Bogosity

Before 1992, feminism was this thing in the sixties where all women took to the streets and burned their bras to protest how men had all the good jobs. However in the summer of ‘69 it was all forgotten at one of those car keys parties.

The movement was resurrected in 1992 by my high school english teacher who revealed that it was actually an important part of a modern university education and that any of us who wanted to study one of those useless arts degrees might do well to read up on it. Fortunately, I was studying a straight maths/science program aimed at getting me into an engineering degree and only doing english because it was compulsory. However, I found to my surprise, that I enjoyed studying senior english and thought that feminism seemed like a fairly sensible thing.

Fast forward to 1995. I was half way through my degree and met this girl who often told me to fight the patriarchy and would sometimes inform me that she was a woman and demand that I hear her roar. She had a lot of spunk that girl – she wore stripy leggings, docs, very short skirts and a beret. She was scared of big hairy men and hated ‘arrogant’ men and alpha males (still does it seems). She listened to Cat Stevens, Simon and Garfunkle and Frente and wanted me to frolic in the fields with her. She came over to my place during exam week to “study” but got mad at me when I actually did any study (I think I missed a cue or two there). So I became a feminist and she became a big part of my life.

Feminism was a pretty easy ride until 2005 when it was brought sharply back into focus for us again. You see we had a baby and suddenly everything was different. For Steph it started straight away – she told me that within hours of having Sol she had thought something (like wanting to sleep and not hold him the whole time) and then mentally scolded herself lamenting internally that she was a bad mother. I might have mentioned before about the hundreds of mothering books that had littered our house, all contradicting each other and all claiming to be the only way to properly love your child. Advice from friends, parents, sisters etc… how to be a good mum. The thing that struck me was the amount of competitiveness between mothers. Why is it a competition?

So feminism in this day an age is about parenting and the roles of mothers and fathers. Can a mum have a career? Why does no one seem to ask whether a dad should have a career? Who’s business is it whether our toddler sleeps in the same room or not as us (apparently this is everybody with an opinion’s business)? Why do all the boys and girls flock to me when I drop Sol off at day-care? How much say does a dad get in how a child is brought up anyway? Aren’t dad’s just supposed to take the kids out for ice-cream on weekends and then just butt out (seeing as we are no longer needed for administering the strap (or are we?))? Is it grammatically ok to have nested parenthesis asking rhetorical questions within other rhetorical questions?

Anyway, I’ve been thinking all about this because one of our friends happens to be a real feminist and I’ve been reading her blog and I also came across a thought provoking display advertsing HUMN2001 The Mother: Images, Issues and Practices and Mothering Australia in the foyer of the UQ Library today. Finally I guess I wanted to introduce the topic to my blog, explain the place of feminism in my life and maybe start learning a bit more.