18th Down Under Feminists’ Carnival!

Welcome to the 18th Down Under Feminists’ Carnival! (And apologies for the delay.)

This Carnival has an optional caring theme, thanks to Australian Carers’ Week (which was October 18 to October 24). The theme for this year was “Anyone, Anytime, Across Australia”, which I modified to “Anyone, Anytime” for the purposes of the DUFC.

There wasn’t much sent in on theme, so I’ve expanded the DUFC rules just a little.

Catholic school suspends student for shaving head

The title of this post says it all. See the SMH’s article for more detail. (By the way, SMH, I fixed that passive-voiced headline for you!)

Look, I’m not pissed off that the Catholic school has suspended the student for shaving her head as a fundraiser for cancer. I’m pissed off that the Catholic school has suspended the student for shaving her head. The school is, essentially, discriminating against her on the basis that she is now not expressing gender “correctly”, in their eyes. That’s basically what “dress code policy” means.

I should add that I’m not making any assumptions or implications about the gender that the student intends to express – I’m pointing out that the school is.

The fact that she’s done it for a good cause just adds a layer of hypocrisy to the stupidity of the Catholic school’s actions. (It also makes it a bit more of a freedom of expression aspect, in the sense of political expression.)

2009 Weblog Awards – Nominations now open

Nominations are open for the 2009 Weblog Awards. They close 20 November 2009. A direct link to the nominations page is here.

I haven’t thought too much about the categories in the Weblog Awards before – I’ve always become aware of them after nominations have closed, so I’ve really only thought about the voting stage.

But something occurred to me as I looked through the categories and considered some nominations. Why is there no “Best Feminist Blog” category?

How immoral to acknowledge to kids that yes, sex happens

This post is inspired to some extent by Wildly Parenthetical’s post on sex ed – although I’ve thought for a very long time that sex ed should be a normal part of education generally (from a young age). I don’t know the best way to integrate it (but then, I’m not a teacher). However, I do know that knee-jerk reactions are not the best way to deal with anything much.

This post is essentially my reaction to the knee-jerk reactions displayed in this article here. The gist of which is: the federal government is talking about a national sex ed curriculum for primary and high school.

And the gist of my reaction is: *headdesk* after *headdesk* after *headdesk*.

Heavy-handed? You don’t say!

I was watching the ABC news on TV, and saw the TV version of this story.

In essence: NSW is trying to crack down on graffiti. One of the “initiatives” from the clever clogs in charge of this banana State is to impose higher penalties. For example, a quote from the TV version was something like: “kids as young as 13 will face up to 6 months’ imprisonment for carrying a spray can without a legitimate excuse.”

Whuhhh???

The TV version also had NSW Attorney-General John Hatzistergos saying something like “since people aren’t being deterred by current penalties, we’re going to raise the penalties”.

Uhhh…

The stupidity of this knee-jerk statement is obvious: if people aren’t deterred by the penalties, it’s often because they’re simply not deterred by penalties full stop, not because the penalties aren’t fucking harsh enough. In other words, imprisonment is not a specific deterrent. Even The Australian gets that!

It’s a bad idea to imprison kids. Really, really fucking bad. We should only do it where it’s absolutely necessary.

And where a kid has been carrying a spray can (or even spraying a bit of graffiti, and I find that as annoying and sometimes distressing as many others do), it’s not precisely necessary.

The privilege of choice

I know it’s no longer Carers’ Week, nor is it still October, the month in relation to which I’m hosting the DUFC (you are still welcome to send me submissions by email, by the way, although anything sent via the blog carnival site will no longer come to me).

However, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be concerned about issues faced by carers.

Such as the awful choice apparently faced by a number of parents who are carers for their children with disabilities.

It seems from this article that, if you are in a situation where you can care for your child some, but not all, of the time, you don’t receive a whole lot of respite support. Your care may also reduce the likelihood that your child will be placed in a permanent supported residential position (which may not be what every person with a disability aspires to, or hir carer, but I’m sure many people do).

The solution? ‘Abandon’ your child by leaving them permanently in the care of DOCS and relinquishing all parental rights.

Yeah. Good one.

That’s not the word I’d be using

From The Australian Pocket Oxford Dictionary (4th ed):

spree n. colloq 1 lively extravagant outing (shopping spree). 2 bout of fun or drinking etc. [origin unknown]

Trigger warning.

Not quite the word one would have thought appropriate when describing a man indecently assaulting 5 shop assistants in 3 hours.

You can almost hear them, can’t you? Guffaw guffaw … it’s about shop assistants … you know, it’s almost like he went shopping … you know, like a spree or something! Guffaw guffaw.

Actually, that’s probably giving them too much credit – it was probably much more unthinking and unconscious than that.

Just another example of the trivialisation of sexual offences in our community.

Starting the day with horror and incredulity

There is a homeless guy who sits outside my building every morning. He says g’day to the people he recognises. I always say good morning. I’ve noticed other people sometimes stop to chat at length. He begs. Lately, he’s been getting a bit more insistent on the begging front. I hope he’s doing ok.

This morning, after walking into the building, I got into the lift with an older man who I’ve seen quite a number of times around the building, but who I don’t actually know.

He turned to me, his eyes wide with horror and disgust. “Did you know that man out the front is a drug addict? He doesn’t have schizophrenia or anything … he injects drugs, methadone or something … I’ve just been to the pharmacist and they told me!”

Now, leaving aside the patient confidentiality issues with the pharmacist giving out that kind of information (and I am going to go and have a yell at the pharmacist later about that!), (1) methadone is not injected (and if he’s on methadone, he doesn’t need money for it and also, it suggests he’s “doing something” about his “problem”, which is what I assume people like my interlocutor want to happen); and (2) poor mental health, homelessness and drug use often go hand in hand. Oh, and (3) who the fuck are we to judge?