It is 36 hours since the Australian Labor Party elected a woman to be its parliamentary leader and therefore prime minister of this country.
I am thrilled beyond belief because I have heard Julia speak and read her policies and she makes sense. Well on most things. I have been voting for over half my life now and it has only been recently I have realised that I am never going to find a politician or party whose ideals and policies I agree with 100%. I have to decide which are the things I can live with or live without. And then the things I can’t live with, what are the options. I am not at all keen on the Internet Filter or on the ALP stance on Asylum Seekers, however if it means this and I need to lobby my local ALP members then this is preferable than a return to the WorkChoices regime we had under the Liberal Party.
But I am not here to talk politics. I want to talk about gender. Yes, as a woman I was proud that at long last Australia has its first female Prime Minister. I loved that she was sworn in by our first female Governor General, representing our female monarch. But there is so much more than gender that I was proud about. I was of a generation where it was common for us galz to stand up at school and declare we were going to be Australia’s first female PM. It was like we were recognising that this was the last bastion of male domination over us. Yes, we had a female monarch, but perhaps we realised that we needed more.
Yesterday was a rite of passage for our country. Something that was bound to happen and once it has is celebrated and then just is. A turning point, yes, but more something we needed to get to before we could move on. Perhaps a bit like hitting puberty- your first menstruation or wet dream. You remember it, but they still keep happening and become normative. Yesterday was a great day for teh wimminz. I have no doubt Julia will be a great leader. Not because she is a woman, but because she is passionate about this country. Because she has vision and is a team player.
My jubilation at having a female PM is more than an ‘at last.’ I am proud my daughter was in Canberra and at Parliament House yesterday. She no longer has the pressure to strive to be our first female PM. She can do whatever she wants. Except perhaps be a Catholic Priest. But that’s another story. This chapter in Australia’s history goes to show our kids that they can do anything. Hard work and dedication is rewarded.
Again to the women of generations past, thank-you for fighting. For showing us what was needed. There may still be glass ceilings and we need to never lose sight of this, but we live in a time now where we are less discriminated against because of gender. So we acknowledge the past and celebrate the future. Because the future looks good.
Love and marriage, love and marriage
Go together like a horse and carriage
This I tell you brother
You cant have one without the other.
Well perhaps half wrong. See I do believe you can have love without marriage.
It’s something I have been reflecting on a lot lately. Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-marriage… some of my best friends are married!
Now I have reflected on love before, and I am not going back there today, however marriage is a different story.
I was married for a very long time. Officially from 1992 until 2007, with the divorce coming through last January. The reality was though it was a marriage with a warped view of love.
Marriage was something that was expected. And I had romantic ideas. And religious ones too. But times change and people change too.
I have been to a number of beautiful weddings. The bride and groom have looked gorgeous. The flowers have been stunning. Beautiful music with an awesome party afterwards. Guests dressed up. Champagne corks popped and presents given.
But a wedding does not make a marriage. Japs keeps telling me I have to get married because he wants to ride in a limo! I have told him that he can ride in a limo without me getting married, but he has the association of groovy cars and weddings.
A relationship is a commitment and not one that you make on one day wearing a gorgeous dress with flowers and a party and friends and family surrounding you. It is a commitment you make to each other every day of your life.
The concept of marriage is both legal and religious. I don’t have any religious reasons to believe in marriage and I would like to think I can look after myself. I am getting back on my feet financially.
I adore having a gorgeous man in my life and we are an awesome team. We have commitment and friendship and we care deeply for each other. There is space in our togetherness. And it is great.
Today is Ada Lovelace Day. A day designed to draw attention to women in technology.
I spent ages trying to work out how I wanted to contribute to the day, because I do, but at the same time wonder how much of a binary we create when singling out days. Yes, it is important to acknowledge women in a predominantly male world (I work in one of those now too after all, but I don’t want a female union official day!) and until we see it as being normal and to be expected I suppose a day like this really is called for!
Through online communities like twitter, plurk, facebook etc I have met many women in technology- coders, bloggers, podcasters (actually there are probably more male podcasters now I come to think of it!) and general techy types. And I got to thinking about all the very capable females I know who I have met through my online networks. And I got to thinking about my online networks and how I got to be involved. And I thought of the wonderful Jo McLeay. It was this blogpost that introduced me to twitter and the community of friends I have found here is amazing.
Which got me thinking! The reason I was reading Jo’s blog was because of her wonderful use of technology in the classroom. The writing she gets out of her students through blog posts is amazing. The higher order thinking that comes through astounds me at times and makes me wish she was my teacher! Well at least my kids’ teacher!
Which in turn got me thinking! To a very dear friend of mine. Mrs Mc! She communicats so well with parents, friends and colleagues through her wonderful class blog. This wonderful use of technology brings what is happening in her classroom to a much wider audience and gives her students a voice.
I have met many other educators through twitter who are promoting learning through technology. People like Lauren, the Interactive Whiteboard Queen! Lauren spends her days teaching teachers about how to integrate the IWB in their classrooms. And is passionate about it too!
I don’t know if any of these three women would see themselves as women excelling in technology, but I do. They are out there just doing and making sure our kids are able to do. Their positive example gives our kids wonderful role models. In previous research I looked at the way kids view scientists- you know, white lab coats, scruffy hair etc! Then we explored what doing science actually is and the types of people that do science every day. These women are just doing technology every day. They may not be ‘roaring’ but I am as I chear them on!
A few weeks ago, whilst running late to get the kids to the bus to school, I had a car in front of me trying to turn right across a busy 3 lane road. Now I do this every morning and am used to it. I know how to judge the traffic and can usually wait. The driver in front of me was not used to it. After the third time when she could have turned and didn’t I lost it in the car and let off a stream of words that had the kids in hysterics.
Ever since then Japs has been exclaiming ‘You fucked up duck’ for my fuck a duck and Immy has been heard to use fucktard on occasion. We have spoken about appropriate uses of words and how there are some words that it is best not to use away from home or the car and not in certain company.
At work recently someone was trying to place levels on swear words- shit being acceptable most of the time, fuck sometimes, but ‘the C word’ was off limits totally.
This got me thinking. Was cunt off limits because of feminie connotations? I have heard women call each other all sorts of terms such as ’slag’ as terms of endearment. Cunt is offlimits, but then again dick-head isn’t? Is there some sort of inequality here?
Then tonight over dinner Immy was telling me the nicknames she and two friends had for each other. One was bitchface, another slut and she was whore. These are ten year old girls we are talking about! I asked what the meaning was of these words. A bitch is not only a female dog, but also a bad thing to call a female. She knew that slut and whore meant the same thing and gave the definition ‘Someone who is not meant to be in the world and is stuck up and self centred.’ When I told her that usually they were words used to refer to people who had sex with lots of other people, Mr 7 (who I did not know was listening in!) said ‘Like James Bond and stuff.’
Whoa! Hold on a minute! Now I had been careful not to place a gender on those words (even though she had told me they referred to women) but Japs response floored me a bit. Not wanting to continue the conversation with the kids, I left it at that. But it has me thinking. We have all heard the discourse that men are referred to as studs and that is good and women are whores and sluts and that is bad. But who decides that these are bad words?
The call for phonetic spelling is out there again. And people are outraged (or is that peepol r owtragd?) because it is a break with tradition and long live the tradition!
My call is that words are words and words have meanings but those meeanings are varied and depend on the user, the intention and the many truths that are inherent in any discourse (hi Foucault!). Perhaps these ten year old girls are right calling each other bitchface, whore and slut? Perhaps when seven year old boys grow up they won’t see any negative connotations with words describing females?
Oh and as for the dickhead fucktard in the car in front of mine who was told to fuck a duck, we did meet the bus in time, but why did you go when you did? Even I wouldn’t have taken that narrow a risk (and you had missed 3 prior opportunities!) Or did you really hear my ranting from behind?
To paraphrase old Bill: That which we call a Corker by any other name would smell as sweet.
When I married I changed my surname. It wasn’t something I really thought about, I just did it! It gave a sense of connection- a family unit as we shared a family name. In the course of moving around I met people who married and hyphenated their names- husband and wife. I also met people who did not change their name when they married. When a close friend of mine saw her parents divorce, her sister hyphenated her surname with the surnames of her parents. She has kept this name after marriage.
Now after separation I have chosen to revert to my maiden name- or my Dad’s name. It is the name I grew up with. Changing ones name is a challenge. I have needed my birth certificate, and sometimes marriage certificate and have changed it at around 20 places. At one place, a lady told me she married last year and had to change her name at 72 different places. 72! Great! I suppose when one considers all those loyalty cards one collects then yes, it does add up.
Some places are easier than others. Medicare and Centrelink took a photocopy of my birth certificate and it changed straight away, with new cards issued within the week. Work was one of the first places I changed it at and they just changed it without any questions. Then I got a letter from my superanuation company asking for a Decrees Nisi or Certificate of Divorce. I just ignored this and thought I would deal with superannuation later. Then I went to the Queensland Transport. Sigh! They will not change my name until I am divorced. DFAT (The passport office!) was kinda easier- well if I don’t mind paying another $240! Yes, I can either apply for a new passport and forfeit all that is left (over 5 years!) or wait for a divorce to come through and if I apply to change it within twelve months, with new photos, it will be done gratis.
So I am waiting for a divorce to come through. This will give me yet another certificate and will ensure that my name can be changed officially in more places.
But what is in a name? One of the constant things I am told now that I have reverted to my maiden name is that I now have a different surname to my kids. My usual response is that when I married I spent 15 years with a surname different to my mother and we coped! The kids’ school has been great on the whole. My kids are not the only kids in the school who have different surnames to their parents. Even the teacher aide from when the kids were in Prep has stopped calling me Mrs Corker after 5 years of me telling her my name is Fiona!
My inner feminist tells me that a woman should not be forced to change her name upon marriage. Saying that a woman takes the name of her father before taking the name of her husband is just pure wrong! Women are not property to be passed from father to husband and I doubt many people would see this.
A sense of family unity though is created by a common family name. Therein lies the connundrum. You can choose to be linked to the past through the family name you received at birth or the future through the family name your children are given at birth. Perhaps that is the choice to make? At least as women of 21st Century Australia we have that choice and we should be grateful.
What I am experiencing is actually a legal issue- the right to choose my name. If I am still married to someone then I don’t have that right (unless I go through a formal name change process) in certain instances. This is the inequality that something needs to be done about. If I can go into Medicare and change my name without the need for a divorce, then I should be able to get a drivers licence and my own superanuation funds changed too.
I preferred to be called Fiona. It is the name my parents chose for me at my birth. It means more to me than a family name and it is the name that most people call me by. Seldom am I called Ms Henderson or Mrs Corker. My GP calls me Princess Fiona and I have been known to don ogre ears… I am known as Fi, Fifi, Fifikins, Fozzy and Mum or Mummy. What is important is that I know who I am and who I am not. I’m me whether you like it or not!
Today is the 99th International Women’s Day, or for some Womyn’s Day. So what have the last 99 years brought us? Yes women can vote in a lot of places now and more women are in the paid workforce than ever before, with employment rates amongst the 20-29 year old age group virtually equal for males and females (according to Triple J’s Hacklast night.)Economically women are not equal to men, especially with regards to superannuation. There are still career paths that are traditionally male and female. I would love to see more male teachers, however the remuneration offered to teachers is not enticing. An experienced classroom teacher (10 years experience) will usually not earn more than around $70k/annum and that assumes they are taking on extra responsibility. Consider engineers where remuneration starts at the $100k/annum mark and increases considerably it is pretty much a no brainer, why would you become a teacher? But that is for another rant!
I have minimal superannuation. I spent 10 years as the unpaid slave Vicar’s Wife, yet did most of the administration, typing, publications etc. But then again rants against religious organisations are also for another day! I will need to do an extreme amount of salary sacrifice and get a high paid job in order to be able to retire comfortably and afford Bombay Sapphire over Vickers Gin. Perhaps I have weird worries about retirement…
But what is feminism? I grew up in a white middle class family where Mum stayed home and Dad worked. Mum did school runs and tuck-shop duty once a fortnight and Meals on Wheels every week and helped at church and ran her local Liberal Party branch and had dinner on the table every night at 6. She left school after her Leaving Certificate and went to Kindergarten Teacher’s College but didn’t like it so became a clerk at a stockbroking firm. She worked there until she was 6 months pregnant with me. She is also fortunate that she has never been in a financial position where she has had to work. Mum has always held very conservative views- politically, economically and socially. Whilst she was pleased I went to uni from school, and may have been a little dismayed at me marrying so young, she was please I ran away to join the circus church. One of my teenage memories is being dragged along to an ordination service at St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne where women were protesting at the doors for the right to be ordained. Mum was horrified at their actions and said their actions made her more against women’s ordination. She has since changed her views, and deep down I think believes in equality but also has trouble with the word feminist.
I suppose I class myself as a ‘born again feminist.’ I thought marrying young and having lots of kids and being the vicar’s wife and having a husband to support me would be way cool. Things don’t always turn out the way one plans! So what brand of feminism do I subscribe to? I support political, social and economic equality amongst the sexes. I don’t see this being achieved by women becoming like men so I do was my legs and various other parts of my anatomy. I wear skirts and fishnet stockings and shoes with small heels (I am too tall to wear stilettos I have decided, plus the pain!) I wear make up to work and wander past the fragrance counter each morning choosing a new scent. My hair is getting longer, even though it has been very short at various stages of my life! I don’t mind if a guy opens a door for me, but I don’t expect it, nor look for it. Now that I have reverted to my maiden name, even though this is proving very difficult to do in some areas until I get a decree nisi, I don’t think I will change it again, not that I am planning on marrying again, but I also wonder what is in a name. I would love to have taken my maternal grandfather’s name as it has now died out and he did so much for me, but it is just a name. I used to joke I had a corker surname…
I don’t want to be dependent on other people financially which means I work, but I also believe that women should be able to stay at home with their children should they choose and ways should be found to remunerate this work.
I am very pro choice when it comes to abortion, even though I don’t think I would be able to have one myself. Even though I had male obstetricians when I had the kids, this was because of perceived risks and I would have liked being able to have midwives and even contemplate a home birth. I am passionate about breastfeeding and educating and empowering all women to exclusively breastfeed for the first 6 months and continue breastfeeding until their child is 2 years old, as per the World Health Organisation guidelines. I don’t refer to menstruation as a ‘curse’ but don’t go around celebrating it either, no matter how revolting some periods can be!
I suppose that deep down I position myself as me. I value diversity, equality, social justice and human kindness. I think I am too left wing for my mother… I wonder how my kids will view feminism? I suppose all I can do is lead by example. In many ways this is what my mum did and even though we may have differing views, we have respect for one another. She is an amazing woman who has achieved so much- her career has been voluntary work, still doing Meals on Wheels, on the Australia Day council, working behind the scenes in politics, helping with the Geelong Footy Club, philanthropy beyond belief, a doting Nanny Fran to her two grandkids and a pretty cool mum.
Last night, for Immy’s birthday we went to see Circus Oz. It must be about the 5th Circus Oz performance I have seen live. My favourite part is the ‘Life is a Bikini Parade’ video which is at the top of this post. Rather fitting for Woemn’s Day don’t you think?
Fiona | 
06 25th, 2010| 
