down under feminists carnival

its up and my breastfeeding in public piece is in it.. yay me.... there are some awesome feminists blogging that are well worth reading so go ahead and enjoy

nice morning out

I actually put some of my learning to goo use this morning, I spent the morning chatting with a lovely woman at the maternity resource centre, shes just started university so we discussed societal constructs on all sorts of things and the pressures on women to conform that are based upon what men think they should be.....

It was great to actually use my brain for something other than stuff I do at home, Its made me start thinking again about all sorts of things and I am sure by the time this baby is a bit older I might actually have come up with a use for the knowledge that I have.

I have also decided that I am going to sort out my sewing space so that Ben can use my big table to write at, we dont have a lot of spare space in this house but he needs to be writing his phd so I thought I would make a nice space for him to use.

I have also decided that I am going to do my best to enjoy these last 12/13 weeks of my pregnancy, this is definitely my last baby so after all the ups and downs I have had I want to start getting things ready for him or her and to just enjoy all the things that this pregnancy is bringing. I think I have been feeling quite negative in a lot of ways about being pregnant yet I should be celebrating that I am pregnant and that this baby is wanted.

So thats me for the start of the week, I have a couple of things to achieve and I am going to get on to it this afternoon while the wee fella has his nap

guest post up at blue milk

my guest post is up at blue milk.. yay.

feminist... a dirty swear word

I belong to an online political grouping, there is a discussion in one of the subgroups that a new member has started, it this he states that abortion equals murder and that Helen Clark is a radical and a feminist and that is why we lost the election....

I joined said political party in 1999, Helen was about to become our Prime Minister and I was excited to be part of the movement towards a social-democratic NZ. To me she never seemed radical, and being a feminist was all good by me too.....

It never seems to amaze me though how people use feminist as a bad word, as something that obviously means you must hate men or something like that, and you must be a lesbian too..... what crap. I am a feminist, I am married, have 3 children, and dont hate men at all, some of my closest friends are male and i love them all.

Feminism to me is believing in equality of gender and the use of policy etc to ensure equity for women.

I read the person's post in disbelief that he thought Helen was too radical and that there were too many feminists at the top of the party... it felt like I was reading something written by a Tory.

As for abortion, I am pro choice... yep I think that there is a place for Abortion, its not something I would choose to do, but it is something that is necessary for others. I also get annoyed when men tell us what we should or shouldn't do with our bodies... to sustain a pregnancy is hard work on the body and the mind, its not easy being pregnant, i know I have done it 3 times to term and as much as I enjoyed it, I made the choice to be pregnant and to take on the responsibility of caring for the child that would be born. To force women/girls to go through with an unwanted pregnancy is wrong.

Anyway thats my big political rant for now... feminist isnt a swear word.

Feminist Mothers....

I was reading Blue Milk and she had an older post on feminist mothers, so I though hey lets give this a try....

I got an email back today from her saying she would put my post up as a guest post, but I thought I would post it here to be read too... so here it is my responses to what does a feminist mother look like?

1. How would you describe your feminism in one sentence? When did you become a feminist? Was it before or after you became a mother?
My feminism is probably based very simply on the premise of equality. I have probably always been a feminist, its become stronger now that I am a mother as I don't want my girls to be treated worse because they aren't boys.

2. What has surprised you most about motherhood? that perfect strangers think they can comment on how you are parenting, on how your children look on the the number of children you have and whether you are finished having babies, the biggest comment that annoys me is that after 2 daughters we had a son, so i get "oh you must be so happy to have a son". I didn't get pregnant to have a son... we wanted a third child gender was not part of the equation. Now that we have three children we also get the " are you finished now thing" It is my husband and my choice how many children we have, we have just lost our first pregnancy and that has made us even more determined that we want a fourth child.

3. How has your feminism changed over time? What is the impact of motherhood on your feminism? My feminism has evolved with me as an adult. it was originally more the girls can do anything approach, now its more that women and girls should have as many opportunities available to them as possible and that gender discrimination is not on.the impact of my feminism on my mothering has been that I will encourage all of my children to be the best they can be at what they choose to do, that they are all equal and that a penis does not give my son preferential treatment over my daughters.

4. What makes your mothering feminist? How does your approach differ from a non-feminist mother’s? How does feminism impact upon your parenting? I think the fact that I firmly believe that women are equal makes my mothering feminist. I have observed with having three children that they are all different and that there are patterns of behaviour that are more specific to one gender, but that does not excuse bad behaviour. Girls do girly things, boys do boy things, but they also play with each others stuff and they all treat each other with respect regardless of whether they are boys or girls. We shouldn't encourage them to play solely with the same gender, this makes life harder and leads to this whole boys/girls are better.... its stupid. I think this is how feminism impacts on my parenting that i am unwilling to accept gender as an excuse for anything

5. Do you ever feel compromised as a feminist mother? Do you ever feel you’ve failed as a feminist mother? I feel compromised with the whole work/home balance... I am currently a SAHM, I have no intention of returning to teaching anytime in the near future, but as the wife of a scientist I feel that there is an expectation from educated middle classes that mums should work at home and in the paid workforce. I have not noticed this pressure being so high amongst my friends who aren't university educated. It feels like i am being accused of failing yet to me I am doing the best job I can, and that is bringing up my children, I am lucky that I can choose to do this, and that I have this choice, other women are not so lucky. Failure is easy to feel.... I gave up a career to stay at home with children, we put my husbands career ahead of mine because he can earn more etc... this feels like failure.

6. Has identifying as a feminist mother ever been difficult? Why? No... maybe because I don't voice it, I just do it.

7. Motherhood involves sacrifice, how do you reconcile that with being a feminist? that's probably the hardest bit of being a feminist, and a mother is that I am constantly sacrificing my needs ahead of those of my husband and family. I put my children's needs a head of my own on a daily basis. I do try though to balance this by having some me time to do what i want, which means some days i sew instead of doing my housework, because i need to feel creative or just be Me instead of being everyone else's property.

8. If you have a partner, how does your partner feel about your feminist motherhood? What is the impact of your feminism on your partner? I don't think he has huge thoughts on it, most of the time we agree on how we are bringing up our children, the biggest impact on him is that I still expect him to help around the house even when he works....

9. If you’re an attachment parenting mother, what challenges if any does this pose for your feminism and how have you resolved them?

10. Do you feel feminism has failed mothers and if so how? Personally, what do you think feminism has given mothers? Feminism hasn't failed us its just got twisted up at times, we should be happy with our choices but this is sometimes not possible due to societal pressures on us as women to be supermums. The one failure I can see though is that men still do not do more than 20% of the house chores... this still suxes and its the running a house and working thing that leads to the biggest amount of guilt that we cant be everything we want....

10 years of political activism

yep 10 years ago I was the Lincoln university Womens rights officer, I headed off to Wellington for my "training" and learned how to be a staunch women and how to protest.... all very necessary skills for women in the late 1990's after nearly a decade of tory government.
At training i also met up again with two women I had been at school with, Anna was a role model for me at high school, she wasnt "cool" but seemed to be happy to be who she was and this was inspiring to a 14 year old geek.

I also made some friends through this that I have found again in the last year and have enjoyed connecting back with them. Its so neat to be able to rekindle friendships through the use of online places.

After my year at Lusa, Ben and I joined the Labour party, we toyed with the idea of the alliance, but Labour was were we settled, and have stayed. So at the end of this year we will have spent 10 years in the labour party.

In that time we have both been on various policy commitees, LEC's etc, and for a couple of years I was the youngest regional representative on NZ Council,

Most of this predates the arrival of children, although K attended her first council meeting at about 2 months old and her first conference at 5 months. But having the kids has slowed down our activism a bit, you tend to be less radical in someways when you are responsible for others.
Though I still protested at John Key when he was here in palmy during the election campaign

We now count as good friends the MP for our town who we were on the campaign team with and his wife and children will probably be friends of our family for a long time to come.

I have enjoyed my first 10 years of activism and look forward to the next ten whatever they may bring.

I am especially glad of some of the friendships that I have found through this, Iain, Clare, T, Julie, Anna, and various others.

I may not seem to be as staunch as I used to be, but then maybe I have learned to use my passions to bring changes in other ways.

So thank you to my three high schools too, the first taught me that women deserved a better place than they had. the second that women can be anything, and the third taught me to have fun..... all this and being a geek have lead to me wanting to make a change and for once I can honestly say that I think I have.

D

universal student allowances

yay, after 10 years or more of lobbying we are being promised universal student allowances....

to all my friends who have worked hard for this small victory congrats.... we have finally done it.a

I have been a student, I have over $35000 of student debt.... thanks to Labour it hasn't actually gotten any bigger for a while, but when I first took my loan out it was earning interest faster than I was borrowing it.

It always seemed unfair to me that if i did nothing I would get the dole but if I tried to improve myself I had to borrow money to live. and to just clarify in case people think i am just a middle class person, when I was studying my mum was too, and my wee sister was at school, so dads income supported us all.....

I read a response to a blog on this and they said it was just helping out middle income earners, but why should you be dependent on your parents income till 25... and why as a parent should they have to support us financially till that age if we are studying, always seemed a bit loopy to me.

I am also pleased about it because it will mean a better start for my three children, b and i really value education be it university polytech or trade, therefore we will want our children to have the opportunities that we had. I don't want to see my children with the level of debt that B and I started out with, over $60000 between us was not good. I especially don't want my girls to have the debt I have as it does impact more on women than on men, due to higher wage earnings of men, and to women taking time out to be caregivers to family.

So bravo to labour for annoucing this policy.... makes me even more determined to help return a labour led government.