Suffragette

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On the way home in the train this week I noticed a poster advertising a local university. The headline caught my attention.

Brilliance has no sexual orientation. Opportunity doesn’t discriminate.

It probably made more of an impact on me than it otherwise might have because I’d just been to see Suffragette, so my mind was still full of the extraordinary accomplishments of the women it portrayed so vividly.

The combination of the film and the poster brought The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, to mind.  I read this book almost two decades ago and was powerfully affected by it. The story is set in a not-implausible near future dystopia in which a puritan theocracy holds sway. This scenario, in which women are stripped of all power, highlights the relative ease with which the rights and freedoms we tend to accept without thought can be taken from us.

These rights and freedoms, for which generations of women fought doggedly, now appear to have always-already existed. Most young women I speak to have little interest in how these rights and freedoms were won – and even seem to find it implausible that our society has ever been anything other than the way it is today. As for the possibility of those rights and freedoms being eroded or lost… that’s not a conversation they seem to want to have. Apparently it’s ‘so last century’.

Perhaps seeing Suffragette could shift that point of view, at least somewhat. The portrayal of the determination and spirit of ordinary women striving for a better world was both engrossing and humbling, and the absolute silence in the cinema when the film ended was very telling.

A few key points regarding women’s suffrage that have direct bearing on my past: In South Africa, the land of my birth, white women were awarded the vote in 1930. My mum would have been about 13 years old at the time.  It took a further 64 years before black women gained the same rights.  Here in Australia, my chosen home, women gained the right to vote at a national level in 1902. This excluded aboriginal women, who were allowed to vote from 1962 onwards – but were only were granted full citizenship in 1967.

This window into the past shows some interesting parallels – and it also shows how far my homelands, past and present, have come. Complacency is dangerous, however. I think it’s often all too easy to accept a way of life when it favours us, without giving thought to how that way of life might have come about – or whether we would have the strength of character to fight the good fight to gain it or to keep it.

It’s also appears disturbingly easy to not pay attention to shifts in our society until they coalesce and we are no longer heading where we thought we were. Around the world there is a perception that women’s rights are being gradually eroded or sidelined. Equal pay and non-discriminatory hiring practices continue to elude us, despite having the vote and notionally being equal under the law. But most disturbing are endemic sexual assault  and the never-ending arguments as to who has rights over women’s reproductive capacity.

Are we paying enough attention to these things?

To quote The Handmaid’s Tale: Ordinary… is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.

Is this what we want? For mysogyny to be ordinary?

The links between the history of women’s suffrage, a patriarchal system that is self-perpetuating, shifts in social attitudes, the ease with which freedoms are accepted and can therefore be eroded – along the possible attendant consequences – are clear. What all this tells me is that a poster advocating that opportunity doesn’t discriminate on the basis of gender or sexual orientation is, quite simply, misleading.

So take responsibility – and play a part, however small, when it comes to awareness of key issues in our society, paying particular attention to emancipation and to feminist solidarity.annie lennox feminism.

 

Ageing disgracefully

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Some time ago I created a vision board to reflect my emerging two-to-five-year plan. The aim was for this to act as a visual reminder and an anchor. It included big picture items that take a bit of planning, such as a trip to overseas (Scandinavia, perhaps), finishing off our kitchen renovations and having an electric vehicle as our primary mode of transport. These are all still ticking along as background tasks, some more actively than others.

In terms of immediate personal plans, however, plausible outcomes seemed like the best working premise. So for this year I chose fairly simple goals – ones that I felt I could realistically conquer and that would leave future-me feeling the year had been a success.
personal goals 2015I aimed to increase my general fitness (somewhat-tick), establish a strong bond with our puppy (ohmygiddyaunt – so much tick!), get my memoir publication-ready (mostly-tick), blog regularly (tick) and spend more time doing things I enjoy (increasingly-tick). All in all, past-me made some sound choices and implemented most of them.

Looking back at the past year has made me think about past-me quite a lot and about some of the choices she made for me. I remember a young woman who used to say (rather flippantly) that she would age disgracefully, that she’d work at not growing up as she grew older (i.e. not get boring).

Now that past-me has turned into present-me, I conclude that this was a surprisingly good – and achievable – plan. Amongst other things, I’ve continued to wear jeans, sit on the floor, walk around barefoot, laugh out loud at things that amuse me and smile at strangers. All these things are intrinsic to who I am, although I gave them little thought until relatOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAively recently. Over time, however, I’ve realised that they make me actively happy.

When I think about future-me, I’d like her to be happy too – and to continue not feel constrained by social pressures to become a tidy and conventional old lady. I’d like people to say to her (as they do to me) that she seems younger than her chronological years – and I’d like it to be because, like me, she enjoys life.

Of course, ageing does come with a few limiting factors: get-up-and-go that has sometimes got-up-and-gone, a reduced inclination to be tolerant of rudeness and bad service, and an occasional tendency to be forgetful – these have certainly all become part of my landscape.

But past-me found some useful coping strategies along the way, some of them in The Sunscreen Song. Somewhat surprisingly, many of those tips feel as relevant now as they did then – although some resonate age disgracefullymore strongly than others, including:
* be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone
* the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.
* be nice to your siblings

But if I could add just one additional lyric for future-me, I think it would be:
Age disgracefully – it’s always more fun than you think.

 

Reverse Advent

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Did you know that at least 13.9% of Australians are living below the internationally accepted poverty line?

I didn’t.

Nor did I realise that, on any given night, 1 in 200 people in Australia are homeless and over two million people are dependent on food donations in order to survive.

That’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of people with little or no food and very little hope.

Various relief agencies try to plug the gaps and provide help where they can. But, in order to do this, they need help from government, corporate sponsors – and from the community.

Providing some food for people in need is something practical and tangible that one can do to help. So this December I signed on to take part in a ‘reverse advent’ activity. It works on the simple premise of counting down to Xmas by giving rather than receiving. Participants set aside a box and then add a non-perishable foOLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAod item to the box every day up to and including Xmas Eve.

Individuals or groups involved in the food drive were encouraged to source a local charitable organisation (homeless shelter, women’s refuge, etc.) that would be willing to receive their food donations. We would then each individually trot off and deliver the (filled) box to our chosen charity on Xmas Eve.

A brief hunt around on the Internet and a few phone calls made me realise that this wasn’t really a practical option. It turns out that most organisations need the food at least a week before Xmas. This allows time for sorting, assembling the care packages or hampers and getting them to those in need.

I acknowledge that there are those who believe that donating money to charities is more worthwhile than donating food – and I encourage those who wish to make donations to do so. However, I have some personal reservations about the overheads that many such organisations have in terms of premises, staffing and advertising. In some instances not much of my paltry donation actually appears to get to the people that I’m concerned about.

But a tin of soup (or whatever) is a tangible item, a consumable that I think someone will be able to put to good use – perhaps to feed one meal to one of those million hungry children in Australia. It also speaks directly to the notion that food is a central concern for all humans – but that not everyone gets to eat every day.

Given all of this, I decided that what I needed was to find was a ‘gatekeeper’ – an organisation that acts as a central repository for foofoodbankd donations. Food Bank WA  fits the bill perfectly. It’s a not-for-profit, non-denominational organisation that facilitates food distribution to the needy.  It has relatively few staff members, but a very large cohort of volunteers – which adds to my general feel-good vibe.

This week DaughterDearest and I took a drive out to the Food Bank to drop off our filled boxes – and it felt good to be part of a solution, however small a part it might be.

We were invited to have a look at the facility and I was amazed to find just how comprehensive a service it is. Food Bank not only receives food, often saving pallets of tinned food from going to landfill (!), and acts as a clearing house by supplying numerous charities with food packages for those in need – it also has a commercial kitchen.

This is where some of the volunteers process and cook excess fresh produce that’s donated by businesses. For example, tomatoes are turned into pasta sauce. The freshly cooked food is then snap frozen and organisations are notified that ready-to-eat meals are available for pick up. How good is that?

We came away feeling inspired. Indeed, sufficiently so that I’ve decided to run quarterly food drives next year.

So, for anyone who’s interested, all you’d need to do is buy one extra item each time you shop. Then drop it off in the donations crate at my place next time you visit – or let me know and I’ll swing past to pick things up. Your contributions can remain anonymous if you prefer, or I’ll acknowledge them when I make the deliveries.

If a few people join in and donate an item each month (or week) and to the collection, we should have a good-sized box to drop off Food Bank by the end of March 2016.

Just think about it. Warm and fuzzy feelings will abound,

food appeal poster

Memories are made of this

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Grant Stone is an icon of WA science fiction fandom, an archivist, a renowned raconteur and one of my favourite people. Spending time with him is always good value and lunch this week was no exception.

As always, the conversation was peppered with fascinating titbits from Grant’s past and present, ranging from his early interest in botany to his later research into the cultural ecology of Barbie (dolls). This time the mix alsnik_1970o included some shared reminisces of our respective childhood years, in Johannesburg (RSA) and near Bunbury (WA).

The tales of Grant’s childhood and teenage years made them sound idyllic, a time of great freedom and adventure. I confess that by the time we parted I felt slightly regretful at not having grown up in WA, although my own childhood was not all that dissimilar.

Like Grant, I have a plethora of happy memories of racing around with friends (on and off bicycles), camping, climbing trees, collecting various things (stamps, plants, posters, etc.) and reading – so much reading. Quite simply, what’s not to love about all that?

Of course, just like everyone else, we also experienced sad, bad and boring times. But all those experiences were processed and allocated varying levels of importance in the time and context in which they took place. They became part of the complex memory-maze of our respective personal histories, which enables us to leave the sad/bad bits back in the past where they belong.

Shaping a coherent mental map that highlights the best in life is a way of being that can encompass all life experiences. One way to do this is try to be both participant and observer of your own life, to mindfully or self-reflexively create your history as you live it.

When I quit my day job I promised myself I’d use the ‘spare’ time creatively, that I’d do more things I enjoy and spend more time with people who’re important to me. In this way I’d be shaping a new part of my personal history as something I’ll both enjoy and want to remember.

Social interaction is a richly rewarding aspect of creating that history, but it takes planning and not insignificant amounts of mental energy. One week in, after catch-ups in all directions (including lunch with Grant, an Indie-rock concert and an elegant afternoon tea and lawn bowls with newly-married friends), my hermit tendencies have started to surface. The polite message they’re sending is that not all of this next chapter of my history needs to be shaped in the first week… who knew?  😛

Confidence in Strangers

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I’ve often wondered why it is that so many people seem to have a tendency to want to share intimate details of their lives with complete strangers. Whether it’s on a plane, at a bus stop, at the hairdressers, in a checkout queue at the supermarket or in any number of other situtations, unsolicited confidences are routinely both given and received. Since friendship is held to be an idealised bond of great significance, a relationship that overcomes isolation and provides support in an otherwise unsympathetic society, why turn to strangers?

What brings this to mind is my regular visits to the local indoor hydrotherapy pool to indulge in what I like to call exercise. In reality it’s an hour or so of wallowing around in deliciously warm water (now geothermally heated!) and indulging in moderate activity, often to the sounds of whatever audiobook I happen to be listening to at the time. Of late, however, my MP3 player hasn’t been cooperating, so I’ve been subjected to the sounds of the spa pump and the general conversation of other pool users, both of which I try to turn into white noise to accompany my exercise routine.

Striding determinedly up and down the pool in chest deep water wouldn’t, at first glance, appear to provide an ideal opportunity for someone to try to share details of their life with a fellow pool-user, whether a stranger or otherwise. Despite this, my experience is that many people go out of their way to strike up a conversation, keeping pace with their chosen confidant or waylaying them at one or other end of the pool with an open-ended question to do so. I always find it confounding when people do this to me, as I’m pretty sure that I don’t have the sort of face/demeanour that necessarily invites confidences. Nevertheless, a great deal of rather personal information is often shared with me. Frequently it appears to be information that the self-same people seem unwilling to share with friends or family, but is laid out in surprisingly intimate detail in the pool with what appears to be little or no compunction. Why is this so?

This week I ended up performing the function of stranger-confidant for an elderly gentleman (EG). I was caught unawares and answered a question in passing as I started walking a lap of the pool, after which escape would have required a level of brusqueness not available to me. I submitted with good grace, but kept walking – which required EG to stride along with me and work for it. He was not at all put off and went on to tell me in graphic detail about his even more elderly sister (EMES), whose attitude to life in general appears to frustrate him enormously. It turned out that EMES is over 90 and underwent hip replacement surgery four days ago, as a result of a nasty fall few days earlier when she fractured her hip. Since then she’s apparently been abusive and angry, says she’d be better off dead and seems to have a fine job in alienating everyone who cares about her. EG admitted that his tolerance is particularly low at present, having fractured his shoulder three months ago. He confessed to being in constant pain as he tries to remobilise the now-frozen shoulder and to regain some movement in the joint. There was more – lots more – about both subjects – before EG’s time was up. He finally headed for the spa and sauna (to ease the shoulder), after which I kept my head down and was careful not to make eye contact with anyone else for the rest of my session!

Then – and later – I started thinking about why people choose to confide in random strangers. My conclusion is that we are all simply keen to talk – particularly about ourselves – and sometimes it’s easier to do so in situations where we’re away from the usual distractions and demands of everyday life. Perhaps this separation provides a space for a people to foreground issues of interest or concern and address them by articulating them to strangers – as often as not to clarify the issue, rather than to ask for advice. I wonder if telling me about EMES helped EG in any way? Will he feel better able to cope with EMES or at least with his frustration about her outlook on life?

Does it help in any way to tell strangers things about our lives? Does the relative anonymity, the absence of shared social circles allow for sharing of this sort without fear of an emotional or social backlash? Strangers are, after all, strangers. As they aren’t part of our social milieu, it removes the need to worry about over-sharing, of burdening them with our concerns or about any associated social consequences. In addition to this, strangers may possess objectivity possibly not available to those close to us and as a result sometimes offer surprisingly useful insights or suggestions. Whilst there is no obligation (real or imagined) to take on board any of the comments received, having shared the issue with a stranger and received such comments could plausibly make articulating it again at a later date to someone closer (a friend or relative) easier. At the very least it might provide some perspective on the issue and thus make it easier for one to manage.

Are strangers then the no-cost equivalent of a psych or pastor? Do they fill the role of someone who has no prior knowledge about one’s life or circumstances and to whom one can unburden woes with minimal risk – effectively a social sounding board? If so, perhaps my retirement occupation could be busking as stranger-for-hire… I apparently have the skills 😛

hire a stranger