The right to our own bodies?

"If a woman, whether black or white, has not the control of her own body, she is a slave"- Edith Jones, president of the Victorian Women Citizens' Movement int he mid 20's, as quoted in Getting Equal- The history of Australian feminism by Marilyn Lake

In the past, one of the main drives of the feminist movement was to gain women the rights over their own bodies. being a young woman in 2011 it is easy to think that the battle over our bodies is history. However, if you dig a bit deeper you will find that we really haven't come as far as many might think.

I've recently been following a series of blogs on http://bitchmagazine.org/ dealing with the issue of whether or not women have a right to sterility. Because sterility isn't something I've yet had to think about at the age of 20, the blog and the reader's comments really opened my eyes to what a big issue it actually is.

While it is true that women now have easier access to contraceptive, this isn't without its faults. There are no foolproof methods and they all come with a whole list of side effects I'd rather live without. If a woman knows that she doesn't want children, shouldn't she be able to access the surgery to ensure she will never get pregnant?

Apparently though, this isn't as easy as it should be. The reader's comments in particular detailed just how difficult it is for a woman to be taken seriously when asking for such surgery. For example:

"My background: I never babysat as a teenager because I don't like kids. I'm the ominously silent woman at baby showers, the co-worker who won't gush over your baby pictures. I've never wanted children ever and more than that, never wanted to be pregnant or the primary caretaker. A heart condition prevents me from using hormonal birth control, so I'm interested in a more permanent and effective method.
The only argument I've received from doctors so far is that I might change my mind if I got married. Really? There's no guarantee I'll get married. (I'm open to it if the right *person* comes along, but it's not exactly a goal.) It's patronizing, insulting, sexist, and heterosexist. You'd think the heart condition would be another reason a doctor would want to help me prevent pregnancy in the first place. Nope. Surprise! Not all women are maternal. We don't all change ourselves to please a man."

"I fell 35 ft when I was 19, and broke my pelvis, several vertebrae, & my sacroiliac as well as herniating several disks. My doc strongly suggested sterilization as becoming pregnant would make my back pain worse& could possibly paralyse me.. I didn't want kids, but even with a doctors recommendation, I was unable to find a doc that would perform sterilization on me until I was 28. Even at that age, I went to several doctors before I could find one that would agree to the procedure. They all argued that I might "change my mind" as well. At the last minute prior to the surgery, someone noted that my husband had not consented to the procedure, so they would not proceed without his okay! I was furious! I still wasn't allowed to make my own decisions about my own body, and had to have my husbands' consent.
I'm 48 now, and I still haven't "changed my mind". I'm glad I had the procedure dont and have not regretted my decision a single time."

The fact that these women are being denied surgery to save themselves from an unwanted pregnancy that could put their lives at risk both shocked and saddened me. Unfortunately though, it seems to be yet another example of a forgotten-about and almost accepted form of sexism. The doctors might think that they are doing the right thing in "protecting" these women from making a decision they might later regret but what they are really saying is "we don't believe you are mature enough, or rational enough to decide what to do with your own body but we will happily trust you with the care and nurturing of an entire other human being".

It is these first-hand accounts that make me really glad the feminist movement is still alive today- we obviously need it.

Our female PM- Moving us forwards or backwards?

One of the most common sentiments I come across when researching feminism and sexism in Australia today is that “now that we have a female prime minister, female state premiers and a female governor-general women should just get over it and get on with life the way everyone else has too”. However, I fail to see how having one female prime minister following 26 male prime ministers is really such a victory.

I admit that on the 24^th of June 2010 when it was declared that Julia Gillard had been elected unopposed I was probably one of the most excited people in the country. I sat glued to the television the entire day, later watched her being sworn-in by Governor General Quentin Bryce, followed the election campaign, stayed awake for the vote count, and finally skipped class to watch the announcement by the independents on who they would side with to form a minority government.

I may have been more excited than anyone to see Australia finally taking the step forward in having a female prime minister but it turned out not be the progress I’d been hoping for. Instead, it only revealed to me the extent to which women are still treated as “the weaker sex” in this country.

In the lead up to the election where one could usually expect fierce debate in the media, we were instead bombarded with useless articles and air time about the colour of her hair, the length of her ear lobes and the fact that she was unmarried and childless. How any of this impacted on Gillard’s ability or inability to run a country, I am still trying to figure out.

The way that Gillard took power of the ALP also played out incessantly in the media. Since June, I have had countless conversations where I have protested the “backstabbing bitch” insult used to describe Ms Gillard, reasoning that what Gillard did took strength and conviction- the exact qualities that we should want in a PM regardless of their gender.

Although the parties themselves were responsible for much of the simplification of the election campaign, the media should also be called upon to justify their poor coverage. Standing in the election booth; it wasn’t hair colour, sex, or choice of swimming attire that decided my vote but important policies of which I had been able to read little about. Even now in the media, Ms Gillard is rarely referred to by her proper title but instead simply called “Julia”- as though she doesn’t fit the idea of what a real Prime Minister should be.

The really sad part of this whole story though it that it isn’t just the right-wing media to blame. It’s the everyday people that still refuse to believe a woman can have the same capacity to lead a country. I even know of many ALP-supporting women who refused to vote for Labor in the election for no other reason than the fact the leader happened to be born with two x chromosomes.

The whole saga has only gone to show that women haven’t advanced nearly as far as what others would have us believe. Having a female prime minister means almost nothing for the feminist cause without support and respect from the people. If anything, I think it has only pushed us backwards by making the feminist movement seem more outdated than it in fact is.

Quotas

For the recent anniversary of international women's day, the media celebrated by stirring-up that age-old question of whether there should be a government enforced quota on the amount of women sitting on company boards.

The most interesting coverage was by the ABC’s Q and A program. (Transcript available here: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3151089.htm)

On the program, both the Minister for Employment, Participation, Childcare and the Status of Women, Kate Ellis and Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey supported the introduction of quotas in order to bring about better gender balance in top corporate positions.

Keyboard-warriors however were outraged at the suggestion of quotas saying that “what ‘women’ seem to want is the success and power and money without the sacrifice or the hard work”. One person even went so far as to liken women to a “petulant child demanding a pony!”.

Even though I want nothing more than to live in a world free of all brands of discrimination but the fact is we don’t. Women are discriminated against and kept from higher level jobs for a wide number of reasons. On Q and A, media commentator Mike Carlton even admitted to an unspoken “male conspiracy to keep women of childbearing age away from jobs that might take them up in a hierarchy”

It might be true that some women chose to have families, take maternity leave and work less hours but it is also true that women have much to contribute to their companies with research showing that the more women on the board the higher the return on sales, invested capital and equity. Considering that women make up 45% of our workforce, yet take up little over 11% of board positions I think this country is really missing out on the benefits that women bring to the corporate table.

I don’t expect quotas to single-handedly bring about equal rights in the workplace but I do think that they will help to shake up the “boys club” mentality that plagues this society.

Let’s face it: quota’s aren’t what we want. Equal rights are what we want and if quota’s will help us to get there then I’m all for them.

The ugly side

Although being able to understand and embrace the dictionary definition of the word “feminism” has brought me closer in understanding the movement, there is still a lot that remains unclear. Why, for example, does the word hold such aggressively negative connotations?

Having been reading The female eunuch by Germaine Greer over the past few days, I’m beginning to get a much better sense of where much of the modern resistance against the movement may have come from. Even I made an embarrassing squeal of horror in a packed library when I read the following suggestion of Ms Greer’s:

“If you think you are emancipated, you might consider the idea of tasting your own menstrual blood- if it makes you sick, you’ve got a long way to go, baby”

But is this radical type of feminism something that should be generalised to those who only identify with the more broad movement? Having asked around lately, I’ve found that most other women are supporters of equal rights but just aren’t in to “all that bra-burning stuff”.

As far as gender equality goes, we still have a (very) long way to come, but we’re not going to get there by tasting our own menstrual blood. The feminist movement needs rationality and composure if we are ever going to shake the suggestions of being bra-burning hysterics.

Because The Friedan Project is as much about my own journey as it is about feminism in the broader society, I must admit that composure on these issues can be something I struggle with. In fact, I have a tendency to become somewhat manic every time my boyfriend or the media mentions something on this issue that I don’t quite agree with. But this really doesn’t get me, or the movement, anywhere.

To be taken seriously, the feminist movement needs to employ the strong tactics of rationality and composure to counteract the damage done by such radical suggestions of the Germaine Greers of the world. In fact, I predict that it is this rationality and composure (as well as a lot of persistence and hard work) that will be what eventually lands us the equal rights we’ve been fighting for for generations.

What is it?

So why did I feel too ashamed to identify myself as a feminist in that lecture almost a year ago? And why does it still bother me? I believe that part of the reason was because I wasn’t quite sure just what it meant.

According to the dictionary, a feminist is simply someone who believes in “equal rights and opportunities for women”. Isn’t this almost everyone?

In fact, this would mean that I’ve been a feminist for as long as I can remember. I’ve been protesting about equal rights from the dinner table since my brother was given the chore of mowing the lawns and my sister and I were entrusted with the “inside jobs”- hanging out the washing, ironing and vacuuming.

I even remember resenting everyone who told me I couldn’t grow up to become a plumber like my dad and everyone who insisted on buying me make-up for every birthday from the age of about eight.

I might have started on the feminist cause a long time ago, but there was no way I was going to raise my hand to that question because the simple, dictionary definition of feminism has been hijacked. It has become a dangerous insult used to keep women quiet about their rights.

Just this morning, the 100^th anniversary of international women's day, viewers of ABC’s breakfast show were using the term to describe the “whinging women” who are trying to sneak their way into Australia’s boardrooms by supporting a government-enforced quota (LINK).

It is my view that the women of today shouldn’t be shying away from the term. A feminist isn’t a bra-burning man-hater- it is an advocate for equal rights. We aren’t trying to usurp the men of the world, we’re striving for equality.

The women of older generations who laid the groundwork for us, shouldn’t be insulted with our refusal to adopt the word but instead, we should be aiming to reclaim the word in much the same way as women have reclaimed the word “bitch” in the past. Men and women alike should be embracing the term in its simplest form, forgetting about the negative connotations and using it proudly in their fight for equality.

After all, if we can’t stand united together under the one simple term, how can we be expected to achieve anything?

The mission..

A lecturer of mine once asked a packed auditorium of second year students to raise their hands if they thought of themselves as being a “feminist”.

I didn’t.

I was too terrified that I would be classed as a man-hater, as someone who doesn’t wear a bra or shave their legs, or that I would be called upon to explain just why it was that I thought that, as a woman, I didn’t already have the same rights as a man.

After all, it isn’t the 1960’s anymore. Women can vote, work and chose whether or not to marry and have babies. Haven’t we already won the war?

One of my grandmothers recently boasted to me that women nowadays can have it all. “Of course there is gender equality”, she reasoned, “women don’t need a weekly stocking-allowance built into their pay packets anymore!”.

And she might be right. But sexism never stopped at stockings.

I’m starting this project because I want to explore the ways in which both sexism and feminism manifest themselves in today’s society. I want answers to why I couldn’t raise my hand in that lecture and why so many women (and men) seem to think that we have already achieved equality. Is there any way forward for feminism? Beyond finishing my much-thumbed-at copy of the feminine mystique, is there any other way that I be a part of the movement and help to achieve REAL equality? Or was my grandmother right afterall?