Perfectly asked – Abortion #3.
September 13, 2012
The image above comes from an article called – Pro-birth, pro-life or pro-choice; a very simple question – and it states:
Once a child is born, it has needs that can include anything from medical care, food, shelter, adoptive services, various support services and clothing. Cuts in support systems for low-income women and children seem to contradict the pro-life belief system. Cuts in many programs that help provide care for these children have come under attack as the GOP pushes for “no new taxes” and cutting current spending. It seems that those who are the most vulnerable are not exempt from the pending cuts and this ties directly to the quote made by Sister Joan and begs the question: If you are pro-life, shouldn’t your concerns exist beyond the womb?
It is extremely hypocritical to pro-choice advocates to see pro-life advocates pushing for restricting a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body in one breath, then pushing to restrict tax dollars from being spent on necessary services to the poor in the next. It appears on the surface as if a woman who is forced to bear a child – whether conceived from rape, incest or other causes – she is then left struggling to find a way to care for the child with no help from the GOP.
Pro-life advocates have decided that in order to push their personal agenda on poor women, they will prevent them from having access to birth control, possible life-saving services and medical care by restricting and sometimes even defunding family planning. This leaves these women with no options. This has created rage and anger.
This leave only one final question: Are you pro-birth, pro-life or pro-choice?
Question #94: Which one are you?
Deep Breath.
x
PS – Actually, I’d like to end this post with a giggle. My friend Jacquie and I, were having a laugh about this Monty Python clip from The Meaning of Life, earlier today – because sometimes, you’ve just got to laugh!
WANT MORE?
HAHAHAhahahaha!! Good stuff.
Question #92: What do you think?
September 13, 2012
I saw the following segment when I was flicking channels. The sports part of the news came on and…well, you understand. Ellen was on and I saw Reece Witherspoon was coming up…and I like her and so I thought I’d stick around.
But it wasn’t an interview with Ellen, she was having ‘Tea with Sophia Grace and Rosie’.
I thought, on one level, it’s ‘cutish’ BUT for the most part I thought – This is sort of imagery and behaviour that is making our problem worse.
It’s cute, but ALL the compliments, from both the girls and (mainly) Reece, are about what they’re wearing and their attractiveness.
There is a moment where one of the girls breaks into singing a few lines of Adele’s song (Rolling in the Deep, I think it was)…and it’s wonderful. She’s amazing, actually.
So why the circus show?
Question #93: Why can’t we showcase every girl’s wonderfulness, without those narrow, fickle images where girls can only talk about how pretty they are?
I’d love you to watch it and tell me what you think…
Question #91: Doesn’t this infuriate you?
September 10, 2012
The following information comes from The Sydney Morning Herald (September 2 – Fathers’ Day):
“Women must work an extra 64 days each year to earn the same as their male colleagues, new figures show. The pay gap has also widened in the past year, prompting calls from the trade union movement for legislative change…
…On average, men earn 17.5 per cent more than women in comparable jobs.”
Come ON…
This information appeared next to an article about Alan Jones’ comment:
Alan Jones let rip a tirade on 2GB against Prime Minister Julia Gillard. This time it was about her promise to help get more women in the Pacific into parliament and other decision-making positions. Gillard argued raising the status of women was the best way to reduce the appalling domestic violence statistics in the region.
Jones didn’t agree. He claimed that, “Women are destroying the joint – Christine Nixon in Melbourne, Clover Moore here. Honestly.”
He then said, “There’s no chaff bag big enough for these people.” He has also previously said our Prime Minister should be put in one and thrown out to sea.
Such malice – and for what?
Let me just say – GOOD ON YOU, JULIA! There is nothing wrong with that wonderful vision for our sisters in the Pacific.
How interesting that a man like Alan Jones – who has the luxury to spread his poison over the airways, should find offense to this. How exactly is HIS life affected by this promise?
Does Alan Jones really give a rat’s bum about any of us? Obviously not, ESPECIALLY if you’re a woman…Oh, unless you listen to his show.
Federal Attorney-General Nicola Roxon responded by branding the Jones comment “good old fashioned sexism”.
Well it is.
But as the film Miss Representation pointed out – why would girls want to become a voice in our governments, when they are treated with SUCH contempt?
Fortunately, Jane Caro (awesome activist who wrote the above article) has started a small stir by creating the hashtag #destroyingthejoint – there’s also a FB site of the same name, although I’m not sure who started that one.
Who cares. It’s a chance to say that it’s simply NOT. ON.
More women in government – equal representation! Equal pay!
But as I’ve always said, it starts with us because men vote for men and women predominantly vote for men too. That’s not to say just vote any ol’ gal in – but our mindset has some changing to do.
You may not like Julia Gillard, but this promise is a wonderful one and we should all acknowledge it – not just oppose everything.
Deep Breath.
x
PS I posted this on my Questions for Women Facebook Page but it wouldn’t hurt to put it here too. There is a petition with Change.org asking for Alan Jones to apologise for his mysoginist and sexist comments.
Click here and have your voice heard!
My response to a comment. Abortion #2.
September 8, 2012
In a comment responding to my last post, Harley wrote the following – an analogy on abortion:
“An embryo is a blueprint for a human, but is not yet a human. Comparing the removal of such an unwanted blueprint, to murder, is like comparing tearing up a plan for a beautiful house, to taking a wrecking ball to a beautiful house.”
I think that’s perfect.
It’s opened a need for me to write the following:
I wrote an essay at uni, when I took up a unit of Philosophy – this comment has just reminded me of it! It was a paper about abortion and I had to argue for or against it. Pity it was written in the time of typewriters, because it’s long gone and I’d love to be able to read what I wrote…
Whilst at uni – the birthplace of my first serious relationship – I always reasoned that, should I accidentally fall pregnant (even though I was taking precautions), I would NOT have an abortion. But whilst writing my essay, I couldn’t – in my soul – feel I could ‘take sides’ and judge a woman’s reason for having to have one, by being ‘anti-abortion’.
I respect life – but I was leaning more towards the woman, than the foetus. Why? Because with all my well thought out, good intentions about abortion…what if one day I DID need to have one? I knew that if I did have to come to that decision, it would be the hardest, most gut-wrenching and heartbreaking decision I would ever have to make. And would be still.
Women don’t casually go and get one done, like a pedicure. In their lunch hour. If there WERE women who took the whole thing a little more casually (the rest being psychologically affected in some way – however small) – they would be the minority. But even THEY risk the possibility of terminating their chance to have children ever again.
Noone wins in this situation…I would even go on the line and say, no woman EVER wins.
So in my essay, I sided with women – siting that whilst the foetus cannot survive outside the womb, it’s not truly a person – especially as a teeny tiny one. The blueprint.
Today, as always, women are being immorally shortchanged by the men in power – the law makers. Because not giving women the freedom and right of choice, is wrong. It’s not fair.
There’s a simple, unjust reason for this (amongst many) – TWO people make a baby, but the person being judged and forced to have it and raise the child alone (in too many instances), is the woman – regardless of circumstance. One rule.
BUT…the man can walk away.
Question #90: How can men in government, knowing the freedom that their gender affords them, doom women to stick to the birth – and all the complications that come with the baby – and pass laws without women’s voices being heard and taken into account?
Where’s the rule that forces the man – by law – to be obligated to stick around and be an emotional and financial support? If the argument is that the foetus is a real person, then shouldn’t the father be obliged to begin that support from conception?
It’s only fair.
We should send this idea on!
Deep, frustrated breath for my sisters.
x
A serious double whammy.
September 8, 2012
The United States continues to be in the throes of debate…and all over women’s bodies. Again. With men in politics voicing their opinions about women’s bodies. Again.
They seem to be in a political fervour and the latest CORKER comes from a Republican named Todd Akin.
In the article Todd Akin, what exactly is ‘legitimate’ rape?”, Akin is quoted, in his attempt to fortify his anti-abortion stance, as saying:
“It seems to me first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Speechless.
When we find ourselves turning to a panel consisting of a majority of men, to determine the rules as to what women are allowed to do with their bodies – there’s something terribly wrong.
At the start of the year, I went to see Eve Ensler speak and she had this to say to Akin:
Dear Mr Akin, I want you to imagine…
If I can add a little spin of black humour to all this, watch the following clip:
Although we may laugh – it simply allows us to cover over how despondent we truly feel.
Now. What do I think about rape.
I know that the majority of women have either experienced rape, sexual assault, inappropriate touching and a gazillion other situations. The fact that the stories are literally ENDLESS has to say something about our culture. OK, so it’s not a new phenomenon, BUT you cannot deny that the representation of sex in the media and the saturation of porn, is having an ever more detrimental effect on our developing youth. The cases of rape to girls under the age of 12 is staggering – the film Miss Representation put the percentage at 15%.
I recently spoke to a male parent I know and he said he had to throw out a game his teenage son was playing (which he attained from another male friend) – where you got bonus points for rape.
BONUS POINTS FOR RAPE. It made me feel sick when he told me…as well as so helpless for our kids. I’ll be honest, there’s a tinge of despair as well.
1 in 6 have experienced rape or attempted rape. I am one of the 1 in 6 (attempted).
I had a guy I had not even spoken to at a university party, follow me to my college room – chit-chatting on the way. I used to collect Coke bottles and memorabilia and he feigned an interest, walked into my room and locked the door behind him. He told me that it would just take a second and that he didn’t want to have to get rough. I knew that I wasn’t a match physically, so I acted like it would be great, but that I wasn’t feeling up to it. He pushed me down on my bed by the neck a few times as well as try to take off my top. Luckily for me, I managed to get out into the corridor where he got (verbally) very angry, but we were out in the open, so I was spared.
I have never been more terrified. Just because he didn’t actually rape me, doesn’t mean that I didn’t experience pure panic inside.
But you know what? When word got around, people started to take sides – because he was a ‘nice guy’. I hadn’t even spoken to him at the college party – not a word. And yet, judgement was made against me.
ENOUGH!
Enough judgement.
Question #88: Why isn’t more being done to STOP rape – rather than working out what is or isn’t classified as rape; or what the woman did or didn’t do?
I read a phrase that says – “Don’t compare your life to others; you have no idea what their journey is all about.”
Which brings me to other point in this debate – abortion.
It’s none of my business what a woman decides for herself. I DONT KNOW HER STORY OR SITUATION. If we are so naive as to think that the majority of women take the decision lightly – then we’re believing an illusion that’s been fabricated.
The majority of women who have abortions are already mothers, who simply cannot support another child.
I have seen teen girls overseas begging on the streets because they can’t afford the child they (may) have been forced to keep. Is this child really going to be the next Einstein? Or is it more likely that it will live a life of misery, abuse and/or poverty?
“Every woman should be empowered and have the right to determine when she wants to have a child. The right to own her future and provide for her children’s futures. The right to participate freely and equally in society.” (via UPWORTHY)
The bottom line for me is this:
Question #89: What about the WOMAN’S life? (the one that’s already established)
But in terms of The United States and their heavy anti-abortion stance, it’s curious – as my friend Jane said to me – that for a country that’s so pro-life, they are also pro-guns and pro-war. (Not ALL of course, it just how they’re perceived). I’ve always seen it as absurd and surreal, that anti-abortionists, want – and do at times – kill doctors…
*shaking my lowered, saddened head*
Deep Breath.
x
Miss Representation Screening
September 3, 2012
I held the screening for Miss Representation tonight and it was simply fantastic.
SO much food for thought – so many issues I’ve already discussed in previous posts and will continue to talk about – more than ever.
I want to thank those that came along to support a teacher who took a chance. I am totally chuffed. I also had the giddy honour to have Melinda Tankard-Reist from Collective Shout come along.
This is just a quick post to show a few images taken by a friend. I was all geared up to take an awesome shot of the audience – nearly 100 – but I was so nervous that I completely forgot!
I introduced the movie…(knot in my throat)
…and had a post movie chat after the show where a few people made some comments – if I let them get a word in edgewise! Haha!
Thanks again. And I hope that together we can start to make the changes in our lives with the young people developing around us, create a ripple effect and start to make some fantastic and positive change.
Love to you all.
Deep Breath
x
Just vote. Sign your name. It’s simple.
September 2, 2012
In light of my last few posts – if you want to start making that change, sign the following petition to Cleo Magazine – strongly urging them to stop altering the images of women they use.
Following a US teenager’s successful petition calling on 17 Magazine to publish one unaltered photo spread per month, Melbourne woman Jessica Barlow has created a petition calling on Australian Cleo Magazine to do the same.
The petition reads:
Reality is beautiful. Stop using Photoshop to alter appearances.
In high school, not a day would go by without hearing another girl complain about her weight or appearance. I saw girls get severely bullied and excluded because they didn’t live up to the beauty ideals of women in magazines.And it made me want to doctor my own appearance even more.
My friends and I looked up to the models in Cleo magazine. It was one of the most popular among my classmates. But what I think many of us didn’t know is that Cleo was altering the images of women to make them skinny and blemish free.
The altered pictures make readers question their weight, appearance and self-worth. I know this much first hand. They teach us that to be “pretty” you have to be thin and have perfect skin. Studies now show that these damaging images can lead to eating disorders, dieting and depression.
Distorting and editing the appearances of models in magazines is distorting the mental health of girls who read magazines that engage in these practices.
Public pressure is building across the world for magazines to stop altering images of girls. In the US a teenager convinced Seventeen Magazine to publish one unaltered spread a month after thousands joined her petition. I think Cleo should do the same for their readers.
I want Cleo to stop selling images that hurt girls and break our self-esteem. Let us see real faces and real shapes in at least one photo spread a month — and always put a warning symbol on any image that has been altered.
It’s time to put an end to the digitally enhanced, unrealistic beauty we see in the pages of magazines. Please sign my petition to Cleo Magazine editors calling on them to give us images of real girls in their magazines.
PLEASE sign. It’s quick and it’s the first step in having a voice:
You can also tell them what you think, by writing a rational, intelligent comment on their Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/CLEOAustralia?filter=2
Lastly, you can check out the following page:
https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/440832622636296/445479898838235/?notif_t=plan_mall_activity
Let’s do this thing!
Deep Breath and sign against covers like the following cartoon:
x
DON’T buy into it. Yep – it’s a Shout Out. #4.
September 2, 2012
I’ve had an epiphany – a bit of an ‘a-ha’ moment. Well, it wasn’t so much that I didn’t know it before, but more that I was hit with a simple and succinct realisation.
It’s the simplicity of it that is both liberating and equally terrifying – because regardless of its clarity – we are trapped.
You know all the famous modern icons? – I can’t believe what we call them ‘icons’ for – icons like Kim Kardashian?
We’re paying them.
In turn, they spend the money we give them on ‘perfecting’ themselves:
On make-up – THEY DON’T PAY FOR.
On clothes – THEY DON’T PAY FOR.
On ‘procedures’ – THEY DON’T PAY FOR.
Cars – Technology – ‘Gift Bags’ – EVERYTHING!…they don’t pay.
We do.
And then we worship them for creating the image we can never have (as I wrote in my penultimate post Why it’s worse now) and buy more beauty products, clothes, ‘procedures’ to try to replicate it. In turn, we keep fattening their pay packets, as the beauty industry uses them over and over again – making them icons.
THIS IS PURE INSANITY!
This vicious cycle is not only never-ending – its predatory qualities and hunger appear to be insatiable.
OK, here comes a Shout Out.
We are intelligent beings, ladies – VERY intelligent:
Question #87: So why are we doing it to ourselves? WHY?
And we are doing it from both sides – one side (the majority of us) perpetuate it by BUYING into this mono; limiting; ‘hot’ look, while on the other side, we also have the women who agree to represent us so poorly and participate in our exploitation that way.
It’s a trap.
As a fly is digested slowly in the Venus Fly Trap, so are we.
I don’t know about you, but that’s why this clarity is a tad terrifying to me – because its EFFECTS are devastating. Statistics are showing girls and women spiralling into a world of depression and worse. I even know many mothers who loathe their bodies after growing a human being in them – instead of wearing their shape with a pure sense of pride – of the miracles their bodies are.
But, as I said in response to a comment from the above-mentioned post, EVERYTHING IS TAUGHT. Everything.
So it’s time. Regardless of what’s happened in the past – the only way to move forward is to say, “OK, yes, we used to do it like that or accept things as they are – but not any more.
Do not pay any attention to women like Lara Bingle, who so graciously had the following picture of herself taken (which has also been photoshopped to an inch of its life):
…because as I’ve said to my students at school – ANYONE CAN DO THAT! Anyone can have sex. Anyone can take their clothes off. It’s not a difficult thing to do…and yet we end up rewarding women for doing just that??
The challenging and hard thing is NOT doing it the easy way – through shortcuts – as there’s always a price to pay…
…and ain’t we paying for it now!
The irony being that the money from our pockets, provides the funding for more.
I repeat: Why are we doing it to ourselves?
Deep Breath everyone – it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
x
Why it’s worse now.
September 2, 2012
I was cooking and my 9 year old daughter was keeping me company, chatting. It was great.
Yesterday, when I let her play on the computer, which is normally some sort of simple game, I went in to find her doing a ‘make-over’ on some cartoon girl. I told her to get off it. She didn’t make a fuss. Bless her.
So we were chatting about that tonight. I said that, in a way, that game was training her to become a girl who grooms herself in a particular way. I said that there was nothing wrong with wearing makeup when she’s older, but that girls and women nowadays were spending A LOT of money to look a particular way.
I said to her that when I was younger, I loved going through women’s magazines but that ‘back then’ the images were of the women as they were. Don’t get me wrong, we were being sold a particular image – thin, glamorous, in the latest looks…thin – BUT they were fairly real. No airbrushing…lots of make-up – but no airbrushing.
Throughout these modern times – since mid-last century – women have always been sold a look; in line with the fashion of the time. And we have always jumped on that wagon, hoping to mirror that look and belong. That’s cool. We are the fairer sex and we like to groom ourselves.
But it’s worse now.
Why? Because the looks and bodies we’re trying to mirror – are altered and unattainable ones.
Simple, isn’t it?
The logic of it is striking and obvious – and yet…
…here we are ladies – watching women on our screens, posters, ads – depicting the shangri-las of looks – that we can’t have because they are simply. not. real.
Question #85: Why is the unaltered image above, not considered beautiful?
Because there are some rolls…like the ones we all have? Because she has a tummy…like most women?
God forbid we represent the general female population in our media!
Now look at the women around you – your friends – your family.
Do you think they’re all ugly?
They must be if they’re not thin, ‘hot’ and sexy…with no wrinkles etc. etc. etc.
But the majority of women DO NOT fit that tiny mould and I’m also pretty sure that you don’t think any such thing about the women in your life. So, if we think the ordinary and remarkable women around us are beautiful:
Question #86: Why are we being passive and tolerate what the media is doing to the representation of women?
And we are being passive.
Just look at what’s been done to the images of the women below – for magazines that women buy:
Even Barbie – or any doll for that matter (Bratz, anyone?) – sells a look to girls from a young age.
It’s up to us to change this. Noone else can do it – certainly not men. That would be as futile as women changing men’s perspectives.
It’s up to us.
Deep Breath.
x
Ally McBeal
August 26, 2012
I was driving home after having dinner with a good friend and decided to listen to my music, instead of the radio.
Even though my iPod has all my favourite songs on it – I sometimes feel like I’ve heard them a million times. But the only station I listen to, Triple J, was playing really thrashy, heavy metal with a-man-screaming-into-a-microphone type of song. No. Not for me.
It turned out to be a great decision because when I put my songs on ‘Shuffle’, my Ally McBeal song came on. Anyone driving next to me would have seen an entertaining sight.
E-hem.
Ally McWhat?
Well, to those of you who were born ‘recently’, this great series (1997-2002) was targeted at women my age – at the time I was in my late 20s.
This show was about Ally (played by Calista Flockhart), a lawyer in a firm, who was a success in her career, but who was now looking for love. Doesn’t sound like anything special, right?
Well, it resonated with a lot of women my age (at the time) because we all felt like Ally did…well, I can’t speak for all women – but I was thinking, “I hear ya!”
I remember being told at my all-girls high school, when I was about 16/17, that “we didn’t need a man” and that “we should go and get a career for ourselves.” Great advice, actually. It made us go out and find our place, make our mark and NOT be reliant on anybody but ourselves. Nothing worse than being a weak, ineffectual woman, having to be carried by a man…or anyone else, for that matter.
So this show gave us Ally. A woman who had done just us many women in that time were advised to do – but despite all her success, she felt a void – she wanted to find the love of her life.
This show was quirky too – it was a cack! Ally famously saw the dancing baby, they had unisex toilets that they sang and danced in at times, there was an obsession with Barry White, equally odd-bod characters – all whilst trying cases in their law firm.
In one episode, Ally is told by her psychologist (played by the wonderful and very funny, Tracey Ullman), to pick a theme song. She was to then listen to it, in her mind, at times of worry, distress, feeling down etc.
Ally picked the old classic, Tell Him – a song that could help her with her trials with love.
So the other night, my Ally McBeal song came on, Jamiroquai’s, Canned Heat. Oh, how this song speaks to me.
“Dance! Nothing left for me to do, but dance
Off these bad times I’m going through, just dance
Got canned heat in my heals tonight, baby.”
I love to dance – and do it in the kitchen with my girls when I can. At any party with good dance songs, I tend not to move far from ‘dance floor’.
Question #84: What’s your Ally McBeal song?
Below is a clip I found of the show…if you’re a youngin’. Enjoy!
Deep Breath and DANCE!
Woooo Hoooooo!
x
Questions for Us 