'In 2013 I want to....'

I was inspired this week by the New Orleans-based artist Candy Chang when I watched her TED Talk about a piece of urban art she created. On an abandoned building in her neighbourhood she wrote the words 'Before I die I want to....' and then left spaces for her neighbours and passers-by to fill in. She got some amazing contributions...funny, sad, ambitious, brilliant. If you're interested watch it here.

I thought I'd ask you, readers of notthestylepages, what you'd like to do in 2013....

I'd like to be able to swim 200m butterfly (with no break).

Are your parents cooler than you? Welcome to hell.

'The daisy', said my father in law, sipping his tea in my sitting room last week, 'represented a vagina.' He paused for a moment. 'It was too obvious.'

This statement was shocking not for the casual use of the word that makes the world uncomfortable nor his confident assessment of a work of modern art but because it revealed one of the greatest divisions in modern society today and that is the fun our parents are having versus the fun we are (not) having.

Yes, the collective parental unit (‘The Unit’) has emerged from the sucking hell of its suburban bog, wiped itself clean on 400 count Egyptian cotton and reinvented itself as the curator of the modern zeitgeist. The Unit is living the Life of Riley while its offspring groan under the burden of their fin de siecle pension entitlements. And boy o boy, what I wouldn’t give to swap places.

My father in law's psycho-floral observation was made after an art ‘soiree’ (the organiser's word) he and my mother in law attended in Bognor Regis. Bognor is a small town on the Sussex coast with ambition, it seems, to be twinned with Hoxton-upon-Shoreditch. This particular 'soiree' was merely a teaser for a bigger, louder, more shocking art event planned for the New Year. In giving us a rundown of the event it became very clear The Unit knew a lot more about modern art than we did. The question is, how did this happen?

The change that happens to The Unit after retirement is baffling.

‘But they never went anywhere!’ my husband said as they drove away. 'I don't understand. A big night out used to be the Harvester on Grandma's birthday. What the hell are they doing at a 'soiree'?' He had the same problem coming to terms with his stepmother's superior grasp of phone text abbreviations in 2008, and his own mother's casual use of Facebook. He is being forced to confront the neo-social and cultural husk of his own life.

I'm sympathetic, but I'm struggling with the same thing. Here is a series of texts my mother sent me this week:

‘Thinking about buying a new car’

‘Bought a new VW today!'
'It's silver!'

‘Picking up the new car today! Oh, btw, happy birthday!’

‘Am drinking glass of wine in sun, with new car keys in hand. Smiling!’

Now, if I’d ever sent my mum a text suggesting I was drinking within 100ft of a new car while holding its keys I’d have my arse kicked from Sydney to Saigon. I'm almost certain it was wine from a bottle too. No more ‘Kaiser Stuhl’ in a cask for The Unit.

From extreme kayaking in the Ardeche, to summers in France and trips to Cairns for the lunar eclipse The Unit isn’t just on the local art scene or propping up the German auto sector. It’s going global Gangnam style. It's riding the credit crisis like a toddlers' merry go round. Its diary is jammed solid. It might be able to squeeze babysitting in between lattes with gym mates and social networking but don’t rely on it. The saying 'old age isn't fun, but it's better than the alternative' no longer applies. Old age is a laugh a minute and busier than a Manhattan till on Black Friday.

And it's not just about a busier social life and the flagrant spending of our inheritance. The Unit has built a richer role for itself in the community too. One of my mother in laws (I have two) retired a few years ago only to start working for three charities. Three! At the same time! I think, on average, she saves two lives before breakfast and one after lunch Monday through Friday. And that's before the big stuff like selling cushions to ladies with piles at the charity shop. She isn't part of the Cameron Government's 'Big Society'. She IS the Big Society - just her, alone! If Van Rompuy can't fish Europe out of its pond he knows who to call. 

Of course The Unit may read this, scoff, and say 'we did our time wiping your arses, now it's OUR time suckers.' Or they'll plead with us and say 'We were REAL PEOPLE too all those years, you just didn't see it!' Well to that I say it's hard to see the face of humanity when it's glowing purple over a missed curfew or loud music, or when it's hidden behind health & safety goggles and a clipboard. We are being forced to reassess decades of capricious repression of our own artistic identities and accept a new world order, where we are the slouches, the povos, the luddites.

As my father in law drove away last week, having taken pity and brought us up to speed on the symbolic associations between Romantic artist William Blake and she of the daisy, Georgia O'Keeffe, we were left slightly shaken and badly regretting we hadn't booked a table for dinner at the Harvester.

by Katherine Burgdorf

Vagina. Half the world has one

By Gabrielle Jackson

It was in response to the bodyform brouhaha in October that I changed my Facebook status to ‘Vagina’.
 

What happened, for those who missed it, was a young man wrote on the Facebook page of bodyform – a sanitary word, sorry, products brand – asking why they lie about women’s periods in their commercials. Bodyform responded with a humorous YouTube clip saying that when they tested adverts telling the truth about menstruation men couldn’t handle it. They cried.

You can view it here:

Well, big whoop if they cry. I cry pretty much every time I have my period, but it still comes. Every month.

The Guardian didn’t think bodyform went far enough. Neither do I. Because what annoyed me more than ads for pads was the fact that we’re not allowed to say ‘vagina’ on TV. Well, you are actually 'allowed' to say it on TV in most Western countries, but it isn't often said, and when it is, there are complaints, such as when Carefree said the word in one of its commercials in Australia. You can read that story on Mumbrella. 

That illustrates the bigger issue at play here, which Sarah Silverman gets at in her snort-laugh-inducing book, The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption and Pee.

"There's essentially no limit to how often we can say 'penis', 'balls', 'scrotum', and 'shaft', but female anatomical language is a big, flapping red flag (so to speak),' says Silverman speaking about her show on Comedy Central, a channel owned by MTV.

She does admit that 'gaping rectum' in reference to a male was once censored but it's almost always the exclusively female genatalia that the standards people take issue with. Once she wasn't allowed to say 'vagina' because it was too graphic and was substituted with 'genatalia'. ('Vagina' does get through on other occasions). In this instance, it was 'labia' that was about to be scrapped.

"According to the censor, 'labia', in this instance was too 'graphic' and we were asked to remove it. Labia? Fucking seriously? We can say 'penis' and 'balls' until the cows come home, but labia? I asked our censor if this is what she wanted to teach young girls - that penis is fine and balls are funny but labia - your own body part - is dirty? It was not a stretch to me to view this as telling little girls to be ashamed of their bodies, which genuinely offended me," writes Silverman.

 In that case, she won. But on the whole, I'd say we're generally losing.
 

That’s why I thought I should make it my status update. You know, just get it off my chest at last: ‘OK, world, there’s something you should know about me. Not sure if you already do….BUT….I have a vagina!’

That’s what I wrote on Twitter and immediately lost followers. And to them I say, ‘Hahahahahaha. HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!’

It’s not dirty or rude or disgusting. It’s pretty much the reason we’re all here. We all entered the world through one, so it’s pretty funny, if you think about it. We’re not allowed to say on TV what half the world has and the other half (roughly) wants (to enter, not to possess). Have you ever heard of anything so RIDICULOUS?

Well, perhaps the conversation that ensued comes close. I’ve recreated the conversation and deleted surnames here to protect the identities of those involved. They might not want the public to know they engaged in a conversation about VAGINAS.

Gabrielle Jackson 

Vagina

Nick and Joe like this.

Helen: thought your favorite term for it is 'front bottom (1 like)

Margaret What!

Kate Gabbs. If I were a boy I'd def hit the "like" button for this one. And no you can't blame angus!!

Gabrielle I am doing it in response to the fact that you are not allowed to say 'vagina' on television. Pad and tampon companies who wanted to use the word on an advert were BANNED by the networks in the US. I am investigating the situation now. In the meantime, this is pretty funny: https://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/commentisfree/2012/oct/17/bodyform-bloodless-snark-attack

Gabrielle But if you think we should be allowed to use the word - because HALF the world has one - you should change your status too. AND Sarah Silverman was allowed to use the word penis in her show, but not vagina. WHY?

Gabrielle I'm glad you liked Helen's comment, Mum, because that's what you called it when we were little

Margaret Oh I know! Catholic upbringing is to blame, the words vagina and penis spoken out loud could have led to excommunication! (1 like)

Simone This is so funny because [my 6-year-old son,] angus asked me this morning if there was another name for 'front bum' & after our conversation with Jess in the Hunter I told him ' Yes, it's called a Vagina". He said 'What? A Begina?" I said "No, Vagina" & he was not impressed at all!! Think we'll just stick to Front Bum thanks! (5 likes)

Gabrielle that is hilarious, sim! I'm glad he knows the proper word for it

Margaret Hilarious! However vagina is not a "nice" sounding word, I wish it was called something else!

Gabrielle Reminds me of the scene from Rake last week! Should we call it a weewee? That sounds nicer (2 likes)

Margaret Thinking about Rake what about calling it a ninny? Then we could have a ninny and a nonny. (1 like)

Gabrielle I think you've solved the problem, mum! (1 like)

Julieanne Wats up with the good old fanny!! (2 likes)

Gabrielle We were allowed to call it that when we were older, Jules

Sheri Foo foo was a favourite growing up... My little guy uses the term weenis because mark calls it a willy and I call it a penis and this the blend was born so maybe the vagina needs to be a voo voo...(1 like)

Nick I had to press the like button Gabs - its not often that's the first word you read when you wake up! X (1 like)

Wendy I quite like fahina - it's also urban slang for 'the boss', so that works for me. (4 likes)

Jenny What about cloaca ? In agriculture I think I recall that was the name of a chicken's bits.

Gabrielle How do you pronounce that Jen? I also wrote vagina on twitter and three people immediately stopped following me, which is more than a little amusing (1 like)

Jenny Clo. Aka

Gabrielle Hmm, something tells me that's not going to work. I think ninny and nonny are currently in the lead (1 like)

Nick @Gabs - re Twitter. Can't believe one could ever stop following vagina...! (2 likes)

Margaret Hey Gabs Fred has just read all these comments and wants to add to them. He says "beaver" and "ferret" are his particular favourites! Both terms should be immediately disregarded as far as I'm concerned but just saying.....

Karen Hilarious comments. Always called it "Wee wee" with my kids. (2 likes)

Eirwen I was born in the city of Regina, in Canada. It's pronounced the same as vagina, but with an R. I can't tell you the looks I get when people ask me where I was born. Hilarious! I love to see them squirm, thinking I've just said vagina!! (1 like)

What do you call your vagina (if you have one) or penis (if you have one)? And what words do you teach your kids to say for vagina and penis?

Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl.

Lost for words, except that, you know the bastards are worried if this is their answer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7834402.stm

The Bechdel Test for women in movies

This movie has two women who talk to each other about something other than men (but only once)

By Gabrielle Jackson

I'd like to draw your attention to the Bechdel Test for films. It goes like this:

Does the film:
1. Have at least two (named) women in it?
     2. Who talk to each other?
          3. About something besides men?

If you answer yes to all three questions, the film has passed the test. Woohoo!

The fact that such a test exists is testament to how few films actually pass. And passing doesn't mean it's a feminist film, by any means, or that it's good, simply that it has parts for a couple of chicks.

The film industry is structured to make movies about men, for men. Are you happy with that? Women are half the world. You wouldn't know it by looking at Hollywood films. Independent cinema tends to score better, but there's still a huge gap between what is represented on the silver screen and what actually happens in real life.

I know that films are an escape and that they don't have to be representative of real life. But are we really saying that women don't feature in any fantasy world? That women are not interesting to anybody? That women have no stories to tell? 

Nobody is saying that all films should have women in them. Or that films with all male casts are bad. Or that we shouldn't watch films that fail the test. I'd never give up Top Gun.

But I think we should be aware of it, and apply the test to the films we see and the films we like. Maybe we should seek out films that pass the test.

I remember going on a date with a man when I first moved to New York in 2002. He asked me if I wanted to see Black Hawk Down, and I replied, 'Does it have any female characters?' He laughed, said, 'There's probably a love interest' and we saw The Royal Tenenbaums instead. He brought up that response often. He'd never thought about it before. It wasn't a feminist theory I'd researched and developed; it was just an instinct I had for what I liked.

I know a lot of men and women who love Black Hawk Down. I don't. I know a lot of men and women who hate The Royal Tenenbaums. It's one of my all-time favourite films and I felt that way before I even knew about the Bechdel test, let alone that it passed. Maybe I just like films that have women in them? I know I don't enjoy movies where lots of men go around shooting each other and I know if there's a car chase, I will probably hate it. But not all women are like me. I know women who love shoot 'em up movies and I'm happy for them that they have so much choice in what to see at the cinema.

But I'd like more choice too, please. So spread the word, be aware and watch some movies that pass the test. That way, more will be made. It's the box office, after all, that dictates the next films that are funded.

For the record, the last two films I've seen at the cinema both pass the test: Your Sister's Sister (with the added benefit of a female director AND writer) and Mental. I enjoyed both, but I think Your Sister's Sister is one of the best films I've seen all year. And I saw it with a MAN. WHO LIKED IT! I saw Mental with a woman who like it too, but since I know women's opinions are not as important, I won't capitalise that.

The Bechdel Test website is basic, but serves it purpose.

The Bechdel Test: What It Is and Why It Matters does a better job than me of explaining it. 

The Bechdel Test For Women In Movies is a short but good explanatory clip

Jeremy Hunt get your hands off my...

by Katherine Burgdorf.

Jeremy Hunt, the new Secretary for Health, would like to reduce the legal time limit for abortions in Britain from 24 weeks to 12 weeks. He is supported by other Conservative MPs like Nadine Dorries. He is not supported by any of the medical bodies interviewed by The Times as part of this story.

How Jeremey Hunt is still in politics after the BSkyB scandal I will never know. What he wants to achieve with the politicitsation of medicine is completely and utterly beyond me. The only thing I can think is that he wants to make women's lives more difficult for the benefit of his Christian faith.

Is that it, Jeremey? Does your personal fulfilment through your chosen religion feel better if I can't have an abortion beyond 12 weeks?

How about this Jeremy. I'll trade you 24-week access to abortion if you dismantle the British arms industry. If Britain stops manufacturing weapons to kill people, because human life is so precious, I'll support a reduction in abortion time to 12 weeks. After all, there's nothing more important than life, right? Well, usually. Well, middle class white people and children anyway. The Society for the Preservation of White Middle Class Brits and Unborn Babies. I'll be co-president if you stop making and selling weapons.

What's that, Jeremy? An important source of income for Britain? Someone else's department?

Gotcha. No deal.

Didn't think so.

The trouble with reading these stories on the weekend is that it enrages me. I can sit at my kitchen counter on a beautiful Autumn day, when all should be right in the world, and I weep with frustration at the people who seek to control my insides with politics. This is what living in America is like, and we fucking hate it. I will not live in a country which tries to govern through religious politics. This personally puts me in a difficult position because my husband says he won't live in Britain if Miliband becomes PM. I won't live here if Hunt gets his way. Looks like we're in for a tricky marital decision come 2015. I'd pay any amount of tax for the right to live under rational government policy.

Lowering the limit to 12 weeks will rush women into making a decision they might otherwise make differently. It will prevent women from getting abortions who didn't know they were pregnant - this is not uncommon, particuarly for older women who are not expecting to be pregnant. It could force teenage girls into having children before they are emotionally or financially capable because they have had no one to confide in and who have therefore missed their chance. It will prevent women from aborting babies with illnesses like Downs Syndrome which only starts to show at around 14-15 weeks. That's science.

Women are not born with the unlimited capacity to nurture. We are not that different to you, men. We are not superhuman. Yes, we can grow life. Yes, hormones help us in that process. But we are not an unlimited cavern of human sympathy and love. We are exhaustable. You should know, because for thousands of years you've been telling us we weren't as good as you at anything! We are not capable of emotionally thriving with 3, 4, 6, 13 children dangling around our necks. Even if stay at home mothers do make your unemployment figures look better.

I hope there are other women - mothers and non mothers - out there who will fight this if it comes to it. If I was a third wave feminist I would sit back, smile and say fuck em, I fought for equal pay, I fought for equal rights, and look what these silly girls have done. They've been ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL. They've been smug, they've been educated, and now they're at fucking home, not working, baking cupcakes and the men who still run this country are slowly, slowly, quietly, quietly cutting away at their rights. Politicising gender. Why? Because men don't raise children. Their lives are not sucked down into despair over children. Because science still isn't as powerful as religion.

Well, not me. If this thing kicks off I will be out protesting like it's 1960 all over again. I will turn into one of those insane people who builts a cardboard protest camp on Parliament Square and dies in it 67 years later, still protesting, still angry, still right and still, possibly, wearing flares.

At least we know what our protest slogan will be: Jeremy Hunt get your hands off my...womb.

More female fuckwits at the top: the failure of feminism

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By Gabrielle Jackson

I went to the Opera House on a glorious Sydney spring day to hear Germaine Greer, Eva Cox, Tara Moss and Dannielle Miller discuss the topic All Women Hate Each Other.

In the first few minutes, as the topic was dismissed by Greer as a ‘non-topic’, ‘absurd’ by Moss and Cox asked how many men would be in the room if the topic were All Men Hate Each Other, I was pleased I’d forsaken the sunshine for the bad acoustics of the Concert Hall.

Men are mean to each other as well, Greer helpfully pointed out. Cox despaired the western need to stereotype all women as One, as though we were all the same because of our gender, and said of course some women hate other women. Just as some men hate other men, and – in classic Greer style – all men hate women but women don’t know that all men hate them.

Moss said she thought it was incredible the way female behaviour is demonised when male behaviour is so much more dangerous. Women may call each other fat, but we don’t – on a scale compared to men – assault each other or murder each other and we’re not committing suicide at anywhere near the same rates as young men and boys.

‘It’s a distraction as old as Eve,’ said Moss. The myth that the world was created perfect by an omniscient male (God) and it took a woman (Eve) to bring sin to it and mess it all up is still the premise on which our patriarchy is based.

Greer and Cox, in particular, were keen to point to the phenomenon of women being mean to each other as politics of the powerless.

‘We’re dealing with the psychopathology of the oppressed,’ said Greer. Because women have a fear of being abandoned by men, she said, they tend to express negative emotions to those they can hurt, that is their girlfriends, their mothers, their sisters. Those whose love they know is unconditional, in other words. Women can’t treat men this way because the men might leave them or hate them (not knowing that they already do).

It’s because of women’s powerlessness that they act as the police of broader society, said Cox.

Some talk was given to discussing the supportive and loving relationships shared by women, but not much, because – let’s face it – as women, we all know this.

Equality doesn’t mean we’re the same

It was about half way through that the talk took on a more interesting angle for me. It was around the time Cox recalled that a boss had once told her that the problem with equality was that you get just as many female fuckwits at the top as male ones.

‘It was a mistake,’ she said, ‘to think getting more women in top positions would change the workplace.’ 

Greer despaired that women in the corporate world had utterly failed to change it; that essentially they’d emulated and fit into the macho corporate structure, while at the same time failing to understand how it works.

Women get onto corporate boards and think decisions are made based on the strength of their ideas, Greer said. They don’t understand that all the power-broking happens outside the boardroom – at lunches, on the golf course or in the gym. What’s more, women tend to want to form emotional relationships, so that when they’re ‘done over’, or somebody takes credit for their work, they feel betrayed and hurt, most especially if the person doing it is female. Management is based on taking credit for other people’s work, she said, but women can’t do it. And, when they do, everybody is horrified.

What makes it worse for women in the male corporate world is that the rules aren’t the same. A woman in the workplace is expected to be the mother and sister to everyone, and when she isn’t, she’s a bitch.

Not all women are nice, Cox said, so let’s stop expecting them to be.

But, more importantly, let’s not try to fit into the corporate world. It’s a man’s world and we cannot change it from within. It’s time to re-think the women’s movement, Cox said.

This was a welcome concept to me. I’ve felt for most of my adult life that the concept of feminism was dead. I was sad, but it seemed that other women weren’t interested. I felt they’d been duped by the patriarchy into thinking that because we could go to university, vote and take the pill, we were equal. It was clear to me we weren’t.

So I blamed the feminist-deniers. But what I now realise is that maybe the way the debate was framed was to blame. It had become too academic, too framed in male talkshow ‘bra-burning’, man-hating’ terms and it took a long time to win the debate back.

It took the Slut Walks and, for me, it took two other things: Caitlin Moran’s book How To Be A Woman and Liz Fell’s theory that equality doesn’t equal assimilation.

Moran made it easy for young woman to call themselves feminists by resting the entire concept on something we all have: vaginas. Moran asks women two questions:

1. Do you have a vagina?

2. Do you want to be in charge of it?

If you answer yes to both of those questions, da-daaaa – you’re a feminist!

Such simple concepts were what feminist discourse had been missing.

It was around the time of the release of this book that I began to listen to Fell’s approach to the women’s movement more closely. Perhaps it was also because I’ve been living in London and she’s based in Sydney and we didn’t get to talk much. Our catch ups usually revolved around my tales of failed romances and other misadventures. But suddenly, I was incredibly energised by this debate and what she had to say about it.

I will paraphrase in my inelegant fashion, so please don’t blame Fell for that. What her argument comes down to is this:

·      Equality doesn’t mean we’re all the same

·      The idea of the women’s movement was not to assimilate women into the patriarchal society (or corporate world) but to integrate women into a new kind of society that values women’s contribution

What Greer and Cox were saying about the corporate world was very much what Fell has been banging on about for the past few years. For a woman to succeed in the corporate world does not mean we’ve reached equality, it means women have learnt to play by male rules, and this is certainly not what Fell had in mind when she formed the women’s co-operative at the ABC all those decades ago.

We have to change society, not adapt to it. We have to change the values of a society that has one version of success, one version of the workplace, one version of mother.

What I’ve come away with on this long weekend is the thought that we’re not all the same; we’re not all nice; we don’t all want to form loving and trusting relationships with every woman we meet.

But I think we all do want more control over our lives; to hear more female voices in the news, in parliament, at the cinema and in the workplace. I think we could agree that we want a society that values the unique contribution that both men and women can make.

Greer said that the greatest achievement of feminism will be freedom from guilt.

Come on, fellow feminists, how do we get there?

Fucked up but still spinning - another week on Planet Earth.

Aren't you sometimes overwhelmed by how just plain good the world is sometimes?

No, me neither. Quick rundown as we kick off another week on planet Earth:

1. Nice story in the Sunday Times today about Papa Gaddafi's habits of abducting young girls to use for rape target practice. Liked to piss on them afterwards too, apparently. Hard not to feel uplifted about the direction of Humanity right there.

2. Boardroom quotas: Britain hopes it has enough support from other countries to stop EU plans to introduce quotas as a way of getting more women on Boards. I support quotas on the well argued basis that we may as well replace useless men with useless women, but the argument against quotas isn't wrong. Unless you change the culture towards women in the workplace, and changes to the pension and childcare frameworth, then quotas aren't going to produce any real advancement. So ladies, for the time being you can bin your CVs and get back to helping your male colleagues work the company printer.

3. I bet if the Monty Python team crafted that YouTube sketch of the Prophet - 'Life of Brian' style - the Muslim world would be laughing themselves to Mecca and back. Instead of killing people. They're just naughty little boys.

4. Regulators in Scotland won't allow a breast cancer health campaign that features images of bare breasts on telly before 9pm, possibly reducing the effectiveness of the campaign. Well, this definitely wouldn't be a problem in France. As long as the boobs were Kate's. But maybe in Scotland they could take this one step further and restrict booze, sex and fried food until after the watershed too.

5. A woman soldier has given birth to a child in Camp Bastian in Afghanistan - possibly the most useful contribution anyone has made to the War on Terror so far. Rumour has it the kid's got red hair and its first words were 'what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.'

On a more personal note my blog on women being asked to bake cakes at work has not gone down well at the office. I am undermining my own work  and position by circulating such tosh in addition to just being plain mean. But it's not all bad. It was suggested I just needed to pick my battles more wisely. Red flag and a hand grenade, anyone?

So, deep breath and on we go eh Comrades? Keeping writing. XX.

Why do women look dumb on telly? Clover and Robyn on Q&A

By Gabrielle Jackson

The two women on the panel of Monday night’s Q&A made about as valuable a contribution to the debate as Posh did to the Spice Girls. Which is to say, you never heard their voices.

I think Ben Pobjie summed it up on Twitter when he said, ‘Clover, Robyn, if you hang around, maybe you can sweep up afterwards.’

I’ve got to say, I agreed with him. Sweeping up would, after all, be more of a contribution to the show than either of them had thus far made.

Q&A is Australia’s version of Question Time. For those not familiar with either show, it’s a format in which politicians, journalists and others in the public eye are invited to sit on a panel to discuss current events. The panel is balanced with people from opposite ends of the political spectrum and the audience puts questions to them, mediated by a 'neutral' presenter.

In the summary round of this week’s Q&A, all the panellists were asked for their final word on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The writer Robyn Davidson declined to comment, saying something like, ‘I couldn’t say it any better than that,’ while not making it 100 per cent clear to which of the previous male speakers she was referring.

When it was Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s turn, her enlightened contribution was, ‘I think we should be looking for a solution.’ Really? I mean, I don’t know what Australia would have done without that kind of insight.

But hang on a minute. These are intelligent, thoughtful women. Clover Moore is a controversial figure in Sydney, but I don’t think there’s any doubt over whether she’s capable of a deeper thought than Israel and Palestine should look for a solution to their conflict. Robyn Davidson has written a best selling book and delivered lectures all over the world.

And yet, on Q&A, they looked like they’d been leased from Madame Tussaud’s. Although I have a sneaking suspicion a wax dummy may have looked more alive.

Which makes me think, maybe there’s a reason. Why do women almost always come across badly on these confrontational TV panel shows? I did wonder this on Twitter. I said:

‘These panels are very confrontational and macho. I’m sure the women aren’t dumb but this is not the natural way women communicate.’

The first response I got was:

‘hang on, I thought men and women were equal? If they want to play lumberjack they got to learn to carry there (sic) end of the log!’

I replied:

‘Equality doesn’t mean we’re the same; just that we should have equal opportunity & I think #qanda is very blokey’

He went on to say that Germaine Greer manages to hold her own when she’s on and that he thought Moore and Davidson were bad choices for the topics covered. Maybe he’s right. The other response I got was perhaps more interesting. It read:

‘did you not see Catherine Deveny last week, maybe they learnt from her how not to be a loudmouth moron like she was’

Me:

‘see, when women try to communicate like men, they get called loud mouths and worse. It’s a no win for women to go on’

He didn’t respond. I’m not the first to have this thought. The debate rages in Britain about the lack of women on TV panel shows, particularly comedy panels. My feminist hero, Caitlin Moran, who writes a column for The Times and wrote the best-selling book How To Be A Woman, flatly refuses to appear on Question Time and other British panel shows. At a reading of hers I went to in London, somebody asked her why. She said it was because these formats were overly confrontational and male dominated. She doesn’t like competing for her voice to be heard and doesn’t like her chances of being given a fair hearing. She later said that these shows were set up to make it look like women don’t understand politics and don’t get political humour. It’s not always overt; sometimes it’s just the way a show is edited, or who gets to answer the question, or how long a mediator allows each guest to speak.

When British comedian Victoria Wood claimed that TV panel shows were ‘male-dominated, testerterone-fuelled and bearpit-ish in the extreme’, fellow comedian Jo Brand explained it to the Guardian.

‘Women don't want to go on panel shows for six reasons: 1) They won't get a word in edgeways. 2) They may be edited to look stupid. 3) They may get the piss taken out of them. 4) They may not be funny. 5) They don't like competing for airtime. 6) They may be patronised, marginalised or dismissed.’

Maybe it’s got something to do with men being more comfortable pushing their views than women tend to be. American author Rebecca Solnit recently updated an excellent article she’d written in 2008 for TomDispatch.com about how men explained things to her without letting facts get in the way. She talks of several instances in which she has been almost or fully silenced by confident men trying to explain something to her that was incorrect in a field in which she is an expert. Sometimes it’s easier just not to argue.

Let me just pick out two paragraphs of her excellent story for you to ponder:

‘Yes, guys like this pick on other men's books too, and people of both genders pop up at events to hold forth on irrelevant things and conspiracy theories, but the out-and-out confrontational confidence of the totally ignorant is, in my experience, gendered. Men explain things to me, and other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men.

‘Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.’

When smart women act dumb on TV, isn’t it time we started asking, ‘What’s wrong with this show?’ rather than ‘Why is that woman such an idiot?’

Dear London...

Dear Great Britain,

No, wait,

Dear London,

It was a grey, cold and drizzly day a decade ago I arrived on your shores to live. I spent my first few nights at St Christopher's Inn on Borough High Street and never left the Northern Line. The roll call of my 7 London residences reads Oval, Borough, Clapham, Elephant & Castle, Kings Cross, Islington and Shoreditch. I loved something about them all - yes, even you, Elephant.

Oval was owned by a lovely Polish taxi driver who lived somewhere in rural Yorkshire, having driven himself into a land owning dynasty. He owned most of our street, all the terraces divided (probably illegally) into flat shares. He gave Sam and I his own TV in acknowledgement that Poles and Australians both knew the meaning of hard work. We'd put a roast in the oven and head to the Fentiman Arms for a beer and plate of chips. Couldn't afford to eat out but did it matter? Not a jot. I will say, though, that walking back from the pub to our tiny room I would look with envy at the warm interiors of other people's terraces and wonder at the money they must earn to live in them. It was my first experience of being poor, but it's hard to say I've ever been happier...earning nothing, expecting nothing. What an adventure.

Borough SE1, was a lovely step up to our own flat - two incomes now! - and was owned by Minnie Driver's aunt. She bought the flat around 1997 for £59,000. She was a photograher who married to a dentist turned music producer and she took photos of all her tenants. I'll dig ours out and post it later. Our weekly shop was the market, and I ran and ran and ran along the Thames. I could hear Big Ben chime. I loved it and I know that whoever lives there now will love it too. First - and so far only - time I've been questioned at a witness to a minor stabbing. Sadly I didn't see anything.

On to Clapham, a single girl now, and it was two summers of bikes, parties and living with blokey flatmates. It was like living on a TV show...people dropping in, stumbling home from discos and getting invited out to places all around that manor. I was 26 years old and getting younger by the month. It was the very best of times, and the very worst of times. It was my home during the 7/7 bombings and I was mugged within site of my front door. By girls on bikes. The lady who called the police told me she didn't think I'd get up but it must have looked worse than it was.

Onto Elephant then, for a short stay. It was a mistaken move but it did host a wonderful girls-only Christmas Lunch in 2005  - seating 17 around the table. Soon after that I ditched the boys and, for the first time, moved in with a friend, Sarah. Muriel Street, Kings Cross, wasn't a pretty location, but with Islington 20 yards up the road and the canal to take us to Camden it was heaven. From there I discovered the Ladies Pond at Hampstead in the summer. I trained for my first and only marathon along that canal stretch, which I could see from my window. Sarah studied for entrance into medicine using our Ikea coffee table and I studied for my financial exams using the ironing board. That address the home to the height of my insomnia which marked it darkly as far as being a good flatmate, I'm afraid. If only I knew then what I know now.

Residence no. 6 was Liverpool Road with Simon and my introduction to Living With Kids. Harry threw up on me on the sofa there, peed in his sleep in the corridor, and we read stories to the boys in bed. It still holds the record for being my longest running address, but still no sleep. Miserable years at work. But Islington I loved - its pubs, its farmers' market, its blossom trees, its squares, our friends, still in London, still nearby. Whenever I think of it, it is spring or autumn I recall. We tried to buy our own patch there, but it wasn't meant to be.

Which brings us to Shoreditch - an experiment with City living. We live above a tex mex restaurant in a building with just a few other invisible souls. There are no light switches in our bedroom, it is daylight 24/7, and if you run the kitchen tap you are rewarded with a brief but powerful sewage smell in the bathroom. An exhaust fan runs through the height of the building which provides a reassuring hum throughout the night in the spare room. Isn't this typical London living? Nothing is ever as it seems. The wall of windows provides a nightly array of entertainment from midnight photo shoots and rappers filming video clips, to raves in the empty car park opposite and parachute regiments jumping from Chinooks over the Artillery Barracks. This is the beating heart of London now - East is best. I live where I work where I eat where I shop where I volunteer - the lastest experience.

There is a whole other letter I could write to Britain, but it is to London that this last decade belongs. The tube, the lidos, the parks, the markets, the vintage stores, the terrible coffees, now the flat whites - that other Aussie invasion. Some money, more money, less money. Exams, learning again. A boom, a bust. Bikes, the canal, walking. Lots of travel, no travel. The Heathrow Express. Seasons. Dancing. Theatre. Visas, visas, visas. A whole new career. And always, brilliant graffiti.

Where to next? Who knows. London Fields maybe, closer to the pool because I can't swim enough. It will be something bijou to buy, I think, to be sure when I'm old I can visit. Maybe to pass on to nieces. If London is still a place to be. I'll start looking this week, I think. Always moving on.

With much affection,
Your newest citizen.
Monday 17 Sept. 2012.

Why does it always come back to baking?

Do you remember how, earlier this year, I wrote here that I thought City sexism was on the last slow train from Waterloo - waving us farewell as it downed its last G&T, and lit up its last cigar?

You do? Really?

What's that?

Oh, that's so nice of you to say!

Well, anyway, it turns out I was wrong. Yes, I'm afraid so. Very wrong. To put it bluntly I was as wrong as a rat up an S-bend. Like a frog in a toaster. Wrong.

What do I mean? Well, yesterday at work (an investment bank) I received this email:

Sent: 10th September 2012 11.21am

Dear Ladies of <my bank>

Do any of you think you will have the time/energy to whizz up some cakes for our (charity) Foundation bake sale this Wednesday & Thursday?

Please do let me know...thanks,

<sender name withheld>

I'm tempted to stop writing here. You can see what I mean.

What's that?

No!

I'm not having you on. That's an actual, real email.  I'm protecting the identity of the sender. I don't mean to single them out for this, this...de-vancement of our status, shall we say. I'm just...distressed.

See, women actually died fighting for the vote in England. Oh I know you know that, but I wonder if enough people know that. I'm not sure they do. Or maybe they learned it, but have forgotten. I'm not sure what's worse!

You know, we only got that vote on equal age terms in 1928.

What?

No, no. The 1918 legislation gave us the vote at 30. Our vote was only lowered to the same age as men in 1928 - in those days 21 years of age. Campaigning for women's rights was a crime. Many suffragettes went to prison. Yes, jailed! I think the best you could hope as a campaigner was suffering only ridicule. And total social exclusion.

I know. It's bizaare to think of it now, isn't it? I mean it's so long ago (well, not that long really, but seems like it).  So...yes. I'm just a bit distressed, that's all. I wasn't expecting it. I mean, I was at work. In 2012. The thought that someone is here, looking around, thinking of women as the lone resource for...baking...well, it's got me worried.

Why does it always come back to baking, do you think? Baking for kids' schools. Baking for the village fete. Baking in films...even that great film Bridesmaids which showed women's conversations about cocks as they actually are (you know, in the cafe scene early on, when she makes some bollocks with her arms and closes one eye?). Yeah, even in that film the main character, Annie, finds love and resurrection through...baking! But at work too? Really?

What's that? Bigger picture?

Huh. You know what, you are totally right. That's how I should be thinking about it.
So by putting the 'women = always = baking' thing aside, as you suggest, this is actually about the economics of charity. It would be better to try and get as many cakes as possible to sell, right? I mean, I like cooking (of which baking is a sub-set), but Gordon 'WTF' Ramsey likes cooking too, doesn't he? And other men do too. So, well, why not ask everyone in the office if they would like to contribute to the charity day by baking cakes for sale. Because, and here's the clincher to your argument, us women like eating them! So if both men and women get the opportunity to bake, buy and eat then we're making more cakes and more money. And, this is the City - we like making money. After all, thanks to slow-but-wonderful laws I get to keep the money I earn too. I can spend it how I like (which wasn't always the case). I can spend my own money on cakes, on charity, on...whatever.

What? I'm still too serious you think?

Oh. I know. Yes it is funny. And it does make me laugh, I promise. Or it will tomorrow. Maybe.

If you don't laugh you cry, right?

What?

Who sent it?

Oh, someone in HR.

If this is a House Husbands, I don’t want one

By Gabrielle Jackson

House Husbands

 

I was so looking forward to House Husbands. I thought it might be the sounding of the death knell for the Aussie male that is expected to call women cows and slags and demand chiko rolls after dud roots.

I mean, times have changed. Nobody eats chiko rolls anymore.

And if Puberty Blues,a drama about two school girls who try to make it into the cool gang by sitting a little bit further up the back of the bus, can be as good as it is, I had high hopes for a drama about blokes looking after the tin lids.

But my hopes were destroyed pretty quickly. The opening episode of House Husbands was depressingly bad. It had a clumsy plot, implausible scenarios, and laborious character development. If the writers think four blokes dropping their kids off at school is about as believable as five-year-olds hijacking a bus then I’m afraid this drama is just as sad as our prime minister being compared to a barren old cow. No matter what you think of Julia Gillard, one should at least muster up some wit if one wants to make a political joke. But wit is largely lacking in this drama too. Unless you think the idea of having a gay dad is so hilarious that you also think it’s funny he pretends to bake pies which he actually buys from an anonymous woman.

Oh my, can’t you just hear the ripples of laughter reverberating through the red brick houses of suburban Australia. That’s not to say it wasn’t funny. I mean, had I read the script and not seen it, I would have thought it was supposed to be a comedy farce.

Incompetent older dad makes joke to competent kid about driving herself to school.

Kid encourages other five-year-olds being dropped off by dads to steal the school bus. One sits on the accelerator while another steers.

Disgraced football hero chases down bus in super hero fashion and saves the day. But only after the school principal breaks her arm.

Gay dad is supposed to drop principal- who was treated in hospital by one of thieving kid’s mums - home but loses her while picking up secret pies.

They’re all related or work together or something equally as silly and over complicated.

If it had been played like a farce it might have had some hope of being funny.

I suppose I could have looked at the casts in each drama to decide which one I’d like the best. In Puberty Blues we have Claudia Karvan, Dan Wyllie and Susie Porter, whose stable includes some of the greatest Australian films and television dramas ever made, including Love My Way (all of them), Chopper (Wyllie), The Heartbreak Kid (Karvan) and Little Fish (Porter).

In House Husbands we have Gary Sweet whose brought us such winners as Rescue Special Ops. I know that’s not fair. I didn’t want it to be a competition – I wanted to like both new Australian television shows. And there are some great actors in House Husbands. I mean Rhys Muldoon has been in a lot of fine shows on the ABC. And let’s face it, there’s not that much work for Aussie actors so they may have to take anything they can get. Even scripts with holes as big as the ozone layer. I mean, if the writers wanted, I could introduce them to some of my male friends who actually do look after their kids without doing an excruciating impersonation of Mr Bean. Then again, maybe it’s really for kids and I’ve just got the wrong end of the remote.

I could write more, but then I’d just continue to bore you. I’ve already bored myself so much that I’ve fallen asleep and dribbled out a half digested mint slice on my keyboard while writing this.

It’s an hour you won’t get back. Think about that before watching the next episode.

In, Out, Sent - a week on email.

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Cows, slags, moles and illegals: is this really modern day Australia?

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