Posts by sally jones
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to Bart Janssen,
Sally I’m not a feminist
I gathered that.
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Was there a point there, Sally, beyond you like Clark and despise Key?
The point, Craig, that you're so cunningly obfuscating, was that Clark's long service to her country, not to mention her hard labour entering parliament as one of the first women to do so and then battling against institutionalised sexism and male privilege for 28 years, cannot be constructively compared with Key's cruisey and quick ride to the top made that much easier by his willingness and ability (having a dick) to exploit this privilege and prejudice. If Key does indeed do a runner, having added PM of a small country to his CV, this cowardly, if entirely predictable act for a man with his eye on the money (I hear the World Bank is his target), there will again be no comparison with Clark's decision to leave NZ for the UN. The only relationship between these two leaders is one of contrast - and it couldn't be more stark.
I don't despise John Key, I despair of him. Oh, and I more than like Clark. I revere her. -
Up Front: Say When, in reply to Emma Hart,
Because I’ve found your comment enormously condescending and passive-aggressive,
Emma, where I'm coming from is roughly the position of the commentators on Boganette who you have been at pains to hold up for ridicule here. And, I believe, so is Germaine Greer. Your response to my point up thread that the issues under debate are a little more complicated than respecting a person's right to wear and drink what they want, I too found extremely condescending. No apology necessary, it's par for the course when you hold a position that is not consistent with the mainstream.
The first comment you highlighted from Boganette I believe was making the point that men who are neither gay nor feminist like women to be promiscuous and wear as little clothing as possible. I agree with this statement even if wishing it had been made with a little more tact. I do not think it stupid. But I would draw people's attention to the key word 'feminist' in this statement and hope especially that Russell and other men who have been offended by it might reconsider their objection by identifying themselves as feminists, namely people who recognise and challenge the ongoing, institutionalised and cultural oppression of women. -
Up Front: Say When, in reply to giovanni tiso,
I guess I’m trying to rescue some useful descriptors that feminists have come up with over the years from the use that stupid people (here’s a worthwhile generalisation) make of them.
If anyone out there is genuinely interested in reading what highly educated and useful feminists have had to say on the issues debated and distorted by the 'lifestyle feminists' dominating the discussion here, I strongly recommend starting with Germaine Greer's the whole woman (1999). Danielle, she has some useful things to say about your interesting - and useful - comments made on PA a year ago on the subject of women's fear (349-358).
Her chapter on 'girlpower' (399-411) begins:
"The longest revolution has many phases, false starts and blind alleys, all of which must be explored before a way through can be found. One of these is the brief and catastrophic career of 'girls', 'girls behaving badly', 'girls on top'...".
Sorry to invoke the words of another, but if I use my own then, it would seem, they're rather likely to be dismissed here as "stupid". Hopefully Greer's words - and brain - will be granted a little more respect.
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Hard News: Gaying Out, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
But since you went there, I wasn’t inclined to bitch Helen Clark for not wanting to have a second go at being opposition leader. Nor was I that surprised that, as it turned out, she repeatedly (and understandably) lied about her intentions to the media in the last weeks of the campaign when a Labour defeat was looking likely.
Clark served her country for 28 years, Key less than ten. Please don't compare their level of commitment or propensity to lie. There is no comparison.
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Up Front: Say When, in reply to dyan campbell,
“if you have a pimple, colour it in with an eyebrow pencil and pretend it’s a mole!”
Hah! I don't often read women's mags; perhaps this explains my failure to keep abreast of the modern woman. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to get my personal grooming and general lady care advice from Lillie and Arthur Horth's 1939 classic: 101 Things for the Housewife to do , which naturally includes an entire chapter on the 'Care of complexion and hair'. Besides explaining "the correct way to hold a nail file" (which I think is aimed at discouraging the renegade housewife from using her fingers for other, less edifying activities than filing), and the importance of remembering that "a continually happy face will retain its pleasing contours far longer than one which shows discontent", there is an illuminating section on "pressing out blackheads" complete with a charming photo of a woman earnestly engaged in the act of pressing, all the while maintaining her pleasing contours. Her impressive calm no doubt provided much needed reassurance to pimply housewives around the world (otherwise gearing up for war). But today it's all cover up and pretend. Where's the reassurance in that? Small wonder we're losing the war.
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Hard News: Book review: 'Wikileaks:…, in reply to B Jones,
Thanks for the link to this article. I hope some government some time acts on the recommendations made in this latest taskforce. The NZ Law Commission looked into this issue some years back and many women's groups made submissions that recommended removing the lay person (juror) from the trial process in rape cases and handing over judgement to a panel of people more educated on the subject and less likely to apply the standard assumptions and mythology that surround rape. This was some years before the Louise Nichols trial. Justice for rape victims is still a long way off. Not sure the presumption of innocence is all that it's cracked up to be as a principle of justice applied in rape cases and very sure that it works to protect the guilty in many (most) cases. I know it's a bedrock principle, but given that alleged rape victims are scarcely afforded the same presumption, I'm sceptical of its fairness beyond reminding us that its opposite, the presumption of guilt, is the antithesis of justice.
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the amount of slut-shaming I’ve copped over the years.
Enjoyed the laughs in your post, Emma, but not sure about this.
As one who generally prefers trousers, short hair, top buttons - on account of the whole, it's less of a fuss, more comfortable, don't like being leered at, thing - I've more often been 'shamed' as a butch prude than a slut (except on the dance floor where I let the slutty black swan loose). It seems to me that women who dress as you say you do (curves and cleavage) are more likely to be admired, if not idolised, than shamed. At least amongst the mainstream.
But...my views are probably a bit screwed up on the whole body image shame thing on account of the post-ballet years that saw me gain kilos!! and a pair of marvellous melons, where once there was bony crepe. Two years of counselling didn't much help. Also my mother has bought me a frilly top or long skirt every birthday/Christmas since I converted from conventional White Swan femininity to radical feminist, which naturally serves to reinforce my conversion.
That said, today my hair is long enough to be tied up, my skirt short enough and my top low enough to keep my top and bottom bits cool. I think feminism had quite a bit to do with western women gaining the freedom to choose what and how much, or how little, to wear, as well as the freedom to take off the corset (bra) and flaunt female flab. But I think the pressure placed on girls and women today to pump up their boobs, and wear as little as possible, is part of a backlash against feminism that is not about women's self-expression and esteem at all and is concerning.
You can keep this thing simple - wear what you like - or you can make it a whole lot more complicated: body shape, fat and fashion are feminist issues. I think both approaches have merit.
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Field Theory: An important message for…, in reply to Hadyn Green,
Great post Hayden, couldn't agree more.
You’re no good at it and your accomplishments mean nothing.
Read: you're too good at it and your accomplishments might eventually mean men's sport has to move over just a tiny tinsy bit to accommodate 'women's sport'. Instead of rugby and women's rugby, cricket and women's cricket, sport and women's sport, ETC, you'd have to have men's sport and women's sport, or just sport that encompassed both equally.
Play your heart out and be the darlings of the nation for as brief a period as there is between stories about cricket injuries
Yeah, I hate the daily, hourly, injury up-date for bloke sport broadcast on our state funded radio, let alone the box.
Reporting: "There's been a massive earthquake in Haiti which has killed thousands and devastated villages with untold damage to infrastructure and threat of disease...But wait, just in; Joe flip flop has torn his stretchy bit and doctors are not sure if he's going to be able to get into his shorts in time for the pre-cup work up that begins in 32 and a half days! This (or __slightly_ more serious versions) is NOT national news and yes its relentless reportage must mean other stuff, like reports of sporting achievements in marginalised 'women's' sport (other than netball) as well as most that goes on in the arts community and other stuff of national significance, doesn't make the cut.
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Hard News: Book review: 'Wikileaks:…, in reply to Paul Williams,
Assange however, is yet to be tried and as much as it appears he committed an offence(s), he’s not yet guilty and I think that matters.
I call sexual contact without a person's consent 'violence' ("behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt" OED), but I get the importance of these distinctions too. The woman who was 'approached' for sex while asleep had made it abundantly clear she didn't want sex without a (working) condom, fearing AIDS, pregnancy, Assange failed to respect her wishes. As I understand it, that much has already been established and that much alone comes under my definition of unlawful sexual contact.
But pinned down? Unless your mouth is also held shut, you can surely say yes or no. And you can struggle to show dissent.
I presumed 'pinned down' implied a struggle on the woman's part not to be pinned, rather than consensual 'pinning' for the fun (?) of it. Why else complain? But again, as ever in these cases where there are no apparent physical injuries and the man denies harm, we, much like the courts, essentially have to decide who to believe. Mostly the courts and the public go in favour of the defendant. If not in the Assange case, from Sweden's appalling track record for rape convictions, it may well be 'political' rather than evidence and justice based. This is undoubtedly wrong but like I said, the lack of hard evidence (injury) almost invariably works strongly in the man's favour. I believe the chief prosecutor in the case has already been slammed as a "malicious radical feminist with a bias against men." That kind of thing ought to help too, and don't the defence know it.