Kitteh iz moar sonic
I request your Lolcat captions, readers and lurkers.
Update: Tennant and a Penguin. Tennant and a penguin and a charming story. He even does the voices. That’s it. That’s the internets well and truly won by Arwyn.
The Lesbian/Bisexual Woman of the Decade has been announced over at Raising Boychick and you may be surprised (or not) at the results. Arwyn also discusses the shortlist and quite brilliantly answers the question everyone asked: “where’s Ellen?”
The 13th Carnival of Feminists is up at Zero at the Bone. Chally has again put together a great compilation of posts and as usual I’m impressed by her hard work and her intelligent commentary. Well done, Chally. I especially liked the links to the Mainsplainin’ posts, because where would our ladybranes be without a dude to explain shit to us? (If you look closely I even get a mention in this carnival and that’s a first. Cheers for the inclusion Chally, or whoever it was who put it forward.)
Speaking of carnivals, the Down Under Feminist Carnival, hosted by The Radical Radish, closes for January submissions any day now, so if you’ve read or written anything you like send it through here.
Finally, something for the Menz. You know how tiresome it is involving yourself in social conversation with a laydee you might want to have sex with? Well, thankfully a dude has thrown together Pants off Salmon, a cookbook that is promised to be the culinary version of a date rape drug.
Pants off Salmon contains not only the 20 recipes, but also a helpful hints and etiquette section, preparation and cooking time guides, the “panty drop rating” for each meal and a wine suggestion for each meal. All the recipes have been idiot-proofed by a core group of bachelors who profess to be average in the kitchen and each recipe comes with an associated photo so you can gauge your effort.
The publicity they’ve put out with this cookbook is so irksome I’m assuming it’s all a big tongue in cheek joke. According to the press release, the book is also handy for men in relationships, because what’s more romantic than giving your “girl a night off from the kitchen”? It even contains useful advice like the suggestion dudes involve themselves in conversation with their “pretty date”. Because conversation and preparing good food are totally not gender neutral, dudes. That’s chick stuff.
I was going to sit down tonight to write a post about NAPLAN testing in schools and school league tables. Then I received an email claiming circumcision is totally awesome and healthy and in no way represents genital mutilation and thought that might be an interesting post. But then Tony Abbott and his Liberal Party cronies opened their mouths and I couldn’t not say something about their fuckneckism. Predictable? Yes. Satisfying? Not so much.
If you haven’t heard, Australia’s opposition leader Tony Abbott (Fuckneck Extraordinare) recently gave an interview with the Australian Women’s Weekly. One assumes he did this to appeal to female voters, a demographic in which he has serious issues of utter hatred, mistrust and loathing, mostly because he is a Malodorous Knobwit and a dangerous one at that. Anyway, in this barefaced attempt to schmooze the female half of Australian voters, the Great Budgie Turd let slip his complete hatred of women, female sexuality and his innate desire to control women, their choices and their bodies. The man is a Fetid Toilet Brush.
The story most often reported was a nasty little edict on virginity and that it is a “gift” to be “given” to the right person. The Maleficent Douchenozzle did stop just short of explaining that the giving of such a “gift” represents a binding contract and once having been given a woman’s soul will henceforth be owned by her husband and it cannot be redeemed for cash or store credit, with or without a receipt. However, the full story published in the mag included far more than just that and thankfully Deborah at Lavatus Prodeo read it so we don’t have to. Among other things, The Loathsome Affliction shared witticisms on precisely why women don’t especially want to vote for him:
“Look, we are all just guesstimating here because we don’t have this kind of sophisticated polling, but I suspect that [what] we are talking about here is a woman of a certain age, in a certain line of work.
“I think we are talking about younger professional women, essentially, who, for perfectly good reasons, don’t want to be told by anyone else how they should live their lives.”
Yeah, that pesky individual autonomy thing. Someone tell the Nauseating Preacher’s polling staff that you don’t need any level of sophistication to understand that the Epic Monstrosity is not well liked because of the Metric Fucktonnes of Fail he delivers every time he opens his mouth.
Anyway, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard is a smart woman and recognised the political potential in the Infamous Monk’s edicts:
“I think Australian women will look at these comments from Tony Abbott and they will say they are not interested in Tony Abbott imposing his views. They will make their own decisions. Australian women are smart and capable they’ll make their own person choices without Tony Abbott telling them what to do,” she said.
Seems reasonable. But to the Libs, Gillard’s statement represents a massive over-reaction, a failure to comprehend the context in which the Moral Anomaly was speaking and the absolute dearth of intelligence, compassion and redeeming qualities among women. In familiar territory for the Libs, this has found expression in criticisms of Gillard’s own life choices by Queensland Senator George Brandis:
“I think that although Julia Gillard is a very clever politician, she is very much a one-dimensional person and I do think her reaction, her over-reaction to the, in my view, quite unexceptionable remarks Tony Abbott made as the father of daughters, is not something she would have said if she were herself the mother of teenage daughters.”
Gillard is, of course, the same politician criticised for being “wilfully barren” during an election campaign some years ago. Meanwhile, the Pontificating Slimeball has said he was not instructing women how to behave, but that he was merely explaining what advice he gave his daughters. He says: “I am no one’s parish priest. Just because you are the Leader of the Opposition doesn’t mean you are trying to counsel the nation”. Which, let’s be honest, is true. Still, what you do in your personal life, be it fatherly advice or maiming small animals, kind of becomes public when you discuss it in a national magazine. If The Abominable Abbott wants to engender some kind of trust among female voters, it would be a start to stop dismissing their concerns and describing them as “tut-tutting” or wild over-reactions. It would be wise, my dear Pestilent Politician, to listen.
The one thing I’ll add is the parenthood thing. It strikes me as entirely contradictory for Abbott to claim he was speaking as a parent, not a politician one minute and then have one of his cronies claim Gillard can’t understand because she’s not a parent. I’m not a parent. But I’ve been led to believe that it is Rather A Big Deal. As in it changes your whole outlook on life and the way you see the world. Which is why Brandis suggests Gillard just doesn’t get it. I’m supposing, to people like Brandis parenthood is the prism through which you interpret morality and the world at large. In the same way that feminists see the world through the prism of gender based oppression. But only seeing the world in terms of gender based oppression can leave you making epic failures in terms of oppression on terms of race, class, disability, age and any other basis on which people may arbitrarily decide to shit on the well-being of others. In telling Gillard to STFU, Brandis opted to shit on the well-being of women who can make their own choices, reproductive or otherwise, because he could only view the world as informed by parenthood. Which is fine. But it’s not a value judgement and it does not give you the higher moral ground or freedom to say whatever pops into your head.
Rudd is not immune here. If Rudd only wants votes from “working families”, I suppose I’m voting for the Greens come November.
All of this begs the question: when does Abbott the private citizen and parent become Abbott the public servant and politician? Before he’s voted on the budget? A second after voting no on RU486 or Government subsidised maternity leave? When his daughters leave University? When they get married? When they come out of the closet? Isn’t Abbott the parent and Abbott the politician the very same Epic Trolldouche who instinctively (though perhaps not consciously) wants to strip women of choice, rights and safety? The fact is, we don’t want politicians to moralise while they tax us. We don’t want politicians who don’t trust us to do the right thing by our own selves. We want politicians who make sure the garbage is collected and the trains run on time and there is health care, education and safety provided to every person in this country regardless of gender, age, race, ability and class. The smart, capable women in his own family, in fact, are among the several million others in the country who don’t give a shit what he thinks. Perhaps it’s time he started listening to them?
Here’s your usual Friday link roundup, now trimmed down to a handy iPhone size tidbits. (Warning: tidbits may not be small or handy. iPhones not included.)
Do you menstruate? Do you have an iPhone? Then why the hell don’t you have this iPeriod app? Really. Honestly, when my phone has an app that gets me to work on time and empties the kitty litter tray, its takeover of my life will be complete. (Via @DanielleWarby)
Around the blogs this week, Chally reminds TAB writers that the word “disabled” and any other words used to describe disabilities is not there to be used as a metaphor for your TAB sentiments. One of the authors of the book to which she refers disagrees at great length. Who knows why words are clung to despite how they hurt people. In a way I sort of understand that some concepts are difficult to grab hold of at first. It’s privilege, of course, the privilege of not feeling that hurt, of not feeling that you are considered less important, less valuable, just somehow less. But when people are telling you that’s not cool the correct response is to say, “oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t consider the meaning of my words and how they might hurt people, I will do so in the future and I will not say/do that again”. I also think there is a large chunk of laziness in there, just a can’t-be-bothered finding a better word. The idea that can’t-be-bothered actually ranks higher than the personhood of people with disabilities makes me despair. Lauredhel also challenges language used to describe disability at Hoyden.
You know what else makes me despair? Men wearing Tshirts of dehumanised, bound and gagged women and the store that sells them claiming it is “the new black”. @The_Ausmerican pointed it out and Chally took up the baton. You know what, Roger David? Sexual assualt isn’t the “new” anything and it sure as shit ain’t a fashion statement. If you see a man wearing one of these in public, run away.
Horror isn’t really enough to describe this story either, a teacher union activist in Iran is being threatened with execution according to Larvatus Prodeo. Read it and forward it to everyone you know.
The_Ausmerican asks what the fuck is up with Captain Jack Harkness?:
Captain Jack Harkness. Oh, Jack, you’re awesome … but you’re confusing the fuck out of me! As everyone knows, I am fairly late to the whole Dr Who phenomenon. I only recently finished watching the first season of New Who. One of the *best* parts of that season was Captain Jack Harkness. He was fucking fabulous! An omnisexual, campy flirt from the 51st Century … you can’t get much better than Captain Jack! He cracked on to anything that spoke and was even known to occasionally pull a gun from his ass (like, literally). His chemistry with Rose and The Dr was nearly perfect. I was in fangirl heaven.
Weren’t we all? While we’re on Torchwood, @sarahfloss told me on Twitter recently that her friend @cass_o_wary named her two budgies Jack and Ianto. Which is kind of brilliant even if it did later turn out that Jack is a girl budgie.
Speaking of the Whoniverse and those who love it, have you been over to Raising My Boychick’s recently? If not, why not? She’s running the poll for the Lesbian/Bisexual Woman of the Decade and the votes are flying in (hopefully). The poll will only be up until the end of next week so don’t muck around – get over there and vote. There has been some contention about the shortlist, as is to be expected, ten names will not please everybody. Personally, while there are some exclusions that surprised me and some inclusions I’m not familiar with, I like that I’m discovering new people and I like that Arwyn has tried to select a shortlist with some diversity, rather than running a popularity test for American celebrities. She’s put in a hell of a lot of work as well, so even if you don’t know who you’d vote for, just go over and take a look. If you have a blog – spread the word.
Arwyn, for your efforts, stamina and grace, on behalf of the entire Intertubes, I salute you. Allow me, against my better judgement, to present you with this Nine/Rose image because I know how much you love that schtick:
Rose and Nine are ready for their fanfic.
So, readers and lurkers, what’s going on? How did this week treat you? What posts have you been reading and writing? What are your favourite iPhone apps? What is Pi to the 14th decimal place? Why does one of my kittens make little noises like a velociraptor? It’s Friday and I’m happy to chat.
A wise blogger once pointed out that if a person was ever in doubt about women’s treatment under the kyriarchy all they need do is go to a busy public place like a concert or sports stadium and check out the queue for the women’s toilets. (I can’t for the life of me remember who that was now, if it was you let me know so I can link you.) It seems no man has ever missed the start of the second half of the game because the queue to his toilet stretched around the corner and as a result no architect or city planner has ever considered putting in extra stalls. This is nothing compared to the accessibility restrictions in places like that. In Perth’s art deco Regal Theatre I once walked past a man using a wheelchair in the back right hand corner closest to the exit, right behind a pillar. I would have really been pissed off. But there was only one wheelchair accessible point, it seems. And it was right up the back, in a corner.
It strikes me that if people are equally welcome, or expected to attend public events in equal numbers, people who manage facilities would make basic concessions to their physical being. But no. Further, it seems fair to not punish people for their physiology, or reproductive capacity. For example, remember when the GST was introduced a decade ago? There was drawn out debate about what should be exempt from the new tax on goods and services and what should be included. The Democrats (if I’m recalling right) argued successfully that food – unprocessed fruit and vegetables, milk, bread, nuts etc – should not be subject to a tax. Which makes sense. (Incidentally, the Democrats have “reformed”.) Then came the bitterness. Because why should tampons be taxed? What about tampons says “luxury item” in the same way as a car or a mains powered, timed, programmable, all natural air freshener? But, because the battle had drawn on too long, or because there weren’t enough people who menstruated in parliament, or because no-one cared enough, that particular battle was lost. We wait longer for toilets, we pay more for hygiene choices.
I’ve not posted on menstruation before because I’m one of those people* who, upon finding myself in a difficult spot, has to buy a few things I don’t need when I stop at the shop to pick up tampons. Walking through the checkout with only a box of tampons feels, to me at least, like a public admission that I couldn’t have predicted what my body was going to do when I left the house in the morning. You know, I was too busy thinking about work and bills and whether I need to put oil in my car again to remember to count days. So in addition to paying taxes that only women who menstruate have to pay, I also pay for diet coke, cup-of-soups, two apples and chewing gum. This completely transparent act quite loudly says “I’m attempting to disguise my real purchase” and should be listed in the dictionary under “stupid stuff people** do because they’re told not to be honest about their bodies” along with period knickers and Femfresh. (I do the same thing with condoms. Come to think of it I also did it with mouthwash recently so maybe I’m just strange. I would never buy Femfresh.)
So, you might appreciate how mortified I was when I was standing at my front door, in my bare feet, as a very-kind, twenty-something, $25-per-15-minutes plumber was telling me how tampons are the bane of his existence. Specifically because of what had been blocking our pipes. It was that day I made the decision to spend a tad more money (and probably tax) on the Diva Cup (which I still have not done).
So, why is this so uncomfortable to talk about? Well, for the simple reason that we never do. It does occur to me, that there was a song last year quite grotesquely entitled “Jizz in My Pants” that was considered “hilarious”, but for some reason I still feel trepidation while writing this post. Which in honesty is an adult and intelligent post about menstruation (unlike that awful song, which was neither adult nor intelligent). That I hear dudes say they don’t want to have to watch TV ads about tampons. Then the same dudes laugh heartily when someone adds caesar dressing to salad. Because it’s white and looks like semen, dudes! Hilarious! I can barely contain myself with the glee. Ugh.
My point? To be honest, I’m not sure I know. Why is this one of those conversations that’s taboo? One that we hold in whispers and code-words? Why can’t I tell my boss that I’m inclined to have migraines which prevent me from working when I have a period (but not every time)? Incidentally, migraines are something else I feel embarassed by my inability to control. Perhaps that’s what I’m getting at. Why do I have a basic desire to control my body, rather than let it do what it needs to get by, to be healthy? Maybe what I’m trying to say is something along the lines of you can tell who’s in charge of the world by which bodies are taught to feel shame. Which bodies are told they need to be ruled in, controlled, weighed, beautified or ignored. We silence what is shameful. Maybe my point something about understanding one’s body and earning confidence from knowing what it’s doing and trusting it. You know, the people who decide what about their bodies should be whispered should be the people who reside within them. And that list, if there has to be one, should be short.
* Please tell me I’m not the only one.
** Again, please tell me other people do this.
I’ve been reading some really impressive things over the past week. Did everyone just recover from the Christmas break with masses of insight and energy or what?
Larvatus Prodeo posts some devastating Haiti figures illustrating the sheer scale of the catastrophe:
“Parliament has collapsed,” President Préval was quoted as saying. “The tax office has collapsed. Schools have collapsed. Hospitals have collapsed. There are a lot of schools that have a lot of dead people in them.”
The post includes links to organisations to donate to if you can, as does Hoyden About Town and Bitch PhD. Shakesville also has links. Please consider who you donate to carefully and make sure your money will go towards offering real aid to the people who most need it.
LP also has a series of posts on violence against Indian students, which I’d recommend you read. Stephiepenguin blogs on the same thing (and links elsewhere) asking the question, what does the reaction say about us?
There’s a few posts on objectification floating about because of this research that suggests women are silenced when men look at their bodies. The comments on that post are a brilliant example of Not Getting It. According to the commenters, the only thing that study proved was that women are victims, complain when people look at their boobs, are sexist in their attitudes towards men, should lose weight, should gain self esteem, are weaker than men because they can’t “handle it”, that the women stop talking because they already have the men’s attention, oh and men WILL NOT be demonized because women are weak, insecure and inferior and how dare you attempt such a thing?!!!!!eleventyone!! Here’s a choice example:
I, for one, will NOT be going out of my way to avoid looking at women’s bodies. As a man I do not ask people to avoid looking at me.
If they are so self-conscious they should exercise. If men didn’t evaluate women’s bodies the gene pool and quality of children would deteriorate because we would procreate with unhealthy, poorly kept women. If dating is not the issue then it should be of no concern.
As a man I will NOT be demonized to accommodate female insecurity. The REAL problem is with men who bash other men for “brownie points” in their own feeble attempts to be seen in a higher, more noble light… all of which is a subconscious attempt to secure their OWN sexual privileges.
I would rather the author research the lack of accountability women have for their own psychological state. This sense of entitlement to remain immature is the REAL cause of this phenomenon, not the NATURAL male inclination to observer their entire environment.
I dismiss the notion that men are generally fantasizing and staring blankly at women’s covered breasts and/or other body parts.
Women habitually glance at a man’s “bulge”, not to mention his arms, back, and general build. Men have accepted this as a normal primal female instinct and have risen above it without allowing it to hinder our self expression.
This can be interpreted as a measure of a type of female inferiority in relation to men.
This comment is interesting, because it misses the entire point of the study for one, and secondly when contrasted with a second study News with Nipples has written about this week. She quotes from the Guardian article:
Researchers used brain scans to show that when straight men looked at pictures of women in bikinis, areas of the brain that normally light up in anticipation of using tools, like spanners and screwdrivers, were activated.
Scans of some of the men found that a part of the brain associated with empathy for other people’s emotions and wishes shut down after looking at the pictures.
Why can’t I shake the idea that our commenter suggesting women lose weight to stop being objectified has exactly the problem with ”activity in the prefrontal cortex” and other parts of the brain associated with empathy that the researcher talks about?
Speaking of objectification, what’s the deal with breast cancer awareness being really fun and hip because of the boobies? Last I heard cancer was a life-threatening illness. But according to the good women of Facebook, it’s a brilliant opportunity to engage in some titilation (pun intended) and flirt on the internet. There’s been a whole bunch of posts around about the “post the colour of your bra” meme to raise “awareness” of breast cancer. This post at Toddler Planet has got to be the best I’ve seen on the topic:
As I talked to friends on twitter about it last night, a single message came through from my friend and fellow survivor @stales. She said something that struck me to the core. She wrote to all: “Time for a little less “awareness” and a whole lot of “action”: the time to act is now: address the causes!” She’s smart, that @stales.
Other cancer survivors joined in, telling me that they felt left out too. After all, this was ostensibly an effort to raise awareness of breast cancer — but one in which breast cancer survivors themselves could not participate, and were reminded (as if we needed a reminder) that we didn’t need bras anymore, that most basic undergarment of women everywhere, that symbol of sexuality, for the simple reason that we had already sacrificed our breasts in a hail mary attempt to keep the rest of our bodies from dying of cancer.
She posts links to ways you can actually raise awareness and organisations you can donate to. Please do so and stop talking about your underwear.
And please drop by Raising Boychick’s to check out the long list for the Lesbian/Bisexual Woman of the Decade. The voting will start any day now when a sleek, aerodynamic shortlist goes up. Be it for Degeneres, Higgins or Maddow – get over there and vote.
Finally, because it wouldn’t be link-tacular enough without a pic, I present Gwen Cooper for your weekend arse-kicking inspiration:
Gwen smiles when she feels like it, dammit!
What have you all been reading? What’s going on where you live? What are you up to this weekend? If the answer is 42, what’s the question? Feel free to chat away in comments, readers and lurkers.
I haven’t blogged on the KFC ad that’s sparked so much debate mostly because I haven’t quite known what to say. (Although, I have added it to the Facebook group Hey Hey, that IS offensive in Australia too, if you’d like to join.) Yes, the ad is racially problematic. It’s just that in some ways the fried chicken + African-Americans = offensive idea has actually clouded the waters. Aussies like nothing more than to claim it’s the American’s fault. Apparently, Aussies are laid back larrikins who take the piss out of everything and everyone and Americans are all uptight about minutiae like racism (there’s that flashing sarcasm sign if you missed it). Still, while the fried chicken part of the offence would certainly have been lost on most Australians, by no means does this suggest the ad isn’t problematic, that television in Australia isn’t white-white-white or that there is no racism in Australia. For Australian readers: racism isn’t an American invention. We can blame Americans for things like the Hummer and David Letterman. Racism, however, has its very own home right here in a land that apparently has boundless plains to share but only if you’re white and preferably British.
You’d think having someone suggest that maybe illustrating one white dude feeling “awkward” among a group of people of colour is a bit dicey racially speaking would inspire some kind of critical thought among Australians. But in this case, and too often, the response is: damned Yanks. And the fact that offering fried chicken to African-Americans is offensive came as such a surprise to Aussies made it easier for Australians to say that. For the record, I don’t condone that. Self-reflection is necessary to recognise one’s privilege and recognising privilege is necessary to try to stop being an arsehole.
From an Aussie perspective, it is annoying when Americans lift their cultural and racial history and place the lessons learned and the tropes therein on another place that does not share that history. Someone on Twitter recently pointed out an American blogger who refered to Cathy Freeman as “native” recently. WTF? is the first thought from an Aussie perspective. But, as far as I can tell, “Native Americans” is considered appropriate language for Indigenous peoples from the Americas (happy to be corrected if I’m wrong). Okay, so that blogger researched her subject and the language she should use poorly (Wikipedia is clear on correct language to refer to Indigenous Australians). But we don’t all share the same history, we’re not all necessarily familiar with what goes on across the seas, different words are used in different places and we all fuck up from time to time.
While I was trying to gather my thoughts on this issue, I went to the gym and happened to watch two commercials for insurance companies back to back.
This one, by Youi, is about the “assumptions” insurance companies make about motorists:
Four TAB, cis, white dudes in suits talking about what assumptions insurance companies make before they insure a person. What kind of assumptions are they making about people who buy car insurance, do you think?
This next one, from AAMI, I actually quite liked before I examined its own “assumptions” (at this point I must shamefully admit that I actually like that song and have done since it first came out about a gajillion years ago):
Everyone who drives a car is white. Everyone. There might be a few people of colour in the background of a regular Aussie street but they’re out of focus so it’s hard to tell. People with disabilities don’t exist at all, for that matter. Now, I know there’s a lot of white people in this country, and I know the street in the ad looks like a stage-set intentionally, but the racial composition of this street in no way reflects the streets that I walk down every day. Oh, and the default “safe” driver is white, male, middle class and he feels really pissed off about it. Whatever dude, I hear it all the time from the MRAs. (Did the woman’s water break because of the accident, or did she have an accident because she went into labour? I’m not sure what the ad means, but if they’re trying to say that pregnant women are unsafe drivers they’d better be ready to have my booted foot meet their shins at high speed.)
In the novel Contact (yes, I’m still reading it The_Ausmerican, thank you for the loan) the very first broadcast the aliens receive is of Hitler talking about the Berlin olympics. The characters were quite incensed that the first information a new alien species receives on Earth is Hitler. What if, for some weird sci-fi reason (someone write to RTD, sounds like a script he could screw up royally), the aliens only receive commercials in their broadcasts? How would they picture the Earth? Probably as a bunch of wealthy white people who’ve got nothing better to do with their time than worry about the odours in their home. What segment of society does that picture represent? Less than 5 per cent, maybe? The people living on privileges donated by the kyriarchy.
The fact that Aussies didn’t see anything wrong with the KFC ad doesn’t mean there was actually nothing wrong with the KFC ad. It means Aussies are accustomed to seeing themselves as white, middle class and male on the telly. It is a function of our privilege as white people, as wealthy people, as people who are very rarely asked to consider our own internalised racism that we saw no problem with a bunch of people of colour being silenced by a single white dude with cheap fried food. Australia has a long, long, long history of silencing people of colour. How do we have the gall to turn around and say that Americans are too touchy? The correct answer is that Australians aren’t “touchy” enough.
KFC (who should have known better) pulled the ad and I had the “pleasure” to see its replacement on TV tonight:
Are there no people of colour who would ever go to see Australia play cricket?
Update: I’d really like everyone to read this guest post over at Larvatus Prodeo about the assualts on Indian students and the reluctance of Australians to even consider racial problems in our society. The author says so well what I’ve been thinking. This part in particular:
As XKCD has put it, while correlation doesn’t imply causation “It does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing ‘look over there’.” Unfortunately, in Australia, when correlation points to racism, we don’t ‘look over there’ – we resolutely look the other way. The avoidance instinct kicks in and we latch onto another causal explanation, any causal explanation to avoid having to confront the presence racism.
Just read it.
I went back to work today and when people asked me what I got up to over three weeks off I couldn’t find a response. I said something like “oh, not a lot, relaxed, pottered around the house”. Which strikes me as odd because a lot happened while I was away from work that was internal. Things that I don’t care to share.
I suppose the most pressing thing for colleagues to notice is that somehow I managed to shed kilos over Christmas, the time of gluttony. The basic reason is that I got my tongue pierced over the break (Number 1 Event Not To Share In The Office) and, after a couple days of eating not-much-at-all, have found that I have to eat verrry slowly. It’s time-consuming and annoying and the result is I’m simply eating less. Still, I do indeed have a strange habit of losing weight when I’m on holiday. My work is fairly sedentary and I don’t use my gym membership often enough (welcome to 2010 Resolution Number 2). But what I have in my head about why the kilos literally fall off when I’m away from the office is that the office makes me fundamentally unhappy. I don’t know why that idea sits so firmly in my mind. I was sitting there today clicking the mouse and phaffing with my brand new and shiny 2010 diary (highlighting all the public holidays, mostly) and, you know, it’s not a particularly tedious version of hell by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just work and even for work it’s pretty good.
Personally, I think the weight/happiness link is less important than the work/happiness link. I know most people in my life would disagree, weight gain being apparently linked to ill-health, death and the four horsemen (but no women) of the apocalypse. To be honest, I like being a little lighter than I have been in recent months if only because my clothes fit that little looser. But I do mean just a little. I don’t care what you, the people who put together the target BMIs, my boss, that bloke down the street or these wankers feel about the way I look. I do care about the way I feel, and very much so. I choose this year to put more effort into focusing on that, rather than anyone elses demands of my body.
Speaking of demands on my body, did you know I don’t intend to have children? Well I don’t. Smoo doesn’t either. That’s our decision, we’ve discussed it and it’s not going to change. But the world ain’t okay with that. The world assumes that “Shiny doesn’t like children”, which is not true. Shiny likes children in the same way Shiny likes jaguars (both the animal and car), they’re lovely and wonderful and she ain’t ever going to have one of her own. It’s not that hard to comprehend. When I look into my future I see a lot of ideas and potential and maybe some of those have already been squandered but children isn’t something I see. That doesn’t make me feel bad so why should it disturb anyone else? Oh, of course, it’s the expectations of women and what they may use their bodies for and since I’m middle class and white and have private health care I should be breeding or what a waste of space I would be.
On the other ovary, I made some very ill-thought out, flippant, half asleep remarks about potential controls on parenting via Twitter on the weekend and had everyone I know politely tell me to pull my head out of my arse because I was committing exactly the same sin. The expression “pro-choice” means precisely that. In the same way I make a choice not to have children, I should stand up, yell and fight to protect the rights of everyone else to have that same choice, be it to have children or not. And to parent those children in the best way they see fit. Including people who are queer, people with disabilities, people with mental illness, people of less means, people who are same-sex partnered, people who are unpartnered and indeed anyone else. What a privileged arse am I? (Hint: a big one.) For the record, I wholeheartedly apologise for those statements and commit to checking that kind of unthinking-prejudice in myself (and others). I welcome your pointing it out should I fall off that particular path.
Other commitments for 2010? Here is a list (may be entirely the same as last year’s list, but that’s what January’s for):
1. I shall eat less meat and more seasonal, locally grown produce. I shall also learn to cook, chew slower and enjoy my food. I shall recognise when I’ve had enough and not feel sad because my plate has some left on it. I will recognise the moment when I’m eating processed, dyed and beautified miscellaneous-animal-product purely because it’s soaked in artificial flavours and fried in oil. Even if, after recognising that moment, I decide I just don’t care, I won’t feel bad about that.
2. I shall use my gym membership for more than just a hot shower when our plumbing at home dies.
3. I shall be kinder to others.
Skaro
4. I shall also be kinder to myself. I shall recognise when I’m so hyper I’m out of control (spending cash I don’t have on books I don’t want), when I’m so low I’m hurting everyone around me, when I’m blaming other people for my shit, when I’m not blaming them but taking it out on them anyway. It all starts with remembering what makes me happy. Or figuring out what that is in the first place. I think it has something to do with my garden.
Oh and our new kittens Gallifrey and Skaro.
Gallifrey
For you readers and lurkers, I wish a happy, prosperous and fruitful 2010. May your gardens, literal and figurative, blossom. What do you want from this year? Not what you’re banning yourself from, I don’t want to hear tales of my readers and lurkers eating less chocolate – that’s just cruel. Tell me what you hope for instead. Let’s make this year one of positive thoughts, new horizons or the rediscovery of old loves. Let’s be all about hope and joy in each other’s company.
The Tenth Doctor
If you’re a terribly geeky Whovian like myself (if you want proof of exactly how geeky a Whovian I am: as I type this I’m wrestling with my kitten Gallifrey who wants to type too) you’ve already watched David Tennant’s finale in the role he was born to play, despite it not having aired in your country yet. Welcome to the online world BBC, what did you expect? (Oh, and ABC: three months?! You’re a bunch of wankers.)
Right. Given it hasn’t actually aired here yet I don’t want to go into too much spoilery detail on the actual episode – but reserve the right to revisit it after it has aired. So readers, keep this a spoiler free zone for The End of Time Parts 1 & 2 or risk being in breach of the Shadow Proclamation. Instead, I want to talk about Ten and Tennant and what made him perfect in the role. Tennant was voted the Best Doctor Ever by readers of the Who magazine but as we all know, this is a very personal thing. Whovians will argue to the End of Time and back (see what I did there) about how Four trumps the lot and how Seven was a disaster (I actually really liked both).
The Fourth Doctor
It’s true that Four was iconic in the part: he was slightly weird but still friendly looking, his delivery had the right measure of wild-spaceman humour and cucumber-sandwich-and-tea-Britishness. He carried weird things in his pockets. He had a long scarf. He played the role for seven years, which certainly must help you cement yourself as a character. In comparison, Three was more like a gentleman spy, but he was still odd in his own right. I had a secret penchant for Three’s cravatty, frilly, velvety attire (what does that say about me?). I haven’t seen enough of Five or Six to make a educated assesment but Seven was scarier. Seven arrived when the show was in decline, which is a hard gig. (Also one of the upshots of Seven’s era was his awesome companion Ace, who far from running and screaming would take a bat to a Dalek. She was, indeed, ace). Also, Seven was my Doctor.
The Ninth Doctor
Nine only stayed for a season and in my opinion that season had some of the poorer scripts (although some were brilliant, The Empty Child two parter for example). But he revived the show and he didn’t fail abysmally which, you know, is always possible, but he was (and is) a well respected professional actor so there wasn’t much chance of that. He doesn’t strike me as The Doctor, though. I’m not sure why. His manner is more curt, somewhow it says “I’m aware this is just a kid’s show”. I could be wrong.
Ultimately, I don’t even care who was the best Doctor because there’s no real answer. You like him or you don’t. You’re welcome to have at it in comments readers.
I’ve been scooting around the tubes since I watched Ten’s finale (which didn’t disappoint) and found a great post here reminding us not to diss Chris and with a recommendation for Tennant’s dad for Twelve (interesting). Really, the reason Ten was so much fun is that it was the first Doctor who really took New Who out for a spin. There’s a difference between Eccleston’s test drive and Tennant’s race track. It’s great to think that there’s a whole new bunch of people who discovered the Doctor through Ten. (He’s a great place to start if you’re a curious non-fan, but it will make Old Who seem rather cheap by comparison.)
Trust David
It wasn’t what he wore or how he looked (although no complaints here). Tennant famously became an actor because of Doctor Who. He used to write space-travel essays at school and had a Tom Baker scarf. He’s a geek’s geek. I think that and his energy is how he infused a role that had already been played by nine other (cis, white) men. Apparently he’d correct Who “facts” on set, such was his knowledge, and asked the production team to change his credit from Doctor Who to The Doctor because that’s what the character’s referred to as, after all. He gets around in Tshirts that say Trust Me, I’m a Doctor. You get the impression he genuinely loved playing the part. And for his efforts, the rest of us found it was okay (maybe even cool) to be a Whovian all of a sudden. Who would have ever thought?
So, what’s Matt Smith going to do with the role? I would hate to be him now. He’s stepping into the shoes of an immensely popular actor, in one of the BBCs flagship shows and he’s the youngest dude to ever to it. It would be incredibly intimidating. But, each Doctor is different and I have no doubt by August we’ll all love him. Besides, the whole show written by Steven Moffat, who brought us the Girl in the Fireplace and Blink? It’ll be brilliant. (Just quietly I haven’t forgiven RTD for what he did to Donna and, while grateful for his revival of the show, I’m not altogether sorry to see him go.) Still, “geronimo”? Please, someone tell Lord Moffat no. Just, no.
A couple of predictions for the future: we still have a Tennant character ageing like a human in an alternate reality, which seems convenient. Riversong (who is awesome) has to meet the Doctor at some stage (I hate loose ends). And I have strong thoughts on Donna and where RTD should shove his attitude towards women that I can’t mention here for fear of spoiling. Speaking of women, we can haz female Doctor before this century ends?
So, readers and lurkers, any thoughts? Should I have stayed away from this terribly fannish post? (In my defence, I’m on holiday and haven’t read a newspaper in three weeks. Jealous?) Who was your favourite Doctor and if you aren’t a fan, what’s wrong with you?
