Ambient sound and awesome feminists

Earlier this year I plunged a q-tip into my left ear without care and created a new dynamic there, whereby I experience a constant low-level ringing in that ear. At times I accept it, and at others I desperately want to forget about its presence, and surround myself with loud sounds (preferably music) to drown out the monotonous symphony that will probably never fade out of my background.

It upsets me that I may never again hear true silence. I have a referral to see a hearing specialist, but I'm too scared of the most likely conclusion they will be forced to deliver: I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do.

Nevertheless, I'm determined to see the bright side. It's a neutral sound, not unpleasant. I'm trying to relax into it, instead of making myself a bit on edge every time I become consciously aware of it again. Maybe I will coax myself into being extra nice to myself to compensate for any stress this new condition may cause me.

Last weekend was pretty intense - freshly sans the silvery wrapping that protected my severely burnt limb from possible infection, and looking forward to shaking off the blues that had accumulated from two weeks' confinement to the couch, I stepped out in style and attended a series of talks at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas before chilling out at Sydney's Parklife music festival.

Germaine

It was my second Germaine Greer talk. She's been described as brilliant, eccentric, elegant, sensible and looms large amongst my role models. At FODI she spoke on how 15% of women in the (I assume American) military had been evaluated as suffering from sexual trauma, and how while the solution was not to discourage women from entering the military, it was to discourage anyone from being part of the military. It's no place for a human being, she asserted with her typical inspired gravity.

Greer claimed that academics were impotent and later advised one of the audience members not to take on extra responsibilities within it because it was easy to get overloaded. She made me uncomfortable by ascribing to women who knit pervasive loneliness and an attempt to convey their deep affection for their families, even as their home-made produce would be most likely neglected, and admitted that she was describing her own practice.

Germaine's next book is supposed to be on her life in a rainforest, which sounds both like bliss and a nightmare - so many creatures around you, yet few people to talk to as you benefit from communing with nature.

The foremost feminist is an advocate of The Real, and while her achievements within that frame are superlatively immense, as a postmodernist I can't help but wish she shared my views on the social construction of reality. Then again, I could say the same for anyone.

My criticism of the idea of womens' liberation from a feminist perspective is that equality is not a weak concept. When given the space it deserves, I believe it emerges as the most radical stance of all. I do believe that women and men have relatively few biological differences, and much of what is popularly perceived to be biological difference in 2012 is actually social conditioning. Women are conditioned to be more emotionally expressive, men are conditioned to be more technically astute. If women make better counsellors and nurses, it's because they've been given millenia to grow into the roles of care-takers and providers of emotional support. If men are overrepresented in the hard sciences it's because this has been a traditionally male arena ever since it was first performed. Unconscious bias and phobia shapes much of our career choices and personality formation. Equality would necessitate we think of ourselves in a gender-neutral way, even make the concept of gender obsolete... It took me a trip to Scandinavia to realise that, at that moment in time, I had no idea what equality might look like. The gender binaries are so deeply embedded into our conceptual frameworks that I would be lying if I said I could imagine a world in which they didn't exist. This epiphany led me to stay open-minded about how I might change in the future, as I continue to innovate at the edges of my societies. I could grow in so many ways completely unforseen at present. Anything remains possible, and unprecedented subversions need to occur to get us closer to equality, so I'm just trying to stay connected to the constant flow of radical women and men making their visions of gender politics the next new thing.

Witty Ditties

We start with a South Korean offering that's been taking the world by storm. Psy mainly sings about Doenjang girls and pokes fun at the excesses of capitalism in 'Gangnam Style', which has become the most watched Youtube video of all time. (Gangnam is a prestigious suburb in Seoul.)

Next we find ourselves in a UK, where Nick Clegg's attempt to recapture the public's sympathy appears to have backfired, as parodies of the apology proliferate.

I don't even know which show this next clip is camping up, but there's something refreshingly over the top about it.

Hanging out with the socialists

I've just realised that, while I am wholeheartedly liberal in my approach (go capitalist democracy!), I find myself drawn to, and identifying with, socialists on a regular basis. From the British journalist Laurie Penny, to the Australian editor of Overland, Jeff Sparrow, to American academic Douglas Kellner, I follow the work of a whole bunch of left-wingers, and they frequently move me. I find myself protesting the phrase 'wingnuts' because it implies that fascists can be placed in the same category as these endearing rebels, which does them a disservice.

Perhaps I am drawn to these consumers of 'utopia' because they are part of a much-scorned minority group. Take Slavoj Zizek, for example - his analysis of the world is frequently fascinating, and offers relevant criticism on topics like how liberals assuage their guilt over their nations' histories of Islamophobia (as in his book Violence) without really doing much to address the issue, however his fondness for authoritarian outlooks makes it difficult for me to identify with him beyond a certain extent.

Jeff Sparrow writes that left-wing intellectuals have earned a certain amount of cultural capital amongst the intelligentsia. Indeed, their critiques of the institution of consumerism and democracy are often insightful because it's an atypical perspective they approach our societies with... they make the familiar unfamiliar, the supposedly reassuring and enabling seem oppressive. Their outsider perspective cultivates much in the way of creativity.

However, authoritarianism is authoritarianism, and while I enjoy hanging out and spending some time in their world, eager to learn something new, I can only get so close. I can't humour the self-defeating idealism which sees them prioritise a political system which has failed dismally every time it's been put into practice, because it doesn't allow for freedom of speech. Such naive trust in the power of a group of individuals to remain non-corrupt shows a lack of understanding of human nature, and shouldn't be indulged.

Reality sucks. There will probably always be uneven distributions of power. But at least in a capitalist democracy, we, the people, can write about it, read about it, and have the power to vote for the people we perceive to be the least corrupt - time and time again.

Nevertheless, there is much fun and knowledge to be had from spending time with socialist intellectuals, and I admire their drive and stubborn determination to hold onto views that many people ridicule or find offensive. Not to mention, most socialists are supportive of feminism, queer rights, racial equality and disability rights. More power to those who can contribute to society by being well-educated and well-intentioned, even if we don't share the same politics.

Saying no to white privilige

While lingering in the air conditioned cool of MBK, Bangkok's self-proclaimed 'most visited mall', I was accosted by a group of women in green uniforms who were selling beauty treatments. I usually avoid beauty clinics since they usually play on women's insecurities (with their posters of [most likely Photoshopped] women with almost impossibly smooth skin, big eyes with long, thick lashes, big lips and small noses, dyed and styled hair, etc), charging high prices for an effect of low importance.

That said, I am not completely free of superficiality or immune to being pampered, which is why I get a facial treatment once every 1-2 month(s). I took a look at the brochure proffered, expecting the usual array of skin services but was taken aback to discover that all of them were 'whitening' treatments. I found it insulting that "white skin" was being prioritised over the variegated Asian shades, which are perfectly lovely the way they are. I don't feel like my epidermis colouring makes me any more or less beautiful than any Asian (or African, Latin American, Native American, etc), and it's disconcerting that people should place my whiteness on a pedestal, giving me extra special treatment. It means that, somewhere else, a differently coloured visitor is getting less special treatment, or even outright abuse. People who are identified as having 'blackness' sometimes find that Thais save their smiles for those associated with 'whiteness'. So much suspicion, so much disdain, so much prejudice.

How can we change this? Speak up! I didn't have much Thai and the lady closest to me didn't have much English, but I was able to express how I offended I was to some extent. She went 'ohhh' and looked sad for a moment. Then she reclaimed the brochure and turned to look for another customer. But she got the message: whiteness is not what I associate with beauty.

So I have a message for white people: Please do you your bit to tackle racial prejudice when it rears its ugly head around you. You are perfectly suited to this job because you automatically have the attention of everyone - whites, blacks, Asians, everyone. Without having done a thing to deserve it, people give you more life chances. Use them to undermine the mindset that advantages you and disadvantages others. Use your privilege to point out how unfair it is. Explain that society has let you down because we've all been conditioned to believe that whiteness is better than the rest. Explain that you want to see more confident Asians in your social circle. Explain that you want black people to hold more and higher positions of power in government, the boardroom and the police force. Explain that you don't need white privilege because you are a valuable person in your own right, and it doesn't take anything away from you to elevate other races to the same status. Explain that it would actually add to your experience if non-whites were equally privileged to you.

I look forward to the day when the social construction of beauty does away with whiteness as an ideal, and a world where the darkest shades are as desirable as the lightest... but this isn't going to happen on its own, and change can feel awfully slow. Put yourself in the shoes of a dark-skinned Nepalese who lives in a multicultural white-majority society and has internalised the sentiments around her that her skin colour isn't as attractive as that of lighter women. Now imagine if her self-loathing were gone because she saw many positive representations of people with similar shades of flesh in advertising, or was reading a diet of books the authors of which shared her cultural background, or at least the experience of being an immigrant and/or an ethnic minority. Imagine if she mixed freely with people of every colour, not worrying what her parents might think if the person she loved wasn't of Nepalese background. Imagine if she grew up to be the CEO of Toyota in that country, because her leadership skills and love for this particular kind of transportation saw her be the ideal candidate - and that her race had never been a point of contention to anyone on her team. This is how a life might play out in a racially inclusive (not 'tolerant') society. Her satisfaction would impact that of many others - a well-adjusted person has a wide circle of friends, acquaintances and fans, as well as having special significance to their partner and family. We need more people of Nepalese (and Congolese, and Uruguayan, and Indigenous Australian) background to grow up with the opportunity to thrive in life. We need their happiness because it contributes to the overall happiness, including ours.

Envisioning Bangkok

All images are by Epiphanie Bloom.

Pics from Phuket Town

Enjoy this collection of photos from Thalang Street and around... all images taken by me, Epiphanie Bloom.

Reprise (Phuket Town)

A last minute change of heart saw me getting in touch with its 'coolness'. The Thai saying 'to have a cool heart' alludes to keeping your emotions under control. This is ideally accompanied by a sense of mindfulness and feeling one with the world. I once wrote on Twitter: I'm an atheist amongst Buddhists, and my smile is tailor-made to fit. I try not to think of these distinction so much today... who's to say when atheist brainwaves end and Buddhist ones begin? These categories aren't as meaningful to me as they could be in another space, in another time. I want to be influenced by the best practices of the people around me. I am open. 

[Thailand is one of the few places where smiling all the time leads to an increase in your social status. In places like Russia, smiling all the time is treated as a symptom of insanity.] 

The humid heat is like a pleasantly textured curtain pressed to my skin - somewhere far away from the chill of the Sydney winter am I. Here life moves at a different pace, guys often wear purple or pink, and I assume more responsibilities, making me feel more grown-up. 

I'm about to begin a new chapter in my life - moving to Sweden on my own. I look forward to leaving Sydney, with its myriad of bad memories and a million false starts behind. My eyes are on the prize. 

I still have no idea where I'm going and where I will end up. But it's always a good time to be in Thailand, so Phuket Town is a wonderful start.