Headline: “How lethal is your load?”. Subhead: “Even skinny people may be carrying a mother lode of toxic fat”.

It’s the DEATHFATZ! FOR REALZ!

The article seems incredibly confused over the issue of good fat vs bad fat.

For example, the journo seems to have understood that fat in certain locations is a better indicator of problems that may impact on health. (I’m taking this at face value, for the sake of the argument. I am NOT accepting it as a statement of fact. For the record, I also think it’s a problem to judge people for their health, regardless of whether you are judging them for their size. But I’m not going to go into that in this post.)

However, there is no indication that the journo has understood that the corollary of this is: fat in certain locations is a poor indicator of problems that may impact on health, and therefore fat in general is a poor indicator of problems that may impact on health.

The journo is still also associating “fat” with “bad” and “thin” with “good”:

The fat belly on the outside, fat belly on the inside guideline does have its exceptions.

Japanese studies of sumo wrestlers, for example, have found that these obese men are commonly ”fat on the outside but thin on the inside”, says Carey. …

But in the general population, such people are in the minority. And the reverse of the sumo scenario also exists: people who look normal size or even skinny on the outside but who are carrying a toxic mother lode on the inside.

*headdesk*

Oh, and this is buried near the end:

…after cigarette smoking, waist-to-hip ratio is the best single predictor of death from heart disease in Australia; better than a simple waist measurement and better than the much-touted body mass index.

You mean we don’t need to be worried about the OBESITY EPIDEMIC BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA nearly as much as we thought we did? Well, knock me over with a feather, I don’t think I can handle the shock!

Bonus weirdness: reference to the supposed “healthiness” of the “natural” hunter & gatherer lifestyle – although there is an acknowledgement that the real reason that people living thousands of years ago wouldn’t have had a problem with fat as they aged was because they didn’t live so long. So yeah. This journo is somewhat confused!

Shorter Amy Alkon: I didn’t get to scream in public when I was a child, so neither should anyone else.

SRSLY.

Of course, Ms Alkon is basing this on her recollection. I’m sure that, like most people, she doesn’t remember very much before the ages of 4 or 5, probably not daily events even after those ages, and I’d be fairly surprised if she didn’t do her share of screaming in public at age approximately 2. But even if she’s right and she never did, she clearly doesn’t understand the concepts of “community” and “family” and “parents having a life even when they have small children”.

A Japanese man has married his virtual girlfriend.

I’m not sure what’s worst about this story. The contenders:

(1) The first sentence of the article:

We may occasionally wish our spouses had an “off” switch but a Japanese man will have that luxury full-time…

This sentence assumes that the audience are all (a) male, (b) heterosexual and (c) misogynist.

(2) The fact that the game Love Plus

invites players to pick a girlfriend and then challenges them to woo her by taking her out on “dates” and perform boyfriend duties such as saying “I love you” 100 times…

So, Nintendo also assumes that its target market are all (a) heterosexual, (b) male and (c) interested only in wish-fulfilment game-playing, rather than having an actual relationship with an actual person who is actually not a stereotype of a woman.

(Of course, it could just be that Asher Moses’s description of the game – the game itself may allow you to also choose a boyfriend. Somehow, I doubt it. I’m cynical that way.)

(3) The somewhat condescending comments (the first is “Oh dear”). That condescension says, to me, “look at that poor little [different person], we’re not like that”, and that, to me, pricks up my racism-alert hackles.

And whaddaya know, a couple of comments down there’s a comment which suggests that giving these games to “young Chinese and Indian men” could “stop the population boom”. Yep, that’s racism!

Oh dear, indeed.

I’m not going to go into the marrying-the-game-character thing. I do find it a bit disturbing, and I think that’s because of the implied power imbalance. Which is not so much a problem for the individual game character involved (!), but for what it potentially says about the man’s attitude towards women, and what he wants in a woman. I find that more problematic than the idea that he wants to marry the game character, per se. But I haven’t unpacked it enough to write about it coherently, and I don’t want to fall into the trap of sounding (or being!) condescending or racist by writing about something I don’t really get.

You might have heard the name Kurt Fearnley. He’s an Australian Paralympic athlete (marathon) who recently took on the Kokoda Track. He usually uses a wheelchair. The Kokoda Track is hardly wheelchair accessible. Fearnley walked on his arms.

Fearnley took a Jetstar flight on his way home, and staff insisted that he check in his wheelchair and use an airline-supplied one. Fearnley refused to accept the alternative wheelchair, and instead, used his arms to move himself around the airport.

His reasoning? From the ABC piece linked above:

“An able-bodied equivalent, a normal person’s equivalent would be having your legs tied together, your pants pulled down and be carried or pushed through an airport.”

I am entirely prepared to accept his assessment that using the airline-supplied wheelchair would be a humiliating experience which would have robbed him of his mobility and independence. I have two reasons why I’m prepared to accept it. First, and most importantly, it’s Fearnley’s own account of his experience. To deny it would be to deny that he felt that way, and I’m simply not in a position to do that. Can’t imagine anyone is, quite frankly. Secondly, and much LESS importantly, it actually makes a hell of a lot of sense from an objective perspective that, yes, having someone remove your mobility aid would be humiliating and would rob you of your mobility and independence.

Fortunately, the general atmosphere is one of accepting Fearnley’s experience, and Jetstar has apparently apologised. The ABC article quotes Bill Shorten, and an SMH article quotes Joe Hockey as well as Shorten, and both seem outraged that Jetstar treated Fearnley in this matter.* It’s great that there’s bipartisan recognition that treating people who use wheelchairs like shit is a Bad Thing.

It also allows us to focus on the details of how that acknowledgement is made, in some of which there is Fail.

First, there’s Jetstar’s fauxpology. From the ABC article:

“Jetstar apologises to Fearnley for any embarrassment and hurt that may have been caused as it was not intended,”

From the SMH article:

Jetstar says it accommodates up to 450 wheelchair-bound passengers each week without incident.

Interpreted: Jetstar is sorry that Fearnley’s fee-fees are hurt, it didn’t meeeeeeeeaaaaan to, and look at all its other friends who are wheelchair-bound!

Oh, oops! Another bit of fail, this time by the SMH! (And maybe Jetstar as well, if the SMH is simply reflecting language in Jetstar’s press release.) As Anna at FWD/Forward so clearly points out, the term “wheelchair bound” is ableist and offensive.

Next, from Bill Shorten, who is the Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Disability Services (quoted in the ABC article):

“It isn’t acceptable that they put an elite athlete in a chair which is not appropriate …”

Let me fix that for you, Bill, old boy:

“It isn’t acceptable that they put an elite athlete a person in a chair which is not appropriate …”

I’m just a little concerned that the Parliamentary Secretary for Disability Services appears to be implying that it is worse to treat an elite athlete like shit than it is to treat anyone else like shit.

Finally, the comments on the SMH article. I wouldn’t recommend them. Just take it from me that they’re a mixture of “this guy needs to be taken down a peg or two, he should just do whatever the airline says” and “yeah, good on him!” The second sort are generally ok, it’s the first that disturb me. From the “well, I flew with my mother, she was in an airline wheelchair and it was fine!” type comments, to the “what he describes is not like having your pants pulled down, how can it be?”, to the “we all have to comply with security procedures / check in stuff we don’t want to check in”, to the “they’re just treating everyone the same”, to the “he’s just being a spoiled brat” … ok, you get the idea, I’m sure you see the problems, and I refuse to read any more of those comments.

Basically: uniform security policies and procedures are all well and good, but they are basically uniform so that people on the ground don’t have to make too many decisions (either because they’re not trusted to do so by their superiors, or because it makes the job easier for them – and the process quicker – if they can just say to someone “them’s the rules” and move the line on). They are administrative as much as anything else. When it comes to something as essential and basic as a decision that could so enormously impact upon mobility and independence, the policies and procedures should be adjusted in order to allow a person who uses a wheelchair and/or other mobility aid(s) to continue using it/them for as long as possible. If this means that the person has to spend longer getting their wheelchair/mobility aid(s) checked, I’m sure they’ll be able to cope with that. I’m sure they’ll be understanding, even.

But a policy which simply treats everyone the same does not constitute equal treatment, as Fearnley’s experience with Jetstar so clearly demonstrates.

ETA: * Or maybe I’ve given Hockey too much benefit of the doubt. The Brisbane Times has a more extensive quote, which suggests Hockey meant “unbelievable” as in “there must have been some misunderstanding”, rather than “unbelievable” as in “this is so horrific that I wouldn’t have believed this could happen if it hadn’t happened”, which is how I read it in the first place, since the quote was juxtaposed with Hockey’s praise for Fearnley. Via.

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.)

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?

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*.

First *headdesk*: the article calls the reactions to the potential curriculum a “row” and a “furore” when the main people against it are the bloody Catholics. Of course!

Second *headdesk*:

Sydney’s Catholic schools head Dan White is warning against the planned national curriculum being used as a ”how-to guide” for children to gain access to contraception and abortion clinics.

Ahhh, because we all know how WELL abstinence-only ed works … anyway, much better for them to have a child at 16 than, you know, all the other alternatives!

Funnily enough, there’s a quote later in the article where White appears to support some mention of contraception and abortion in sex ed, just not as the “preferred methods”. Combined with this first quote, it almost seems that he’s happy for the students to know contraception and abortion exist, but that he doesn’t want students to know how to actually access them.

(Look, if someone I know ever gets pregnant at 16 and wants to keep the child, I will support her, but I’m also going to make sure she knows about the other options and that I’ll help her access them if she wants.)

Third *headdesk*:

Federal Education Minister Julia Gillard promised yesterday there would be extensive consultation with all stakeholders, including religious schools, before the curriculum came into effect.

Anyone mind telling me why the bloody Catholics (or any other religious group) should get to dictate to the rest of us? I mean, I hope that’s not what “extensive consultation” amounts to, but I’m also pretty damn sure that they’re not going to compromise!

Fourth *headdesk*:

British children as young as five could learn about same-sex relationships, how to manage their emotions and the physical changes.

Gahh, how immoral, teaching kids as young as 5 that not everyone is hetero! And that their bodies will change as they grow up! How immoral preparing them for that!

Fifth *headdesk*: *** TRIGGER WARNING *** The following horrific factoid was shoved halfway down the article, in passing, between another quote from the bloody Catholic and a paragraph about condom use:

The 2009 National Survey of Students’ Sexual Health found more than a third of 3000 high school students had experienced unwanted sex, particularly females.

“Unwanted sex” is rape, you bloody ostriches. And the fact that more than a third of high school students surveyed have “experienced unwanted sex” aka THEY HAVE BEEN RAPED seems to be considered unimportant, a point to note in passing.

Sixth *headdesk*:

NSW Secondary Principals’ Council president Jim McAlpine said: ”… With the national curriculum it is still a matter for schools to write their own teaching programs and I would assume the Catholic Church would delete those things they didn’t want to teach.”

The ellipsis is part mine, part the SMH’s, so I’m not sure of the entire context of that quote. But still – wouldn’t “delet[ing] those things they didn’t want to teach” defeat the purpose of a national curriculum?

All of this without even known what the curriculum is, or will be. I’m sure there will be more *headdesk*-ing when we find that out!

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.

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.

First, though, the introductory posts I wrote may be of interest. Here’s my discussion of why caring is a feminist issue, and a discussion about intersectionality of two particular identities: being a carer and being a person with a disability. You can also check out a more advanced discussion about why there is more silence about the care of elders (compared to the many discussions about the care of children) over at Thus Spake Zuska – Zuska is not an Antipodean blogger, but I’ve included her for the sake of the theme and because I think that post is a really good discussion about the role of carers.

While we’re on the topic of expanding the DUFC guidelines a little, I’m going to squeeze in a post I wrote after the end of October, but which is on topic: it’s about the lack of support for parents who are caring for their children with disabilities, and the lack of choice that lack of support entails.

On the subject of parents who are caring for their children with disabilities, Miz Lippy tells us why it can be confronting to remember what has happened to a child “just like yours”, while in September, she had a good rampage about people who think it’s somehow more moral to be a parent of a child with a disability. Meanwhile, back in July, Penthe described the tension between her and her husband’s feminist parenting principles and protecting their child from possible teasing or bullying.

And now, it’s back to your usual Carnival schedule: feminist posts by Antipodeans, which could be about absolutely anything.

Of course, the issues faced by people with disabilities is a topic that always stimulates a lot of feminist blogosphere discussion, and this month has been no exception.

We’ve seen the creation of a new blog, FWD/Forward: FWD (feminists with disabilities) for a way forward. It is not a solely Antipodean blog, but you’ll find two of our own there: Lauredhel and Chally.

Meanwhile, Chally describes how the mythology of the “Aussie battler” creates ableism of a particularly Australian flavour. Lauredhel looks at the way doctors’ medicalisation of disability adds complication to the abortion debate and also reminds us how the issue of accessibility is so often completely forgotten by those who should be key providers of accessibility.

And not quite this month, but close enough, Joanna’s post comparing disability access to organic fruit has been published in a magazine – so while the post was originally published in August, it has only just been unlocked (and hence I feel comfortable including it in the carnival now).

Then there’s The Arts.

Richie leads off with an excellent take-down of the film Lesbian Vampire Killers. Richie also reminds us that Doctor Who owes its continued existence to people who are not het males, and has done since the beginning, even if there are some people who find it more convenient to forget that.

But it’s not all doom, gloom and misogyny. Stephiepenguin reviews “who’s that chik? a hip hop tale of a brown girl with big dreams” and

Women also participate in geekery. Brenda Wallace reviews the One Laptop Per Child project for potential women contributors while Mary recounts stories of harassment related to conference presentations being filmed, and suggests guidelines to conference organisers.

Racism is another favourite topic.

tor wonders why Western men are so obsessed with the hijab – but don’t seem to care about other atrocities against women, wherever they occur. In other news, racism is racism no matter where it occurs, as a shiny new coin explains. In fact, that topic received quite a lot of appropriately negative attention – including a bingo card.

Racism against Indigenous Australians is important enough that it deserves its own bold heading. Chally gives us some numbers that show that rates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children in care are skyrocketing in Queensland – and these kids are often not being placed with Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander families, either. Can anyone say “are we creating another Stolen Generation?”

Elsewhere, religion is causing problems as Deborah tells us about a pharmacist in Griffith who thinks he has the right to impose his own version of morality on everyone else. While not strictly a post on religion, this is a post about impositions of morality: blue milk outlines the reasons why all Australian states should reform abortion laws NOW.

Sexual violence is something which features in every DUFC – as it should, because it is (unfortunately) always with us. Ludditejourno gives us some numbers which show that survivors of sexual violence are not receiving the funding support they deserve. a shiny new coin unpacks rape culture a little. And part of that rape culture is the sort of phenomenon described by newswithnipples – the phenomenon where a child is dressed like a little adult woman (ie sexy, since all women are sexy, dontchaknow), and then described as “a dominatrix”.

Violence generally also features, with Helen explaining why gender essentialism within families can be dangerous.

On a lighter note: since [stereotype alert!] women love to talk, conversation skills are a must for the modern feminist. Chally leads the way with some inspiring answers to common questions. Elsewhere, K8y explains to Crikey precisely where all the women might be. And I assume from the title that this will fit here: Chally submitted this post – I didn’t get to see it before Feministe went down, and I can’t access it at the moment, but I’m pretty confident in taking her word that it’s DUFC-appropriate, when it is available again.

One of the things we quite like talking about is sex – and sex ed is an important topic, as can be seen from Wildly Parenthetical’s thoughtful post on the problems with sex ed as it currently is in most places.

But - I hear you ask – what about the men?

Well, don’t worry! Because, as you would expect from a feminist blog carnival, there’s plenty to remind us that men are still the dominant gender. They are:

- the boss of your feelings, as tor explains;
- entitled to your objectified, mechanised servitude – a shiny new coin shows us how Lynx/Axe thinks it should be done;
- not being connected in any way with rape, as ludditejourno demonstrates; and
- not remembering how to spell their children’s names.

Finally, a bit of fun: some non-cute cakes over at Mim’s place (because what is feminism about if it’s not about subverting cutesy stereotypes?).

And that’s it for the DUFC this month! Apologies again for the slight delay. Number 19 will be on in December at The Professional Lap Cat (Optional Theme: Invisible sexism – the elephant in the room). More details about the carnival here – thanks, as always, to Lauredhel for her co-ordination.

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.

It’s a matter of the devil and the deep blue sea, or so it seems to me. And here’s where the privilege of choice comes into it (which is nicely discussed over on this comment thread, albeit in a different context).

I’m pretty sure that very few people in a caring role, whoever they are caring for, would choose to be the only carer, 24 hours a day, day in, day out. That is exhausting – physically and mentally – and potentially dangerous to the health of the carer. I’d imagine that an exhausted carer is more likely to make poor caring choices, too, so a carer’s exhaustion is also potentially dangerous to the health of the person who requires care.

I’m also pretty sure that very few people who are caring for a loved one would wish to relinquish all caring responsibilities, including the ability to make decisions (or to assist the loved one in making decisions, as appropriate).

And yet, those seem to be pretty much the options offered to many parents who are carers for their children with disabilities. Thus: the privilege of choice. Which can also include the privilege of not being required to choose between two potentially damaging options.

This is not only bad from a humanitarian point of view, but it surely can’t be resource efficient to have such an all-or-nothing approach? That is, surely it is just as cheap, resource-wise, for the state to provide part time care to more people rather than full time care to fewer people?

You’d think, too, that allowing a person’s parent or guardian or other primary carer to be involved in the decision-making process for the person who needs care would help to prevent the possibility that a big government institution like DOCS will make decisions on the basis of institutional needs rather than individual needs.

I’m not sure how much this issue is being beat up by the SMH article I’ve linked to. However, even if it is happening to only 10 people, it’s terrible. And it doesn’t take much for me to believe, with DOCS, that it is happening to many, many more.