jumbled thoughts on feminism in Australia at this time...

Heyho2

It’s school holidays, which means with the lack of rushing around, I’m in a reflective mood (this is me making excuses for posting on here to much instead of Doing Things!)

So, a few thoughts around feminism that haven’t solidified into anything concrete, so I’m just gonna dump em all here cause I can…

The women that are getting attention in the media right now for the crimes committed against them, or for how they’ve been treated due to their gender, Brittany Higgins, Grace Tame and Christine Holgate. All white, well spoken middle class or more. Is trickle down feminism a thing? Will this benefit the Indigenous women who suffer from higher rates of violence committed against them? It’s all a bit complex… Grace being Australian of the year led to Brittany speaking out, but are they able to more speak out because they are white? or does the media just pick up these stories more? Timing plays a part… but will this result in real change for all women?

But also twisting in with this, there has been an almighty twitter storm against Magda Szubanski, because she retweeted that photo of Morrison and his wife writing a letter to the Queen which a few have compared to the Handmaiden’s tale because of the way the photo was composed. There are lots of tweets making absolutely disparaging comments about Szubanski’s appearance, talent, skills and everything else. There has also been retweets of some old skits she did wearing blackface. There have also been some people calmly and rationally arguing that we should not be speaking about the Prime Minister’s wife’s appearance. (which Madga did in a round about way… other’s on the ‘left’ have been far more disparaging about Mrs. Morrison’s physical appearance and dress.)

So I’m not sure what my point is… just lots of confused points about who feminism is for, eg. Christine Holgate is no doubt killing it right now, but who has she stepped on to get to where she is? You don’t get to be CEO without stomping on a few people along the way… but then we have higher expectations of behaviour of women. We do live in a capitalist patriarchal system so we all do what we do to get by…

As I said… jumbled thoughts!

Heyho2

Came across this…

https://meanjin.com.au/blog/jen-magda-that-photo-and-the-creep-of-christianity/

Morrigan

A: That photo does look like a handmaid’s tale meme

B: She didn’t make any remarks about her appearance

C: The right obviously assumed she was saying Jenny Morrison was fat, severe etc. That’s their bias, not Magda’s.

D: Jenny Morrison is hideous with her hand signs and her happy clappy bullshit.

Morrigan

On and E: If you’ve done blackface at any time for any reason, you’re gonna cop it.

LadySybilVimes

I’m going to preface this by saying I don’t agree with the pile-on Magda has received and I don’t believe she was being particularly harsh in her tweets. There were other people who were, I think, sexist and abusive in their tweets about Jenny Morrison who isn’t an elected official and should be left alone. I felt the same way when Julia Gillard’s partner, Tim, was being abused all over social media.

I don’t agree with some of the leaps in that Meanjin piece. It’s not particularly insightful to say that people pose when they’re aware a photo is being taken. That’s doesn’t mean the photo is “staged” exactly. That has a different connotation. I don’t see any Handmaiden’s Tale connotations in that picture at all. What I see is a middle-aged woman, wearing a conservative black dress because the occasion is signing a condolence book after the death of the Duke of Edinborough.

Here’s another photo of the event, I still don’t see anything Handmaiden’s Tale or Stepford Wife or any other the other things that were said on Twitter. She looks like what she is - a woman accompanying her husband on a solemn occasion in her good black dress. Was this photo also, as Meanjin, says “perhaps was even deliberately designed to be—is now a perfect piece of Dr Seussian, culture-war subterfuge.” Is she sending coded Christian culture war messages or is she standing in a room for five minutes watching a condolence book being signed? I think Meanjin has absolutely lost it and is just engaging in tribal culture war bullshit. There are huge problems with the Morrison government and they have nothing to do with how Jenny Morrison looks in a photo.

These are the kinds of tweets that I hate and this is not a lone example. There were so many people - apparently of the left - who think they can stick the boot into a woman’s appearance because she’s not from their side of politics. She’s a Stepford Wife, a Handmaiden, she has a vacant stare, she’s a sack of potatoes. On and on and on. And they get away with it, most of the time:

It brings me back to this Andrea Dworkin quote:

“Feminism is a political practice of fighting male supremacy in behalf of women as a class, including all the women you don’t like, including all the women you don’t want to be around, including all the women who used to be your best friends whom you don’t want anything to do with anymore. It doesn’t matter who the individual women are. They all have the same vulnerability to rape, to battery, as children to incest. Poorer women have more vulnerability to prostitution, which is basically a form of sexual exploitation that is intolerable in an egalitarian society, which is the society we are fighting for.”

Edited for spelling.

LadySybilVimes

Wow, that was long. I have many feelings about this, clearly.

PuddingPlease

What an appalling tweet! Who the hell is that guy and why is he the boss of who should be wearing cosmetics?

LadySybilVimes

Never heard of him before but he has eighteen thousand followers and he’s definitely from the left. I find left-wing men mostly disappointing these days.

WidowWyncke

Misogynist arsehole.

There are plenty of men on the Left ,as well as the Right,that enjoy attacking women.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t real arguments for examining the theocracy we seem to be heading towards atm and the clues and actions that hint at it.

JM has a part to play in that when SM uses her as a prop in his responses and photo ops.

Heyho2

Ugh, that tweet. The misogyny runs deep. But I do agree that her role as a prop in Morrison’s pr displays is problematic from a feminist point of view and that needs a good critiquing.

LadySybilVimes

His use of her as damage control in his responses to Brittany Higgins and the Christian Porter allegations are absolutely worthy of critique.

I don’t like seeing people on the left engaging in sexist abuse or spreading conspiracy theories about her. I think it’s wrong ethically and tactically. It looks terrible and only generates sympathy towards her. A real own goal. It comes from people who are so entrenched in their Twitter bubble that they care more about signalling their tribal allegiances than anything else.

WidowWyncke

What are the conspiracy theories?

LadySybilVimes

That she’s sending coded white supremacist signals in photographs using hand signals. The 4Chan-originated “ok” sign as white power signal.

It’s about as likely as the one about Julia Gillard persuading the editors of the Macquarie Dictionary to change the definition of “misogny” so that she could attack Tony Abbot (or the one about her secretly being a reptile) or the conspiracy theory about Kevin Rudd being part of the New World Order and planning to turn Australia into a Nazi state. There’s also one about John Howard ordering all muslims to leave Australia. All propagated by people who need to get off the internet for a while and lie down in a dark room.

Heyho2

And to continue my ramblings… I hate myself for talking about a woman as a prop… but that’s how she is being used by the Morrison propaganda team…

WidowWyncke

Yes,it started at 4-Chan but it was widespread as a white power signal after that, particularly during Trump in the US.

The nazis use the 4-chan origin as a plausible deniability tactic.

When JM used it ,in a photo with Meghan Markle no less, it was a well known white supremacy signal.

Morrison has the largest department of spin doctors and media advisors ever,there is no excuse for using what was widely acknowledged as a white power sign in a photograph with a person of colour.

LadySybilVimes

It’s well known for people who are very online. I think most people of her age - early 50s - would only know it as an okay sign.

Is this the photo? I don’t think that’s what she’s doing.

WidowWyncke

It’s not a natural way to hold your hand.

JM isn’t just any 50 year old,she is a political wife and the wife of a PM.

If she didn’t know about the OK sign having neonazi favour she is not very bright then.

At the time and before Trumps aides and sycophants were using this sign in media events.

look,I think she would be incredibly stood to make that sign deliberately and think she would get away with it.

This is a distraction from the huge,political mess we find ourselves in atm.One where actual lives are at stake due to the lack of vaccines and other LNP policies.

The LNP pays an IT firm to influence social media and amplify disharmony. Magda is being attacked and has been a target for quite a while.

Is that the only conspiracy theory related to her you were referencing?

EFG.

PuddingPlease

I doubt her intention was to make a white power symbol but, I have to say, the way she’s holding onto her daughter in that photo does look very odd. I wonder if it’s something she does when she’s uncomfortable or for reassurance, that’s not the only photo that shows it.

LadySybilVimes

I agree it’s a distraction.

I don’t think it means someone isn’t bright if they haven’t heard of it. I would say the majority of people I know in my real life have never heard of this and they’re people who read the news. They’re just not active on social media where this gets discussed a lot.

WidowWyncke

You and your friends are not the Pm’s wife.