Archive for June, 2006

The Bulletin’s 100 most influential Australians

Published by
Anna
at June 27, 2006 in Politics and media. 2 Comments

Out of the 100 most influential Australians listed in The Bulletin only ten of them are women (by my count). The way this list is stacked towards remembering the achievements of men rather than women is something I remember remarking at last year when it came out. History doesn’t teach us the many achievements made by women in this country. Only one suffragist got into the list, Jesse Street, as did renowned feminist Germaine Greer. Other women who made the list include Pauline Hanson, Kylie Minogue, Ruth Park and Margaret Fulton.

But what about all the other great women in our history. Suffragist Vida Goldstein missed out, as did Louisa Lawson, who was not only Henry Lawson’s mother but was dubbed the ‘mother of womanhood suffrage’ by her fellow women’s rights activists. One would think they changed the face of politics quite profoundly. What about Augusta Zadow who campaigned for women’s equality in the workplace in the late 1800s and founded the Working Women’s Trades Union in 1890, at a time when women weren’t admitted into other unions. Or writer Miles Franklin who left her estate to found Australia’s major literary prize, the Miles Franklin Awards. Or Aboriginal activist Pearl Gambanyi? Or Gladys Elphick who founded the Aboriginal Women’s Council in 1965?

And certainly there are many women of this day and age who have surely had more of an impact on our day-to-day lives than mass murderer Martin Bryant, or cricketer Shane Warne. What about the first Australian woman Premier, Carmen Lawrence? Or author Helen Garner? Or Natasha Stott Despoja, the youngest woman to join parliament? Or anti-nuclear campaigner Helen Caldicott?

Feel free to add to this list in the comments if you know of any women who you think should be recognised in the 100 most influential Australians.

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Hooters comes to Australia

Published by
Anna
at June 26, 2006 in sexist. 0 Comments

This is old news but it has only just come to my attention. According to reports from late May/early June, Hooters will open in Parramatta sometime next month and later will open in Cronulla. The franchise which features waitresses with large breasts in skimpy clothing failed once in Australia but here they are again giving it another shot. The 1997 attempt was located in Five Dock so perhaps they’ve chosen their locations more carefully this time by calculating which suburbs have the densest population of sexist, bogan men.

And you gotta love this advert, I’m not sure if this is how they’re marketing it in Australia (as a family restaurant) but somehow I don’t think that take will work here. Check out the dynamics they’re trying to put across:

Dad: “This is how to be a man son”
Mum: “I’m so proud of my boy, learning how to ogle big boobs”

sheesh.

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Poll happenings #2

Published by
Anna
at June 21, 2006 in funny. 0 Comments

You know what, I think Tiny Cat Pants has solved our subtitle dilemma. This was so funny she was compelled to write a post about it, and it made me burst out in hysterical laughter as well.

(And I got a plug out of it too–thanks!). Anyway what the hell am I talking about? This:

Y’all, my poor computer here at home is just not… I mean, for starters, I bought this computer for $100. It’s definitely given us more than a $100 worth of computerness, but it has some issues, which are more and more noticeable every day.

Sometimes, though, it amuses me, these problems.

So, I’m trying to nose around the blog for Wo! Magazine, which looks like it’s going to be (or is, I can’t tell) a feminist magazine out of Australia and it’s not going well.

For some reason, my computer is just lumping all the text together in these large abstract jumbles. So, for instance, it looks like one of the subtitles they’re trying to vote on is “a magazine, not aa creative mangazine refashioning of feminism.” And I don’t know why, but that made me laugh so damn hard.

I don’t even know what a mangazine is, but I’m going to pretend it’s some kind of patriarchal periodical about mangos and manganese, which, as every good refashioned feminist knows, are the two things necessary for keeping women in their proper place.

I like it, what do you think?

poll happenings

Published by
Anna
at June 21, 2006 in fanfare and housekeeping. 0 Comments

So I’ve narrowed down the poll answers to a possible five, by deleting those that hadn’t as yet gotten a vote. This poll will end on July 2 (which is the same date as the deadline for issue one of the magazine) so if you want to get in on the action vote now (or sometime before July 2).

And the biggest piece of non-news today: Parents rip off their kids piggy banks

Published by
Anna
at June 21, 2006 in media. 1 Comment

Anyone would think the Sydney Morning Herald was running on a skeleton staff when they put this on page three:

ONE in four parents regularly pillage their children’s piggy banks to pay for anything from a bus fare to a new car.

And those with the stickiest fingers are mothers, with 35 per cent confessing to dipping into their offspring’s moneybox or bank account, compared with 16 per cent of fathers.

Wow, consider me informed. Now I remember why I read the newspaper every day.

Prussian Blue

Published by
Anna
at June 21, 2006 in indoctrination and neo-nazism. 3 Comments

[This post was origanally tagged on the end of the ‘christian blogging’ post but I’ve decided to make it it’s own thread in the hope of getting a bit of conversation going around here…*nudge, nudge]

Meet the Olsen twins. I mean Lamb and Lynx Gaede. This is the disturbing progeny of a white nationalist who has been teaching her children the ways of neo-nazism since birth. The twins are home-schooled and have their very own white supremacist band called “Prussian Blue” and yes, in case you were wondering, they are indeed wearing Hitler smiley-face T-shirts.

Prussian Blue has been entertaining all-white crowds with songs such as “Sacrifice” – a tribute to Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess – since they were nine.

“We’re proud of being white, we want to keep being white,” said Lynx. “We want our people to stay white … we don’t want to just be, you know, a big muddle. We just want to preserve our race.”

Now that is just plain scary.

They’ve featured in the media and blogosphere heavily since their mother won a custody battle for them, due to their father’s history of drug abuse and domestic violence (but apparently no white supremacist tendencies).

A lot of the conversation in the blogosphere has centred around whether they would be better off with their father (depending on the seriousness of charges of domestic violence) and not getting indoctrinated with damaging ideological views, but then where do you stop once a mother loses custody because of her beliefs. Happy Feminist was of the opinion that a lot of people would think her views would be damaging to children. But is it a subjective thing when it comes to neo-nazism? My view was that lots of people are having kids and teaching them damaging views, that’s just the way it is… But if it comes down to what’s best for the child, which is worse?

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Friday christian blogging…on Tuesday

Published by
Anna
at June 20, 2006 in breeding, christianity and indoctrination. 0 Comments

Holy breeding frenzy. This is the Duggar family. The Duggar’s have gained a certain amount of noteriety due to their larger than average family. Mrs Michelle Duggar has given birth to 16 kids. In the ‘Advice to mother’s section’ on their family webpage, she tells of having a breakdown over all the washing she has to do but have no fear god is here:

It was 1:00 AM in the morning as I stood folding laundry with tears streaming down my cheeks. Feelings of being overwhelmed flooded my mind. I cried aloud, ”LORD I NEED YOUR HELP, I can’t do it all! I feel so inadequate! Diapers, dishes, laundry, meals, cleanup, school lessons, baths, hugs, kisses, correction…” My list seemed to go on and on.

[…]

I said, “OK Lord, I will praise you even now! It really is a sacrifice!” So through the tears I began to sing, “The joy of the Lord is my strength”. In my heart there was a release as if a burden had been lifted. I finished the laundry at 2 AM and went to bed.

Days later, I was at our piano teacher’s home (at 7 AM) trying to catch up on paperwork while the children were taking their lessons. Instead, I kept drifting off to sleep! The teacher noticed and asked, “Are you OK?” I replied, “I’m fine, I’m just tired. I was up late finishing laundry.”

As we talked more she said that she actually enjoyed doing laundry and that she would be glad to come and help me! That weekend when she arrived we had mountains of dirty laundry, and when she left we had nice, neat, orderly stacks of clean laundry! For 10 years now, our piano teacher, whom we consider a part of our family and loving call “NaNa” has faithfully come (now twice a week) to help us with laundry! GOD sent “An angel” in answer to my cry for help.

Her husband sounds like a catch. I guess he’s too busy winning bread to help her out.

This woman has numerous pearls of wisdom on her site, ‘Biblical Womanhood’. Which is mainly taken up with how to be a good subservient mother and wife. I especially liked the post where she regrets not telling the telemarketer where to go after daring to call her the female head of the household. Here’s an excerpt:

The conversation went something like this:

Crystal: Hello!

Telemarketer: Hi, I’d like to speak with the female head of the household.

Crystal: I am a female, but I’m not the head of our household.

Telemarketer: Silence.

Crystal: My husband is the head of our household.

Telemarketer: Um, um, well… in my office we call you the female head of the household.

Crystal: In our house, my husband’s the head so I think you probably don’t want to talk to me.

Needless to say, the telemarketer was quite baffled and ended up hanging up. I wish I had been more quick to explain to her how important it was that my husband is the head of our household and that I am under his authority.

And this piece of advice on what to teach a son was a bit of a gem too. Number two on the list of 10 was this:

To guard his mind - If I don’t, the devil will gladly teach him to have an open mind.

I don’t want this post to come across as scoffing at ‘unliberated women’ (well let’s face it I am) but I must admit a certain level of amusement mixed with a pinch of woah! and a little (perhaps self-righteous) pity (which I’m sure they want none of) – shaken, not stirred – did come across me at the discovery of these things.

I take that all back. Christians are just nutters. Try cruising some christian blogs. For example, this woman, if she could do one thing in the world, would revoke women’s suffrage and tie voting to property ownership.

‘We are completely equal in our application of inequality’: Vanstone

Published by
Anna
at June 19, 2006 in Politics. 0 Comments

You have to love this quote from the Minister of Immigration, Amanda Vanstone on the Government’s proposed Indonesia-appeasing asylum seeker legislation. The legislation calls to process all applicants offshore after which, if found to be refugees, they are to be settled in a third country:

The only change in relation to this legislation is that the people who, by luck of strong winds or better planning, happen to arrive on the mainland will be treated in the same way as those who land at an island just one kilometre off our northern coast.

Who ever said that the Government wasn’t fair?

Update: GetUp have a petition up calling for the legislation to be rejected, they’re aiming for 75,000 signatures, of which they have about 59,000. So if you want to sign it it’s here.

P&O says sexist ads “don’t represent” the company’s “values”

Published by
Anna
at June 15, 2006 in rape and sexist. 0 Comments

“Seamen Wanted” said the advertising campaign for P&O Cruises. The caption accompanied an image of several bikini-clad, sunbaking women. But the cruise company issued an apology over the advertising today, saying they were insensitive and didn’t represent the company’s image – the same company that is part of the inquest into Dianne Brimble’s rape and death aboard the Pacific Sky. The postcards boasted “more sun” and “more girls” on board, “there’s nothing else a guy needs to know” apparently.

Whilst P&O Cruises distances itself from the sexist advertising, P&O Ferries have recently launched this shocker of a viral marketing campaign for the World Cup. Somehow I think these ads represent the values (or lack thereof) of the company perfectly. They should at least be honest about what their selling. Their tagline perhaps should read something like this: “More drugs, more alcohol, more women: There’s nothing else a rapist needs to know”.

Update re Dianne Brimble:

This guy’s a shining example of a human being isn’t he

LETTERIO SILVESTRI thought Dianne Brimble had “f—ed up his holiday” by dying in his cabin.

He was a man of pride who did not talk to “anything that’s over 60 kilos”.

Those remarks were part of an interview he gave police on board the Pacific Sky cruise ship two days after the Queensland mother of three died in the cabin he shared with three friends.

[…]

Mr Silvestri said he had briefly met Mrs Brimble in the nightclub. She had come up to his table and said: “Hi, how are you going?”, he told police.

“It’s like, Hi, see you. I just brushed her off, I didn’t want to speak to her . .. breath, yuck, ugly dog, just go talk to someone else. Ring the RSPCA,” Mr Silvestri said.

“Stop laughing,” he tells police conducting the interview.

>>Full story

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If beauty queens made good presidents Miss Universe would have achieved world peace by now

Published by
Anna
at June 13, 2006 in Politics and World. 0 Comments

Now I’m not saying that the aspiring first female French president, Segolene Royal, chose to be put in FHM’s ‘world’s sexiest women’ survey, but if that’s the department that the opinion polls are rating you in then there’s something wrong with your campaign. Royal is rated the sixth most sexiest woman FYI, and much is being made of the fact that she rated higher than “Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Hurley and Penelope Cruz and coming just two places behind Angelina Jolie” (SMH, 13/06/06 “Out of left field comes a French bombshell”). Well then, she’s definitely electable I’d say.

I’m not sure whether Royal approves of this kind of publicity, she did come out against Sloggi underwear ads in France depicting women wearing only g-strings, but that was way back in 2003.

I’m also wondering whether it’s some kind of conspiracy to discredit her. She has apparently ruffled some feathers inside her own party by suggesting that “unruly youth” be sent to boot camp and last week publicly wondered whether the 35-hour week was a good idea. However when you consider the following perhaps it’s not:

The French concern about Royal is not so much that her domestic circumstances [her de facto partner is the Socialist Party’s leader, Francois Hollande - himself a man of presidential ambition] might prove damaging, it’s that she might not be serious enough.

While political rivals and colleagues alike pride themselves on their appearances in the weighty newspapers, Royal’s elfin face is more often seen gazing from the front pages of popular rags.

When she finally confirmed her presidential ambitions in September last year, it was not in any of the doughty organs that might ordinarily befit a Socialist champion, but in Paris Match, the glossy high-circulation magazine whose slogan “The weight of words - the shock of photos!” might just as well apply to the lady herself.

Using trashy tabloids for a presidential campaign. Well, I’d hazard a guess that it’s never been done before. It might just work.

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