In the lead up to the 2010 election, one of my girlfriends told me I had to vote for Julia Gillard. HAD to. Her reason? Because she’s a woman.
She pointed out that as the mothers of two daughters (as we both are), it was pretty much our daughter-mothering duty to vote for Julia Gillard.
Well that’s just bollocks, I thought. And said. Women shouldn’t get to positions of power by virtue of their vagina-holding any more than men should get to positions of power because of their penis-holding (and we all know they do more than they should of that!).
Gender shouldn’t play a role in a woman’s success. In fact, I argued, women who get to positions of power because they are women, are very possibly going to let the team down. They might actually send the whole movement backwards. If they are crap at what they do, then there will be plenty out there who will very quickly point to their womanhood as the reason for their crap-ness. It has got to be merit – every time it has got to be merit or we’ll never really be considered as the all-important equals.
"Women shouldn’t get to positions of power by virtue of their vagina-holding any more than men should get to positions of power because of their penis-holding."
My friend vehemently disagreed.
Julia Gillard was our first female Prime Minister – at that point achieved via what the media refused to accept as any method other than KNIFING. Our first female Prime Minister, voted by the public into the position, was going to be a beacon of hope for our daughters. For generations of girls to come. A symbol of YES YOU CAN.
But I was having none of it. I didn’t like Julia Gillard. I didn’t like a lot of what I saw her say. I didn’t want to vote for her. Nor did I like her opposition. I felt like, as an Australian voter, there was no one who was speaking for me. Not the man. Not the woman. But I couldn’t bring myself to vote based on gender alone. I wanted women to have equal opportunities but I couldn’t get my head around affirmative ballot-paper action.
Beyonce has never been afraid to call herself a feminist warrior. (Post continues after video.)
I guess I’ve been what some may call ‘a reluctant feminist’.
When Julie Bishop said she didn’t call herself a feminist, I kind of got it. Kind of. I didn’t go around calling myself a feminist either. Julie Bishop (like Julia Gillard) was doing her bit for feminism just by succeeding. She didn’t have to call herself anything. But I’ve had to ask myself, why didn’t I call myself a feminist? And I really want to ask Julie Bishop, why? What the hell is wrong with being a feminist? Why is Michaelia Cash not prepared to call herself a feminist?
I ask this now because I’ve realised that being a feminist doesn’t mean, as many of us have been media-trained to believe, that you are seeking out a world where women just present their vagina at the secretarial pool door and get ushered right up to the CEO’s chair. That is the fear out there, I think. That’s the dirty-feminist-word-fear-mongering that’s going on. That vagina could come to mean automatic advancement (kind of like penis has meant automatic advancement in years gone by… but hey… we’re better than that, aren’t we?!)
"Whatever people have come to think of the word, being a ‘feminist’ doesn’t mean trying to get your secretarial pool vagina into the CEO’s chair." Image via iStock.
And that’s why people – including lots and lots of women – are terrified of the word ‘feminist’.
Whatever people have come to think of the word, being a ‘feminist’ doesn’t mean trying to get your secretarial pool vagina into the CEO’s chair. It means, I think, having choices. It means being able to choose a path – whether that is to secretarial supremacy (or complacency … as you like it) or to CEO-dom. It means expecting the same pay for the same work. It means garnering respect for your greatness, and not accepting being called great ‘for a girl’.
So back to Julia Gillard and my girls. Just recently one of them asked about being Prime Minister. She asked, ‘Can you be Prime Minister if you’re a girl?’ Then it dawned on her. ‘Oh yeah,’ she said, ‘Julia Gillard.’
Hmmm.
Australian author, Deborah Disney, practised as a litigation lawyer prior to finding her true calling in the school pick-up line where she started typing a little story on the notes app on her iPhone one afternoon. Deborah’s first novel, Up and In, hit the bestseller charts on both Amazon and iBooks and has enjoyed international acclaim. Deborah is currently working on her second novel, which is about in-laws. You can connect with Deborah anytime on Facebook. You can buy her novel on Amazon, iTunes and in all good bookstores.
Top Comments
I think these days western feminism has several problems. First, the prefix "western" as opposed to feminism on its own that has achieved much and still has many worthy things to do in the non western world. There, over 3000 women die each day just from lack of access to clean water, rape culture exists in Africa where paramilitaries are encouraged to use it as a weapon of war, rape as a punishment exists, as do honour killings, the denial of education to women, forced marriages, female genital mutilation and much more. Real issues with serious consequences. But western feminists, having developed their pyramid of victimhood, won't touch those for fear of seeming racist. Like it's racist to object to lesbians being hanged or stoned to death. Instead they campaign on trival nonsense, such as gender issues with Lego, how much space a man takes up on a train seat or trying to ban the word bossy.
Most sane people, who accept and promote equality and fairness, run a mile from western feminists because those nutters annoy us with their constant harping on insignificant nonsense and offend us on their meek silence when it comes to women who do desperately need help in the rest of the world.
Western feminists ignore that western women today are the most privileged people in the world behind celebrities and royalty. I mean what law, statute or regulation would feminists actually claim favours men over women in this country? All they are doing is turning off men and many women to feminism, declaring yourself to be one these days is like having a can of penis repellent for all those women who might actually like to meet a guy and have a relationship. You're killing happiness for women as much as you are for men.
I know you wouldn't care but Western women are killed and abused by current and past partners at alarming rates and Western women are sexually assaulted at alarming rates. I know that most of the women I know have been sexually assaulted. You're the nutter, by the way. The thing about nutters is they don't know they're nutters.
So your rebuttal to Masaaki was to call him a nutter. The quality of commentary on this website is pretty poor and most definitely juvenile.
Is not.
I know you are, but what am I? Am not, you are!
Whatever anyone cares to define the formal definition of feminism as, the reality is that it will be judged by the masses by actions, not words. And the actions of many that loudly proclaim themselves feminists lets the side (and the definition) down considerably.
No matter how much you state that feminism is just about equality, many harder line feminists (that often get the media coverage) show that it is about more than that. To them it is about only acknowledging that one gender can ever suffer gender related issues. It is about painting men generally in a very bad light. It is about lobbying and changing the issues that disadvantage women while quietly retaining the things that work in women's favour. It is about complaining about female representation in the top 1% of jobs, without also complaining about representation in the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs. It is about complaining about completely trivial gender issues in the western world while ignoring the plight of women in the third world. And that is not 'equality' in any language. It is selective equality with a side serve of misandry. And that is the reality of much of western feminism in this day and age and why many choose to distance themselves.
Actually, you'll find women will take whatever work they can if they need to support their families. The reason that you don't see women in so called dirty and dangerous jobs is because they, traditionally, weren't allowed to do these jobs and still face barriers in getting into jobs like construction, mining and the like. Women also make up far more of the cleaners of this world, cleaning all manner of disgusting things and not paid as much as a garbage collector (traditionally a "man's" job) Also, women do far more unpaid work that men, far more.
Also, that isn't what feminism is about. I support many oversees feminists groups/charities, empowering women to make changes in their own countries, you will find a majority of women who identify as feminists also involved in this. Am also currently studying the plight of Aboriginal women, so that I can make a move into that area in the future.
I'd love to see some of your so called media coverage where feminists are calling for women to have more rights than men. I really would.
It's interesting, I also support a local fathers group, helping dads out who are struggling to see their kids. As a feminist, I believe that the mother isn't always the best parent for the job and that many dads and kids are missing out. How many of these so called 'men's right's activists' actually go out and support stuff like that?
Good for you on your definition and implementation of feminism. Read anything from the likes of Clementine Ford et al however and you will see a clear undercurrent of the types of things I mention. Even most mainstream media is completely biased toward female issues and the narrative of women = victim, men = bad. A very great proportion of men and women are getting quite sick of it actually and distance themselves from the movement. And that is a fact, regardless of how you conduct yourself Laura Palmer.
" It is about complaining about completely trivial gender issues in the
western world while ignoring the plight of women in the third world."
Nonsense. For example - feminists were talking about things like FGM decades before right-wingers had added it to their list of reasons to bash Muslims (never mind that it is not purely done by Muslims).
Clem Ford is very popular. Feminism is very popular. Hence the reason people like you are shitting themselves.
Bull, why do you think men are the vast vast vast majority of perps of crime? Please when answering that don't forget women have higher rates of mental health issues and also have drug and alcohol problems. Women are more likely to have been sexually abused as minors. Don't forget that women live in poverty at higher rates than men. So why do you think men are more often perps, most work bullying and harassment claims are made against men, for example - why?