|
Blog
A blog by Spinifex author Betty McLellan
In Australia, as in all other democratic countries, we’re expected to believe that the principle of Freedom of Speech covers everyone. When I took a closer look at the topic of “speech”, however, I saw that, far from being a universal privilege, speech is free for some but not for others. There’s a kind of power elite made up of mainstream men in influential positions in politics, business and the media who enjoy the power of speech while the rest of us get to listen. We’re bombarded with their words and are supposed to be fascinated as they speak to, argue with, praise and support each other.
The current debate in Australia over the mining tax is a classic example. The debate is between the federal government and the big mining companies, with the media largely siding with the mining companies. We, the people, are the audience. Players on each side of the debate are using “ordinary people” to make their case but neither is actually asking us what we think.
On one side, the government is arguing that the tax is necessary because the Australian people own the mining resources and should get more benefit in terms of money for the government to use to improve infrastructure. On the other side, mining magnates are arguing that the tax will have a negative effect on the Australian people in terms of fewer jobs and lower quality of life when mining companies are forced (by the mining tax) to close down their operations and withdraw their financial support from communities.
Both sides are quite happy to use us, “ordinary Australians”, as pawns in the debate but neither party will listen to, or be influenced by, anything we say. This is indicative of how so-called freedom of speech works in modern democracy – powerful governments, business leaders and the media exercising their right to speech, while the rest of us are silenced.
So, what about the principle of Freedom of Speech? Arundhati Roy was right when she said in her 2004 City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture: “… the doctrine of Free Speech has been substituted by the doctrine of Free If You Agree Speech”. Most people in society have access to speech when their speech agrees with that of the power elite, but the voices of those who disagree are silenced by being ignored or trivialised or misrepresented. The dissenting voices of radical, political feminists are among those who are silenced.
In Unspeakable: a feminist ethic of speech, I contend that, for speech to be free, it must first be fair. All citizens in democratic societies must have equal access to speech - they must be free to disagree, criticise, express their opinions AND BE HEARD - if the principle of Freedom of Speech is to become a meaningful concept.
Unspeakable is available in print format from OtherWise Publications and will be available next week as an eBook from Spinifex
View/Add Comments .....
|
So Julia Gillard is Australia’s first woman to be PM. I hope she receives better treatment in that position than some of the other women who in the past have been sent in to clean up the mess!
I hope she is treated with the respect she is due. Over the last three years Julia Gillard has shown her toughness and her ability to deal with the rough and tumble of Australian politics. In fact, she has really shone through.
When she first became Deputy Leader of the Labor Party, I was dubious. Although pleased to see her in the position, I was not sure that she would be more than a sop to voters who thought there should be a little more equity in politics. But she has proven me wrong. That’s not to say that she is perfect, but until women are also permitted flaws in public life, we have come nowhere.
I hope she can be a good leader; the kind of leader Australia needs; someone thoughtful and frank; someone who listens. I hope that she is not saddled with too many expectations, because one person, one woman cannot fix all of society’s ills. I hope she can be a real person in a difficult job.
View/Add Comments .....
|
Susan Hawthorne, co-director of Spinifex Press, writing from the US after attending the Stop Porn conference in Boston.
A QUIT PORN campaign is what we need to get the consumption and production levels of porn down. When QUIT started sending out their message about smoking, many more smokers were quietly killing themselves (and the effect on others was not insignificant).
Do you remember when we used to be able to smoke on planes? How you could end up on a flight from Melbourne to London in the no-smoking section and still have smoke blown all over you because the next row was the first in the smoking section? Back then, even if you complained, nothing would happen.
The same happens now with porn. Complain about its pervasiveness, and nothing happens because it’s seen as “normal”. So what’s normal? Beating up women in front of a camera? Tying women into stress positions – the same ones used to torture Iraqis in Abu Ghraib? Getting little girls to wear “I want to be a porn star” T-shirts? Calling women bitches and ho’s? In other contexts, these would be seen as hate crimes. Is it any different to beating up a person of a different class or ethnicity? How is torture in one setting considered a breach of human rights and when it’s done in porn called a turn on? How is wearing a porn star T-shirt different from the yellow star or the pink triangle? Think about it. Why is hate language against women okay, when it’s called vilification in other settings?
If you doubt these statements above, then go and see these two films, The Price of Pleasure or The Pornography of Everyday Life. (A warning: these films might cause distress for some viewers.)
Porn is streaming into homes and onto mobile phones as each generation of technology has greater capacity, is more individualised, and stills have moved to video streaming wirelessly. The US is “ahead” of Australia in saturation level, but not by much and it won’t be long before we begin to see what will become generational effects of high-consumption consumers. Where “the consumers become the consumed”, as Cameron Murphey pointed out in his talk in a workshop on Working with Men at the Stop Porn Conference in Boston last weekend organised by Gail Dines, author of Pornland and Rebecca Whisnant co-editor of Not For Sale: Feminists Resisting Pornography and Prostitution.
“Porn is bad for your health.” This is what Linda Thompson from the Women’s Support Project in Glasgow, Scotland discovered in her research. It’s long been known to be bad for women’s health. Sexually transmitted diseases and physical injury are obvious adverse effects for those involved in the production of pornography. Then there’s the post-traumatic stress disorders and the psychological effects of abuse. But these are not restricted to those involved in the production of porn. It is also an adverse effect for watchers, especially those who become compulsive watchers of porn. They lose their capacity to form (intimate) relationships with others.
Cameron Murphey also pointed out that porn causes erectile dysfunction. Not surprising then to see the usual syndrome of technological failure creating a new market opportunity: and this time it’s Viagra.
Then there are the apologists on the left who call for the dismantling of capitalism, but vocally support the profiteering of pornographers. Is this because it might hamper their enjoyment? As Betty McLellan in her book Unspeakable points out, that while free trade is bad and fair trade is good, the free speech is good and fair speech is bad when it comes to pornography. Is justice so tradable?
Porn is about injustice. It’s about hatred.
It’s bad for you (have a look at Norman Doidge’s book, The Brain that Changes Itself. Begin at p. 102 and read about the effects on adolescent brains).
It’s bad for boys (see What’s Happening to Our Boys?).
It’s bad for girls (see Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls).
It’s bad for women (see Not For Sale).
And it’s bad for men (see Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity).
It’s good for capitalism. And for organised crime. It’s good for the purveyors of violence such as the military and those engaged in genocide. It’s good for a handful of corporate exploiters. In short it’s good for patriarchy.
Who do you support? Perhaps it’s time to QUIT PORN.
View/Add Comments .....
|
A guest post by Getting Real editor Melinda Tankard Reist. Originally posted on Melinda's blog.
What’s happening to our boys?: Maggie Hamilton’s new book
When I first began turning my attention to the sexualisation of girls in the media and popular culture, a book that significantly echoed my own thoughts was What’s happening to our girls: Too much too soon, how our kids are overstimulated, oversold and oversexed (Penguin, 2008) by author, publisher and teacher Maggie Hamilton. Not long after, I approached Maggie and asked if she would be willing to write a chapter for my book Getting Real: Challenging the sexualisation of girls (Spinifex Press, 2009). I was delighted when she agreed. In her chapter ‘The Seduction of girls: the human cost’, Maggie combined research and her own thoughtful observation to analyse the impacts of the onslaught of sexualised messaging on girls. She explored the decline in imagination, slowing cognitive development, plummeting self-esteem, self-harm, performance culture, sexual assault and how girls were socialized to be objects. Since then Maggie and I have shared a few platforms and friendship has developed. I am blessed to have the support of a woman of her calibre.
Maggie has now turned her attention to what we are doing to boys. What’s Happening to Our Boys?: At Risk, how the new technologies, drugs and alcohol, peer pressure and porn affect our boys will be launched in Sydney today at a private event, following by public events during the week.
Increasingly, as I traverse the country speaking about the effects of a toxic culture on the health and wellbeing of girls, I’m asked about boys. What can be done for boys? It has been helpful to be able to point to Maggie’s book and say, this will be a good place to start. What’s happening to our boys? is a major and in many ways overdue resource to help us address the problems boys are facing, which cannot help but improve the situation for girls.
This is an interview I did with Maggie in the lead up to the launch.
Maggie, what inspired you to write this book?
While we’re increasingly conscious that girls are vulnerable to a whole range of issues, we do tend to assume that boys can cope with whatever they’re faced with. But this isn’t necessarily the case.. Parents were constantly telling me really sad and concerning stories about incidents with their boys. Many were distressed they hadn’t seen these issues coming and, because they hadn’t faced these things themselves, were unsure of how best to respond. So it seemed like a good idea to take a closer look at our boys’ lives. I’m so glad I did – it’s given me a much more intimate sense of what boys are dealing with.
What is happening to our boys?
The marketers have realised boys are the last untapped demographic, so they’re spending millions to market to boys. We’re going to be seeing this in everything from the entertainment industry, to fashion and toiletries, to name but a few. Already this push is impacting our boys. We’re seeing a growth in anxiety around looks and possessions from preschool on. The boys as young as eight or nine who I spoke with were very preoccupied with having the right gear, and worried that if they didn’t they’d be seen as a loser. So by the time boys hit their teens we’re starting to see a spike in body issue concerns and self esteem problems. Basically our boys are going down the same track as girls in experiencing anxiety and self-loathing – perfect for advertisers, but not so great for our kids.
We’re also seeing the growth of secret lives as there’s so many ways boys can do their own thing, often right under parents’ noses. The growth in violence in video games is also affecting our boys, as is their growing addiction to online gambling and other unhelpful activities.
Do you think we have been ignoring the welfare of boys?
One of the big problems for boys is that there’s a whole range of issues we hadn’t dealt with for boys before the 21st century issues bit. We still have a long way to go to nurture boys more. Before they can be strong and independent, they have to be nurtured. Yet we tend to be more hands off with boys, which means they have to find their own way. We also need to pay more attention to promoting reading and communication skills from early on in the home. This can make a huge difference to a boy’s confidence, but still isn’t happening to nearly the level that’s needed. Boys also have the right to a rich emotional life, especially as they’re living in a far more emotionally complex world than previous generations. When you then add in the challenges of cyber-bullying, increased levels of violence in games and in the playground, the pressure to look a certain way, act out, concerns around body image, the pressure to drink and how to operate in an increasingly sexualised environment, you begin to realise this is a lot for any kid to deal with especially when parents aren’t up to speed.
Why have they been so neglected do you think?
Boys (and men) tend to keep on going regardless, which isn’t always ideal. So when we look at them we assume everything’s fine, when this mightn’t be the case. We’ve also become a little blind where many male issues from health to relationships are concerned. When we neglect our boys, everyone is impacted – families, future partners and children.
What was the most confronting thing you learnt about what boys were doing?
The explosion of pornography and the very easy access boys have to this material – sometimes at home, on their phones or at a friend’s place. It’s more than concerning when you realise just what they’re accessing – everything from bestiality to the deflowering of young girls. Studies show that repeated exposure to porn shuts down a boy’s feelings, and may even lead him to become a sexual abuser. Scratch the surface and you see just how many boys are viewing porn, and increasingly as a group activity. This isn’t just an activity high school boys are into. Increasingly primary school boys are getting into porn, and boys are also watching it together. Porn gives them a new language, a new way of relating, which can lead to significant harm.
I understand you had to take a break in the middle of writing the book because what you were finding out was so disturbing and you weren’t entirely prepared for that. Can you tell us more about what that time was like for you?
This has been a very hard book to write in some ways. I love working with boys and find them astonishingly expressive, but sometimes when you’re aware of what they’re up against it can seem overwhelming. I kept asking myself how come we moved so far from our duty of care? It was a pretty dark time, but then I had to remind myself that we can’t afford to despair. Ultimately I believe there’s lots we can do, but we can’t be complacent. We need to act on everything we see that we know is unhelpful to our kids. It’s not just the seduction of billboards, magazine and movie ads, and MTV clips we need to be concerned about. We need to be aware of how easily young boys can access porn, for example. “We’re now seeing kids sexually active way under ten, because of access to porn, or their parents’ own behaviour”, John, who works with troubled youth, told me. “I’ve seen many cases where porn is readily left around the home, where it’s part of the family culture. Then you’ve got parents who carefully stash their porn away, and kids have a way of finding it”.
How is boys’ behaviour impacting on girls?
I think boys and girls are equally vulnerable – especially in the sexual arena. While boys can’t get pregnant and don’t face the same slurs a girl who is perceived to be overly sexually active faces, and have more ways of protecting themselves, we can’t be naive about the fact that boys are increasingly vulnerable to sexual assault. This doesn’t in any way lessen our concerns around the growing predatory behaviour we’re seeing towards girls. We have to face the fact that boys are now also stalked by determined often aggressive young girls who are encouraged by cultural messaging which teaches them to act in predatory ways . They send countless inappropriate texts to boys to try and gain their attention. It’s not just photos of low tops girls are sending around. This makes it very difficult for boys to know how to respond as it can seem very enticing. At the same time, boys consuming porn can place our girls at risk – and not just teenage girls. In one Brisbane primary school a seven-year-old girl was sexually assaulted over two months by a boy her age. Hitting her and threatening to kill her if she spoke out, the boy repeatedly forced this young girl to perform oral sex. In another school a group of six-year-old boys banded together and were forcing classmates to perform various sexual acts on them. According to one youth worker, “We are now seeing children grooming younger kids for sex, there’s a real seduction pattern going on. A lot of this appears to be exposure to porn”.
What is your message to parents of sons?
Love and nurture your boys, encourage them to be part of all the good things the new technologies and popular culture have to offer them, but don’t be naive about the dangers.
To educators?
I think there’s no doubt we need more men in the education system. Our boys lack good role models. There’s no substitute for a wealth of good men in their lives. What a wonderful thing it would be to have a positive recruitment drive for bright engaged young men – good for boys and girls.
To policy makers?
More work needs to be done on the 21st century issues boys face and how we can protect them. Making the Advertising Standards Board more accountable and more aware of the new issues we’re facing would be an excellent start. The growing violence in video games needs to be regulated and soon, as does the increasing blurring of sex and violence in games. We also need a strong and clearly drawn regulatory framework with which to deal with pornography now so available to our children.
To the community as a whole?
For too long we’ve seen boys as problematic. We get cross when we see skate-boarders and boys involved in other activities. Strong communities are inclusive. They accommodate and celebrate the needs of their citizens – and that includes our boys. It’s not hard, but it does need time and effort – resources that are well spent. The role of adults has always been to protect our young – that still stands, so we need to have the courage to be good gate-keepers, to question material we know to be harmful to our kids – if we don’t then who will?
Click here to listen to Maggie Hamilton on Life Matters, Radio National.
View/Add Comments .....
|
Meanjin editor Sophie Cunningham writes on how women sit outside language in this expanded version of her editorial from Meanjin 2-2010.
I recently attended a lecture held at the Law School of the University of Melbourne. French feminist Luce Irigaray was being beamed in from Paris and she was, despite the inevitable technological hitches, awesome to behold. She was talking about natural differences versus constructed ones. She drew a link between culture’s preference for constructed relationships and the world’s inability to deal effectively with climate change. She said (and forgive me if I’m misquoting her slightly): “Patriarchy has failed in its duty to manage the Earth. It is ethically unfit to do so.”
I first read Luce Irigaray thirty years ago, and found her theory that language was constructed in a way which excluded women very powerful and relevant. It seems to me, in the thirty years since I began to engage with feminism, the treatment of women has become worse. Consider the following list of the ways in which women have been publically but, it seems, acceptably humiliated in this country in the last few months.
Louis Nowra described Germaine Greer as “a befuddled and exhausted old woman. She reminded me of my demented grandmother who, towards the end of her life, was often in a similarly unruly state.” Louis Nowra is, as journalist Caroline Overington pointed out, only ten years younger than Greer—so he can take the comment about his grandmother and shove it. Here is the fabulously badly behaved Helen Razer on the subject:
“Greer attracts violent spittle of this type not because she is a polemicist, but because she has a cunt. Her every utterance or teeny, tiny op-ed column is the subject of scrutiny and fuel to the flame of what is, let it be said, pure hatred of feminism … Greer DARES to say what we’d all be thinking several months later on the occasion of Steve Irwin’s death and she is called a hag. She DARES to write an informed history on the young male as visual object and she is called a dried-out old cougar. Fuck off. She’s a bright and occasionally charming old ratbag who is far more erudite than most of what passes for an Australian ‘public intellectual’ and should be revered. Greer may have done her utmost to change the world. Sadly, she was unable to undo the boring sexism that drives so many Australian female thinkers into silence.”
Around the same time senior sports commentator Peter Roebuck wrote the following in the Sydney Morning Herald: “Whatever the reality of her life, supposing reality makes an appearance now and then, Lara Bingle stumbles from public relations disaster to public relations calamity. Restaurateurs complain about her manners and the poor company she keeps. Fashionistas talk of her headstrong ways and dubious customs. Moreover she seems intent on boosting the sales of all those magazines purchased by the female of the species. In short, she craves attention and courts controversy. Yet Michael, the class act of the pairing, seems besotted. Beauty and danger have always been a potent combination.”
Christine Nixon, whose judgement on 7 February 2009 was undoubtedly questionable, has had to endure headlines such as ‘Police commissioner ate while Victoria burned’. As critic and blogger Kerryn Goldsworthy wrote on her blog: “Let me get this straight: Christine Nixon is to be crucified for taking an hour off, when she wasn’t even rostered on, in order to have dinner—but it’s cause for gasps of meeja admiration when the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition goes AWOL on a nine-day bike ride, taking yet another opportunity to wobble his budgie at slavering photographers and horrified truckies for the entire length of the Hume Highway … ask yourself how much more vile, ignorant, sniggering, misogynist fat-hate Nixon would be copping even than she already is if she were to emulate the Leader of the Opposition and say, in defence of the shocking crime of having an evening meal, ‘I’m just being myself.’”
Australia Post released its Australian Legends of the Written Word stamp series. Five men, one woman (Colleen McCullough). Only three of the thirty-four finalists of the Archibald Prize for 2010 were women (one of them, Kate Benyon, is a favourite artist of mine).
The judges of the Miles Franklin Award put out a long list with three women and eight men. The short list, which was announced in late April, included only two women. The winner will be announced on 22 June. Last year, after a similar proportion of men and women on the long list, no women made it to the short list. Much of the commentary around this in 2009 argued that you can’t pick a list based on political correctness—an argument I’d swallow if women writers published that year had not included Helen Garner, Joan London, Amanda Lohrey, Eva Hornung and Andrea Goldsmith.
Last year not a single female lead singer was included in Triple J’s hottest 100 survey. Catherine Strong explores the implications on this in her essay ‘The Triple J Hottest 100 of All Time 2009 and the Dominance of the Rock Canon’ in this issue.
I could go on. I won’t. I’ll just say this: either women can’t sing, paint, write or think as well as they used to—certainly not well enough to offset their tendency to become less beautiful with age—or we live in a culture that does not like the things women say or does not know how to hear them when they say it. In other words, Irigaray is right. Women sit outside language.
View/Add Comments .....
|
|
Out Now
 In the cold winter of 1875, two rebellious spirits travel from the pale sunlight of England to the raw heat of Australia....  Beautifully written by First Nations women on Gurindji country where the fight for equal wages began. This book...  I am seen by many as a danger. As having failed to understand the new rules, the new paradigm of successful motherhood.
 NEW EDITION
The women in this book may be among the last to have babies without the medical stamp of approval.
Today's... |
