Soapbox

I watched The Cove and I cried. You should watch it too. #thecove

by Veronica on August 28, 2011

in Grief, Headfuck, Soapbox

It’s like poking at a sore tooth, wanting to flip the world upside down and peer at the dark underbelly of humanity and our arrogance.

I make myself do these things because I feel I need to bear witness, and then in turn, ask other people to bear witness with me.

I watched The Cove tonight on ABC and I cried. The slaughter of dolphins in a cove in Japan, when the water turned red with blood.. Images of dolphins trying to escape and the screams of the babies as they were stabbed to death will make me cry for while yet.

Dolphins are possibly, more intelligent than humans. They are self aware and yet, we insist on killing them. Most dolphin meat isn’t sold as dolphin meat, but sold as whale meat (which: whole other issue, humans should not be killing whales either).

The dolphins that are killed are the ones rejected by the dolphin trainers. Deemed not pretty enough, or perfect enough to be sold to places like Seaworld, they are herded into the cove and slaughtered. Every single one.

If we didn’t have a market for captive dolphins, would the slaughter still continue? I don’t know.

I can’t do anything to help, except throw a little money the way of the campaign and add my voice to theirs.

I am standing up to say that this isn’t right and more steps should be taken to stop it.

You can watch The Cove on iView if you missed it. It’s available for 13 days, after that you’ll need to buy the DVD.

Have tissues handy.

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My views on welfare reforms for teenage mothers

by Veronica on May 5, 2011

in Headfuck, Soapbox

Teenage mothers are going to be running the gauntlet in trying to keep food on the table, with the government announcing new welfare reforms for young parents. Once their child is 6 months old, they will be expected to attend Centrelink interviews once a week and will be forced into compulsory education or work training after their child turns one.

“It’s not a question of punishment, it’s a question of providing opportunity.” says Wayne Swan, Treasurer.

And with that comment, my blood pressure starts to rise and I’m not sure if I should yell about things, or cry at the stupidity.

I had Amy when I was 17, so I have a vested interest in teenage mothers and the help provided for them. I also know how hard parenting is, regardless of age and I’m not sure a policy that seeks to make life harder for a minority of parents is, in any way, a helpful thing.

Centrelink interviews are time consuming. You sit in a waiting room for an hour, waiting to be seen by someone who only knows you as a case file number. Add in a 6 month old child, who may or may not be an “easy” baby and a stressed mother, who may or may not have had any sleep and it feels like a recipe for disaster. I couldn’t find the time to shower and eat when Amy was a baby, let alone lug everything into the city and spend half a day waiting to have my name ticked off, so that money would continue to trickle in. And believe me, Centrelink is a trickle, it’s not a flood of cash, or an easy life.

I’m curious as to why, you can leave school at 16, but now, if you have a baby as a teenager, once your child is one, you will be forced back into schooling, or certificate level training.

Sure, it all looks great on paper, but who is looking after the toddler while Mummy is forced out of the house?

I see that 100% of the childcare costs will be covered by the federal government. Do they really feel that is it better to force young mothers to give the care of their child over to “professionals” while they “better themselves”? We’ll leave aside the issues of finding decent childcare to begin with.

And I’m sorry, but at any age, parenting is IMPORTANT. Kids need parents who are around. Childcare workers, while lovely, are not the same as Mummy and Daddy.

I know you’re going to argue with me that “These kids having kids, they need help and prospects” and I’ll agree there. They DO need help and they DO need support.

BUT – this is not the way to do it.

It feels like punishment for young women daring to fall pregnant.

You know what we need? Sex education in schools. Free contraception. Discussion and advice.

We do not need to make mothers feel like second class citizens, no matter their age.

This is hearkening back to the 70’s, when unwed teenage mothers were put in homes until their baby was born. Then the mother was forced to give her baby up for adoption and life went on as normal for everyone else.

I am angry, I am so so angry. Beating teenage mothers with a stick is not the answer to the problem.

Did anyone in the government think to speak to a teenage mother and find out what hardships she is facing and how it could be made easier for her? No?

How about I put my hand up.

Dear Labor Government: I would be more than happy to meet with you and discuss the real issues facing teenage mothers, so that you can have an insight into Real Life and not life as it’s written on paper.

Bedhair

 

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NIMBYism, hate and why “boat people” aren’t going to eat your face

by Veronica on April 21, 2011

in Soapbox

NIMBY = Not In My Back Yard.

And so over a fortnight has passed since the announcement that a detention centre will be built at the old army barracks in Pontville, around 25 minutes from where I live, and I am still spending a lot of time throwing my arms in the air and shouting at the TV ‘OH MY GOD, THEY ARE NOT HERE ILLEGALLY. REALLY!’

The attitude portrayed by some members of the local community has been appalling. “But they’re BOAT PEOPLE. If they had all that money to get here by boat, they should have arrived on a plane.” Yes, an actual comment. I was tempted to throw the newspaper across the car, but it wouldn’t have changed anything.

A grand total of 4% of asylum seekers arrive by boat. FOUR PERCENT. So, of the 400 asylum seekers to be housed at Pontville, roughly, oh, 16 of them arrived by boat? Maybe 17, if we want to be generous and round up.

One lady said that she didn’t like it because her house overlooks the detention site. Another asked if maybe we could house them somewhere else? Just for his peace of mind you see, there’s no telling what those people would do if they escaped into the community.

I’ve been trying very hard not to read comments about the detention centre, or asylum seekers, because I start to get twitchy when I hear blatant ignorance being spouted as fact and there is only so much ranting I can expect Nathan to listen to.

But let’s talk about it here.

It is not illegal to seek asylum, even if you’re arriving by boat. According to Australia’s agreement as part of the UN, Australia is legally obligated to take people seeking asylum. No matter HOW they get here.

They are not criminals. Government policy is what locks them up behind razor wire and 3m fences, not criminal activity.

We do not know what they ran from, but likely it’s worse than not being able to buy milk for their morning coffee. They are here because they fled for their lives.

If I hear one more person shout “BUT THEY’RE QUEUE JUMPING” I might just start throwing things. They are not queue jumping. There is no line to get into Australia.

“BUT THEY’RE HERE ILLEGALLY!” – See my first point. It’s not illegal to seek asylum. What is illegal is overstaying your visa – but we don’t hear anyone screeching about the white British backpackers who are here illegally. Is it a skin colour thing? Or maybe it’s religion…

The term “Boat People” upsets me. Not only is it plain wrong, but it paints the asylum seekers in a bad light. Like “Ooooooh, careful, the boat people will get you with their giant fangs and nasty nasty ways…”

They’re not “Boat People”. They are just people, who went through unspeakable things to get to a country, in the hope that they would be safe. Their religion, the colour of their skin, what they believe in, none of that matters.

They are just people. With families, and mothers and hopes and dreams.

Just people.

And we ought to show a little more humanity in welcoming them, instead of letting the politicians tell us what to think, because “STOP THE BOATS” is a handy election slogan, pandering to an upper-class white christian society, scared of colour and change.

Some good has come out of this, the Tasmanian Asylum Seeker Support page on Facebook has over 450 “likes” and the Mayor of Brighton, Tony Foster is requesting that the community remain as welcoming as we did back in 1999, when Brighton housed Kosovo refugees.

So the question remains, do people fear the asylum seekers because they’re secretly racist?

Or is there something else I’m missing here.

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International Women’s Day

by Veronica on March 8, 2011

in Soapbox

It’s a universal truth that women have had to fight twice as hard to get half the recognition of men. This year marks the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day and it shows us how far we’ve come from the suffragette movement of the early 1900’s. It also highlights how far we’ve still got to go, to reach true equality, in all things.

I’m one of the lucky ones. I’m white and I’m living in a developed nation. I have access to health care, I have a reasonable expectation that I won’t be sexually assaulted or abused and I have access to legal channels if these things happen. I’ve got next to no risk of contracting HIV and safe sex practises in my youth meant that whatever risk I had then was negligible.

Unfortunately, a good portion of women in the world are not as lucky, nor as protected as I am.

UNHCR is working to raise awareness of women across the globe, who still don’t have access to clean birthing conditions, who are living in refugee tents with their families, who run a real risk of being raped, just living their life.

90% of war victims at this point in time are civilian women and children, and HIV is running rampant.

In Bosnia, rape was used as a specific act of war. The age old ‘if you can’t wipe them out, then breed them out’ was taken seriously and thousands of Bosnian women were raped.

“Lustmord” at MONA highlights this, the work of ink on skin is a reminder of what the women lived through – the words taken from three different viewpoints, the rapist, the victim and a witness.

Lustmord 1994. Jenny Holzer.

I think the job that UNHCR is doing is fantastic, in all honesty. Providing clean birth kits to Somalian women to help decrease maternal and infant mortality is a wonderful thing.

However.

[And there is always a however with me.]

I am a big believer in ‘Think Global, Act Local’. I support everything UNCHR is doing, wholeheartedly, but I would like to know what the mortality rate for Aboriginal women giving birth in the Outback is.

The indigenous infant mortality rate in the Northern Territory in 2002 was 18.1/1000 births – higher than the combined non-indigenous infant mortality rate of ALL states and territories.

The lowest indigenous infant mortality rate was 9.5/1000 in NSW.

I’m sorry, but those numbers are horrific. We are a developed nation and yet, nearly 4 times the amount of aboriginal babies died in the Northern Territory in 2002? REALLY?

The average life expectancy also throws up large issues. The average life expectancy for an non-indigenous Australian woman is 82.6 years, yet for an indigenous women in the NT, it is a mere 50 years.

We have made huge strides in the last 100 years – International Women’s Day shows that, however, that entire hundred years was not forward progress for all women. The Stolen Generation (if you can’t wipe ’em out, them breed ’em out) is a sad history in Australia and the figures I have stated above shows just how far we’ve yet to come.

All we can hope for is continued forward movement, because looking at those numbers makes me realise just how very privileged my life truly is.

There is a push this year, to get people on social networks thinking about women who may not have a voice to speak out with.

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Figures taken from here.

Disclaimer: UNHCR contacted me and asked if I’d like to write about the work they are doing. I used this as my soapbox to get to talk about Aboriginal women; something that they didn’t bring up. I was not compensated for any of this post, nor would I ask to be. I like my soapbox, but you don’t have to.

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Ethics and integrity

by Veronica on March 1, 2011

in Blogging, Soapbox

A while ago, the Blog With Integrity movement swept through the US mummybloggers. Like most things, I ignored it, because having a button on my sidebar isn’t going to change who I am deep down, and you’ve either got integrity, or you don’t.

I spoke on a panel at the University of Tas almost 12 months ago and walked away knowing that because bloggers don’t have unions and a legal team to protect them, this means that we need to try twice as hard to adhere to good ethics.

Ethics are something we seem to avoid discussing here, because we don’t want to accuse anyone of not being ethical, but I think it’s a discussion that might be a bit overdue, so I’m going to jump up on my soapbox with a drum for a while.

Ethics are what make us good people. They’re the difference between us creating good original content, or being link farms. They’re what make us tread the line between being inspired by someone, or stealing content and making up a story to go with it. You don’t believe that happens? It does. Bloggers have had their lives stolen before and it will likely happen again.

You can have the best content in the internet, but if you’re not seen as honest, or ethical, people won’t touch you, and people are sponsors, they’re your traffic. People are everything.

It can take years to build a reputation, but treating people badly will destroy it, very quickly.

I have a few rules I stick to, that work for me.

1) You don’t know who someone is? It doesn’t matter. Treat everyone with the same amount of respect, regardless of how “big” or “small” you consider them to be on the Internet.

2) Be honest. If you say something, own it. You might still be wrong anyway, but at least you’ve owned it. You might also be in the right, and still spend hours defending what you said. Disclose your relationship with sponsors. I don’t care that it’s not law in Aus yet, transparency is never a bad thing. This is one area we can do better in than old media.

3) Link. Link link link link. You love something and it inspired you to write? LINK. You quote someone? LINK. You want to discuss a point that someone made? Link them. If you link, then people can read as much as possible on the topic you’re talking about. News sites sometimes forget to link when we’re quoted and bloggers get grumpy. It doesn’t mean that we have to forget to link too.

4) Be accessible. I want people to be able to comment here, honestly. I want feedback and I want conversation. Being accessible, for me, means following back on twitter and engaging in discussion. It means replying to tweets and following on from that…

5) Reply to emails. I cannot tell you how frustrating I find people who don’t reply to emails. I hate sending an email and getting no reply, I think it’s the height of rudeness. I like email conversations and backwards and forwards and will sometimes email for days with people. If you email me about something, I will reply. Exceptions are made for viagra sellers. If you’ve emailed me and I haven’t responded at all, it’s because my kids have been into my emails clicking things and it’s shown up as already read, so I don’t double check it. Send it again.

I strive to be nice to everyone. In real life, I am terribly awkward and I have issues with small talk and knowing what to say – that doesn’t mean I’m not nice, or that I don’t like you. It means that I have social anxiety and I don’t know what to say to make the conversation flow. You can find me at the conference either organising everyone like a drill sergeant (with much less screaming), or hyperventilating in the toilets.

We don’t have much in this online space to make us stand out, for goodness sakes, at least let us be seen as ethical.

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