To Year 12…
October 14, 2017
A few weeks ago, I was the guest speaker at a Yr 12 Final Assembly. A Drama teacher friend of mine, and this particular cohort’s Year Adviser, had asked me if I would give them a little sending off pep-talk. I was really chuffed to have been asked. So I wrote the following speech thinking of every student about to sit their HSC (or equivalent examination across Australia), regardless of what school they’re at. I wanted to share it with you; hope it resonates.
Paula x
Yr 12 Graduation speech
Hello Year 12. Well, you’re nearly there! Now that’s a phrase that has probably been uttered a few times of late or circling through your mind. Nearly there – there’s a solid, weighty truth to it and you may have a slight tug-of-war going on inside; a mixture of excitement to be out of the educational walls that have been nurturing you for the last 13 years and the fear of heading toward the unclear great beyond. And yes, it is unclear, but only insomuch as it’s not specific and thank goodness for that. How rigid would your choices be if everything were mapped out for you?
So I’m here to ask one main question for you to ponder:What space are you going to fill in this complex world of ours?
Because we all DO have a space to fill – it’s nature; it’s balance; it’s important. The trick is to get on that path; but therein lies the conundrum, where one starts to question – what am I good at? What is this word ‘passion’ that keeps getting thrown around?
Now here is where we start to say, ‘I’m just a….’ We stick that ‘just’ there to diminish our abilities because we feel they don’t stack up to some idealised, limited vision our culture has thrust upon us. But I’m here to say that you must break free of those shackles because this world needs a spectrum of people with talents and drive to fill all the pockets and crevices of our world.
So who am I? My name is Paula and I, in my 47 years of existence, have added a few ‘justs’ to my collection of living:
* I’m just a high school Drama teacher of 20 years (A fair chunk of English too)
* Just a mother (of two daughters)
* About 5 years ago I discovered I was just a blog writer. I’ve stopped now but funnily enough I still say JUST even though I had 15 of my posts published by the Opera House on their Ideas at House site a few years back.
* I just got 350 out of 500 for my HSC back in 1987 (yes 30 years and I’m currently organising our reunion) and that mark was OK. Nothing fantabulous but not bad. You should know that the road to being a writer – as well as becoming an English teacher – was a challenging one because I was a baby when my parents and I fled the dictatorship in Uruguay and therefore growing up, I only spoke Spanish at home. I’ll tell you one thing, I NEVER imagined I’d do either of those things when I was sitting where you are today; or any of what was to come really.
Now none of these space fillers got handed to me on a sheet when I finished high school, they just unraveled as I participated. That’s the key word – PARTICIPATE – take action. As I plodded along, full of deep insecurities over what lay ahead for me, I found that walking in the general direction of what I wanted to do meant that opportunities arose that I was simply lucky enough to be in the general vicinity of – not somewhere else trying to please another set of people.
But let me make something very clear – not everything we want comes just because we want it to, but when you work hard at something that you’re proud of, someone always notices. Keep that in mind.
So what space are you going to fill?
Over three years ago, I became an activist. I had been doing a lot of writing about things I saw as being unjust on a blog but it wasn’t until a particular business came into our lives that it catapulted me into the label – activist.
The business is called Wicked Campers and they have vans for hire, popular with backpackers, with graffiti type images on the side and a slogan on the back for all to read. On a day in the July school holidays 2014, my daughter (then only 11) saw a Wicked van and its slogan whilst visiting the Blue Mountains with my parents. I was not with them. When I picked her up, the first thing she told me was what she had read and how it affected her. I was livid because the slogan was so bad, I can’t repeat it here today.
But this is when ‘Just Paula’ took a stand – I started a Change.org petition asking Wicked to take down any degrading and sexist slogans or imagery. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the numbers a petition can get but they may get a few thousand in a few weeks, but mine got 127, 000+ votes in four days. I was interviewed on about 15 radio shows, including Triple J Hack (twice now) and appeared on The Project. 133 articles were written globally, including The Huffington Post.
An awesome thing that came out of this was that Greens Senator Larissa Waters brought up a motion in The Senate to condemn Wicked Campers and there was – for the first time in a long, long time – a unanimous vote in The Senate that day. I also got an incredible, incredible amount of support from people far and wide.
A not so awesome thing that happened was that I received some death threats, hate emails and one guy in Queensland thought he’d make a ‘Wanted’ poster of me on FB and said I needed to be taught a lesson.
Wicked Campers agreed to my take down all their worst slogans within the following 6 months – but they lied. The only one they changed was the one my daughter saw. Funnily enough they changed it to ‘If only Noah had swatted those two mosquitoes’ and as Wicked had a history of using their vans to threaten people directly –
like when journalist Lucy Clark wrote an unfavourable article about them, they wrote on a van with Dear Lucy, I can already imagine the gaffa tape on your mouth– I took that slogan to mean that my daughter and I were the mosquitoes. That’s OK, I thought, I can live with that because as an African proverb says – If you think you’re too small to make a difference, you’ve never been in bed with a mosquito; so that’s what I became.It was a hard slog, but this year in March – after three years of continuing to fight – writing and speaking to the Advertising Standards Bureau, Government leaders, Australian Censorship Board; hitting social media and garnering the pivotal help from three incredible women – the QLD government changed legislation (followed by Tasmania) to cover the loophole and hold Wicked Campers accountable for those slogans that are, by the way, prohibited from going up on a billboard or an ad.
Why am I telling you all this? Because I’ve always seen myself as Just Paula. But I’m not – I’m much more. In 20 years of being a teacher, 14 years of being a mother and 5 years of being an activist – I have some expertise up my sleeve and I want to express to you an important point, this next step for you is not JUST about marks – the question is: what are you going to do with what you’ve learned? From both inside the classroom and especially outside of it.
One thing is for sure, you’re going to have to be brave – brave when stepping in the direction that feels right for you but not for others and brave when bucking the system when it is unfair – and there are no marks that cover that. Your character and gumption are going to be your armour.
I’ll leave it there but I want to say that you are our future and when life gets tough – and it will – remember that when you walk steadfast toward the horizon, it never gets closer, it always stays the same distance away. But when you look back, you can see how far you’ve come.
Deep Breath;
So what space are you going to fill?
Thank you.
I’ll leave you with the wise words of Yoda (words I have on the cover of my mark book at school):
Should supermarkets be selling soft porn?
January 8, 2015
Location: Coles – one of the major Australian supermarket chains.
Area: Magazine Section
In the past I have merely done this:
But today – Wed 7th Jan – I decided I would say something, when I saw this on the second lowest shelf:
I wrote to Coles to explain my experience in one of their stores:
In my visit to a Sydney Coles store this afternoon, I went past the magazine section and saw Zoo magazine (imaged attached) on the second lowest row – small child height – next to Peppa Pig. I asked a worker who was in the same aisle, who I could talk to about it and he directed me to go to the front desk. My children and I had a few items to buy so I asked the employee serving us in the express lane. I believe she was in a managerial position as she was making announcements over the speakers to coworkers. I explained what I saw and she said that everything had to be placed where Coles says and that there was nothing employees could change in terms of an item’s location – in this case, to put Zoo magazine high up (top) on the shelves. She showed me an example of this with a nearby drink refrigerator; pointing out the sticker which clearly indicates EXACTLY how it must be stocked. She also explained that a recent visit from the person who checks that it’s done properly, was VERY unhappy because it was incorrectly stocked. We – the Coles manager and myself – then moved to the magazine section and when we looked at the labels along the shelves (indicating where every magazine should be) – not one magazine was in its correct place. She removed the magazines and I trust (and hope) that the Zoo magazine ended up being placed high – if it has to go back at all. It would be fantastic if Coles takes the lead and sees the good removing magazines like Zoo from sale would do. It takes a village to raise a child and supermarkets – like Coles – are a part of that village. It also takes integrity. Consumers who want to see sexually, objectified women can access it everywhere – but it feels culturally oppressive when a magazine, sporting the image of a sexually objectified woman on a cover that matches its contents, is being sold at a supermarket chain, like Coles – placed low on its shelving. There were multiple copies of the magazine behind one another, so it was purposely placed there. Do you think it would be possible for Coles to stop selling Zoo magazine and any other magazines of its type? (In this particular store the only objectifying magazine that was on sale was Zoo, so I don’t know if there are others). Thank you so much for your time and consideration, and look forward to hearing from you. Paula Orbea
The following is a cartoon I’ve seen cross my Timeline from time to time, which asks a crucial question:
Right? Another moment worth noting, was the response the managerial employee gave me when I was suggesting the magazine shouldn’t really be sold there in the first place. Her expression was one of raised eyebrows, looking at the cover, coupled with an expression (small smile?) that suggested it ‘wasn’t that bad’ – and said:
“I reckon you see worse on TV.”
“Yes”, I agreed, “but that’s a whole different issue.”
I don’t understand that kind of statement as an argument; that there’s something worse. There’s always something worse, and then something worse than that. And then worse than that.
That sort of statement argues that one shouldn’t stand and confront the ‘small stuff’ – like the soft porn industry, in this case; an industry that is heavily guiding younger and younger people toward an ocean of porn online (including terribly violent ones) – because there are *other* problems deemed more important for an activist attend to first…generally something in the ball park of, ‘Stop ISIS’ or ‘Get the girls from Nigeria back’.
What I find curious is how people who do *nothing*, suddenly presume themselves the Traffic Cops of Activism. In this case, the Coles employee removed the magazines, for the sole reason that they were in the wrong place. If it were to turn out that the Zoo magazines’ location – assigned by Coles – is smack bang in the middle of them all, I know that this employee would have put them in their ‘rightful place’ – as that is her directive. I’d like to add that this employee was courteous and professional in her conversation with me and that I appreciated her attention on the matter.
As I think of Maria in The Sound of Music teaching the children (through song, of course), about starting at the very beginning, as it’s a very good place to start – so must we. That is the only way change can truly occur – by getting to the roots of behaviour and action.
So have a look for yourselves – in the everyday world you and young people reside and ask:
Question #220 : What’s going on at ground zero?
What lessons and attitudes are being taught through consumption? Well, the selling of ‘soft porn’ (aka porn culture) in supermarkets is one thing, wouldn’t you say?
Deep breath.
PS This is the response I received from Coles:
Dear Ms Orbea
Thank you for your letter regarding the sale of magazines in our Coles stores.
Coles aim to provide customers with a wide range of products that appeal to a broad range of consumer tastes. We are very aware of our responsibilities in relation to the display of various magazines in our stores and we must comply with the guidelines set by the Classification Board and legislative requirements regarding the selection and placement of various magazines.
Magazines such as Zoo and FHM, do not have a classification rating, as set by the Classification Board, and form part of our men’s interest range of magazines.
Coles only sell magazines that are unclassified and to help ensure a comfortable shopping experience for all customers, these particular men’s magazines must be placed in our reading centres within our stores and are not to be sold from the stands next to the registers.
We are sorry to hear that you find these magazines offensive* and have forwarded your comments to our Merchandise Team so that they are also aware of your concerns.
Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact us. We appreciate your feedback and look forward to your future custom at Coles.
Regards
Patrick Chylinski
Coles Customer Care
*[Doesn’t sound like an apology]
The Internet + my 11 year old daughter.
January 29, 2014
This year, our school has started down the technology education road and we’ve had to purchase an iPad for my 11 year old daughter. It has been a mildly tiresome and frustrating transition, having both girls wanting their turn on it and playing games.
A few days ago, I found out that one of the games Ms 11 has on her iPad (that I purchased for her) has a feature for playing with strangers within the app (not through Game Centre). I was not aware of this until I found out she had interacted with two people – one who claimed to be a 10 year old boy from Germany and another person who called her some nasty names.
Now my daughter is pretty mature for her age – but she is still only just turned eleven.
When I exclaimed a bit of shock about her online interactions, saying she had NO idea who the person was, she replied, “No mum, he’s really nice.”
I flew into a mild panic because even though I engage in many a conversation with her, over a gaggle of issues regarding Internet use, I still have to remind myself that she is still ONLY eleven. Maturity or not, her response above only proved she was acting exactly her age – with trust.
With heightened alarm I explained how predators know exactly how to speak to children – they’ve been doing it for a long, long time.
They know what to say; they know how to groom.
To illustrate the point, I decided to show her how easy it is to lift a photo off the Net, with which to create a fake profile. I wanted one of a girl her age. I used my laptop to do this – not her iPad.
This is the moment where we hit a horrific snag.
I went to google images and wrote ‘girls’. With weary predictability, the images that splashed up on the screen, were mainly of scantily clad (mainly adult) females – nothing they don’t see virtually everywhere related to media and advertising.
So I thought I’d narrow down the search and looked for images of ‘school girls’.
I can’t believe how fast I was in covering the screen with my hands because it wasn’t the fact that now there were even more images of (mainly adult) females in their hyper-sexualised ‘school uniforms’ – it was that the second image that appeared on the whole page, was of a beheaded young girl; her body was on the right, her head on the left, facing her shoulder.
I sent my daughter out while I checked other images and then started to cry.
That image wasn’t the only one – there were a few others – peppered amongst the ‘naughty school girls.’
I know there’s nothing I can do about it, but I still wonder:
Question #198: Why has the world become so callous and cruel?
Violence and Porn. Everywhere. Everywhere.
I quickly composed myself and after thoroughly checking content, I called her back. I showed her videos and discussed Internet Safety in terms of:
1. Not knowing who you’re talking to;
2. Being very, very careful about what images and/or videos they put up (in the future).
Many of my 11 year old’s friends have Instagram – something I emphatically do not allow my daughter to have, due to the alarming statistics regarding the use of images on the Internet – that once it’s posted, one loses control of it.
She’s only eleven – halfway there to full cognitive brain development. Halfway.
The Internet certainly gave us a slap.
These are the videos I showed her. You might want to show these to your children too.
This is for young children who don’t know who they’re chatting to.
This is a great and simple video with two 11 year old girls as the protagonists.
This one is more for teens losing control of images. I think it’s well done.
Big Deep Breath.
x
My 2 cents: Rape and drinking.
October 27, 2013
There has recently been a raging debate on the Internet, since Emily Yoffe wrote an article called, College Women: Stop Getting Drunk.
Basically – Girls, if you don’t want to get raped – don’t drink around men.
A plethora of articles were written in light of this perspective – most notably Mia Freedman, who basically agreed with Yoffe and received quite the backlash from many women.
So what’s my 2 cents’ worth?
First cent:
In essence, I agree that drinking impairs people’s behaviour as well as reduce one’s ability to think coherently – depending on the amount consumed and other circumstances.
This type of conversation should cover both men and women, as well as look at the many areas of life the consumption of alcohol effects. For all.
But that’s not what’s happening.
This argument is (again) about what women/girls need to do, to better their chances of not being raped…which our logical brains know – is impossible.
Have we moved on from outfits or do we just go ahead and add that to the list?
What’s next – curfew for girls and women?
It doesn’t matter how else I look at it, listing what women and girls need to do should not be the primary topic of discussion.
First we need to flood the debate with discourse about men.
Men, guys and boys:
* Why they’re participating in more crimes of this nature and
* What they (and we as a society) need to do to curb its violent trajectory.
First and FOREMOST.
But we’re doing it the other way round; looking at how women need to ‘prevent’ (the unpreventable) while the nature of men goes largely untouched and – for the most part – unpunished.
This graph was created by the Enliven Project using data from Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey and FBI reports. It appeared in the Washington Post at the start of the year.
This particular form of advice does nothing but provide a disservice to both genders:
* Men/boys because they’re being painted as barbaric animals who use the primal urge they can’t stop, to take advantage of intoxicated (and sober) women and girls, rape them, sometimes take turns and film the whole thing on their smartphones;
* Women/girls because they need to be taught to restrict their life practices, in the hope that the predatory male gender doesn’t stick their penis in them without consent.
Second cent:
This is not to say that parents – and society at large – shouldn’t stop mentoring their children and the youth of today, of the dangers of alcohol; that annihilating themselves is harmful on many levels.
So I hope it’s clear that I think the current drinking culture of all our youth is excessive, dangerous and violent.
BUT – the second problem I have with this discourse is that, as good as this advice may be for girls and women of today and beyond:
Question #189: What are we saying to the young women who have ALREADY been raped and may have been drinking when it happened?
What if they felt safe with the men/man/boys/boy they were with?
What if they were tricked? Deceived?
Then raped/gang-raped.
Then left.
What about them?
Articles like Yoffe’s only help to drive home the deep-seeded shame they already feel by ultimately saying, it wouldn’t have happened IF:
* you had stayed home
* you hadn’t drunk alcohol
* you hadn’t gone to that party
* you hadn’t…
* you hadn’t…
We make them feel guilt.
That’s victim-blaming.
While this type of conversation continues to ignore the elephant in the room – the rapist – we neglect the mental health and recovery of those countless girls and women who have experienced a life-altering violation of their rights as a human being.
All they are seeing are guys/men getting off from being charged – even with filmed evidence^ – whilst girls/women are being given an instruction manual on how to stop the behaviour of another (???) through lists of recommendations including how much they drink, where they go, who they talk to, what they wear, etc., etc., etc.
I think we owe those women a lot more.
Deep Breath.
x
^ In the case of Daisy Coleman – who was 14, given an intoxicating drink by a group of 17 year olds, gang-raped and left unconscious in the snow – saw charges against the football ‘hero’ dropped DESPITE filmed footage.
If we live in a world, where filmed footage is not enough to convict, then women are truly and royally screwed.
The fine line. A chat with teens.
April 2, 2013
In my Drama class recently – boys and girls aged approx. 16 – we were discussing Absurd Theatre.
This type of theatre looks at the existentialist view that we are born from nothing; live a fairly meaningless life, in the big scheme of things; attach importance to pockets of our lives (as we are ‘educated’ to do, by our surroundings) and then die – back to nothingness.
The world keeps turning. You made no real difference. It’s all quite absurd.
This is not to say that it is a life devoid of faith because with the existentialist perspective, there is also a sense of hope.
My students and I began to contemplate the issues and topics that encompass our current paradigm. I asked them to metaphorically take a giant step out of our existence and then look through the eyes of, let’s say, aliens studying human behaviour.
What would they see?
I wanted them to think rationally and not emotionally.
The issue of female representation came up – especially in terms of the fashion – and as the discussion unfolded, one girl asked what was so wrong with girls wanting to feel good through the attention they receive.
I replied, “Nothing…but…”
This is the point where it always gets tricky for me because my current opinion on what I’m seeing tears me in two opposing directions – and if it pulls me, a 43 year old woman, in this way – how in hell are these young, developing minds supposed to make heads or tails of it?
1. I believe women should wear what they want.
I was raised to believe that it’s good to show off your best assets. I have pretty good legs, for example, and I used to wear shortish skirts. I still wear skinny-type pants because they work best for my body shape. Of course, I wear pants of varying widths too – as well as skirts of different lengths.
The point is that we always dedicated a certain amount of time to creating a look that suited us and made us feel good about ourselves. Maybe it made a statement or it was simply following the fashion; no different to today, I suppose…
2. BUT when what is fashionable, emulates porn culture – we have a completely different kettle of fish.
Don’t we?
Growing up in the 80s meant there were various fads throughout the decade. I remember there was a pastel stage; a flouro one; we wore studded belts (as well as ones that wrapped around the waist twice over – flashy!); hair of different lengths and cuts; tube skirts; shoulder pads; goths; mods; punks…and the list goes on. Even in the 90s, there was grunge to add to the mix.
This is me at the dance – with boys! – aged 14. When your stunned expression lapses as to how much of a dag I was (yes, that’s a white ribbon in my hair), check out the background – pinafore dresses and a boy straight off the set of Miami Vice.
Truth is, we may have been dagga, but we thought we were SO cool. How could we not be, with such a variety of looks in one decade?
Today, however, is quite a different story – there is only one fad: Hot ‘n Sexy and no age seems out of reach. The monumental difference today is the hypersexualised pre-teen that’s starting to flood the ‘market’.
(Sadly, one of the most used search engine terms that gets certain unsavoury and predatory people to my blog, is ‘12 year old sluts.’
Young and fresh out of Primary School – these girls are in high demand.)
I discussed the conundrum of this current fashion with the students to see if they could discern the fine line – that it’s virtually a ‘Catch-22′ situation. If, on one hand, girls wear hypersexualised outfits and allude to also behave in said manner as well, they are participating in the spread of porn culture – a culture created, predominantly, for male satisfaction. BUT at the same time, if we go around preaching to women about what they should and shouldn’t wear, it reeks of control and takes away a female’s agency to do as she pleases – the same way a man is permitted.
In other words, inequality.
This is crippling. Women – and now, very young girls – are being driven crazy with this and I can see that this paradigm, one that is so obsessed with sex and selling the female body (only) to make billions of dollars, is winning.
To wear, or not to wear – that is the question.
Question #153: Isn’t that absurd?
Deep Breath
Questions for Us 