Making room at the table

Standing in the ruins of gender roles, nuclear families and male dominance I am experiencing a backflip that I never would have anticipated. I am a woman. I am a feminist. I am a mother of a son. I love my husband. I have been vocal and active in women’s issues since I was old enough to participate, much younger than many would have liked. Injustice irks me. I have a stubborn, and at times irrational, belief that the world should be fair, equitable, respectful, even and just. This was the fuel in my feminist fire.

Now 20 years later I am faced with the repercussions of a movement I have wholeheartedly supported since I was 6. The changes feminism & affirmative action yielded (increased rights for women, increased participation in the workforce, autonomy over their bodies, a belief that they can be anything they want to be) are positive and necessary but they aren’t the only consequences. Gender roles are crumbling and the traditional patriarchal power of the male is diminishing our men are lost and looked over or lashing out at women in insidious or overtly violent ways.

Since the 1980′s when women’s liberation started gaining exponential ground a few other things have been charging along aside it. Violence against women has increased since the 1980′s and no one has a clear indication as to why. The media’s generic ideal of beauty has steadily become less and less attainable while it has become more expensive and more painful to achieve. Popular culture has adopted a soft core porn sensibility and pornography has become more extreme casting women in scenes where they are sexually abused, unfulfilled and humiliated. Marriage is on the decline, perhaps because women feel less obligated to play their part, but perhaps because more women are tertiary educated and successful and thus find it difficult to find a suitable mate.

Why is it harder to find a suitable mate? This is my major concern as a mother of a son; as women have made giant leaps forward our men seem to be floundering. Boys are left in the dust by girls is all levels of education from primary through to tertiary. Statistically men were hit harder in the GFC than women and of the industries set to boom in the coming decades most of them employ a vast majority of women. Whilst women are more likely to become depressed than men, men are less likely to seek help and more likely to suicide as a result. Parents are, for the first time in history beginning to prefer girl babies than sons.

So whilst women still have ways to go to reach equality, I think all of our children would be better served if we looked to create a bright and equal future for girls and boys. Because the rights of one group should never come at the cost of another. If we haven’t learned this, then history has taught us nothing and we are no better than sexists and the bigots that fought to preserve the good life for white men alone. I have every intention of teaching my son how to respect a woman, how to appreciate her for what she is and not how she compares to props in porn videos, to listen to what she says and to acknowledge her boundaries. I will also be teaching him how wonderful he is in his own right, how to work, live, love and compete with his equals (male and female), how to ask for help when he needs it and to not accept injustice on the basis of gender.

*image credit

Is objectification a prerequisite for sex?

“I have no problem with women objectifying men in ads, or men objectifying women in ads. Because, really, the only reason we [humans] are still here after 65 million years, is because someone has been shagging.”  - The Gruen Transfer.

I’m sorry, did I miss something? Since when was objectification a prerequisite for sex? Is it because I am a woman that sex to me is more than visual attraction and physical possession?

Need I be terrified that men today subscribe to this theory that in order to perform a most intimate act, which is at its heart prone to our deepest vulnerabilities, they must first objectify their partner and presumably protect their manliness? Have I got it all wrong? Please tell me I have it all wrong.

I understand that sex isn’t always a beautiful thing. Sometimes is it about pure base attraction, heat, pheromones, friction, sweat and climax. Great sex for the sake of great sex, is still great sex. But can it really be great if it is essentially one object fucking another? Barbie and Ken in the sack was never the hottest idea.

Something tells me that our pop culture adopting the values and aesthetics of soft porn may have something to do with this theory. And really, the Gruen Transfer is a show about advertising and we all know that the advertising industry have been justifying the proliferation of the male gaze and over-sexualisation with the simple catchphrase ‘Sex sells”. The prude in me asks; at what cost.

Everybody with two grey cells to rub together knows that the brain is our sexiest organ. If it weren’t then natural selection over the past 65 million years would have produced an aesthetically superior race by now. And that simply isn’t the case. So, how is it that a comment about objectification on a national TV program so flippantly accepts objectification as a part of sex?

For me all I hear are warning bells. Are our young women growing up understanding the in order to be attractive (and receive physical love) they must come pre-objectified; spray tanned to within an inch of their lives, hair highlighted, teeth bleached, hairless except for that on their heads, carefully styled to appeal to the narrowest possible idea of sexy? Are our young men growing up understanding that in order to be a man they must act like the degrading assholes you see in most porn these days (professional or amateur) and order women around, ‘take’ all three orifices available, include ‘light’ bondage and spanking and end ejaculating on her face?

How oh how can we restore intimacy to sex? I think it begins by reversing the over-sexualisation of our youth, introducing instead real sexual education (i.e. something more than sex is bad and dangerous don’t do it), by adding erotica to challenge the stronghold [mostly] degrading porn has on the ever-growing market, and by individually asking more for our partners. If it is normal these days to objectify, demean, humiliate in our sex lives then I say let’s do something radical like honour, respect, and worship in our sex lives too.

*Photo credit

Lets talk about…sexiness

A few weeks back, on my hens’ night I witnessed a phenomenon I am only just beginning to grasp. Walking ahead of me (up the enormous hill that is William Street, Sydney) were 3 mid-20something happily coupled women. They were laughing, confident, natural and oozing sex appeal. While they passed scantily clad teenagers, it hit me. I think for a moment I saw what men see.

I remember watching an interview with Naomi Watts where she mentioned that she felt unattractive as a young woman. In her late 20′s her cheekbones ‘arrived’ and she came into her beauty. I think Naomi’s experience about coming into her attractiveness in her late 20′s is more typical than we like to admit. Until we, as women, accept our bodies and own our sexuality we are merely teenagers playing dress up. And it wasn’t until  saw the two extremes juxtaposed on William St that night that this truth really became evident to me.

This is a post I would not have been able to write a few years ago for fear of earning the immature label ‘Lezo’. But the things that make a woman sexy have absolutely nothing to do with the shape or size of her body. Her hair colour or style makes no difference. Her clothes have far less importance than we like to think as well. These things merely catch the eye. What makes a man stare, smile, fantasise about a woman is… ineffable.

What makes a woman sexy cannot be bought. No cream, wonder bra, shaping underwear, surgery, stiletto, hair style or dress has the capacity to make a woman sexy. Sexy is certainly paid for. Sexy is the result of living with gusto. Of putting yourself out  there. Of trying new things. Of a life well lived and a self actualised. Experience is sexy. Experience comes at a price – tears, pain, failure, change, growth.

What makes a woman sexy is behind her eyes. It is the promise of a woman who can stand toe to toe with a man and make him moan without lifting a finger. You must know pain to understand that kind of pleasure. You must know longing to conjure that depth of desire. You must be capable of ugliness to be that beautiful. You must have lost yourself somewhere along the way to own your self that completely.

That night, a few weeks back we were goddesses in motion. Men were magnetised to our sides. Flocked to our table. Fought for a glance. We were playful and open and owned our selves. We bought and paid for our own drinks. Oh and handed out little red heart lollipops. (The tackiness of this gesture offset by the dept of character of the women dolling out the sweets, perfectly aware of the irony.)

I found it life affirming to see that men evidentially agreed with my mantra for the year (maybe longer):

Healthy is Beautiful ~ Happiness is Sexy ~ Soulful is Irresistable

*photo credit