Empathy, semantics and Saving the World!

New Blog Posts
CARE inc  inspired in part from my processing after the AMIRCI conference.  

Honey Honey was written in response to two articles that were suggested to me (by my mobile phone).

Posts to revisit
Maternal Feminism in the Brave New World 

Why Consent When you Can Decide (guest post on PBB Media)

Do you ever buy The Big Issue?
I am so impressed with this magazine, not just because of the opportunity it creates, but because of the content it includes.  This magazine is not afraid to explore what makes us uncomfortable.  The climate change issue had two rather impressive articles, that I wanted to share.  The first is about Greta - the climate change teen who sparked a revolution, the second is about empathy.

Be or Do?
Inspired by this article which asks about encouraging girls to do science, rather than be scientists.

Be a scientist or Do Science

Be a mother, or Do Mothering?

​And just as science is often confused with technology (ie applied science, but not the science), mothering is often confused with 'domestic duties'.   

They are not the same, and yet if you are defined as mother...that is you are being a mother, this seems to be understood as also being responsible for housework. Exclusively.    That picking up after others, magically cleaning and sorting the costume changes, planning, sourcing and preparing food....the house must sparkle and how well you are being a mother will be measured by these tasks.  Do your kids have matching socks?  Brushed and trimmed hair?  Clean faces...manners...being means measurable, doing means experiencing.

Perhaps our society is also busy focusing on women being pregnant, rather than doing pregnancy. 

​Or being born, rather than doing birth.

a little aside here: giving birth vs doing birth: we never hear the phrase 'doing birth', only 'giving birth'.  Just as being born is baby-centred, so is our terminology around describing the woman's part in this event.  She is giving it, not doing it...it is not about her.  It happened to her, not because of her.  This reduction of women to being a vessel rather then doing something with their body negates the importance of the Mother.  Why is our society so determined to disappear the Mother? to disappear women? These are the thoughts of my life.

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book review:  "Unlike the Heart: a memoir of brain and mind"
by Nicole Redhouse

I have just started reading, and the two quotes below stood out for me.  She has a great style of writing, as she takes us on a journey of reflection as she psychoanalyses motherhood.

At the very start she points out "the strange schism" between body and mind.  Setting the scene for the exploration of mental health and  bodily health.

This paragraph contains so many layers: the conveyorbelt approach to birth, the focus on measurables and the inaccuracies. Here the focus on the body, with no regard for the mind, makes it hard to connect with the care provider.  (The baby was born  4.35 kg in a forcep delivery.)

Thank you to Rose, who suggested this book.  

Have you heard of Collective Shout?  This is an interview (55 minutes) with founder Melinda Tankard Reist talking the pornification of our culture, and the damage it is doing to our young people, especially women and girls.   Porn is everywhere.  Your child may be looking up a non-porn interest or watching a you tube video, and wham!  Porn.  A blackhole opens, and it can not be unseen.  Advertising sexualises women and children.
​"The standard you walk past is the standard you accept".

Feminism, yes. but what kind? (link takes you to a podcast/youtube option)
​The feminist movement has fundamentally re-fashioned our world. As the #MeToo movement and the backlash against it continues, it is timely to think about what kind of feminism we need. There are different voices within feminism, and different answers to the question of what still must be done to deepen and complete the feminist revolution.
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Discussing these issues is a panel of three experts, featuring Clementine Ford , author of Fight Like a Girl and Boys Will Be Boys, Teela Reid , a Wiradjuri and Wailwan woman, practising lawyer and a powerful advocate for the rights of Aboriginal women, and Dr Petra Bueskens, author of Modern Mothers and Women's Dual Identities. This event was moderated by La Trobe University’s, Dr Clare Wright , author of the Stella Prize-winning, The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka.

Joan Garvan writes for Women's Agenda: How women are working towards building an enlightened future for families

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