third wave thinking.

Now Playing: I Don't Understand Job by Garfunkel and Oates (I'm investigating bones like Deschanel, trying to make it stand up like Dave Chappelle)

So once people get over the whole OOH FEMINIST thing they ask me really good questions like

Is chivalry inherently sexist?

What do you think of housewives?

Where do you stand on abortion?

Should pornography be illegal?

What should sex education be like?

The problem with third wave feminism - well not problem so much as an inhibitor of direct action and rapid progress - is that feminism has become so diverse and often suffers from internal conflict. The first wave of feminism was united - that the lack of woman suffrage was so blatantly discriminatory and sexist. The second wave of feminism was also united in the face of the inequalities written into the law, and fought with a distinct togetherness for things such as 'equal pay for equal work'. This isn't to say that there wasn't enormous opposition to the first and second waves of feminists - but once you were a feminist you had lots in common with fellow feminists.

Not so much these days.

I believe in chivalry. I believe that chivalry is dying and that's a great tragedy. I've always been substance over style but it's always the boys who open doors and walk curbside and offer their seat that win my heart.

To me it just shows courtesy and good breeding - it's not polite regardless of what gender you are to not hold doors open for people or to not offer your seat to someone. I do it all the time. When I'm tired and exhausted and lugging around a backpack that's twice my weight and wearing uncomfortable school shoes I don't exactly appreciate the new age yuppie sprawled over six seats when I'm standing up on the bus. Chivalry in itself isn't sexist...as long as you see it as just being polite and not an excuse to treat a girl like second class.

What do I think of housewives?

This is a pretty controversial topic.

Firstly, understand where I'm coming from. My mother has been working and/or studying full time in Australia since she was eighteen years old. She worked a full day on 4 February 1996 and I was born at 8am on 5 February 1996. I was in daycare full time before my first birthday, just a few months after intensive heart surgery. It never even occurred to me that mothers didn't go to work until I started school, and the housewives I did meet were rich white trophy wives who looked down on my mother because my mother rarely helped out in the canteen or the uniform shop and always had to arrange to carpool to do anything after school or for PEAC - and I resented that too, because I didn't understand why all these women had so much time for their children and my mother didn't seem to have that much time at all. For us, my mother's job was an economic necessity - we couldn't live on one income.

You'd think that 9 to 5 daycare would make me very alienated from my mother, but my mother and I have always been very close - the last sixteen years have been a blur of constant maternal warmth and comfort from my mother, who is the best woman in the world. We had family outings and weekends off just like any other family, and my favourite part of the day was early in the morning when I would crawl out of bed in my dressing gown and snuggle next to mummy for a few precious moment before life had to happen and we all had to go our separate ways for the day...I still do that from time to time because I'm still a baby.

My mother proved to me that you can work full time and still have children - my mother was big into what we would now call 'attachment parenting' (in Asia it's just called...parenting...) in that she was into co-sleeping and breastfeeding and baby wearing and cloth diapering and any other terms that I've picked up to freak you out.

Growing up, my mother always made it clear that she expected me to finish high school, finish uni and have my own career entirely independent from my private life, where I've largely been left to my own devices. Some of my mother's sisters and cousins left school early and got married but my mother made it clear that my sister and I were going to get a full education - a marriage certificate didn't count as a diploma as far as my mother was concerned. It was always drilled into me that regardless of any relationships I must always be employed, or at the very least employable. Men aren't as dependable as paychecks.

So what do I think?

I don't believe that being a homemaker is a real job - it's a luxury, something that some women can do because they have the funds - my mother didn't. A child can do household chores, and if I could legally drive I could run errands and do groceries - it's mindless, boring work and I don't see how any woman can be empowered by that. I think a woman should have SOME kind of work - even if it's part time, even if it's unpaid. And a woman should always be employable even if she is unemployed.

Being a parent, however, is a full time job. Being a mother...before a child goes to school, his care and development is a full time responsibility. However, this can be split between parents, it can be the mother's job or the father's job, and I don't think anyone should look down on people who use childcare facilities. You don't become less of a parent - people forget that childcare centres only look after your kid for 8 hours or less a day. The other 16 hours...you're on your own, mate. Which is why I understand perfectly why some women - or men - choose to stay at home full time when their children are very young, but why would you stay at home once they go to school?

My mother has always found great security and autonomy in her work. If something happened to my dad, if he was killed or injured or got ill or walked out, my mother could cope financially with my sister and I - we've always found that empowering, especially when my grandmother was illiterate and uneducated and depended entirely on my late grandfather, who by all accounts was not the world's greatest husband. Conversely, my mother felt like it was too much pressure on my dad if he had to support our family all by himself, even if his salary was enough to maintain our lifestyle.

I personally would like to be a stay at home mother when I have kids - not because I think daycare is bad (I turned out fine! Better than the kids who stayed at home in fact), but because I think the mother misses out on things. Then I would slowly ease into part time and then full time daycare before school started. And then I would get back to work ASAP.

This is just my opinion, but I don't think being a homemaker is a real job and I think homemakers should stop pretending they have jobs. My mother worked full time and managed her own household. If you don't have a total chauvinistic dickhead for a husband, it's not that hard.

If you ask my personal opinion of abortion, I guess you could say that I am pro-life. I think abortion is appropriate in cases of rape, incest, severe congenital deformities or risk to maternal health. I don't think abortion should be considered contraception - it's not - and 'abortions for convenience', in my opinion, is wrong.

BUT, that being said, I don't believe it is right to impose my own personal beliefs onto others. Abortion should be safe, legal and available to women from all walks of life - no two women are the same and every woman will have her own reasons for choosing an abortion. Women are still going to get abortions no matter what I believe or what the law tries to impose, and no matter what motivates a woman to need an abortion the number of horrific deaths from self abortion or backyard abortion clinics are a huge problem.

So yeah, as much as I am pro-life, I know that this is just my opinion and will inform my own choices. Everyone has the right to choice, which is why I support pro-choice policies concerning abortion.

Should pornography be illegal? No. It should be reformed to prevent exploitation of women in the adult industry and to better appeal to women, who make up 33% of porn users. The stigma associated with porn - especially for women - should be removed, too; why is it okay for guys to watch porn but not for girls?

If I had it my way sex education would start in year one. Not the mechanics of things, but I think if we are open to children about sex and procreation and the biological function from an early age, we reduce myths and legends and stigma.

BEFORE puberty - as in BEFORE A GIRL TURNS EIGHT YEARS OLD AND MIGHT START HER PERIOD - all the puberty education should start. And learning from ancient outdated cartoons like WHERE DO WE COME FROM and WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME doesn't help ANYTHING, either.

Sex ed should be more than just contraception - a discussion of sexuality, of rape, how everything that is safe and consensual is FINE and NORMAL and HEALTHY - all these things are left to gossip, and gossip more often than not is just high-tech dogma. And as Emily Maguire pointed out - why are boys told they'll feel 'horny' but girls are told that they'll feel 'strange'? Sex ed was so sexist I don't even know where to begin.

Abstinence education is a flawed concept from the beginning. Promoting abstinence and withholding information about sex only encourages risky sexual behaviour, as well as fear, blame, lies and guilt - it doesn't promote abstinence, it only promotes stigma. Secondly, abstinence education fails to recognise that teenagers don't just have sex because it's 'cool' - they do it because they are, or are becoming, sexual beings. Thirdly, abstinence education is normally unfairly imposing religion and morality on to people perfectly capable of making their own choices and again, making people feel guilty about expressing their sexuality.  Abstinence education isn't education at all - it's indoctrination.

Can you see why third wave feminism is so difficult? For everything I say there is a perfectly feminist antithesis. I like chivalry, some women are offended by it. I don't think homemaking is a real job, some think otherwise. I'm pro-life, but some feminists are pro-choice. I'm sex-positive, some feminists are not. I think sex education should be open, some feminists are a little more conservative.

But as confusing and convoluted as this all is, diversity...diversity is beautiful.