Pro-Choice

If Tony Abbott felt that he needed prove his great relationships with women, his superior understanding of women and how we work, he should have stayed in bed this morning, or sent Margie in his place. Instead, he fronted the post-MYEFO media and declared that the Government doesn't really understand families; if they did, they would never have monkeyed around with the Baby Bonus.

Echoes of 2007, when Bill Heffernan called Julia Gillard "deliberately barren" bounced around Twitter. Was the Leader of the Oppostion really drawing attention back to the Prime Minister's choice to remain childless, and using it as evidence that the Government doesn't understand the pressures on Australian families...during a time when he's trying to appeal to women voters?

Journalist and academic Julie Posetti tweeted:

"You've got to be kidding me - Abbott played the 'Gillard isn't a mother' card. Again?! Interesting misogyny accusation deflection strategy."

Gold Coast Columnist Sue Lapperman tweeted:

"I can't believe @TonyAbbottMHR has not learnt anything from the past couple of weeks. Badly done Mr Rabbit, badly done."

There are probably more than a few people who are surprised that the conversation about equality, misogyny, sexism and respect has lasted longer than just a few days. It's more than a wistful post-mortem to a surprisingly successful social media campaign. The latest opinion polls are reflecting the gender divide, with Prime Minister Gillard pulling away as preferred PM.

The initial blast was triggered by Alan Jones claim that the 'women are destroying the joint', the murder of Jill Meagher, and the emergence of Tony Abbott's family on the national stage. The rage subsided just a little, only to have Alan Jones throw an entire warehouse full of ammo with his "died of shame" comment in front of a room full of future conservative leaders.

After worldwide attention, countless editorials, panel discussions and blogs, plus fifteen minutes of unforgettable honesty from the Prime Minister, the women of Australia show no signs of sitting down or shutting up. Even women who acknowledge that they avoid the news are talking about Jones, Abbott, Gillard and why its so much harder for women. Plenty of men are standing beside the women this time. A new generation is learning the lyrics to I Am Woman.

That early conversation about destroying the joint has made way for a whole range of new discussions, from the acceptability of the word "vagina" in polite conversation, to questions about the continued existence of a corporate glass ceiling, the cost of tampons and the right to choose to be a stay-at-home Mum.

More importantly, it's not just hipster-talk. As late as yesterday, big companies were still choosing to withdraw their advertising from the Alan Jones Show on 2GB. Assuming that they'd allowed enough time for the heat to dissipate - or figuring that they'd lost enough money - 2GB reintroduced advertising during the Alan Jones show. It didn't go well for them, with several ads from companies who had withdrawn from the Alan Jones Show "accidentally" going to air. 2GB has underestimated the attention span of their foes.

We'd have to include MRN's Mr Jones and Mr Tate in the list of men who are surprised that the women are still destroying the joint. This is no storm in the Royal Doulton, dear. This is serious.

It's no longer a protest or a campaign; it's becoming an oestrogen-propelled perpetual motion machine with the power to reignite the processes of change our mothers and grandmothers started back in the sixties. This time there's a difference: women have nothing left to prove. We can choose whether to burn our bras, run them up a flagpole or strap ourselves into lacy underwired torture devices. They're our bras, and it's our decision.

Equally, we can choose to focus on career and crash through the glass ceiling like Julia Gillard and Julie Bishop have done, we can reproduce like bunnies and care for the family full-time, or we can plan to balance career and family.

If you stay on the right side of the law, and well away from those who need to apply their version of propriety to everyone, you're fine, but right now, the focus remains on the levels of balance and respect between men and women.

The latest Essential Poll asked about perceptions of sexism. The results aren't good for anyone, with the possible exception of Prime Minister Gillard. Sexism is very much alive and well, and this goes some way to explaining why her infamous speech about Tony Abbott's misogyny is still reverberating.

Margie's Abbott's appearances to help her husband look softer and more (politically) appealing to women are backfiring too. With the greatest respect for Mrs Abbott, putting her in front of a cynical media simply strengthens her and weakens him further. She becomes the story.

Those of us still fighting the battles against misogyny don't mind if women want to stay home with the kids. In fact, that might have been my choice, had my situation been different. The point is, it's a valid choice, every bit as worthy as any other choice a woman makes - what to wear, when and if to have children, how to cook a decent sponge cake. That's the point that Heffernan, Jones, Abbott and the rest of the Misogyny-R-Us Superleague just don't get.

It's our choice. We don't need permission, approval, or guidance...but if we want any of those, that's fine too.

There was one guy on Twitter this morning who had a 140 character pouty. His point was that he was sick of hearing every gender-related comment reframed against the current environment, and measured for sexism. His frustration is understandable...but he might need to get used to it, at least for now. We don't want our daughters and granddaughters fighting the same old battles.

Don't Mess with the Womenfolk

It’s no wonder that earnest conservative men have a problem with women. We girlie-types got sick of their grunting caveman attempts at communications, ventured out of our caves and started talking to each other, and there’s been no peace for anyone, male or female, since.

From Sappho and Cleopatra over 2,000 years ago, to Joan of Arc, the Queens Elizabeth ( 1 & 2 ), Mary Wollstencraft, Florence Nightingale, Emily Pankhurt, Rosa Luxemburg, Eleanor Roosevelt, Oprah Winfrey, Germaine Greer, Benizir Bhutto... these women and so many more have made themselves heard.

I ask you, what did those inspirational women do that was so revolutionary? They talked. They wrote about their lives and how things could be different. The spread concepts like respect and equality and hope. They conspired with each other and hatched plans to improve their lot. They went to war for what they believed in. They found whatever it is inside that made them women, and they used it. We’re still using it.

Well, that was never gonna work.

The Women’s Lib movement in the 1960s and 70s gave this girlie-thing a name, a logo and a few hairy-armpitted figureheads, but women have been begging, nagging, arguing, organising and fighting for equality since before the human race learned to speak in complete sentences. And the Women’s Lib movement was half a century ago.


Look around, Ladies, Gentlemen and random Cave-dwellers: women have come a long way, but there are still too many thugs in positions of power, trying very hard to shove us back into their image of what a woman should be: a bikini, a spritz of Chanel No 5, a maternity ward. In fact, we could be forgiven for thinking that the boorish cave-dwellers are fighting back. They’re not even trying to sound politically correct anymore, much less intellectual, educated or aware. With some of these brutes we can’t me more than a rearward evolutionary step or two away from Fred Flintstone.

I’d certainly never accuse Opposition Leader Tony Abbott of being a cave-dweller. I’m sure that his lovely wife Margie, who is again doing the rounds of the media to try to temper her husband’s poor image with The Women Voters, keeps a lovely home for her husband and daughters. In keeping with her special position as the spouse of a senior politician. Mrs Abbott runs her own business in the childcare industry. Good of her, really, and good of Tony to let the wife have something useful to do when he’s off being Important.

Mrs Abbott told News Limited, "Tony gets women. He is surrounded by strong women. He grew up with three sisters, has three daughters, is supported by a female deputy in Julie Bishop and has always had a female chief of staff."

No, Margie. Saying that Tony "gets" women because he's surrounded by them is like saying I can play the piano because I listen to a lot of music. Besides, no two people are alike, and simply making that comment devalues us all. Someone else who doesn't get women is American Republican Congressman Tood Akin. Several weeks ago, he told us that few women get pregnant as a result of being raped because the female body has some magical properties that makes the pregnancy go away. He was told, quite forcefully, that it was factually wrong...but you know these conservatives and their distrust of science...
Another, even better Todd Akin clanger has emerged this week. In 2008, the Congressman from Missouri was caught on camera in a rambling bluster linking the dangers of Sharia Law with evil abortion doctors. So great was this danger that some of these doctors were even performing abortions on women who weren’t pregnant.

Now I’m a woman who likes to use words, but in this case, I’d use an appropriate emoticon if I had one, because I really don’t have any words. Oh – yes I do! Can you believe that this clueless troglodyte has been re-elected to congress five times, and has begat a handful of children? I’m surprised he knew how…

Yet perhaps through all this thinking and talking and scheming, we got it wrong. Maybe we should be listening to these wise alpha males, lest we Destroy the Joint completely and for all time.

Clem Bastow shared her thoughts in the Sydney Morning Herald a month or so ago.

But what is #destroyingthejoint if not gleeful indignation? That the hashtag has hung around longer than a few days illustrates exactly that. Surely instead of hanging on to it to prove a point, we'd be better off getting on with actually "destroying the joint", and not defining it with some sort of winking slogan. It's not particularly funny and, after a week of constant hashtagging, it's pretty boring.

Ms Bastow was right too: we destroyers had to actually do something with our Jones-induced fit of pique. Luckily for us, and the men who are afraid of us, Alan Jones provided us another, even bigger outlet for our indignation. He insulted our grieving Prime Minister and her family in a secret little soiree for conservatives.

Well, you wanna see some joint destroying? Come watch the response, driven largely by an online petition and the Destroy the Joint Facebook Group. Over sixty of them have now committed to pulling their advertising dollars in some way from Alan Jones, whether its via advertising on Jones; radio show, advertising on 2GB, sponsoring their traffic reports or their website, slicing over $80,000 per day from 2GB’s bottom line.


That’s not a bad effort for a bunch of angry women, a common cause and a few communication tools.

The UnFairer Sex

This time a month ago, you could line up our Prime Minister, Queensland Premier, Tasmanian Premier, Governor General and the Governor of Queensland, and you'd have wall to wall women. In fact, every Australian state except South Australia has had at least one female Premier. These women are high achievers, role models, imperfect, but proof that women can make it to the top in public office.

Undoubtedly, the corporate glass ceiling becomes more just a little more fragile each year. Gail Kelly is CEO of Westpac. The top spot on Australia's rich list is held by Gina Rinehart.   The Spotless group includes three female General Managers.

So everything is good, then? Men and women have equal opportunity to achieve in both public and private sectors?

Er, no. Some extraordinary women do make it to the top. The overwhelming majority of women do not. There are as many reasons for that imbalance as there are women, and yet themes exist. Physically and culturally, the family demands of women are greater. Most corporations reward a culture which is subtly skewed to favour men. Equal opportunity initiatives don't extend to internal promotions. Old-fashioned prejudices and traditional expectations still exist.

Here's the result:

Only 8% of senior executives in Australia are women.
Women make up less than 15% of Australia's military.
The average wage for women is about 16% lower than the average wage for men, and the gap is increasing.
43% of women reported surviving violence by a previous partner*
23% of women reported enduring violence by their current partner*
76% of domestic homicides involved a male offender and female victim*
More than 4 in 5 single parents are mothers.

Women have opportunity, but it is not equal.

Queensland Premier Campbell Newman, son of Jocelyn Newman, who served Prime Minister John Howard twice as Minister assisting the Prime Minister on the Status of Women, has no Minister in his cabinet whose chief responsibility is women's issues. In fact, Premier Newman has rolled responsibility for women's issues into a crazy mishmash portfolio, best described as the Department of Touchy-Feely-Handle-With-Care Issues.

Tracy Davis MP is Queensland's new Minister for Communities, Child Safety and Disability Services, which includes such responsibilities as Homelessness, Youth Affairs, Women's Policy, Seniors, Adoption, Disability Services, Carers, and the Registration of Charitable Organisations.

In fairness, these portfolio areas are ones with which she is familiar, having covered many of them in her one previous parliamentary term when she served as Shadow Minister for Child Safety, Disability Services and Mental Health. 

She is also experienced at promoting women's causes. According to her own website,

"Tracy has an ongoing commitment to encouraging women’s political participation at organisational and parliamentary levels.  She has held the position of Vice-President of Liberal Women’s Council QLD, and until her election to Parliament was the Policy Chairman of LNP Women."

Well, Ms Davis, the Sisterhood wants to know why you let your boss get away with this? Only 3 members of Premier Newman's cabinet are women. Sixteen percent. Queensland's population is 50.4% female. 

Campbell Newman has effectively devalued the status of women in Queensland to that of a minority or special interest group. Perhaps as he looked at his predecessor, he assumed that all was well with the status of women.

I dream about that day; the day when we won't need a special ministry dedicated to making women less unequal. That day isn't here. It's not even close.

Helen Reddy - 'I Am Woman' (Live) 1975 on Fooooo

* For more terrifying stats on violence against Australian women, click here.


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Girls Just Wanna Have Fun

I'm slightly ashamed to admit that I don't know what "feminism" means in my life. I've always considered myself to be an Equalist, yet this morning, a friend tweeted a link to a blog post that contained this:

My pet hate is when people (particularly women) say “I’m not feminist, I’m equalist.”  Sometimes they misuse the word “humanist” to mean the same thing as “equalist”.  This is more internalised misogyny, that need to be polite, pleasant and “fair” to men so that they don’t feel threatened by women demanding to be treated as human beings.  Again, as though fighting for women’s rights would be directly removing rights from men – which is a complete fallacy.  This shaming of feminism, as if it’s somehow harmful or unreasonable, is carefully nurtured by those who are against women having autonomy over their bodies and lives, and those seeds are sown in the minds of women so that they remain compliant and work to police other women.

On first reading, I knew that this definition of equalism held no resonance for me. My personal brand of equalism is far closer to the dictionary definition of feminism itself.

fem·i·nism   [fem-uh-niz-uhm]  noun
1. the doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men
2. ( sometimes initial capital letter ) an organized movement for the attainment of such rights for women.
3. feminine  character.

Nevertheless, it meandered in and out of my mind throughout the day, leading me to question my stance on feminism. I wondered when then the concept of equalism had emerged, and why. What was wrong with 60s/70s era feminism anyway? 

I got interested in pop music around the same time as Helen Reddy sang (and co-wrote with a man), I Am Woman. I grew up hearing about bra-burning, Germaine Greer and the birth of Cleo. My single mother worked. Never in my life was there a question around the legitimacy of women in any sphere. 


Ten years later, feminism was a non-event, despite there being a long long way to go for so many members of the Sisterhood. It was as though the hard work had been done; that there was momentum enough to carry women upwards and through the glass ceiling, never to return. There wasn't, of course, but Women's Lib was taught as "history", not as Current Affairs, and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun was the anthem for the next generation. 


Still, radical feminism flourished in quiet corners, emerging once in a while to remind us where we came from. Subgroups formed, labels appeared and disappeared. Believe it or not, I came up with "equalist" all by myself and for myself,  in response to what I saw was a lumpy playing field.


Particularly uncomfortable for me was a trend to associate certain careers with a gender. Think of some careers, and the stereotype is male - mining, construction, front-line military, plumbing. Others generate images of women: teaching, nursing, public relations and human resources. Still other careers seem to encompass both genders equally, and others are moving from one to another. Very few career options are closed to either sex now.


But is this gender association in some career areas more than just a reflection of the gender-biased strengths of men and women? 


I believe it is. There is still a vast imbalance in the opportunities and rewards on offer to men and women. For some women, there's a choice between career and family that rarely bothers blokes, while for other women, motherhood is not a choice but an imperative. For the rest of us, each step towards the bloody glass ceiling is still a triumph over the perceived limitations that come with having a womb.


And for this reason, I am an equalist. No, make that an Equalist. It deserves the capitalisation. I love being a woman, but I do not want to be identified, associated with or limited by my ovaries. I want my place in society to be equal to that of a man. Not superior to, not in conflict with, not the same as a man, but equal. Equal in standing, equally respected, equally able to take advantage of an opportunity - not because of my gender, or in spite if my gender; irrespective of gender. 


That sounds pretty close to the dictionary definition of feminism to me, and it has nothing to with the description (above) in FatHephalump's blog.


And this is where I had planned to end this post.


But wait! Instead of a free set of steak knives, I bring you news from America, that land where the ERA (Equal Rights Amendment), first proposed in 1923, has never became law.


The Governor of Wisconsin, a medium-sized state known for cheese, has repealed its law which guarantees equal pay for women. Why? Because it means they can save the state some money by paying female public servants less than males. 


How has this been justified? Well, apparently it's more likely that men are the family breadwinners. Therefore, men need money more than women do, since they have families to support. A prominent Republican state senator explained, “You could argue that money is more important for men. I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.”


I hope Tony Abbott never gets wind of this. In Australia, the gender pay gap is still around 17%, and a range of studies have found the determining factor in that gap to be gender-based discrimination. 


I think it's time to dust off my Helen Reddy LPs. We may have been liberated back in the 70s, but we're far from equal.