fourth floor feminism | sociable speculation

Originally published here by a dear friend I’ll let you in on a secret – I keep all kinds of tissue products long after the use they were provided for has passed, and some tissue products I have kept for over a decade now. And no, I am not a hoarder or a collector, but a storyteller and traveller who has been gifted art on the nearest easy canvas from all manner of artists. These beautiful sheets have been treasured for the many memories they carry, and their longevity speaks to the enduring power of paper to persevere. Along with most people, I dispose of used toilet paper, tissues and kitchen paper rolls in my day-to-day life as they wipe clean and dispense comfort, and are then discarded. But every now and again a piece of paper becomes the canvas for something innovative or evocative that I wish to keep, and they form a beautiful tapestry of tissue from across the world. I have an intricate rose made of a paper napkin given to me in Greece on the last night of a two-day rom...

#MakeAGreatAlbum1997 Honey, bring it close to my lips The sun will shine from time to time You can't make no money if you can't keep an artist Mingle with the good people we meet, yeah ! See me I'm all about my money mane Peeping your steelo I could never spend my life with a man like you People hold on, we've got to be strong A quarter past eleven on a Saturday in 1999 You know you cannot hide, from what's inside So I chose freedom A light still shining Remember me, I'm the one who had your babies addict-insane, come play my game, inhale inhale you're the firestarter, twisted firestarter high density random blond boy blond country I have run away, run away Heaven on earth, paradise for a price Sexism, baptism and wisdom will this deja vu never end ? I wish I could turn back time fools begin to open up their eyes oh I know what you're thinking paint it black and white and easy They don't like the game we play and i...

A. 2016, the year an MRA ran for President Firstly, the current context is that the nerdy manbabies of the internet are listened to by the Trump Campaign; both Trump and said consultation is something no one imagined in their darkest nightmares before last year. https://medium.com/welcome-to-the-scream-room/im-with-the-banned-8d1b6e0b2932#.tn7iv0xok B. Male Oppression by Men, but Blamed on Women Still with the merciless Laurie Penny, here is an efficient entry into the world of the oppressed men of the internet: http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/on-nerd-entitlement-rebel-alliance-empire These are the places that these angry men begin their life, starting with the least-worst and escalating fast: 4chan - a message board that spawned Anonymous among other things https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2014/09/25/absolutely-everything-you-need-to-know-to-understand-4chan-the-internets-own-bogeyman/ reddit - a news aggregate site that can be used by the ma...

"The crucial difference between Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bi-Sexual, Intersex and Questioning people and other minorities is this: In every other minority group the family shares the minority status. In fact it is often something that unites them. But gay people are a minority group within the family. A minority of one ." Magda Szubanski Yesterday I went to see the exhibition A History of the World in 100 Objects , and I was thrilled to be able to see many objects from throughout history that I felt I knew so well - the podcast that inspired the exhibition being my favourite listening for relaxation and inspiration. I walked through the exhibition with four women who are part of the external safe space in my life - the writing group I run which welcomes all writers in all genres, as long as they do not identify as male. This group is full of humans of great intellect and passion, and on Sunday three of them were discussing each object so completely that a volun...

It's two weeks now to the reading of my first adaption of a short story to stage in Melbourne for wit Incorporated , and of course I've decided that blogging some link roundups of the final countdown towards that and the Federal Election is exactly the kind of procrastination I need to participate in :) 14 DAYS What I enjoyed about this gif was how succinctly it summed up the reasons 'A Scandal in the Weimar', as an adaptation of Conan Doyle, was conceived by Jen in the first place; much menz, wow science, very easy to change characters to women because science and logic are universal skills ... Credit here 22 DAYS My election campaign took a turn for the Nineties with Alex McKinnon's call for Australian Pop from the end of the 20th Century to guide us into the 21st century: Savage Garden’s ‘Affirmation’ Is The Best Policy Platform Of The 2016 Election Given I still own one of Daniel Jones' guitar picks from Savage Garden's first Perth concert, t...

I used to cry so seldom I would read ‘Bridge to Terabithia' each year to induce a minute or two of cathartic crying, but in the last years that has changed. Now all I have to do is catch a sentence in a news item about a particular section of humans on this earth and I will be crying and fighting for breath so fast I won’t have time to notice I’ve disintegrated. I’ll just be doubled over in shock, and usually the rest of the day is spent trying to avoid reading any further reportage. Rather esoterically the trigger that sets me off is the application of a certain legal philosophy known as the ‘state of exception’, which will mean nothing to people who haven’t had the dubious pleasure of studying the terrible beauty of Roman Law or reading the work of its fanboys ... I mean, the legal jurists who write on Roman Law. Only yesterday I attended an exceptionally dry lecture on the medieval concepts of heresy, and in the Q&A the lecturer did remind us that Western Law is based...

The words chosen for the didactic panels in an exhibition set the ideological framework through which the visitor absorbs knowledge as they progress. Didactic texts are interpretive/educational texts related to an exhibition, usually written by exhibition curators, that are displayed on panels on exhibition gallery walls or as part of art object labels. Didactic panels orient exhibition-goers to a particular topic or theme. I recently attended Treasure Ships: Art in the Age of Spices in which a disturbingly retrograde word/idea was used in the didactic panels in one specific part of the exhibition. That word/idea was 'discover', and it is generally acknowledged now that the West did not 'discover' any other continent or culture. Each continent and culture existed independent of the West setting eyes on it, and the moment that Europeans first encountered other continents or cultures is now called 'first contact'. Unfortunately, the curators of Treasure Ship...

Dragons. It was a cool, fine day in Perth. I was out swimming at Inglewood. Suddenly a black cloud covered the sun. Everyone looked up and saw a big green dragon. I looked up and saw a yellow belly coming towards me with its black claws ready to grab. I thought that since dragons like pretty ladies, he was going to take Sarah or Astrid. He stopped and said in a kind, dragonlike way, "Which one of you knows the funniest jokes?" Sarah and Astrid pointed to me. The claw came down and scooped me up and flew up. One minute I was in my bathers, the next minute I was in a long, silky, purple skirt and a wide green silk blouse. I had green shoes. My hair was dry, permed and held back with an Amethyst and Emerald tiara. I asked the dragon where we were going and he answered, "I am taking you to my land where the King can't laugh." He sighed then continued, "We tried every funny joke we knew but they just made him sad or angry. I set out to find a person who knew t...

Here are two practical and useful lectures about climate change for those of us who take the time to discuss such things with other people. These talks have given me some incredibly quotable ideas, and I have used the arguments in Carmen Lawrence's talk for five years now to understand this issue. How to win a fight about the budget: How economic modelling is used to circumvent democracy and shut down debate A public lecture by Richard Denniss, Chief Economist, The Australia Institute The Federal Budget and much economic discussion is based on economic modelling. People who use economic models want you to think that modelling is boring. The last thing they want you to do is to pay attention. Economic models claim an amazing degree of precision and this is used by the people who commission them to build a case for their preferred policies and projects. The recent Intergenerational Report (IGR) used modelling to scare the public into accepting that we can never afford to t...

I would like my children, nieces and nephews, godchildren, grandchildren and all young people with dreams to be able to participate in a political system that demonstrably represents the population. At a basic level that would mean a political system that has a minimum of 50% of its participants, from voters to parliamentarians, being women. I would like my daughters, nieces, goddaughters, granddaughters and all future women to take political power and shape it in their image, not ask for political participation and have to change it to fit them. I think the voting women of Australia have a five year window to take political power and shape it in their image so the women growing up now have one less battle to fight in the future. The women growing up now will have to face a world in the merciless grip of climate change. If we have not secured 50% presence of women in all areas of social, economic and political power, women will have no voice in how they and their children survi...

It's an inconvenient truth that our current economic, political and legal systems don't even acknowledge that the majority of us exist. That’s because we currently live with systems created by old rich white dudes about 300 years ago, and in Australia up until 1962, positions of power in those systems were not open to: Indigenous populations Women Anyone who was not able-bodied Non-Europeans Non-cisgender males Non-heterosexual males Men under a certain threshold of wealth/employment/education Here are some dates for reference: Renaissance ideas on the individual had taken over Europe by the 17th Century Parliamentary Democracy (British Edition): 1707 Industrial Revolution: 1760 Universal Male Suffrage (Britain): starts 1791 , full by 1928 Non-Indigenous Male Suffrage (Australia): 1855 Non-Indigenous Female Suffrage (Australia): 1902 Suffrage for Indigenous Australians: 1962 In truth, access to positions of power in Australia for anyone excluded before 1962 has...

To build a political movement there must be a large population without a voice, mentorship and training for candidates, and voters that have access to the candidates to articulate their specific needs. Australia has three major political parties, each backed by their own training and voting block: the Australian Greens have the Environmental and Activist movements, Labor has the Unions and the Liberal Party has the business sector. Unfortunately the Labor and Liberal models are the Boys Club in Australia, and while the Australian Greens have a very different internal model of democracy, they participate in a parliamentary model that was created by the Boys Club, and they do not have the numbers to change the system – yet. Australian Politics: The Boys Club Our political system simply cannot cope with diversity of candidates - and that is the fault of the system, not the fault of diversity. Diversity is ever-present and requires systems to improve, not retreat. Systems are just...

Rosie Batty and Natasha Stott-Despoya were on Q&A tonight discussing Domestic Violence . They were outnumbered, ironically, by the male panelists. Anyone reading the crime reports in newspapers around Australia today would find sordid tales of people throwing themselves at other people’s fists and sober drivers inconveniently getting in the way of drunk or speeding drivers. We all read about people who work hard to buy houses to fill with possessions only to selflessly let other people destroy or steal them. There is the inevitable roundup of people staying in relationships only to be injured or killed by their partners and, of course, those terrible reports of children who seduce adults. Apologies, my mistake! I seem to be getting the relative culpability of perpetrators and victims mixed up. I am especially confused because we seem to have two ways of reporting crime and violence. When we report crime, we have crimes in which the criminal is named, and crimes in which the v...