Most of the radicals of the period [1960s and 1970s] had an idea of sharing things around – tasks, expertise, influence, the length of time each member could speak – but this radical equality of participation assumed a particular significance for women. Every organization has its division of labour between ‘mental’ and ‘manual’, creative and routine tasks, but the long association of women with office work has usually guaranteed that they are the ones who type the leaflets, take the minutes and bring the tea. Every organization has its complement of good talkers and silent listeners, but the construction of male and female identities has usually meant that women are disproportionately represented in the listening camp. What could appear as a general problem to other radical movements became for women a matter of the power between women and men. The women’s movement was thus acutely sensitive to the relations of dominance and subordination that emerge int eh course of discussions or get reflected in the distribution of work. An unequal distribution of skills was thought to be inevitably correlated with an unequal distribution of power.

Anne Phillips, Engendering Democracy, 1991

Things will be a little quiet around here for a few days. I’m going to a party. In New Zealand. By myself.

I’m leaving today, which is a very good thing: today’s high temperature in Adelaide is predicted to be 43 degrees. In Wellington, it will be 17 degrees. I prefer the latter. (Temperature predictions from BoM and the Met Service respectively.)

It’s a flying visit home – into Wellington late Thursday evening, staying with my beloved uncle, lunch with a friend and dinner with my parents, party on Saturday, up to Auckland on Sunday where I am seeing two friends, one of whom I haven’t seen for about six years, and then back to Adelaide and my lovely girls and my lovely partner on Monday.

All that way, for such a short visit…

The party is to celebrate my aunty’s 80th birthday. We lost two people from that generation last year, and I wasn’t able to get home for the funerals. When my mum told me that a family party was being planned, I thought that I should try to get there if it was at all possible.

Ka kite ano!

I was so delighted to find a lovely feminist takedown of silly research* in the New Zealand Herald. Things are getting better, slowly, slowly, a teaspoon at a time.

It didn’t last long. This is what they’ve got on their front page now.

The image shows two celebrities (I don’t know who – I’m kind of out of touch because I just don’t do celeb culture) from a gallery of celebrity shots. The text under the shots reads: Too much or too little? A new study claims to have established the ideal amount of flesh women should have on display to attract a mate, so how do the celebrities’ wardrobe choices measure up?

Then you are invited to click through and have a look at what the women are wearing and make a judgement about whether or not they have the right amount of flesh on display to attract a mate. The captions under each photo assess how much of each woman’s skin is showing.

Well, that’s them lippy feminists put back in their place then.

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*I’ve changed the link to the original column in The Independent. I see no reason to reward the NZ Herald with extra clicks. And I’ve changed the link in my previous post.

Yet another piece of research, telling women what they should wear and how they should behave in order to attract a man.

Beauty’s in the eye of the researcher

I urge you to click through and read the whole article. You’ll find it’s a little different from the usual reporting of this type of research.

Update: I’ve changed the link to lead to The Independent, for the reasons detailed in this post.

In research reported today, it seems that phthalates, found in plastics, are affecting boys. The effects include genital abnormalities, and boys playing with girls’ toys. The BBC reports it as making boys more feminine; Jender at Feminist Philosophers deconstructs that particular worry. But in a particularly silly move, the ABC reports the story just a little differently.

Common chemicals making boys soft

A US study has come to the conclusion that chemicals used to soften up household items may also be making a new generation of soft blokes.

Wow. Stay classy, ABC.

It’s a social construction of gender alright: girls should be soft and feminine, and boys should be tough blokes. Of course we should worry about boys’ reproductive health, but for goodness sake, does it really matter one little bit if boys play with “feminine” toys.

When you write a column about violence against women, you can guarantee that you’ll be able to fill out a bingo card in the comments thread, just like that. You’ll almost certainly be able to fill out the second bingo card too.

Paul Sheehan has written a column about male violence against women: One Giant Scar on Mankind.

The world is engaged in a clash of civilisations, purportedly about religion, but in reality it is about the rights and freedoms of women. This is the true flashpoint of our age.

It’s an excellent column, and you should go and read it. He’s written it in support of White Ribbon Day, which is held on November 25.

But the comments are something else… some quotes, from each of comments 1, 2 and 3, in that order. (The aphorisms for each quote are mine.)

But women are violent too:

Women are the main perpetrators of violence against children.
Women also perpetrate violence against men, and other women.
Maybe we should just say that violence against anyone is intolerable.

Why don’t you worry about real problems / here’s how you should be a feminist:

I find it disturbing that womens libbers in this country who are so vocal about such things as the St Paul’s outrage, and rightly so, are strangely silent in their criticism of the treatment of and attitudes to women by Muslims, outback Aborigines and other groups favoured by liberal causes.

You’re making it all up:

One-third of women are not necessarily assaulted in their lifetime. This “statistic” is a beat-up, including incidents such as a pinched bottom as an assault. Or men exposing themselves.

I really wouldn’t bother with the comments thread, if I were you. Unless you fancy a quick round of bingo.

For Chally. Because it’s her birthday.

Five butterfly cakes, with Greek-style yoghurt and sprinkles.

Three carnivals for your reading pleasure:

- the Sixth Carnival of Feminist Parenting;

- Carnival Against Sexual Violence #82; and

- the 6th Feminist Carnival.

As you may recall, my mother gave me a gorgeous little jug, which I keep on the kitchen window sill, and I put herbs in it. One lucky day, a bunch of boughten mint developed roots while in the jug on my window sill, and I planted them up.

Here are a couple of sprigs of basil that have been in my mother’s jug for a couple of weeks, left over from making the sauce for strangolapreti.

And today, when I went to get them out to add to today’s pasta sauce (yes, M-H, I make all my own pasta sauces too, because, well, why wouldn’t you if you can?*), look at what I found.

How lucky. I have a pot of basil in a shady spot in the garden, so I shall tuck these sprigs in the pot too, and see if they survive, with lots of TLC.

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* ‘Though of course, the are lots of reasons for buying pre-prepared food (illness, fatigue, frantic day with small children, frantic day at work, disability, don’t like cooking, some evening activity to get to, other … ). I prefer the make-huge-quantities-and-freeze-the-extra approach, but that’s not going to work for everyone.

This is not a movement one ‘joins’. There are no rigid structures or membership cards. The Women’s Liberation Movement exists where three or four friends or neighbours decide to meet regularly over coffee and talk about their personal lives. It also exists in the cells of women’s jails, in the welfare lines, in the supermarket, the factory, the convent, the farm, the maternity ward, the streetcorner, the old ladies’ home, the kitchen, the steno pool, the bed. It exists in your mind, and in the political and personal insights that you can contribute to change and shape and help its growth.

Robin Morgan, Sisterhood is Powerful, 1970