Woman and Child First

Van Badham: Guts, Intelligence and Wit in Action

A conversation around domestic violence in Australia is finally being aired.  A woman is being murdered every week in this country by a partner or ex-partner. One of my favourite shows is Q and A - a TV production that invites audience members to question people of public note about current issues. This week, one young man whose sister had been stabbed to death with a meat cleaver by her partner last year asked the panel: How will politicians and the media play a better role in bringing about long-overdue cultural shifts, so tragedies like what happened to my family are not normalised?

Then it all turned nasty. Feminist writer Van Badham was planning to challenge another panel member (a Liberal Party politician) about cuts (around $100m) to community legal centres, where women who are fleeing violence are given support and legal advice.  She never actually got to do that because fish look-alike Steve Price rudely spoke over her with patronizing relentlessness and finally insulted her calling her "hysterical".

(Thus proving the questioner's concern about "long overdue cultural shifts"). Van's answer was fast though considered, smart as a whip and bloody funny. She said, "It's probably my ovaries making me do it, Steve".  

And that has created a huge social media storm where Van of course has continued to be verbally abused. She also continues to remain calm, fierce and upright and beautifully, intelligently vocal. An inspiration and a constant reminder of our need for those cultural shifts so that disrespect of women is challenged and then reduced into a dim memory.

Thank you Van Badham. You can see how it played out and you can Read her.

Oh, and here's Steve Price.

And here's a fish.

See?

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

I'll never stop loving this clip. If I'd been sitting in that audience I would have had my life change. I would have thought, "How can I be that cool when I grow up?" and I would have thought of ways.

Read about Rosetta Tharpe's life here.

  

Good Young Men on Domestic Violence

I'm running a program with a male teacher called GYM ( Good Young Men) for Year 5 boys. We kick the whole thing off by asking the boys about what they think makes a "good man" and we cover many things around that topic including domestic violence (DV). White Ribbon day is held annually in Australia and highlights this disturbing problem.

Our Assistant Principal sent me the video below yesterday knowing it would be very cool for our group. I'm so impressed by this piece of work. It's very moving, optimistic and frankly - it rocks.  It features beautiful young Yr 5 men from Bankstown Public School clearly stating their opposition to violence against women.  It comes out of a project run in south-western Sydney by BYDS (Bankstown Youth Development Service) and we are SO going to use it in our GYM group.

 

 

Friday's Woman: Rita Levi-Montalcini

“Above all, don’t fear difficult moments. The best comes from them."

Italian neurologist, Rita Levi-Montalcini, died last December age 103. 

"At 20, I realized that I could not possibly adjust to a feminine role as conceived by my father and asked him permission to engage in a professional career," Levi-Montalcini wrote in her biography.

She went onto study Medicine and then went into research and won a Nobel prize for her work with Stanley Cohen in 1986. She was active, smart and lovely right up until her death.

"I can say my mental capacity is greater today than when I was 20, since it has been enriched by so many experiences," she said at age 103.

 

 

 

An Unusal Woman: Ahead of Her Time & Didn't Know It

 

Speaking of Marilyn Monroe and the Mocambo in Hollywood. In 1955, Ms. Monroe persuaded the owner of the Mocambo to hire Ella Fitzgerald (the Mocambo did not book Black artists).

Ms. Fitzgerald on Ms. Monroe to Ms. magazine in 1972: “I owe Marilyn Monroe a real debt…it was because of her that I played the Mocambo, a very popular nightclub in the ’50s. She personally called the owner of the Mocambo, and told him she wanted me booked immediately, and if he would do it, she would take a front table every night. She told him - and it was true, due to Marilyn’s superstar status - that the press would go wild. The owner said yes, and Marilyn was there, front table, every night. The press went overboard. After that, I never had to play a small jazz club again. She was an unusual woman - a little ahead of her times. And she didn’t know it.”

 

Via Vintage Black Glamour on Facebook

Maybe you're ahead of your time and don't know it? Fancy that idea.

Shocking Article: Gang Rapes of Young Girls - "Normalized"

This article breaks my heart. Girls as young as 12 being gang raped and it's kinda well, you know, "normal."

Get angry, folks, get real angry. The ripping of heart muscle is mended to some extent by the knowledge (reported in this article) that there are solid, proactive programmes being run for young girls. The pivotal issue seems to be the desperately low self worth held by young girls. Our western culture  does little to give them a sense of self that is strong, wise and fearless.

Let's try and lift young people  - and I mean the boys involved as well - out of the gutter. Let's try to be aware and do something too. Please don't think that because it's happening in London, a long way away, that it can't happen here. 

Read the article in the Guardian(UK) here:

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/society/2012/feb/18/being-raped-by-gang-normal?fb_source=other_multiline&fb_action_types=news.reads

Pictured is Isha Nembhard,  "a female former gang member [who]has exposed the growing levels of sexual violence against young women who join them, saying that many are willing to risk being raped in return for the status of membership." - The Guardian (UK) on Facebook.

 

Sisterhood by Kate Wilson

Sometimes I find myself almost panicking about the media's narrow and twisted portrayals of young women, the sexualization of girls and the backlash against women that it all represents.

 I caught up with a precious friend from high school on the weekend and spent a number of moments panicking about it again. Chris assured me I would work it out.  

Another dear friend  Maree sent me this link today. I'm comforted, reassured and inspired by this. There are more of us than a tiddly wee few who want sharper awareness, change and guts shown by and for women.

A heartfelt and very strong poem performed by Kate Wilson:

 

Word of the Day : Philogyny

 philogyny, noun 

Love or liking for women (opposite of misogyny).

"We will therefore, draw a curtain over this scene, from that philogyny which is in us, and proceed to matters which, instead of dishonouring the human species, will greatly raise it and ennoble it."

    - Henry Fielding, The Life and Death of Jonathon Wild, The Great

Origin:

    philogyny combines two Greek words: phil, love and gyn, woman

Image of Artemis by Mercurius TJ

Beer Swilling Hairdresser Becomes Australia's First Bloke

No. Really, this is too good to be true. Someone stop me from rolling into the chair legs on the floor. I've gone completely insane with laughing happiness.

How delightful to live in this country. Surely this must be one of the funniest nations on the planet. And no, I'm not being sarcastic or facetious, I just adore that Julia Gillard's man - Tim Mathieson - is a hairdresser who loves a beer and who obviously has no problem with his girl being now the Prime Minister. 

"She will absolutely be a fantastic prime minister," he told Melbourne's Herald Sun. "She has the right mindset and she is very consultative. I am so proud to be her partner and to be able to support her today."

And this. 

His former colleague Grace Rominan: "He was a very bubbly guy. He did styling -- cutting and blow-drying...I'm just so glad that she chose someone outside of politics. He's such a great guy and I know he will make her very happy."

From here. Where else but Oz would this sort of story come from? It makes living 154 million miles from anywhere else all worth it.

 

Woman First And No Children

 You know, I often hum to myself:

         "Oh I was born in the thick of it,  

The most misogynist of all the lands", 

and yet the same nation has just thrown up it's first ever female prime minister, who's not married (has an increasingly groovy looking partner) and has no children um - by choice.

 What's a right thinking girl to do? Well me, I've been snickering more often and walking about like a taller person.

Julia Gillard, pictured. Here's a bit of background.