Skip to main content

Attracting the right people

In general I have very much enjoyed articulating, writing and reading whatever I wished regarding my ideas on feminism. The interactions I have had with people because of this openness have been unexpected and are all the more precious because each has taught me something important about people I thought I knew, and people I only know now because I said what I thought.

I decided recently not to keep my ideas about equality for all women only to sympathetic and comfortably political audiences because it felt as if I was old enough now to own up to my opinions. I also decided to go all out with the F Word because I didn’t want to have to fight through layers of political correctness or degrees of political engagement in my audience – I was either in or I was out – and I had to declare it. I have found that declaring for a clear line of politics and communication has focussed my frustration with inequality to a productive degree.

The most interesting manifestation of this focus is that I now genuinely attract people in a crowd to talk to me about feminism. On one of the first F Word Fridays I was at the theatre with a friend and two strangers struck up a conversation with me and their only topic was feminism. The first interlocutor was making a point about sexism that was easily prompted by the play we were watching, and I did enjoy meeting a man more unforgiving of sexism than I was – you should always have people ahead of you in politics.

The second person who talked to me that night was the mother of the Director and from the moment she opened the conversation with feminism I could tell that I was standing in front of a woman who had walked the walk. I know I had to use the F Word every time I talk because I am a baby in politics and feminism and I need to ensure that people will pull me up on my opinions so as to develop them. But this woman didn’t have to ever use the F Word, because she lived it and spoke it and her personal embodiment of it was so natural and strong I felt I was swimming in the ocean of experience, not paddling in the stream of theory.

I am looking forward to the day when I have had to apply feminism so practically to my life I no longer have to use the F Word because I will be living it. And I am looking forward to the day I no longer feel like bathing after I have encountered the other type of people who are now compelled to speak politics with me – the Entitled Street Harasser Misogynist/Homophobe/Racist Asshat type.

A friend and I were at a very civilised neighbourhood bar tonight and we were talked at by a tipsy middle-aged man who observed us holding The Second Sex and decided he wanted in on the conversation, twice. The first time he imposed himself on us he claimed:

1. To have read de Beauvoir
2. To have read lots of Feminist Literature
3. To think that what happened to Julia Gillard was abhorrent

We listened politely, smiled and nodded. We did not give him a medal for the Gillard commentary, despite the way he seemed to think the sentiment would get our sympathy. He left and we went on with our dinner and conversation.

The second time *sigh* he talked at us we were in the middle of a really quite important conversation and I tried to be respectful after he opened with Gillard and Feminist Literature. Again. I asked him what I could read that would talk about being a man, what book had inspired him, what he would recommend.

I was bemused when this man told me that he was so good at life he didn’t need to learn stuff from books. I rather naively felt sorry for him, so confident was he that he was right, and I wished he had been able to give me the name of a book, any book, so I could catch a glimpse of the other side of the argument. Then he went full Asshat:

1. He asked me directly if I was gay because I didn’t want children
2. He asked my friend directly if she was gay
3. He tried to make some theory of Feminism and attractiveness – I think, it wasn’t quite clear
4. He leant on my shoulder and claimed his hip had given out, causing him to loom over me, touch me without permission and hover his rather substantial stomach in my face

Luckily he wandered off of his own accord and, I hope, because we so carefully and quietly did not give a flying fuck about his opinion on our lives or the books we had with us. But it does still amaze me, his Entitled Homophobic Misogynist Street Harassment and Asshattery.

All because of two girls and a book in a public place - there is truly nothing more disconcerting for an Asshat than two girls and a book in public.

NOTE: This is what happened when I got home from the bar.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Textbook

Trust me, they know the climate science Let’s imagine for a moment that the 1% of Australia, with their university degrees, access to the best climate science and neoliberal think tank papers and their dominance in politics, were acting in rational self-interest. They know that the water and energy wars are coming and they have a country with unique assets: No land borders Renewable energy resources Space and minerals Industries that specialise in extracting minerals Industries that can be turned to R&D and manufacturing An education system to get citizens to the point of carrying out necessary R&D And a politically apathetic population that believes whatever the politicians tell them through monopolised and crippled information outlets. To be honest, if I were a conservative politician in Australia (and the way I was brought up, I may as well be), this is what I would do to ensure my political and social survival: I would claim the government didn’t believe i

Real People and Sex

EDITED: Edited for correct and current use of language on 9 March 2015, thanks to the followers and admins at One Billon Rising Australia . The most important thing to acknowledge is that even when trying to argue that we think about sex in an unhealthy manner, I used words that encouraged the same unhealthy attitude. It's all around us, this language that judges only one person in the multi-person act of sex. The second thing to acknowledge is that eighteen months of reading a lot of women's writing from all over the world, and eighteen months of a lot of experience with and thinking about sex, does tend to change a woman! For example, my first mainstream publication, all about sexual practice, that you can read right here . I had a very illuminating conversation a few weeks ago with a friend in which we discussed a character in a play. The character was a prostitute sex worker and the action for her character in the narrative revolved around her picking up a client i