wooot, woooooot!!

Assignments back from CMM17 and CMM18 - both HDs!

Doing the happy conga.

annabel on the death of journalism

The following is a text version of Annabel Crabb's AN Smith lecture in journalism, delivered on October 27, 2010 at Melbourne University.

The end of journalism as we know it (and other good news).

a liberal/conservative dialogue

I'd love to have time to write my thoughts about everything I'm learning but I don't. But rather than just let them pass me by, I'm going to post them. Who knows? I may be able to get back to them sometime.

Can't get this video to embed....but here's the link.

major changes

Just wanted to note here that I've rewritten my study plan and changed my Major from Communications to History and Politics. I'm still going a bunch of Communications subjects as well as some Sociology. I'm happier about it. It feels much more like me. But I'm not going to feel embarrassed if I that's not the last time I fiddle with my course.

I've enrolled in my next two units:

GEN11 - Gender, History and Culture
HST110 - The Making of Australia

If I follow this plan, I don't need to do the Liberal Studies degree but will fit right into the Griffith BA program. The student advisor thinks that's a better place to sit for post-study vocational kudos. I'm not sure it matters but I'm happy with that.

I'm excited!

I also want to note that there has been some interest in another blog I keep. The moderator of the internet's largest blog on that subject has asked whether she can crosspost some of my writings and run them weekly as a series. I was reluctant at first as I don't want to editorialise that blog to suit others but she's assured me she'll take the posts as is.

It's a nice feeling that my writing is improving and that there are people apart from friends and family who are enjoying it.

dipping her toe in the water

As part of my News and Politics subject I've had to conduct interviews with various people. For my current assignment I needed to speak to at least one politician about a political subject. I found it's not so easy to get to these people as you might think.

Initially I had trouble getting through to ABC political journalist, Annabel Crabb, one of my heroes but, I thought, much to famous to talk to me. I wasn't able to reach her by the usual ABC channels so in the end I tweeted her. She replied quickly and called me for a chat. I was so excited I could hardly breathe. Silly I suppose but after 20 years at home with my kids, it was a red letter day for me. Annabel was, as I had expected, intelligent, articulate and absolutely gracious. I got a really good interview and have high hopes for this assignment.

Getting to a politician proved harder. Bob Brown's minders wouldn't let me near him and Malcolm Turnbull wouldn't even reply to my emails. I decided I needed to downgrade. As I am writing about politicans using Twitter, I tracked down Shayne Neumann, one of only six Qld federal politicians who uses Twitter. Parliament is sitting this week but I managed to book an interview and, yesterday, Shayne called from Canberra.

Former lawyer and second-term ALP member for Blaire, Shayne Neumann is a very interesting fellow. I quickly got through my 10 questions and that was all good. But Shayne generously allowed us to wandering into other conversation. We talked about same-sex marriage, euthanasia, refugees, Tony Abbott and party politics. We discussed the undemocratic nature of conscience voting, the hung parliament, feminism, feminists and social justice issues. I learned a great deal about the Labor Party and have a renewed respect for hard working MPs.

Actually, talking to Shayne was a real thrill. It was encouraging to converse with such an intelligent, articulate, political moderate. I'm feeling more and more encouraged that there may be some way I can understand and participate in the world after all. And for someone who is trying not to have too many opinions, I found I have quite a few. I'm starting to really enjoy this.

the politics of sexual assault

Here's an interesting article by Lauren Rosewarne that discusses the Advertising Standards Board's decision to remove the Calvin Klein ad discussed in the previous post. Rosewarn makes the point that this is an unusual decision by the ABS as they decided to ban it after agreeing it's 'overall impact' did 'suggest rape'. Making that kind of moral judgement is apparently a first first for the usually free and easy ABS.

And, as the writer goes on to explain, there are so many other good reasons to ban this ad including that it is overtly sexual and so inappropriate content for a public billboard.

But in an effort to appear cosmopolitan and secular, and to underline that she is not in the Christian wowser camp, Rosewarn piffs at those who might object on grounds that the ad hints at sexual assault and says that it doesn't do women any favours to ignore the fact that many of us desire and consent to group sex. It's a slightly less irritating argument than the 'it's Art' nonsense that's been circulating but still misses the point.

A comment which appeared under the article summed it up so well, I thought I'd post it here and leave it at that:


Abigail Bray :

"According to popular stereotypes feminists who refuse to titter over the latest shock and awe tactic of corporate misogyny are members of those embarrassing others, the 'moral panic' population, that group of repressive bores, Christians, angry moralizing mums, unsophisticated reactionary lower-middle class wowers and hairy hard core 70s style feminists the cool intelligentsia loves to mock. Sometimes these stereotypes, however, are just so misguided. 'Moral panic' is an educated insult designed to simplify, silence and humiliate political critiques which threaten mainstream misogyny. Predictably people who use the term as an insult then set up a reactionary binary between 'moral panic' types (them) who have big heavy issues with sex in general and the more relaxed fun loving sexual sophisticates (us). All in the name of informing the reader that sex is 'complicated', that women and men are 'complicated'. To be against 'moral panics' is to be tolerant of (sexual) complexity. But the stereotypes which support this heroic championing of difference are far from tolerant, far from complex. Of course some women might squint and squint and just see a CK advert, but for others the image is part of the complex politics of violence against women. It's unkind to diagnose the politics of their gaze as wowser hysteria. Taking down this image is not just about the image alone, it is a political protest against rape."

fleeing from the stench of the despised

"Oblonsky took in and read a liberal paper, not an extreme one, but one advocating the views held by the majority. And in spite of the fact that science, art, and politics had no special interest for him, he firmly held those views on all these subjects which were held by the majority and by his paper, and he only changed them when the majority changed them--or, more strictly speaking, he did not change them, but they imperceptibly changed of themselves within him.

Oblonsky had not chosen his political opinions or his views; these political opinions and views had come to him of themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and coat, but simply took those that were being worn. And for him, living in a certain society--owing to the need, ordinarily developed at years of discretion, for some degree of mental activity--to have views was just as indispensable as to have a hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to conservative views, which were held also by many of his circle, it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational, but from its being in closer accordance with his manner of life. The liberal party said that in Russia everything is wrong, and certainly Oblonsky had many debts and was decidedly short of money. The liberal party said that marriage is an institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction; and family life certainly afforded Oblonsky little gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy, which was so repulsive to his nature. The liberal party said, or rather allowed it to be understood, that religion is only a curb to keep in check the barbarous classes of the people; and Oblonsky could not get through even a short service without his legs aching from standing up, and could never make out what was the object of all the terrible and high-flown language about another world when life might be so very amusing in this world. And with all this, Oblonsky, who liked a joke, was fond of puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself on his origin, he ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first founder of his family--the monkey. And so Liberalism had become a habit of Oblonsky, and he liked his newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain."

I love this piece from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. Oblonsky is so like the majority of us. So like me. We read what we know will suit us, we are able to sideline opposing views with brief, insulting epithets and our ideologies remain cloistered and unchallenged - all evidence that there may be alternatives views which could broaden our knowledge notwithstanding.

And, interestingly, I find this narrow-minded, self-serving anti-intellectualism is not limited to the Christian fundamentalists - although some of them do specialise in ignoring arguments from people they already know are 'wrong' on the basis that they don't serve the right God. Secularists, feminists and leftists as well as all varieties conservatives share a tendency to stick their fingers in their ears and shout loudly rather than listen patiently to the ideas of those they in general despise.

This week I've been interested to follow Melinda Tankard Reist as she discussed the new Calvin Klein ad which provocatively depicts what could just possibly be taken to be a gang rape. Clearly as an advertising strategy it was a clever ploy - CK has once again been able to generate a great deal of free advertising in the wake of a risque photo shoot - so they are probably not too worried that the Australian Advertising Standards Board has now ordered the billboard be removed saying the ad was 'suggestive of sexual violence against women'. 

The outcry against the CK ad was lead in Australia by Reist and Collective Shout a group which opposes the use of sexualised images of women and girls for the purpose of selling products. The funny thing is, although you might think that valuing women as multi-faceted creatures and standing against efforts to exploit and abuse women and girls might be an issue that all feminists would be keen to support, strangely this seems not to be so.

If the comments under Reist's article which touches on her disgust at visiting the recent Sexpo event are anything to go by, no right-thinking feminist or red-blooded man should listen to any of her arguments because Reist clearly hates men, is probably (gasp) religious and doesn't like sex. They seem not to hear that Reist is criticising a practice which she believes leads to the actual harm of women and girls, or that she is concerned about a culture which teaches that women are only of use so far as they are sexually attractive to men and sexually compliant to same.

It astounds me that the exploitive elements of Sexpo and the CK ad remain unaddressed in the torrent of anti-wowser shouting down that follows Reist's articles. Are feminists so committed to avoiding all connection with Conservatism and Christianity that they are willing to allow that women will be abused in the name of liberated sexuality? Surely the value in feminism is in it's freeing women to be fully valued for the entirety of their selves and not just their their freedom to participate in their own sexploitation.

Anyway, I'm doing some thinking about whether or not it is possible to be a thinking, functioning political animal without penning oneself into a blinkered, slogan chanting paradigm. I'd like to imagine that I'll ultimately find a political space where I can feel comfortable - but not too comfortable. A place where I can be given the freedom to continue to grow and learn and develop my own worldview. Still looking....