You can see the episode on the ABC website. The transcript will apparently be up from 2pm today.

A lot of the blame for the stupid should be directed at Tony Jones and the QandA team. Firstly, for choosing questions like this:

Emelia Starbright asked via facebook: Why is Gina Rinehart so greedy?

Rinehart is a businesswoman. Her job is to make money. I don’t hear Andrew Forrest or Frank Lowy or Gerry Harvey or Harry Triguboff or James Packer or Ivan Glasenberg (the second richest in the country) being called greedy for doing their jobs. The lack of a culture of philanthropy in Australia is a serious issue, but that’s not what’s being discussed with this question about greed: Rinehart is rich, and she wants to make more money, how much does one woman need, she’s ambitious so clearly she is unhappy and maybe if she was a better mother then she wouldn’t need so much money.

And secondly, for encouraging the panel, one by one, to discuss Rinehart’s character. Like this, from David Marr:

Well, I think it’s a personal question, isn’t it, really? [And then goes on to be very personal] She’s the richest woman in the world and she’s humiliating herself and her family in the courts in order not to have to pay her children the money that is pouring into the estate so that she can control it and dole it out exactly as she wants. This is amazingly perverse behaviour. But as I understand it, behind it all lies this towering ambition to fund in her own right, to get up this immense iron ore mine, and for that she seems to be willing to appear as greedy as all get out, she’s willing to appear brutally cruel to her own family. And so she goes. There is a funny way in which huge amounts of money in some people don’t actually sate the appetite but make them crave more, it’s something about us human beings… There are ways of behaving when you are one of the richest people in the world, with a little more grace than she behaves, particularly vis a vis her own family, and she appears to display a quite remarkable wish to control every cent that goes through her hands.

I see David Marr is also lacking in grace.

Thing is, how the fuck would he – or any of us – know what goes on in the Rinehart family? There have been a few court stories published, but since it’s an ongoing case they don’t give the full picture. Perhaps Rinehart does want to be in charge of all the money? Perhaps the children are incompetent with money? Perhaps it’s just like any other family argument except that when you can afford lawyers, you say “fuck it, let’s get the lawyers”? The point is that we don’t know and it’s really none of our business what Rinehart does with her own money and this sort of character assassination of someone I’m pretty sure they have never met is pretty disgusting. Good on Jacki Weaver for saying, “I think we are getting a bit unkind about Mrs Rinehart” and trying to change the topic. But then Jones brings it back by asking Miriam Margolyes what she thinks of Rinehart, and she mentions Rinehart’s appearance and apparent lack of generosity. Obviously, being a big lefty, I do not support mining companies digging shit out of the ground without giving money back to the country. I do not support Rinehart trying to get out of paying for the pollution her business creates. And I certainly do not support the casual misogyny that’s encouraged on QandA every time they talk about women.

It’s funny* (*not funny), Marr was happy to say nasty things about Rinehart, but later comments that the “vicious” attacks on Cate Blanchett for “joining political debate” were “unfair”. The word you want here, David, is hypocrite.

And then we get into “no one’s sayin’ it but we’re all thinkin’ it: who’d believe a sex worker?” territory. From Marr: “I don’t really think we need the testimony of the tart”.

Then Humphries refers to Clive James’ ex as “some floozy”, and calls Craig Thomson a heap of names in order to get a cheap laugh. It’s all oh so funny.

And then a video question about how women have too much power and have emasculated men:

Newton Gatoff asked: G’day mate, in a country where women are the richest in business and most powerful in politics, has the Ozzie machismo lost its mojo on the international stage?

Directed at a man who dresses as a woman on the “world stage”. The question was rubbished by the panel, and quite rightly. So why waste our time with it, when I’m sure there were plenty of intelligent questions submitted for the show. I don’t know why I keep expecting QandA to be intelligent, because most of what I see certainly isn’t.

What should have been an interesting show because it wasn’t filled with politicians staying “on message” with their boring talking points (and I’m not the only person bored by that, since last night was the show’s biggest audience of the year), was dominated by misogynist drivel that was encouraged by the show’s host. The one politician on the show, John Hewson, just looked like he was politely tolerating idiots the whole time.

But first, feminists! At the Town Hall! With vagina-flashing! That last bit was me. And also my friend. And quite a few other women. Note to Sydney Town Hall people: you should fix the locks on the toilet doors. You know, so they actually do the one thing they’re supposed to do.

This isn’t a review post of The Feminist Supremacy. It’s a ‘further discussion’ post. Like book club, but without the book. (I’ve never been in a book club, so I’m just talking out of my arse here.)

One of the questions Julia Baird put to Kathy Lette, Catherine Deveny, Emily Maguire and Tara Moss was whether we needed a new word to replace “feminism”. I don’t think we do. The word is filled with the history of a global push for social, economic and political rights for women, so why the hell would we change it? Tara Moss said she prefers the word “humanist” and I get that, because it’s about treating all humans with respect. [Update: I got this bit wrong. Moss said "feminism is humanism". See her comment below.] But abandoning the word “feminist” would say to those who demonise people for wanting women and men to have the same rights and opportunities, “you win, we give up”. And what do you think will happen to the next word we use?

So when someone says, “I’m not a feminist but [says something feminist]“, point out that if they believe women should be able to earn their own income, drive a car, get an education, own property, not be someone’s property, then they are a feminist and should be proud of that. Because what kind of arsehole is against women being treated like humans?

Another question Baird put to the cliterati – I felt that Lette favoured pun over substance, but that one I enjoyed – was about Western feminists being criticised for being concerned with Western feminist issues. To me, that this question is taken seriously is proof of how successful conservatives like Paul Sheehan and Janet Albrechtsen and Miranda Devine have been at attacking feminism. (Never mind the fact that Albrechtsen and Devine have feminism to thank for people actually giving a shit about their lady thoughts. They know that, of course, but it doesn’t suit them to acknowledge it.)

Firstly, demanding that Western feminists speak for feminists in other countries is like demanding that Julia Gillard speak for Joyce Banda. Malawi’s President has her own voice and it’s insulting to suggest that she needs a Western PM to speak for her. Just because the work of feminists in other countries isn’t common knowledge in Australia doesn’t mean it’s not happening. On top of that, the mainstream media only has room for a few feminist voices at a time and journalists tend to always use the same people for quotes, so the public view of Australian feminism is not at all representative of feminist work in Australia. Besides, the whole thing reeks of “women in other countries have it much worse so you should thank your lucky stars and shut the hell up with your whining”.

And now to the man in the audience who wanted Kathy Lette to retract her comment that men tend to say they are feminists in order to get a more intelligent root. It takes a particular type of arrogance to demand that someone withdraw their opinion simply because you happen to disagree with it. Now, despite some of the male psych/arts undergrads I met in the 90s, I don’t happen to agree with Lette on this point. But that doesn’t mean one of us is right and one of us is wrong. We’re talking about opinions here. And since she cracked jokes the whole way through, it’s possible that this was simply another throwaway funny. I wondered if this is what happened with Feminist Dad a few weeks ago, and I don’t believe it is. One is a man telling a woman that she must remove her opinion because he doesn’t agree with it; the other was a few men saying they disagreed with a woman and explaining their reasons why. The issue was discussed and we arrived at a point of general agreement. (Phew. I think I’m safe with that logic.)

Mr Opinion Retractor then went on to complain that political correctness was ruining free speech. In my experience – and was pointed out by Deveny – people who complain about political correctness are just pissed off that when they use someone’s gender/race/sexuality/disability/religion as an insult, someone tells them what a dickhead they’re being. My heart bleeds for all those poor, oppressed people who have to hesitate before using the word “poofter” to put someone down.

In January, I wrote that if you’d told me over Christmas lunch that 2012 would start with several weeks of public discussion about feminism, I’d have politely asked if you were on crack. It’s now May and the public discussion is still going. As Nadine Von Cohen would say, FUCK YEAH.

Shoes are An Important Story, dontchaknow.

Yes, an official meeting between Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande -
Sarkozy’s Cuban heels let him see Hollande eye to eye – and the journo writes about his shoes. And gets it wrong – those are not Cuban heels. And then the online editor at smh.com.au decides it’s important enough to be the main image.

You can’t make this shit up.

And over at News.com.au, this is the story the online editor believes is the most important of the afternoon:

It’s not even a popular tv show.

A tv show that often isn’t in the top 10 most watched of the week is considered more important than the news that the Electoral Commission has cleared Craig Thomson of electoral fraud. That’s right, the result of a show that most people don’t watch is more important than one of the biggest stories of the year. Or perhaps it’s that a positive result for Thomson ruins News Ltd’s anti-Government agenda. (Psst journalists, starting all your news stories with “Tony Abbott says” is not holding the Government to account. It’s letting the Opposition control your news agenda, and the result is you’re not holding anyone in power to account. Also, consider that Baym wrote this in 2005:

“Mainstream journalism’s reliance on predictable conventions can render it susceptible to manipulation by the professional speech writers and media handlers who seed public information with pre-scripted soundbites and spin,” (2005, p. 265).

Politicians know that you’ll lead your story with the dumb quip, and if someone asks any questions of substance, no one will report the answer. They also know that no journalists will fact check their claims, particularly those about the economy. Journalists, you are being used. But I digress.)

News.com.au is also running a BIG story about a finance reporter adjusting her skirt for a split second – stop the fucking presses, right? – and two free plugs for upcoming films.

I’m not suggesting that online news should be worthy and serious all the time. But it’s pretty hard to argue that it’s worthy and serious even some of the time.

One of the things I’m looking at in my doctorate is how young people experience the news. The research indicates that they reject mainstream news because it’s trivial and sensational (eg, McNair, 2000; Buckingham 2000; Raeymakers 2003; Mindich, 2005; Costera Meijer 2007… you get the picture. I won’t post all the refs below – I’ll put them in the comments if anyone wants them). It used to be the case that young people developed an interest in news when they “grew up”, but this is no longer so certain.

I’ve mentioned this before but it’s worth mentioning again: In the 2004 US presidential election, 21 per cent of 18-34-year-olds got their news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and Saturday Night Live – just behind the 23 per cent who got their political information from network news (Feldman, 2007). But, those who watched the comedy shows knew more about election issues than those who got their news from the MSM (National Annenberg Election Survey). If I was still a journalist, I’d be pretty fucking nervous about that.

References:
Baym, G (2005), ‘The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism’, Political Communication, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 259-276.

Costera Meijer, I (2007), ‘The paradox of popularity: How young people experience the news’, Journalism Studies, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 96-116.

Feldman, L (2007), ‘The news about comedy: Young audiences, The Daily Show, and evolving notions of journalism’, Journalism, vol. 8, pp. 406-427.

The latest is this one from SMH journo Stephanie Peatling: Why are women hell bent on destroying each other?

Hell bent on destroying each other? Really? The headline comes from a line in Peatling’s piece, so I can’t blame a sub editor for it. Look around you – how many women do you see being “hell bent on destroying” other women?

She starts with Time‘s breastfeeding cover:

It also provided an irresistible excuse for women to rip into each other.

They justified their own choices, denigrated others, called mothers who did or did not breastfeed selfish and generally descended into a good old catfight. All this came 48 hours before Mother’s Day.

This is not about women ripping into each other. Look at the comments on any news story or opinion piece on a Fairfax or News Ltd site and you’ll see people ripping into each other. Yes, I think it’s worth discussing why so many people post nasty comments on news sites. But let’s not pretend that it’s women who do this. It’s some women, just like it’s some men. Besides, the blame for the comments becoming a “good old catfight” rests with the people who moderate the comments – they decide what gets published and they control the discussion. People can post nasty comments all they like, it doesn’t mean you have to publish them.

Women seem to spend the first third of our lives tearing each other down about clothing and weight before spending the next third, regardless of whether we have children, arguing about parenting techniques.

Maybe that’s what your friends are like, Stephanie, but my friends are not like that. Sure, I’ve met some women and some men in my 35 years who act like this, but they are in the minority. And in the workplace, in my experience, it’s more likely that men will be talking about a female colleague’s appearance/clothes. I’ve heard male editors in their 30s discuss the fuckability of female uni students on work experience. In two workplaces, the male editors and senior journos had ranked their female colleagues according to “hotness”. And there was always at least one idiot who thought that telling a woman she was near the top of the list would get him laid.

It is more than 20 years since the publication of Naomi Wolf’s book The Beauty Myth, with its powerful arguments about the pressure women put on themselves and each other to conform to a socially acceptable idea of attractiveness.

Ok, it’s been a while since I read The Beauty Myth, but that’s not what I remember it being about. (Check out Jessica Barlow’s piece at Lip mag.)

As a political reporter, I see every day the different standards by which female politicians are judged.

Before they open their mouths, their appearance is assessed as if, as one of my colleagues puts it, that was one of their key performance indicators.

I give you Exhibit A: a whiney piece by your newspaper’s state political editor, Sean Nicholls, saying it’s Kristina Keneally’s fault that he considers her haircut to be Important News:

Her decision to get hair extensions shortly after the election caused a media meltdown. In hindsight, it was the first hint of things to come but rightly, at the time, it was seen as her business.

How can something cause a “media meltdown” if it’s seen as “her business”? That’s just stupid. Also, it’s a complete load of crap because it was not seen as “her business” at all. At the SMH, Nick O’Malley wrote about it, Heath Aston wrote about it, Melissa Singer wrote about it, Damien Murphy wrote about it (and also seemed to imply that Keneally is the only female politician to be judged on her looks). And that’s just at Sydney’s broadsheet. The Daily Telegraph‘s political journos had a field day as well.

If you want to talk about the way female politicians are judged on their appearance and not what they do as part of their jobs, you need to start with the journalists. After all, the place where we have public discussions IS THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA. Derr. I’m sure Natasha Stott Despoja, Kate Ellis, Amanda Vanstone, Cheryl Kernot, Belinda Neal, Kristina Keneally, Lara Giddings and Julia Gillard would have a few things to say about the number of journalists at Fairfax and News Ltd who have written about their hair, clothing, shoes, handbag, ears, relationship, and status as a working uterus. And they’re just the ones in the last few years. It’s a shame that Peatling can’t see the role her colleagues play in this. It’s like those journalists who write about a “media meltdown” as though they weren’t part of it, and report that “the family has asked for privacy” without realising that the family is asking for privacy FROM THE JOURNALISTS CAMPED OUTSIDE THEIR HOME.

And then there’s this:

Are men sitting around on the milk crates of inner city cafes discussing how Fred’s latest pair of lycra cycling shorts isn’t doing his stomach any favours? No.

Are they secretly thinking Sam is a bit of a hippy because his kid wears cloth nappies? No.

And you know this, how? In my first week in one workplace, I was informed by two women and five men that the highest-ranked woman in that office was sleeping with the boss. Sure, this is just one example, but it’s of equal weight to Peatling’s evidence-free assertion that men don’t do this.

Peatling makes a good point at the end about letting adults make their own decisions without abusing them for it, but the rest of the article does exactly what she’s criticising women for.

How many folk rock gigs involve the crowd enthusiastically yelling “hail Satan“? (from 2.25 in the Satan link if you just want to hear the crowd.)

Anyway, there’s something about his songs that make me think about, well, let’s be honest, romanticise the idea of sharing poverty with someone. Romanticising those “remember when we lived in that cockroach-infested flat with no hot water and no food but we had our love and we boiled the kettle to fill the bath for each other” memories, as only a middle-class wanker who has always had hot water can do. Because really, living in that flat would be an enormous strain on your health, on your mental health, and on your relationship. And cockroaches stink, especially when they get inside the phone. Remember when we all had home phones? How old-fashioned that now seems.

As a writer, there’s also a middle-class wanker notion that you need to suffer for your craft. “Suffer for your craft”. Could there be a wankier cliche? Having life throw shit and used tampons at you doesn’t make you a good writer. It just gives you experiences to draw on if you want to write about shit and used tampons. It doesn’t mean your writing’s going to be any good.

I think I’ve been pretty lucky thoughout my life. Things have always worked out, even when I’ve been of no fixed address. Which has happened a few times. Luckily, there was always a friend with a cupboard I could sleep in. So while I was thinking “oh, I wish I’d lived in poverty in my twenties so I could write wistfully about love that ended because it was all too fucking hard but gee, for a while there we had our love to keep us warm”, I realised that I had lived in poverty in my twenties. I just did it while single.

There was my first flat when I moved to Sydney with my best friend after high school, where we lived on homebrand toast and rice for weeks because that was all we could afford. Things got really dire – and bland – when the soy sauce and instant coffee ran out. A few weeks after that we had to call our parents and ask for money before we got scurvy. We used to pretend we were high school kids so we’d get the $5.95 all you can eat deal at Pizza Hut, but they cottoned on to us pretty quick. Then we’d use a shop-a-docket to get a Big Mac at McDonald’s to share for dinner, but since we were both vego at the time, we’d pull out the patties and “enjoy” our bread and lettuce.

Then there was the sharehouse with the junkie, where you had to wear your workboots into the bathroom to kick the needles out of the way before a shower. Because I had the front room, dodgy fuckers would climb through my bedroom window at all hours, wanting to buy drugs from my housemate. And the pet ferret and pet rat would eat all my uni notes and bite my toes.

And there was the empty flat, where the only furniture we had in the living room was a cupboard door on two cardboard boxes for a table, and my flatmate and I sat on cushions on the floor. We only had two cushions, so when we had a visitor, someone got a sore butt. There was only one powerpoint in the kitchen so the kettle was in there and the toaster was in the living room and there was a mark on the opposite wall from where the toaster hit it when the powerpoint exploded. It almost took my hand with it.

Another sharehouse was held together with wire and gaffa tape and the kitchen floor was sinking from the weight of the fridge. The electricity was so dodgy that when someone boiled the kettle, someone else’s stereo in their room would cut out. Once I’d paid rent, I had to make $50 last a fortnight. That’s hard. Fucking hard. My housemates were stoners who didn’t like to get off the couch, so when they ordered takeaway they’d buy some for me if I went and picked it up for them. Win win, huh?

And these are just the dodgy places where I was really poor. It doesn’t include the place with the outside toilet and the rotting floorboards in the bathroom so you had to be careful getting out of the shower, or the place with water leaking from the light fittings and a male flatmate who stole my underwear, or the place where my religious flatmate said that having my boyfriend stay the night in my room “compromised her principles”. Those aren’t stories about being poor.

But I haven’t shared it with anyone. I was povvo and single.

So now I’ve shared it with you.

(And obviously, the title of this post is having at laugh at me being poor, not me playing my miniature violin.)

I’m going to pick on News.com.au because their story is the most ridiculous: Lara Bingle feels ‘violated’ by nude photos, by Chris Paine and Owen Vaughan. And no, I have no idea how it took two journalists to write 505 words about their Google searches, with just a single interview that resulted in one sentence making it into the story. Two journalists!

First, let me show you the bullet points at the start of the story. This will be important later:

The bullet points on the News.com.au Lara Bingle story.

And now the story:

LARA Bingle says she feels “violated” and “emabarrassed” by paparazzi photos of her naked on her balcony.

I’m embarrassed that neither journalist can spell “embarrassed”. But picking on typos is unfair, when there’s so much more to pick on about this story. Did I mention it took two journalists to write it?

I’d also like to point out that the photos aren’t of Lara Bingle on the balcony. She was inside her home and closing the balcony door. INSIDE HER HOME. The photos were first aired on A Current Affair (Channel 9) last night. Which means that no one in charge at ACA and no one in charge at News.com.au is bothered by the fact that it is a massive invasion of your privacy to have someone take photos of you inside your own home. Is that the kind of “journalism” they support? How many steps do you reckon it is from publishing photos of someone inside their home to hacking someone’s phone?

It is the fourth nude photo scandal to beset Bingle, and it has left her clearly upset.

Despite reporting that Bingle is “clearly upset” about these photos being plastered across news sites – as anyone would be – News.com.au is still running the photos and the story nice and large on the website. News Ltd sites love nothing more than sticking the boot into Lara Bingle while simultaneously using her as clickbait.

But what are these four nude photo scandals?

Photos of her topless in a field, taken seven years ago, appeared on websites in 2007.

You mean photos that were taken when she was possibly underaged and then sold overseas by the photographer and published in German GQ magazine and it would have gone unnoticed if it wasn’t for the MSM yelling “CLICK HERE TO SEE NUDE BINGLE BOOBIES!”. It says a lot about the MSM’s attitude towards Lara Bingle that the person who made money from selling the photographs is believed, but the person in the photos is not.

A mobile-phone snap of her in a shower, allegedly taken by her then lover, former AFL player Brendan Fevola, when they had a brief fling in 2006, was first published in 2010. Those pics contributed to the breakdown of her relationship with cricketer Michael Clarke, to whom she was engaged.

A photo that News.com.au gleefully ran across their homepage ALL DAY. A photo that any idiot could see Bingle had not consented to. A photo that Fevola reportedly showed to all his mates and a bunch of sports journos, and despite him being married, the journos portrayed it as her scandal, not his. You tell me, what’s more scandalous: a young woman in a nude photo she doesn’t want taken, or a married man taking a nude photo of a woman without her consent and then showing it to his workmates and the media. It’s pretty embarrassing for journalists that they can’t even get the scandal right.

Sources said a different set of photos showing the bikini model sunbathing topless on Bondi Beach were offered to magazines several weeks ago, though apparently there were no takers.

“Sources said”? I call bullshit. That just sounds like someone wanting to have a go at her.

And now, wait for it… the single quote that it took two journalists to get:

“She’s really upset and embarrased about this invasion of privacy,” she told news.com.au.

That was really worth the wait, wasn’t it? Two journalists! And they still can’t spell “embarrassed”. (I really hope there are no typos in this post…)

While Bingle is believed to be upset about the most recent shots, the drama surrounding their taking and attempted sale will only focus more attention on her reality show, which is being made for Channel 10.

Remember those bullet points?

But some claim the whole thing is a stunt

With no reference to ANYONE who may be making that claim, we can only assume that it’s Paine or Vaughan making that claim. It’s not really journalism is it, to report your opinion as though it’s someone else’s?

Sure, it could be a stunt. But without a single piece of evidence in this story indicating that it could be a stunt, I’m inclined to believe that it’s just the journos making it up.

Whatever you do, don’t read the comments. Remember, these are the ones that a journalist read and thought “yes, that’s fine to publish”.

Like this one:
Brett of Perth Posted at 2:13 PM Today
Who hasn’t seen it all before anyway and if Fevola didnt want it, how hot can it be?

Clearly hot enough for Brett of Perth to click on the story in order to see naked photos of her. How stupid can Brett of Perth be?

Update May 14: Still don’t think News Ltd websites use the words “Lara Bingle nude” to increase traffic? Check out the links at the bottom of yesterday’s story. These links were manually added by a journalist:

Dailytelegraph.com.au demonstrates just how much they rely on Lara Bingle for traffic

One: This is not a radfem blog and it is not a women-only blog and I won’t be bullied into making it one. This has always been a feminist blog where women and men are welcome to comment and ask questions and discuss issues. It does not mean I’m “colluding with the patriarchy”. Honestly, could there be a lazier insult to hurl at a feminist? It’s the feminist equivalent of “yeah, well you’re fat and ugly”.

Two: The whole point of Feminist Dad is to make a wide audience aware of Feminist Dad behaviour, so that people read it and think, “shit, I do that” or “shit, my friend does that, I’ll tell him”. And for that to happen, men need to be a part of the conversation. I thought that was pretty fucking obvious.

This is on the SMH homepage (which is how I saw it because, not being a parent, I don’t visit parenting sites):

Taping your kids to the wall is pretty funny

ManFriend showed me the picture on the weekend, so I clicked on it today hoping there’d be other photos of children taped to things. It’s proof of the saying I’m trying to make catch on, that today’s funny photo/video on twitter is tomorrow’s news story. (And no, it’s not about Jason Lee and Pilot Inspektor – which is quite possibly one of the best names ever.)

But check out the headline: Best dad ever takes adorable, crazy photos of daughters.

Now, this is not a criticism of Jason Lee. I’m sure he’s a pretty good parent, because most parents are pretty good parents. It’s a criticism of the headline written by an unnamed journalist. I mean, really, taking photos of your children makes you the BEST DAD EVER? Holy bajoley, what an easy gig Best Dad Ever is. I look forward to a similar article about how a woman who made dinner for her kids is the BEST MUM EVER.

Mind you, Essential Kids is also featuring a creepy gallery of photos to “celebrate” Suri Cruise’s 6th birthday – photos taken by photographers who harass the family whenever they leave the house; photographers who make money by selling images taken without the parents’ consent – so I shouldn’t really expect too much of the site.

The Adventures of Feminist Dad - cup of milo edition

Who is Feminist Dad?

The Adventures of Feminist Dad

Should we make this A Thing?

If I get better at drawing/scanning/putting clearer images in this blog, should we make this A Thing?

Who is Feminist Dad?

Well, sort of.

I don’t have a lot to say about Samantha Brick’s article, other than to say there will always be people who don’t like you. Sometimes it’s because they’re stupid jerks. Sometimes it’s because you’re a stupid jerk. But if you assume that it’s always because they’re jealous of your face, then you’re showing the lack of self-awareness that’s probably the reason they don’t like you in the first place. I reckon it was a calculated move to increase her pop culture status and get better print/tv gigs and I reckon it worked.

But this post isn’t really about Samantha Brick, in the same way that Natalie Reilly’s article – What Sofia Vergara can teach Samantha Brick – isn’t really about Samantha Brick. It’s about good celebrities and bad celebrities and being naive about how they play the media.

Reilly says some good stuff:

Society has a skewed, broken system too, according you with status if you are beautiful. But you must tread lightly around discussion of your own appearance or you will summon forth collective inadequacy. And that inadequacy is felt deeper by women, who are socialised to believe that their looks are one of the most valuable things – if not the most valuable thing – about them. So what do we do with that inadequacy? We plug it into righteous condemnation and contempt for the woman who dares to elevate herself, because beauty, being that it is subjective, will always allow us to say – uh, honey? You’re not all that.

But that’s as far as she goes into how Western society pressures women to constantly make sure they look pleasing to other people. She also appears to not see the link between this socialisation and how it creates the inadequacy, condemnation and contempt that she’s writing about (cough, patriarchy, cough).

Leaving aside the pointless mentions of the US Republican presidential candidate race – yeah, we get it, you read more than just celebrity news – the rest is an (unintentionally) funny look at the way people buy into celebrity culture. Celebrities are people whose jobs require them to pretend to be open with reporters, who in turn don’t seem to realise they’re being told the same story by everyone. Or perhaps they do, but their editors demand a story because they promised one to the celebrity’s publicist and so the journo has to cobble together something vaguely newish from what the celebrity said. And that’s not an easy thing to do.

Anyway, according to Reilly, the good celebrities – those who say the things we currently want them to say – are Sophie Vergara, Natalie Portman, Charlize Theron. We know they know they’re beautiful, and we know they know that opens doors for them because they’ve told us so. The bad celebrities – those who say they were ugly ducklings because until recently, that’s what we wanted them to say, and because they didn’t get that memo we’ll now roll our eyes when they say that – are Angelina Jolie, Jon Hamm, Jennifer Aniston, Cindy Crawford. Crawford gets dismissed for daring to mention her life outside of modelling:

She doesn’t try to prove she’s more than just “a pretty face” by humble bragging she studied chemical engineering like Cindy Crawford.

How DARE Crawford try to talk to a journalist about something other than her face. The nerve of some people.

But Vergara is unique in that she doesn’t take her appearance as seriously. At last year’s Emmy Awards, after noticing the way people were looking at her, volunteered “Do you want to talk about my figure? Because I love talking about my figure”. By talking about it openly –as if it were a dress – she effectively distanced herself from it. In doing so she created a new way to talk about beauty – because, judging by the current narrative, we need it.

Um, what? I don’t want to humbly brag by saying that I have a BSc, MA, and am doing a doctorate, but that just doesn’t make sense. How is talking about your conforms-to-current-mainstream-beauty-ideals body to celebrity reporters who only ever ask you about your body, creating a “new way to talk about beauty”?

Last November Angelina Jolie was interviewed on 60 Minutes and asked “When did you first realise you were beautiful?” It’s a leading but fair question for the person whose face is now the gold standard by which mainstream beauty is currently measured.

Gold standard, really? As Reilly herself says, beauty is subjective. Also, what makes Reilly so sure that people she thinks are beautiful don’t look in the mirror and see things they think are “flaws”, just like many of us do? They live in the same highly-airbrushed culture we do – a culture that airbrushes photos of them because they’re not beautiful enough.

Jolie’s reply? “I never really think of beauty that way … I always felt …not traditionally beautiful.”

May I submit she is lying? Because one only need look at her makeup, her line-free face, her dyed hair to see that looks matter to her. They matter very much. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

May I submit that it’s part of Jolie’s job to always look beautiful/hot/fuckable when she’s in public? May I submit that just because a woman wears makeup and dyes her hair, it doesn’t follow that she thinks she’s traditionally beautiful? May I also submit that Jolie is an actor and so the head down, furrowed brow bit could be acting because she knows that’s what the interviewer and the audience want from her? Jolie is playing the celebrity game and Reilly has fallen for it.

But if Jolie admits to her beauty she will alienate her audience. After all, the celebrity system will not allow a “pretty face” to make movies about Bosnia, any more than the US political system will allow a poor man to be president. But a responsible humanitarian who just happens to be beautiful without knowing it? Now, that’s a highly marketable brand.

What a load of rubbish. The celebrity system allows beautiful people to do whatever the fuck they want. Even if they’re not up to date about what we want them to say to us.

Anyway, there was this movie about two best friends. Weren’t all movies in the 80s about two best friends? One of the teenagers has just been given the same sensible bob haircut that her posh mother has. Daughter is very unimpressed. Mum is saying how adorable she looks. Hairdresser says she’s as cute as a button. And daughter replies, “who’d want to fuck a button?”.

She then goes home and cuts her hair into spikes and then goes to the fair with her friend and they go on the rollercoaster and we get to see boobs and they pash boys and have loads of fun.

Does anyone know the name of this film? Because I feel a little bit that way about my new haircut. Wild Mane of Fun has been replaced by Sensible Bob and I DIDN’T ASK FOR THAT.

But I do really want to know the name of this film.

The front cover of today’s Sunday Life features the question:

“… is it time for Madonna to hang up her hotpants?”

The answer, OF COURSE, is “only if she wants to”. But you won’t find that in the magazine.

The intro to the Madonna article is full of age-shaming:

“ON WHICH SIDE DO YOU SIT IN THE GREAT MADONNA DEBATE? SHOULD SHE KEEP REINVENTING HERSELF OR RETIRE GRACEFULLY?”

I’m sitting on the side with the third option: MADONNA SHOULD DO WHATEVER THE HELL SHE WANTS TO DO.

Besides, we all know that “retire gracefully” means “become invisible so we don’t have to see old people enjoying themselves in public and WORSE, have to look at their bodies”.

Helen Barlow’s article is pretty meh, but it’s Julia Baird’s piece that really gets my fuck-being-age-appropriate goat. Starting with “Remember Madonna’s stomach, back in the 1980s?“… blah blah blah she used to be hot three decades ago when she was young… “Now when I think of her, I think of her arms. Her taut, muscled biceps, alarmingly free of padding” – ooh, careful there Judgey McBaird – “are perfect symbols of her determination“. Really? I think they look like arms. Arms that do a lot of exercise. Arms that are symbols of arms.

“She works very, very hard – and this is why she has endured.

But, now, this hard work is deflating as well as inspiring. She might not have cared about what people thought of her sexually, but she obviously cares what people think of her physically.”

And you know this how, exactly? Did she tell you this, or are you just projecting your own shit onto her? Because it sounds a lot like you’re saying that anyone who works out is doing it so others have something nice to look at.

Baird then goes on to write some nonsense about how Madonna works out because she doesn’t like herself, and that as women age they should be able to let themselves go.

But this bit had me laughing my arse off:

“Madonna taught us to face fears: of the consequences of blooming sexuality, independence, anger, eccentricity and unconventionality. Of being women who don’t do as they are told.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA BAIRD WROTE THAT IN AN ARTICLE TELLING MADONNA WHAT TO DO.

“Madonna may be telling us that middle-aged women should not become invisible, inaudible or afraid to be alone, which is, of course, good – but she makes it seem like you have to look a certain way to do so.”

I call bullshit. Madonna has always looked a “certain way” – ie, sexy. Why on earth should she stop looking sexy, cover herself up in grey cardigans as Baird wants, just because she’s over 50? Because the thing is, it’s pretty fucking obvious that you don’t have to have Madonna’s look to be sexy in public: Helen Mirren, Sophia Loren, Roseanne Barr, Julianne Moore, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, Isabella Rossellini, Jane Lynch, Kim Cattrall… Sure, these women were sexy before they were 50, so rant about beauty standards, rant about the entertainment industry, rant about how popular culture believes that women over 50 who are not attractive actresses should be invisible, but let’s not pretend that telling Madonna to “put it away” – to become invisible – is an intelligent contribution to anything.

“She recently told Naomi Wolf in Harper’s Bazaar that what was more important was, “to continue to be a provocateur, to be rebellious, to start a revolution”.

Yes! But can only the pretty start revolutions? When Madonna refuses to age, when she turns her body into a scientific experiment, she stops representing rebellion and starts representing obedience.”

Actually, no. The most rebellious thing Madonna can do is to continue what she’s doing because she’s clearly making A LOT OF MAINSTREAM PEOPLE UNCOMFORTABLE. So what if she’s done something to her face? It’s her face, she can do what she wants to it. Yes, we have a big problem with the entertainment industry pressuring women to look perpetually young, but with every opinion piece that blames Madonna for it, the patriarchy just laughs and laughs and laughs.

As for the insulting line about the scientific experiment, wow. Just wow. My mother is a world champion surf life saver. Her body is lean and muscular. She is strong. She works out because she enjoys it and because being strong helps her do the other things she enjoys: competing and patrolling. And she is older than Madonna. Hell, over the last six months I’ve lost some weight through exercise and I love how strong my body feels. Saying that someone who uses their body for more than sitting on their arse writing body-shaming opinion pieces is treating it as a “scientific experiment”, is just dumb and, frankly, I expect better than this from the author of Media Tarts: How the Australian Press Frames Female Politicians.

The April issue of The King's Tribune

Jane Shaw, Justin Shaw, Mr Tiedt, Jane Caro, Helen Razer, Damian Cowell, Scott Ludlam, Sue-Ann Post, Bill Street, First Dog On The Moon, Jo Thornely, Dave Gaukroger, Heath Callaway, Warwick Rendell, Ronan Lee, Tina Lehnert, Thomas Cummings, Trisha Jha, Fatima Measham, and Sunday Relish. And me.

Give them your money.

I want to revisit my criticism of Daily Life (Fairfax’s site for women), in light of a conversation I had on the weekend about taking parental leave when you’re the relationship’s highest earner. I have no doubt that my friend talks about this with her partner, but it got me thinking about how public conversations around parenting are always put in women’s spaces.

I stand by my first impression of Daily Life. It was disappointing that the editor, Sarah Oakes, left it up to her freelancers to defend the site from substantive criticism on twitter. That’s very poor form. (Also poor form was Oakes’ boyfriend Pete coming on here to tell us we were wrong, without declaring his relationship.)

Anyway, have a look at the topics on the site, and the other Fairfax sites at the bottom of any given page on Daily Life:

Fairfax sections and websites promoted at the bottom of Daily Life

I know they’re a little hard to see, but I’m squeezing the bottom (giggle) of the website into a third of the page.

Now look at what’s promoted at the bottom of the national news section:

Fairfax sections and websites promoted at the bottom of the SMH national news section

And at the bottom of the business section:

Fairfax sections and websites promoted at the bottom of the SMH business section

Now, I’m going to tell you something really shocking.

Are you ready?

MEN ARE PARENTS TOO.

I know, I know, ASIO will open a file on me for saying something so subversive on the internet.

And this is the main problem I have with Fairfax’s decision to put all articles about relationships and parenting in a section where men are highly unlikely to see them. If an article about heterosexual relationships is worth publishing, then it’s worth making at least a tiny effort to put that article where some male eyeballs might see it. After all, it involves them too. And until articles about parenting are promoted across all sections, it will continue to be considered a women’s issue, and we’ll continue to have this problem:

Men + work + family = completely normal

Women + work + family = wanting to “have it all”, followed by “being unreasonable” and “probably selfish”

(More on those equations here.)

Likewise, articles about how men demean women should not be filed away in a section for women so that only women will read them and nod furiously. For example, Why women still can’t enjoy sex by Clementine Ford should be in a place where everyone will see it. Particularly those eeediots who call you a slut when you say you don’t want to have sex with them:

“In order to diminish women in our culture, we accuse them of enjoying sex. Worse, we accuse them of wanting it. We talk about them as looking ‘used’, or having ‘done the rounds’, or needing a ‘solid pounding’. It’s no coincidence that the majority of criticisms made towards Yumi Stynes had to do with how much sex she’s supposedly given away for free.”

The article is a week old – I found it today via twitter – but to my knowledge it wasn’t promoted on the smh.com.au homepage.

(I do have to mention Richard Glover’s contribution, All men think all women are beautiful, which comes down to ‘it doesn’t matter how women feel about themselves because all that really matters is that men think they’re hot’. That’s a contender for the David Penberthy Award for Dumbest Contribution to Body Image Discussions. I have no problem with articles about men finding women attractive. Just as I have no problem with articles about women finding men attractive. And women finding women attractive. And men finding men attractive. But I do have a problem when these articles frame body image problems in terms of ‘women are too silly to know that men find them hot’.)

I’m not saying that it is Fairfax’s responsibility to make Australian society a better place. Fairfax is a business, not a group hug. But wouldn’t it be nice if they showed just a little bit of imagination when it comes to getting eyeballs on content that relates to most of their audience?