I am a feminine feminist

Some people still think of Feminism like it’s a dirty word! It’s not a lesbian, who no longer washes or shaves and hates men. What’s fun though…. is that it can be.

You can also be a feminine feminist!

I can never own enough dresses. Dresses work no matter what season. Throw on some leggings and boots during winter and get your legs out in summer. My colleague loves pink! Pink errrryythang! So what? It’s just a colour.

A Feminist just wants equality for all. They have a belief that you can be whatever and whomever you want to be. Blokes can be feminist. Don’t be scared and confused. It’s time to educate yourself!

dictionary.com

It seems that we are in the fourth wave of feminism. How sad, that this is the fourth time we are trying to make a difference and get the world to stand up and listen so that changes are made. How many waves will it take?

The first wave of feminism came about from the suffragettes who worked hard to get women the right to vote. This continued throughout war times when the traditional role of women started to change and women found themselves working outside the home for the first time.

J. Howard Miller’s We Can Do It poster from 1943.

The second wave of feminism was in the 70’s with Germaine Greer at the forefront. Women were still fighting to reduce inequalities, and change the roles of women in the family, the workplace, and to gain reproductive rights. “Feminists: What were they thinking?” Netflix Film interviews the women that posed for a book of photos “Emergence” by Cynthia McAdams during the height of this movement.

Be a good girl…. well that implies that we weren’t good girls. I’ve only known that ‘no’ can be a complete sentence in the last 10 years. (Jane Fonda)

In order to change it, we had to become disobedient (Judy Chicago)

Our bodies, our lives, our right to decide.

We want equality, we want it now (protesters chants)

The women’s naked body was no longer reserved for pornography. The body was a source of pride and of health. The body was to be celebrated and enjoyed.

The third wave of feminism came about in the 90’s- individuality and diversity was the goal. (As an 80’s born child, I don’t recall anything about this movement but I certainly had the privilege of looking and sounding just like one of the guys. There were less gendered experiences).

The fourth wave of feminism is now! This movement is to eliminate sexual harassment, assault, and misogyny. Think of the #metoo campaign where women are standing up and speaking out. We need to end violence against women. White Ribbon Australia states statistics like:

One woman a week is murdered by her current or former partner.

1 in 5 women have experienced sexual violence since the age of 15.

It’s not widely spoken about outside of teaching circles but the Australian Government undertook a Royal Commission into Family Violence and subsequently developed a program to be taught in schools ‘Respectful Relationships’. “Evidence shows that gender-based violence can be prevented by working with the whole population, and in this case, all schools, to address the attitudes, beliefs and knowledge that supports the prevention of violence.” (Department of Education)

227 recommendations were made! If we still need to make that many changes, what are you going to do differently?

Even if you are not female, everyone has a Mum, or Grandma, or sister, niece, cousin, aunt, girlfriend, wife and/or female friend. I want you to consider…. how could you NOT be a feminist?!

 

 

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You shall not pass!

Like I had Gandalf’s staff, I stomp my foot down and yell ‘you shall not pass!’ Blocking the entrance to pleasure town, he’s turned away and denied entry.

This is my memory of when I interfered with my house mates sexy time plans and intervened to prevent an absolute douchebag from crossing our apartment threshold.

Girls don’t often interfere with the pick up plans of our friends. However this house mate of mine was in a regular pick up cycle. She’d sleep with a guy and feel euphoric that she’d met someone and that an exciting adventure together would ensue but by the next weekend, he was gone. To pick herself back up from the blow to her self esteem, she needed to pick up again. And so I watched her on the merry-go-round from hell.

We lived together for 1.5 years and were both single together for at least a year of that time, living in a prime real estate spot in Melbourne with many bars to choose from for dancing and boys! My housemate and I were chalk and cheese though. Where she was blonde (fake), I am brunette. She, tall with high heels, I, average with flats. She tanned (fake) and me, pale. She sporty and I, chubby. With a kickarse attitude and dance moves, I wasn’t short on admirers on a dance floor but in a bar scenario, she was the clear favourite with the lads.

She believed that if a man strode up to her and said things like:

I couldn’t help but notice you across the room. You are amazing. I must have you now…

Then that was true. A guy had truly seen the light and realised how amazing she was and picked her out in the crowd. I am more sceptical.

My favourite comedian, Iliza Shlesinger, and all round amazing chick puts it well (credit: Elder Mellenial)

And then I saw her.” And that lie becomes… A big part of our narrative as women, this hope that we will go out and a man is going to see us, save us, rescue us. It’s this hope that we’re going to be seen and that’s going to happen for us. And we all have this sort of shared fantasy where you walk into a… a club or a bar with five of your girlfriends who look exactly like you. And you walk in and a man picks you out of the crowd, sees you for the beautiful soul that you are, like, decides… like, there’s some DJ up there and he looks out and he’s, like… “Her.” And you’re, like, “Me?” And then your life begins, right?

So every weekend, my house mate thought this was going to happen for her.

In this particular bar, on a particular weekend, this particular guy carried out this fantasy for her. But he made one, HUGE, fatal error. It was just the two of us girls, and him. What did he do wrong? He ignored me!

This guys approach was so bad, he wouldn’t look at me when I was introduced. He stared into her eyes with the intensity of a vampire carrying out mind control and the hope that I’d just disappear. Believe me, if there was anyone else to talk to, I would have disappeared. Unfortunately his mind control worked and I became aware that he was coming home with us. He had been rude for a few drinks now so I told my housemate that he wasn’t a nice guy and I certainly didn’t want him in the house. If she was determined to be with him, they’d have to go elsewhere.

Funnily enough the two of them walked home behind me like a very confused couple trying to sort out the problems of the world. They walked forwards, they stopped, they walked backwards. I kept moving forwards and got home before them, still mad. When they had the nerve to turn up together, probably thinking I’d gone to bed, I stood at the front door, Gandalf style.

You are rude and arrogant, but this is my home. You shall not pass.

She left with him and they found somewhere else to go. She might have felt I was being unreasonable but she never said so. That was my intervention with her and I think she knew it.

My home, my rules.

How to lose a guy in 7 days

This is my follow up to How to lose a girl in 7 days. But I’m certainly not an expert in guys. They don’t seem to communicate very well….. so WHO KNOWS?! Please help us out guys. There’s probably twenty things a girl could critique and thinks she could have done better but you’ve left no clues for us to actually figure it out. It’s a riddle with no answers.

If you’ve seen the TV series Imposters, each time someone is scammed they leave a video that says things like:

“You must be very confused.”

“You will never see me again”.

“You will ask yourself a lot of questions.”

“You will replay every moment we had together. You will begin to doubt everything you know…. you will begin to doubt yourself. It’s very normal.”

“Don’t try to find me, you will never find me. Don’t put yourself through that. Leave it be… move on with your life”

“You are a good person or this wouldn’t have happened to you. You will find love again. You will find happiness.”

If only guys could say things like that to us, it would be so much better than nothing. Of course there is no such video message in real life. So what goes wrong?

The Dating Struggle identifies five types of single women.

1. Bag lady (negative comments towards men)
2. Vixen
3. The king of her castle (career driven)
4. Desperate wanna be housewife
5. Miss Picky

It basically sums us all up except that I can’t identify with just one of them, I think I have bits of them all.

From a man’s perspective (read or watch with an open mind!) 10 types of women you should never date:

1. The dumb girl
2. The princess
3. The financial disaster (this applies to men too)
4. Sloppy drunk chick
5. Super jealous girl
6. A stripper
7. The women who only has gay men as friends
8. The my-daddy-buys-me-everything chick
9. The Tiege Hanly hair (doesn’t want the man to have better hair than her)
10. The bitch

When you are going through the getting-to-know-you process online, I wouldn’t mention:

• Significant illness or injury until they have gotten to know you
• Money issues
• “Drama”
• Too much dog talk
• Taking more than 6 hours to respond (Believe it or not- Bumble statistics that they lose interest)
• More than one girl is in your photo
• False advertising- fake hair, fake tan, fake (chicken fillet inserts) boobs

We definitely have personality types online. I would say these are the following types of women (and again I’m parts of them all):

1. Humorous
2. Sarcastic smart ass
3. Nice and sweet
4. Sexy banter
5. Independent (difficult to catch as they know they are strong by themselves)
6. Dependent (really wants to be in a relationship and values husband and kids over the best match- nothing wrong with this)

I write this in case you are doing something obvious and have never thought about it before and wonder what goes wrong. Most of the time, it’s not us, it’s them! When they can’t communicate openly, we will never know, so don’t second guess yourself. I try not to lose myself in the riddle that’s wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma (Winston Churchill quote) and downward spiral. Stay strong that you are amazing. Someone will appreciate you. 

It’s survival of the fittest (mentally) to get through the online profiles, survive the chats, meet for multiple dates and find a good match. Sometimes it is a good match but they are also dating multiple women and are spoilt for choice.

I’m thinking you have no interest in getting to know a gal 🤷🏻‍♀️

If he’s not treating you well or it doesn’t feel right- you need to lose him! I still believe that when the right one comes along it won’t be this hard, hopefully. As the ‘Imposters’ say- Always forward, never backwards. 

I hope you catch some good fish this weekend!

Finding Nemo

For the school holidays, my goals were to go to the beach every day and do some writing every day. Instead, I have found myself on apps for hours at a time! The apps that sucked me in the most was Airtasker, Instagram, and Canvo. There’s some hilarious tasks on Airtasker and some really promising odd jobs to get some extra cash. I found myself applying for:

• Type up some old letters
• Write a timeline (A couple’s history)
• Letterbox Distribution
• Babysitting
• Resume and interview preparation
• Transcribe 30 one hour interviews

I had a great laugh at:

• Remove dead mouse- $50
• Buy me cigarettes- $30
• Buy and deliver Coles shopping – $5
• Buy and deliver Coles shopping (with the 17 specific items listed)- $30 and only offer made was $50!
• Write key selection criteria for a government job (spelled incorrectly) – $50
• Puppy time – $25
• Unload 40 foot container of noodles – $260
• Wait in line at the MCC for AFL grand final tickets from 4-7am- $100

I vowed to set myself some screen time rules and stop applying for these tasks as none of them came to fruition. After being ‘recommended for tasks’ and proceeding to the next stage, messages back and forth, three jobs were cancelled. I had rearranged my day for these. The ‘Letterbox distribution’ had me drive to a warehouse to pick up flyers that had never arrived! ‘Typing up old letters’ never responded even after I was shortlisted and we discussed the days and method for completion. The other two tasks remain unknown in status. Just like online dating, you need to put in significant time with no reward. It was like Finding Nemo– setting off on an adventure with many obstacles along the way, even with a goal in mind. In this case, I’m going to have to leave Nemo out there for someone else to find on Airtasker.

I’ve been undecided if I need a break from online dating as well. Finding ‘Nemo’ online has been unsuccessful for over 5 years now. I go on and off dating sites with FOMO (Fear of missing out) and then get over it and get on with real life, then I think I’ll try again for fun and thus goes the vicious cycle. It’s like I turn in to Dory, the character with short term memory loss. I recognise guys that I’ve matched with previously but can’t remember what went wrong.

I’ve paid for a Bumble subscription for a week that lets me see who has ‘liked’ me so I don’t have to scroll through the ones that aren’t interested. I’ll then decide if I’m interested to make it a mutual match. I’m calling it the 200 guys in 7 days challenge. Let’s see if I find ‘Nemo’ this week…..

Photo by Tom Fisk on Pexels.com

Murder on the dance floor

A day in the life of a single girl.

I dragged myself out of bed on Saturday morning to prepare for Oktoberfest at the Royal Exhibition building, Carlton. The words Oktoberfest and classy don’t go together at all but I thought the venue may mean a less rambunctious affair (such as St Kilda gardens or Birrarung Marr park where a friend climbed up a speaker pole to see the DJ better and ended up in hospital!). 

Usually Oktoberfest in Melbourne means a lot of girls in short skirts and very low, voluptuous tops and unfortunately we all look the same (thanks eBay). Last year, I spotted at least 20 girls wearing the same outfit as I was. So whilst the beer is flowing, the boys are a plenty, so are the girls and the chances of standing out are slim to none in his environment. It’s just a great day to hang out with friends and have a laugh.

The Royal Exhibitian building was set up like a huge beer hall with trestle tables packed with laughing friends and piled high with the remnants of all the drinks of the day. For this occasion, you had to choose the day function (12-5pm) or the night function (6-11pm) and I found myself at the day session. By 3pm, everyone was very loose!

Girls were dared to try to jump up on wooden crates that were piled higher than their legs whilst the men stood by watching and cheering on. The band was playing covers and anytime an Aussie classic came on, people stood up on the tables and bench seats, screaming the lyrics at the top of their lungs.

You’re the voice, try and understand it. Make a noise and make it clear. Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa (John Farnham)

Of course, the bench seats broke! They were carried out by security (the benches not the drunk people) to hundreds of people clapping and cheering.

By 4pm, most people were on the dance floor. “Grown ups” that had spent their hard earned money, carefully trying to throw basketballs and shoot ducks to win soft toys, then carried them onto the dance floor. How cute.

The soft toys were then held up high above their heads where they proceeded to rip their guts out! I looked over at one point and thought someone was blowing bubbles to dance under, then I realised it looked like polystyrene balls and I made the connection.

When one saw it, then the others started doing it. No stuffed animal was safe unless you were clinging to it, off the dance floor. I probably should have been laughing. As a primary teacher, I just thought of the waste! And as a drunk person, I was picking up soft toy body parts and holding an abondoned leg up here and there asking boys…

Is this your leg? Did you lose a leg? Do you think this (soaking wet) foot is lucky?

The boys reached out their hands to twirl me around. Not one twirl, repetitive twirls. Not one boy, three boys were trying to twirl me. Why would I want to be twirled whilst drinking beer? But okay, I’ll give this a go and try and make conversation. What a waste of time.

One boy that was prepared to make conversation was also very handsy but he seemed nice enough. Every time I thought ‘he might be fun’ in a non creepy way (again, compared to others. For example, one guy was walking around with a small sign that said ‘will you have sex with me?’) he then put the same moves on my best friend. So he kept going back and forth with my taken friend trying to re-direct him back to me. We made plans for an after party but ended up walking out together when it was over. I had asked him if he wanted to put my phone number in his phone but thought he mustn’t have heard me. He stayed with me for while and I thought he had made his choice when he went back over to my friend. Together, we had to spell it out to him.

“You can’t have both of us. You have to choose one girl and stick with her and make her feel special. (To which he groaned ‘Noooooo.’)

We are not both going to be with you.”

He finally got the message so left to wait for a tram home with his friend! When the tram still hadn’t arrived and we were waiting at the lights he said to me “You can have me til the tram arrives.”

Oh my goodness.

I’m glad I didn’t think I was going to find my dream man at this event. Back to online dating it is! It appears that guys think they can have multiple women in real life too though.