If I had a voice

There are things I would say if I had a voice.

I don’t, you see – have a voice. Not an individual voice that is mine and that matters and can be heard over the din. Because it is put down, or written off, or labelled in a way that makes it worth less. Not worthless maybe, just worth less. I am told I am a mummy blogger, and maybe I am – but I am also not a writer, I am a woman writer. A woman who writes, predicated on gender; an aside, behind the hand, good at what I do for a woman. ;

There are moments in every woman’s life when she is both confronted by her womanhood and reviled by it – when it beats on her like a hammer, a mantra, a reminder of all that she is, all that she is not, all that is expected of her and all that is not allowed of her. To be a woman is to be mired in contradictory social conditioning that both contains us and undermines us.

(I am 13, walking to a fete on a hot day in a singlet and shorts, and some hoon drives past slowly, leaning out the window, making a lewd gesture. I bloomed late – I have no breasts, no curves, no signs of womanhood other than I am taller than I used to be. This is a rite of passage all young women face – this moment, of being unsure if this is a compliment or an insult, or somehow both. Feeling raw and slick with disgust and heat and shame and yet somehow pleased too, because only attractive girls get leered at, right? Right?)

I am a mother now, and this is an extra caveat to womanhood, an extra characteristic that defines me as Other. I am a mother with that this pertains – the guilt, the boredom, the terror and fleeting moments of joy; joy so sharp and poignant it is more like a bandaid being torn off than any permanent emotion. Like a quick rip through the heart that leaves you blinking back tears, because this joy feels almost like grief too – I get this, yes I get this joy but the compromise is so great. There is so much I lose. The cost is so high. Motherhood is another way of losing one’s voice, after all.

I had no voice today in the shopping centre – the mother rocking a wretchedly sobbing infant in her arms – while in the pram, a toddler mimics the wails of the infant. An old man walked past, staring at me like I’d ruined his day, like I’d brought my children into his space and deliberately upset them, so the shrieks echoed through the vaulted mall in a way that is perfectly toned to make your ears itch. If I spoke then, my voice would have been lost in this old man’s judgement. Mothers are not supposed to inflict their children on public spaces, THEMSELVES on public spaces. Do not be a mother in a shopping centre doing her shopping for dinner, trying to get out of the house for an hour, to make the scenery change for a moment of a day otherwise filled with childish chatter. Do not be a mother whose children are not perfectly silent and still mannequin models of good behaviour. Do not be a mother who is trying her best, getting through the day, trying to cope. Do not be a mother, because mothers have no voice.

Mothers are in the home, most often, because it makes sense after a traumatic or exhausting birth, or a c-section, to be the one to stay home. It makes sense, being the one who breastfeeds, or even bottle feeds; it makes sense when doing the night wakings. It makes sense for me to stay home now with the second baby because I stayed home with the first one, and after several years of a slow domestic tilt where everything slides in my direction, it makes sense that it is my studies that stop, my career that grinds to a halt, my earning opportunities that pass by unnoticed because I am a mother, and this is what mothers do. I stay home and contemplate the scars on my body, the medicalisation of my genitalia, the baby on my breast. I stay home because it is easier, and anyway mothers who don’t stay home are judged too. ;

If I talk too loudly about my needs and wants, if I try to speak up about equality – for any woman who speaks up about equality – there are other ways of being silenced. There is the label of ‘feminist’ – not the meaning, just the word – the label that some say needs ‘re-branding’, as though it is an item for sale rather than a thought or a need. There’s the ubiquitous, ‘but I’m not a feminist’, as though it’s a club you sign up for a membership for rather than a way you live your life, a definition of your core beliefs. So this word, feminism-in-quote-marks, it comes to represent all of these things that it does not actually mean, it becomes an insult and a pejorative explanation, a political ideal and a movement that is picked over by those against is so they can say, ‘feminism has failed’, like it were a child, when really this is just another way of shutting us up. By saying ‘feminist’ as though we don’t matter. ‘Feminist’ as though our words have no import – after all, it is only a feminist who is speaking.

(It is 2009. I am in a relationship with a man, watching the slow wince form on his face when I speak too long and too loud on the gender pay gap, on domestic violence statistics, on cases of sexual assault. I am in a relationship with this man who professes to love me but at the same time, would prefer it if I didn’t talk about the things that matter to me, the life I live and the fear I face simply by being a woman. I am in a relationship with a man who wants to play ‘devil’s advocate’ and try and tear holes in the things I say or deny my experiences because he can. And one day I wake up and realise I don’t love him, I don’t want to be with him, I shouldn’t waste anymore of my time on him because someone who would rather I be silent is not someone I can trust. I end it, but he won’t ever understand.)

There are things I would say if I had a voice, but I don’t by virtue of being a woman. By virtue of being a mother, a feminist. I am categorised and allotted a certain space in this world, slightly over and above those who do not have the privileges that I have (the right skin colour, the right gender identity, the right sexuality, the right socioeconomic background, the right abled body, et cetera, et cetera), and I, like most women, am told I will be assigned someone to speak on my behalf, to choose my reproductive rights, my pay grade, my career opportunities – and when I look up to see whose voice will actually be heard, it is usually a man.

As it has always been men, a whole establishment of them. Calling us ‘feminazis’ with a sneer. Legislating our bodies. Marking us down on a list, splitting us into little categories, some with more privilege than others, deciding our rights and where we fit, writing us off as good at what we do ;for a woman. ;

Telling us where we fit. Mummy blogger. Woman writer. Just a stay at home mum. Just a woman. ;

Which might as well be nothing at all.

;

;

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In defence of same-sex marriage. Or, as some of us like to call it: marriage.

When it comes to the arguments against same-sex marriage, I like to play a little game. Remove the word ‘gay’, and either replace it with the word ‘human’, or ‘people’, or switch some words around, or do without it altogether. Would you like to play? Here’s the gist of some of the anti-gay marriage arguments, in original form:

• Gays don’t need to get married, they have all the same legal rights now with civil unions. It’s just attention-seeking.
• Gay marriage only effects a minority, so therefore it’s too much effort to change those laws.
• If gays can marry it’s just the start of it… next people will want to marry their dogs.
• I have lots of gay friends and they don’t want to get married so why bother?
• Being gay is a choice.

This does not, of course, cover the full idiocy of anti-gay marriage arguments, however we’ll get to that later. First, lets play word swap and examine how these statements change.

• [People] don’t need to get married, they have all the same legal rights now with civil unions. It’s just attention-seeking. Of course, everyone has the same legal rights without marriage. Being officially partnered (that is, the government recognises that I am in a long-term, de facto relationship with my partner), I have pretty much every right that a married couple does (I could even take his last name, without ever signing a marriage certificate). I am my partner’s next-of-kin, his medical authority, all our assets and income are joint, and if we (for some unforeseen reason) were to separate at this point, it would be the same complicated mess of asset-division, joint custody and other unspeakable horrors. So if everyone has access to these rights without the necessity of marriage, then clearly nobody needs marriage. It should be abolished.
• [M]arriage only effects a minority, so therefore it’s too much effort to change those laws. If you remove the word ‘gay’ from the above sentence, you see the angle here. Not everyone is married. Or going to get married. Some people spend most of their lives not-married. Some get married, then get divorced, then get married again. Children are too young to marry. And so on and so on. Basically, because marriage does not affect the entire population, no laws should ever be made that change it. Ever. And maybe we should repeal some of those much, much older laws – we’ll go back to the golden era where women were property and divorce was impossible without some sort of decree from the Pope and you had to read the banns for a month before you wed to prevent Mr Rochester from bigamy (and oh, poor Jane Eyre…)
• If [humans] can marry it’s just the start of it… next people will want to marry their dogs. This argument is too stupid to exist, and yet it does. I mean, same-sex marriage… REALLY. If humans can marry humans then soon we’ll want to marry a cow or an inanimate object or a child or some other poor thing that can’t consent. Or we’ll want to marry our siblings on reality shows, because people like to watch train wrecks, and produce genetically deformed incest-children, which we’ll then marry. One consenting human marrying another consenting human is a stepping stone to hell.
• I have lots of friends and they don’t want to get married so why bother? I have simply removed the word ‘gay’ from this argument, and it still wallows in its stupidity. See also: above argument about changing laws for minorities. So if not everyone wants to get married, NOBODY should get married. This argument has the added bonus of presenting the speaker as someone who isn’t discriminatory (I have gay friends! And black ones! Sometimes I listen to reggae!), they just don’t see the point. The reality is this: if your straight friends don’t want to get married right now, they can change their mind later. Your gay friends can’t.
• Being [human] is a choice. You see how this argument turns itself around by replacing one word? Saying your sexuality is a choice is like saying your chromosomes are a choice. Granted, some people go through periods of confusion about their sexuality (as a teenager I decided I was a lesbian, but clearly since then I have had sex with a man). While I may not be entirely heterosexual, I have made a choice to be in a heterosexual relationship, because I fell in love with a hetero man. But we have to be careful about the distinctions here – it’s my choice to be in a relationship with him, but I did not choose who I fell in love with. I didn’t choose his gender. I am happier in a relationship with him, so here I stay. People who are only capable of having romantic or sexual feelings for one gender, whether it be the opposite gender or the same gender, also do not choose who they fall in love with. To say you can choose who you love is like saying you can choose whether to be a human or a chimp – your opposable thumbs aren’t optional, you are what you are.

(As a side note here, I’d like to point out that there are some people who are attracted to both genders, or more one gender but occasionally the other, and they don’t choose that either. And in fact, it’s damn fucking hard to figure out who you are and what you want and who you’d like to sleep with when there are societal pressures saying that you must be either Column A or Column B.)

But marriage is about family!

I’d like to move on now to address one of the biggest anti-gay marriage arguments: that marriage is about procreation, the protection of the family unit, the safety of children – you know the rest.

I am not married (gasp!) but I have a child. Alex and I live together as a family, and as I said above, we have all the rights of a married couple. Therefore, I seem to breaking the cardinal law of family life – we are a happy, functioning unit, and yet our child is a bastard. I said it. He is illegitimate. However, I’ve read enough historical romance novels to know that because Alex gave our son his last name, he will be recognised as his heir according to primogeniture, unless another son shows up in the future that’s born of the marriage bed.

OH WAIT IT’S NOT 1815.

We intend on getting married, someday. At the moment we’re too busy twiddling our thumbs and rearranging the furniture or something. But that’s our choice. As a heterosexual couple, nobody decries our lack of marriage certificate. Although I’ve looked very closely, I’ve seen no sign that Sebastian is aghast at the lack of a piece of paper. He sees only two parents, that love him very much and love each other. What would the child of a same-sex couple see? Exactly the same thing, but with one major difference – we have the choice to marry, and his or her parents do not.

Some gay marriage objectionists state that having gay parents is a disadvantage to the child. This is bunk. In fact, studies show that children of gay parents are just as well-adjusted as children of hetero parents (here) and in fact, that children of lesbian parents (because more studies exist on lesbian parents) are more likely to be less aggressive and nurturing (boys) and the girls are more likely to aspire to traditionally male-based professions (article here). Some objectionists decry the bullying that may result for a child of gay parents. Well, amazingly, bullying exists, and you know what? That’s not the parents’ problem. That’s society’s problem. Bullying and discrimination occurs because of race, socio-economic status and gender anyway – and yet nobody says that only white people should be allowed to marry and have children, or only wealthy people.

I was raised with every advantage – a child of hetero, married parents, with jobs and education, who are intelligent and raised me to think intelligently, with a comfortable socio-economic background. And I was bullied in school. This is society’s problem because society teaches us to be competitive and critical, to form elitist groups and exclusionary practices, to lower someone else’s status in order to elevate our own. Children emulate their parents’ behaviour, and if a child is raised with love and understanding, is taught ethics and morals, is shown to be kind and accepting by example… then what does it matter if those parents are a Mummy and a Daddy, or two Mums, or two Dads? In fact, wouldn’t same-sex couples, having probably been discriminated against themselves at some point, raise their children with tolerance? Don’t we all want to raise our children to be better than the previous generation? And exactly how does same-sex marriage make that ideal crash and burn…?

And if marriage is only for protection of the family unit, what about couples that never have children? I mean, you have to give childless couples leeway, at least until the female passes child-bearing age – but do we revoke their marriage licence the minute she hits menopause? Does that mean that the elderly couple, both widowed, who find love and comfort again in their old age, should be denied the right to marry?

I’m sure we all know single parents. What about them? The truth is that marriages break down. Or pregnancies happen unexpectedly, and sometimes one of the DNA contributors chooses not to stick around. Single parents aren’t single-handedly destroying the notion of family – they’re loving and raising their kids as best they can. We all make do with what we’ve got – we have kids, and fumble around in the dark trying to make those kids happy and healthy, and some parents find that their relationship break down and staying married would do their kid more harm than good. It’s better to be from a broken home than living in one, and raised with tension and despair chipping away at the child’s sense of the family unit. Happy families make happy children. So if a couple are in love, and want to get married and have kids and raise those kids in a loving environment, who the hell cares what genitals they have?

And if a gay couple get married and choose not to have children, how is that any different from a straight couple getting married and choosing not to have kids? Why is it anyone else’s business at all?

But waaah, marriage and religion!

This is possibly the most infuriating argument against same-sex marriage. The 2009 in Australia the ABS showed that secular marriage ceremonies had overtaken religious ceremonies in frequency (here) at 66.9% – about two thirds (how do you like being in the minority NOW, religious anti-gay marriage folks?!)

And if religion gets such a dominant say in marriage, does it also get to influence legislation on slavery and women’s rights and so on? And if marriage is dominated by religious, primarily Christian, beliefs, then how is that marriage is older than Christianity? I’m sure Christ didn’t just wake up one day, see a bunch of people living in sin and start rounding them up to take vows. The institution of marriage used to be primarily about the joining of families for alliances and land and goods. Men married for children and heirs and dowries, women married for protection and children and households of their own. So do we return to these old traditions? Imagine if you could only marry your potential spouse if she brought a comfortable enough dowry, or if he possessed enough goats to ensure wealth. In fact, there is a long and comfortable history of nobody getting to choose who they married – marriages were arranged for political reasons, and suck it up if you didn’t like your spouse (here).

These ideas are antiquated, and so is the idea that marriage is centralized in religion, property or heirs. Modern marriage is product of love, trust and belief in your future happiness, and these ideas are not gender or sexuality specific. Gay marriage does not destroy the family unit, it simply expands its definitions.

I can choose to marry my partner only because he is male and I am female. Disallowing same-sex marriage is discriminatory, and therefore a matter of the human right for equality. This is the core of my beliefs right here: even if I am heterosexual, I am still human. Marriage is a basic human right for all adults as a matter of expressing love and commitment. Making same-sex marriage illegal infringes on my human rights. Making same-sex marriage illegal infringes on everybody’s human rights, even if you are straight or asexual or confused, because saying that one sector of the population has less rights as a citizen than another is to try to make them less than human.

Women’s rights are human rights.
Children’s rights are human rights.
Racial equality is a human right.
Equality for the disabled is a human right.

Gay rights are human rights.

And in summary… if you don’t like gay marriage, don’t get one.

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