10 out of 40, ‘aint bad? Wait.

I was talking with a friend of mine recently who spoke to me about how he thought that it really was bad how women were treated in the past but was super glad that they weren’t treated so bad anymore.

 

While I know he had the best of intentions and was not being malicious, he was merely ignorant and the discussion frustrated me. I spent a significant period of time explaining all the inequalities to him but the one that he could not get his head around was that we value men and their achievements significantly more than we celebrate those of women. I tried to come up with several examples that I thought he could relate to a really understand. I ran through a few examples and he couldn’t see what I meant, then as we got the bill for out coffees and we jostled over who would pay I realized the perfect example of sexism in our society.

 

Of the forty people who have been featured on Australian money only 10 have been women, while I acknowledge that it is better than I though it would be its still bullshit! Money which is one of the things that we value most in our society, and having your face brandished across it is one of the greatest honors that can be bestowed features thirty men and ten women. Thirty to ten. TEN.

 

So this is basically saying that of the forty most noteworthy people  printed on our money only ten were women. Yea because I am super sure that there have defiantly not been more cool, inspiring, hardworking or just generally boss women who could have been chosen.

 

This disregard of Womens achievement really bugged me, but at least I finally got my message across. Feminism win. It is little victories like this, explaining and recruitment to the cause that is what has kept our movement strong for so many years, and what we need to do to keep it strong and continue to progress. So I guess the moral of the story is don’t back away from these discussions and don’t give up if you can’t win someone over immediately keep pushing because we can never have to many feminists. And really- everyone who believes that women and men should be treated equally is a feminist.

Mikaela Wangmann

National Women’s Officer 2013

A woman’s right to choose, but actually.

I’ve been called a lot of mean names in my time. Some of them have been really nasty, some of them have been really funny, but they’ve all been meant to serve a purpose. And that purpose was to make me into something less, that’s always the purpose of name calling.

It wasn’t really a name so much as it was a term, that term was pro- abortion. Now, that’s not really something that I care a whole lot about. The first time someone called me that to my face I was fifteen, and representing probably the only public school at a national public speaking competition. I was young and passionate and had a fair shot less tact than I like to think I have now (though there are certainly some who would beg to differ) and I was wearing a series of pro-choice badges.

At fifteen I didn’t really care that much then either, except that I did have to correct him and point out that I wasn’t pro abortion- I was pro choice. This is the same distinction that I make now when I have exactly the same argument that I make six years later, I am not pro abortion, I am pro choice.

This is not to say that I am in any way anti-abortion, I believe unequivocally that, for some women, abortion is the best possible decision that they can make for themselves. This belief, however, does not make me pro abortion, because I know the cost that that choice can have on some women. Not all women, but some, because they feel the decision deeply.

I don’t believe that a child is a child until it can live outside of the body of it’s mother, until it can do that it is simply a collection of cells. However, this is not a view that is shared by all people. For some there is a belief that a baby exists from the moment of conception. Their belief should be respected within the realm of their personal choices. The problem with this belief begins when their position is used as a basis for a change in law.

Abortion must be legal, safe and free if women are to have the right to choose. At the same time there must be opportunities for women, particularly young women, to carry their pregnancies to full term and keep or adopt their child. There must be free access to child care, educational opportunities and real pathways to university for women with children.

Australia is, for the most part, pro choice. 81% of Australian’s in a 2003 study said they believed that a woman should have the right to choose if she wanted to keep a child or not. The country is where I am, believing that all women should have the right to control what they do with their bodies.

We as a movement of feminist’s need to be careful with the line that we run, however, because for as long as we are pro choice we need to be just that. Pro choice means supporting women’s rights to make the choice right for them. This doesn’t mean they make the choice that we would have made for them.

Being pro-choice means lobbying not only for abortion which is legal, safe and free. It means lobbying for more flexible education hours, better and cheaper child care and stable and affordable housing. In states where we have won the battle over a woman’s right to choose, like Victoria, we need to make sure we haven’t forgotten the women we occasionally silence, those who do choose to have their children.

I saw a fantastic picture on a friend’s wall the other day. It said pro women, pro children, pro choice. We need to ensure that we’re including everyone in  our pro choice campaigns, and ensure all women have the right to make the choice that is right for them.