Apologies for the lack of discussion, I just don’t have the energy today.
Categories: arts & entertainment, Culture, gender & feminism, Life, media
Australian Women Writers Challenge 2014 
The 62nd Down Under Feminists Carnival 
Quick Hit: I’m not sexist says Bob Ellis 
Are princesses bad for girls? -
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Apologies for the lack of discussion, I just don’t have the energy today.
Categories: arts & entertainment, Culture, gender & feminism, Life, media
Hoyden About Town 
Aside from all the lazy, banal feminist-bashing (targeting a person who is not, apparently, actually a feminist! LOL), this is the part I found most ridiculous/unbelievable:
“Since an article about the play was published in this paper last week I have received a steady flow of hate email from male and female sex workers (who have not seen the play) telling me they like their job and do not want films, plays or books about ”their world” written by people who know nothing of it. (I disagree and believe a writer can tackle any subject he or she chooses, and having researched the area extensively I found plenty to interest me.)”
I wonder if her “extensive research” involved actually talking to any actual sex workers? I absolutely believe in the ‘writer’s privilege’ of being able to write about things they have not actually experienced – but it is still a privilege that must be examined and admitted – and if the very people whose lives you are writing about (and allegedly researched) come back and tell you that you’ve got it wrong – maybe having the fucking humility to acknowledge that?
I’m a writer myself, and this kind of unnecessary arrogance makes my blood boil.
Yeah, and her attitude to sex workers is doubly ironic in light of her supposed “women must be allowed to speak for themselves” conclusion.
“Allowed to speak for themselves” unless a privileged writer chooses to speak on their behalf instead, I suppose.
Also! You are “allowed” to police your daughter’s wardrobe because after all, you are in control. But if you do, you’re probably one of those un-fun, tiresome feminist-things who isn’t letting her impress, and measure herself against, her peers! So don’t do it. Or something.
What is it with Australian playwrights? Williamson, Mooney, Murray-Smith – seems like antifeminism R us.
This is such crud it just made me laugh. Perhaps my desire for selfpreservation in the face of this inexorably onwards grinding patriarchy denial is outgrowing my desire to educate the authors of shit like this? *ponders*
Think I’ll have another coffee and put my feet up. Patriarchy doesn’t exist. *pouf* Make it so. Phew.
I’ve developed a particular loathing for seeing feminism cop the blame for things that are the direct product of anti-feminism. The answer is almost always the one that came up when we last talked about boys beginning to do less well than girls in school: the problem isn’t that there’s too much feminism, it’s that there’s not enough.
Helen: David Williamson? David Mammet lite. Work out your castration anxiety on your own time, don’t ask me to pay for a theatre ticket to see it. Louis Nowra, Michael Gow – how long do you think the list runs?
Most young women (and young men) have enough media literacy to see the contradictions in this limited portrayal of female sexuality.
I think that is incredibly wrong. Maybe because I actually work with kids and information literacy, instead of just making it up as I go along. Kids are great at using the tools but their ability to discern quality information from trash is lacking. Not because they’re stupid, but because it isn’t taught or modelled. You get people believing Zoot Review, anything published in any newspaper or on Today Tonight yet our kids are supposed to be more discerning about media messages? It’s a learnt skill, not an innate one and far far FAR too many teachers and parents rely on nonsense parameters to judge information – books are always better than websites, ‘news’ coming from the TV, newspapers aren’t trying to sell you anything they’re just presenting information. To a certain extent kids can be a lot more savvy about information sources, but they’re still as preyed on by media as adults and given the total crap some people believe because the dude on the tv said so, why are we expecting better from kids who are rarely being taught information literacy?
I love working with kids and teaching them to work out where the messages are coming from, who is behind the info they get and who benefits. And how to vet a source. But I don’t reach every kid, I only reach those who are already interested and already caring.