Don't buy into commercialisation this Mother's Day . . .

by: Veronica Sullivan & Danielle Binks 

Look around at the advertising for Mother’s day. This celebration honouring mothers has, for some big businesses, become just another money-making scheme: a distortion and commercialization of motherhood.

Some of the advertising is frustratingly clichéd; working on a 1950s assumption that mother’s are content to be given pyjamas, cookbooks and chocolates (all presents that conveniently keep them in the home):

Sometimes the advertising is utterly superficial and empty-hearted, suggesting that a mother’s worth is in the ring on her finger or diamonds in her ears:

And then there’s the down-right sleazy;

Spinifex urges you to avoid the widespread materialistelements of Mother’s Day, and opt for a shared experience with mum, and maybe the rest of the family too.

Here are some sustainable, ethical options which are inexpensive and focus on sharing time together, rather than money. Go out for a meal and a chat together, or try some outdoor activities and excursions.

Getting out and about

Go for a bushwalk: There are some stunning bushwalking options located close to the city. Try the George Bass Coast, the Dandenongs or Mt Evelyn.

Compete in the Mother’s Day Classic together: Events are being held in all capital cities and many regional locations across Australia this mother’s day. The event raises money and awareness for Breast Cancer Research. The Melbourne event involves a 4km or 8km walk or run so you can pick and choose according to your ability level.

Or a less strenuous walk: Along Merri Creek, around Port Philip Bay, or the Tan track at the Botanical Gardens. Being together and away from artificial distractions is a calming and rewarding treat for anyone and allows for catch up time.

Or how about a boat trip:  A trip along the Yarra gives you a whole new perspective on the city. See it differently and remember it forever.

Visit your local produce market – South Melbourne, Queen Vic, or Prahran: Visit your local market first thing Sunday morning and pick up some fresh fruit. Take it home and juice up a fresh breakfast drink for mum.

Camberwell Market – Camberwell: Visit the Camberwell market from 6am-12pm with your mum. Give her a “voucher” for a suitable amount and tell her she can take her pick from the endless stalls of recycled and preloved clothes, books, arts, ANYTHING.

Rose Street Artists Markets – Fitzroy: A range of lovingly handmade crafts, clothes, jewellery, collectable and vintage items. Open Sat and Sun 11am-5pm, so you can buy a gift beforehand or visit together.

Abbotsford Convent – Abbotsford: Entry to the historic buildings and grounds of the Abbotsford Convent is free. Visit the artist studios, enjoy the gardens and have lunch at one of several cafes within the convent walls. Sunday tours of the convent are available from 2pm. And you can gift 'The Abbotsford Mysteries' as a companion poetry book.

Garden together – Get your hands dirty in your own backyard (weather permitting). May is the month to plant beans, mushrooms, onions, spinach and various herbs.

Japanese Bath House – Collingwood: Single sex communal baths at 41 degrees, followed by shiatsu massage. This traditional onsen is the perfect way to relax together.

Eating and drinking

The Pantry – South Melbourne Commons: Wholesale, locally farmed and grown produce.

Ripe Restaurant – Sassafras: Enjoy the gorgeous drive up to the Dandenong mountains and then an honest, hearty lunch at one of the most underrated restaurants in Melbourne.

Sunny Ridge Strawberry Farm – Main Ridge, Mornington Peninsula: Unfortunately the self-pick season, always popular with kids, is closed for winter. But SunnyRidge still have a wide variety of homemade strawberry products for sale, including jams, syrups, ice creams and sorbets, and strawberry wines and champagnes.

Heide Museum of Modern Art – Bulleen: Galleries, the kitchen garden, the outdoor sculpture garden and Café Vue (which cooks with fresh produce from the gardens). A classic special occasion destination.

Lentil As Anything – Abbotsford, Footscray, St Kilda: Still the original and best option for vegetarian food, with vegan and gluten free options available. Payment for meals is done by donation, so you decide the price you feel is fair for your meal. Money raised is put straight back into the local community.

Soul Mama – St Kilda: Slightly fancier and pricier vego fare in generous portions, with anextensive wine list.

Ripe Organic Grocer – Albert Park: Organic and wholefoods fresh. Eat them in the café or take home for later. Including juices squeezed fresh while you wait.

Alternative Gifts

Contrary to popular advertising, mothers do not need chocolates, or another flannel pyjama set. Here are some suggestions for special or slightly unusual gifts which think outside the box a little bit:

1000 Pound Bend – CBD: Support local artists at this small exhibition space in the heart of the city, where you can buy an eclectic range of artworks.

Organic coffee: A range of blends, all organic and fair-trade, available to purchase online.

Oxfam Unwrappedoptions: OxFam have a huge range of donation options, which specify where your money is going so you can feel connected to the charity process. Giftsinclude Support and Essential for Midwives in Laos ($35), Pre-Natal Classes for Cambodian Mothers ($55), and Security and Education for South African Children Orphaned by HIV ($97).

The Guide to Ethical Supermarket Shopping 2012 ($7.00)

Notebook ($9.00) – made locally in Melbourne out of salvaged folders and letterhead

Books

Books are the best presents, but don’t insult your mum’s intelligence with chicklit or a cooking book. Here are some intelligent, literary, questing book suggestions:

Spinifex titles

• Bite Your Tongue by Francesca Rendle-Short




• The Unfinished Revolution: Voices from the Global Fight for Women’s Rights ed. by Minky Worden




• My Sister Chaos by Lara Fergus




• Fish-Hair Woman by Merlinda Bobis




• Remember the Tarantella by Finola Moorhead

* Letter to the Editor

Anne Summers posed the question of whether you can be a political conservative and a feminist. Her answer was yes. I disagree. At its heart, feminism is about acknowledging the systemic oppression of women coupled with a desire to do something about it. It is about recognition of the need for a collective social movement to bring about societal change.

This definition of feminism also influences how one views the contentious issue of abortion. For Summers, abortion is just about individual choice. An alternative feminist approach is to question the role of abortion in alleviating the inconvenient consequences for men of sex. At a time when we are so prepared to acknowledge the massive emotional and spiritual ramifications of children given up for adoption, children born through donated sperm or egg (with many of those children desperate to find out about their biological origins), the forced surrender of babies born to young unwed mothers, and the loss of a baby through miscarriage and stillbirth, why is it that abortion must be reduced to the realm of a simple medical procedure without consequences?

To deny the impact that abortion has on many women is to give men a free pass in terms of their sexual responsibility. After all, if men can undo pregnancy by putting the onus on a woman to have a medical procedure to solve the inconvenience of a baby, where is the justice in that?

Anne Summers equates women’s ability to be independent with the right to control fertility. She says that “women might choose periods of dependence on a husband or someone else while they raise children...but the key is that this is a voluntary state.” How appalling that motherhood can be diminished in this way as a regressive time from which one quickly recovers and bounces back to independence (which sounds suspiciously akin to being more like a man). What feminism must and should advocate for is that women in all our states of being— old or young; married or not; with children or not; gay or straight; sick or well—are equally worthy to any man. Feminism must speak to those in poverty as well as to those who “can choose periods of dependence”, and this means challenging the operative social norms that privilege the individual, and personal financial success, at the expense of community well-being.

Women, especially those who may be reliant on social welfare such as single mothers, should not be demeaned for relying on others for financial support. Indeed, in a just society, that is what we do, just as we should do for the unemployed, for refugees, for those with disabilities, and for those who are aged or infirm. To deny the role of a society in looking after its own citizens and to put financial independence as the pinnacle of achievement is to deny the collective nature of feminism and the characteristics of the social structures that hinder or support women’s choices.

Women’s empowerment must happen but that cannot take place in an environment where our bodies are demeaned and become our enemies. Medical procedures have consequences, including emotional ones and this truth cannot be denied. Let women choose abortion, but to present it to them as a bland option about “freedom of choice” is to reinforce a lie. Put abortion where it belongs—in a social context, and as a consequence of sexuality that involves both women and men. It is frankly not good enough to absolve society of its obligations or to deflect attention from the social structures that impel many women to seek an abortion. If workplaces-and attitudes to women, motherhood and community were different-so might be the choices that women make.

Pauline Hopkins

* This piece was originally a letter to the editor, in response to the Anne Summers article 'There is no such thing as a pro-life feminist', which appeared in The Age on January 22, 2012.

the disturbing trends of YA cover girls

By: Stephanie Campisi

Wandering the young adult literature shelves these days is a Warholian experience: selecting a handful of books within the same subgenre and placing them side by side can yield results not unlike Andy's multi-coloured Campbell's Soup print.

At first glance, the plethora of similar covers speaks merely of a combination of slashed design budgets and a “me-too” mindset. But further analysis shows that these covers are not simply perpetuating the overuse of iStock photo images, but also a number of highly problematic messages.

The first of these is the headless heroine, which though perfectly suitable for a retelling of Sleepy Hollow is less so for other types of fiction. This approach to cover design involves photographic covers depicting women whose heads have been either partially or wholly cropped. Ostensibly this is to allow the reader to “imagine” the character, but in reality the result is objectification and dehumanisation—and often with lashings of frothy bubblegum pink

Fortunately, these types of designs have been subject to a high degree of scrutiny and criticism, and is slowly waning as the stylistic choice du jour. But that's not to say that the subsequent trends are any more positive.

Currently rife throughout the paranormal subgenre is the “sicky lass in pretty gown” cover trend. These covers--and owing to the overall popularity of this genre there are a disturbing number of them--typically comprise a pale-skinned girl dressed in a formal gown and being positioned in such a way that she seems utterly without agency. It's not unusual for these covers to depict girls swooning, lying helplessly on the ground, or leaping—one presumes—to oblivion. Indeed, Rachel Stark (assistant marketing manager of Bloomsbury and Walker Books for young readers) describes these covers as as representative of our “obsession with an elegant death”.

Such covers go beyond the issues raised by the headless heroine trend in that not only do they objectify the subject, but they seem to be normalising violence, and particularly romantic violence—which in this genre is all too often depicted as an “all-consuming” relationship to the detriment of (most usually) the heroine.

However, while some elements are overrepresented in young adult cover design, others are underrepresented, one of which being the use of people of colour in cover design. Admittedly, there are proportionally too few POC in young adult fiction generally, but even taking this into account the representation of such characters on book covers has been one that has invited much discussion and debate. Anecdotally, it seems that covers featuring POC main characters are less likely to receive a photographic cover. In addition, cases of “white washing” aren't unheard of: Justine Larbalestier's Liar Liar, which was originally released (in the US) with a white cover model despite having a POC main character is one case that received a good deal of attention.

But not all publishers are getting it wrong. In the past year there have been a number of evocative covers that don't rely on any of the above in their appeal to their audience. Take, for example, the stunning The Sky is Everywhere, which is elegant and evocative, Cath Crowley's eye-catching Graffiti Moon (which won an APA book design award) or Lia Weston's The Fortunes of Ruby White, or the two examples below of Laurie Halse Anderson's Chains. These, of course, are just a few of the many excellent designs out there—and with luck publishers will consider the issues raised by their cover designs and ensure that covers like these prevail.

Stephanie is a reviewer for 'Read in a Single Sitting'

By: Spinifex intern, Jacalyn

Just another step closer to the ‘perfect’ vagina as the product 18 Again was launched recently, targeting the Indian community. A vaginal tightening cream, 18 Again allows you to feel like a virgin again and act as a tool for female ‘empowerment’. A tight vagina is just another to add to the list of items made to lower a woman’s self-esteem in the name of patriarchal purity.

This is not the first vaginal product to attempt to rejuvenate and beautify our lady parts, especially for Indian women. Lightening creams were sold in India with an advertisement suggesting all marital problems would no longer exist if only you had a lighter vagina. The strapline for the lightening cream says it all; “Life for women will now be fresher, cleaner and more importantly fairer and more intimate”.

Companies have an uncanny talent for preying on women by telling us what is beautiful. For Indian women they must be fair skinned (the lighter the better!) in an attempt to look like Western Caucasian. How ironic that us Australian women are being told bronzed, sun kissed skin is beautiful with numerous tanning creams and sprays. It seems the way to beautiful nowadays is paved by changing our vaginas as much as possible; pubic hair dyes, creams to restore the pinkness and even bedazzle jewels (termed as vajazzling) applied after a wax.

Companies like Dove who are apparently spokespersons for real beauty; including women of all sizes and ethnicity in their campaign, are just as guilty as the numerous other companies that make sure every woman knows natural is not beautiful. Moneymakers such as these achieve in keeping the patriarchal preference of the perceived ‘perfect woman’ alive. A beautiful, dolled up, sexualised virgin. All women should be plucked, tucked, tanned or lightened with ‘natural make-up’, anti-aging creams, moisturisers, wax, razors and skinny legs that should go on forever. With all this pruning or ‘empowering’ how can we find the time to vacuum in our pretty dresses and stilettos and make sandwiches for our men?

I must agree with writer Ruby Hamad who claims ‘18 Again is another manifestation of empowerment-as-sex-object.’ Having a vagina that is light, tight and bedazzled enough to resemble a disco ball will by no means ‘empower’ women. All these products, despite their miraculous claims, will achieve is cashing in on women’s insecurities and ensure we are never quite comfortable in our own skin.

By: Danielle Binks

The world’s richest woman appeared in a YouTube video, asking Australians to take heed of African work ethic: “Africans want to work and its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day.” No, she wasn’t joking. Gina Rinehart said it all with a straight face and authoritative voice for the Sydney Mining Club. And just a few weeks prior, the mining-magnate heiress was telling a British newspaper; "there is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire," and suggested that those of us jealous of her wealth should “spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working." All of this, despite the fact that Gina Rinehart inherited her wealth from her mining tycoon father, and in her entire life has had to do little more than suck greedily on the silver spoon of Hancock Prospecting.

Between those gluttonously idiotic comments, Ms Rinehart’s family warfare, her opposing the mining tax for obvious personal-gain and attempts to monopolise Fairfax, there is plenty to lambast her over. She spews enough transparently stupid rubbish to keep her critics in coffers for eternity.

Why then, does much of the criticism against Rinehart often degenerate into yellow-bellied schoolyard bullying about her appearance?

Martin Luther King believed people should “not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Can’t we use that same logic in condemnation of Gina Rinehart? I honestly don’t care about her appearance when her politics and YouTube diatribes offer more than enough ammunition against her. It’s taking a cheap shot to criticise her weight and face when what she’s saying offers up a veritable feast of ridicule and derision all by itself. 

And, while we’re on the topic, can this logic also be applied to criticism of Prime Minister Julia Gillard? No, she’s not perfect and some of her policies deserve question and criticism. But I have more respect for the cartoonist (*cough Larry Pickering *cough*) and commentator who criticises the PM based on the content of her policy than the colour of her hair…

                            

… or the size of her arse (*cough* Germaine Greer *cough*)