Wonderful words from poet berni janssen for the launch of Cow...

Susan Hawthorne is an able herdswoman, a wordswoman.

She herds words, her words, other women's words

and they become poems, books, anthologies.

This book, this new book of poems, by Susan, is a real "Cow"

 - a beautiful cow, a cow that yields full-cream, full-bodied milk

 - a cow whose teats are tugged and language, philosophy, myth

froth forth

 - a wise old cow, who has seen the tragedy of loss, of injustice, of hate

- a ruminating cow, turning the cud of living, into fulsome observation and shapely insight

- a thoughtful cow, in whose calm brown eyes revolve the mysteries of universe

(the mysteries rest ...and then unravel)

- a melancholy cow, skimmed by memory,

- a playful cow, whose agile tongue juggles sounds, words, rhythms

tasting, testing, tantalising: slippages, juxtapositions, quick wit

and the low, the low, the low

of all night love

what a cow she is.

cow,  gau, coo, kwin queen...

Susan has a herd of cows,

beautiful kine,

kind kine

long-tongued loving kine

telling tales,

from myth to modernity

the ancient made contemporary,

speaking of:

ideas and love,

people and particularities

hope and injustice

women and their lives

this scholarly romp roams

lands, peoples, time and cultures, weaves

colloquial living, earth-heart, home-speak,

philosophical conundrums,

acrobatic feats, celestial feast,

many tongue, many mind, many hand

all multiple, diverse, a broad...

a real broad of a cow

these cows have histories

they go way back

not that they - the cows, their histories,

 have always been told:

some lost, some denied, some hidden,

some erased, suppressed, attacked

and these cows, kind kine, queens

now

have much to tell

in their own way,

each in their own way

never think that a herd of cows will adhere to one path

of form, or genre, or language

each cow, a queen, who will tell

in her own way, a story which

needs to be told

of earth, heart and hardship

of sensual delights, and longlove nights

an aerial cow, a star cow

what a Queen she is

pay your coins for a "Cow",

now!

This 'cow' is launched,

she will be over the moon!

A guest blog from Melinda Tankard Reist, first posted at ABC Unleashed.

Can someone please tell Brian McFadden that ‘taking advantage’ of a woman when she’s drunk is sexual assault and against the law? Because he seems to have missed the announcement.

The Irish singer-songwriter and ‘honorary’ Australian on account of his four-year engagement to songstress Delta Goodrem, McFadden today officially releases Just The Way You Are (Drunk at the Bar).The barn-dance meets rap recording is described here as the novelty song from hell and hard to beat as the worst song of the year (and it’s only February).

But apart from its all-round awfulness it’s these lyrics which, with International Women’s Day almost upon us, show us just how far we haven’t come.

I like you just the way you are, drunk and dancing at the bar, I can't wait to take you home so I can do some damage

I like you just the way you are, drunk and dancing at the bar, I can't wait to take you home so I can take advantage

Describing the song as 'infectious', Universal Music in a statement Friday said the dance track will 'rattle around in your head for hours'. Doing some damage, taking advantage of a woman under the influence of alcohol... is this the soundtrack we want going round and round in the heads of males?

Just one more message reinforcing the rape myths circulating in our culture: that inebriated girls are asking for it, and that you’re not really to blame. One more message encouraging boys to help themselves. I love you just the way you are, drunk, because it’s easier to get what I want that way.

A recent UK study found that 48 per cent of males aged 18-25 did not consider rape to have taken place if the woman was too drunk to know what was happening. There’s a kind of party atmosphere around these criminal assaults, with many men boasting about their conquests. An online genre known as ‘Passed Out P*ssy’ encourages men to share photos online of women and girls they have taken advantage of while drunk. ‘She’s drunk? Don’t call a taxi and make sure she gets home safely! Call your friends, have some fun and share the pictures!’ men are exhorted.

Love you just the way you are (drunk at the bar) helps legitimise this behaviour.

McFadden - also a judge on Australia’s Got Talent and a father of daughters - hasn’t taken well to the criticism. He swears on his heart that he wrote the song for Delta. That’s right, ‘Can’t wait to do some damage’ is the sort of poetry McFadden writes to demonstrate the depths of his love for his bride-in-waiting. Look into my eyes Delta, he croons, I stayed up all night writing this ode to love, just for you my darling. Wow, lucky girl Delta. Perhaps he even expects her to swoon?

The song was first played on 2Day FM’s Kyle & Jackie O show last week. Jackie O - who could also benefit from reading Consent for Dummies – gushed that it was her 'new favourite song'. 'I love it, I’m a big fan of this song... this song rocks.'

And Kyle Sandilands, not exactly legendary for his sensitive treatment of young women - recall the lie detector scandal involving a 14-year-old rape survivor - said, 'It's a fun sort of song.'

Discussing this with Nina Funnell who campaigns to end sexual assault and is a member of the Premier’s Council on Preventing Violence Against Women, she says McFadden's lyrics echo a broader culture which ostensibly opposes rape while simultaneously demonstrating no real understanding of what actually constitutes sexual assault.

'Unfortunately many people still believe the myth that most sexual assaults are committed down dark alleys by strangers in balaclavas. This myth is damaging as it conceals the reality that the overwhelming majority of sexual assaults are committed by people known to the victim - usually a family member, friend, someone they go to school or work with.

'

'It is important that we recognise that the sort of behaviour that some people are referring to as "taking advantage" may legally count as sexual assault. In NSW the consent laws now state that a person cannot give consent if they are intoxicated to the point that they lose the capacity to do so, such as if they are passed out.'

'To "take advantage" of someone in such a state would unquestionably constitute sexual assault. 

Having sex with a woman who does not have the capacity to consent is not called "taking advantage". It’s called rape. Calling it ‘taking advantage’ reclassifies an action from being a serious crime to a negative but essentially trivial behaviour with no legal dimension whatsoever.'

Alison Grundy a clinical psychologist in the field of sexual violence for 20 years, describes the lyrics as 'one more open demonstration of the contempt shown to women's human rights and the fundamental legislation that is place to protect them'.

'Now we have 30 years of research to show that the sexualised and violent messages of popular music, media and video games do shape and provoke male aggressive and sexualised violence. I wonder how long it will be before songs like this are seen as inciting crimes under the criminal code?

'

'Not soon enough for those of us who work with victims on the long road to recovery after experiencing the "do some damage and take advantage" behaviour lauded in this song.'

So there you have it. A fun sort of song about sexually exploiting women – doing damage to them – to top off a night out. Let the good times roll. Just not for the one in five women over 15 who are sexually assaulted in this country.

This year sees the significant milestone of 20 years of independent, feminist publishing with Spinifex Press’ 20 year anniversary.

From a ‘publishing experiment’ in 1991, to an internationally connected publisher of over 200 print and eBooks, Spinifex Press is celebrating 20 years in 2011. Founded by Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein in March 1991, Spinifex is Australia’s only feminist publisher. Susan and Renate recognised a gap in the market after the financial squeeze of 1990 which saw publishing cut back on risk: ‘Feminist publishing and literary publishing are both risky and the two areas we were interested in. We’d also seen an explosion of post modern publishing and feminist voices were being drowned out by that.’

Early success
Early success spurred them on: ‘In our first year we had four books: three were shortlisted for prizes; three were translated; two were reprinted. We had distribution set up in the USA within three months of publishing our first book.’

And Spinifex has been at the forefront of independent publishing ever since, maintaining a strong focus on export and co-productions with like-minded publishers internationally and as early adapters of technology. ‘We were the first Australian publisher to offer a web-based catalogue and the third to have our full catalogue available for purchase from our website. In 2006 Spinifex was the first small press in Australia to release eBooks through an eBookstore attached to our website.’

Spinifex has continued to innovate in this area, contributing to industry discussion and development and now has close to 100 eBooks available in four formats through the Spnifex eBookstore as well as eRetailers and libraries.

Other significant changes over the past two decades include the decimation of the international feminist publishing scene since the late 1990s (mostly due to the advent of superstores), and the severe backlash against feminisim. ‘Feminism was depoliticised with postmodernism, queer and bureaucratic/liberal/corporate/libertarian “feminisms” - a kind of anything goes, meaning nothing counts. We hope we’ve created an alternative to this kind of “nothing feminism” through publishing important writing about women’s health, violence against women, racism and cultural opportunism, ecology and economics, war and exile, sexualisation of girls, prostitution and pornography.’

‘Surviving is the biggest challenge’
In looking ahead, Susan and Renate look challenges in the eye, citing the digital shift as the biggest test of the coming years. Optimism is a constant at Spinifex: ‘Remaining fresh, interesting, keeping the quality of the work high and breaking new ground are all critical in keeping us going. Keeping our passions alive, keeping our connections with authors and all the other people in the book industry remains critical.’

First, we want to thank you for your stated commitment to ending men’s violence against women and children. We waited a long time for men to come on board and join us in this fight for real equality and justice, and you have pledged to do just that. We thank you for talking the talk. We write today to plead with you now to walk the walk in more obvious ways.

On New Year’s Day, 1 January 2011, media reports reminded us that the slaughter of women and children is continuing unabated.

In Canley Vale in Sydney’s west, a 32-year-old man was arrested and is under police guard at Liverpool hospital. When police arrived at the block of units, they found a 24-year-old woman with stab wounds to her stomach and shoulder on the stairwell. Her partner had barricaded himself in the unit with their 2-year-old daughter. The police broke in and arrested the man and found the 2-year-old unconscious. She later died of stab wounds at the Westmead Children’s Hospital.

Also on New Year’s Day, in what the media called a murder/suicide, a man in the Northern Territory shot his wife with a crossbow and then set the house on fire. The bodies of the victim and the perpetrator were later found in the burnt-out house.

We plead with you, White Ribbon Ambassadors, to do more to stop the slaughter of women and children. It’s one thing to wear a white ribbon, to stand up on White Ribbon Day and declare that you are men who abhor the violence of other men, but it’s quite another thing to take practical and determined steps to stop it. We know it’s a difficult task, but we’re depending on you, because we know that violent men are much more likely to listen to you than to us.

In 2008, the Federal Government under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd funded the White Ribbon Foundation to the tune of $1 million for four years to expand into rural and regional areas. In light of the continuing slaughter of women and children both in the city and the bush, we are seriously wondering how that money is being spent. If government funding doesn’t result in fewer murders and less violence by men against women and children, then surely the Australian White Ribbon movement must be called to account.

We, feminists with decades of experience in research and activism in the area, stand ready to work with you, and would welcome any request from you to work in partnership. With men’s violence against women and children escalating year-by-year, you will agree with us that the matter is extremely urgent.

Sincerely,

Coalition of Feminist Voices  

Spinifex has been attending the Frankfurt Book Fair annually since 1992. Each year our appointments with agents and publishers grow and over the years we have built up a significant contact list. Our stand is part of a joint one organised by the Australian Publishers Association, along with many other Australian independents. It’s a great opportunity to talk to friends and colleagues – from home and abroad.

The thing about Frankfurt – or any book fair for that matter – is that it’s a beginning place for discussions. Sometimes it is about closing a conversation that started a year or two beforehand; sometimes opening doors with new agents; sometimes continuing conversations that have gone on over many years, finding the next project that will work with international colleagues.

The work we began in 2009 continued this year. In 2009 discussions started with a new Polish agent, AFK Agency, about Betty McLellan’s Help! I’m Looking for a Man Boy. In 2010 this book has now been sold to a Polish publisher. It is the sixteenth language for this title, as well as a second edition. Other books are now on offer to Polish publishers. We also hope that a new arrangement with a Turkish-language agent, Anatolian Literary Agency will bring new books to our attention and the chance to have Spinifex books translated in Turkey.

It was at Frankfurt in 2007 where we first came across the work of Turkish human rights lawyer, Fethiye Çetin, whose book My Grandmother was published this year to coincide with the Melbourne Writers Festival. The conversation continues.

We have had a long association with Fernwood Publishing in Canada and this continues as they have bought rights to Maria Mies’ memoir, The Village and the World: My Life, Our Times. It is an extraordinary personal history of Maria’s life and her involvement in a host of political movements. She was a forerunner of the women’s movement and her experiences have much to teach about what it is that makes activism successful. Maria has been an inspiration to activists in the anti-globalisation, peace and food security movements, not to mention her incredibly important work in resisting reproductive technologies, free trade rip offs and critiques of colonisation and development. Catching up with Maria and translator Madeline Ferretti-Theilig in Cologne after the Frankfurt Book Fair was, as always, full of passionate conversation.

Translators play an important role in taking Spinifex titles into the world and in September Karin Meissenburg, the translator into German of Cathie Dunsford’s Cowrie novels, was a guest of the University of South Pacific in Fiji, along with Cathie and Susan Hawthorne at a conference on creativity and climate change. Artists, academics and activists from a dozen or so countries attended this stimulating event.

One book that piqued a lot of interest this year is My Sister Chaos, debut fiction from Lara Fergus and it is currently with several publishers. Even poetry generated interest this year, with Susan Hawthorne’s Earth’s Breath being considered by a UK publisher.

While we don’t have world rights on Gail Dines’ Pornland, the interest this book generated suggests that our 2011 book, Big Porn Inc will find international co-publishers – a great way of doing business.

2010 has been an important year for making international contacts and following Frankfurt, we attended a meeting in Paris with the International Alliance of Independent Publishers to discuss a range of activities we hope to generate in the next few years. Publishing is often a long-term game, but it is always worth the wait when important books can be released in several markets simultaneously. That was the case this year with The World According to Monsanto which was published in the USA by The New Press, India by Tulika and Australia by Spinifex Press. In Paris, we met with the author, Marie-Monique Robin and were impressed by her passionate involvement in tackling difficult areas of investigative journalism. This project was supported by the Alliance and we look forward to future projects.

In the middle of 2010 we travelled to the USA where we met with The New Press just prior to the release The World According to Monsanto in Australia. It was in Boston, at the Stop Porn Culture conference, where we met up with Gail Dines and realised that we might have the opportunity of releasing her book, Pornland in Australia. And we look forward to her visit to Australia in 2011 for the Sydney Writers Festival. And in California we caught up with Kathleen Barry, whose book Unmaking War, Remaking Men, a critique of masculinity and war is making waves in both the USA and Australia.

From our meeting in Paris has come another co-publication opportunity, with Indian publisher Women Unlimited for a South Asian edition of Kathleen Barry’s Unmaking War, Remaking Men. We have worked with Women Unlimited over many years, including publishing co-editions of Soil Not Oil and Staying Alive by Vandana Shiva who recently visited Australia to receive the 2010 Sydney Peace Prize. This is an indication of great interest in her work and that of other activists. We first published Ecofeminism, jointly authored by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva in 1993 after visiting Frankfurt Book Fair. It is as if the circle has turned full circle.

Spinifex would like to acknowledge the funding support we received from the Australia Council to travel to Frankfurt and Paris. We are most grateful for that support.