Why look at the lolly if you can’t have a suck

It was real…interesting

I went to Hobart for the weekend with two of my girlfriends, primarily to visit Mona but we but had an extra day to kill and planned to spend it going up Mount Wellington.

Unfortunately it was raining, but not too badly.

The hotel staff told us to there was a bus to the base of the mountain, and sent us to the Metro office to find out more.

‘There’s no bus to Mount Wellington!’ crowed the Metro officer. She seemed almost exultant at our stupidity.

‘But isn’t there a bus to Fern Tree?’ we asked (the mountain base?).

‘Yes that’s right. But why would you want to go there on a day like this?’ She banged her chest at this point, for some unknown reason. ‘You won’t be able to see the view!’

‘Well we don’t really mind. We’ll just go for a walk somewhere around Hobart. Do you know anywhere?’

‘Got a vehicle?’

‘No.’

‘Well I don’t know then. Why would you want to go walking on a day like this anyway? You better speak to tourist information – this is just the Metro office.’ She gave us a gappy smile.

The tourist information office was staffed by a guy with fairy floss hair and pebble teeth.

We told him we were thinking about going to Mount Wellington, but asked whether there were any other nice local walks we could do.

‘Not a good day for going up Mount Wellington today! You won’t be able to see the view!’ (We were puzzled by this assumption that we only wanted to go to Mount Wellington to see the view, but maybe that’s what people go for).

‘Got a vehicle?’ he asked.

‘No.’

He paused, thinking, and looked at us.

‘You got an open mind?’

‘Yes.’

‘Heard  of Mona?’

‘Yes, we’re planning to go there tomorrow.’

‘My son’s been there. Some of the stuff there’s pretty…’ – he gave us a conspiratorial grimace.

‘You girls from Melbourne?’

‘Yes.’

‘I been to Melbourne for the Anzac Day celebrations. It was real…interesting.’ He smirked knowingly, waiting for us to enquire further. We didn’t.

‘What about Port Arthur? Can we go there for a day trip?’

‘Not sure. You know about what happened there with Martin Bryant?’

‘Yes’, we said. There was a solemn pause.

‘You interested in the paranormal?’ he asked.

‘Why?’

His face lit up. ‘They run these ghost tours through the old jail in Port Arthur. They start at 10pm and end at 2am. The guy that sold me my mobile phone showed me a picture he’d taken on his phone. Get this. It was just this grey background and – a yellow face. You wouldn’t believe it.’

‘Mmm…’ we said. ‘We really don’t mind where we go; we just want to go for a day walk?’

There was a long pause again.

‘What about Battery Point?’ we prompted.

‘Well there’s lots of historical buildings to see there. But you girls don’t look like you’d be interested in history.’

‘What about the Florentine Valley? Can you get there in a day?’

‘Hmm…not sure. I think I went there about two years ago.’

Then he pulled out a booklet of day walks and gave it to us.

‘Have a look through that, you might see something you like there.’

I just think it’s a sign of respect to look after yourself

That night, we went to Rektango, an outdoor area in Salamanca with a cover band and lots of folky-looking types in woollen jumpers.

We met this middle-aged blonde man.

We were trying to get a photo of all of us, and he offered to help. He inspected the photo afterwards, telling us it was a good one. He complained that he always looks like a serial killer in photo. I could see how that would be the case – his neck looked a bit tense and ropey.

We commenced what I remember as a relatively civil conversation, although the details now elude me. But at some stage in the conversation he started telling us how women lose their attractiveness when they turn 30, whereas men just get more and more attractive as they get older.

‘I don’t believe you; I’ve got male friends who aren’t into girls that are too young for them,’ I exclaimed. ‘Anyway, what about Asher Keddie? She’s 38!’

‘OK, she’s hot. But she’s in good shape.’

‘We’re not so far away from 30,’ I said.

He looked us up and down. ‘Really? Well maybe you guys will be alright, because you’re not fat.’

‘What’s wrong with fat women?’ we asked.

‘Maybe it’s because I’m really into fitness, I just think it’s a sign of respect to look after yourself,’ he said.

I could feel negativity welling within me so decided to wander off, having spotted someone I vaguely knew, leaving my poor friends to continue this conversation. Apparently after I left he started telling them about all the women he’d been out who weren’t ‘typically attractive’, but who were really beautiful to him. He was single.

We all felt slightly disconcerted by the sentiments he had expressed. We weren’t sure whether he was saying something everyone else is too scared to say – after all, there is that thing how women get invisible when they’re older, whereas the older man is like the experienced, silver fox.

Why look at the lolly when you can’t have a suck? 

The following day, we were on the ferry back from Mona. It’s luxurious: inside it’s like a cafe; with tables, coffee, cake and booze. Beside us were a group of girls in skimpy dresses and high heels, obviously there for a hen’s party. The bride-to-be had a bell on her cup and she’d ring it to ask for more booze. Me and my friend were mean about her under our breath.

The ferry stopped and they got off. The waiter came up to us as we stood up.  ’Don’t worry,’ the waiter he said. ‘The hen’s party’s gone now.’

Now just to give you the context for this situation, we’d met this guy on the way there, and had the impression that he was friendly, arty and sensitive, which was our pre-determined stereotype of all Mona staff.

‘I don’t like hen’s parties even when it’s my friend’, I said.

He agreed. ‘Yeah, last time I went to one there was a female stripper there. Not my thing at all.’

‘Well, women’s hen’s parties sometimes have male strippers too. I went to one with a male stripper once. I honestly think most people felt uncomfortable.’

He nudged me with his elbow, ‘Well you know what I reckon. Why look at the lolly if you can’t have a suck?’

My friend and I laughed nervously and looked at each other. ‘Well, see you later!’ we said, and quickly left the ferry.

Questions:  i) did he really think his final rejoinder was acceptable and that we would enjoy the cheeky joke? OR ii) was it a conscious or subconscious way of trying to make us feel uncomfortable? I’m tending toward the latter.

*Not a representation of Hobart. Just a few weird experiences that I wanted to share.*

Buff!

The papers all carried photos of the bodyguard whisking Gillard away from angry Aboriginals and professional protesters.* Security must have thought all their Christmases had come at once. All those hours spent twiddling their thumbs, pretending to watch out for psychos while Gillard delivered some shit boring speech about economy acceleration and hardworking Australians. This was their moment to shine. All it took was the word ‘threat’ for them to spring into action. It was like the West Wing.

The bodyguard was buff and hot. He shielded her with his body, like they do in movies. You have to be ready to die for the president, to take a bullet for her. Morning breakfast shows played Whitney Houston’s ‘I Will Always Love You’ over the footage of Gillard being saved. She was so vulnerable that she lost her shoe, just like Cinderella. So visibly frightened.** Tony, of course, could take care of himself.

*Those who weren’t proper black are not, according to Andrew Bolt’s definition, Aboriginal – they are assumed to be ‘professional protesters’.

**Even though minutes beforehand she had seemed cool as anything about the protest, even playing the statesman in front of Channel 9 by getting them to save Tony Abbott. It couldn’t possibly have been the security guards’ over-the-top manhandling that disturbed her, or made her perceive the situation as more threatening than it was?

Email to Clive Hamilton and response

Hi Clive,

My name’s Raili Simojoki, I’m a writer, Greens member and feminist.

I read your piece about women going to war. I personally don’t think we should be sending anyone to war, although haven’t quite got that worked out intellectually yet.

Anyway, some of the assumptions you made about women that we’re naturally nurturing etc – are disputable. Just because women act like that, doesn’t mean those are ‘natural’ or ‘immutable’ characteristics. After all, for many years, it served men’s interest for women to be mothering, empathetic types, do housework and child-bearing and stuff while they went out into the world. In this long-term context of inequality, how can you say these traits are natural?

Anyway, point of this is not to talk at you, but to ask you, have you read Cordelia Fine’s Delusions of Gender. Are you the type of person that often changes your mind about things? If so, this could just be the book to do it.

Anyway, feel free to write back to me at raili.simojoki@gmail.com if you want to chat about it.

Cheers – Raili

 

Hello Raili

Many thanks for your email and your comments on my piece. I wrote it because I picked up from a number of women around me–all independent and successful–that they felt a deep discomfort with the women-in-combat decision, but could not really articulate why. I too felt that discomfort and developed the argument to try to explain it.

In my piece, although ostensibly attacking “feminism”, I was really defending one type of feminism, difference feminism, against another type, liberal feminism. I have been pleasantly surprised by the number of women who have emailed me in support, although aware that my arguments would attract criticism as well.

Perhaps my views have been too heavily shaped by my early participation in the peace movement, where women’s contribution was so influential. I admired the long-running Greenham Common protest in the UK, which was a women’s protest that excluded men and asserted “difference”.

In my article I was careful not to say that the differences are natural, in the biological sense, but arose out of women’s distinctive history, and that it is not right, and not helpful, to characterise that history as wholly determined by men and male structures, and that even while subordinated women developed their own cultures, life experiences and ways of negotiating the world. So it does not help to abandon all of that as merely the product of patriarchy because if you do then it not only denigrates what is distinctively female but also means the objective must be to emulate men. I always understood that one of the two principal objectives of the women’s movement was to change men.

Cordelia is a good friend of mine. I have read her book and admire her work a great deal.

Best wishes

Clive

*NB Clive gave permission to publish this.

Cuntish types

My friends and I went to a gig last week, of a band we absolutely love; soulful, lyrical music – the singer, in particular, has a great energy. But that night you could tell he was feeling sore, didn’t really want to be there. When called back for an encore, he said, ‘you cunts, you made me come back on,’ in a genuinely irritated rather than joking tone. I recoiled a bit: it’s a harsh word, and I was surprised to hear it come out of his mouth. I figured everyone says dumb stuff sometimes.

This story came up over dinner last night and things got a bit awkward, because my friend’s new boyfriend, whom she really wanted us to get along with (and we did, we really liked him) said he thought that people should say the word more often, to remove the stigma. A woman’s vagina is a beautiful thing, he said, and should be celebrated.

Poor guy, it was just him and the three of us girls, and I don’t think anyone agreed with him. We all found the word ‘cunt’ a bit hard to take because it makes a vile swear word out of our precious bits. It doesn’t have to be that way, he argued: if nobody got offended, the word would be deprived of its power. But if you accept that women’s sexuality is still often ignored or stigmatised, then the word ‘cunt’, used to mean base and nasty, does cut a bit.

As a teenager, for example, I felt that my own incipient sexual desires were shameful and needed to be hidden (Here’s Emily Maguire’s beautiful, down-to-earth piece about teenage girls’ sexuality from a few years ago). It’s a bit sad, isn’t it? I’m not saying all girls felt the same. Guys probably feel awkward about their sex drive too, but it’s different. We knew about guys masturbating and walking around with erections, in fact, I think my grade five teacher taught us about it in sex education, but girls’ sexuality was never discussed, at home, at school, or amongst my friends. We did, however, learn to put a condom on.

The prevalent myth is that men are sex-hungry testosterone fiends, unable to resist their bestial sexuality (hello Bettina Arndt). Women, on the other hand, are more emotional than physical, and besides, their orgasms are ‘complicated’.  The corollary is that it’s normal for women not to enjoy sex, because sex is really for men. This doesn’t represent reality, but has an impact nonetheless.

How many women put up with bad sex, thinking that’s just the way it is or that the problem’s with them? How often is pleasing a woman just treated as an optional extra, and how frequently do we hear what a female orgasm consists of, and how to make it happen? And are men really these physical creatures, who never have sex for intimacy?

Women’s sexuality gives us power, in a way, but it’s also often used against us. Public figures, for example, have to strike a fine balance between being not sexy enough (frumpy and tiresome) or too sexy (unreliable, frivolous). Gillard, for example, is incessantly criticised for her unsatisfactory hairstyle, earlobes, and fashion. Sometimes it’s fun to gossip: I remember giggling about Gillard’s earlobes when she was on TV the night Rudd got elected. But it doesn’t feel good to have my petty loungeroom gossip continually replicated in the media. (Kate Ellis, on the other hand, recently attracted criticism for looking too hot, in coloured high heels on the front page of Sunday Life. But why can’t a powerful figure look like that?)

In this context, I don’t see how using the word ‘cunt’ as an insult is an effective way of redressing sexual inequality. It’s like saying you’re going to address racism by calling black people ‘niggers’. Sure, it’d be different if there really was a movement of women who wanted to reclaim the word ‘cunt’ and turn it into a positive (here’s an interesting NY Times article about the idea). Although, that said, I think I’d still feel a bit queasy about it: for me the word is so misogynistic as to be beyond redemption, and reclaiming it seems like a bit of a trite way of solving a deeper problem. Now I understand how the Slutwalk critics felt.

Images from the toy section in Kmart Barkly Square, Brunswick (or anywhere, I guess)

‘Hello girls. Can I get in?’

‘Not with those horrific stripey boardies on!’

‘What about these then?’

‘No fucking way man.’ (OK, I cheated, the licorice allsorts jocks were in the men’s underwear section, which I was in all honesty perusing for the sole purpose of seeing whether there were some really, really bad undies. Yes, I was a bit bored).

Girls Dress Up Set: ‘Great for Developing Your Child’s Imagination’. Yeah, really extending them.

Piles and piles of soldiers. Because, you know, that’s what we want to inspire our boys to do when they grow up.

Boy playing with trucks.

Teaching girls how to be ‘little mommies’?

This is actually a dart gun.

This packet features a picture of a young boy with ammunition strapped onto him. Only $15.

More pretty stuff for the girls.

And here, little boys with guns. Awesome!

No honey you can’t have a gun but you can have…um… a princess teapot!

Quick! We need some engineers to fix our public transport infrastructure!

Ever seen a female drummer? They’re pretty awesome.

These barbies looked entombed. But I think that’s just the flash.

This girl is very cute, I have to admit. She gets a pink and purple tricycle.

Or would you prefer this?

And here’s some gender-neutral entertainment.

At Home With Julia: OK to fold laundry to

‘I thought it was alright. The start was hard to watch, I would have changed chanels but i was folding laundry and the remote was like 2m away. When the indipendants rocked up in the one ute it picked up nicly and I will proboly watch it next week to see if I like it again. Its not great TV but its alright to fold laundry too and thats alright by todays standerds.’ : Christopher, commenter at The Drum on At Home With Julia.

Hehe.

I’m usually reluctant to hold comedy to the same standards of civility as more earnest endeavours. As viewers, it’s in our interest that comedians walk provocatively close to the line – that’s part of what makes them funny – so of course, they’ll occasionally step over it. In my experience, the best comedy is daring and startling, shedding light on situations which are so subtly ridiculous that laughing at them makes you feel like you’re part of an in joke.

At Home With Julia does not do this.  I have to admit that I didn’t take an objective mind to it. I think it’s pretty lame and obvious, if not irresponsible, to make a show about Julia’s home life – seriously, can you really not think of anything less obvious? Can you imagine a show depicting John Howard in his PJs making sexual advances to Jeanette?

Some say the show will be good for Julia because it ‘humanises’ her. Well, aside from the fact that it actually makes her look like an ignorant twerp who can’t even pronounce Barack Obama’s name right, these continual demands for a warm and personal Julia are getting a bit old.  How about we just judge her on how she governs? Um… oh… well, maybe…

I’m such a hedonist I was prepared to let go of my feminist misgivings if it was actually funny. As Christopher points out, some of the actors’ mannerisms were spot-on, and there were a few jokes of an ‘ok to iron the laundry to quality. But in general, the plot, dialogue and jokes couldn’t have been more unimaginative. Julia as a kind of political incarnation of Kath and Kim? For whom serious political negotiations involves having the independents over to dinner? Tim Mathieson as a downtrodden house hubby, striving to get in shape and frustrated because Julia can’t get home for ‘Date Night’?

Can you imagine the writers coming up with their ideas? ‘Yeah, I think this will make a really good plot and stuff, because like, you know, Tim’s a hairdresser, and Julia’s a woman in power! So we can, like, show the reversed gender roles.’ I feel sorry for Mathieson. As Annabel Crabb so succinctly argues here, Gillard’s not the only victim of sexism. Why do people find it so hard to accept the idea that a guy can be both ‘masculine’ and a hairdresser and housekeeper? Perhaps the writers were trying to poke fun of gender stereotypes, rather than reinforce them, but that’s not clear.

In the end, Tim does what Julia couldn’t or wouldn’t do: get tough and angry with the independants, a confrontation that finally convinces them to back down on an imports issue, and accept him as a ‘good bloke’. He saves the day by reasserting his manliness: as an aggressive saviour.

*More thoughts about sexism against Gillard here.

It’s Gillard, not Julia, thankyou very much: sexism against our first female prime minister

It’s easy to forget the widespread sense of excitement and optimism many felt when Julia Gillard first took over from Kevin Rudd. Having our first female prime minister was a significant milestone for a country where the most frequently propounded versions of national identity – male sport and the Anzac legend – revolve around men, where women represent only a quarter of Australian MPs and 10% of company board directors, and where across the board, women still earn an average of 17% less than men.

Gillard challenges gender stereotypes in more ways than one; she’s not a mother, wife, housewife or sex symbol. Her failure to fit within these categories has perturbed some in the media, parliament, and the general public. There’s no doubt that Gillard’s performance has prime minister has been disappointing in many ways, but the sexism directed at her has compounded the difficulties she faces. Many people will remember the time when, during her days as deputy prime minister, Liberal MP Bill Heffernan deemed her unfit to run the country because she was ‘deliberately barren’. And since becoming prime minister, Gillard has continued to suffer multiple forms of gender-based discrimination.

Obvious examples include Mark Latham’s suggestion that she lacks empathy because she doesn’t have children, slogans at this year’s carbon rallies labeling her a ‘witch’ and ‘Juliar Bob Browns bitch’, and excessive media fascination with aspects of her appearance such as her hairstyle, hair color, earlobes, and fashion sense. Bernard Keane, analysing the carbon rally misogynism, identifies three age-old devices for deriding women: calling attention to their physical attractiveness (too frumpy or too sexy); criticising their failure to behave in an appropriate maternal, nurturing, or empathetic manner; and suggesting that they’re unduly influenced by men. All come into play here.

There are subtler forms of discrimination too: a headline in The Age announcing ‘Gillard mum on speaker’, unable to resist the pun despite the story being unrelated to her parental status; criticism for not being emotional enough during the Queensland floods; an article in The Australian asking her dad’s opinion on her popularity and love life; the 60 Minutes interview which Gillard and her partner are condescendingly grilled about their love for each other and intention to marry; and the media’s tendency to call her ‘Julia’ but not Abbott ‘Tony’, undermining her authority. In each of these instances, the question is whether a male prime minister would be treated this way. It seems unlikely.

As writer Jeff Sparrow has pointed out, the media, with its sound-bite tendencies, is inclined to put people in boxes – it’s easier for politically disengaged readers to digest things that way. This  isn’t particularly conducive to the dismantling of any stereotypes, including gender stereotypes. But the sexism directed toward Gillard also reflects the fact that leadership, particularly political leadership, is still viewed as something that’s inherently masculine, and that women who strive to break out of patriarchal roles continue to face abuse and discrimination as a result.  For young women aspiring to leadership positions, the advent of a female prime minister is an encouraging sign. But observing the way she’s been treated may serve as an equally potent deterrent.

This is an extended version of an article originally published at gelp.com.au.

Strauss-Kahn moment proves we still need feminism

So the frothy-mouthed Bob Ellis has added another worthless contribution to his slightly crazed oeuvre. In an article in The Drum titled ‘The Strauss-Kahn Moment – has feminism gone too far?’, he uses Strauss-Kahn as an example to argue that from time immemorial ‘wowser feminism’ has been used to destroy left wing figures by accusing them of crimes as diverse as rape, embezzlement, perjury, having sex, using prostitutes, incest, having sex with children, and chair sniffing. This, in Ellis’s eyes, is unfair. ‘Why are deeds so long common at Christmas parties used to ruin good men’s careers?’ In relation to the Strauss-Kahn affair, he bemoans that because of a ’dodgy hooker’s defiance of male piggery’, Strauss-Kahn was unable to sort out the Greek crisis.

Apart from the woeful inaccuracies in his examples, which I’ll leave it to more knowledgeable others to dissect, Ellis’s arguments are ludicrous. Firstly, he seems to be arguing that ‘male piggery’, including, rape, incest, and having sex with children, is acceptable. ‘Why are deeds so long common at Christmas parties used to ruin good men’s careers?’ he asks (not sure when rape was common at Christmas parties, but anyway). And, also rhetorically, ‘Are men too harshly treated for what men have always done, trying it on, attempting foreplay, rolling bedroom eyes and murmuring lewdly?’ Secondly, he seems to argue that there is some kind of a feminist/right-wing/military/corporate conspiracy to bring down male left wing politicians.

The second point ignores the fact that it hasn’t just been ‘feminists’ trying to punish these acts of violence against women (and in some case, boys), it’s also male politicians, judges, lawyers, and ordinary people. As for the first point, it’s as if we were at a party having a debate about whether or not women should be allowed to serve in the army front-line, and he’s just said, ‘Well I actually don’t think they should get the vote at all.’ In that sense, it’s almost a bit lame of The Drum to publish it, but I can’t really blame them considering the general vitriol incitement must be great for their hits. I wonder if this is not just a desperate cry for attention by Ellis. If so, that’s pretty sad.

The Strauss-Kahn affair illustrates exactly why we still need feminism. Despite forensic evidence which supports the woman’s case, the court relied on evidence of the alleged victim’s character flaws to grant the accused bail. As this fairly considered Guardian article points out, ‘rape is the only crime in which a preferred requirement is that the alleged victim have an unrealistically unblemished personal history.’ I don’t want to prejudge the outcome, but the evidence used to destroy her credibility is completely irrelevant to the rape accusation. So she’s a prostitute? She lied on her asylum application? She kept dodgy finances? She changed her story about the rape a few times, which trauma experts say is quite common after a rape? Are women of perfect character the only people who can be raped?

It’s clear that victim-blaming, the subject of SlutWalk protests, is far from over. Undermining the victim’s credibility is a typical defence in rape cases, the vast majority of which go unreported. Given that most women who are raped blame themselves first, the prospect of having not just their accusation challenged (as it should be, in our innocent until proven guilty legal system), but their character more generally, is likely to further deter the reporting of rape. Clearly, it’s not just their alleged rapist on trial, it’s them too.

No man should be able to tell a woman what to deforest

So Ken ‘I don’t date girls that are into deforestation’ (simpering tone) has decided he’s dumping Barbie.

I’m sorry Ken, but do you live in inner Melbourne? You’re clearly one of those ‘sensitive types’ who pretend to be all snag but are just as patriarchal as the next man.

Your apparent concern for your girlfriend’s moral welfare reeks of the utmost hypocrisy, and is really just an excuse for controlling behaviour.

Barbie’s hobbies shouldn’t be of any concern to you. Besides, there’s an astounding double standard at play here. If you can deforest, why can’t Barbie? Women enjoy giving the forests a little chop, and the orangutans a scare, just as much as the next person.

Barbie, let him go. You don’t need him. He’s not even hot. His brassy bouffant looks a little gay. I think he is gay.

Be a ‘skanky hoe’ (deliberately spelled like the garden rake) and be proud of it. Reclaim the term. Don’t let those misogynistic, fun-hating Greenpeace wowsers get you down. I actually think they’re threatened by capitalist women.

More info on the misogynistic campaign.

SlutWalk – cos Gen Y feminism is no longer an oxymoron

‘Cos you know how, like, nerds reclaimed the word nerd and Greeks reclaimed the word Greek? Like, anyone who’s been bullied, it’s become, like, a trend to reclaim the word’ (comment overheard at SlutWalk).

Has feminism become such a dirty word that it’s cool? I haven’t seen so many coolsies at a protest since the live music rally. SlutWalk was dominated by females in their 20s and 30s. Despite a few ripped stockings and short skirts, nobody really managed to look ‘slutty’, except in a contrived, costumed kind of way. I’d describe the predominant fashion as Fitzroy cool – you know, understated T-shirts and vintage dresses and colourful woollen scarfs?

In a way, it doesn’t really matter whether people get involved in feminism out of passion for the cause or as a fashion statement. Motivations for these sorts of things are usually mixed, and they change over time. It’s common for people to get involved in social justice issues because they think it’s cool or they want to make themselves feel shiny, but that’s not to say they don’t care about the issue too, and often as they get more involved, this passion solidifies. Why second-guess someone’s motivations when they’re trying to do good things?

Getting Gen Yers to attend the protest at all was a massive achievement. As my one of my fave feminists Monica Dux, who spoke at the rally, explains in her book The Great Feminist Denial, while many Gen Y women subscribe to feminist views, they’re reluctant to identify as feminists. They have capitulated to the propaganda perpetuated by the haters, namely, that feminists are hairy-arm-pitted, man-hating bra-burners.

While SlutWalk wasn’t marketed as a feminist event, I’d like to think that it was a first step towards roping in the youngsters. A big cheer went up when Ursula Benstead, counsellor from the Western Region Centre Against Sexual Assault, identified herself a feminist, and clarified that feminism wasn’t all about hairy armpits: ‘The principle is that women are entitled to all the same rights and privileges, including the right not to be sexually assaulted and not be blamed for being sexually assaulted.’

SlutWalk made feminism feel fun. In her speech, Monica Dux admitted that she wasn’t wearing any undies, but not because of the walk – because she hadn’t done the washing. She pointed out the double standards when it comes to what men and women are wearing: ‘Nobody says to a man, oh look, your jocks are a bit tight, better be careful.’ Someone in the crowd yelled ‘Tony Abbott!’

The vibe was fantastic, and if you got as far as showing up, the message – that it’s men who have to stop raping women, rather than women having to avoid being raped – was clear. Benstead talked about having to turn tell girls who’d been sexually assaulted that they had to wait for six months before seeing a counsellor, because the centre was so swamped with clients.

Clearly, sexual assault is still a huge problem, and so is victim-blaming, including self-blaming. I know several people who’ve been sexually assaulted, and in each case, they blamed themselves – for inviting the situation by being too flirtatious, or not fighting hard enough.

It was encouraging to see quite a few men there too. One of the key messages was that men need to take responsibility for tacking sexual assault. One of the speakers, Cody Smith, a trans man and victim of sexual assault, choked back tears as he called on men to take responsibility for changing the behaviour of their friends. He’s spot on – the most effective way to change the mind of men who think that, for whatever reason, they can take what’s not rightfully theirs, is for their mates to speak up against it. This is why behavioural change programs often use male role models to teach their mates about respecting women – for example, check out the Be the Hero project, which tried to get school boys to teach each other to be respectful.

As I discussed in my previous post, the protest was probably less appealing to older feminists. It seeemed that for some ‘old guard’ feminists, the flippant reclaiming of the tainted word ‘slut,’ and the protest’s ironic, faux marketing, would have been pretty hard to swallow. Nonetheless, it was disappointing to see Leslie Cannold criticise older women for failing to take the ‘activist baton’ that young women had commendably seized. Firstly, there were older women there, and secondly, reinforcing divisions between older and younger feminists doesn’t seem particularly helpful.

As I mentioned earlier, some of my friends, both young and old, refused to go because they felt that the term SlutWalk implicitly sexualised rape and put the focus on women rather than men. They were also confused about the protest’s intent – was it condoning porn? Prostitution? They didn’t want to attend something that might be supporting these things. It’s a pity that SlutWalk turned off potential supporters with its marketing, and in the future I hope they can come up with something equally sexy and media-friendly.

At the same time, good on the organisers for drumming up that kind of buzz for an issue which struggles to get the attention it deserves. And for those who actually showed up, the overriding message was pretty clear – that we need to teach men not to rape, rather than women how not to get raped. If you accept this basic premise, disagreement around the details isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Providing nobody gets hurt and people respect differing views, people learn through conflict. Debate and talking over the issues can help you develop a position, and sometimes, change your mind. As Benstead said, if SlutWalk creates a dialogue about sexual assault, misogyny, and social justice, that’s a good thing. And if equally, if we can use irony, controversy, or fashion to attract people who’ve never been involved in feminism before, that’s a good thing too.