Oranges are not the only fruit...

I should just get a t-shirt printed with the words, "Hey, I heard this great thing on Radio National yesterday..." on it, so when people see me coming, we can skip the preliminaries...

In fact it should be the name of my blog, really. (Hear that, Radio National, if you're looking for an official blogger, I'm your gal...)

Anyway, to cut to the chase, yesterday's Book Show offered up yet another round of particularly enlightening conversations.

The first about the latest push for Australia to have a literary prize for women, partly inspired by the fact that not a single female author has made the shortlist for the Miles Franklin for the second time in three years. It has been won by a woman just 13 out of 50 times since the prize began in 1957.

A passionate bunch of Australian women writers and publishers have started a campaign to establish The Stella Prize (represented by the mango, just to explain the pic above), an equivalent to Britain's Orange Prize.

Following that was this (not unrelated) discussion about a new study exposing a huge gender imbalance in 20th century children's literature. Apparently, on average, boys are almost twice as likely as girls to be the main character in kids' books!

Divided Hearter Sally Rippin was among the commentators on this matter.

Also, all the way back in the first week of May, Ms Danni "finger-on-the-pulse" Landa tipped me off to what is now of course the word on the street ('scuse the pun).

Yes -- Slutwalking. At that point, I had no idea what she was talking about, let alone what was to unfold...

There have been so many meaty articles, debates, conversations on this issue since that I couldn't list them here (though you could do worse than start with Clem Bastow's explanation here). But how great it is to hear them!

Whatever the complexities that exist around the use of the word "slut", around raunch culture, about porn and cosmetic surgery and the hero worship that goes down around sports stars... all of which are vital debates we need to keep having...

The fact remains: rape is a hideous crime, which no woman deserves or "asks for". One which forces so many women around the world to live in fear.

I'm not sure of the official site, but you can find the details for Slutwalk Melbourne here.

Modern Marriages of Convenience

We are in the middle of major renovations at my house right now. Unfortunately nothing fancy — more like a getting back to zero scenario (sealed walls, doors that close, upgrading the 70s mushroom brown paint, though that won’t stop me downing a few glasses of serious bubbly when it’s done).

As a result, we currently have no internet access at home. We have been spending our nights, once the kids are asleep (on the loungeroom floor), listening to the radio and painting walls. It has been strangely cosy and kind of a relief to be barred from the computer for a while.

The only downside is that I keep hearing things on the radio I’d like to comment on without the time, or easy means, to post something.

One subject I seem to keep hearing (and thinking) about is the issue of mothers judging other mothers. I am flagging that up as something I want to write about.

But more urgently—despite being about six months late on this one—I recently listened to the repeat of Megan Basham talking on RN’s Life Matters about her book, Beside Every Successful Man.

It could be seen as one of a spate of post-feminist books coming out of the US over the past decade about “modern marriages”.

You can read an article I wrote for Arena Magazine back in 2004 on this subject here.

Also, definitely listen to Monica Dux's great follow-up comments.

Basham is arguing that, since most mothers are choosing not to work full time, they may as well shift their focus on to supporting their husband’s career, as this makes economic sense all round.

Hers is the kind of conservatism that can dress itself up as pure “reasonable-ness”.

She seems flabbergasted that anyone would feel troubled by what she sees as a simple idea: the idea that you help your husband’s career so that more money is flowing in for the whole family.

We all know that statistics show most mothers of young children choose to stay at home, at least part time. This in itself is not in itself a controversial notion (though the basis for that choice can be very complex).

It is Basham’s leap to the idea of exploiting the “marriage premium”, as it’s called, that is so disturbing.

Her “supporting your husband” idea is based on “personal experience” (ie. as a woman surrounded by other women married to men with high earning capacities) and economic data that shows the presence of a “wife” at home has a positive impact on a man’s professional success and income.

The economic argument is a no-brainer. This is the division of labour that has traditionally characterised the neo-liberal economy. But at whose expense?

Hasn’t she watched Mad Men lately?

Basham quotes data that shows a man with wife at home will make 20–60% more than single man with the same job/credentials. The more hours a wife works, the smaller that marriage premium, or “advantage” becomes, she says.

She calls this teamwork.

This is surely the most expedient notion of teamwork I have ever encountered. Instead of a partnership being about individual growth and development, it’s about privileged couples milking the current system to suit their economic ends — no matter the impact on women generally.

She says women who do want to work full time and get to the highest levels should be able to, without a glass ceiling preventing her — but she doesn’t acknowledge that her argument is one of the very ideas that creates such ceilings.

It is all about encouraging an economic system that sees people get ahead by working long hours, unimpeded by family responsibilities — the very thing feminists have been trying to transform for three decades.

It is this deeper, underlying conservatism that poses the real danger for women. Along with the whole tone of the argument: men and women reverting to their most traditional roles; leading separate, if mutually serviceable, lives.

Personally I don’t want to be at home all day alone with the kids from 7am till 9pm and a husband we only see on weekends, sacrificing my own interests to his career purely so that he can make us some more money.

Is that really what life is all about? Is that the life my mother fought for me to have?

After all that, you better hope he won’t leave you for a younger model…

Doctor knows best, sweeties

Yesterday I received a text from the darling Clare Bowditch to tell me her blood was boiling.

The source of the heat was this unusually soft interview on Radio National's Life Matters yesterday with the first female president of the National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (NASOG), Dr Hilary Joyce.

I suppose there was no point expecting that a female gyno would suddenly be transforming the entrenched, male-dominated attitude of the profession. But Dr Joyce may as well be a man, considering the paternalistic attitude she has towards “our women”. So much for the milestone.

Statistics must be maintained at all costs, it seems — after all, women can’t be trusted to make sensible, considered choices about the kind of birth they want to have.

“What is important is that the wonderful obstetric safety record of this country is not undermined by any … alteration in delivery of models of care.”

The fact that we enjoy the safest services in the world is directly attributable to the majority of births being medically led, according to Dr Joyce.

Homebirths are chosen by a “tiny percentage” of the Australian women, she claims, but receive undue attention largely because “of the over-representation of tragedies that occur”.

She has "grave concerns" about those “willing to put themselves and their unborn children at such risk” by avoiding medical intervention.

“We mustn’t be looking at turning the clock back in any way to perhaps more so-called natural childbirth…. It’s essential that there’s a doctor in the loop.”

And then the hypocrisy to complain that the Government is taking away a woman’s right to choice in getting rid of the safety net for private hospital birthing!

Medical intervention is not required in the vast majority of births, and midwives are trained to assess the risks. To imply that a return to “natural births” would be a return to the mortality rates seen at the turn of the century is misleading in the extreme.

While occasionally a baby dies during a homebirth — and this is desperately sad — is this a good argument for ruling out homebirths altogether as an option? Babies also die in hospitals.

I have had one of each — a homebirth and a hospital birth. Both have their place. Surely what’s most important is the right for women to make informed choices about how and where they give birth.

It is taking away this right that will send us back to the turn of the century for women.

You can read Clare's very eloquent open letter to Minister Nicola Roxon here. And if this issue matters to you, please sign Homebirth Australia's petition.

Reconciling the Creative Mind and the Maternal Heart

Yesterday, Radio National’s Book Show aired a particularly warm and insightful take on The Divided Heart by feminist historian Clare Wright (downloadable here).

She said:
As a mother, writer and feminist, I pored through The Divided Heart with the zeal of a seeker—a seeker of truths, a lost soul, a fellow traveller. It’s the blind emotion contained in the book that runs so defiantly, so refreshingly, against the current grain of arguments and, dare I say it, motherhood statements about work–life balance, working families and diversity of choice in the marketplace. Rachel Power has achieved something precious and unique…

In seeking to resolve the irresolvable and confounding contradictions of motherhood, Rachel Power has asked some pretty darned impertinent questions. By doing so, she’s started a public conversation that will surpass the discrete kitchen table confidential and inspire artful solutions to a timeless predicament.

I was pretty humbled by this, to say the least, as Clare is someone I greatly admire—you might know her from the ABC quiz show The Einstein Factor or for her fantastic book Beyond the Ladies Lounge: Australia’s Female Publicans (Melbourne University Publishing, 2003). Apart from her heartfelt personal response, she made a couple of important points that have not been made elsewhere.

I agree with her argument that The Divided Heart is a snapshot of class as much as gender realities (something Rachel Cunnean also touched on in her write-up). As Clare notes, money can make all the difference in enabling a parent to justify time away from children (and paying for childcare) to pursue a vocation that usually attracts an unreliable income at best—even for many with high profiles in their field.

First up, Clare mentioned American feminist and mother of six Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s lovely statement about being “anchored here, surrounded by small craft, which I am struggling to tug up life’s stream”. How much has really changed for women’s internal experience of combining mothering and a vocation over the centuries? It seems guilt and ambivalence remain almost universal characteristics in the woman artist’s experience of reconciling their twin passions.

I have been criticised by one reviewer for not being analytical, tough, rigorous—or indeed positive—enough in tackling the subject of art and motherhood. I can understand that this might be what some readers are looking for. But I wasn’t interested in entering other women’s houses with my investigative or scholarly hat on, summing up their choices and making judgements or creating theories; nor did I really have the distance from the subject to do so, still so mired in the very experience that I was writing about.

Nor did I want to pitch a utopian vision of how things should or could be. Instead, I was seeking the truth of women artists' experiences—and I think it’s that raw honesty that most readers have responded to, often with gratitude for the solace it has provided. Motherhood is, above all, an intense experience, whatever the context—and I think this has fascinating implications for an artist and her work.

Clare said she has found books on contemporary motherhood generally fall into two categories: “how-to manuals, aimed at self-improvement, or issues-based monographs, pitched in the national interest. The Divided Heart defies this trend—it contains not a whiff of polemic nor an ounce of advice—and unlike most motherhood books, it’s written from the frontline.”

She described the artists’ testimonies in the book as “honest, tender, intelligent, reflective”. When read together, she said, they “provide a fascinating, almost voyeuristic, window into the inner working of both the creative mind and the maternal heart, and the indivisible relationship between the two”.

The other criticism I’ve copped (in the current issue of Arena Magazine) is that in discussing motherhood in relation to an artist’s identity I risk binding her to the fact of her motherhood only. I’d be interested in what others think of this argument. Certainly some of the women in The Divided Heart are struggling to navigate a path between celebrating their womanhood (and motherhood) and yet not be defined by this in the public mind. But whose fault is this--individual women or society's limiting gaze? I find it pretty crude and even dangerous to suggest that we should avoid talking about the fullness of our experiences as women lest we undermine our broader cause. It seems akin to suggesting that we can’t question aspects of feminism without undercutting feminism as a whole. Should we limit ourselves to neutral territory, rather than talking about what differentiates us, in order to create an illusion of equality?

At the end of the day, The Divided Heart isn’t only about ambivalence—it is also about how the very intimate and profound experience of mothering impacts on an artist’s work and identity—a subject I find endlessly fascinating, and not at all limiting when dealt with seriously and not superficially. And it’s always important to have these debates…