Author: laranettle

My Sentiments Exactly

OK, this is my last post on this issue (for a while at least). I am glad that at least two writers have seen what I have seen in these vitriolic outbursts, and I hope that this episode is not cementing a new way of dealing with women with unpopular opinions. I could be in for a very hard time 🙂

Very little of the anti-intellectual hot air blown about this week has been about what Germaine Greer may or may not have thought about Steve Irwin. It had everything to do with a dominant male power-base telling women to be seen and not heard. Of marginalising a particular kind of woman and reducing us to condition and circumstance. Of reminding those of us who like to speak our mind to watch our step, to remember our place and to shut up and agree with the menfolk. We are all a lot poorer for the unsightly fallout.

Excerpt from an opinion piece in the Age by Tracyee Hitchison

Dad

Dad had a plaster cast put on today, and they gave him a wheelchair. I spoke to him at about 5pm Thailand time, and he was planning to go to the hospitals rooftop garden for the first fresh air he’s had in nearly a week.

The doctor is really pleased with his progress, and though he may be allowed to fly home a little early, mum is thinking that it might be best to stay the full week so he can recouperate as much as possible, and take advantage of the great care he’s getting at hospital. Once he’s home things will be a lot harder – we’ll have to put a bed downstairs for him (my parents have a 2 storey house), and there won’t be any nurses to give him sponge baths and fresh pyjamas.

I’ll do whatever I can to help, I just what them home.

If Only I Were So Articulate

Sydney Morning Herald Link

If you can’t read the whole thing, I urge you to just read the first paragraph. The whole piece is worth a read, particularly if you care about fairness and balance.

Thanks to Kate for pointing out the article.

And another life has been cut short this week. Peter Brock lost control of his vehicle today and was killed. Peter was nicknamed “Peter Perfect” because of his skill behind the wheel. A great ambassador for motor sport, and a dedicated vegetarian.

Here’s a link to a transcript of his Enough Rope interview.

Another popular figure who died too early, but died doing what he loved.

Good Grief

Having stared into the possibility of my own fathers demise this week (yes, I know I am a drama queen), I have a great deal of sympathy for any family suffering a loss, particularly the sudden loss of a healthy and young person, a parent of young children. This post has nothing to do with a certain celebrity zoo keeper, this is about feminism.

I read with interest Mary Helen‘s post on being an older feminist. Many women of my age (36 and thereabouts) can be heard to spout such nonsense as “I’m not a feminist but…..(insert feminist statement here)”. As in, “I’m not a feminist, but I believe in equal pay for equal work”. Sorry dear, but you are a feminist, and there isn’t a thing Stan Zemanek can do about it, except make you revile the word, and corrupt the power inherent in taking ownership of the word. The word feminist has been taken by the new right, and been refashioned to mean only negatives.

My mother was a feminist. She worked outside the home, she studied, she had opinions, she had realistic (ie. high) ideas of her own self worth. I dare say that if she had had the same choices and opportunities that were available to women of my generation that she would have made different choices, but she fought for opportunities that we now take for granted. And any denial of feminism, any acceptance that feminist equals the talkback radio definition of the word is a betrayal of the women who fought for the privileges we enjoy today.

Complacency has no place in todays feminists. If we accept that the rights we have today are enough, and that there is no more to fight for, then we’ll keep living in a world where women are punished for having an opinion.
Nothing wrong with having an opinion. I understand that a time of grief is not the right time to put the boot in, and Ms Greer’s timing could have been better, but the invective that has poured upon this women for her comments is totally over the top.

By the same token, have you noticed the language that has been used to criticise her ?

I won’t clutter up this post (do your own goole search if you don’t believe this is a true sampling), but some of the people attacking her make her sound measured and reasonable.

“Why the bitterness, Germaine? Someone take a bite out of your gingerbread house? …”

“Inhuman: Leftist Hag Germaine Greer Celebrates Death of Steve Irwin”

“Suffice it to say that Greer, now in her declining years, is a malcontent and an iconoclast who decided, for whatever nonsensical reason, to turn her venom towards the chief icon of the cable television channel “Animal Planet.”

“After passing away from a stingray attack, Steve Irwin is denigrated by deranged feminist Germaine Greer.”

What she said may not be tasteful, or kind, or compassionate, but if it was said by a man, would the reaction be different?

I think it would.

A man died so Germaine Greer decided the time was right to express that thought . What a sweet girl she is.

Greer Sticks to her Guns

SMH Link

I know I am a little out of step with public opinion. OK, a lot. But I am truly surprised at how much crap has been flung at Germaine Greer. As M-H points out, the nerve was still very raw, but I am surprised at just how raw.

I remember hearing the first Princess Di jokes less than 24 hours after her death, and though thinking them in bad taste, was not shocked. The death of a celebrity can inspire strong feelings (I mourned deeply for Freddie Mercury), but Steve Irwin wasn’t someone that was really on my radar, and I apologise to anyone that thought my defence of Germaine Greer was in poor taste.

I stand by that support, but apologise for any offence the timing may have caused.