Only a bird in a gilded cage?

Karen Murphy says:

Years ago, when I first went into the world and embraced feminism as an equalising movement, not one based on hatred, resentment or superiority, my mother expressed doubts.
She said that she foresaw a time when women would be under more pressure, rather than less, with less respect rather than more, falling further behind rather than stepping out in front.
Then I thought her fearful and reactionary.
Now I think her wise.

Miss Eagle didn't have the prescience in this matter of Karen's mother. But I do give her some credit.

Miss Eagle's feminist credentials have always been sound. I was never in the radical, separatist camp. And I didn't swap my husband for a same sex partner. I have always called myself a fair-go-feminist or, more technically, an equalitarian.

I wanted a fair go: a fair go to be myself, not to be impeded because of my gender or marital status or fertility or child caring and rearing responsibilities. I love men - or some of them. And I care about the way some men are treated and how many of them - for one reason or another - don't get a fair go. I wanted to earn the good money the boys always ensured for themselves. I wanted women to cease to be their own worst enemies by their always-trying-to-please-mentality. I was sick and tired of a system that kept women happy by giving them a nice title, a nice office, don't-get-your-hands-dirty work, and lousy pay.

I hate Secretary's Day. To show appreciation to and for your Secretary/PA/EA, forget the ad in the paper. Ditch the roses. Give her decent money, time flexibility, a fair degree of autonomy, treat her as a professional member of the team, and value her work!

And titles. One of the feminist trademarks was "Ms." Even down to Gloria Steinem's magazine. But Ms was an indication that marital status was my business not yours. And believe me the stories that abounded back in the 70s in relation to single mothers and their treatment by electricity companies!

To Miss Eagle, the title is important. So important that she doesn't want any. She was not born with a title. She is not a miss - nor has she been missed.

I have a first name, a middle name, a last name. You can call me by my first name (my preference - even if you are a six year old) or you can call me by my last name. I don't want Miss, Ms, or Mrs. This has been the Quaker way for the last 350 years. If there is a Quaker title, it is merely Friend.

As for how to address the mail, use names or initials. Ms has still not lost the stigma of being a very, very radical title. Rubbish, poppycock and horsefeathers! Any good old fashioned stenographer will tell you that when you don't know the title of a woman (whether it is Miss or Mrs) you can always write M/s. This was the forerunner of the feminist Ms.

Many organisations - business, political, feminist - have, since the 70s, always addressed their mail Ms. But imagine my shock in recent times when I received a letter from Kevin Rudd address to me as Mrs.... !

Now, for those of you who are archaic, yes I am a Mrs. But I don't wish to be called Mrs and how dare Kevin or who ever prepared that letter assume, since they are complete strangers, my marital status. It is none of their ever-so-polite business. Why could the letter not have been addressed to FirstName LastName or FirstName Middle Name/Middle Initial Last Name. The salutation could have been Dear FirstName. What is so difficult about that? What is so bad mannered about that?

And then what bugs me is that, so often, computer programs give no option. Very few in the title box have an option saying "None". So I pick my own - if someone is willing to play along. My favourite Melbourne book store sends me their catalogue - courtesy of the assistance of a rather cute young man on a sunny Melbourne morning - using the title Saint: Saint First Name Last Name. Heaven knows what the postie thinks!

Back to Mrs Murphy and her prescience. Is she right? Julia Gillard is now next to the top of the tree and there are a lot more visible women in public and corporate life than ever before. Our efforts have not been for nought. But even more visible are the sexual libertarians and their camp (no: not gay: ancient phrase) followers.

Karen Murphy explicitly lays the blame and I support her:

And I blame women because winning equality and respect was always going to be our fight, wives and mothers, sisters, friends and colleagues, but we seem to have walked away before serious battle was even joined.
Capitalism lurks somewhere behind it, of that there is no doubt, the notion that earning money is without a moral component. But it goes deeper than that, as if we have all been sold the emperor's new clothes of sexual glamour.
No, ladies, it's not glamorous, it's just naked.
In particular, I hold to account:
■All the lap dancers, strippers, topless barmaids and well-educated prostitutes who do it for the money.
■Women participating in pornography.
■Women who post tawdry "raunch" photos of themselves on the internet.
■Women who model in degrading advertisements (think Windsor Smith shoes) who do it for the money.
■Women who have cosmetic surgery just when their faces are becoming interesting, and breast enhancements to make themselves desirable.
■Women who claim they have Brazilian waxes for themselves.
■Women who refuse to have an argument with their male partners over the sharing of household duties.
■Women who have caesareans so that their vaginas remain tight.
■Women who claim stiletto heels are comfortable.
■Mothers who give their daughters make-up or hair dye before they turn 10, and are more likely to ask if the child has a favourite boy at school rather than a favourite subject.
■All the women who participate in soft-porn music clips.
■All the women who do pole dancing instead of a non-sexual gym workout.
■All the actresses that strip when their careers are in trouble.
■All the female sports stars that strip to raise money.
■Those women who still believe it is more important to be beautiful on the outside than the inside.

Is this what the liberation of women, the freedom of choice and social movement for women is all about? If so, as Mrs Murphy predicted, it has devalued the currency. Not only has the currency of the free will of women being devalued but it is affecting our children, particularly our daughters and our grand-daughters.

We now have people who consider pole dancing a mainstream activity appropriate for teaching to little girls. We now have sexually-inspired clothes for little girls. Our little girls are not only playing with their mothers' cosmetics but seriously wearing cosmetics at a younger age than ever before.

The women who use their freedom for only these practices have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage. Instead of building wider horizons for themselves, they have narrowed the supposedly gilded cage. There is a wide and beautiful world out there waiting for women to explore and make their own. There are those who want to encase us in heavy clothes and imprison us in our homes and leave us naked on our beds.

We have to continue to fight to establish ourselves in the physical, mental and spiritual freedom our Creator Spirit intended for us.

Controversial crafts and feminist foibles

Miss Eagle has the glisten of a tear or two on her cheek. You see, I have just been reading Jane Brocket's latest post over at yarnstorm.

If there was only one blog I was allowed to read out of the whole blogosphere, it would be yarnstorm. Apologies to friends and fellow bloggers but that is how it is. I admire Jane's layout, her beautiful photographs, her interests, and her writing. Over the last twelve months, Jane's readers have lived with her the writing of her first book, The Gentle Art of Domesticity. The book has only recently been released and Jane has had to embark on the usual media round to talk about herself and the book. You can listen to Jane being interviewed on October 9, 2007, on BBC4 here.

Jane's post, linked above, brings a tear because there has been so much comment that has been questionable and invasive to the extent that Jane has had to go beyond her usual privacy boundaries to clarify a few things. For those of us who admire Jane, this was wonderful to enhance and round out our view of her. But those of us who admire Jane have also felt her pain - and we think why the h#ll should she feel compelled to do this if she does not want to.

Clearly, fulfilling one's creative instincts by knitting, quilting and making rock buns is controversial stuff.

• It clearly is not enough to have come from limited financial circumstances and earned a first class education by using one's intellectual capacity to win scholarships and grants.
• It is clearly not enough to have become a Master of Wine.
• It is not enough to be able to capably review both wine and fine English lit.
• It is not enough to have the tenacity to have won through difficult personal circumstances to build a secure and enjoyable family life - and to use your income to invest in the materials of your creativity.
• It is not enough to have one of the most popular blogs of its genre on the net and to have spun it into a published book.

Miss Eagle has earned long ago her stripes as a feminist but some of the thought processes of those who claim feminist instincts and leanings is stunning.

Some of us remember when girls were advised not to learn to type in high school. The 'wisdom' was that if you could type you would only ever be treated as a secretary and never make your way to management.

Well, didn't they get that wrong.

We now have droves of women in their middle years who wish they had first rate keyboard skills for the computer age - like being able to touch type.

Fortunately, Miss E's mother, Phyll, who spent years in the workforce as a secretary believed that office skills are something a woman could always fall back on - so not only can Miss E touch type at pretty phenomenal speeds she can also do Pitman's Shorthand at such a level that she can do verbatim minutes of meetings. Miss Eagle left school at 15 with these skills. Later came the degree. Later came management experience.

These days I see women like Jane and Di over at Clementine's Shoes and Suse over at Pea Soup - who are professional and academically qualified women - taking the traditional domestic crafts to new and imaginative levels. They combine careeers and professional demands with family life and personal creativity.

Duh! What is wrong with that! What sort of female oppression is that!

None of these women are forcing others into their mold - but plenty of women are queuing up to join in their conversation!

And isn't that what we feminists are about first and foremost - choice: choice in our personal lives, choice in our working lives, choice in our family lives; choice in the public sphere, choice in the private sphere.

Buona notte in Lygon Street, Carlton.

Miss Eagle went to the movies in Lygon Street, Carlton on Monday night. You can read about the movie over at Desert. Miss E came out of Cinema Nova about 9.30pm. Now it was Monday night and the night was moving on and Tuesday would not be a rest day for all. But there was life in Lygon - even if it was not as busy as a Friday and Saturday. Miss E wandered across the road to her favourit-est place in Lygon Street which was still open: Readings. Miss Eagle's budget is very strict these days so-0-0 no purchases were made...but here's what took her fancy and if there had been spare cash and lotsa time to read these would have gone home to the aerie.
NYRB keeps one up with the latest. There is nothing quite like a quality critical magazine. As a teenager Miss E was addicted to Time and Tide, an English literary journal. Does it still exist?
Ah well...one can dream

...and, while Miss E has never been a fashionista, this is stuff to admire and inspire.
And then there is Miss E's feminist spirit...it always likes to be fed!
Then it was on down Lygon Street.
Window shopping when the shops are closed is always a good policy.
...the passions can be kept under control.

And, of course, almost the whole of Lygon Street is about food, restaurants, street cafes...but those sort of photographs can wait for another time.

Food is represented here by the Lygon Food Store, below.

And as the main shopping and dining precinct was left behind, there was the residential/office precinct. As readers of TTP are aware, Miss E loves a bit of architectural detail so...
the barley sugar window...
the frieze which is actually moulded but here looks like a painted or papered frieze...
and beautiful native birds flying high in a fanlight.

And BTW, Miss Eagle did have a nibble but that is talked about at Oz Tucker.

Miss Eagle - the fair go feminist

Over at Dragon Girl, Jules has posted about the F word. No, not that F word. It's the other one, Feminism. She has asked us to post on what Feminism means to us. Well, to Miss Eagle it means the F phrase - a fair go. Without Feminism women do NOT, and I repeat NOT get a fair go.

Without Feminism some do all right. They always have. They use their feminine wiles and sleep their way to the top. (In fact, Miss Eagle knows of some who would own the feminist tag who still do.) They find the time honoured negative feminine skills of manipulation designed to deceive the gullible MOTS (male of the species). And there have always been the power-behind-the-throne types.

But for a lot of us who want to be able to earn a living without harassment and get a fair day's pay for it; to have access to a decent and worthwhile education again without harassment; to be treated as intelligent human beings and consumers within a health system which has a powerful male dominated medical profession then feminism has been the way to express our view points and demand an equal footing. This does not automatically make us man-haters, neglecters of children, and self-centered creatures.

Lest we forget, a century ago women were chattels of the MOTS without ANY fertility control. Women were passed from the control of their fathers to the control of their husbands and that was the way their money and their children went too.

Feminists come in all sorts of shades from lesbian separatists to Marxist feminists and post-modernists. Just like any other school of thought in the whole wide world there is diversity. But to get done what women have done over the last 3.5 decades, women have co-alesced and co-operated on major issues such as domestic violence; rape; childcare; equal pay; and access to education and healthcare.

And Miss Eagle wishes it to be known that her marching shoes have never gathered dust whether in the cause of peace, racism, working conditions, or feminism.

Some blokes take more than they are entitled to...

The fur has been flying this week in corporate Australia - in particular Channel 9 and PBL. The corporate culture at 9 and within its owner PBL has been revealed in a most unattractive fashion.

Julie Szego in her article Blokes on Top in to-day's The Age analyses it for its impact on women in corporate Australia, particularly in light of presenter of To-day, Jessica Rowe, and editor of The Bulletin, Kathy Bail. Both of these people and the way they have been and are being treated by PBL seem to give credence to the adage that women have to work twice as hard as men to be seen as being half as good. And guess who's in the thick of it, that sporting icon turned corporate executive, Eddie Everywhere. What a good look, Eddie! You've done yourself proud - I must say. And for all those blokes here in Melbourne who think Eddie is a creditable and shining example of Australian manhood, take a tip from Miss Eagle - he's not!

FEMALE EXECUTIVE MANAGERS
HOW AUSTRALIA COMPARES

What you won't get from the on-line edition of The Age that is in the print edition is the accompanying photographs of five top female Australian executives. Namely:

• Professor Margaret Gardner, Vice-Chancellor RMIT
• Margaret Jackson, Chair, Qantas
• Julia Gillard, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia
• Gail Kelly, CEO, St George Bank
• Catherine Livingstone, non-executive director, Telstra and director, Macquarie Bank.

One "prominent male business figure" who declined to be named is quoted as saying that "more women will be appointed to boards when more put themselves forward". Well no wonder he doesn't want to be named - names won't be quoted to protect the guilty? Two points I would make to you Mr Cowardly Unnamed Businessman:

1. Representation by women on boards and in higher executive positions does not and should not rely on women "putting themselves forward". Women should be there because they are just as entitled - and frequently more entitled - than men to be there based on skills, merits, and their ability to communicate with a wider public.
2. If the system did rely on women "putting themselves forward", why on earth would they? Could Mr Cowardly Unnamed Businessman please tell Miss Eagle why any of the five women named above would want to or wish to or aspire to work in such a culture as that prevailing at PBL, The Bulletin and Channel 9? Why would any of those five women want to work with Eddie McGuire? What skills do Eddie McGuire and John Lehmann (who was preferred ahead of Kathy Bail) have that makes them stand out from a host of well-qualified women employed in media and business?

All Miss Eagle can say is thanks be that all this is being revealed. Too often, Australians are encouraged - particularly by political leaders - to admire business executives and directors as people of achievement and probity. If one thing is clear from the events of the last week, it is that these are shabby people doing shabby deals advancing people over whom hang doubts about whether their ability is of sufficient rank to justify their promotion.

And we are supposed to think that Australian business is operating at the height of efficiency and in the best interest of its "stakeholders"? Phooey!