Knowledge is power — or so the saying goes. So why is it that many people in government are such ignoramuses?
Hehe, FF, don’t be stupid … Power is about money, tax havens, tax evasion, in other words the golden rule: those that have the gold make the rules.
Politics is also the art of what is possible, of the end justifying the means (salute Machiavelli!), dog whistles and the like. Corruption and whatever-gates. You get my drift 😉
All the same, there are times in which a flicker of light makes me think that some level of change is possible. Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, son of the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, born and bred into politics and power, gave politicians of every persuasion and from everywhere in the world a master class on how it is possible to understand how things work and not slip into waffle (Malcolm Turnbull, take note).
Last Friday April 15 2016, Justin Trudeau announced a government investment of $50 million over five years, at the Perimeter Institute in Ontario. In a tongue-in-cheek manner, a reporter asked him to explain quantum computing. The PM didn’t hesitate to answer and received a standing ovation from the public.
‘So what?’ I hear you say. ‘I could do that myself … What’s so special about Justin Trudeau anyway?’
Everything: his background, his politics, his compassionate approach to the refugee issue, his feminism (50% of his cabinet is female), his family, even his suits and his smile. Most importantly, for those of us who appreciate intelligence in its different manifestations, Justin Trudeau seems to be the typical PM who can listen to a brief, understand it, draw his own conclusions and re-transmit the information.
Beyond the anecdote and the soundbites, Justin Trudeau has given us voters a very good reason to expect politicians to lift their game (Bill Shorten, you got the memo?) regardless of their political persuasion. And don’t get me started on climate change denialists, conspiracy theorists, delusional zealots and the like.
Germaine Greer … A name that’s synonymous with feminism, English literature and Shakespeare scholarship … and brain farts 🙁
Germaine Greer on QandA (11/4/16). Photo by ABC.
Her comments on ABC’s QandA, broadcast yesterday April 11 from their Sydney studio, left me wondering … I could only find a link from News.com.au, which will have to do for now, given that there’s no YouTube link that I can easily embed.
GG was hell reasonable most of the time. She made a number of valid points on refugees, terrorism, the Panama Papers and Shakespeare. At some stage she expressed a firm disagreement with Dr Theodore Dalrymple, psychiatrist and author. He said that in his years of experience as a psychiatrist, he found that the underlying reason why men treat women violently is jealousy. GG replied that she thought it had everything to do with misogyny.
Germaine, Germaine, have you ever heard of pathological jealousy? By the way, it can also affect women …
Someone like her, who I’m sure can analyse Shakespeare’s Othello like no other, should know better. I’m not saying that misogyny isn’t part of the problem, but disqualifying a psychiatrist’s well founded observation wasn’t precisely a brilliant idea. First brain fart of the evening.
The best was yet to come, though … Stay tuned.
Questioner Steph D’Souza said, ‘When I was younger I found your work a great source of strength and inspiration. It helped me resist the limitations that society or even misogynists could place on me, but I find really confusing views you’ve expressed that transgender women are not real women. Why do you believe there is such a thing as a real woman? Isn’t that the kind of essentialism that you and I are trying to resist and escape?’
‘This is so difficult,’ Germaine responded. ‘The interesting thing to me is this, that if you decide, because you’re uncomfortable in the masculine system, which turns boys into men often at great cost to themselves — if you’re unhappy with that it doesn’t mean that you belong at the other end of the spectrum, that by expressing it that way.’
At this stage, I began wondering whether I’d had too much Verdelho with dinner …
GG continued, ‘We’ve got a problem now with the word “know” and we could spend a lot of time discussing what that means philosophically, is believe the same as “know”? Is true belief the same as knowing? None of this is easy. The difficulty for me, that women are constantly being told that they are not satisfactory as women, that other people make better women than they do and that the woman of the year may be Caitlin Jenner which makes the rest of the female population of the world feel slightly wry.’
Hang on a minute, Germaine. It doesn’t make me wry. How would you know? You don’t speak for me. Are you “all women,” m’dear?
‘I don’t believe that a man who has lived for 40 years as a man and had children with a woman and enjoyed the services, the unpaid services of a wife, then decides that the whole time he’s been a woman and at that point I’d like to say, “Hang on a minute, you believed you were a woman but you married another woman. That wasn’t fair, was it?”‘
You thought that was the whole brain fart? There’s more.
Wisecracking Germaine finished her comment saying to the host, Tony Jones, ‘I belong in this hole.’
And effin’ stay there, Germaine. In the hole.
Last year she uttered fiery claims that transgender women are ‘not real women’ and accused Caitlyn Jenner of misogyny for attempting to steal the limelight from the females in the Kardashian clan. That’s a very lazy point of view. Apparently she didn’t bother to inform herself on what it is to be transgender. The Internet is full of quality resources like this one published by the American Psychological Association (.org and .edu online resources are the quality ones… I’m sure Germaine knows that). My good friend Dr Vek Lewis is a Sydney Uni academic who is also an advocate and activist in the field of sexual minorities in Latin America, and he’s my go-to person when I have doubts on this topic. I bet that Germaine will surely benefit from a frank and robust conversation with Vek.
I look forward to a debate between Vek and Germaine …
What most surprises me is that as different sciences move fast and elegantly, and do research on gender that go beyond capricious beliefs, Germaine Greer sticks to “her guns” (whatever those guns are). She used to be a feminist hero of mine. She opened my eyes to different possibilities, beyond those of being a wife and mother. Now she appears to be slamming the door shut in the face of transgender people, bordering on vilification.
Nobody can deny that a contrarian and provocateur like Germaine Greer has enormous entertainment value on television. However, her manner of entertainment isn’t helpful at all. QandA now owes us, faithful audience, some quality feminism. Bring Eva Cox, Anne Summers, Raewyn Conell, Naomi Wolf, Isabel Allende, Susan Faludi, Rigoberta Menchú and Tara Moss. Bring others. Let Germaine stay in her “hole”.
Catcha later, a glass of Verdelho is calling me. FFJ 🙂
Many years ago I read Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ groundbreaking book “Women That Run with the Wolves”.
Not the same cover, but voilà… The book that found me at Cairns airport.
At least for me it was completely groundbreaking. It gave me the possibility of re-reading stories that are part of universal lore presented in an erudite, “exegetic” book. As it happens with many of these good books, WTRWTW crossed my path by chance (or perhaps not) at Cairns airport while waiting for a connecting flight back to Sydney. I had to “kill” nearly four hours in between flights, so I decided that the best thing to do would be to buy myself a book. Probably the best “impulse purchase” of my whole life, and believe me when I say I’ve allowed myself more than my fair share of impulse purchases …
Nearly nineteen years after that afternoon at Cairns airport, a few weeks ago at the gym, I bumped into Lauren Kennedy, one of my gym and aqua mates. After the Body Balance class we both took, she pinned up a poster on the communal corkboard at the entrance:
Wild Women Wakening poster workshop, or how to follow a hunch.
I didn’t have to think it over twice, and announced to Lauren that I wanted to participate and a few hours later I signed up for Wild Women Wakening. More often than not, those hunches tend to work to my advantage when they’re informed by deep intuitive knowledge rather than on a whim. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, the wolves and the enormous wealth of intuitive knowledge that “Women That Run with the Wolves” brought into my life was conjured up from my subconscious depths. Yay! 🙂
On Day 1, though, I was feeling really sad and disconnected. My creative thoughts had gone missing in action, until Lauren handed us our sketchbooks. My drawing is pretty bad, but colour pencils lit a pilot creative light that flickered on. I wrote this:
We spoke about “La Loba” and read the short story from WTRWTW. I had this vision of a trip in the desert, with all its typical colours. I’m driving a Tesla car, and quickly find myself in the middle of nowhere. Fear turns into panic and I stop.
The sky is studded by a million stars and I begin to yield into the grandeur of its infinity and mystery.
“I don’t know where I am. I don’t know and I don’t care.
No sé dónde estoy. No sé ni me importa.
Without giving it a second thought, I step out of the car. Nothing around me, nothing but “darkness visible”.
I should be…
Scared!!!
But I am not! And yet I know I’m not alone. She’s with me — La Loba!
I don’t dare turn around. My feet won’t move.
FROZEN FEET, FROZEN ME!
Stars everywhere, but no Moon.
‘Hear me!’ says La Loba. ‘Oi!’
I feel like an impostor, but she doesn’t know.
‘Hear me!’ she repeats. ‘You’ll be fine. You’re not alone. You’ll be a friend of the stars. I’m here and so are the bones… Those bones…’
At the sole mention of bones, I’m left wondering if I should be afraid, but I’m not.
‘I’ll teach you things. You’ll start with bones and create life. BE LIFE! You’re not alone!‘
In all fairness to my dear readers, I have to say I had intended to write a “diary” of the workshop, which has already run for a whole month and will continue until the end of April. But in the same breath I decided that the creative “muscle” that I’m exercising every Monday morning doesn’t need to become part of a discussion in the online world. Some “innerspaces” should remain so, methinks. Self-marketing time lasted almost two years (part of 2014 and most of 2015). I’m now engaged in self-reflection, and enjoying it 🙂
All the same I’d love to mention my fearless fellow “creatresses”, Marilyn and Claire, in whom I found kindred spirits, as well as in Lauren herself. It’s become a very exciting part of my weekly routine to catch up with them in that beautiful space we share in Mount Victoria, and share our personal creative journeys in a spirit of cooperation and mutual support.
Have a nice evening and see ya later, FFJ 🙂
Writings, ranting, ramblings and more. This site is work in progress…and so am I!
