Wo Magazine

By Claire Nemorin

Mar-May 2007

I, _____________ _______________________ have the right to the following freedoms and choices. These freedoms should be engendered through Parliament, government policy, the law, community, research and other information centres, the health industries and its professionals and advocacy. Most importantly, I have the right to reproductive choice because these rights are not just women’s rights, they are human rights.

• I have the right to not have children. I do not have to be wholly defined by a biological function that I may or may not have.

• I have the choice and right to be a parent therefore to be free from the threats of sterilisation due to race, ethnicity or disability.

• I have the right to be included in government policy which deals with reproductive choice and/or the raising of children. Examples include: Medicare and bulk billing, family planning, emergency contraception, In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) for ALL women, relatively inexpensive child care fees, child care tax deductions, the needed reinstatement of the child care centre subsidy, suitable number of long day care and other types of child care places, quality and well managed child care centres, well paid child care professionals, number of pre school places, anti discrimination laws in the workplace based on motherhood and being a woman, pay equity, a fair industrial relations system, unpaid and paid parental leave, and affordable public housing.

• I want the freedom to be heard in relation to reproductive choice in a democratic society — whether in Parliament, in Parliamentary committees, as part of NGOs, or other stakeholders.

• I want proper and full choice whereby reproductive choice organisations, grassroots and community organisations and women’s health centres are funded by the government of the day regardless of its ideology.

• I have the right of access to on-demand abortion. The ACT has paved the way, now the rest of the states and territories must follow. I want the freedom of access to safe, legal, geographically accessible, confidential and inexpensive abortions partly funded through Medicare.

• I have the right to accessible contraception and birth control: this means they must be safe and inexpensive, and their prescription subject to privacy laws. If not already, contraception including those used in emergency and birth control must be made available over the counter with method of use, risks (without scare tactics) and benefits clearly outlined. This must occur regardless of age and location.

• I have the right to know the ideologies of organisations that purport to help women with reproductive issues, thus they should be upfront, transparent and ideally work in the interest of the woman.

• I have the right to not be judged or not to be patronised by professionals in the health industries, whether this discrimination be based on race, sexuality, gender, age, or having a disability.

• I want the freedom to be well informed about all options, risks and benefits: pre, during and post surgical procedures; this is also known as ‘informed consent’.

• I have the right to counselling post any procedure regarding possible reproduction.

• Young people have the right to good, well informed and non-ideologically based sex education in high school. This sex education should consider sexual autonomy, emotions, mutual respect, desires, homo- and hetero- sexualities, and safe sex among other issues. This will give young people greater freedom later.

• I want the freedom to have knowledge about sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and this knowledge should not help to demonise groups of people.

• I want the freedom to know my own body without shame or judgment.

• We have the right to the woman’s health being put first at all times.

Feminists, disability advocates, antiracists, scientists, gay liberation, queer, reproductive choice, civil liberty, humanist, lobbyists and other activists, lawyers and other advocates, judges, artists, health and education professionals, politicians, writers and others have helped to make some of the above not yet fully realised realities.

We too can make a difference through joining feminist and other organisations, writing letters to the media, writing stories, poems and creating other artistic works, protesting, taking cases of discrimination to HREOC, confronting the person who did not treat us with respect and dignity, voting for or joining a political party which considers women’s rights, annoying the local MP or the state/territory and/or federal health ministers and hopefully Minister for Women, writing submissions to Parliamentary committees and many, many more!

We all have a valuable part to play…

Signature: _________________________________________________________

Date: __________________________________________________________________________

Whom you can contact to enact change!

Minister Julie Bishop (Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women’s Issues and Minister for Education, Science and Training)

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/member.asp?id=83P

Perth Office:
414 Rokeby Road
Subiaco WA 6008

Postal Address:
PO Box 2010
Subiaco WA 6904

Telephone: (08) 9388 0288
Fax: (08) 9388 0299

Minister Mal Brough (Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs)

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/member.asp?electorate=Longman

Caboolture Office:
110 Morayfield Road
Caboolture QLD 4510

Postal address:
PO Box 1883
Caboolture Qld 4510

Telephone: (07) 5495 6290
Fax: (07) 5498 3307

Minister John Cobb (Minister for Community Services)

Email: John.Cobb.MP@aph.gov.au

Dubbo Office:
3-153, Brisbane Street
Dubbo NSW 2830

Telephone: (02) 6882 0999
Fax: (02) 6882 9935

Broken Hill Office:
2 Brookfield House
275 Argent Street
Broken Hill NSW 2880

Postal Address:
Po Box 443
Broken Hill NSW 2880

Telephone: (08) 8087 7649
Fax: (08) 8087 7605

Every issue we invite submission for literary reviews- critical analysis or reflections on poetry or prose (modern or classical), through an imaginative feminist lens.  From D.H Lawrence and Sylvia Plath, to Naguib Mahfouz and the Romantic poets- be as creative and open as you like.  By Lauren Farrow.

Mar-May 2007

Reading about a self centred, superficial and generally un-likeable character is always a bit of a challenge. The novel Madame Bovary was at once a frustrating and enlightening read. It’s all about unrequited passion and the evils of arsenic.

So if you are in a rut, feeling generally unsatisfied and want someone to share your pain, you might want to give this one ago.

When most people talk about period novels, there is a constant threat of the phrase ‘it still has relevance today.’ There is also the fear of overworked language and a slow-paced plot. Madame Bovary is only around 300 pages, so while it’s peppered with flowery phrases it isn’t torturously slow.

It’s a story that shows a world full of restrictions and rigid social customs. It explores how personal choices impact others and how society’s limitations affect an individual’s choices.

Gustav Flaubert’s Madame Bovary was first published in 1851. Flaubert was subsequently taken to the courts for offending the church and moral decency. Fortunately he won the fight against censorship and was able to widely publish his controversial work.

Interestingly it is said that the character of Madame Bovary (Emma) is based both on his own weakness for romance and intense sentimentality, and his illicit affair with a poet named Louise Colet, who also happened to be married. Their tumultuous relationship was ended when Madame Bovary was published, sparking Louise to write a scathing poem about his betrayal.

How much of Flaubert’s novel depicts his relations with Louise is unclear, but his thoughts on the morals of adultery which run throughout his work were no doubt shaped by his experiences.

In his novel, Flaubert illustrates the demise of his adulterous creation Emma, who is in constant pursuit of her romantic ideal. After believing herself in love Emma marries Charles Bovary, an incompetent country doctor who is plain to the point of dullness.

Within a week her dreams of being swept away by a heroic man, modelled on the romantic novels of her youth, are thwarted. She imagines her school friends, enjoying the wonders and excitement of Paris “living lives where the heart had room to expand and the senses to develop.” But as for her, her life was “as cold as a garret that looks to the north, and ennui like a spider spun its web in the shadow of the corners of her heart.”

Trapped and unable to be an agent in her own life, Emma waits for something to happen.

Cue Rodolphe, a wealthy and handsome bachelor who enjoys considerable freedom (choosing to use it with other men’s wives). Capriciously deciding to feed his vanity, “he makes her fall in love with him.”

What follows is an affair which is shallow and narcissistic. Their language is embellished and superficial. There is nothing real to their relationship except their insatiable desire to fulfil their own vanity.

This is mercilessly summed up by Rodolphe’s own thoughts on their relationship. “Emma was like all his mistresses; and the charm of novelty, gradually falling away like a garment, laid bare the eternal monotony of passion, that has always the same forms and the same language.”

Emma dreams of running away with Rodolphe, but he chooses society and a comfortable life. Eventually he writes Emma an affected farewell letter, which he sprinkles with water to look like his tears.

Through her actions with Rodolphe and her complete surrender to despair at his leaving we are constantly led to at once to feel pity and also loathing towards her. Flaubert keeps this state of tension throughout the book, emphasising how Rodolphe is able to freely indulge in his romantic vanity, moving from one woman to the next — while Emma is forced to regret and revert to a life of boredom and constriction.

However, Rodolphe’s rejection is pushed to the back of Emma’s mind when she takes on a second lover. Leon has more true feelings for Emma and shares her tendency for exaggerated sentimentality. Their relationship, though intense in feeling at first, gradually begins to whither as their passion becomes stale.

But the damage to Emma is done. Endless borrowing to finance her extravagant tastes and romantic liaisons leaves her facing bankruptcy.

Flaubert writes both tenderly and critically about Emma Bovary’s choices in her pursuit of romance. Her idealism towards the other sex is at once mocked and glorified, making it a squeamish read. I hated Emma’s utter lack of self-reliance, and her constant need to find fulfilment outside herself. Her character is whole-heartedly flawed. Her incapacity for self-reflection and her inability to take any responsibility for her choices is irritating. In the end she takes on the role of the failed Anna Karenina heroine type, whose character is totally destroyed by her obsession with love.

There is no middle ground with a character like Emma. From her wishes to be loved — in a way that is unsustainable for anyone — to her thirst for wealth and extravagance, it is impossible to respect Emma. But Flaubert’s mastery lays in the way in which he constantly makes the reader feel empathy for Emma despite our judgement.

In the end Flaubert leaves us with a lesson, plus a bleak view on life. Brutal death. Financial ruin. Disillusioned love. None of it is pretty.

Although her choices wreak havoc on everyone — a situation Emma is completely oblivious to — society and its framing of the female plays a large part in this book. Reminding us when choices are limited and life is unfulfilling; the women who risk everything for a bit of excitement and passion (however misguided), and who use ‘love’ to escape the banality of their life can have potentially transformative and destructive consequences.

Sarah Malik takes a late-night stroll in Darling Harbour, which leads to unexpected discoveries, music and enchantment.

May 2007

I am in one of those reverie like moods and decide to take a late night stroll around the Harbour. The night is bitingly cold as I huddle on the seated groove outside the Opera House. I drink in the Harbour, its dazzling lights reflected in the black inky water swirling like confused thoughts. Then the most gorgeous jazz wafts over me and I am enchanted.

An unconventional opening for a review but necessary to depict the atmosphere of what precedes a fateful moment: the discovery of Catfish.

Catfish is a revelation for lovers of jazz. The band is made up of the powerful duo of singer/writer Angie Contini and Sydney jazz drummer Alex West. They are supported by a mixed ensemble of Sydney’s most gorgeous jazz players — James Brinkoff on keyboard, Adrian Cunningham on clarinet/saxophone and Stan Valocos on Double Bass.

After the set, I drift to the band, still recovering from Contini’s haunting melodies to thank them for giving me my epiphanic experience.

Contini is faraway with long wafts of cigarette smoke encircling her. I have a chat to drummer Alex West. The band is independent, still struggling to secure a record deal.

I buy their CD. It’s ten dollars. I listen. I love. All six songs are gems.

‘The Usual Things’ brims with energy and passion:

Why? Why you gotta make it so hard? I couldn’t love you more if I tried…Why you gotta go and break my heart?

‘It’s Only Everything’ is easily the CD’s most swaying and seductive piece, full of magic melancholy:

Deep inside I’ll never know I’ll be the kind of woman that you need Baby. I should have knew you much better by now. Deep inside I know i’m a kind of girl that rushes head long… things I never said I do I done…”

Contini’s voice soars and goes deep into pain, possibility and purification scaling blissful highs and excavating deep troughs of emotion.

‘That’s How It Goes’ is playful and mischievous, a bantering confessional. Contini’s easy lyricism and languor drip through every piece like thick honey despite an underscore of sweet bitterness:

I had a penchant for love. It made me so violently ill… A haystack needle in a haystack, where could he be…You go hunting for a good love and you come home with emptiness…

‘The Trouble With Love’ is a sad, sweet release:

The trouble with love when you rush in too soon- is how good it fools. Try as I might there just not getting over you… What am I going to do?

Contini has succeeded in bottling pain and releasing it as sweet and fragrant ether you could consume with strawberries and ice-cream.

The last piece before the glorious cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Take that Waltz’ is ‘Lady Barracuda.’ It is a rollicking jazz piece that slides and shimmers, dives and dances like the song’s femme-fatale. Drums, tap, percussion and clarinet all punch in with hot vitality:

That came from the South- that crimson painted mouth- boys all knew her as the Barracuda.

The play on the wild Australian fish is witty and theatrical — full of style.

Catfish is a must for lovers of jazz reminiscent of the old school — full of soul and languor — but also passionate and upbeat transforming traditional jazz with an innovative and distinctly Australian flavour.

It’s not only for lovers of jazz — but for lovers of love, passion, intoxication and lyricism. For music that will transport and transform. Catfish will take you there.

Wo! Magazine encourages and supports independent music. If you would like your music to be reviewed please contact Sarah Malik@wo-magazine.com.au

It’s free, fantastic, and you don’t even have to leave your own home! Whilst some campaigners focus on getting more female artists into mainstream galleries and museums, Sarah Parry encourages us to open up to a world of talented new female artists on the internet.

Mar-May 2007

Whenever women are asked what are the most precious perks the revolution of the internet has brought into their lives, the usual ready retort often goes something like this: online shopping, cheap clothes via auction sites, getting groceries delivered to your doorstep or the fact that now some underrepresented groups of women get to actually be heard via internet forums. However, predominantly most responses are centred around consumerist hobbies such as online shopping sprees.

Well, forget the dark side of the world wide web — increases in credit card fraud and a vast sector of the population openly using it to search out pornography — what I would like to highlight is something new, exciting and positive that the internet has gifted us with — something culturally enriching; this revelation is what I like to call ‘chick’ art.

Since I have had a gander around the net, swooning in admiration at the vast array of top-notch female artistry on display, I have felt like a kid in a candy shop! When I am browsing I cannot help thinking to myself when I happen to stumble across some amazing femme artwork, that if the likes of Hallmark knew of this girl’s gift they would snap her up in a second.

I started to see how the internet could potentially be a big break for global struggling creative types that go un-noticed by the big corporate chains.

The internet deserves a lot more credit for sharing knowledge of art. Appreciation of art had been stereotyped as a hobby for the aristocratic, an activity for a minted, highly-educated elite. Kids had a favourite Power Ranger, but not a favourite artist, and this was the way of the world.

The internet has been a crucial to self-promotion through the medium of a personal website, and I think both parties get a sweet part of the deal: the artist gets to easily promote their work, and we, the art-loving public get to eye up all their lovely repertoire free of charge and purchase one for our parlour if they are available for sale.

After discovering this almost cyber-renaissance in the new millennium’s art world I could not help but notice how many budding female artists there were.

Art is fashionable again, which surely deserves celebration, and even better chick art is chic which means that there are masses of creatively gifted women out there just waiting to be found. The internet like everything else does have its vices, which we are constantly reminded of throughout different sources of media, but it has made many female artists who thought that they would remain nobodies without corporate sponsorship very happy.

These artists have proven that the internet has empowered content to ultimately overrule context, by their works being actively discussed in their droves broadly online, via their independent promotion. So now, as I have let you in on this femme influx of pretty painterly genius, I feel that I can fulfil my role as a catalyst for your artistic exploration by name-dropping a few of my personal favourites that can get you started.

JEN CORACE
Personal web page www.jencorace.com.

Jen is a freelance illustrator with undeniable artistic talent, whose artistic convention is that she bases her pieces upon the Victorian-era — successfully merging a cocktail of new and old ambiance in her pretty, postmodern portraits.

A lot of women think that what constitutes modern feminine art is the constant use of pastel colours, or bubblegum pink overpowering everything. Corace manages to paint portraits that scream femininity, yet in a subtle, classy panache. Her dashing pictures will shoot you back to your childhood in a sprightly instant, of vibrant, youthful hues, but it was her recent collection, ‘Swept Out To Sea’ that particularly caught my eye for representing the darkness of adolescence.

The collection ‘Swept Out To Sea’ presents a female protagonist during an excursion to the beach, however the stereotypical ‘sunny skies’ scenery is not present because — I believe — the girl is suffering from depression. A black wave is engulfing everybody at the beach. This striking imagery is juxtaposed with the pastel hues of the seaside. Art keeps you guessing, and Corace is an intriguing enigma as you try to get into her head and suss out what she was thinking when she created such a dark collection.

KATY HORAN

In a world where we are constantly engulfed in a culture of corporate greed, civilised to walk in straight lines around skyscrapered landscapes and slave ourselves silly in offices nine til’ five: animals have escaped this movement.

Horan’s works are almost a critique of these celebrities who dress their handbag dogs up in designer costumes, as she celebrates in her artistic aura how animals are meant to be free! Watch as these beautifully presented animals almost taunt human beings for their conformity, and ridicule the world that mankind has cocooned itself within.

Whereas humans have motives, schemes and structures in their lives, in the realms of Horan’s surreal pieces she expresses the anomic nature of creatures, that over centuries humans have had drained from their existence.

KATHLEEN LOLLEY

The last chick art success story that I have stumbled upon goes by the name of Kathleen Lolley. Lolley currently seems to be moving on to bigger, better things, as her work has even recently featured on the front cover of band, My Morning Jacket’s album. But the vast majority of her fan base has been circulated since her artworks were given pride of place upon the world wide web.

What I adore about the Lolley’s works is how her paintings mix the picture book-esque animals of our childhoods with the big, bad adult world, and each portrait seems to relate to the process of growing up. Her works present the raw realities of heartbreak and responsibility, which the picture books that socialised us never informed us of.

Fairytale folk animals struggle with loves abandoning them, drink beer and deal with depression, and demonstrate how all our lives start out with this fresh vision of nature, then as we get older these cold characteristics creep in and rear us into our adulthood.

Overall, the internet has highlighted just how much female talent there actually is out there today, as it has always been there, but never been given the rightful exposure that the internet offers. Women who work full-time hours, yet do a bit of art on the weekend are being able to make a name for themselves by creating their own online exhibitions, and it is great to see so many women being able to excel painting beyond being just a petty, part-time pipedream.

Long live chick art!

Frankie Bacon ties up this bag in a stitch.

Mar-May 2007

Required items:

• 2 x men’s ties (preferably the same width and length)
• Some funky fabric (think creatively, scarves, cloth serviettes, pillow cases)
• Bias binding (about 3 metres), you choose the width
• 1x button
• Piece of chord (or rope or ribbon…½ metre long)
• Any other accessories (beads, decorative buttons, ribbon, lace)

Now, I’m not big on complicated patterns, I hate them — but to make this bag — some sort of shape needs to be established. For this particular bag cut out a shape like a horseshoe (about 23cm wide and 20cm deep).

Instructions:

Step 1: Cut out the shape four times, to make both the outer layer and lining of bag. Allow for the hem, which means sewing 1cm from the edge. If you want to get creative and add some fancy bits — for example, sewing on a piece of ribbon, adding some pretty buttons or sewing on a badge — do this now on the outer layers of the bag before sewing to the tie.

Step 2: This is a new step conceived after completing the bag and involves sewing bias binding to the top of both the outer layer and lining from step one (both sides). Take bias binding and iron in half (if you are the ironing type). This may sound arduous, but it makes pinning it much easier. Now my ma has only just enlightened me on how to use this stuff properly, which involves far too much sewing — so I’m going to stick to my way.

Iron in half, then place the edge of the fabric in between the bias binding fold, pin and then sew, making sure to catch both sides of the bias binding. Do the same to other edge of the outer layer and the lining.

Step 3: Take one of the ties and the fabric you want to use for the outer layer matching right sides together and starting at the fat end of the tie, pin the fabric to the tie, as shown. Sew straight stitch fairly close to the edge. If you are using easily frayed fabric then zigzag both edges after straight sewing.

Step 4: Repeat step 3 for the other side of outer layer.

Step 5: Once sewn, turn the bag the right way out and the body of the bag is completed (usually at this point I hold the bag out in front of me and nod my head in some weird proud acknowledgement of my effort thus far!). After some time out to congratulate yourself on a job well done, sew the button (to do the bag up) on what will be the front of the bag before the lining goes in.

Step 6: The lining (always a crowd pleaser) is really, really easy. Repeat steps 3 and 4, but once sewn do not turn right way out, leave as is — It’s surprising how many times this has tricked me…or maybe it’s only me).

Step 7: Insert lining into outer layer and pin tops together.

Step 8: Place looped ribbon in the centre of back side of bag (make sure it is line with the button on the front and that the ribbon reaches), and pin in place, then sew the outer layer and the lining together, straight stich close to the edge.

Step 9: Now to sew the ties (straps) together. Pin together and sew a line on both edges of the ties or one down the middle, up to you…and then wahlaa!

DIY is great, but if you can’t be assed to actually Do It Yourself, you can order a one-off bag (in different sizes and shapes) or even a wallet or clutch purse using unique recycled and vintage fabrics. Just email Amy at frankiebacon@gmail.com.

Ania Lucewicz looks at some common myths about feminism and tackles the possible roles for men in the feminist movement.

Mar-May 2007

First, let’s take a look at two fantastic ideas which totally inform the way I feel, think and act as a feminist: autonomous protest and co-operative protest.

For me, autonomous protest is based on the idea that women are spoken on behalf of. We are spoken on behalf of in the areas in which we are underrepresented: parliament, academia and boardrooms among others. In order to encourage women to represent themselves, we create a protest movement exclusively run by women. The idea is to express women’s issues from women’s perspective, i.e. self-expression. What we’re trying to avoid here is the kind of paternalism we see happening to other minority groups, where some ‘objective’ body like a government reduces the minority group’s discourse to a small tradition which does not really challenge the monolith of the dominant discourse.

Co-operative liberation is, well, co-operative. Some fantastic examples are White Ribbon Day— an international group of men who campaign for the elimination of violence against women — and the Men Can Stop Rape campaign. The idea is that men, as community leaders and decision-makers, can play a key role in helping stop violence against women — men talking to men about male-perpetrated violence.

But, in addition to this, there are men who feel they can and should lend a hand in the entire women’s liberation movement. Rather than just being men talking to men, these people are hoping to show their support for women’s liberation in other ways. Some examples put forward by men I know have been things like organising International Women’s Day banner painting, marching in Reclaim the Night rallies, and general volunteering within the women’s collective.

What options do each of the ideas have? Are they compatible? How do we implement the position we take with regard to these ideas in real life? Is it a matter of prioritising values? But how can we avoid the restrictive value judgements we’re trying to avoid?

In talking to people about this article, I got a number of responses to concepts of autonomy and co-operation, which I thought I would write about here and hope to exchange opinions with others.

A young man at my university suggested to me that: “Men are victims of patriarchy too, therefore we should be part of your movement.”

A number of questions are thrown up. Can people who are not biologically female identify as victims of patriarchy? What does this mean? Are we all victims of patriarchy in the same way?

I think we need to be careful of creating a false analogy between the way men and women are victimised by patriarchy. I do understand that men are in some senses stifled, judged, emotionally and creatively repressed by patriarchy. I do understand that there are men who are looking to challenge, expand and imagine new ways of thinking about gender. But I think we need to make sure we don’t conflate two issues.

The first issue is the invisible norms of ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ which restrict our personalities and thereby victimise everyone. This can have serious emotional and social consequences for everyone.

The other issue, however, is what I feel is the priority of the women’s movement — the suffering experienced by women around the world in terms of sexual and physical violence perpetuated against women, the economic disadvantage suffered by women as a result of unpaid and underpaid work and barriers to leadership positions in our society.

Others claim that “by keeping us out of the decision making of your movement, you are perpetuating the same crimes of privilege which you are fighting against.”

I find it difficult to articulate exactly why I find the idea of autonomy so important. I feel that the key to understanding why women are the centre of a movement which is committed to fighting against essentialism lies in looking at the privilege enjoyed or denied to a particular group.

Whilst feminism is linked strongly to class, cultural and colonialist struggles — and as such is essentially a “human” struggle” which requires the agitation of every thinking person, male or female — it most deeply concerns women. To be most effective then revolution must come from women and most importantly the individual woman herself.

BUSTING THE MYTHS ON THE RELEVANCY OF MODERN FEMINISM

MYTH 1: “Feminism has already succeeded: you women are so hyper-networked these days you are actually more privileged than men. Look at the difference between breast-cancer awareness and prostate-cancer awareness.”.

First, we can’t abstract the status of women in our society from this one example. I have met people who use this one example to extrapolate that women are so well-taken-care-of these days that we should just hang up the banners and go home. I am angered by the claims that feminism has ‘already succeeded.’ Especially in the context of the gender balance of our parliaments, corporate boards, or the stats on how much money women earn. Secondly, these ‘concessions’ or societal changes in terms of funding and awareness of women’s issues have been hard won and fought for.

MYTH 2: “Feminism is a self-interested campaign. You’re not looking after society, you’re looking after yourselves.”

Let me clear things up: should we ring the nurses union up and tell them not to campaign for their penalty rates because that’s ‘self-interested?’ Should we hand over our campaign so that we can be spoken on behalf of again? I feel that there’s a pervading myth around me that tells me that there exists some magical “objective” opinion on how we should think about gender which everyone can understand and which makes it unnecessary for women to represent themselves. I think it is supremely important to maintain the struggle for our self-representation,

MYTH 3: DEMONISATION — the ‘Feminazi’
I am deeply offended at the suggestion that feminism is a militarised campaign. Autonomy is sometimes confused with exclusion and I worry that complexities of feminist debate are ignored in favour of demonised perspectives.

ANZAC Day: We who mourn

Jacqueline Pham looks at women’s role in wartime remembrance and finds we are excluded from this defining characteristic of Australian history.

April 2007

The ANZAC day dawn service began in 1927 when five old diggers, walking home from the pub, saw an elderly woman laying a sheaf of flowers on the Cenotaph in Martin Place. So moved they were by the scene, the men joined her in silent prayer until dawn. The subsequent meeting of the Australian Legion of Ex-Service clubs decided that a wreath laying ceremony would be held at the Cenotaph every Anzac Day. The following year drew one hundred and fifty people and the numbers grew as the years went by.

It is darkness. There is the low murmur of a waiting crowd and still more are filing in from Wynyard station. They walk close together because really, there isn’t enough room on the footpath, but it is a quiet marvel to see the unspoken connectedness these people feel to the people — in front of them, behind them, beside them — who they don’t even know. What happens next in Martin Place is the annual great shaking of a nation’s soul.

They don’t know it but each one in the assembled hundreds brings with them — in their pockets, in the folds of their wet raincoat, in the short whirl of the warm breath that leaves their lips — the sediments of a still young and premature nation that is often said to have been born entirely in 1901 and then come of age in 1915.

It is not yet 4am but here they are. It is an annual performance and to attend it is to perform being Australian, which is not to suggest the respect, the recognition and the sadness is any less real. But it is a performance with all the trappings and gendered roles of any other kind of performance to will the nation into being.

When we commemorate the fallen of Gallipoli, we talk of the ordinary men, who, in the words of NSW Premier, Morris Iemma, ‘unexpected and unprompted, defined the spirit of a nation.’ Iemma said in his ANZAC Day address: They were ‘Ordinary Aussie Blokes…Who stood up and showed the world what its newest country was made of.’

But in contrast to these Ordinary Aussie Blokes are the grieving mothers, widows, sisters and daughters, half a world away, who are assigned the role of mourning for them. As part of the performance we sometimes mention they baked Anzac biscuits and knitted socks. But that feels like the extent of their participation. We seldom mention in this annual performance their contribution on the home and war front.

The digger is the single most defining image of Australian-ness and yet women are excluded. What to make of it? The ANZAC narrative feels like it is part of an old Australia. It is a narrative that speaks to us only until about 1950. It doesn’t account for all that has happened since then, nor does it seem to notice our multitudes. After all, the digger image excludes Indigenous Australians, migrants and males who do not conform to this brand of masculinity as well. And for some of us, while there is admiration and respect, this feels like a shallow performance.

Back in Martin Place, ninety one years later, the crowd falls completely silent when the lights of the clock tower turn off at 4:10am. An address is made by a Rear Admiral, prayers are said by the Principal Chaplain, hymns are sung and the wreaths are laid. The president of the War Widows Guild of Australia is the last to lay a wreath. Perhaps there is something maternal in the way she bends, in the way the wreath leaves her hands and the momentary pause before she steps away and walks back to her seat. She is a woman who wears her husband and father’s medals.

An Able Seaman, the only woman in uniform with a part to play at this service, sings the anthem. She sings both the New Zealand and Australian anthems in a wonderful soprano that seems to float above hundreds. And then the official party leaves, the masses slowly disperse, looking for coffee and breakfast. The annual national performance has ended. Under a grey Sydney sky the clock tower reads 4:45 and its lights are turned back on to illuminate Martin Place and the sacred Cenotaph.

Elise Phillips explores the little-recognised struggles that the ‘modern woman’ faces in a man’s world.

Mar-May 2007

The year is 1963. Betty Friedan, in her book The Feminine Mystique, has challenged “the problem that has no name” — the culturally entrenched belief that the role of a woman is to raise children and keep the home while her husband ‘brings home the bacon.’ Women are inspired to seek more from their lives and reach their potential.

The year is 1983. Women from western societies around the globe, clothed in pinstriped power suits and killer heels, are taking on the corporate world. They’re fighting for equal opportunities and equal pay, postponing or choosing not to have children in favour of advancing their careers. Women are inspired to work their way to the top and become top executives and CEOs.

The year is 2003. Sex and the City has been running for six years, glamorising the single life. Despite the fact that the lives of these four women revolve around designer shoes and finding a decent man, the show is touted as proof that women don’t need men to have fulfilling lives. Women are inspired to love themselves and their girlfriends. Stuff men – the bastards are only good for one thing anyway.

The year is 2006. A young woman, soon to finish a double degree at a well-respected university is on the brink of entering the full-time workforce. She’s been bombarded for five years with the ‘continuing and all-pervasive oppression, objectification and exploitation of women’ and taught to take on those conservative, misogynistic, middle-class, white men. She’s seen all the alarmist media coverage of ‘career women’ who have left it too late to have children and found themselves infertile at 40. She’s read all the articles about ‘How to balance a career and a family’ and ‘How to attract the man of your dreams!’

The fact is that over 40 years of widespread, now almost mainstream, feminism have not made the situation much clearer for young women, or any women for that matter. Conflicting messages abound and there are no easy answers as to what role we as women of the 21st Century will, or should, play.

Obviously one size does not fit all, and it comes down to individual choices regarding if, or when, to get married, have children, and return to work, and no judgements are being made here as to the relative merits of any such choices. What is unsettling, for a woman yet to face these decisions, is the apparent absence of any acceptable options.

If a woman chooses not to engage in paid employment, or becomes a homemaker and mother of five, she is clearly a doormat stuck in the dark ages and a sad product of patriarchal society. If she is professionally ambitious and chooses to pursue a career, she is power-hungry and lacking in femininity. If she feels strongly about women’s rights and lobbies the government regarding gender equity, she must be a man-hater. If she attempts to have both a successful career and a family, we shake our heads at another ‘misguided’ woman, pushing the limits while her biological clock ticks away. And heaven forbid she does have a child and returns to work ‘too soon’, placing her son or daughter in childcare. She is obviously cold and unfeeling — unfit to be a mother at all.

When was the last time you heard a man complain or worry about these issues? Despite the advances of the past decades, dilemmas of this type are still exclusive to women. And while there is certainly plenty of personal anxiety and distress involved for individual women, there are bigger implications. As long as women’s struggle to manage their professional and private lives continues to be ‘a problem’, it will remain easier for employers to choose a man over a woman for that job, that promotion. It will remain easy to stereotype women according to their choices, and limit them to pursuing only one aspect of their lives. Workable solutions need to be found which truly satisfy, for the sake of today’s and tomorrow’s women.

In the words of Clare Boothe Luce, American playwright, social activist and politician: “Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, ‘She doesn’t have what it takes.’ They will say, ‘Women don’t have what it takes’.”

Like graffiti — only removable and arguably less offensive — ‘knit-tagging’ is the latest in public installation, gracing lamp-posts and hand-railings around Sydney. Helen Gregory reports.

Mar-May 2007

It’s a blustery Monday night and Rebecca, a knitting addict, has hurried to Harts Pub in The Rocks to get her fix. Sinking back into an emerald green armchair, eighties power ballads scream from the jukebox. Rebecca has come here for one reason: to stitch…and bitch.

As a member of the Sydney ‘Stitch and Bitch’ (S&B) collective, she meets at the Sydney pub every Monday. Attendance numbers fluctuate each week, but on this particularly inhospitable evening, Rebecca is joined by only two other members: Meg and Mark.

Meg is knitting a ‘sunrise circle’ jacket from red cotton, pausing every few minutes to squint at a pattern she is copying from a magazine. Rebecca and Mark however, have other ideas. “Why don’t we try to get this outside Martin Place?” Rebecca asks. “Yeah, see if it gets on Sunrise?” Mark replies. They are both knitting non-descript rectangular shapes which, to an untrained eye, could end up as a scarf, but will instead become ‘knit-tags.’

“Basically knit-tagging is when you go out and put up all of this unfinished knitwear in public places. Kind of like street art,” Rebecca says.

Rebecca was inspired by ‘Knitta’ — a Houston based group of knitters who have set up a website documenting their adventures bombarding different cities, statues and prominent landmarks with their knitting. A woman who goes by the pseudonym ‘PolyCotN’ started the group in October 2005 after gathering a collection of her uncompleted projects. Half finished jumpers, blankets and scarfs were soon spotted around railings, traffic signs and car antennas.

“I had a fetish a few months ago for orange,” Rebecca smiles, and rolls her eyes. “I would never wear anything peaches and cream, so I decided to make a blanket. I got about half way through, got sick of it and decided to just stick it up!”

Since then, Rebecca has ventured out on many late night missions, including a quest to wrap a red and white ‘tag’ with a ‘Go Swans’ label around a Martin Place lamp post before the AFL grand final, and her pink ‘fun fur’ creations, with attached photographs of 1950’s pin-up girls, were hung from railings near Circular Quay before security removed them.

As she describes her current work in progress — a blue, yellow and purple rectangular piece designated for a cold and lonely railing in Martin Place, Meg shakes her head.

“I’ve never been into that tagging stuff. I’m a product knitter. I get greedy when I can see the finished product in my head. I just go for it and can’t stop till I have it in my own hands,” she says.

Rebecca, on the other hand, is a process knitter. “I usually get sick of what I’m knitting or end up stuffing it up. I just like knitting for its own sake, which is why I’m into the tagging. It’s an art form — subverted from something which is supposed to be based on organised patterns and design,”

The sole male knitter of the group, Mark, an IT technician by day, is in the middle of a range of different projects to improve his knitting. “I was into archery and wanted a protective covering for my arrows so they wouldn’t get scratched,” he says.

Searching the internet one day, he came across the S&B blog. “I joined, and since then I have knitted a black jumper with flames on the side and am now tagging. I still haven’t done the arrow cases. I don’t even really care about them anymore.”

At this point the group is interrupted. “Hey…are you girls knitting?” a portly man slurs as he stumbles inside the cosy room. Rebecca rolls her eyes. “Sure are, why, you want to join in?” Meg humours him. By now he is staggering towards the middle of the room. “How do I join this club?” he asks, eyes transfixed by Rebecca’s clicking needles. “You have to knit.” Meg replies, smiling wryly. “Oh yeah! I was a really good knitter at school you know….I had speed and style…”

Rebecca isn’t impressed. “It’s like they think that just because we’re women who knit, we must have a really small world,” she says. “The worst is when they ask us ‘Are you knitting for your babies?’ We’re knitting for ourselves!”

As the needles click, conversation flows from stereotypical views of knitters, to the best way to unravel a ball of yarn, to relationships, corporatisation, beer, bread makers and even Hillsong. But ultimately, it always comes back to knitting.

“When people say ‘Oh, you could have just bought that from a shop’ they’re forgetting the creativity and work which has gone into it,” Rebecca says.

“It’s an expensive enough hobby,” Meg says. “The cotton for this jacket? I unravelled it from a jumper at the Red Cross.”

Kris Howard is the manager of Tapestry Craft, the largest knitting store in Australia. She says that while knitting is an expensive craft, it is ‘incredibly rewarding,’ allowing the knitter to create a garment or product which is unique and suited to their own needs and wants.

“People see an expensive item in a shop window and are interested in making it themselves. What they create will fit perfectly, be of better quality and probably end up cheaper,” she says.

According to Howard, the resurgence in knitting’s popularity is indicative of a change in women’s attitudes. “Our grandmothers had to knit for economic reasons, to provide and mend clothing for their families. Then in the feminist era, women of our mothers’ generation chose not to knit. But now women are reclaiming it, choosing to knit. Now you can’t knit for economic reasons; yarn is too expensive. It’s a luxury now.”

She also links the popularity of knitting to the service-based workforce of contemporary Australia. “I used to work in IT and I didn’t actually make anything tangible. Knitting is a way of creating a concrete thing that someone can make and value. It may also be a response to the change in culture — people are now more interested in organic foods and the like. There is a growing segment of the population who don’t want mass produced goods.”

In August, Howard’s Tapestry Craft became the first store in Australia to provide ‘Knit and Quit’ classes for people who wanted to quit smoking. A Quitline representative attended each meeting to discuss progress with the group and supply ‘Quit Kits’.

“We ended up with a core group who loved it so much we had to extend the one month program by another month. Five even became regular knitters who attend ‘Stitch and Bitch’ groups!”

Howard believes that the success of the program, with most participants either quitting or reducing their smoking, can be attributed not to knitting itself but the support network that the group provided. “All of the members were on the same level — they were able to share advice and support each other if they felt they were falling back into old patterns of smoking.”

And there are even internet-only knitting events.

“The knitting online community is successful because it is so small: ideas go around fast,” Kris Howard explains. “People love doing things together at the same time, and they get so excited to be able to keep in touch with other knitters. They can find where they belong.”

The online knitting community, for example, is largely responsible for the success of the Beaconsfield community scarf project. In the tiny Tasmanian town, which was rocked by the mining disaster in April last year, a 500 metre long scarf continues to grow in length as contributions flow in from around Australia and New Zealand. So far 205 pieces of knitting have been sent to the town’s Uniting Church Hall to add to the scarf, in a show of support for the close-knit town.

Want to join a S&B?

Stitch and Bitch collectives operate throughout Sydney. Tapestry Craft seems to be the hub for most Sydney knitters and the calendar page on their website posts details of upcoming knitting events. Go to http://www.tapestrycraft.com.au/calendar.php

There are a few different Stitch and Bitch collectives operating throughout different locations in Sydney.

The Sydney S&B collective meets at Harts Pub, Sussex Street, The Rocks every other Monday (starting February 5th) from 6:30pm onwards.

A ‘Tapestry Craft’ S&B is held at Tapestry Craft, 50 York St, Sydney on Thursdays from 5-7pm.

There is also a ‘Courthouse’ S&B which meets at the Courthouse Hotel, 202 Australia St, Newtown on Sunday afternoons from 2pm onwards.

There is also a Manly S&B, that meet every second Tuesday (starting February 13th) at the Manly Wharf Hotel (Lounge Bar Area), East Esplanade, Manly Wharf from 7:15pm onwards.