Harbourside Predictions

About two weeks ago I emerged at the Circular Quay train station, eager to waste some time in visible proximity to the Harbour Bridge and Opera House, while I waited for Richard Dawkins to show up in the latter. I didn't get far out of the station before a kind-eyed brown man approached me and asked for directions. When I was finished explaining he needed to go to Town Hall station, he gave me some impromptu future predictions. "You will see many countries, you will have two children maximum, you have to watch your health... but money will not be a problem." I acknowledged his attempts to see a future version of me, then quietly excused myself before he asked me some non-feminist-friendly questions (sometimes you can tell it's only a matter of time before they come out).

I felt oddly comforted by this unwanted stream of the outsider perceptions. I have already seen many countries, but I do not intend to end at 33. There's so much more to see, and I like to think I'm just starting. Children? Just a few months ago I'd represented myself as so unhappy with the current state of the world that I felt it would be no good to bring children into it. But I guess I have woken up to the possibility that I may have children and perhaps a family around them one day. I imagine that if I did have them, they would be raised in the most gender-progressive country of my choice, Sweden.

As for watching my health, this makes a lot of sense. I have PCOS (poly-cystic ovarian syndrome) and am pre-diabetic, so I need to invest energy into keeping myself as healthy as possible. I won't give up on my life, as Lady Gaga sings in Marry the Night.
Money not being a problem is a comforting thought as well, because my parents worry so much about my future that I worry that I should be worrying myself. Then I remember that worrying is something I'm always sorry to have done. It serves no positive purpose. Any act that can be done while worrying can be done without it, at a higher success rate. (But, enough preaching...)

Feminist Links

Here are some links that have affected me over the past few weeks:

Ashley Judd's Changing the Conversation

We Need To Talk by Jennie

Misogyny by Matt

and (only partly about feminism),

How the US uses sexual humiliation as a political tool to control the masses by Naomi Wolf

Towards greater accountability

In Australia, the US and many other nations, 4-year political terms are the norm. Four years is a long time - enough time for cynicism to sink in and the stigma against corruption to dissipate. Leave a politician in office long enough, and they invariably become corrupt. The temptation to use their power for personal gain is too great - everyone is corruptible, and when you're constantly presented with the opportunity to break the law for personal gain, the chances are that eventually you'll find an offer too lucrative to turn down.

Which is why we need shorter political terms. 3 years, for example, or maybe 2. Keep the turnover of politicians high and the threats to transparency and integrity low. "We need fresh blood." You see, when a politician knows that they have four years before they have to worry about garnering public approval again, they are free to pursue policies which aren't aligned with the people's best interests. If, however, they know that their time in office is short, they are more likely to do everything they can to cater to public opinion. I'm sick of seeing politicians enter the highest seat of power with idealistic enthusiasm which fades into unabashed greed and the absence of morality. By the time they are spit out by the system, their lofty aims have long been discarded and, if they aren't considered a public disgrace, they almost certainly should be. It's time we updated our laws so as to strengthen our democracies and capitalise on the good intent that is often generated within those running for office.

I know I'm not the only one who thinks this is a great way to improve the quality of our leadership, but so far I haven't heard many people in the media promoting the idea of shorter terms. Perhaps you can help, by having conversations about it with your friends and colleagues, family and acquaintances, and posting about it on your social networking sites. Let's capture the public imagination, and transform the way democracy works by insisting the politicians remain accountable to the public that elects them.

The Endless Search

You start out intending to end, but that is neither here nor there, for you are always in the middle of something. It's an insult to my experience on the planet to play along with the conventions of openings and resolutions. Each deviation from a sense of ongoing journeys, each negation of the interwoven nature of any thinking process with another, brings me closer to a state of acceptance of closure and origination.

To put it another way: I have been ending and starting all my life. With a single syllable, word or sentence, I simultaneously break from the past and dash into the future - and yet the further I rush from my uncomfortable history, the more it haunts me, filling in the gaps without my conscious consent - but by tuning into the thoughts behind the thoughts that most leap out into the page, by peeling back the layers bit by bit, I delve into a mutlifaceted whirlpool which dissolves even as I conjure it as vividly as possible... the atmosphere has transformed into a calmer windiness which begs for articulation immediately upon conceptualisation. And I do struggle with the wording, although it is also effortless in a sense. The free-floating nature of my desire to express myself, nestled within the harsh confines I must appropriate in order to 'make sense'.

Gender-based Insecurity

As a postmodernist, I don't take labels very seriously.
Sometimes a label is an effective one-word protest at hegemonic ideas, and as such proves some use to me. Feminism is my label du jour.

Here are some things I do which can be affiliated with my version of feminism:

a) I don't shave my armpits, legs or genital area.

Why? Because I find the hair on these parts of my body acceptable. It serves the purpose of protecting me, grows naturally and, having tried shaving, waxing and even plucking, have decided that it's not worth the time. 

b) I don't wear make-up.

c) I watch non-aggressive porn on the Abby Winters site.

d) I blog about gender equality, contribute to discussions in various online spots where feminism-minded individuals congregate.

So if I examine how these relate to each other...

I watch pornography of women whose bodies are mostly hairless. I blog about not wearing make-up. It's refreshing to see women in porn without make-up, but alienating to find they have had their natural body hair removed. Apparently the most desirable kind of female body is still modified. I want to live in a world where women are encouraged to feel good about the hair they come with, grow into. I don't regard hair as some unwanted and unseemly sprout which I must meticulously conceal the tendency to hold. And yet, the mentality that women should go to all lengths to achieve an unnatural look which makes them more attractive continues to erode our collective self esteem. I'm not just talking about women's self esteem, but also men's. For what are men to think when they see women changing their natural states to cater for perceived male desire? It means that men are conditioned to desire the scrutiny which women subject themselves to. They are taught to find it valuable in a woman that she stigmatise a part of herself that she can't help but possess. They are taught to exacerbate the neuroses of the women who grow into them. It's a system of mutually enforced gender-based insecurity. Isn't that awful? But it can change, you know. If you want to know who can be an agent of change, look in the mirror.

A sound and space of one's own

When I listen to 'Dancing on my Own', 'Love Kills' and 'Time Machine' by Robyn, I'm fascinated by the way the lyrics and the music work with and against each other. I could say "the euphoric dance music serves to block or distort, or soften the punch of the sad lyrics" or perhaps "the repetitive rhythms offset the melancholy melodies" or allude to "a dialogue which ranges from the conspiratorial to the schizophrenic"... Did Robyn wonder how to reconcile the dejected narratives she was drawn to and the optimistic, wholesome aspect of her music orientation, and eventually decided to play them off against each other?

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Did you know that the word vagina originates from the Latin word for 'sheath, scabbard'? Germaine Greer offers an alternative word, and with it, a potentially empowering perspective.

Brene Brown on 'Listening to Shame'

One of the best TEDTalks I've ever seen... Sometimes I feel like everybody is just dancing around their shame - so unspoken, yet so inescapable.