Archive for the ‘Womanhood’ Category

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Day from hell! Part 2

Friday, August 6th, 2010

Remember Day from hell had last week? Well it was actually more hellish than I described. You see there was another minor complication that I wasn’t at liberty to discuss. So let me fill you in.

During the 2 hours of tantruming I was also vomiting. Nothing drastic, no food poisoning, my body just doesn’t seem to appreciate food at the moment.

Then there was the getting dressed. I was having the mother of all fat days! I thought my tummy looked podgy (more so than usual) and flabby and nothing fit me. I tried looser clothes and then I just felt like a slob. I slammed wardrobe doors and literally sat amongst a pile of discarded clothes and cried!

The carrying of the bleeding and broken child home was also more difficult as well, because I had a hell of a bruise on my right elbow. Not from being a klutz; though I am un-coordinated and I would forgive you for believing it was self inflicted. I had had a blood test the previous day and the pathologist had hyper-extended my elbow and stabbed me as deep as possible to extract the blood. It would have been quicker and less painful to punch me in the nose and try to catch the nose bleed.

Finally to top off the day my two year old called me ‘fat’. I nearly cried (again). He called me ‘Fatty-Patty’. To check that he wasn’t just rhyming nonsensical sounds I asked him what it meant. He replied “Means you eat too many cookies like Cookie Monster.” Nope, not nonsensical silliness, real two year old logic. *Sigh*

So if you haven’t yet put the puzzle pieces together I’ll spell it out for you; As of today I am 10 weeks pregnant. [Double points for those who guessed it from part one.] Pregnancy is not the easiest time for me. (Before you tell me its all in my attitude – yes, I am holding space for it to be easy and breezy.) I am certainly not part of the glowing skin, beautiful hair and radiant brigade. I am more of the vomit from dawn to dusk, cravings and moods swinging wildly type. You will get to hear all about it in the coming months – just you wait.

*Photo credit

Posted in Body Image, Life, Motherhood, Womanhood | No Comments »

Thank Fuck for girlfriends…

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

…and their ability to remind me that life is unedited. Long, labour intensive and full of challenge. Oh goody!

There is something special about a close female friend. Yes, I have close male friends (well had, but we will get to that later) too, and they are fantastic in a whole other way. Male friends give me the best hugs; remind me there is something solid and grounded and strong around to hold onto. Female friends hug me less and embrace my heart more. Sigh. Girlfriends love me enough to know they can call me on my bullshit and that I won’t be offended. My girlfriends know when to cry with me and when to point out the crocodile in my tears.

My girlfriends are my girlfriends precisely because they have similar hearts. They are ‘my people’. Similar but different – they have varied perspectives. Many of them directly contradict mine, but that is to be expected when you are the hippy leftist that hangs out with conservative lawyers. Sometimes i find it laughable that two of my besties (of over a decade no less) are lawyers who between them will have more degrees than the average graduating class. But I digress. They know how to talk my language, to direct my flow of thought; they reveal myself to me in conversation.

Heart conversation is such an intrinsic and divine feminine act, talking to each other’s souls through our personalities. There is no mistake when we feel some divine presence when we really share ourselves with girlfriends in conversation. We feel it, because it is divine. Sometimes I can see us as ageless crones passing divinity back and forth between us as words.

I cried. She laughed. I said ‘but’ and she kindly pointed out my resistance. She saw my claws and my soft underbelly and she recognized herself. She told me what I already knew. But hearing it from another, somehow, made it different. She told me I had to learn to be infinitely open and infinitely loving. She told me I needed to soften.

I washed the tears from my face when I washed my hands, because really, every life changing conversation is interrupted by a toddler crying ‘Toilet time!’ Isn’t it?

*Photo Credit

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Making room at the table

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

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

Posted in Life, Motherhood, Sex, The unspoken, Womanhood | No Comments »

Is objectification a prerequisite for sex?

Thursday, July 8th, 2010

“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

Posted in Body Image, Femininity, Relationships, Sex, Spirituality, The unspoken, Womanhood | No Comments »

Writing mojo

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

I am finding it really difficult to write at the moment. Interesting that my writing mojo seems to evaporate directly after 21 days of the Bindu Wiles 21.5.800 challenge.

Part of my difficulty writing is because recently I have been afraid to write. Terrified of noting down that was knocking around inside, words are power you know. Part of it is that it’s not appropriate to share what is in my mind and heart at the moment. Part of it is that my creative energies are being funneled off in a different direction. I already know what happens when my creativity finds a muse.

It happened a few years ago. I thought there was something very wrong with me. I was young, in a blissfully happy partnership, loving my work. My creative juices were flowing in my work. I had just begin teaching meditation and leading a spiritual development group. Spiritually and vocationally I was alive; on fire. Sexually, I was dry as a bone.

I couldn’t work it out. I knew this happened sometimes to women. But older women, right? Not me. Not at 23 for fucks sake! Yeah I have some crappy sexual history, but it wasn’t the cause. Though my body betraying my mind and refusing to become juicy, that sure and hell bought it up. To this day I find it ironic that being unable to be sexual bought up sexual shame. (But that is another post for another day; how women seem to take responsibility for, and find shame in, our sexuality regardless of whether we are over or under sexual.)

I was lucky at the time to have a sage on my team. A wonderful woman who has decades of learning (and teaching) on me and is all too generous in sharing her wisdom. I had her to go to. She taught me to heal my sexual shame, with my partner, by tapping into our collective shame embodying it completely. A truly harrowing and healing experience. She also explained to me the nature of my creative feminine power.

I learned then that my creativity can do more than one thing at a time, but it [I] can’t serve two masters at once. Instead I do one well and feel stifled in the other. Then it was grow into my new role and vocation I did well and sex that was stifled. Now, my creativity is busy and writing has become the other.

Posted in Blogging, Inspiration, Personal Development, Spirituality, Womanhood | 2 Comments »

Uncomfortable bedpartners: Motherhood and Feminism

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

There is nothing about this subject that isn’t controversial. Everybody has an opinion. everybody has a mother, everybody knows mothers, everybody has direct experience with working mothers, stay at home mothers and children. Everybody has a vested interest in the next generation being large, healthy and productive members of society.

Despite everybody’s vested interest, we are willing to lump the responsibility of raising the next generation in the laps of the few willing to take on motherhood. Any yet, despite this seeming imbalance everybody seems to have an opinion, a judgement on how those mothers are carrying out their role. That makes ‘Motherhood’ dangerous territory.

With, quite literally, millions of people judging you and your performance as Mother and no KPI’s to guide you, except for pleasing everybody and their disparate demands of what Motherhood should look like (and even what motherhood feel like), being a ‘good’ mother is inherently impossible and ultimately guilt ridden. How can it not be when we fail in every single moment, by someone else’s standards?

Feminism and motherhood have always had a rocky relationship. Motherhood really is at the heart of many of the difficulties women as a collective face. These difficulties have led to imbalance and feminism seeks to eliminate the imbalances in society based on gender. So, Motherhood seems to be the elephant in the room. If women didn’t have burden of motherhood then their participation in the workforce would be higher, it would be more continuous (no pesky maternity leave to contend with), we could just tackle equal pay and housework and everything would be dandy. Oh, except if women as a collective didn’t have the capacity to bear children we would be men – and masculinity as the sole focal point of society is what Feminism is fighting, isn’t it?

Feminism is fighting for the rights of women; for the recognition that women are equal to men, irrespective of the inherent differences between the sexes. Irrespective of our responsibility to birth the next generation.

I am a feminist. I am a mother. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. It is possible to be a ‘good mother’ and a ‘good feminist’. We just need to get on the same page. Feminism doesn’t just serve women by eradicating ‘gender roles’ and making way for women to enter the workforce. Feminism serves women by highlighting the injustices women face in gender roles and in the workforce and working to eliminate these injustices.

I was sent a link by the lovely Elle from GenYElle to an article in The Australian about Elisabeth Badinter’s book Conflict: The Woman and the Mother, that will soon be translated to english and available in Australia. Badinter raises some excellent issues that plague motherhood. But, for me, many of her conclusions are ill thought out and some downright selfish. She points out that extended breastfeeding ‘deprives [couples] of their romantic relationship, and especially their sex life’ as though we are comparing apples and oranges. As though romance and WHO recommendations for child nutrition are equally important.

The decision to have a baby naturally is also not always a ‘moral’ either; there is more to natural birth than elevating oneself in the eyes of fellow mothers. Natural childbirth has drastically lower complication rates for both mother and child. And I see nothing unliberated about making an educated choice about our bodies and following it through with conviction. I agree with her assertion that we over police women during their pregnancies, but stop short of suggesting it is a sound or even liberated decision to smoke or drink whilst pregnant. It also strikes me as odd that she is almost flippant at the ineptitude of fathers ‘Of course men are deficient. So we expect the state to fulfil its duty as equally responsible for the wellbeing and education of the new child.’ What the? Isn’t it the role of feminism to encourage equality?

All in all Badinter raises issues that I believe need to be discussed. Society at large needs to be aware of the real experience of motherhood. The truth of motherhood that isn’t all sunshine, lollipops and Huggies ads. Liberation is being valued and recognised for who we are and what we contribute, not putting our wants (alcohol, partying, romantic trysts) before the needs of our children.

Having said all of this, I simply cannot wait for her book to be released so I can read it in its entirety. It is no doubt a book worth reading.

Posted in Femininity, Grace, Motherhood, The unspoken, Womanhood | No Comments »

Bulletproof

Monday, June 28th, 2010

‘I’ll never let you sweep me off my feet’ - Bulletproof, La Roux

I love old movies. Especially film noir. The femme fatales, like their compatriots in other films of the era always fell in love, but unlike the other heroines (Audrey, Marilyn) they fell despite themselves. These women didn’t want to fall in love.

Actually the femme fatales (my favourite of which was Rita Hayworth) actively tried not to fall in love. They schemed, they evaded, they manipulated, they two timed, they played men off one another, they emotionally withdrew. The whole time, despite themselves, they wanted a man (a good man) to sweep them off their feet. They wanted a man to pass their tests, to see through their false bravado, to love them more than they loved themselves, to love them into who they could be.

There is a lot me can learn from these women, and I am not just referring to their elegance, grace, wit, beauty and class. They teach us also what it looks like when a woman falls on her own sword in love. It isn’t pretty. They usually ended up dead, in jail, in an awful marriage or miserably alone. Before I continue please let me clarify; a woman’s worth isn’t in her marriageability. Single is not a fate worse than death for a woman. My point is these women ran from, denied and fought what they really wanted and symbolically they ended up dead.

These women wanted Love with a capital ’L’. They wanted to be swept off their feet. They wanted a love that would deliver them from their confusion and fear so viscous it had teeth and ate them whole. We do that a LOT don’t we? We are so terrified of what we really want that we make ourselves impermeable, we try to become bulletproof and repel it. It is safer that way, or is it?

In the words of my favourite Femme Fatal, The Lady from Shanghai Elsa ‘I’m not what you think I am, I just try to be like that.’

*Photo credit

Posted in Femininity, Grace, Life, Relationships, Womanhood | 1 Comment »

A day of grace

Friday, June 25th, 2010

You wouldn’t know it from the discarded wooden trains on my living room floor but yesterday I witnessed, live in my living room, a historic day in my great nation. I watched as feminism made a huge win (although in part by default). I watched grace embodied on both sides of the fence.

I am a big picture person. I am really unfussed, for the most part by the petty sides of the Leadership spill that transpired yesterday in parliament. I don’t care for the opposition leader’s snide comments (truth be told I don’t care for the opposition leader), I refuse to entertain the commentary on Julia Gillard’s makeup, her clothes, her hair colour or her nose, I am hesitant to comment on the so-called shattering of the glass ceiling. What really struck me was something subtler and far more important.

Yesterday was a powerful day. From closely watching the coverage on the ABC of the spill, twitter and the reactions of my friends I came to the conclusion that yesterday was powerful because of its compassion, inclusiveness, honesty, humanity, earnestness, its demonstrations of support. What struck me was that politics was flavoured with grace.

I am often heard saying that there are few role models for women today. The pickings are slim if you are looking for women who own themselves, who shine that to the world regardless of the box society would attempt to put them in. The pickings are slimmer still of you are looking for unflinching compassion in action. And the holy grail, women willing to lead with their feminine strengths of inclusion, compassion, communication are so few and far between they are often viewed as urban legends.

Yesterday I found two role models. Therese Rein, who embodied compassion, grace, and acceptance in her unflinching love and support of her husband in his final act as Prime Minister. Everything about Therese resonated love, it was clear that her husband relied heavily on that love for his strength when, at the conclusion of his speech, he asked his wife if he had forgotten anything. What is more she responded eloquently in a forum that it would normally be seen as inappropriate for her speak at all. She was wife and contemporary in that moment, acting from her deepest truth and compassion. Twitter loved her. Comments like ’I think we’ve lost a fabulous “First Lady” in Therese Rein :( ‘ from @Rebeccasparrow and ‘I wish Therese was my wife‘ from @Miafreedman.

Then there was the 27th Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Wow. Charisma that I never expected emanated from her every pore. She was humble, responsible, honest, clear, grateful, inclusive, fair, disciplined and warm. Truly an embodiment of strength and focus complemented brilliantly with a willingness to be compassionate and to reach consensus. What a day to be a woman. Twitter went equally wild with the hashtag #gillard trending first for some time and comments such as these, @randykins ‘someone who shows this humility deserves to be PM‘ @Taramoss ‘She’s smart and capable. What an amazing day.‘ @Miafreedman ‘Julia looks Prime Ministerial. Not all leaders look like leaders, male or female. Today, she does.‘

Amen, sister.

Posted in Grace, Inspiration, Womanhood | 1 Comment »

Not my usual thing, but it’s ‘unspoken’ so I’ll say it…

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Ok ladies, it is time to talk about your pelvic floor. Before you freak and go all ‘but I’m not a mother!?#!’ on me listen to this:

Your gorgeous stiletto heels &/or your beautiful babies will be the reason you are using Tenna pads at 50.

Yup you heard me right. Your shoes, those beautiful peep toes and pumps can cause a weakened pelvic floor. This takes ‘bladder weakness’ from the Mum category and places it firmly in the woman category. So unless you want to be avoiding running, laughing, heels and all kinds of fun womanly things listen up. And the answer is NOT ‘do pelvic floor contractions to the point of exhaustion‘ like so many books prescribe.

Your pelvic floor is a sling of muscles between your sacrum (pointy end of your spine) and your pubis synthesis (the part that just aches for no reason in pregnancy) the front center of your pelvic bones. It should be like a trampoline; taught, but not tight to the point of toughness. Think of it like a man’s guns (yeah that got your attention); you want to see the muscle ripple when he picks something up, and you want the muscle to yield and feel softish to the touch. You don’t want him to feel like a brick wall and look like an ape.

Now for this trampoline pelvic floor to happen you need both ends of the muscle to be working in different directions. Think of a hammock. You know the lovely things that you lay in on a tropical holiday sipping a pina colida? Well that hammock is tied to two strong coconut trees, right? Right. Fortunately you don’t have coconut trees in your nether regions, so you need to rely on strong muscles acting on bone. In this case the answer is a strong pelvic floor, achieved through a reasonable number of kegels and strong glutes, achieved through squats.

So, ditch the guilt that you aren’t doing your quota of PC contractions and do some PC contractions in a squat. You can find the pictures about how to squat properly here and the video that explains everything (IS safe for work) and isn’t freaky at all here.

*Image credit

Posted in Life, The unspoken, Womanhood | No Comments »

Unplugged connection

Monday, May 24th, 2010

Yesterday I feel like a traveled back in time. I caught the train into the city to meet a friend. No blackberry. On the train I read a book. A real paper book. Not a blog or an E book on a smartphone or tablet. We sat on her couch and on her bed like we used to when we were 15 (yes I have known her that long) and we talked. We didn’t communally watch TV, play a game, sms, or update our  Facebook pages. We even let our phones go to voicemail. Oh the horror. We went to lunch at a local cafe and had pies, not some elegantly put together tossed salad, and enjoyed tea and soft drink. No diet or artificial sweetener to be seen. We even shared the best chocolate éclair ever! Yumm.

I read some more on the trip home on the train and when I had the carriage to myself I called a long distance friend to catch up with her. On the walk home I picked up some ingredients for dinner and actually visited a ‘video store’! Two DVDs later (two of my faves) I went home to cook dinner and watch DVDs curled up on the couch with my husband, under a hand-made patchwork quilt no less!

It felt fantastic to just connect. Not connect in the über modern sense of knowing what your friends had for lunch thanks to twitter, or where there are thanks to foursquare, what they did during the week thanks to their Facebook pics. But real connection, to hear the wobble in their voice when they talk about something difficult, to see the smile crinkle the corners of their eyes in a way that an emoticon simply can’t convey. To laugh with someone. To feel that genuine connection, where so much is conveyed between the words.

I don’t know about you, but pretty much every young woman [20 to 35] I care about has been on an emotional roller coaster recently. And we seem to be stuck in the big dipper part swinging from low to lower, with an occasional sharp upswing. The thing that is keeping me (and I know a lot of them) sane, is female connection. Its power simply cannot be underestimated. It is like alchemy for the soul!

Have you thanked your ‘girls’ recently? Mine know who they are… love you guys! xxx

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