I actually really feel like writing at the moment but, to be honest, I feel like I need to do so much tidying up around here that I just can’t decide which comes first.
My bookmarks and navigation pages were both written using PHP, so they would update automatically. With a new theme in place now, the PHP calls don’t work and the pages are empty.
And there are so many dud posts that I would like to clean up as well, to give the blog a bit more focus.
I’ve been avoiding posting links on Facebook or linking to my blog when leaving a comment somewhere because anyone stopping by, potentially for the first time, won’t find much of interest. Or will write it off because there is too much dross up front. All the good shit is buried.
This is just another dud nothing post of course. Really, it is just me thinking out loud. (Well, the keyboard is doing sound effects anyway.) But it feels good to be getting back in the habit. Actually, it is really pleasant to be hammering away, and letting whatever comes out of my slightly numb head just come out.
It is NaPoWriMo next month, I believe. And I’m going to be writing poetry again. But I won’t publish much of it here (if any) because I’d actually like to start submitting my work to the journals. In fact, there are a couple of good poems I’m really annoyed at myself for publishing here. I think my expectations of life (and of what I can achieve in it) have been too low.
One thing that has been really inspiring since coming back to my online world is seeing Miscmum’s posts about submission deadlines, and to see the Miscellaneous Voices project that she’s put together. It is a (good) kick in the pants to see people doing in comparison to all my tedious, narcissistic self-pity.
(I’m definitely heading to the book launch, btw. if any of you are going to be there.)
Oh my god this is like teenage stream-of-consciousness drivel. But it is a post.
And it IS writing.
So… I’ll just slam up some basic pages tomorrow, with an “in progress” kind of notice and some links to posts which are more, um… representative? than what is on the front page. And all the tweaking can come later.
Actually, you guys can help me… Are there any posts you particularly remember, or particularly liked, or that you think are particularly me-ish? Feel free to just say, “That one about such and such…” and I’ll search for the link.
Hugs and kisses to all of you whom I’ve been catching up with over the last few weeks, by the way. You guys make me happy.
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Yes. It was another false start for this (used to be) cerebral mum.
I will get back to it, I promise. I’m motivated, but overthinking everything as usual.
Too much clutter in my mind and on the screen.
I’ve fixed the screen at least. (You insane people who kept me in your readers for over a year can’t see that.)
Let’s call it a blank slate and start over.
Again.
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Starting back on this abandoned blog with a series of thoughts on women’s issues this week. Today is International Women’s Day and also, in Victoria and Tassie, Labour Day so work seems an appropriate subject.
“Women in today’s workplace still earn less than blokes, they work harder for promotion but are often overlooked in favour of men for more senior positions, and when they retire, have far less income to retire on. If they have children, most of the childcare, or organising it, will be left up to them. They will often work in poorly paid casual or part-time positions in order to prioritise family, especially in the pre-school years. ”
— Trish Bolton, Feminism is more than a memory
THE FACTS:
- Women’s average full-time weekly earnings – 17.2% lower than men
- Women’s average, inc. part-time and casual work – 35% lower than men
- Women’s likelihood of old age poverty – 2.5 times higher than men
- Women’s average lifetime superannuation – 50% of what men have
MY RESPONSE TO THE FACTS:
Are these figures quite appalling? Yes. Are they unjustifiable? Certainly. Do I feel enraged? I simply… don’t.
As a lifelong feminist, I have always found it difficult to get worked up over the pay equity issue. Partly, it is a question of triage. If the average woman has enough money to feed and clothe and house herself and her children, then my focus will be on other issues. In the face of serious threats to women’s health and safety, for example, the question of who is getting the biggest piece of the pie becomes rather trivial to me. Will a few more female CEO’s or female millionaires – often lauded in the media like some kind of breakthrough for women’s rights – change the daily experience of the average woman’s life? Make her more free? The average woman, and even the average man, will never have access to that rarified air.
Incidentlally, the pay gap is actually at its widest in that rarified air. (Women CEOs, for example, are often earning 50% less than a male in similar positions.) The lowest paying jobs are where you will find the smallest gap. And yes, yes… Women are over-represented in the lowest-paid jobs. It kind of makes that old catch-cry of “Equal Pay for Equal Work” seem rather silly when women don’t get ‘equal’ work.
And perhaps I should be more outraged about that. Because that IS about cultural attitudes and stereotypes which inhibit a woman’s power to choose. Of course I agree that any woman who wishes it should have equitable career rewards and opportunities for advancement but the reality of this capitalist, consumerist Western society is that the majority of all people do work that is not particularly fulfilling or financially rewarding. The issue for me is not whether women should be getting more of the pie: It is whether or not that pie is worth buying into at all.
Can we measure someone’s societal value by their earnings, or by the prestige of their position? Should we? Yes, I know we do… but should we?
What exactly is wrong with those “low-paid” jobs anyway, apart from the fact that my telly might not be as big as my next-door neighbour’s? Would I somehow feel more important and valued if I was an accountant than I would if I was answering an accountant’s phone? Would I actually be more important, or are we really just talking emperor’s new clothes here? Can my paycheque really define my value as a member of this society or, after a certain point, actually improve the quality of my life, not just its appearance?
I might sound facetious but I am actually serious. Our society places a lot of emphasis on work (in that old male ‘public sphere’ anyway) as identity and it grades identities with a rather ridiculous scale. Doctors sometimes save lives. But garbage collectors do more to make my life livable every week.
Isn’t there the danger of actually creating another yoke around women’s necks with the pressure to be ’successful’? Isn’t this simply another double-edged sword for women, like sexual liberation, where more is expected and less is given? (Not that I’m knocking sexual liberation, but any number of conversations with women worrying that making a phone call after sex might be overstepping the bounds tells me there is some power imbalance there.)
I would suggest that this social pressure already exists. Over the last decade several older feminists have come out and said, “We got it wrong: You can’t do everything. That Superwoman thing was a big mistake.” And we know what the crux of the Superwoman problem is, and it is a significant part of the problem with pay disparity: Motherhood.
In a brief discussion on Facebook earlier today, it was pointed out to me that because of lower earnings, often women are dis-empowered in the negotiations at home about who will work and who will care for the children. If women earn less money, they will obviously be the ones who will stay home, or do flexible, low-paid work to supplement the family income. This does take some choice out of the equation, it’s true, but I am not by any means convinced that even with equal work and equal pay there would be equity in those negotiations anyway.
And this is where the way we value work and the way in which we assign social value really comes to the fore: Even when both (heterosexual) parents are working full time, the majority of housework and childcare falls on women. The vast majority of all unpaid work has no (acknowledged) social value and continues to be “women’s work”. There will most certainly never be equal pay for equal work while this division of labour remains so firmly in place. And while perhaps some legislative action and governmental changes might improve a woman’s pay cheque, and even her social status, the price is the expectation that, if a mother, she will have two full time jobs and will often feel that both of them represent a failure.
As a single mother myself, one would think that I might sometimes wish for the support of a partner, and perhaps if I had one my finances would be less of a worry, but the feeling I most often get looking at perfectly happy relationships is relief.
“The cost in human terms of feeding him, grooming him, humouring him and financing his recreation is way out of proportion to the contribution he makes in return, even if he is a sensitive and attentive lover.”
– Germaine Greer, The Whole Woman
Equal pay for equal work? How about just getting paid? Yes, now I am being facetious, but if anything is to change in the experience of work for women, there needs to be a societal shift in the way all work is valued and it can’t be measured in cash. For all the achievements of feminism made in the last century – and they are enormous, and I am exceedingly grateful for them – we still live in a society of irrational hierarchies and I’m not sure that climbing the ranks is the solution.
Women should have choices. Affordable and accessible childcare should be a priority. Longer and paid parental leave should be a priority. And I am in favour of equity in the workplace and at home. I am all in favour of women having career goals and financial goals above and beyond the necessities of life, if that is what they want. I truly am. I simply can’t find in myself the feminist urge to march in the street for it.
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Okay. So I’m guessing there are still a few people who have me in their feedreader. Your hopes were not in vain. Of course, some of you probably just kept me there so you could get those claws out as soon as I posted again and blast me for being the Queen of All Disappearing Acts.
So get those nail files out because here I am.
I’ll be writing something about International Women’s Day sometime very late tonight. You’ll probably be in bed.
But don’t expect this return to be without interruptions – I know. You weren’t actually foolish enough to expect that! – because this Wordpress version is hopelessly outdated and I’m not even sure I remember how to fix it. And I find this theme quite loathsome now so I’ll be fiddling around with the stylesheet sometime in the near future too.
Also, there was so much spam in my comments folder that I just did some wholesale deleting. If something you wrote, that I never read, got lost in the fallout… Well, you probably don’t remember writing it anyway.
Love you all. Missed you all. And I will be dropping by your places for a visit sometime in the near future too.
Until then, here a some repostings of poems which seem somehow appropriate for International Women’s Day…
— Prenuptial –
When the time comes, I will quietly press God’s jaw
And bite at the tendons of his stiffening neck.
I am disoriented.
When the time comes, I will face East.
Bedlam is the home of women with tangled hair
And I have no hair.
This is my home.
Men wear white when they visit me;
They are bridal.
I pick flowers from the fields to earn my keep.
No. That was in another place.
I’ll tell you a story.
When I was a girl, the grass grew.
Oh, I know the grass grows still
- I am not crazy -
But then it grew in the fields I grew in
And I raced to grow faster than it,
Taller than it.
But I fell and it defeated me.
A snake entered the pit of my womb
And planted there a seed
Which grew round and downward.
My woman’s body was not built for movement
So I lay still.
This is the meaning of the story.
The teaching.
When the snake enters,
When his fangs are poised,
Do not interrupt. Lie still.
Talk to the grass for whom you raced and fell.
You belong to the grass.
This is an old, old teaching.
My bridal men stand poised with syringes
While I murmur to you.
I have another story.
When I was a girl I wore a crown.
Now I have no hair and God is coming.
199?
— You Begin –
When your soft fingers
flex against the walls
of my deep cavern,
you begin.
Or is it sooner?
When you first feel
the pulse of my hot
blood in your own veins,
is it then?
Or is it when
I feel him still
beneath me, still
enclosed by flesh,
but still.
Is it then
that you first move?
Almost you.
Or when I run
screaming
to my own mother,
blood on hands,
wanting to swim
with the bloodless girls,
already ashamed
of my blue bra?
Is that you then,
new, impatient?
Or is it when
my own fingers
flex against the wall
of her deep cavern
and further inside
I drum life patterns
into waiting rooms
and you begin.
— The Pitch –
I love men.
I love the stillness of them
Their lack of agitation
When they shake off
Their workaday
Clothes
Their ability to not
Talk, to not repeat
Their thoughts
Over and over again
Their lack
Of doubt.
Men are peaceful.
But there are times
When they need
To think beyond
Their words
Beyond
Other men’s words
Times they need
To see the
Queen trapped
In the corner
Of the chessboard
While they laugh
Albeit humourlessly
At another joke
At the Queen’s
Expense
While she shrivels
Beneath the gaze
And turns to ivory.
Women talk
But men hear
Men’s voices
Like dogs
It’s all
In the pitch,
Bitch.
When they
Are not funny
Why won’t you
Snarl at them?
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