Do you see what I see?

The SMH is at it again.

This is what I’m getting at:SMH front page clip showing an article about eliminating bingo wings (for women) in the Life & Style section

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I buy hardware supplies…

… and it looks like Selleys doesn’t want my business.

I saw this ad on television this evening:

Transcript:

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Talking about mansplaining…

… I ran into a charming mansplainer this week.

I have just acquired a new computer for work, so I thought I should go best practice and get some surge protection, too.

I dropped into my local hardware store a couple of weeks ago, and was shocked at the price difference between the top and bottom ends. The specs on these things are not very clear, and so I couldn’t figure out whether it was worth paying extra or not. So I asked someone.

The someone I asked was a big burly bloke who seemed to know what he was talking about. He was absolutely adamant that I needed to buy the surge protector at the top end, and his explanation made some sense. He was a little condescending, but I’m so used to that that I ignore it, as long as the information is useful. But I am always suspicious about people who try to sell me the most expensive item in the store, so I decided to think about it.

I had some time this week, so I went back to the same shop and asked another person. The someone I asked this time was a short burly bloke, maybe 18 or 20 (ie significantly younger than me, and nobody ever thinks I’m younger than I am), who in a blusteringly condescending tone gave me the exact opposite advice the first man had given me – but who couldn’t explain why, just said with a patronising sneer: “you don’t need that”. Let’s call him Condescending Fool.

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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.)

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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.

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Why caring is a feminist issue

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.

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Because woman = commodity…

I saw the headline for this article, that headline being “Naomi Watts is world’s most profitable actress” and thought: “Hmmm. ‘Profitable’ is usually used to describe to a thing, an object, a commodity. Fuck.” Then I thought: “Please tell me that’s just the sub-editor, and that the article is actually about women AND men, because it’s bad enough treating people as commodities in the first place, but…”

And then I clicked through to the article and found that no, it’s just about how much money can be made through the commodification of women in films. Nothing about male actors.

The assumption I immediately made was that someone has clearly realised – even if subconsciously – that it would be demeaning to men to treat them in this way, as commodities.

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If women can do it, women should be permitted to do it

Wow! Another person in authority espousing another radical* notion! That’s two this week!

As per the following extract from an article in The Australian:

Mr Combet, a former ACTU national secretary, told parliament yesterday the Defence Science and Technology Organisation would develop a new set of physical employment standards for the army that would accurately measure a person’s ability to perform the broad variety of jobs in the modern defence force. “A priority of the government is to improve the recruitment and retention of women in the ADF,” he said. “My own view is that all categories should be open to women. The only exceptions should be where the physical demands cannot be met according to criteria that are determined on the basis of scientific analysis, rather than assumptions about gender.”

So in other words: let’s look at what the job actually requires, rather than the gender marker on your driver’s licence (or other form of identification).**

* Yes, that’s sarcasm again.

** Trying to work out how to say this in a cis/trans neutral way made me realise: I have no idea what the ADF’s stance is on permitting trans people (men or women) – or intersex people – to do the various jobs women (in general) are not permitted to do. Now that could make for an interesting case!

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