gendered division of labour and ‘feminism’

I love to cook and bake. I have a friend who is brave enough to call herself a feminist and she hates cooking. I made a massive batch of chilli jam the other week and I took her some in a little glass jar – hand-delivered by me to her office. She said to me, ‘you know, I don’t want you take offence at this, but for someone who is really critical of the gendered division of labour, you’re a really good homemaker!’ I laughed and just said, ‘yeah, I just love cooking’.

I have since thought about the exchange. I don’t think doing activities that are typically associated with femininity, such as baking, cooking, sewing etc is incompatible with being a femininist. I don’t think it’s incompatible with being critical of the gendered division of labour either.  Actually, I don’t think being a good homemaker is anything for a feminist to be ashamed of either. In fact, I think everyone, regardless of sex should strive to be good homemakers. I think it’s a shame that things like cooking, cleaning and childcare get outsourced to the market these days in countries like Australia and the US (and many more I’m sure). I certainly don’t think women should go back to the kitchen…on the contrary, I think men should join women in the kitchen. Women have ‘joined’ men in the paid workforce, now it’s time for the men to catch up, as far as I’m concerned.

And in actual fact the outsourcing of domestic work has done nothing to break down the gendered division of labour because the people who are now paid to perform that work are still overwhelmingly women.

I just finished reading a book by Amy Borovoy, an American academic, about Japanese women married to alcoholics. She made some really interesting points – in Japan, in general, the work done by mothers and houewives is respected. Nurturing both husband and children are important jobs done by married women. Motherhood is central to a woman’s identity and while there is pressure on women to be good mothers, there is also social respect. Full-time housewives in Japan are also eligible for the pension regardless of whether they have ever been in the paid labour force or not – unlike in Australia, where married women get little recoginition or financial reward for raising the kids, cooking the meals, doing the wasing and cleaning etc.

The burden on married women in Japan to look after the family (including in-laws) and household is immense, but because of their status as mothers they are buffered from social expectations placed on women to be sexually attractive to men, they do not face sexual harrassment or discrimination in the workforce, and they engage in community and voluntary life – something most people in the workforce don’t have time for. Borovoy is not saying that Japanese women have got it right, and nor am I. Housewives remain financially dependent on their husbands and if the marriage fails, divorce is a very difficult path to take. The American feminist movement that focused on equal rights has seen women enter the paid labour force and consequently nurturing and domestic tasks have been outsourced. Neither stories from the US or Japan have seen a significant breakdown of the gendered division of labour. Maybe in the future we will see something in between the case of Japan and the US where housework and parenting are given appropriate value and where it is not assumed that WOMEN will do those tasks.

Lentil and vege curry

I usually use recipes to cook, and am quite unimaginative in that department. That doesn’t mean I can’t cook. On the contrary, I’m a great cook! But I have found that when I cook stuff without instructions it usually ends up a bit bland, or wrong in a variety of ways. I have to admit that MasterChef jolted me into action with regards to this – I have tried recently to cook without recipes. I haven’t had a great deal of luck, but there is one recipe I would like to share. I’ve been making this for a couple of weeks now just because its so delicious. Cheap too which is a bonus

These are the ingredients you need: Red lentils, 1 zucchini, 2 carrots, 2 or 3 medium-large tomatoes, any other veges you want, 1 onion, 1 tbls garlic pulp (about 2 large cloves), 1 tsp each of turmeric, brown mustard and cumin seeds, half a tsp of turmeric, 1 tsp of garama masala, salt, plain peanut butter (the stuff that is 100% pureed peanuts – no salt or sugar in it)

Put a generous amount of oil in a hot pan (I find that a combination of olive and mustard oils is great for curries). Turn the heat to medium. When the oil is hot, add the seeds. When seeds start popping, add the diced onion and stir until onion goes soft, about 5 mins. Add the garlic pulp (make sure it’s quite watery otherwise the garlic will just stick to the bottom and burn) and stir for a bit. Add roughly chopped carrots and zucchini. Add ground turmeric and some salt. Stir until veges coated. Add chopped tomatoes and a generous tbls of peanut butter and mix. Cook until tomatoes have gone mushy. Add rinsed lentils and some water so that lentils can cook. Cook on medium-low heat until done. Add garam masala at the end and salt if necessary. Yummy with brown rice.

Gender testing!?

The result of Caster Semenya’s preliminary ‘gender testing’ reveals that she has 3 times the ‘normal’ amount of testosterone for a woman. Woop-de-doo. Surely that’s not a great surprise. I think if you tested every single female athlete, especially ones that require a lof of muscle for their sport, you’d find high levels of testosterone in most of them.

There is a very good article in the SMH today in the Health and Science section that puts it out there plain and simple – there are lots of different combinations of chromosomes and hormones in people. But this does not necessarily make a person male or female:

Several degrees of androgyny.

The problem with Semenya’s testing is that seems to be this undecurrent of thought that female athletes who appear manly (?) are suspect. What of male athletes? Of course, men who appear womanly will not be tested, because less testosterone and more of those damn passive, fat-inducing and hysterical female hormones are no good to an athlete. But what about men who naturally produce three times the amount of testosterone that is ‘normal’ for a man. Should there perhaps be a new athletic category for those male athletes? The ‘uber-male’ might be an appropriate title for this category. In which case, what category do women like Semenya go into? Should there be a new category called the ‘uber-female’, or should she just compete with the men? Where does it end? Where are the boundaries? In other words, what are they going to do with the results of this ‘gender testing’ they are subjecting Semenya to??

3 million a year for being a shockjock

Kyle Sandilands and dreadful humiliation of a 14 yr old on air have been in the news a lot in the last week. I have always despised Kyle Sandilands and have long believed him to be the ’scum of the earth’. For me, he seriously represents all that is wrong with contemporary humanity. He disturbs me greatly, but what disturbs me even more is the value our society seems to give him. He is nothing. Let’s see, he is not intelligent, he is not good-looking, he is not originial or artistic or creative, he is no good at sport, he is not funny, he is not philanthropic – in short, he is nothing. He is a white middle-class man, and that’s about it. Let’s be honest, if he was NOT a white middle-class male, he would not be where is he today – he would have needed at least one of the elements I have listed had he been say, a woman, or not white.

Anyway, I read in the SMH yesterday that his combined annual income from tv appearances and his radio show was over 3 million dollars. Let me get this straight, Kyle Sandilands earns over 3 million dollars a year for being nothing.  It makes me want to vomit.

I am often disturbed with the amount of money some people earn for what they do. It seeems to me that our capitalist values are upside down. The jobs that are important, necessary and hard are paid the least, while arseholes like Sandilands are rewarded for being nothing. Take childcare workers or aged carers – in Australia I think an average full-time wage in those industries is  $35K-$40K . The teaching profession is known for its low wages despite teaching being surely one of the most important jobs out there. I know medicine is an important profession, but do surgeons have to be paid hundreds of thousands a year?? Why? At the beginning of the 20th century, teachers and doctors were paid the same. Why have our value and reward systems changes so much?

Anyway, back to Kyle Sandilands,  the fact that someone like him is rewarded both monetarily and by means of social and public recognition I think is an indication of how warped our contemporary value system has become.

sorry elvis

We gave our 4yr old dog to a new owner today. My husband Andy bought him as a pup before we met, so he was well and truly hubby’s dog, and not mine. Given that I am allergic to dogs and have never really liked big dogs anyway, my grief today surprises me.

Elvis lived outside with Swan, a 12 yr old same breed – german shorthaired pointer, so they didn’t aggravate my allergies. I never asked Andy to get rid of them and never complained about having to live with dogs. We walked them together on the condition that I didn’t have to pick up their poos, and on the days Andy was out I fed them. It was never a ‘it’s me or the dog’ situation. I knew how much Andy loved his dogs.

Elvis, however, had an anxiety problem. He needed near-constant attention, without which he would whine incessantly. His crying was very frustrating and neither Andy nor I had the time or money to invest in training it out of him. Andy’s love for Elvis grew tired and irritated. Elvis also annoyed Swan who is too old to keep up with his energy – he would steal his bed and irritate her with his crying to the extent that she would bark at him to shut up. I wanted to give Elvis more attention but if I pat him too much I would end up wheezing, sneezing and itchy. It was to my great surprise that Andy suggested finding him a new home a couple of months ago. Nevertheless, I didn’t think much of it as Andy is a dreamer – he talks a lot about ‘plans’ but doesn’t execute most of them.

He executed this plan, and someone came to pick Elvis up this morning. Andy made sure she was a suitable dog owner for Elvis – she has a large property some hours north of here, several kids and a 6 month old doberman-cross that needs energetic company. I stayed out the back pruning some geranium because I hate saying goodbye. I didn’t think I’d really mind Elvis disappearing. The silencing of his incessant crying would be a relief! Yet now he’s gone I am absolutely racked with guilt. I know he’ll be crying now, wondering where his master, Andy, is.

One part of me tells me that he’ll be happier in his new home with all the kids and young pup to keep him occupied, but somewhere else in my head is a face that is frowning disappovingly and wondering how I could have been so heartless. How could I fail to protest to Andy about handing his dog over to someone we don’t know that well? Elvis was a happy dog. He was anxious, but very happy and energetic. I really hope he is happier in his new home.

I can hear Swan beginning to whine a bit now. Elvis annoyed her greatly, but he was her mate nonetheless. She has clearly enjoyed her time alone this morning, but is now beginning to wonder when her mate is coming back….

arrogant and horrible teenage boys

I tutor high school students at a little tutoring-school near my home and yesterday I got an insight into some disturbing realities of teenage boys. I was waiting to go into my classroom to teach my individual grade 11 student (who is actually a lovely teenage boy) and was sitting outside another classroom in which 2 or 3 boys and one girl were seated, supposedly studying but mostly talking. I couldn’t see them but I could hear them. The boys were talking about pornography and how one of them could access it on his phone (I didn’t know you could do that - scary stuff). The girl was silent but I knew she was there because I had heard her talking about something else previously. She was trying to tell a story about how she saw some boys lift a really small car up onto an elevated garden. I could tell she was attempting to join in the boisterous conversation but the boys were trying to knock her down: ‘How could they lift a car? That’s impossible’ Girl says: ‘It was a small car. Anyway yeah..so they would lift…’. Boy interrupts in a ‘I know about cars – I’m male’ authoritative voice: ‘cars weigh 400kgs. That’s impossible’. Girl hesitates: ‘it was one of those really small cars. A group of big guys can lift a car’. She finishes her story and then asks, ‘have you guys seen Transformers 2?’ One of the boy responds, ‘aw, Megan Gale, she’s hot! aw….’ Girl says impatiently, ‘have you seen it?’ Anyway, somehow the discussion reverts to pornography and I didn’t catch most of it. I did hear, however, the girl pipe up in a revolted voice, with, ‘why do you watch porn?’ One of the boy responds, ‘because he’s a 14yr old male. I’m 15 so I’m wiser now’. (I think this implied he doesn’t watch it anymore?? One can hope). Anyway, I thought, ‘fucking hell, is this what girls have to deal with at school??’ How depressing. THEN, at 5pm they all stood up and the boys wandered out of the room, books in hand and the girl stood up and went to the front of the classroom as a new student, a little boy, entered. The ‘girl’ was the teacher. I was absolutely dumbstruck. I had pictured a 14 yr old girl, but here was a young woman in her early 20s.  This young woman had been trying to engage in ‘cool’ conversation with 14 yr old boys?! And the teenage boys showed absolutely no respect for their teacher – in contrast they talked about pornography in front of her which, hey, when you’re an adult is sexual harrassment but when you’re 14 it’s ok? I felt pretty bad for the teacher because I thought, what would I have done if I had been in the same situation when I was her age? If young boys talked about porn in front of me back then I wouldn’t have known what to do. I would have thought ‘ew, gross’ but that’s probably about it. I tried to think about what I would do if any of my students did that now. I think I would have told them to shut up and then I would have talked to their parents (and probably get told to ‘chill out’).

Apart from the total lack of respect the boys showed their teacher, what struck me was the teacher’s attempt to engage with them by being cool and telling them stories and talking about movies. Would she have done this with girl students? How would 14 yr old girl students the same age have treated her? The boys were hostile and did not let her enter their territory – they made her try really hard, and this kind of made her sound desperate – as thought she wanted recognition in their eyes. I seriously thought she was a young teenage girl from their school trying to be ‘one of the boys’.

Movie Review: Easy Virtue

It was hubby’s birthday yesterday and to celebrate we drove to Sydney to have dinner and watch a movie at Govinda’s in Darlinghurst. It’s a funky little place with a vegetarian buffet and a cosy cinema upstairs that, instead of traditional cinema seating, has cushions and couchlike things on the ground. It’s a really nice night out – delicious food and such a comfy movie theatre (with hardly anyone there!)

Anyway, the movie was called ‘Easy Virtue’. I wasn’t really fussed when I booked us in. I thought, ‘I’ll see what movie is on Thursday night, and if it isn’t too objectionable (ie T4 or Transformers or something stupid like that), we’ll go on Thursday because that’s his birthday’. So I read the synopsis and thought it didn’t sound too bad. The good points as far as I could tell at that stage were: the central characters were women; it was English (as opposed to American); Kristin Scott Thomas was in it and I think she’s fab.

The movie wasn’t great. It wasn’t dreadful,  but a feminist reading of it left me sighing in disappointment. The main character, Larita, played by Jessica Biel, was an American race-car driver living in Paris when she met, fell in love with and married the son of Kristen Scott Thomas, who was off galivanting in Europe when he should have been at home helping his mum manage their property. It is set in the 1930s. Anyway, the prodigal (and only) son returns home with his new bride and, would you believe it, Larita and Kristen Scott Thomas don’t get on. So we have the cliched mother-in-law vs daughter-in-law feud compounded by the fact that Larita represents hedonistic American values compared to English values steeped in tradition, snobbery and modesty. Larita causes a stir in the town and finds it all too hard to bear and begs whatshisname (the son) to go to London with her to live. Kristen Scott Thomas also has 2 daughters living at home and her husband is played by Colin Firth. Their marriage is empty and they live their lives dodging questions about Colin Firth’s disappearance after WWI when he cavorted around French sleeping with prostitutes until his wife came after him and ordered him home.

Anyway, I was happy initially to be going to see a movie where the central characters were women – yay. Most movies that have main characters as women are derided as ‘ chick flicks’ and ’serious’, mainstream films are too often littered with male main characters and peripheral women. On reflection of  ‘Easy virtue’, however, I have no alternative but to suspect the director/producer hates women. Kristen Scott Thomas and her daughters were horrible characters. They despised Larita because she was beautiful and modern and rallied against her because they were jealous of her stealing whatshisname. Larita, who the audience were clearly supposed to sympathise with, despised all the women in the family and allied herself with Colin Firth and the male butler. She identified with men by being a racing car driver and loving engines. The sisters were single and desperate while Larita was brazen, and completely objectified by both male and female characters for her beauty.

And for some reason it seemed like we were supposed to like Colin Firth more than Kristen Scott Thomas. Colin Firth had lost his identity and pride in the war and seemed to not be engaged in living anymore. Ah, poor Colin Firth….go around France cavorting with prositutes and ignore your family with no intention to come home, we’ll forgive you. We’ll demonise your stupid jealous wife instead.

And the feud between the women was just so pathetic. It’d be nice to see some more movies with central female characters who like each other. ‘Women hating women’ movies are just tiresome.

something in between 21 and 42 kms

Ok, this is completely unrelated to feminism, but that doesn’t matter.

I am training for the City 2 Surf, which, for those of you who don’t live anywhere near Sydney, is a 14 km run from a Hyde Park in the middle of Sydney to Bondi Beach. I have heard that tens of thousands of people enter this race. This is my first time . It is not, however, my first ‘fun’ run. When I was in my late teens / early 20s I did a few runs, including two half-marathons, both on the Gold Coast. I have also done several shorter ones, the most recent (a few months ago) being the ‘Fitness Five’ here in Wollongong, which is a comparatively breezy 5k run. So, in a nutshell, I run a bit, and have been for years.

The thing is, I have a love/hate relationship with running. Most of the time I hate it, and I never run just for the heck of it. I only run if I am training for something specifically. I’m not sure why I choose to run. I do know that I like the challenge, and I also like how my appetite increases during the few months before a race when I up my exercise regime. Because I love eating…especially cakes and biscuits. In fact, I would prefer to bake a cake and then eat a piece then go for a run. Another benefit is that I tend to sleep better if I am physically tired.

Anyway, as I was running aimlessly yesterday (Sunday is my so-called ’recovery’ run – some recovery!) I wondered why I had never heard of any running events of, say, 32 kms. The half-marathon and the marathon are the main long-distance races. But that seems to be a huge leap – from 21kms to 42kms. I could conceivably imagine running 21kms again if I prepared properly. But the thought of 42 is just nasty.

today’s heckler – the stupidity of unnecessary cosmetic surgery

Today’s Heckler from the SMH is really great. Basically, the very sensible and down-to-earth message is: If you’ve got four limbs, all your senses and a generally functioning body, you should count your lucky stars instead of wasting time trying to ‘improve’ your looks.

 

Heckler.

Don’t complain: Surviving in a hyper-masculinised industry

There’s an article in today’s Sunday Life magazine liftout of the Sun Herald newspaper about women chefs. I always find it ironic that ‘women chefs’ are anomalies in the male-dominated industry of cooking, when in most societies, women spend much more time cooking than men….in non-commercial settings thus recieving little kudos and no money.

Anyway, Karen Martini and some other female chefs were interviewed for the article and a couple of comments they made, as well as the general tone of the actual article, caught my attention for their implication of ‘oh well, I chose to enter a masculinised industry and that’s my problem’ attitude. For example, Martini related a series of sexual harrassment incidents she encountered at the beginning of her career – including being ‘fondled’, which the article called a ’sneaky trick’ (a sneaky trick? how about an abuse of power and down right sexual harrassment?). Immediately after this recounting of silly pesky behaviour from male colleagues, the article commented that Martini’s female colleague Sibley, had ‘never felt repressed by her sex’. This is then followed by more accounts of incidents, such as a senior chef taking his penis out and placing it on her shoulder or someone putting a plateful of maggots down her top. Not repressed by her sex? I don’t get it.

I really wish that women in hyper-masculinised industries would call a spade a spade. And also that their voices were heard more frequently. We always hear about the women who have ‘broken through the glass ceiling’ and the sacrifices they have had to make to survive, but where are the voices of the women who don’t survive? Where are their stories- the stories from women who decide it’s not worth it. The sexually discriminatory culture within those industries will never change unless the people who speak out against them are heard.

Here is another doublespeak excerpt from the same article:

But Sibley was always clear in her ambition to excel. ‘I’ve always been one of the lads’, she says. ‘It’s about character, not whether you’re a boy or a girl. If you’re sooky or pouty, you’re not going to do well. I’ve seen boys in tears as much as girls’

Hang, on Sibley….you just said you were always ‘one of the lads’. Clearly then, it does matter whether you are boy or a girl – you have to be a boy. A lad, specifically.

This is what post-feminism is all about. It’s about saying that sexual discrimination and harrassment doesn’t happen anymore because we (as a post-modern society) are past all of that –  ’sexual harrassment is unacceptable’ as a policy in an organisation suddenly means it just doesn’t happen! It’s about turning a blind eye to what has been happening for centuries because we mistakenly believe that now, as women have  ‘equal rights’ with men everything is hunkydory. That’s why post-feminism is no good for women. It denies the reality women’s continued oppression.