It’s becoming more and more apparent to me how sad and ugly the world is becoming for these young people, the more I read the things they write about themselves. My dashboard is regularly crammed with posts that say things like ‘I’m so ugly, no wonder nobody loves me’, or ‘I’m so fat, that’s why I throw up and cut myself all the time’. And most of the girls posting such things are girls posting pictures of skinny white girls with long I-don’t-care-hair in cut off shorts and lots of jewellery, or pictures of some devil like Katy Perry.

Is this what it’s come to? Really? As someone who runs a fashion business, I can see the merit of these images, and see the appeal in the colours, the glamour, the trash. But as a girl – a woman – I can only feel sorrow for the girls who think this is who they have to be. To them I say this:

Choose your idols carefully. We are not all tall. We are not all thin. None of us are flawless. There are people who see beauty outside these cookie cutter images. The best idol for you is the one in the mirror. I was bullied with the rest of them, and I still have shit depressed days where everything is black. But these days the sorrow comes either from worry for the state of the world, or from self-doubt that I am not measuring up to my OWN expectations and desires. I will never again give a shit what somebody else considers to be beautiful, I will only ever hope people continue to see beauty in ME. Short, imperfect, somewhat insane, chubby me.

Own your face, own your body, work on your brain, and some form of peace will come. There is more to life than being ‘pretty’. If you ask me, Tina Fey is a hundred times sexier than Ke$ha or the Olsen skeletons or whoever else is hot right now – and she wears glasses and has a giant scar across half her face. I can assure you she’s a hundred times happier than any of them too.

If your dashboard looks like mine, reblog this. Or hell, change it and make your own post. Whatever. Do SOMETHING. Let the kids know – there’s better shit in this world than showing your tits to a boy who spends more time on his sideways hair than you. And ask yourself: which of the women in this post do you want to be?

Talia is the founder of ‘Kiss My Button Vintage‘ – an online fashion company that caters to women of all shapes and sizes.

Interviewed yesterday on the Kyle and Jackie O show (which probably says it all),  Peter Madden ruined my otherwise delightful Wednesday morning with narrow-minded BS.

His short-sighted view on the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade made me want to throw my shoe at his head.

Let me start with a direct quote from his press release issued yesterday, entitled ‘From the Streets to the Stadium’. (I must point out that the spelling and grammatical errors bothered me even more than his point-of-view, so I have corrected throughout).

“The Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is live pornography,” said Madden.

“It is a brash display of a lifestyle and corrupt social morals that many Australians do not agree with.”

Let me stop you right there.

A brash display of lifestyle and corrupt social morals? Since when is a celebration of freedom and life that spews glitter and rainbows a brash display of moral corruption? I’ve been to many Mardi Gras parades in my time, the first of which when I was fifteen and with my family, and I have never felt uncomfortable or disgusted. I’ve never seen “live pornography” displayed, or blatant drug abuse in the streets or at parties. I know it goes on, but it goes on everywhere.

Madden goes on to say “at the same time, there is evidence that indicates that more drugs are sold and distributed on Mardi Gras night than any other night of the year.”

Have you partied in the Cross on a Friday or Saturday night? Have you been to a NYE celebration in the Rocks? Have you been to a music festival? Just because there aren’t as many arrests, or drug-related hospital admissions, doesn’t mean it’s not going on. Trust me.

He says that Mardi Gras is “a night on which Hyde Park is strewn with bodies of drunken teenagers, when there is violence in the streets”. Manly Corso, anyone? The Mean Fiddler?

He then admitted on radio this morning he hadn’t attended many, or was it just the one, parade – so his entire perception of the event is based on one night at Hyde Park where he saw an intoxicated young girl dressed in a French Maid outfit, and hearsay.

This morning he also said that it was clear “our society had become sex-crazy; you can hear people sing about it in songs all over the radio”.

Mate. Our society has not *become* sex-crazy, it always has been. It’s just now we have more mediums and freedom of speech to express it.

Sex sells. You should know that, you fueled your own sex addiction by paying for prostitutes before becoming a Christian Pastor. I won’t reference every decade in history, but blatant prostitution has been around forever. They just didn’t have Snoop Dogg and Mickey Avalon to sing songs about it in the 16th Century.

When somebody goes on record to air their opinions on homosexuality publicly, and says that they are “not a pious bigot”, and “loves homosexual people as I love all people,” do not then put the word “the” in front of the word “gays”. Anybody who refers to a minority sector of our community as “the gays” clearly has a problem with it, which I would suggest spans far greater than his idea to cage in the gay and lesbian community.

He continues, “We don’t tolerate criminals, peadophiles or drug dealers. You can’t just tolerate all kinds of activity in society. We need boundaries in order to protect our young people. We are the guardians of the next generation – we must do everything we can to give them a wholesome, balanced start to life.”

Is Madden suggesting that homosexuals should be placed in the same category as criminals, pedophiles and drug dealers? He can’t even spell ‘pedophiles’. Is he suggesting that same sex couples and individuals can’t provide adequate guardianship to the ‘next generation’?

Yes, he is.

In summation, Peter Madden wants to see “the Mardi Gras relocated to a stadium, where they can have THEIR parade and floats away from OUR streets.” He adds that it would greatly reduce services currently required to contain the “problems” at the Mardi Gras, and hence the cost to the taxpayer.

OUR streets?

You mean, heterosexual people’s streets, Peter? I

do believe that OUR streets also belong to homosexuals. And, even though homosexuals aren’t entitled to marriage, reduced health care premiums and tax breaks, they DO pay tax. They are just as entitled to use the streets of Sydney as any other taxpaying citizen.

Finally, Madden says “In short, it is anarchy right here in the centre of our city, and the Mardi Gras organisers and militant homosexual lobby would have us believe that this behaviour is acceptable.”

It is acceptable, whether you like it or not. It’s part of life. It’s here for life. So instead of jumping on your soap box and pissing everybody off, why don’t you preach acceptance.

Isn’t that the Christian way?

It’s of NZ Girl editor Tee Twyford justifying the “I’ve got a lovely pair” campaign. Watch right to the end. I do like the whole ‘I’ve got my head cut off’ line. sigh. And particular the noises from the camera guy. “Titties!”.

The reason why I want you to watch this is because it seems like the NZ Girl editor Tee Twyford and GM Jenene Freer haven’t actually had a sit down and talked about what they’re going to say to critics.

While Twyford states – NZ Girl is a big website etc on the video, Jenene has said they’re only a small group of three women. That they’re “overestimated”. Which one is it?

My favourite quote from the video is, “One of our most popular articles is ‘how to get perky boobs’”. Sigh.

She says NZGirl do not have ads on the ‘boobs’ pages – yet essentially ignores the fact that the link goes to the main page which does have paid ads.

She talks about ‘a spike in traffic’ and that’s it. ‘We’re not a small site doing this in a bid to get attention’. She flat out denies the campaign has not brought in the most traffic they’ve ever had, and yet Jenene said on Twitter: “google anlytcs check: yesterday was biggest day in our 11 year history.”

They say they will ‘respond and evolve’ as a site in terms of pics going on porn sites. They talk about things they will do – meaning they STILL have not done anything about it. These are things they should have done before they launched the campaign (and maybe they could have actually checked to make sure they had support from the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation – instead of just saying they did when they didn’t*). On Wednesday night Jenene didn’t seem too concerned about the shots – she spammed anyone asking about it with “you mean people can right click & save them?? No kidding. I reckon all the girls aren’t stupid, no matter what you think”. That was before she seemed to imply I might have something to do with posting the photos on Xtube: “what a set up for your opinion….” she said after I asked what she was going to do about the photos on Xtube. She’s since taken down that Tweet. Lucky I retweeted it huh?

All in all it’s odd that Jenene runs a cash for clicks company and yet claims to not understand that the campaign will bring traffic to the site because it’s a bunch of headless breasts. As QOT said: “Jenene Freer, an editor at NZGirl, is director at a company called Actual Dialogue which among other things offers pay-per-click advertising tools. The Ideologically Impure betting agency will now be taking odds on whether this counts as completely amoral self-marketing, a high-faluting “social experiment”, or a fantastic own goal.”

*When I asked Jenene why she said they had the support of NZBCF when they didn’t she said “nothing like being misquoted by the media…..” When I asked if she was misquoted she said she was “significantly paraphrased”. There was more to and fro-ing and she finally said “I’m happy to give you the full run down – but not over twitter. 140 characters not enough. Email me if you want to discuss”. Funny I didn’t think you needed 140 characters to state whether it is true of false that you got support from NZBCF.

Really, I’m amazed at this point anyone doubts that this is anything other than a marketing ploy. I was sent an email today with a Market Intelligence Trend Report showing their monthly traffic. They’ve been losing readers pretty consistently. No wonder they pulled out all the stops to pull people in.

Links:

Pickled Think – Titties, Cancer and Consent

Scuba Nurse – Get your Tits out for the Girls; the educational version and We are on the same side.

A Lump in the road – Insensitive

The Hand Mirror – Compassion FAIL

QoT – There’s only one reason to care about breast cancer! and “self image issues, daddy issues and religious indoctrination issues”.

Rachel Hansen – Should we be asking girls to “get your tits out for the girls”.

If you have blogged about this issue, please share your links in the comments.

UPDATE:
Jenene has again implied on Twitter that I put the NZGirl photos on a porn website. When I first told her about the photos I assumed she would immediately contact the site and tell them that they were not allowed to use the images. I thought she would try to protect the women she had encouraged to post photos of their breasts. Sadly, she didn’t do that. Instead she implied I put the pics up. Her response to my tweet was: “what a set up for your opinion….” She deleted that tweet after numerous people said it was uncalled for. Yesterday a woman tweeted her about the porn shots. This was the exchange:

(I’m not going to name the woman) said this: “hey i was just wondering if youd heard about some of the photos being put up on an amatuer porn site?”

and “im not having a go because i support the campaign whole heartedly, its just that my pic was one of them “

To which @jenene replied: “mine too hon. An I take one guess on who submitted them. Anything to prove a point eh?” and “they’ve stooped to all sorts of low”.

I got a flood or DMs and emails about this. And I know people again called out Jenene on it. She said to QoT:

@qot_nz at no point would we ever dream of calling names. Our side doesn’t do that. We respect varying opinions & view points

And yet – she’s doing exactly that. I said to her on Twitter: Who is this tweet about then “@Jenene: “An I take one guess on who submitted them. Anything to prove a point eh?” – who is your guess?” – she would not say.

She then tweeted me: “how you’ve managed to single yourself out of that post is the part I am confused about. #itsnotallaboutyou” which is funny since she also said: ” I’m not going to get into a name calling argument with you. I respect you have an opinion & you are entitled to voice it.”

It’s all rather silly. I am not deeply upset about the accusation. I just think it’s sad. I wish she was doing more to protect the ‘girls’ aka women she put on her site. She could be spending her time contacting porn sites and getting the images removed instead of bitching on Twitter and blaming everyone else for her fuck ups.

This article was originally published at Boganette.com.

Ummmm what?

That’s correct, the NZGirl website (which I refuse to link to – if you’re curious you’ll have to Google it) has launched the fundraising campaign  “I’ve got a nice pair” allegedly aiming at raising awareness of breast cancer.

Yeah! That’s how you raise awareness! You take a photo of your breasts and then you put it on this website and for every 50 pack of tits they get they donate $1000! Only up to $5k but yay!!

What? How does that raise awareness

Because they donate money!

Yes, $5k. Could they not donate that anyway? Or donate it at the end of their campaign instead of making it an incentive for women to put photos of their breasts on a website to increase traffic?

What? Are you some kind of prude who hates breasts?

No. I’m just someone desperately trying to figure out why you don’t think it’s offensive to use a slogan like “Get your tits out for the girls” in the context of breast cancer.

Your girls are your boobs!

Yes, I got that. So do you think it’s offensive to boil down the whole breast cancer thing to just breasts?

“breasts are sexual, emotional, rational, physical – all aspects. We’re just trying to create awareness of all aspects” -  said Jenene Freer, the GM of NZ Girl on twitter (@jenene).

Don’t you think it is offensive to the many women who have had mastectomies and have to cope with the stigma of not having ‘perfect’, ’socially acceptable’ breasts to flash a bunch of pert, young, cancer-free breasts in their face and call it awareness? Y’know since you say this is basically all for them?

“Could you add one more category – open to suggestion but perhaps #beautifulsurvivor” – asked Freer.

Oh that doesn’t sound condescending at all.

“Many photos of women who have lost breasts also going up soon hopefully!” – she wrote.

“we’d love to see photos of those who have survived too if you’re up for it – completely anonymous. Absolutely no pressure”.

Of course, if you could get just one cancer survivor to do it then that would prove all cancer survivors are OK with you pinning a pink ribbon on to your insensitive marketing campaign.

Hey! It’s not a marketing campaign. “We’re a three person company,” wrote Freer.  “Somehow I think you’re over estimating us a touch. And underestimating us simultaneously”.

Oh there’s only three of you? Oh well of course you get a free pass with this faux-breast cancer awareness campaign that is aimed entirely at increasing your traffic and building your brand.

“….”

Oh you didn’t know that posting heaps of breasts would increase your traffic? Oh my bad. To which freer replied:

“Appreciate your feedback, our goal is to have our readers feel proud of their breasts; no matter size,shape,function or history” .

What a lovely, lovely goal. I thoroughly support it. I love breasts. I love my breasts. They’re fantastic. Sometimes I look at them and they look so amazing that I want to wear only a bra to work. So everyone can see how amazing they are. I totally understand the desire to show off your ‘girls’. But I’ve seen someone die of cancer. I’ve lost two of the most beloved women in my life this year. And the cancer they both had was not sexy. Not at all.

They were strong, amazing, incredible women. They were not just breasts. And when you reduce breast cancer to just being about breasts you diminish them.

Celebrate breasts, of course. But don’t do it in the name of breast cancer. Breast cancer isn’t about breasts. It’s not something you should have a laugh about on Twitter. It’s not something you should joke about on Facebook. It shouldn’t be a reason for posting photos of your breasts or flashing them or ‘getting them out’. You should do those things – if you want to – just because you can. You don’t need a reason to show your breasts – you don’t need to say ‘Oh I’m doing it for charity’. You don’t need a website to tell you to love your breasts and be happy with your body.

Breast cancer is a horrible, miserable, horrifying disease – that’s it. It’s cancer – it’s not motivation for you to be happy with your body.

Don’t pink-wash your ‘celebrate breasts’ marketing campaign. It’s offensive and tacky.

As my very smart cousin said on Twitter: #IveGotANicePair but I’m not going to sexualise breast cancer by showing them off on a website @nzgirlHQ.

By all means celebrate breasts. But do ONLY that. Don’t say “Get your boobs out for breast cancer research & nzgirl will donate $5k” – because that’s explicitly using breast cancer to get traffic to your site. And give $5k anyway because it’s a worthy cause – don’t dangle it like a fucking carrot. Don’t base it on how many breasts you get on your site. That’s pathetic.

Breast cancer is about women not breasts. I am sick of having to say that. Stop using breast cancer to make money. Stop using it to promote a brand. Stop using it as a way to ‘turn on’ or ‘trick’ boys on Facebook. Stop using it to get traffic on a website. Stop using it to show your company cares about lady causes. Just stop using it full stop.

Breast cancer is about WOMEN. There are women attached to the breasts everyone keeps focusing on.

And for the love of God – get your tits out whenever you want. Don’t wait for someone to ask you to do it FFS.

UPDATE: And by the way – claiming that there is only controversy around this because it’s about “boobs” is ridiculous. And it shows you’re still not getting why people are upset. The controversy is about breast cancer and breast cancer once again being sexualised. You don’t see ’show us your ovaries’ for ovarian cancer or ’show us your naked bodies’ for skin cancer. This is about breasts ALWAYS being the focus – SAVE BOOBIES! SHOW US YOUR TITS! I LOVE BREASTS! Where is the: I love cancer survivors, I fought cancer, I lost someone I love to cancer. Where are those comments?

This article was originally posted on Boganette.com

“Instead of harnessing the different qualities of men and women to energise us, we are striving to make men and women equal,” says Asher.

Asher says that while more women fight to shatter the glass ceiling men are become less like men. (I assume you mean straight men, right Asher?) And by “men” I can only assume Asher means the emotionally repressed morning whiskey drinking silent types that grace the screens of Mad Men. The ones that make witty racist and sexist jokes in between neglecting their children and cheating on their wives.

According to Asher women taking on more responsibility and opportunities in the workplace is making men feel a tad uncomfortable. It’s just that having women in positions of power is so confusing. It just comes with all these new rules. How can men possibly report to The Boobs? Having a male CEO is just easier, there’s no possibility of getting distracted by his boobs in board meetings, and the risk of making an inappropriate remark about his clothing is remote. The implication that the pursuit of equality = a reduction in masculinity is impossible to quantify. The threat of emasculation is hardly justification to cease the attempts to achieve workplace equality, there are plenty of steps that can be taken to help ease men through the “difficult” transition.

Asher continues by citing “renowned Australian neurosurgeon Charlie Teo” stating that he “believes men and women have different roles “set not only by society but set by physiology””.

“The current trend is for dads to be more hands on. But for all we know it may be proven in a hundred years time that that may be a negative thing for the upbringing of children,” he said recently on Seven’s Sunday Night program.”

(Well if Channel Seven says it it must be true).

“They’re there to be protective. A man has to have a good job; he has to do well at school so he can get a good job and support his family. A woman has to be loving and caring,” he said.

Wow. A renowned scientist. Well if a scientist says it, it can’t be wrong. You know a world renowned scientist  once said that African American people were less intelligent than white people based on the circumference of their head. Yep. His name was Dr Samuel Morton and it turns out that his hypothesis was completely wrong and his research was littered with errors, fudged data and miscalculations [1]. It didn’t stop him from telling people it was true, though – and it didn’t stop people from believing it. Never let the truth get in the way of a good argument. Just because a scientist says it doesn’t make it so. I’d also like to see what evidence Dr Teo has to support his hypothesis, but this proof is strangely absent from Asher’s article. I suppose we best take her word for it.

“As a 29-year-old single woman, many of my peers don’t appreciate my traditionalist views.”

Yes, it’s Asher’s age, and relationship status that is troubling to her feminist peers, not her self-loathing, anti-feminist views.

Asher goes on to say that feminism has come at the “expense of femininity, chivalry and attributes of the opposite sex that instinctively attract us to each other”.

I’m not sure why Asher is so concerned about the shortage of sexually attractive women – is there some drought I’m not aware of? Asher is not only confusing the idea of feminism and femininity (I’m going to invoke the Michael Richard’s defense and say some of my closest friends are feminists but they also shave their legs, wear dresses, and aren’t opposed to wearing red lipstick once in a while), she is also imposing her own definition of femininity on to other women. Furthermore, it is not this narrowly defined term of “femininity” that attracts men to women, women to men, women to women, and men to men – it’s chemistry – that certain Je Ne Sais Quoi – he likes the way she flicks her hair when she’s nervous, she likes the way he smells. It can take anything to attract people to each other and I guarantee if you put 100 couples in a room together and asked them what attracted them to each other no two answers would be the same. Sure, men like boobs and women like a nice pair of arms, but if attraction came down to just physical attributes, only super models would be breeding.

Asher references an excerpt from David Dieda’s book “The Way of the Superior Man” (doesn’t this say it all?) describing the attraction between men and women as “sexual polarity”, saying it needs “varying degrees of strength and vulnerability.”

“This force of attraction is the dynamism that often disappears in modern relationships. If you want real passion, you need a ravisher and a ravishee. Otherwise you just have two buddies who decide to rub genitals in bed,” writes Dieda.

Rubbing genitals in bed? David really knows how to turn a woman on. This is just flat out social Darwinism! I’ve mentioned this in several previous posts so I will try not to go into too much detail here but I really tire of the idea that there is a “norm” when it comes to sexual relations. If we cracked open the taboo of sex and really put it out in the open – it’s likely that we would discover there is no such thing as “normal”. That’s the thing with the dominant gender paradigm – it ignores anything that doesn’t fit into its nice cozy definition of what it means to be a man. In reality not all men want to be the aggressive male dominating the vulnerable woman who isn’t really that into it, and not all women want to be submissive. I know this may be hard for Asher to understand – but some men don’t want women with diminished sex drives. If that concept is hard for Asher to wrap her head around, this next one will blow her mind: some women might even have a more elevated libido than their partners! I know – shocking right? Needless to say I certainly do not give Dieda’s book as much crediblity as Asher does. To me Deida is just another chauvinist masquerading as a qualified expert telling people what they ought to be doing in bed, simplifying sexual chemistry down to a basic equation of: submissive woman + aggressive dominant man + erection = GREAT SEX. And if that doesn’t make for a healthy sexual relationship I don’t know what does.

Asher quotes a comment made by James May in a promotion for his new show called “Man Lab” about men lacking basic survival skills like wiring a plug, putting up shelves or countersinking screws. First of all – it’s illegal to do your own wiring in this country, but I digress. If you’re not convinced by Asher’s tricky use of statements of opinion from celebrities to booster statements of “fact” without considering what ulterior motives that celebrity might have, then maybe a reference to evolution will do the trick:

“For thousands of years men were providers and protectors and women nurturers,” writes Asher. “Evolution provided each with the physical and emotional assets to do these jobs well.”

It has never occurred to her that the changes in gender roles are themselves a part of evolution.

“Well into the last century the husband provided his family with a home and food and this sole responsibility gave him a sense of power and purpose. And women didn’t feel pressure to justify their existence with a career. They were proud home makers and mothers.”

I resent Asher’s implication that women were shamed into joining the workforce. It couldn’t possibly be that they were bored. The desire to contribute to society, to learn a skill, hell – to learn – is apparently out of the realm of possibility for Ms Asher.

“Now, two thirds of Australian families with dependent children have two incomes. Women are more independent, and consequently they are less dependent on men.”

I’m not sure why Asher wants us to believe that less people staying together out of financial obligation is a negative. What good would come from two people who don’t love each other staying together because of money? That sets an excellent example for their children, let alone the guilt, sadness and anxiety that results from growing up in a loveless household.

Asher states that women feel forced to rejoin the workforce after having children to avoid the stigma of being a housewife. Because the stigma of being a housewife is the only reason women want to join the workforce. It has never once occurred to Asher that women actually enjoy working, that some women find their job more enjoyable, or as enjoyable as parenthood. There’s no mention that some men would prefer to stay home with their kids given the chance, and that many regret missing the opportunity to form close bonds with their children because the gender pay inequity has forced them to be the main breadwinner. There is absolutely no shame in being a stay at home Mom or Dad. The pursuit of gender equality isn’t designed to make housewives feel ashamed, it’s to give both genders the choice to stay home, or the choice to work. Breaking the glass ceiling would change the family dynamic for the better: It would mean men and women could have the opportunity to share their work and family time equally and neither parent would feel as though they had to sacrifice their relationship with their children or each other in order to cover the cost of living.

“Women are also suppressing traditional feminine characteristics like elegance and fragility to take on high power careers and step into male dominated roles.”

Another subjective opinion put forward as a (completely unverified) statement of fact, associating power with masculinity. If Asher wants to stay home with the children, whilst taking on vaguely feminine characteristics (which I assume involves wearing pearls in the kitchen), more power to her, but the idea that power can only be a masculine trait is insulting and incredibly sexist. So too is the idea that women can only be found to be attractive for their feminine features and never for their intellect – in which case Asher is completely contradicting herself by writing this article. It’s because of the feminist movement that Asher could even publish her article on The Punch. Asher should just put away the laptop, shut down that twitter account, put on a pair of heels and start looking for a tower she can be rescued from – we wouldn’t want the men folk to feel insecure.

“However, a British survey of 2000 men revealed one-third of men would prefer to be the sole breadwinning traditional father while another quarter would like to be the main breadwinner with their spouse working only part-time.”

Lies, damned lies and statistics. We are not told what questions were asked in the survey. We’re also not told how these men answered these questions, or their reasons behind it. It could be that the men that took the survey wish they had more time to spend with their partners, or they wish that both parents didn’t have to work such long hours whilst leaving their children in child care or with babysitters. Without more information these statistics are meaningless.

“Instead, men are sporting aprons, doing their own ironing and pushing trolleys down supermarket aisles – roles that don’t exactly exude manliness”.

Men doing their own ironing? Is the world coming apart at the seams? And pushing trolleys – well that’s just downright humiliating. A man couldn’t possibly draw pride from taking more responsibility for the “family unit” (as Asher refers to it). Apparently the workplace and the bedroom are purely masculine domains and as women seek to conquer both, men have run out of things to feel proud of. Apparently there’s no pride to be drawn from being an emotionally attentive partner and father, there’s no satisfaction to be gained from cooking a meal, or helping with the laundry – or doing anything to reduce the stress of your overworked partner – these are things only women can feel proud of.

“It seems marriage is becoming less about being dependent on each other and more about living independent lives. But is it making couples happier? Now, 40 percent of Australian marriages are predicted to end in divorce.”

(Note the use of the word “predicted”). With less financial dependence, and more focus on emotional compatibility could it be that more couples are becoming free to realise they’re just not compatible? We might find in the future that less people get married, but more married people stay together. Or even that more people are married and more people stay together because they are free from letting financial circumstances dictate their relationship choices.

This entire article is a case of cognitive dissonance – Asher comes across certain statistics that she feels somehow relate to her general worldview and uses them to bolster her argument without citing any real evidence at all that it is the case. It’s like saying two plus two equals a sack of potatoes. Relationships fall apart for a variety of reasons. Feminism isn’t responsible for divorce any more than women were responsible for male infidelity back in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and so on. Infidelity was reportedly higher but seemingly more acceptable back in the “golden days” than it is today – I’d be interested in finding out what reason Asher attributes to this – were women not feminine enough back in day either?

“Would we be happier if more of us accept that men and women are not equal?”

No. We would be happier if stopped looking at things through gendered perspectives and realised all people are different, and that all people deserve the equal rights and opportunities. We’d be happier if all people were equal.

[1] Michael, J.S (1988) “A New Look at Morton’s Craniological Research” Current Anthropology 29: 349-354.

If you would like to see Claire Connelly get all hot and bothered, put on some Barry White and head over to The Drum and read her article “Some Well Meaning Men & the Dominant Gender Paradigm”.

Have a sexy, sexy day.

Follow us on twitter:
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@ClaireRConnelly

The motion was supported by Labor and Indepedents Andrew Wilkie, Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor while the Coalition and Bob Katter refused to support it.

However, Julia Gillard is holding strong that Labor defines marriage as being between a man and a woman, and remains adamantly opposed to a conscience vote.

Despite this, Senator Mark Arib (who earlier this week denied being reprimanded by his party for urging them to change their position) says he will push for Labor to support marriage equality at the next national conference which has been brought forward from 2012 to late next year in order to deal with the matter.

Meanwhile gay and lesbian couples in Gillard and Abbott’s electorates of Lalor and Warringah are eager to meet with the two leaders who have previously turned down requests to meet with high profile advocates for reform.

“Supporters of equality in Julia Gillard’s electorate are clamouring to meet her, and given her support for the Greens’ motion, we expect her to oblige”, said Alex Greenwich – the National Convenor of Australian Marriage Equality.

“Even though he voted against the motion, we hope Tony Abbott will also meet with the supporters of equality in his electorate.”

The AME say they expect all MPs to take this opportunity to open their hearts and minds to the stories of everyday same-sex couples in Australia and listen closely to how discrimination in the Marriage Act adversely affects these couples and their families.

Federal Parliament is not expected to vote on a Marriage Equality Bill until later next year and it is hoped that the personal stories shared in meetings during that time will convince many MPs to support equality.

“Over the coming weeks AME will call on its supporter base of 15,000 people to help facilitate couples, parents, grandparents, siblings and friends to meet with their local federal MP and Senators,” Mr Greenwich said.

“When a vote on marriage equality is taken, sometime next year, this parliament will have the opportunity to make history and send the message that all love is equal”.

“If not they will be remembered as the Parliament that heard the cries for equality, but chose to give love a cold shoulder”

Newly elected Greens MP Adam Bandt put forward a motion for MPs to gauge their constituent’s views on marriage equality. Labor – finally recognising that the majority of Australians support marriage equality – have supported the motion.

Apparently the public support for marriage equality from Mark Arbib, Doug Cameron, Paul Howes, Deborah O’Neil and Stephen Jones weren’t clear enough smoke signals that times were changing. Neither were the plans of the Greens in South Australia, Victoria, and Tasmania to table legislation that would legalise gay marriage at a state level if the Federal Government continues to refuse to put marriage equality on the agenda.

The latest Galaxy poll shows that 62 percent of Australians support same sex marriage (up 2 percent from last year). Even more tellingly 78 percent of Australians support a conscience vote on marriage equality – which means more people support a conscience vote than support marriage equality. If that isn’t democracy at its finest I don’t know what is. Well actually, that’s a lie, I do know what democracy at its finest would be  (short of allowing all citizens equal marriage rights). A true democracy would be Labor allowing a conscience vote on gay marriage, rather than continuing to  hamstring MPs who have privately expressed support of same sex couples to wed, but fear the political repercussions of crossing the floor.

Pressure is mounting for Prime Minister Gillard to change the party’s stance on marriage equality, after a confidential Sky News poll found that 22 Labor MPs supported same sex marriage. Of the 39 Labor MPs that took part in the study seven were opposed, nine wanted their opinion to remain confidential and one was undecided.

“Labor clearly realises public opinion has changed and it is time to approach the issue with maturity and common sense”, said the National Convenor of Australian Marriage Equality, Alex Greenwich.

The Coalition, unsurprisingly, is not supporting the motion, despite marriage equality garnering the support of leading Liberals such as Warren Entsch, Mal Washer and Simon Birmingham.

The motion is expected to be debated and passed on Thursday with the Government and Independents set to support it.

Watch this space.

The right wing Labor minister and former leader of the right faction, Mark Arbib, has come out in support of gay marriage – making him the first Labor frontbencher to weigh in on the issue.

The NSW factional power broker told The Weekend Australian that gay people should legally be allowed to marry and called for a conscience vote on marriage equality.

“If I was the parent of a gay son or daughter I don’t know how I could tell them they didn’t have the same rights as I do,” he said yesterday.

Arbib is the first MP from Labor’s right faction to agitate on the issue.  I suspect his decision to break ranks with the ALP will have an enormous impact on the debate.

His stance is designed to shore up key votes in inner-city seats that have been falling to the Greens and force conservative members to change stance or else wave goodbye to any hopes of re-election.

If nothing else, contrary to what the detractors have been propagating,  a third party option is forcing all parties to re-examine their policies, or else fade quickly into irrelevance.

More to the point however – I’m wondering whether this revelation does more than just force the political spectrum to evolve to keep up with the times. Could it be that Gillard’s alleged “back-room-men” are growing frustrated with the leader they helped bring to power?

Is it possible that there has been some kind of disagreement between Gillard and Arbib? Could it be that the backroom men are growing frustrated with her inaction on gay marriage? If my silly little theory proves to be correct this might just be the tip of the iceberg.

We should watch this issue closely over the coming days and weeks, as this might open the door for people like Anthony Albanese and Tanya Plibersek to break ranks and support marriage equality, along with Penny Wong and Paul Howes, and force a conscience vote before the 2012 national conference which Labor claims will be their next opportunity to review their position.

The Left faction of the Labor party is opposed to a conscience vote as they believe the party should support gay marriage outright.

The Right (who say they have the numbers) will present a conscience vote as a compromise.

The former leader of the right faction Arbib, who has resigned from the ALP’s national executive, said he believed marriage equality was a “matter of conscience”.

“I understand the Labor Party platform does not reflect that view at the moment but I hope one day that view changes,” he said.

Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott have both numerously stated that marriage is a union between a man and a woman.

Aside from being about bloody time – Arbib’s support for marriage equality could prove to do more than just support the GLBT community, finally putting marriage equality front and centre. It could show that the puppet masters may just be losing control of its puppet.

We had the temporary departure of one of twitter’s (and one of my) most beloved people, after he made some worrisome generalisations that attracted the ire of women everywhere (except of course Miranda Divine).

It turns out that the comments that Stephen Fry made were quoted out of context by a niche publication who went on to sell his comments to other mainstream publications (including – surprise, surprise The Daily Mail) who proceeded to make mince meat of of him.

Now, I’m not going to get in to what was said, we’ve already dealt with that. But I want to take the opportunity to defend Boganette for publishing an excellent article that attracted the hostility of what seemed like the entire interwebs for having the audacity to question anything that his Fryness deemed fit to utter to a journalist.

Boganette, bless her cotton socks, has copped more than eyeful – and earful of abuse from Fryofiles everywhere for daring to question the brilliance that is Stephen Fry. These trolls – (yes, I call them trolls because not one of them dared to put their names to such abuse, let alone publish them publicly), had no problem offloading their vitriol onto Boganette,  failing to recognise the irony that they were adding to the very abuse they claimed to be offended by. His Fryness is a big boy, and I’m sure he is capable of defending himself – and he has.  For this I am glad.

Now that I’m done reveling in our general superiority to people who can’t spell, let alone string a proper sentence together, we (finally) reach a fairly serious point:

While I am glad to discover that Stephen Fry had been quoted out of context, I am not sorry that Boganette questioned the validity of his now debunked comments, nor am I sorry for trying to verify the original quote.

If anything I am glad that even Stephen Fry – master of everything that is brilliant, comparable to none – still is occasionally treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.

To me it is a sign of a healthy democracy.

No one should be above criticism. Not even Fry.

In his blog, where he sets the record straight, Fry says “I suppose the keenest disappointment I feel about the past week and the almost incredible weirdnesses it has brought in its train is the idea that there are people out there who actually swallow the notion that I am so stupid as to believe that women don’t enjoy sex.”

Fry adds that he took a temporary hiatus from twitter to avoid knowing anything more about the situation – and wait for everything to blow over. Fair enough. That is his prerogative.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t try and point out that while the folks at The Daily Mail were happy to publish the quotes without verification, we on twitter were punished (more by the Fryophiles than Fry, might I add) for actually trying to get to the bottom of the silliness.

I suspect the biggest criticism of this whole debacle will be about how the twittersphere and blogosphere tend to make mountains out of molehills  – a statement I greatly disagree with. In this instance, I believe that (contrary to what a friend of mine tweeted today), that (trolls aside), for the most part people were actually trying to tackle the issues they believe in, rather than focusing on what people say.

In his blog, Fry wrote “I had fondly imagined that in a free and open society one might be allowed to play with such ideas in a reasonable spirit of debate, but it seems not”. Contrary to what Fry would have us believe – people exercised their right to debate – not by keeping schtum – but by writing about it, and tweeting about it, and talking about it, and asking questions, disagreeing, counter-arguing and so on and so forth. All of these things are adding to the conversation not silencing it, (even if some parts of the conversations are stupider than others).  The people and publications that are trying to silence the argument by having the final word they’re not at all entitled to are the ones who publish unverified comments (that were made during a conversation Fry believed to be off the record) and expect their audience to accept the quote at face value. Clearly, that didn’t happen.

This is debate at it’s finest.

And I will never criticise any of our writers for trying to get to the heart of any issue – unlike the Daily Mail who were happy to take quotes at face value and publish them without providing Stephen the Right of Reply.

This is an important distinction that needs to be made.

Could it possibly be that the reason the blogosphere and twittersphere have copped so much flak over this is that they’re doing the jobs the press get paid to do, but aren’t?

Just sayin’.