Human Rights Arts & Film Festival

Human Rights Arts & Film Festival making its way around Australia from 23rd April to 30 May, with this film from CARE Australia being screened alongside some other cool offerings. It's going in the diary.

 WTF? At what point did anyone ever think this would be a good idea?

(via mUmbrella)

The Female Eunuch Turns 40

I still may not want to taste my menstrual blood, Germaine, but I'm all for that economic freedom you talk about. Happy International Women's Day everyone, though it will be a happier day indeed when we no longer need one.

"Who in the flaming fuck is Aaron Ekhart? Is he the guy with the really big dick on that HBO show Hung? No? Are you sure? He sure looks like that guy. Well if he ain’t that guy, how in the hell did he get billed over Jennifer Aniston in the latest romantic comedy? I mean Aniston’s the most famous woman in the whole god damned world."

Bob Calhoun, What would Joan Crawford do? in Open Salon

Girls in frame

A village in rural Bangladesh: Girls are given the chance

to participate in their empowerment in EKATA groups

JJJ 'Cock fest' Causing A Stir

Well well well, what a stir the Triple J Hottest 100 Countdown is causing. From articles in the mainstream press: The Age, through to more niche mags: lip magazine, popular bloggers: Mia Freedman, and Triple J itself, people are all a buzz with basically half the population missing from the list.

Considering my vote included Janis Joplin, PJ Harvey, Nina Simone and the Pixies, I can at least say I did my bit for the gals. Not that it mattered much.

What I'd love to see is an analysis of the voter's demographics. With over 500,000 votes, this represents a pretty good sample of people from which at least some interesting threads could be found. For instance, I'd like to know the ratio of male to female voters, and the age spread. I'd like to know how many of the 13,000 songs Triple J had listed to choose from involved women, and the ratio of airtime given to male versus female artists. And that's just for starters.

What I would do with all this information is explore how we can use what we know to bring women out of the shadows and back up the top of 'serious' musicians when they deserve to be there.

It really interests me that a poll run by the primary youth/alternative radio station of Australia, which you think would have a more 'feminist leaning' audience (based on stereotypes of course) than most, can have such distressing results.

And by distressing, I mean distressing in the most dramatic of ways; because ladies, we've got a long way to go in this world if the report I'm writing on women's empowerment (albeit in Bangladesh) is anything to go by.

In the mean time I'll be spending my evening putting together a new 'ladies only' playlist on my iPod. Artists to be included:

PJ Harvey, Patti Smith, Tori Amos, The Breeders, Amy Whinehouse, Throwing Muses, Lilly Allen, The Cocteau Twins, Soko, Kate Nash, Ida Maria, Adele, Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, Clare Bowditch & Feeding Set, Martha Wainright, Angus & Julia Stone, Emiliana Torrini, Bridezilla, The Grates, Camera Obscura, Little Birdy, Chairlift, The Dresden Dolls, Neko Case........

Off the beaten path

I’m the first to admit I’ve been in a bit of a professional writing rut this week. I’m supposed to be writing a comprehensive coverage on the women’s empowerment activities of my program. This excites me, or at least it should, for a few reasons.
1 – I’m mildly obsessed about women’s empowerment at the moment
2 – I’ve done all the field work and met a stack of women who have provided me with more content I could possibly use
3 – it’s going to get used organisation wide, and potentially even internationally if it’s up to scratch

Which is where I’ve come undone I think. I really want to do a good job on this, and know all the pieces are there in front of me, but it’s scaring me just a teensy bit.

Then I came across this great art exhibition on Violence Against Women




via jezebel
and have since spent all day doing what I should have been doing all week, which is to say, writing. Vowing to spend the rest of the week being disciplined.

Wish me luck!

Sex Trafficking In Asia - Louise Brown

"There is a horrible kind of circular logic in the attitudes to women in those societies that are the most repressive. Women have to be guarded from predatory males, or they have to be secluded so that the power of their sexuality does not tempt man. In Bangladesh this is sometimes cited as a justification for child marriage. It is portrayed as a kind of preventative measure against child abuse on the grounds that a young unmarried girl, by the simple fact of her existence, is a sufficient reason to incite a man to rape. Women are best kept in their place by fear. If they try to step out of their traditional roles they are considered fair game. Yet at the same time, while they remain in their traditional spheres, the system that oppresses them continues to be validated and confirmed."

p.39 Sex Trafficking in Asia – Louise Brown
...

"Prostitution should be condemned because it encapsulates the very worst of human failings: the exploitation of the weakest; the power of money; the superficiality of appearance; mens abuse of power; and the categorisation of women according to their sexual utility and their relationship to men".

p.247 Sex Trafficking in Asia – Louise Brown

I'm not going to comment much other than to say reading this book while living in Bangladesh, working in the area of women's empowerment, was incredibly confronting.

“Girls Are on the Davos Agenda…”

Feminism is a word that conjures up images of women with droopy boobs and hairy underarms waving placards written in their own menstrual blood. At least it does for me, and I’m female.

Am I a feminist? Can I be one and still wear my bra? Considering I spent $60 on it, I’m really not that keen on the idea of turning it into a torch. I want to shave my underarms and my legs, too. And while I’m being really, really honest, I also like it when men offer to carry my heavy bags for me. Maybe I’m not a feminist.

What I am, though, is overwhelmed at walking into villages and finding posters like this:

It makes me furious and I picture myself storming out into the center of town where I order each and every man there to stand in a corner and Take A Good Long Hard Look At Yourself! This would prompt waves of shame as men looked deep inside to discover that, oh, women are people too, and apologies would be broadcast alongside each call to prayer until it no longer became necessary for women to draw pictures to teach each other that It Is Not Ok For Him To Beat You Senseless!

Petty debates over the meanings and labels of being a feminist aside, I am desperately grateful for all those who have gone before me and paved the way for me to be the kind of woman I want to be: bra, brains and all.

Today I read this, which made me feel slightly better, but it’s such a long, long road…

Girls Are on the Davos Agenda... Before It's Even Started

My Humps

As someone who finds the experience of watching most MTV music videos akin to being forced to lick my filthy bangladesh feet clean I found great pleasure in watching this youtube gem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W91sqAs-_-g

(Credits: Nat)

losing my curves

Over the past ten years (or more) I would have been able to tell you, at any point, what my weight was in kilograms. I would have probably lied in about half of these ten years, shaving a kilo off here or there for those who dared to ask. I would also have been able to tell you my underwear size for Bonds, jeans size for Levis, dress size for Cue, and much in between.

Having crossed the border from Australia’s very western ‘leave little to the imagination’ style sense to a culture of covering up for women, I have learnt a few things. Most are obscenely obvious and I probably would have been able to list them before experiencing them. The difference though, and it’s an important one, is that I actually know what it’s like to feel these differences.

The clothes I wear every day directly influence the relationship I have with my body
No shit, Sherlock, to steal a phrase. The most important part of this statement is that I didn’t realize before quite how much I thought about my body and all its lumps and bumps. I’m not talking exclusively in the ‘I wish they were bigger, smaller firmer, higher’ kind of way (though this is part of it), but in a much simpler way. It just rarely comes up.

If I track back to only a month ago, one of the first thought processes I went through each day was to think about how I was feeling inside my skin, which would then determine what clothes I wore. There were two significant factors in the end decision: what I had clean (washing not being my forte), and just how close/loose/long/short/breathable I wanted my clothes to be given how fat/slim/fit/droopy I felt that day. Now that I wear the equivalent of loose pyjamas everyday, those thought processes are a thing of the past. Which leads me to my next epiphany.

What would I be like if I hadn’t spent so much time thinking about my hips?
I am really intrigued to know how different I would be if I had not spent so much mental powers thinking about my waistline. I am not implying I would be a better person with a career in social conscience well carved out, a firm Life Plan drafted, and an infallible pension plan allowing me to retire in my forties if I so choose. After all it’s entirely possible I would have substituted the thought power used thinking about my body on developing obsessions with Colin Firth, or a useless mental database of The Cure’s back catalogue etc. I’m just truly curious to know if I would be different.

Not being able to see the shape of other women’s bodies increases my curiosity to know what they look like under there
Which helps me to understand, at least a little bit, the whole ‘nine parts of desire’ idea, in a very shallow, western culture kind of way. I know I am heading into dangerous territory here, so I will try to explain what I am experiencing.

Since arriving in Bangladesh, I am finding myself wondering what women on the street look like with their clothes off. Before anyone gets excited, this is not in a sexual way, but in the way that I have no idea at all what the average Bangladeshi woman looks like naked. And it isn’t as simple as ‘the same as you with no clothes on’, because they have had very different life experiences than me. For example, I have been regularly exercising, albeit with varying degrees of intensity, in some form or another as far back as I can remember. This includes swimming, bicycle riding, playing team sports, roller blading, gym work, aerobics, bush walking, the odd hike, jogging etc.

This is very, very different for Bangladeshi girls who, on the whole, can’t swim, have never been on a bike, never walk very far or for very long, have never been inside a gym, and cannot even comprehend the idea of setting out solo with a pack on your back to hike through an alley way let alone Mt Everest. From what limited limbs I have seen, the big difference is muscle tissue. There appears to be a distinct lack of it. Which means, I am sure, that women do look different to me with their clothes off. Even ones that weigh the same as me and wear the same sized clothes.

At home this curiosity isn’t there because I know if I’m around a woman long enough, I’ll get a pretty good idea of what most bits of her body look like. But here, I’ll probably never get the chance to see. It also adds an air of mystery to a woman’s body I’m sure the opposite sex are very much aware of.

I love this new found freedom
As silly as it is, there is a definite part of me which ties my self esteem to my body. How could it not? We all contribute to building a society where size, shape, style and sexiness all matter immensely. So I would just like to acknowledge that being given the freedom to think about other things than whether my bum looks big in this is great. I wish every western girl could experience it too.