanks to my skin colour, than my Indigenous brothers and sisters in Australia.  I grew up sheltered from much of the truth about how Colonialism and racism resulted in the decimation of Indigenous Australians.  I was taught that Australia Day was both a public holiday, and a day to celebrate being Australian.

And I slowly learnt better.

Today I don’t celebrate Australia Day.  I listen to the Triple J Hottest 100, I celebrate my anniversary with Scott, and I read about what Indigenous Australians are thinking about or doing today.  I appreciate a public holiday, but we can have public holidays any time of year.  There is nothing to celebrate in the invasion of this country and the resulting decimation of the Indigenous inhabitants. Today should be a day of mourning.

And enough about me, read some great writing from Indigenous people about racism, Invasion Day, and survival.

Pekeri Ruska who is hosting IndigenousX this week, writes for The Guardian:

The true nature of the Frontier Wars is rarely taught in schools and most our massacre sites go unrecognised by the mainstream. Yet Anzac Day is made a public holiday so the country can commemorate the sacrifices of those who fought a foreign war on foreign shores. This is a prime example of white Australia’s denial and guilt. Maybe it’s just too close to home, too unsettling for them to acknowledge that the land they stand on was stolen, drenched in the blood and suffering of our Aboriginal ancestors. The longer they exclude or sugarcoat the whole truth from the curriculum, the longer non-Indigenous Australians will remain ignorant.

Australians can take responsibility for what their ancestors did and maybe find a true meaning to their identity by firstly encouraging the teaching of real history pre- and post-1788. They could go further to understand that not all Aboriginal people want to be recognised in the Australian constitution, and that voting in any election on this issue is an assertion of their privilege.

Luke Pearson (whom I hope that one day I will actually get to meet and buy a drink/meal for) writes at IndigenousX (which he also founded):

If we ever do change the date of Australia Day, it will most likely just become another such ‘moment’.

What words can I write that will have an impact on this? What ‘moment’ can I create for people that will make you realise that ‘moments’ are not just worthless, they can actually be dangerous? What can I say to make people want to give up the benefits of white privilege, and the good feeling that comes from being a good white saviour? How can I help make people see that the reason I write is not for them to have a moment, but in the hopes that it will help bring about change?

But how deep down the rabbit hole are people willing to go? All those people who signed the pledge or who tweet the slogan ‘Racism it stops with me’, how willing are they to make that slogan a reality? What happens when they are told that doesn’t just mean standing up to other people but might also mean taking a look inside themselves? This is what we will need to happen to bring truth the idea that ‘it stops with me’. Because at the moment, from where I am sitting, it never stops.

The awesome Celeste Liddle writes at NITV:

This reinforcement of Australia Day as a day of jingoistic pride was, in my view, a product of the Howard years. In his time as Prime Minister, John Howard would frequently reiterate need to show pride in this country while labelling the attempts by Indigenous activists and historians to bring the true nature of colonisation to the public’s attention as being “black armband” views – just focussed on negatives.

As a person who takes a strong stance in favour of the negotiation of a treaty, I therefore tend to not be too supportive of the calls of many Aboriginal people and our allies to change the date of Australia Day so it doesn’t commemorate the invasion. In my reckoning, until there is a treaty there will be no other date to celebrate the birth of this nation on. And to be honest, I’ve never really understood why non-Indigenous Australia wouldn’t want the opportunity to start afresh. The 26th of January also commemorates the day some of the poorest and most desperate citizens of Great Britain were dumped on the shore of a land halfway across the world to undertake years of cruel labour as punishment for stealing loaves of bread. The opportunity to commemorate the day we come to the table, as equals, and negotiate the way this country moves forward, would indeed make me proud of this country and our ability to work toward a better future. Until then, I much prefer the idea of Invasion Day remaining a day of Indigenous protest and the assertion of sovereignty.

The answer is also not for white Australia to include more Aboriginal people in Australia Day events. It’s not to get more Aboriginal people to sing the National Anthem in public. It’s not to include a welcome to country ceremony before ignoring what this ceremony means. It’s not to misappropriate our iconography as a way of selling your meat. Doing all this merely erases our history and assimilates our identity.

Stan Grant’s speech about racism and the Australian Dream, from a debate in 2015 hosted by The Ethics Centre:

I love a sunburned country, a land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges.

It reminds me that my people were killed on those plains. We were shot on those plains, disease ravaged us on those plains.

I come from those plains. I come from a people west of the Blue Mountains, the Wiradjuri people, where in the 1820’s, the soldiers and settlers waged a war of extermination against my people. Yes, a war of extermination! That was the language used at the time. Go to the Sydney Gazette and look it up and read about it. Martial law was declared and my people could be shot on sight. Those rugged mountain ranges, my people, women and children were herded over those ranges to their deaths.

 

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Multiculturalism hasn’t failed

Right up front I’m going to remind/inform anyone who doesn’t remember/know that I am a white Australian.  I have never experienced racism, and I currently have sufficient power and privilege to not suffer discrimination due to any other of my personal attributes (sexual orientation, relationship status, member of political groups, etc).  This post is observational and any mistakes are my own.

Over the past decade or so I’ve noticed politicians and social commentators claim that multiculturalism is dead, or failed, as if stating such a thing makes it true.  Generally these claims have been made after protests by one group, such as the Cronulla riots, or the more recent Sydney protests.  I find it interesting (and odd) for two reasons.  The first being that generally the countries which are used as examples of failed multiculturalism, or as having issues with multiculturalism are generally white-dominated Western nations, and it’s always about the white people (I’ll explain this more in a sec).

I’m not going to define multiculturalism, that’s done enough elsewhere, though Wikipedia has an article about Australian multiculturalism you can read here.  I do think a lot of the debate about whether or not multiculturalism is alive, dead, failed, or successful has a lot to do with the specific definition that the person doing the talking is using, and that does indeed make a difference.

But anyway… white, Western nations…  Just a hint, there are plenty of non-white, non-Western nations that are “multicultural”, where people of different heritages live together.  Not all of them are perfect, but then again neither is Australia.  I could use Malaysia as an example of a non-white, non-Western nation that has people of different heritages living and working together.  Most of Australia’s neighbours are countries with people of multiple heritages living and working together – and many of these nations are non-white!  I know, amazing to think that brown people can manage to live with other brown people (hint: not all brown people are the same).  You might wonder why white people can’t live with brown (and all the other shades in between) people – and this brings me to my second point.

Far too many Australian politicians and social commentators are white men who demand that those from non-white backgrounds respect Australian traditions, culture, and way of life (without ever really explaining what that is).  This idea that those who are from non-white backgrounds don’t respect Australian traditions, culture and ways of life (which falls apart the moment you introduce Indigenous Australians into the mix), leads to awful racism and bigotry as evidenced at the antibogan website *trigger warning (most of site) for homophobia, sexism, threatening language, racism, pretty much everything*

What you rarely see are white Australian politicians and social commentators demanding that white people respect other traditions, cultures and ways of living.  Because really, living in a multicultural society is give and take. It is not demanding that one group’s way of life is superior or precious and cannot adapt, grow and change, that it must be set in concrete for all time.  So I’m making that demand.  I demand that white Australians, particularly those who rail about non-white people failing to respect Aussie culture, Aussie ways, Aussie whatever, start respecting all people, their cultures, beliefs, and ways of living.

This so-called Australian culture and way of life is rubbish.  I welcome all people to share this wide-brown land of ours and to live in safety, peace, and freedom.

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Racism masquerading as science

*Trigger warning for extreme racism*

A peer-reviewed journal by the name of “Personality and Individual Differences”, published a paper in March 2012 titled, “Do pigmentation and the melanocortin system modulate aggression and sexuality in humans as they do in other animals?” (full paper available at link), by two psychologists.  The psychology bit is important, because the paper is essentially looking at biology, and there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of qualification in biology that the two authors of the paper have.

I strongly caution you regarding the racism in this paper.  It is abhorrent and awful.  The commentary below delves a bit into who the authors are, my WTF in relation to the contents of the paper, and how fucked up the whole thing is.  The paper is a hard read, and this whole post may be triggering.

Continue reading Racism masquerading as science

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David van Gend – arsehat of the week!

It’s not his hysterical and easily disproved comments about the social ills of equal marriage that earn him this award, it is not the fact that he disappears single parents in his hysterical rant about how children need parents of both genders to be proper human beings, it is not the fact that he claims that conversion therapy for queer people is successful, it is in fact the usage of the phrase “stolen generations” that he deserves beating about the head and body with a large object for.

Brace for a new stolen generation

[title of the article]

The phrase “Stolen Generations” is an emotional phrase and he’s hoping to play on the emotions it raises and repurpose them for his own asinine “cause”.  Van Gend uses a phrase that has particular meaning to those of Indigenous heritage in Australia, in a context which has nothing to do with the forcible removal of children from loving families and communities to be brought up by others away from their culture and community and identity.

The Stolen Generations (also known as Stolen children) is a term used to describe the children of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander descent who were removed from their families by the Australian Federal and State government agencies and church missions, under acts of their respective parliaments. The removals occurred in the period between approximately 1869 and 1969, although in some places children were still being taken in the 1970s.

The extent of the removal of children, and the reasoning behind their removal, are contested. Documentary evidence, such as newspaper articles and reports to parliamentary committees, suggest a range of rationales. Motivations evident include child protection, beliefs that given their catastrophic population decline after white contact that black people would “die out”, a fear of miscegenation by full blooded aboriginal people. Terms such as “stolen” were used in the context of taking children from their families – the Hon P. McGarry, a member of the Parliament of New South Wales, objected to the Aborigines Protection Amending Act 1915 which then enabled the Aborigines’ Protection Board to remove Aboriginal children from their parents without having to establish that they were in any way neglected or mistreated; McGarry described the policy as “steal[ing] the child away from its parents”. In 1924, in the Adelaide Sun an article stated “The word ‘stole’ may sound a bit far-fetched but by the time we have told the story of the heart-broken Aboriginal mother we are sure the word will not be considered out of place.” (Wikipedia)

Van Gend’s usage is clearly appropriating other people’s history for a spurious cause, which is a big problem.  It reinforces the cultural narrative of privileged straight (white?) man only paying attention to the history of the marginalised (and a history he would, the rest of the time, probably deny or defend) when it suits his purpose.  He clearly did not consider the impact that his use of the phrase “stolen generation” would have on those that it directly applies to.

So van Gend, you’re the arsehat of the week – well done.

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Boat People – it’s not a one dimensional issue

The recent tragedy on Christmas Island is beyond words. My sympathies are with the families who are mourning those who did not survive. This post is written because of what has been said since they arrived and their boat disintegrated with some dying and others surviving heavily traumatised, and in a very small way I hope that some people read it and realise that kicking the boat people football is a very bad game.

Unsurprisingly, the recent tragedy has brought out the usual political pundits, kicking the ball all over the place, blaming the Government for the tragedy (both the executive and the legislative arms) and suggesting that as the Labour Government overturned the previous Liberal Government’s Pacific Solution, that they’re responsible for boats arriving to Australia, and that Customs, AFP, Immigration and/or Defence should have known that the boat was nearby (despite the weather and sea playing interference with radar, and the sheer size of territory they’re responsible for monitoring – press release via another website here).

Let’s start with the latter point because it’s fairly simple to address – and I’ve pretty much done so with the fact that a small wooden boat, in high (near monsoonal) seas is going to be hard to spot.  Let’s not also Public Service bash, which is nice and easy with a big conglomerate of faceless individuals, but as a former Immigration staffer, I can tell you that most Public Servants I worked with were left leaning, compassionate and dedicated human beings.  The type of people you’d actually want making the tough decisions that get made.

Continue reading Boat People – it’s not a one dimensional issue

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An encounter – the racist thug

I moved to Fawkner (in Melbourne) about a year ago, and I love my neighbourhood.  I love it’s diversity, multi-faith options (including the option of none at all), the shops, the parks, the friendliness.  I love all of this, and I have especially love living in the area with the least crowded train line, which is also the least violent and racist train line that I have lived on for a while.

Until last night.

A thug, his friend and his friend’s girlfriend got on the train near Coburg.  As he walked through the carriage he commented loudly that the train “smelt like immigrants” (whatever that means).  He stopped and stood in the door way with his friends and continued talking loudly.  He again proclaimed that he never knew that something could smell like immigrants until now, while his friend mimed violent acts to his girlfriend.  The third time he opened his mouth to proclaim how everything smelt of immigrants, I said, “Hey!  Shut the fuck up”.  He did, and the girl turned and looked at me.  The thug dropped his voice and got off at the next station with his friends.

Initially I was shocked that someone would say such a thing, especially on this train line, where (up until now) everything has been cool, calm and collected.  The second time I was outraged and wondering if I should actually say anything to him to get him to shut up.  The third time, I acted… and then immediately went into “Oh fuck!!!!” territory on the inside.  Thankfully I can rely on two things, I’m female and less likely to attract violence (though my partner with me may have), and I can look really scary when I’m annoyed.

I acted because I want the train line I’m on to be safe for me (not a migrant) and everyone else (migrant or not).  I acted because uneducated bigots who think that they have the right to spew hatred really annoy me.  I acted because no one else was (a failing of mine).

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29th Down Under Feminists Carnival

Down Under Feminists Carnival Logo
Down Under Feminists Carnival Logo

Welcome to the 29th Down Under Feminists Carnival.  Thank you everyone for your submissions which I have organised as much as I can.  I hope you enjoy reading these posts as much as I did, and that you continue to submit posts to an awesome carnival.  Thank you so much to Chally, of Zero at the Bone and FWD/Forward and Radical Readers and Feministe for organising this carnival and letting me host it.

Thank you to Chally, Jo, Mary and Deborah for hunting down and finding most of the great posts to include this month.  Thank you to everyone else who submitted their or other’s writings.

If I have used incorrect pronouns to identify any of the participants please let me know so that I can correct them.  Any misuse is unintentional and due solely to me being unfamiliar with the author of the post.

If I have misrepresented/badly summarised your post, please let me know and I’ll correct it.

So, this carnival is big and full of fascinating reading.  I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it all together.

This month’s optional theme was Awesome Women.

So, put your feet up, down, sideways or however you feel comfortable and enjoy.

Awesome Women

Ilaeria blogged about the three people who have had the biggest impact in her life, her mother and two grandmothers and share the lessons she learnt from them.

tigtog writes about Bell Hooks week at Hoydon About Town.  Deborah at In a Strange Land, during one of her Friday Womanist posts quotes Bell Hooks.

Deborah from In a Strange Land blogged about the anniversary of Sufferage for Women in New Zealand (17 September 1893) and the hard work that was put into gaining signatures for the petition that helped make is possible.

Mary at Hoydon About Town has been awesome and has developed a Firefox bookmarklet to make submitting blog carnival posts easier.  Please go and install so it is much easier to submit posts for the next carnival.

Media and society

Wildly Parenthetical at Hoydon About Town talks about Sexting and Slut Shaming and how bad the Minister for Home Affairs’s new campaign is for young women.

I spoke about Rampant Sexism in an edition of the MX where it suggested the women were different than men, that women should earn less than men for the sake of their heterosexual relationships and that women can steal men and that men can do nothing about it.

the news with nipples shreds an opinion piece in the SMH by Paul Sheehan.

Pickled Think writes about media and societal pressure on men to propose regardless of what their girlfriends may feel about marriage because it seems that their feelings aren’t important (all girls want to marry right?), and Pickled Think also discusses the patriarchal institution of marriage and the lack of the “big gay proposal”.  (The last line on the first comment is also gold).

Blue Milk demonstrates a little lesson in undermining women in power with thanks to the Courier Mail.

Blue Milk reviews Radical Act, a documentary about queer/feminist musicians in the USA, made in 1995

Ju at transcendancing has written a review of Glitter Rose, a short story collection by an Australian author doing interesting and challenging things with female characters.  The collection is published by a press that is also doing interesting and challenging things with a feminist focus in publishing.

Kim writes at Larvatus Prodeo about feeling sympathy for Stephen Conroy and the ongoing debate about the internet filter being more complex than liberties or the rights of adults.

Mary at Hoydon About Town wrote about #groggate and the outing of Grog Gamut’s legal name by The Australian.  The scary thing about The Australian’s justification is that they’re arguing for the outing of anyone who attempts to influence politics (or anything else) regardless of the wish for anonymity.

There are many ways that the less powerful are silenced, and conflating having something to hide or keep private with being not worth listening to is one of them, and insisting on identity disclosure is another. Not all pseudonymous writers are using pseudonyms to ethical ends, this is abundantly clear to anyone who has ever been on the Internet. But insisting that only those who name themselves and state their interest to everyone who lives in the country can speak is far worse.

Ariane at Ariane’s little world, adds to the discussion regarding #groggate by explaining that a person is not their job.

Image by Judy Horacek. Three panel cartoon of a Christmas decoration on a Christmas tree. The first panel reads, "I'm not a feminist but", the second "just hanging round being decorative is a bit boring", the third has the decoration walking away from the tree saying, "Actually I really am a feminist"

Bodies and health

Ariane calls bullshit on obesity being the root of all evil and society’s with  focus on fatness as a health issue.  Ariane also points out the negative health consequences of dieting.

Maia at The Hand Mirror discusses the politics of food and how our diet (what we eat) has changed, how food manufacturers want to make a profit from food and the impact that has.  Maia also posts a thread about why she hates The Body Shop and how conflating health and moral good or health and beauty are wrongMaia also posted a great 101 post on food and “healthy food” and how that is a misnomer.

Split Milk talks about why she doesn’t want to engage in discussions about dieting and how important fat acceptance places are.

Many fat activists also identify as feminists and in my opinion the most important tenet that those two movements have in common is a core belief in bodily autonomy. Advocating for fat acceptance is about asking for freedom from oppression and prejudicial treatment.

Spilt Milk also guest posted at Feministe about Fat acceptance: when kindness is activism where she discusses how acceptance of your body and kindness to yourself are activism.

Mimbles at Mim’s muddle writes about being fat and visible and includes links to posts that she’s found (some of which are in this carnival).

Michelle at The Red Pill Survival Guide writes about being fat and how societal sanctioned abuse of fat people is harmful.

You know what? Fuck you. You’re not me. You’re not that other person. You don’t know the circumstances surrounding why someone is the way they are unless they tell you. Yes, we all make superficial judgements but does that give you the right to be abusive or phobic? No.

Fat Heffalump shared her paper that she presented for the Australian Fat Studies conference this month.  She shares the effect that the “war on obesity” has had on her and most likely has had on others.

Sam at fat dialogue writes about her experience with Control Top Underpants and how important making people uncomfortable is as a really powerful critical and political intervention.

Julie at the Hand Mirror writes about Thin Privilege and how it isn’t all that great.

The Thin versus Not Thin dichotomy is yet another false division that just sets women against each other.  We need to fight, together, against a culture which judges us on our physical appearance, whether that appearance is one that conforms or not.

Steph writes at LadyNews that although Christina Hendricks is great, and the media acceptance of her not typically represented body type is also great, having her body shape/type as one to aspire to is not a good thing.

Pickled Think shreds an article discussing a new sitcom hopefully not coming to a screen near you, and how fat really isn’t coming back to Hollywood.

Health and disability

Jo at Wallaby writes about Accessibility and Sydney’s public transport, focusing on Sydney’s buses.

Michelle at The Red Pill Survive Guide (*trigger warning – discussion of suicide*) writes about World Suicide Prevention Day on 10 September, and talks about how she understands that level of despair.

Chally at Zero at the bone, writes about taking a sickie and how hard it is for people with disabilities to take a “sickie” for legitimate reasons let alone “bludging”.

Helen at FlyingBlogspot.com talks about her ordinary and what she does to manage day to day.  Helen also discusses how her ordinary may change with a review of her medication and trying some new treatment.

Race and Racism

Hexpletive blogged about the NSW Parliament amending the NSW State Constitution to finally recognise indigenous Australians as the first people in the State.

I wrote a piece about Boat People and how it should not be an issue.

Queen Emily at An Army of Rabbits discusses the concept of whiteness and the difference between white in Australia and white in the USA.

Jo at Wallaby writes a post about an anti-violence march asking some very pertinent questions for you to answer before you read Blue Milk’s post below.

Blue Milk writes about the march in Alice Springs by Aboriginal men to “stop the violence” and the lack of media coverage about positive Aboriginal stories.

Steph at 天高皇企鹅远 writes about japan ken and barbie, how they’re in Japanese inspired clothing and not actually Japanese, leading to the fetishisation and exotification of non Western cultures.

Chally wrote at Feministe about one of her favourite bit of cognitive dissonance.

stargazer at The Hand Mirror wrote about how collective responsibility is not productive, and states that, “i still don’t accept that i have any responsibility to apologise for the actions of someone i’ve never met and have absolutely no chance of influencing.”

the news with nipples writes Another burqa blog post and reluctantly gives Sergio Redegalli some of her time while she discusses how wrong his latest “art” work is.  Then asks why the debate about burquas is still being controlled by people who do not wear burqas.

LGBTIQ

Blue Milk talks about how Stephanie Rice’s apology to queer people was not adequate and points out all the flaws in that apology very nicely.

Steph at 天高皇企鹅远 went to WorldCon and discusses her experiences with two panels, one on queer themes in SF, which she had to walk out of and the other chaired by a trans academic which was a far more positive experience.

PharaohKatt at Distinctly Disgruntled (*trigger warning – discussion of suicide*) deconstructs Bob Katter’s comments regarding the apparently non-existent LBGTIQ population in his electorate, the high rate of suicide of LBGTIQ people and Bob Katter’s comments about suicide on a Q&A segment.

Fire Fly at The Long Way Home writes about Queer Femmes of Colour and their multiple burdens of authenticity.

I think the dynamic is deeply conditioned by internalised queerphobia. Specifically, internalisation of the double standard that there’s a threshold of queerness that someone has to prove in order to be ‘really’ queer (when there’s no such threshold for heterosexuality).

Intersectionality

Maia at The Hand Mirror discusses a proposed bill in New Zealand which would re-criminalise street sex workers and how the relevant political parties have voted.

It is specifically targeting street sex workers. Street sex workers do not generally have $2,000 to pay a fine. The fines, when they’re awarded, won’t have the magic power to stop someone being poor and working as a sex worker, it’ll just make them poorer. It won’t make street sex work disappear, it’ll just make it harder, more dangerous, and more marginalised.

Steph at vegan about town discusses how veganism, race and ethnicity intersect and how calling for China to be “wiped from the face of the earth” for the way they treat animals is hypocritical when every country mistreats animals.

Maia at The Hand Mirror also discusses how there is a connection between problems the way food is discussed and the problems with way food is produced and looks at this under a feminist framework.

Shiny writes about how she is all out of cookies and isn’t going to give them to people who meet basic human standards of decency.

Callistra writes about safety and safe spaces, what they can be and how they are created.

Safety and feelings of safe spaces are also a place of sanctuary. It’s an intimately known quality, where so much discussion has already occured that the system can meet your needs. It means when you’re miserable and need company to listen to, you have friends who can answer that need. Or if you’re miserable and need to talk; you know you can have these needs met. It means if you need to sit quietly and absorb group energy, you can do so without worrying what others might think, say or do. I noticed this as being ‘a place where you can exist without struggle of identity’.

Callistra also writes about what connections are and how they contribute to safe spaces.

Writing at The Hand Mirror, anjum writes about women in minority cultures, who as feminists want to criticise and change the culture, but who fear that it will only give ammunition to haters in the majority culture.

steph writes at vegan about town regarding exclusionary language in the vegan and animal rights movement in Australia and how veganism and the animal rights movement are often seen as white/Anglo-Saxon, middle-class movements.

Life

A Touch of the Crazy shares her recent life experiences, reflections and the importance of getting lost when travelling.

Pickled Think writes about surviving the Christchurch earthquake and how she feels right now.

Blue Milk writes about breastfeeding and how she felt when she first started and how she feels about it now.

Hexpletive writes about the 9th World Indigenous Women and Wellness Conference she attended and presented at in Darwin and then goes on to discuss the other Conferences and Conventions that she is interested in for the remainder of the year.  I’m going to have to look some of these up.

Spilt Milk shares an experience of encountering penis graffiti with her young daughter and recounts Helen Barne’s Young Adult novel ‘Killing Aurora’, in which the protagonist draws vagina dentata graffiti in response to penis graffiti.

Spilt Milk wrote about her childhood comforter and how that was taken away from her, and now how the childcare centre her daughter goes to wants to take away her daughter’s teddy bear.

Queen Emily writes at An Army of Rabbits, two (related) things that never happened to her in Australia, specifically the assumption that she’d been to church followed by an exhortation to keep god in her heart.

General Feminism

Chally wrote about how social justice can also be about staying silent and doing what is right for you versus the wider world (this post could fit under most categories, and I struggled to find the best fit).

Wallaby writes about how prioritising and choosing your energy drain is important for your wellness, and your choices in this regard should be admired, fostered and encouraged.

tigtog clearly states for the record why banning commenters and refusing comment publication is not censorship as blogs are privately owned spaces.

Women of Colour Australia has put a transcript up of their speech at NOWSA 2010.

the news with nipples writes about the petition put together by Plan Australia to make September 22 the International Day of the Girl.  You can sign the petition here.

Natalie at definatalie.com writes about her feral leghair and why she’s going to grow it.  She includes a great discussion about The Gruen Transfer and their discussion about redefining femininity based on advertising.

steph discusses at LadyNews the current Jadelle (a contraceptive implant) furore in the media.  steph advocates choice and education for women, which some of the quotes in the article also supported.

Megan at Craft is the New Black writes about the need for the ‘generations’ of feminism to recognise and celebrate each other’s worth.

In a post to mark Women’s Suffrage Day in New Zealand, Ele at Home Paddock writes of the need for us to exercise our hard won right to vote in the upcoming local body elections.

Violence

*Trigger warnings – posts in this section discuss violence against women*

The Dawn Chorus discusses Street Harassment and how when reporting it or writing down what has been said, the tone of what was said is missing which is one of the reasons why street harassment is often belittled or dismissed.

Blue Milk explains that asking is sexy and that without consent it isn’t sex and the comments are great too.

I don’t know why the idea has persisted that asking for consent is necessarily a clinical business – what is stilted about – more? do you want to? do you like? Because “mood-killer”? Are you kidding me? That moment when they close the space between you both and ask you to put your cards on the table – is this on or not, can I do this with you – is one of the most heart-flippingly exciting moments in all of existence.

Jo at Wallaby wrote about the treatment received by two women who had been sexually assaulted in different legal systems and how much those legal systems differed.

XY writes about why he won’t be walking in Reclaim the Night/Take Back the Night march and provides and excellent resource (if you need one) to explain to some men why they are not always welcome to march.

stargazer at The Hand Mirror writes about the governmental response to the task force for action on sexual violence and sadly how this seems to have been missed by the media.

AnneE at The Hand Mirror takes some relevant material from a paper on people who abuse their partners.

blue milk at Hoydon About Town writes about the strange behaviour of the state and society when a mother whose daughter was victim of incest is upset and protective of her daughter when pornography is displayed at a 7-11.

And isn’t it a strange world where police can be called in to protect your right to display pornography? So unquestioning are we about it that the newspaper article actually describes what unfolded as a “bizarre incident”. It is the same strange world where it is estimated that up to one in four girls will be sexually abused during their childhood.

Both Deborah from In a Strange Land and I wrote about Brendan Black and his opinion piece in Fairfax media on breastfeeding and breasts.  Unfortunately he fails terribly at being a feminist ally when he could have done very well.

Jo at Wallaby suggests that men should not go out alone otherwise they might, “be accused of, and/or commit, indecent assault, sexual assault, rape or other sexual violence.”

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Boat People

Shaun Tan's art from John Marsden's The Rabbits

(Stylised art work with rabbits dressed in English military style leaving a tall masted ship and walking onto a beach)

The first boat people arrived in January 1788.  They ignored local culture, forced their religion, language and mores down the true blue Aussie’s throats.  They forced the Aussies to dress like them and eat their food.  They killed the Aussies, raped their women, committed genocide on entire tribes, infected them with a host of diseases they’d never had contact with, stole their land, and continued arriving in increasing numbers until 1868 when transportation ended.

The next big arrival of boat people to Australia happened in the late 1940s after World War 2.  These arrivals were pre-arranged and so were housed in Migrant Reception Centres which were to “provide for general medical examination and x-ray of migrants, issue of necessary clothing, payment of social service benefits, interview to determine employment potential, instruction in English and the Australian way of life generally” (Wikipedia).  These boat people did not force their religion, language and mores onto Australia.  They were expected to assimilate and become good “New Australians”.

The next wave of boat people happened in the late 1970s when just over 2000 Vietnamese arrived by boat over the space of 5 years.  “The vast majority of the 90,000 Vietnamese refugees who came here by the mid-1980s were processed offshore in camps in South-East Asia.” (The Age).  Again these boat people did not force their religion, language and mores onto Australia.

Since 1999 (11 years), a bit over 18,000 boat people have entered Australia (Australian Parliamentary Library).  Australia typically accepts between 13,000 and 14,000 refugees a year (DIAC), so this number does not even put a dent in the number of refugees Australia accepted during these period.  These boat people also did not force their religion, language and mores onto Australia.

So the worst boat arrivals, in the way that they have treated Australian people, committed crimes against humanity, acted as terrorists, stole land, crushed culture and committed genocide would be the English back in 1788.  Nothing else comes close.

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Exclusive clubs

Exclusion on any basis tends to annoy me. Always has. The exclusive nature of apartheid in South Africa was probably one of the things that taught me that exclusion was a bad thing. After all everyone was saying how bad it was, and South Africa was a pariah among “western” nations… so clearly excluding people on the basis of skin colour was a bad thing. This much I figured out.

I also wasn’t a fan of unfairness which wasn’t quite exclusion, but was almost. Someone being treated unfairly because of a real or perceived difference by someone else. A beautiful, intelligent and patient Aboriginal girl at my primary school was made to repeat Grade 3 (after finishing Grade 6) because the school did not know what to do with her. Suddenly an 11 year old girl was placed with the 8 year olds. When I spoke to her about it, she said that she would transfer to Yirarra and finish her education there as soon as she could. In a typical 8 year old fashion, I never chased it up nor do I remember if she eventually did.

My parents, well more my mother, was big on fairness, non-discriminatory behaviour and treating people equally regardless of who they were and where they were from. The missionary inspired teachers that taught me in Alice Springs were also big on social justice, and the nuns and brothers of the Sacred Heart in Alice Springs were also big on social justice.

One good thing about my Catholic upbringing, was generally the ability to discuss social justice issues and talk about fairness and justice in general. Certainly more useful in my primary school in Alice Springs versus my secondary schooling in Bendigo.

My mother, in Alice Springs, taught Aboriginal students in the Aboriginal Unit of my Catholic Primary School. She thought that it was exclusionary for those students who had good attendance and who did not need the extra support that the Aboriginal Unit was developed to provide to be kept away from the mainstream educational system. She fought for those students to be included in mainstream schooling and only for those who needed extra support and attention to be in her unit. She had the support of the Parish Priest, but outraged those social conservatives who thought they knew best about what these students needed, and lets face it who were probably consciously or unconsciously racist, to be kept in the Aboriginal Unit. So outraged were they, they started a smear campaign against my mother and the Catholic Priest, suggesting that they were having an affair and were horrible to me and my sisters. Thankfully we left town for unrelated reasons just as this started to get really nasty.

So why this blog post… well I’ve had some interesting conversations with people about exclusion recently, and read some interesting articles about exclusive clubs and the Victorian Equal Opportunity Commission’s thoughts on exclusion for clubs. It has been suggested by the Government I believe that exclusions granted to clubs and institutions to discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation and the like may actually not be in line with Victoria’s Human Rights Charter.

Of course religious groups have complained that the state is interfering with their religious freedom by not letting them discriminate and exclude people whose lifestyles and/or beliefs are not in line with their religions, and Men’s clubs in Melbourne are also under attack. Both of these, of course break my heart and bring tears to my eyes… not.

You see… I’ve rethought exclusion. I have a problem when a powerful group excludes a powerless, or less powerful group…. though there are caveats here. So when white Afrikaans in South Africa excluded all black people… they were a powerful minority, the same goes for Sunnis in Bahrain excluding the Shia in Bahrain. Its not about the size of the group, just the power that they possess. So a Men’s club in Melbourne being under threat by a change of law? Yippee! Force them to live in the modern day and age… and deal with some diversity – because I’d suspect that they’re not only a male only club, but they also have “standards” as to who their members can be… so I’m guessing wealthy, mostly white business men.

The same goes for religious groups… and I’m looking mostly at Christian churches here, because that is where my experience is. A group that has spent time persecuting and excluding less powerful members of society or their own less powerful members… they’ll suddenly have to employ single mothers, queer folk, divorcees, etc. This cannot be a bad thing, as much as they may sook about it. I’m quite happy that Christian school children will actually have a wider world experience with people from different situations in society. It’d be really nice if there was a way to force the Catholic Church to accept women and married men as priests… but I don’t see that happening at this point.

The legislative change also goes for Women’s Clubs… which I have a bit more of a problem with, because traditionally women actually have less power, and need safe space to network and generally exercise. I suspect that Women’s Clubs will be able to successfully fight for their right to exclude men on the basis that far too many women are harassed and killed in gyms than men (just look at that recent massacre in the US for instance), and that women’s clubs are required until women really do have full equality with men .

But what happens when a persecuted minority group, who has their own private club on private land, begins to exclude others? I can understand a lesbian’s collective excluding men… and to an extent I can understand them excluding heterosexual women. But by what token can they exclude bisexual women or even trans-women? Apparently the argument for excluding trans-women is that they were born male and therefore have accessed the privilege that men have… but surely by transitioning to female, they’ve not only forgone any privilege they may have had (and since when was the queer looking boy at school granted any privilege?) they’ve also assigned themselves far into “other” territory and are far more discriminated against and excluded than lesbians. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

I guess bisexuals, by their argument, have the best of both worlds, spend time passing as heterosexual or something. This is not an issue which I have spoken to any radical lesbians about, I just participated in a conversation with someone who is bisexual who was aware of this conundrum.

An ideal world is one where people are recognised for the intrinsic value they possess and the unique gifts they bring into the world. A world where gender, sexuality, relationship status and skin colour aren’t even noticed.

Doctor Who – The Doctor Dances [2005]
Captain Jack Harkness: I’ve gotten to know Algy quite well since I’ve been in town. Trust me, you’re not his type. I’ll distract him. Don’t wait up.

The Doctor: Relax. He’s a fifty-first century guy. He’s just a bit more flexible when it comes to ‘dancing’.

Rose Tyler: How flexible?

The Doctor: Well, by his time, you lot are spread out across half the galaxy.

Rose Tyler: Meaning?

The Doctor: So many species, so little time.

Rose Tyler: What, that’s what we do when we get out there? That’s our mission? We seek new life and…

[weakly]

Rose Tyler: and…

The Doctor: [nodding] Dance.

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