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.

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.

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?

I put (2) to my friend (that’s sarcasm) in the lift (going with (1) and (3) could have been career-limiting moves) and said in as reasonable a voice as I could muster: “But mental illness and drug use often go together. Sometimes people are trying to use the drugs to deal with the illness.”

He blustered on, even standing in the lift door (his floor was before mine) while I stood there, mute, as I couldn’t think of anything to say other than: “you fucking judgemental douche.” Which I didn’t think would be a good idea.

So I’m having it out here.

Let’s start with:

1. Drug use is none of our business, and is not precisely the greatest moral crime.

2. If you choose to give money to someone, whether that be to someone who is begging or to someone who you buy something from, your control stops there. It’s then their choice what to do with that money. Including: buying drugs.

3. There is a huge co-incidence of homelessness and poor mental health (although “[i]t is important to note that most homeless people are not mentally ill”).

4. It is not uncommon to see drug use amongst people who are homeless and mentally ill. (And who can say they wouldn’t use drugs if they were homeless, regardless of mental health?)

5. People deserve our support, not our judgement.

NB: the pages I’ve linked above are from the Australian Federal Department of Health and Ageing. They suggest that drug use is a mental illness in and of itself. I don’t think this is necessarily the case, but the pages are a useful resource.

If you choose to comment, please keep the following in mind: note that I am referring to drug use generally, not drug abuse. I am using the word “use” very, very carefully. I don’t think that drug use, even abuse (whatever that actually means), is a moral crime or problem. I agree that drug use may, for some people, be problematic (this also applies to prescription and other legal drugs, not just illegal drugs). However, I am not in a position to judge whether someone else’s use of a drug is problematic (note that I am STILL not using the word “abuse”). Neither are you, unless that use is directly affecting you, or you are their treating health professional.

The man who sits outside my building may have an incidence of drug use which is problematic. I don’t know. But even if his drug use is problematic, I’d say that his bigger problem is that he’s homeless and that he is not receiving adequate support from the State and the community.

Just another reminder that it’s Carers Week this week and I’m hosting the Carers’ Week-themed DUFC early next month.

Take a look at the information about halfway down the linked page under the heading “Impacts of caring”. The first sentence under the heading is:

Carers have been found to have the lowest health and wellbeing of any group yet discovered.

The points I’m most interested in are:

more than a third of carers were found to be severely to extremely severely depressed

more than one third were found to be experiencing severe or extreme stress

carers are almost twice as likely than normal to experience chronic pain

caring could be one of the leading causes of depression in Australia

not receiving treatment for a significant medical or psychological condition is extremely damaging to carers wellbeing

caring compounds the effect of any other factor that leads to reduced wellbeing

it is evident that any level of consistent, daily, immediate caring responsibility is sufficient to severely damage wellbeing

These factors say to me that carers run a real risk that they are, or will become, a person with a disability themselves as a result of their caring work. (This is not to say that anyone affected by anything outlined in the points extracted above is a person with a disability, just that some of those factors may contribute to a person being or becoming disabled.)

This is apart from the fact that a carer may have, or develop, a disability apart from the impact of hir caring work, just as anyone else can – and, as per one of the points above, that disability may have more of an impact on hir due to hir caring work.

So that’s intersectionality in one sense between being a carer and being a person with a disability: it is entirely possible (and based on the statistics above, maybe even likely) to be both.

But there’s intersectionality in another sense, too. The adverse effects of caring on a carer’s health and well-being has the potential to impact the person zie cares for. So the more difficult life is for the carer, perhaps the more difficult life may be for the person zie cares for.

Equally: the more difficult life is for the person the carer cares for, perhaps the more difficult life may be for the carer.

So: social and governmental support for carers will assist the people they care for, and support for the people who require care (ie often people with disabilities) will assist carers.

Which is not to say that that means support should be provided only to carers or only to people with disabilities – quite the opposite. Support should be provided to both groups. Maybe then we’ll see the adverse impacts on health and well-being (for both groups) decrease.

It’s Carers Week this week – it started yesterday – and as I’ve mentioned a few times, I’m hosting the Carers’ Week-themed DUFC early next month.

I’m not going to have the time to do a blog post on caring every day this week, but I thought it was important to write a post about why caring is a feminist issue.

Although I think it’s pretty obvious: although the Carers’ Week theme this year is “Anyone Anytime Across Australia”, and it is absolutely true that anyone, anywhere might be a carer at any time in their lives, a significant majority of primary carers in Australia – 71% – are women.

This means that issues affect carers will disproportionately affect women. It means that caring is normalised as a task for a woman, which doesn’t help carers of any gender (just as normalising primary parenting as mothering doesn’t help parents of any gender). It means that caring is another way in which women may disappear from what is seen to be “productive” work, perhaps along with the person for whom they are caring. The statistics suggest that not only are a smaller proportion of female carers in full-time employment as compared to male carers – no stats given for other genders – but the proportion of female carers in full-time employment is slightly smaller as a percentage of the number of women in full-time employment than the proportion of male carers is compared to men in full-time employment.

Having said that, men, genderqueer people and intersex people (and trans* people, if trans* is considered another gender – it seems like it could be insulting to say that the gender “woman” does not include “trans* woman” and that the gender “man” does not include “trans* man”) should also be concerned about issues relating to carers. There are two reasons:

(1) 29% of primary carers are not women.

(2) A significant proportion of the 71% of primary carers who are women are probably partnered, and a significant proportion of those partners are probably not women. A partner may be the person for whom care is provided (42% of primary carers care for a partner), and I would imagine that those partners have a very strong vested interest in the health and well-being of their carers. Even for the primary carers who care for a person who is not their partner, a partner of the primary carer is likely to help shoulder some of the work of caring (whether it be through direct assistance with the caring work, taking on more of the work that any partnership has to do as a whole, supporting the primary carer or any combination thereof).

I don’t think that we should only look at numbers in order to decide what is important to think about from the point of view of feminism. However, numbers like these bring it into pretty stark relief.

I do not want to refer to caring as a burden. It seems to me that this has the potential to be condescending to people who are carers. It’s up to each individual to say whether or not zie considers the caring zie does to be a burden or not.

However, caring is work, and caring does have real health implications for the carer:

Carers have been found to have the lowest health and wellbeing of any group yet discovered.

Go look at the link to see specifics.

Providing care, especially primary care, may well be inherently stressful, but I doubt this is the reason why carers’ health and well-being is lower than any other group. It seems likely that lack of support by the government and community contributes significantly to that.

In light of all of this: the situation of carers is something which should concern us all, but given the likely disproportionate impact on women of the adverse effects of caring, the situation of carers should particularly concern us as feminists.

(Interestingly, in light of the quickhit on chronic pain which I posted earlier today, carers are “almost twice as likely … to experience chronic pain” as compared with other members of the community.)