Growing Strong Handbook 2015 by SRC USyd Publications

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growing strong

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF COUNTRY WE acknowledge the land this publication was written, edited and distributed on is that of the Cadigal people of the Eora nation, who are and will always be, despite the persistence of colonisation, its sovereign owners. Those members of the Wom*n’s Collective who are non-Indigenous recognise our complicity in the ongoing dispossession of Aboriginal land and seek to always support Aboriginal peoples in their struggle for autonomy, freedom and equality. In particular, we acknowledge Indigenous people within the context of this publication as one intended to empower all voices of wom*n, trans* and nonbinary people at the University of Sydney. However, we regret to admit there are no Aboriginal voices represented in these pages, nor were there any involved in the editing process. This is an oversight we endeavour to remedy in future Wom*n’s Collective publications and events by actively pursuing the insightful stories and perspectives of our collective’s Aboriginal members that we know are varied and unique. We acknowledge that in failing to include Aboriginal wom*n, trans or non-binary people in this edition of Growing Strong we have emulated the same horrendous patterns of the mass media. Aboriginal voices, particularly those of Aboriginal wom*n, trans* and non-binary people are consistently silenced by a hegemonic media and publishing industry that promotes and reproduces one-dimensional, racist and self-serving representations of Indigenous people. Furthermore, in celebrating the creativity within this publication, we acknowledge the way the mainstream art market has consistently exploited Aboriginal art. We condemn the appropriation of sacred Indigenous images by non-Indigenous artists and art dealers, institutions and buyers who benefit from the fruits of a rich and ancient culture they give little thought to. We acknowledge the Aboriginal wom*n, trans* and non-binary people within our collective and present ourselves as allies to their cause in whatever way they should wish us to be. SOVEREIGNTY WAS NEVER CEDED.

front cover MARIA VAN OOSTERWIJCK back cover MIKAELA VALENCIA CAILAO design XIAORAN SHI

EMAIL usydwomenscollective@gmail.com TWITTER @usydwoco FACEBOOK facebook.com/usydwoco

editorial collective: JULIA READETT, MIRA SCHLOSBERG, PHILIPPA SPECKER, SHANNEN POTTER, SHAREEKA HELALUDDIN, SUBETA VIMALARAJAH, VANESSA SONG and XIAORAN SHI

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content(s) the importance of intersectionality, or why you should’t take the easy way out SHEVERA RODRIGO

so, you think you might be bisexual

critical islam: lessons from my father

we are the daughters of multiple narratives

do two halves make a whole?

salt

qui tacet consentire videtur

lovesick

on yoga and my malady

argument for the sisterhood

AMY STANFORD FATEMA ALI

LAMISSE HAMOUDA

BRIDGET HARILAOU MIRA SCHLOSBERG

playing the game

VICTORIA ZERBST VANESSA SONG

ELIZABETH MORA FANCY CHEN

GEORGIA KRIZ

magdalene laundry CAITLIN STILL

only god forgives: sexual politics in ireland

a brief history of the redfern aboriginal tent embassy

ferrante’s friends

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STEPH WHITE

JULIA READETT

SAMANTHA JONSCHER

growing strong

NO EXIT

by shevera rodrigo

ook, I’m not trying to sound preachy, but … I mean I get it. I do it too.

It’s all too easy to lump a bunch of things together because it makes it easier for you to make sense of your surroundings. And with so many structures of oppression, focusing on one form of oppression before others can feel like the most accessible option. But, it really is time to stop lumping people, individuals, together for the sake of convenience. Let’s talk about intersectionality: the stunning notion that people can identify with more than one social group that then overlap with each other and form a unique experience of oppression. A lot of us have heard the word before and many of us know what it means, but it’s still a concept that requires a lot of unpacking if it is to be effectively utilised in everyday life. It’s one thing to understand that people can and do belong to more than one social group but it’s also important not to generalise social groups as this can effectively undermine the entire concept of intersectionality. Feminism was somewhat of a hot topic for pop culture in 2014. It became very popular to ask celebrities if they identified as feminist or not, but think about the

demographics of the people who’ve been asked about this issue: Taylor Swift, Shailene Woodley, Katy Perry — all white women. This trend has tended to implicitly exclude women of colour from this very important discussion which affects them just as much as it affects white women. This contributes to the mentality that women of colour are somehow ‘other’, or not central to discussion. By creating this binary mentality it becomes easy to overlook the fact that it’s not simply white women and women of colour; ‘women of colour’ is a broad term encompassing a multitude of cultural, ethnic and racial identities all differently affected by white supremacy. Lumping together all the experiences of people of colour is not much better than ignoring the fact that the experiences of women of colour differ from that of white women. It’s just one example of hitting below the mark. You could apply the same principle to the intersectional identities of sexuality, differing abilities, socioeconomic status, gender identity and so on. So, dear reader, please consider the impact your words and assumptions can have on others. Let’s work towards ensuring that people stop being perceived by their assumed social identities and start being perceived as the diverse individuals they really are. As the diversee individuals we all really are.

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by amy stanford

hat is bisexuality? Bisexual people recognise their potential for sexual and emotional attraction to more than one gender. A bisexual person might feel attracted to men, women and/or nonbinary* people (who may be transgender* or cisgender*) and these attractions may change over time. Figuring out your own sexuality can be highly confusing business. I was fairly certain that I was attracted to men. But, I found it difficult to work out whether my feeling drawn to women was similar to the way straight women appreciate other women’s attractiveness and friendship, or whether my feelings were sexual and/or romantic. In any case, I began to realise I had a potential for attraction to women and non-binary people. Even so, I didn’t call myself “bisexual”. Being attracted to women wasn’t a big deal to me; what was a big deal were the doubts, stigma and accusations I was likely to face if I decided to be open about how I felt. Without a niche to call our own, bisexual people often find ourselves under attack when people make assumptions like: “You just haven’t made up your mind yet,” “You’re afraid to come out as gay,” “You’re greedy,” and “You’re promiscuous and can’t be trusted.” Bisexual people are often pressured to pick a side, but resented when we do. If we try to find a place in the gay community, we are often seen as not queer enough, indecisive or imposters. If we settle down with a different-sex partner, we are then seen as taking the easy way out. But, remember that you don’t have to prove to anyone that you are bisexual. There is no test for bisexuality. I’m involved in all kinds of queer groups, have had awesome relationships with people across the gender spectrum, and I’m out to almost everyone in my life and I’m still not 100% sure. How you chose to self-identify is up to you. Feel free to call yourself bi-curious*, pansexual*, queer*, bi-

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romantic*, or polysexual* (or a whole bunch of others) if you feel more comfortable with those terms. Many bisexual people have no sexual and/ or romantic relationships or have these relationships with people of only one gender, yet they still consider themselves bisexual (or something similar). On the other hand, some people have relationships with and attractions to people of their own and other genders, yet self-identify as gay, lesbian or straight. It all comes down to what makes you feel most comfortable and what you perceive yourself to be. Don’t worry about not knowing for sure. Sexuality develops over time and the labels that you use for yourself may change as well. This is all totally okay. If you’d like to meet other bisexual people, getting involved in general LGBTI groups is a good start. The Queer Action Collective at Usyd is bi-friendly. Contact the Queer Officers at queer.officers@src.usyd.edu.au to find out more. Other queer groups on campus include SHADES and the Queer Revue Society. You can also join the Bi, Pan & Fluid Network Facebook group which supports those in the community by sharing information and experiences. To be added to the secret group, contact bi.pan.network@gmail.com. *Definitions for these terms are on page 10 of the activist handbook.

ONLINE RESOURCES www.biresource.net www.americaninstituteofbisexuality.org www.bimagazine.org www.bisexual.org www.bicommunitynews.co.uk www.bisexualindex.org.uk

growing strong

by fatema ali

rowing up, I always used to question my father on why he didn’t conform. As a child, I asked my dad why he didn’t smoke, as the rest of his friends did. Clearly I was very worried that my dad would lose his friends if he didn’t conform! In all seriousness, this kind of interaction between my dad and I was very common. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that my dad was never one to “blend in,” yet he also fit into the community in his own way. He once told me to research Meningococcal B and run my own campaign at school - I was in year 4.

But I found one thing to be salient — how my father’s lesson about refusing to conform has affected me. Within the six years I spent away from the Islamic community, I was able to form my own beliefs and opinions about religion, culture and politics without the influence of other Muslims. The days my dad was home were spent developing the skill of critical thinking and straining our voices to scream at the TV. He taught me how to think for myself and to abandon fear. and gave me the strength to speak about what I cared about.

Many years later, and after an unspeakable number of relocations and experiences, I don’t question my dad’s decisions nearly as much, although unbeknownst to him, he has taught me a very important lesson about not conforming that I will never forget.

Engaging with the Islamic community at uni, as some have already discovered, is difficult. Many of us who don’t follow the status quo find ourselves biting our tongues and shaking our heads, struggling to fit in to a community that doesn’t want to include us.

As an Iraqi Shia Muslim, I grew up going to community centres and mosques regularly and through each stage of my life, my relationship with the Islamic community evolved too. My family was quite socially active and our presence at many religious and community events was unashamedly expected.

There is a heavy and at times overbearing reliance on Islamic scholars and Sheikhs, as though they hold all possible knowledge. God forbid we use our own intellect and powers of rational enquiry.

As my Arabic grew stronger over the years, my understanding of what the scholar was saying excelled and I found myself encouraging my mother to drive me out to sermons and lectures, to celebrate the community I was part of as much as possible. However, at around 12 years old, I found myself in the car half asleep in country NSW. Muslims have almost no presence in rural areas. My family was one of two Muslim families in a radius of about 50 kilometres. It was character building to be out and alone. But perhaps the hardest thing about moving to the country was coming back.When my mother and brother moved to Sydney with me early last year, we didn’t fully realise how difficult it would be to resettle in a city environment again. We had swapped mountain views for suburbia and we had lost our yearning for the Islamic community. Truth be told, we now spend the majority of our time sitting at home discussing life and existence while eating choc chip cookies.

Don’t get me wrong though. Islamic scholars are a blessing to our community, but we should acknowledge that God blessed us with a brain too and that all of us have the power to do our own research and come to our own conclusions. Whenever I’d question a fundamental belief, some Muslims would look at me as if I had said something blasphemous — as if challenging the more flexible ideals in Islam was to be condemned. Our own Prophet came to reform Arabia with Islam. It’s about time we used his example to change the way we think and encourage rational enquiry and critical thinking. This is one of the reasons why I created the Muslim Wom*ns Collective at USYD. After complaining a multitude of times to one of my non-Muslim friends, she marvellously suggested that I make a space for those who feel the same way and to create a loving, inclusive environment without the often overpowering voices of men. It’s only been a few weeks but I already feel at home.

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growing strong

by lamisse hamouda

here’s a picture of me praying as a kid, with the prayer mat upside down and I’m standing on my head with my butt in the air in an awkward downward dog position. Points for trying, right? My mother converted to Islam in her early thirties. She’d already been married for a decade to my father, an Egyptian Muslim, who had never given much thought to his faith since he was fourteen. Islam wasn’t something I felt I grew up with; it’s something I found myself holding in my pre-teens wondering what the hell had happened to my parents. The change was sudden and the cleavage brutal as I decided to demarcate the memories of my early life into before and after Islam. Sorry Jesus, no B.C./A.D for me. I spent my early-teens dubiously touting the title of the first Muslim student to wear a headscarf at a public all-girls school, feeling more token than Tazos in a Lay’s chip packet. My late-teens were sequestered in a private Islamic school learning how to swallow my doubts, listen to Sheikhs and proselytise to students at the Catholic school across the road. I had a party after high school; throwing off my headscarf and shredding my faith into confetti with the plan to never paste the pieces back together again ... Only to find myself creatively pasting those fragile pieces back together. Yet, my unfinished story is a small stroke on the canvas of the indelibly intersectional experience of growing up as a Muslim and into a wom*n. We are the daughters of migrants, converts, Christians, Atheists and holiday-flings.

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We are the daughters of Sunnis, Shias, Sufi’s, doubters and agnostics. We are the daughters of war, separation, identity conflict, refugees, community leaders and immigration motivated by economic pursuit. We are the daughters of mighty matriarchs, hope, family expectations and role models. And we exist within these multiple living narratives. We try to preserve our respective cultures and resist structural oppression, from white supremacy to patriarchy. All the while, we’re trying to figure out what it means to us to be Australian. Each experience brings another interpretation of what it means to be a Muslim wom*n; some of us wrap ourselves in black and shield our faces, or wear colourful turbans and gold hoop earrings or slouch around in jean shorts and t-shirts. We are so often judged by how we look as we fight to be seen for who are. And we are complex, beautiful and powerful. The Muslim Wom*n’s Collective aims to embody this dense intricacy of intersectionality and to facilitate a collective resistance to all those who talk over us, who silence us and try to police our bodies, our choices and our behaviours. We strive to shape a welcoming space, a platform where we can become the tellers of our own stories and the megaphones for our lives. The author is an officer bearer for Ethnocultural Affairs at the SRC and for the Autonomous Collective Against Racism on campus.

growing strong

Labels. Inescapable. They tell me more about you, than they do about me. The way you label me, White Majority, is the way you Other me. Hispanic, Indian, Arab Did I even ask for your opinion? But you need to categorise, systematise, organise. One side exclaims: your nose is so big, your arms are so hairy, I mean, did you know that you look exactly like your father?! The other side asks; who is this kinesa? They laugh; can you smile less with your eyes? They look closed in the photos. For years, it went unnoticed. It’s hard to realise that the things you pick on, have a pattern. They’re part of a bigger picture that justifies abuse, perpetuates lies, reinforces subjugation and seeps into every interaction. Meanwhile, this oppression is always being ignored, erased, invisibilised, denied. But wasn’t it you who said your cultural etiquette was what I had to follow? Thinking, but never saying, that your knife and fork, and your individual portions of food with no second helpings are more civilised. Pleases and thank yous, manners and polite smiles veiling the unfaltering belief that you are the norm. Why do your features afford others comfort and mine confusion? Why do you have the audacity to ask if I am adopted? Why does my Auntie always ask, were you switched at the hospital? Am I so foreign, even to the faces of my own parents? Are you sick of these questions? So am I.

by bridget harilaou

I’m constantly explaining ‘what I am’. And the only way it makes sense to you is to say that I’m half-half. But don’t you know it is impossible to be half a person? I am a whole human being. What about my mother’s culture, where I have no genetic roots, but still so much of myself grown from there? Bahasa Gaul, rendang, sniff-kisses, food-covered fingers all come from this place. What about my home? I have Australian citizenship, an Australian passport. This is the only home I have ever known. But it is much too difficult to bother explaining. Better to say I’m half-half. Because I don’t look like one side and I don’t look like the other, and I don’t fit a label, because I am so much more than this, but it is so exhausting trying to challenge your way of thinking all the time, and when do I get a break? When do I get to meet new people and not have them asking, asking, asking. “So, what’s your ethnicity?” “I’m half Greek and half Chinese.” You think that’s an ‘interesting’ mix, don’t you?

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by m ira s chlo sbe

growing strong

er hair is a mixture of Apple Green and Pacific Blue. She is sitting across from you and the top of the table is blue-green linoleum that is supposed to look like marble or maybe granite, but it looks like the ocean to you. She is playing with the salt shaker, sliding it back and forth between her hands, with her sleeves pulled up to her thumbs. Your hair colour is called Bad Boy Blue, and your jacket is denim, light indigo, so that you always feel a little like you are floating in water. Her jacket is green but her sweater is red, and the walls are red and when you point this out to her she calls the colour scheme “Australiana-chic” but says the overall décor of the café would be “European Kitsch.” She hates the dust-gathering fake flowers in the window, says they are disheartening, which is true. You touch a limp green ribbon barely holding up its head of plastic purple beads. “Like, what the fuck is this? Lavender?” “Yeah, I think so.” She asks if this is how you usually make friends. Meaning randomly asking people to go to drag shows with you over Instagram direct because all the friends you have reasonable contact information for already had plans, and then drinking cider outside together, and then snapchatting your cats to each other non-stop and then going to weird vampire movies like you’ve already been friends for ages, or like you’re dating, except you’re not, or at least you must not be because she just asked if this was how you made friends usually, which means you’re friends, right? You say no, this is not your normal method. She is twisting the lid of the salt shaker and then it comes off suddenly and a little bit of salt spills onto the table and she says, “Ah. That was bound to happen,” and

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screws the lid back on. On the tabletop the grains of salt look like little bubbles of foam. Earlier she told you that you are good at eye contact, which was the strangest compliment you ever received and now you can’t make eye contact with her without laughing nervously. You both keep trying to hold it and then laughing and averting your eyes. For a while this is all the conversation you have. She says, “It’s just so weird to me, like…what happens when you look at another person in their eyes?” You try to look at each other’s eyes without making that connection. She is using the edge of the saltshaker to shape the spilled salt into different shapes. You watch them forming and dissolving. She has round glasses and a triangular nose. You met at 4:30 and it’s 9 now. When you finally get up to leave she wipes all the salt into her napkin and folds it up neatly and leaves it beside her plate. Outside it’s cold and you both only have light jackets so you have to keep your hands in your pockets with your arms pressed close against your sides for warmth so you can’t dangle your hand near hers and brush it accidentally to see if she will hold yours. You wonder if you should try kissing her but you’re wearing black lipstick so it couldn’t be easily brushed off if she wasn’t into it. It would be good if she kissed you. Just up at the corner when you stop to wait for the lights. That would be nice. The green of her parka rustling against you. Soft tufts of blue-green hair brushing your eyebrows. And then you could smile at her and say “Is this how you usually make friends?”

growing strong

by victoria zerbst

illustration: ‘body as spectacle’ by phoebe chen

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was in San Francisco. He had rainbow-coloured hair, studied computer science and was working at a startup tech company. When I met him in person, the first thing he did was pull out his phone, check my display picture and look me up and down. “Yeah, I guess that kinda looks like you.” That’s when it began, and it was all too familiar. There were more backhanded compliments, digs at my incoherent arguments and challenges to my views on metaethics before I had time to tell him I’d read the book. This book, of course, was Neil Strauss’ 2005 New York Times bestseller The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists. After actually reading the book, I got worried. I was suddenly privy to the waking fantasies of a bizarre, masculine cult and my incredulous eyes absorbed a new vista of power-struggle plots, macho machinations and amoral subterfuge from today’s dating world. My first question was, as a feminist, should I be angered by what this book represented? My gut response was one of indignation. From the posts on sites such as Mystery’s Lounge, Love Systems and The Pick-Up Artist Forum, all signs pointed towards blatant objectification. // PUAs give themselves pseudonyms like ‘Mystery’, ‘Tyler Durden’ and Neil Strauss’ name ‘Style’ to emphasise the traits they use in attracting either HBs (hot babes) or LSEs (low self-esteems). This language is like something out of a misogynistic marketing textbook with as many acronyms as sexist slurs. The aim is to transform from AFCs (average frustrated chumps) into AMOGs (Alpha Males of the group) via FMAC (find, meet, attract and close) HBs. Acronyms, after all, constitute a type of Urlanguage for ambitious Neanderthals. Strauss is teaching guys language. Vive le parole! Openers have replaced pick-up lines and are usually pre-scripted, fun stories to initiate conversation. Guys can stack them together to create routines, or they can ‘neg’; “neither compliment nor insult ... something between an accidental insult or backhanded compliment ... [the purporse of which] is to lower a woman’s selfesteem while actively displaying a lack of interest in her.” Not only do PUAs prey on low self-esteem when picking up women, they also draw inspiration from social psychology, the pseudoscience of neuro-linguistic programming (technically a branch of hypnosis), and even books such as Dog Training by Lew Burke. I guess because all bitches are the same. This all sounds horrendous, but wait. Neil Strauss wants us on his side. Open to page one of The Game and you will find a quote from The Feminine Mystique.

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growing strong

Alarm bells. Strauss has read our literature. Then it hits us: “Men weren’t really the enemy — they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.” It was then that I realised I’m not supposed to feel indignation. No, I am supposed to pity these average, frustrated chumps. According to Strauss: “One of the tragedies of modern life is that women as a whole do not hold a lot of power in society, despite all the advances made in the last century. Sexual choice is ... one of the only areas where women are indisputably in control.” It is a tragedy. Women hold the key to what men want (as long as they are HBs) and men want desperately to find it, so they have sharpened their weapons and man, do they have the manipulative tricks to flick the switches in our primitive internal processes. It is something Strauss proudly claims as his own invention, the Freeze Out: “to ignore a woman to make her seek validation, usually used as a technique to counter last-minute resistance.” This is a term PUAs use for women who stop them from going any further when she is back at their place. The aim is to blast through last minute resistance, so they “back up one or two steps, then continue. Wash, rinse, repeat. It’s not real. It’s just ASD: anti-slut defence.” If that doesn’t work, they go full passive aggressive. If a woman asks a PUA to stop, they will stop entirely, move to the other side of the room and ignore the woman completely. They will say they respect her decision and comply by acting distant. Then the woman comes back to them, unhappy with the sudden shift in mood. Then it’s her choice. They have made the decision for her. Thank god for the Freeze Out. It has provided me with some solid support for my criticism of The Game. What scared me most about reading the book though was finding myself growing more and more attracted to Strauss. He was alluringly witty, confident and demonstrating incredibly high social value. I wanted to meet him, date him and let him pick me up. Would that be letting him win the game though? My strong FTH (Feminist Thinking Hat) reels at the idea of me caving in. Is it ever OK for me to let a guy win The Game? The very title of the book suggests that dating is a competition with rules, winners and losers. With my rainbow-haired hacker in San Francisco, I called him out, I challenged his motives and intelligence, and we’re still friends today. One of the rules of the game is that “men must always have the better answer”. So, that became the rule for me as well. If PUAs are turned off by your savvy understanding of their man cult, you probably don’t want to be talking to them in the first place anyway.

growing strong

Shivers sliver across my spine like needles — Syringes filled with icy water And a cold that chills me to the bone. My palms shake as I push myself against the wall, willing myself to be smaller — Yielding, timid, afraid. Legs like jelly And molten lava. When a trip to the bathroom became an invitation, a door, that opens and closes — opens to the will of aliens and unwanted guests, And closes so as not to be branded a slut A slut with a body and three holes But a body no less. Open when it counts Undeserving of respect. I watched cautiously as words, words reached for my ears like talons, grasping and pulling for the validation I refused to yield.

x >

“Your kind are fucken animals in the sack” — Shame, I felt shame course through me with unbridled derision — heart racing as I entreated my dismissal Legs, jelly but run-ready timid, yielding, afraid. Long, cold fingers reached out to push a stray hair from my face, as a quiet rage began to stir within me. That my alone-ness was accounted for as vulnerability, my silence for apathy and consent. Legs like anchors — Anchoring me to stand up, Angry, relentless, fearless. Man, man who stared intently, curious predator — I squared my shoulders and mustered my voice words shaking like leaves — leaves that blew around my ankles. Unsure that I could be both a Latina woman and an actual human being. To tower and command, infiltrate and conquer, My space, the space that continued to tighten around me like a noose — Noose of rope, constricting, rolling like black waves, to drown, drown my resistance. My voice shook but never wavered as I spoke — Impassioned and Indignant, that I would be both woman and human deserving of the right to fulfil a basic need.

by vanessa song That my alone-ness was taken as an opportunity, that as a Latina woman, I was reduced to being a receptacle. A door to a room that would never be mine, A cog in a wheel that chugged and chugged onward — Onward to a place I dared not tread. That I should have to protect myself because my body is a battleground where undesirables can stake their claims. Where I should expect a war And prepare for an invasion. a body expected to bow and yield Yield the treasures of my company. But I refuse to yield, I refuse to cower Because my body is my own And my body is the shelter where my soul resides. I will fear no shame And I will speak without fear. I am a Latina woman and I deserve better.

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growing strong

My tears trickle out of these homemade Cracks Enough To bring back to life — The words I am about to declare: Loveable Loveless Lover. My psychiatrist has beckoned me to forget. But I will not admit myself to this little death. Lips pursed, pen set, I could write Love poetry to bid you goodbye Like a kiss as slow as this sunset: Strange Love Familiar Love …… Such lines I ‘could’ write and let the parody continue -But I prefer to remain in this lovesickness The injury Of an unlovely lovesong- that makes unloved beloveds Love-love-making-evermore! Any revenge will make me look the fool. A tool — that only money, politics, grudge and Prestige can abuse, misuse but refuse. Loveable Loveless lover all I can say is — Thank you for awakening the Lovesome Lovemaker of my better days. Thank you for the freedom. From here on in I vow to no longer Succumb to the late night cum that I used to blow From your thumb in between the tight walls and against The whiny screech of your garage door! All I want is to increase the sum of times my name Is carved on golden planks — erect on exhibitions walls To turn eyes and lower the high noses of persons of rank.

Loveable Loveless Lover Ever since my smile danced against the moist sweat of your lips, I have been left crisp, Pan fried with a lovesickness that has my love locked. Cause/Diagnosis? I am a desperate Ladylove aging in her loveseat, Lovelorn with your unlovely deceit! Loveable Loveless Lover you have left me Lovesick! I find myself sighing, frightened and out of breath — To be loved and unloved in an instant is the love-making of a cardiac arrest. An unloving lovelessness That has deprived my bloodline Of lovemoons, fests and lovenests that made me Your fortune’s Heir-ress! My eyes are cesspools of falling water — Any clash, splash or deliberate walking into Could bring fallovers, spillovers To ruin bone china And other expensive fluid beholden things.

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Listen Loveable Loveless Lover — I can no longer fall for your tyranny! You are the memory of every tradition that has filed against me! You are the brand of every working class, middle class, upper class Patriarchy! Only a tyrant can smudge the stench of your love onto me. Love, Laws Lust, Religions, Loins and offal of every oppressive Collision between free man and free woman that has lovelocked the Lovesome lovemaking of this free and beautiful world into The turd smelling corners of math pointy heads that think Man + Woman = Marriage That think The simple equation of K.I.S.S.I.N.G. should only happen hidden And up his tree … Rather than the thorny scrubs of my Eden … Loveable Loveless Lover I will no longer fall for thee! I am too wide eyed, well equipped and almond flavoured enough to See that love and the rest of this mess is up to me!

growing strong

by fancy chen

started yoga when I was 17. A lost, hormonal HSC student with a tendency to procrastinate. I loved practising from the first class I attended; it was at my local spiritual Indian store, taught by a then pregnant teacher who was fitter than all her students put together.

Despite having gained 13kg from the medication I have maintained my yoga practice which has seen me through some seriously tough times. In hospital my days revolved around my practice and it helped to keep me grounded and in my body.

The long holds and deep, rhythmic breathing were both lulling and extremely challenging. Focus was required to reign in my untamed mind, which would soon go hopping from distracted thought to distracted thought. The classes seemed like they would never end. But each time it did, I was surprised how far I had pushed myself. I left feeling refreshed and eager for the next round of yogic exercises.

With so much delusion, paranoia and uncertainty floating around in my head it was necessary to find an anchor especially when you’ve been locked in with 15 other unstable “inmates”.

What had started out as a mild obsession has now become my chosen profession. It hasn’t been a particularly smooth journey though. Around the time I’d started yoga my mental health had begun to deteriorate. A feeling of not-quite-rightness had crept into my being and I often felt emotional and overwhelmed. Between the external stressors and my rock-bottom, low self-esteem I stumbled through year after year of turbulent waters. Too often had I strayed across the borders of sanity and was committed to psychiatric wards, unsure as to what was happening to me and why. It’s been four years now since my first admission and with a recent admission this year (surviving three in total) I finally have a diagnosis – schizophrenia. One in 100 people have it. That’s more than the number of people with diabetes, but schizophrenia is far less publicly known. Sadly, 10% of people with the illness will die within the next 10 years and the rate goes up to 15% in 30 years – mostly due to suicide. I definitely still have dark days, but there is so much more hope now in my life. I feel safe to say I will not be in that marginal percentage, but it’s such a tragedy thousands will end their lives prematurely.

The business of locking up mentally ill people is supposed to save the lives of those who wish to end their lives. But, it is an ugly business that involves keeping sick people in a fettered, unnatural environment with no adequate facilities or counselling services. It’s an archaic and out-dated practice that has no place in a civilised world. The hospitals are so underfunded and the services generalised. They can even perform electroconvulsive therapy without consent. In my own experience of waived consent, they enforced a legally binding order that forced me to take medication for six months (which made me overweight and at risk of diabetes) and strapped me down to a bed to restrain me. Such experiences leave deep, traumatic scars that are obviously counterproductive to healing already volatile and emotionally fraught individuals. Reducing stigma and increasing support in the community for those affected by mental health issues is key to aiding their recovery. Raising general awareness is also very important. Public awareness around anxiety and depression have greatly increased thanks to BeyondBlue and the Black Dog Institute, but there are many other illnesses such as bipolar and schizophrenia that are still relatively unknown. We can each do our bit to help even if you’re not a trained counsellor or psychologist or psychiatrist. A friend in need is a friend indeed.

wom*n’s collective / 13

by georgia kriz

sually, I am the first to denounce the idea of the sisterhood. To me, it’s patently obvious that not all women are fighting the same battles, wishing for the same things, or suffering under the weight of equal oppressions, or all of the above. It’s intersectionality 101: we are not a monolith of womanhood, nor are we a homogenised, amorphous mass. Usually, it is lazy, inaccurate and often offensive to treat us as such, and I decry all attempts to do so. Recently, however, I had an experience that made me question this belief. I found out a female friend had been starting conversations about my weight. Just casual text conversations along the lines of: “Do you think Georgia has gained weight?” Discuss, consider, to what extent do you agree, etc. I don’t really know how the friends on the receiving end of these messages reacted. I don’t really care either. Just like I don’t care for the substance of the message itself – the last time I weighed myself was somewhere in the middle of year 10 when I was bulking (I shit you not) for the rowing season. To paraphrase old mate Adele: I don’t care about my weight as long as it doesn’t affect my health or my sex life. And at this stage, I’m healthy and I have a lot of really fucking great sex, thanks for asking. Just like I don’t care for the substance of the message, I have come to realise I really don’t care for the woman who sent it. Not because of whatever insecurity she may have, but because in regards to this issue, I think the sisterhood is real and she has betrayed it. As women, we’re divided by class, race, ability and sexuality, and all the privileges and oppressions that these factors - and a million others - sew into our skin. But we should never be divided by the issue of weight or body. Regardless of who we are or where we come from, our worth should never be indexed to our weight. There’s enough hatred of female bodies being cultivated out there without us contributing to it.

wom*n’s collective / 14

growing strong

by caitlin still

Does she visit your sleep where you lie in the garden? the day of the white cotton dress where she sighed? beneath you in grass where you ground her through green and soiled her in the dirt beneath Do you see her in stone walls so far from your Eden?

There where you lie with your immaculate bride; innocent, ignorant holding her head high?

Face flushed and ragged at the convent copper, that other’s acid-faced reflection twists in the simmering water white nightgowns quiver like the dress she once wore once in the green where you lay before her fall, to stone dormitory brown pinafore, iron gates stretch through sky

growing strong

XXX

by steph white

nowing that contraception was banned in Ireland until 1980 and that abortion is still illegal, I wasn’t expecting a particularly liberal approach to sex education when I travelled there on exchange in year 10. The reality of the experience however, made it pretty clear why there were two pregnant girls in the school, and one with a kid.

of a partial birth abortion without the chance to opt out or mention of the fact that the vast majority of abortions occur in the first trimester.

In my two terms at the all-female Catholic school in Tipperary, I had one class that could be (generously) labelled sex education. We were treated to an extensive lecture on the benefits of abstinence emphasising it as the only 100% effective method. The irony of being told this in a classroom with a portrait of the Virgin Mary on the wall seemed to escape the rest of the class.

This trend echoes the colloquially named ‘contraception trains’ of the 1980s, on which Irish women travelled to Northern Ireland to buy condoms. The trip to the UK to terminate a pregnancy is not illegal, but it is broadly stigmatised and often prohibitively expensive. Perhaps this is why my barely religious host sister, who was raising a two year old at the age of 20, told me that she never even considered the option.

The second portion of the lesson focused on the calendar method, to be used “if we must”. I’ve never had to sit through instructions on analysing vaginal mucus since, for which I’m quite grateful. What wasn’t mentioned was that, as well as stopping you from having sex for about 12 days in the month, the method has an estimated effectiveness rating of less than 75%. Maybe the pregnant 17 year old in the grade above could have benefited from a quick mention of condoms, or god forbid (apparently literally) the morning after pill. The other lesson which sticks in my mind is the lesson on pregnancy taught by, I am not kidding, a nun. We learnt such interesting ‘facts’ as that by two months into the pregnancy the baby already loves you and has a personality. We were shown extremely graphic pictures

With abortion continuing to be against the law, thousands of Irish women travel to the UK each year to obtain the procedure.

I have many incredible memories of my trip to Ireland. I experienced real snow for the first time and got to live through the Jedward phenomenon as it happened. I will also now never make the mistake of asking if anyone has a rubber in Maths because apparently they say eraser there. That was however the only time I heard condoms mentioned at school. Ireland clearly has some work to do when it comes to awareness of safer sex. Perhaps they could start by not labeling unplanned pregnancies ‘crisis pregnancies’. While doing some research for this piece, I came across the hip government website b4udecide.ie, which helpfully informs the teenagers of Ireland that “if a boy doesn’t have sex, his testicles will not explode”. Well, I guess that’s a start.

wom*n’s collective / 15

growing strong

by julia readett

ust across the road from Redfern Station, a group of Indigenous activists have been working tirelessly to fight for Indigenous housing on Indigenous land.

women linked arms and defended the Tent Embassy against the onslaught of police officers, cheekily known as “Kunt-stables”, from tearing down the Embassy.

On May 26 or National Sorry Day, Wiradjuri elder Jenny Munro nee Coe and her team pitched tents on The Block and started a legacy of resistance and strength that is now the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy.

Another woman present during the early stages of the Embassy was a young Yugambeh girl, Nicole Watson. Now a senior researcher at Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at UTS, Nicole reflects on the enduring significance of the Embassy in a collection of essays called The Aboriginal Tent Embassy: Sovereignty, Black Power, Land Rights and the State (2014).

The Block is owned by the Aboriginal Housing Company and has been owned by Indigenous people since 1970. But this land will be subject to a $70 million overhaul involving the construction of retail spaces, gymnasiums, and housing for 62 families and 150 students. Sounds pretty shiny, but this grand plan does not specify Aboriginal housing on this Aboriginal land. Through a very cold and wet winter and a volatile spring, Aunty Jenny and her team have stood together, camped together, eaten together and kept the sacred fire ever-burning in complete resistance to these developments that blatantly fail to include the people the land is intended for. The Redfern Embassy comes from a tradition initiated in 1972 when Coalition Prime Minister William McMahon refused to acknowledge Aboriginal rights. As a result, four Aboriginal men planted a beach umbrella on the lawns of Parliament House and occupied their land to communicate their dissent, disapproval and anger at being reduced to second-class citizens. Amongst a group of incredibly brave and powerful activists such as Chicka Dixon, Gary Foley, Paul Coe and John Newfong, Aboriginal women were always at the forefront of the fight for lands rights. Isobelle Coe, Jenny Munro’s sister, Mum Shirl, Pearl Gibbs, Shirley Smith, Roberta Sykes are just the names of a few. In her 2014 documentary, blues musician and activist Marlene Cummins reflects on the way in which

wom*n’s collective / 16

Nicole speaks of the way in which the Embassy is a form of decolonisation that uses “outsider storytelling” to challenge those that hold power and build community cohesion amongst Indigenous activists through embracing their own unique culture for resistance rather than working through the structures that oppress them. This visibility of culture, community cohesion through the practice of traditional culture is palpable when you visit the Tent Embassy. The sacred fire burns, the camp oven is filled with delicious food and the emerging community garden flourishes. RATE is a stunning testament to the way in which decolonisation can be achieved through not just working outside the structures of the government, but building your own forms of resistance out of love, family, community and culture. The Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy is always grateful for donations of money, resources, time and support. If you are interested in donating or visiting the Embassy, please contact Julia Readett on 0417494331. The author would also like to note that as a nonAboriginal woman, she is privileged to be welcomed to the Embassy despite being a colonial beneficiary of Indigenous land and complicit in a colonialist society that continues to oppress Indigenous Australia.

growing strong

lena Farrante’s My Brilliant Friend tells the story of a friendship that two women share. It spans a lifetime and what will be four books — only three are out so far. Female friendship is typified by hugs, pillow fights, tears over boys and ultimately “sisterhood”. This novel, however, is not interested in these things and their deeply naïve, superficially celebratory tropes. The friendship in this book is defined by envy, competition and cruelty, but also fierce loyalty. Ferrante carefully illuminates a relationship that spans the ages. To date, it is 1200 pages long and spread across three decades. It begins in post-war Naples, in a poor neighbourhood, in a kindergarten classroom. Two girls from impoverished families quickly become each other’s only formidable competition, or rather, our narrator Lena perceives the beautiful, enigmatic and capable — ‘brilliant’ — Lila to be her only competition. In Lena’s eyes, Lila is extraordinary. Lila is capable of anything; she is insurmountably better at everything, seemingly without trying; she is endlessly creative and deeply manipulative, wild and unpredictable, but she is also beautiful and has an inexplicable effect on men. What quickly emerges is a friendship defined by jealousy, not by mutual affection. Though allies, they fall in and out of liking each other, and seem cemented by the mere self-spoken fact of their friendship. By the end of the first novel, when the girls are both 16, despite Lena’s continual submission to Lila, the reality of their situations has altered drastically. Lila drops out of school and gets married while Lena is offered the opportunity to continue her classical studies in high school. The reader is left asking who really is the “brilliant friend” here. The initial summary I offered of this being a story about a female friendship seems misguided at this point. We hear from only one party about their friendship and it becomes apparent by the end of the first novel that we are not reading about how Lena and Lila relate to each other, but about how Lena relates to herself. The novel’s characters exist as projections and we are increasingly encouraged to look beyond what Lena tells us. Her narrative is tainted by her inability to value herself, and this colours the “brilliance” of those around her. Lena proves not only to be trapped in this town, her family, the role of being subservient to her crippled mother, but within her own mind. Her psychology and the ultimate blight of solipsism is her truest prison. This novel is so painful because it is so claustrophobic. With time you too become trapped in this world with Lena. Ferrante offers a sweeping epic: family trees, intergenerational squabbles and endless subplots. Her prose is bald and without flourish, yet this is one of the ugliest books I have ever read. Brutality

and violence are everywhere in this Neapolitan neighbourhood, but what is most affective about this book is its ability to make the reader feel truly ugly. In Lena and Lila I see many of my youthful female friendships. Friendships defined by something I wanted in another girl and something I needed to have over another girl. (I say girl intentionally. These are the sorts of relationships I like to think that ‘women’ grow out of.) One of us the smart one, the other the pretty one; one of us funny, the other intellectual; the skinny one, the big-breasted one. A friendship not of acceptance or even mutual affection, but one based on the consumption of someone else’s flaws. If you know the sort of friendship I am referring to then you know that they are not malicious, they are simply ugly. They are based on your singular insecurities and desperation for validation more than they are on any conscious desire to hurt someone else. The term ‘confidence gap’ comes to mind. Katty Kay and Claire Shipman’s piece for The Atlantic on the subject made waves because it pointed to something that any woman will notice if she speaks frankly to another whom she considers successful: women consistently undervalue themselves. My Brilliant Friend dramatises the confidence gap so effectively because you as the reader are so fully folded into Lena’s conscience that her own misconnections, projections and explanations seem so true. When Lena tells you that nothing Lila does is an accident, you feel compelled to believe her, even after witnessing Lena succeed through her own secret accidents. As Lena and Lila grow older, it becomes apparent that they may physically be able to leave their home town but Lena seems interminably trapped in her own brain, the brain and psychologies that were made and cemented by the world she lives in. It’s ugly, but ultimately they have each other. Even though both of them are broken and small, they push each other to see beyond the world they were born into. Lena says that there conversations “ignited my brain … we tore the words from each other’s mouth, creating an excitement that seemed like a storm of electrical charges”. For all of my uglier, youthful friendships that Lena and Lila remind me of, they also remind me of some of my more mature, rewarding and strong friendships. My Brilliant Friend is a wild ride and one I thoroughly recommend. Not because of the story, however, but because of how closely you are asked to stare at yourself in the mirror and how plainly your own mind is laid bare.

wom*n’s collective / 17

growing strong

photo by ellen virgona

wom*nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collective / 18

growing strong

wom*nâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s collective / 19