Women Do Something (Continuing the conversation)

A couple of weeks ago I attended an event called Women Say Something and, naturally because I tell you guys almost everything, I blogged about it.  Thanks to that first event and the wonders of Facebook I am now hooked in to some super cool active women, the kind of women who get off their arses and make an event like this happen.  It seemed natural that I would go to the follow up event, after all it was free and I am broke, it's about feminist issues and I'm a feminist.  Best of all the event was attended by the fabulous Kimberly Dark.

Kimberly is a sociologist and a story teller.  She uses humour, irony and anecdote to open our eyes to the strange and interesting diversity of thought and perspective in our world.  I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to attend and to enjoy her work.

Me under the star with the star of the show, Kimberly Dark.

Lots of very interesting topics were raised and discussed by the group.  Many would be worthy of exploration and commentary.  The thing that resonated with me most intensely was the need to hold to our beliefs and represent our points of view every day in as many situations as we encounter.  One articulate young woman pointed out that thirty or forty years ago there was a huge gap in equality, it was blatant and gaping.  It was easy to see the cause, to know what was needed in the fight for Women's Liberation, for the Women's Movement, for Feminism.  So many things have changed and so many barriers have been broken down that it is more difficult than it was back then to simplistically categorize the target.  Yet inequity still exists in every arena.  As the young woman put it, "there are many small gaps rather than one large one".

I can't remember a time in my life when I did not believe that we influence the world one person at a time.  Mostly, on a day to day basis, I just try to make people smile in the hopes that they too will make someone else smile.  Long before that disgusting schmaltzy movie "Pay It Forward" claimed the high ground I believed in the difference small interactions can make.  As a lesbian I have always been "Out and Proud" in virtually every situation I have lived through.  This is how you combat homophobia.  You keep showing people that gay people are just normal everyday people like them, they/we are their friends, co-workers, family etc.  I don't think anyone has ever said this better than Hilary Clinton did recently at the Human Rights Day in Geneva, here courtesy of the Huffington Post is a transcript of her brilliant speech..  I digress...

Feminist is (as Girlwiththecane said in a comment on the last blog) still a dirty word..  But I don't really care what we call it (though it would be convenient to have a title that symbolically represented basically the same thing to everyone) but I do care about women and equality.  I believe we need to not shirk the day to day responsibility of having the courage of our convictions.  The courage to clearly state what we believe and why it matters to us.  I believe that we need to be Out and Proud as women and as feminists (regardless of the title).  We are 51% of the population, the world over, and we own less than 1% of the world's property.

Courtesy of Girl's Guide to Taking Over The World

This fight has not been won.  

This struggle is not over.  

This complacency is killing us.  

Every day in every interaction, we, the ordinary people not just the high profile organizers and activists, WE need to take this debate to our friends, our co-workers, and our families...

Stand up and be counted or stand down and be trodden on.

(As an aside some of the women were kicking on for a drink at my old stomping ground The Imperial but unfortunately I was starting to get that urge to be horizontal so I gave it a miss... maybe next time!)

What a difference a month makes...

One month ago I posted a blog

11/11/11

In that blog I made a series of wishes.  Strange events have been afoot since I broadcast my wish list into The Universe (aka Herbert).  Many of my wishes were for the planet and for all people and it's hard to tell if they are coming true.  Six of the wishes were specifically for me.  At the time that I wrote the blog times were pretty tough for me.  I was seriously flaring and in a lot of pain and I was dragged down by tremendous fatigue.  I had other basic personal issues that were causing me a great deal of anxiety too.  I felt unloved and unlovable.

The 11th of November was a Friday.  I was born on a Friday.  "Friday's child is loving and giving".

The 12th of November just happened to be the birthday of one of my old friends from high school.  We were connected on Facebook and you know how you get the birthday notification?  Well I left her a brief happy birthday message.  Later that afternoon I saw, for the first time, that she was online.  I umm'd and ahhh'd about sending her a chat message; I didn't want to intrude.  Finally I decided to say "hi" and ask if her birthday was going well.  My entire world has changed because of that message.  I know that seems a little drastic but it is completely true.  My old school friend is TLOML.  We started talking and we have not stopped.  She is everything I never dared to dream of in a partner and for some strange cosmic reason she seems to adore me too.

On the 14th of November I had my first appointment with the Immunologist Professor McCool.  He has taken an aggressive approach to trying to identify all the various issues that are plaguing me.  He has also put me on an anti-depressant for pain.  I have been doing better since I started to see him and I feel a real sense of security as his patient.

Since the day I made those wishes I can honestly say that each of the six wishes, that was personal in nature, has been positively impacted.

• I am more healthy - not perfect but substantially improved
• I am loving and I am loved in return
• I have the hope of a safe and comfortable environment in which to live
• I do not have as many things that are worrying me
• I have laughed more in the last month than in the 12 months before combined
• I have been spending a lot of time with interesting, caring, socially conscious people and there is the a promise of much more to come in that area

So there you have it.  It has been quite the turnaround.  In the last month I have fallen in love with someone I have liked and respected for over 30 years.  I have gone from quite a dark and depressing situation to one of great hope.  I feel easily twice as good as I felt then.  Maybe I am just high on that drug money can't buy or maybe ... just maybe ... Herbert has decided it's my turn to have some of my dreams come true.

Makes me wonder if maybe I should have wished for buckets of money too... oh well... money is nice but it can't hold your hand when you are feeling crappy, it can't make your heart leap and your eyes glow, it can't open your mind and enlighten your conscience, it can't make a beautiful woman swoon (well not the kind of woman I would ever be interested in).

The more I talk with TLOML the more it seems that we were kind of destined to be close.  We share strange things.  Other than our time at school together there have been numerous times we were in the same places, frequenting the same haunts.  Here is a little list of some of the odd coincidences.

• We have the same unusual name
• Our Dads were both doctors
• Our Dads left our mothers when we were the same age (6)
• We both have older brothers (her one me two)
• We are both the youngest child
• We both had step-mother issues
• Though I come from completely the other side of town my step-mother took me shopping as an 8 yr old in her neighbourhood (she and my Dad lived there when they were first married)
• She knew my first cousin before she ever met me
• We swam at the same harbourside beach as kids - we might have even played together who knows?
• Then we were at school together and sat side by side in Geography and Home Room

Although we have not seen each other since school....

• We attended the same University, and took the same subject, in the same year
• We share several mutual acquaintances
• We both lived in the same rural region during the 1990's
• She worked at a place that I have been to many times

Now to the present

• Her nephew is in the same class at school as The Horsewoman's daughter (which is why I got a weird facebook friend suggestion for the lad - we had two mutual friends)
• The Horsewoman sat next to TLOML's brother and sister-in-law at a school function recently
• We are both single
• We are both 49
• We are both ready to make a relationship that buries forever the dysfunction of our previous relationships
• We are both crazy about each other!!!

Now I understand that Australia is not as heavily populated as the US but Sydney is a city of over five million people.  These kinds of things don't happen every day.  You talk about five degrees of separation.... try heaps of versions of one and two degrees of separation?  It feels like all roads lead to TLOML and I might have been a moron not to get the message any sooner!!!

In reality it is the right time and the right place... I think we are both ready to be happy and I am enjoying every second and valuing it as a gift from Herbert!

11.11.11 - War, Gough, Occupy, Cosmic Opportunism

I don't support war with the sole exception of self-defense.  World War 1, The Great War, was not our war as Australians and yet at the time our society was so culturally and legally tied to The British Empire that Australians felt it was their war.  On this day 93 years ago the Armistice was signed and WW1 ended.  This image I borrowed from Wikipedia depicts the cover of the NYT on Nov 11 1918.

One of my Grandfathers was a WW1 veteran.  A country boy from Narrabri he was at Gallipoli (an honour that carries great kudos in Australia), actually he was there only very briefly.  He had contracted a non-specific venereal disease in Cairo and was evacuated from Gallipoli to a hospital ship and sent home.  An ignominious story that heavily contradicts the family legend.  My other Grandfather was a trade union leader, Secretary of the Boiler Maker's Union, Member of the NSW Upper House in the famous Jack Lang Labor Government, in the Official Stand at the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and he was imprisoned during WW1 for actively protesting with his Unionists against conscription.  (He was English by birth having grown up in the destitute suburbs of Leeds in Yorkshire.)  Anyone hazard a guess whose legacy I want to carry?

On November the 11th 1975 the then Governer-General, Sir John Kerr, dismissed the Gough Whitlam Labor Government, creating the greatest controversy and the most dramatic event in Australian political history.  Here I really wish I could insert a clip showing the incredible Robyn Archer singing her song "The Jubilee Cakewalk" but you are going to have to put up with my (probably inaccurate) 30 year old memory of the lyrics...  My apologies to Robyn Archer for any errors, it has been a VERY long time since I heard anyone other than me sing the song.

Well the Queen is having a Jubilee and I don't begrudge her that.

But when I think of what her power did to my country I don't feel like raising my hat

When a white-haired old bugger name of Sir John Kerr

Sacked the Labor Government in the name of her

Old money bags Fraser refused supply and the Governor-General waved bye bye

To socialism, the Governor-General waved bye bye.

I've very fond memories of the Queen she's one of the few I've seen

As an antipodean child of nine I was taken to the race track made to stand in line

Now it was very hot and I had cause to faint

She's a benevolent monarch it's not her fault it ain't

But if our democracy is in the political shit she's not responsible for it

Or is she?  She's not responsible for it.

Now she's given him a title, the Companion of Honour is he.

But anything of honour in the things that he did would be very difficult to see

I didn't set out to call the Queen a creep but you can tell a lady by the companions she keeps

And if our democracy is in the political shit she's not responsible for it

Or is she?  She's not responsible for it.

Well I voted once and I voted twice but majority vote melted away like ice

Old money bags Fraser refused supply and the Governor-General waved bye bye

To socialism, the Governor-General waved bye bye he caused a schism 

The Governor-General said exactly what I'd like to say to him

Bye bye Governor-General, Bye Bye.

I was only a kid when this happened... I still remember exactly where I was when I found out.  I was on a bus outside the Registry Office between Hyde Park and St Mary's Cathedral and my friend Miranda told me the news.

Today has been declared an international worldwide Occupy the Streets day of demonstration but there doesn't seem to be much going on here in Sydney.  There is an informal discussion this afternoon and I am considering attending (except I am saving my precious limited energy and endurance for going out later tonight and I don't think I can do both.)

Still in acknowledgment of my support of the Occupy movement I wrote the following comment on the Occupy Sydney Website.

How can we not support the Occupy Movement?
I believe there is a gross inequity in the distribution of wealth in our society. I watch the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and I know it is wrong.
The global recession has caused corporations to tighten their belts (read; get more work out of less people under lower standard working conditions) and yet the very top of the tree continues to reap huge profits. Government doesn’t help because their principle concern is always getting re-elected and the top of the tree has the power to heavily influence an election.
If I don’t stand up to be counted I have no right to complain and I think we should be complaining LOUD AND LONG!
How can we not support the Occupy movement? It is OUR movement after all. 

Finally, a queenie little chap on TV told me that today is cosmically significant and so it is a good time to put out into the universe the positive wishes for what you want to attract so here is my wish list (in deference to Mildred Ratched I am wishing BIG)

• I want the world to be happier, healthier, and wealthier (read - wealth shared more fairly)
• I want war and religion to get off the center of the stage (Play John Lennon's Imagine to express my thoughts on this matter)
• I want my health back 
• I want to love and to be loved in return
• I want a safe comfortable environment in which to live long-term
• I want to not have as many things to worry about
• I want many varied opportunities for laughter
• I want to spend time with interesting, caring, socially conscious people
• I want you all to have your wishes come true too.

I am hoping to post this as close to the 11th hour on this the 11th day of the 11th month in the 11th year... I who was born on the 29th (11) for whom 11 has always been my favourite and most lucky number.  

Happy elevenses to you and yours - may the magic be real!