demonstrative

Oh dear god. The Body Shop has just been aquired by Loreal, the crusaders against animal testing, the force behind ethical consuming has just said 'Actually, it's ok to harm animals, sorry, this was just a big markting thing'.

I remember walking past a shop a few months ago and seeing t-shirts proclaiming womens rights right alongside little tampon holders that has MTV splashed all over them. The contradiction almost made me laugh. Since when did encouraging women to take of all their clothes and gyrate to bad pop songs in porn style video clips amount to female rights?

I don't know why this hit me so hard. Maybe it's because when I was young, the only company I could ever imagine wanting to work for was The Body Shop, maybe because I spent some good time reading about Anita Ruddock, and actually admired her. Maybe I'm just terrified about what will happen now, that the biggest anti animal testing brand in the world has basically just commenced animal testing. Maybe it's because that everything that starts out so well, seems to get corrupted and become the opposite of what it was.

I don't even want to talk about it. Go read it at Body Shop: Extreme Makeover (I stole the picture from there too)

UPDATE: I posted a comment on Anita Roddick's 'blog'. I had to sign up three times to different areas of the site and to acces the video interviews of her talking about Loreal. I don't think I left a mean comment, just one asking if she could, for the sake of all of us who have supported her over the years and now feel slightly hurt, give us a reason why something like this would get her indorsement. - the comment may still be over to the right on my coComment recent conversations. Anyway, of course, comments are regulated over there, so it wasn't published straight away, however I went back today and three new comments have been published, all gushing over how much they 'trust' Anita. Mine was obviously not 'pro Anita' enough. It's a weird feeling when you see the worst aspects of PR in action. For a self proclaimed activist to silence other caring members of society is a little strange and does make me think it actually was all marketing all along. When you see yourself being censored, you wonder how one sided the conversation really is. The funny part about it was that Tim was always skeptical and I was (for once in my life) NOT. I'm sure there is a lesson there.

I've just been over at the Brand Builder, and it reminded me of something I've always held true:

 "Watch the way people treat waiters. It'll tell you everything you need to know about what kind of person they are."

 It's something Tim and I talk about often, how to judge a person by the way they treat the 'lowliest' person in the room - funnily enough that's normally me. The amount of times I'm involved in a conversation with Tim and another guy and have to pinch myself to see if I really exist or if I am a figment of my own imagination, astonishes me. Waiters, shop assistants, all those people who are there but somehow appear not to be for a lot of people are often the best judges of charater you come across. That old 'feminine intuition' thing is also easy to figure out. It's hard to like someone when they think nothing of you just because you're a girl.

I actually have been a waitress (for one night). I was still at school, when I still kind of thought sexism was a myth. I thought it would be inrteresting to see how it would feel to be the unseen. It hurt. But I still remember the few people that night who were friendly to me, that's how dramatic an indicator the waiter test is.

I was just over at someones blog (sorry link is lost) who was talking about some 'mums brigade' against violent games. While I think some of the comments were valid (ie. "Maybe you should stop blaming video games and become a proper parent"), it's not really children I'm concerned about. Quite frankly, children shouldn't be playing violent video games, the only reason it keeps coming up is that parents keep letting them. We can talk all we like about it, but realistically do nothing. I'm more concerned about adult gamers. I reckon it's true, you shouldn't be allowed to censor video games, what we don't realise, is that at the moment, we are. Censorship is simply when something is not shown. Like for example, when we talk about censorship of the worst violence, like the American soldiers killing Iraqis game, we should be focused on what is ALREADY BEING CENSORED. Like the game about being an Iraqi with a bunch of white people carrying guns and media through your house and trying to kill you. Haven't heard of that game? Ah, well that's because it doesn't exist. Equally violent, equally horrific, but from another point of view, you know, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STORY.

I have a feeling its a human reaction to identify with your game personality, eg. if you see yourself as an American holding a gun and shooting the bad 'Iraqis', funnily enough, that will affect your opinion of American Soldiers and Iraqis. If you see yourself on screen as a cowering Iraqi running away from (or trying to fight back at) American Soldiers, you may identify with their plight. To me, not being given that opportunity is censorship at a MUCH higher level than me saying 'now it's released, please take it back' 

I have to ask (as many are after watching the video clip). State Senator Bill Napoli of South Dakota seems to spill his rape fantasy's when asked in what situation abortion should be ok. The weird way he repeats the most horrific lines, and focuses on the 'religious virgin' is about the freakiest thing I've ever heard. He's obviously put some good time into thinking about rape and his conclusions about 'the worst type of rape' seem to be more of a hideous description of the porn he probably watches than a serious belief that rape is somehow better for those who have already had sex, don't get sodomised and aren't religious.

I wish people would stop saying 'at the very least let rape victims have abortions', like somehow a foetus from a rape victim is less of a person than one from someone whos contraception failed. Can noone see that this directly contradicts that whole line about how they are stopping abortion because they believe 'every baby has a right to life'?

I was just looking at a few more opinions about the illegalisation of abortion in North Dakota and it struck me that two weeks/months/years from now when I am no longer simmering, the suffering will still be going on. It reminds me of the halabaloo over Australian Shapelle Corby last year when she was arrested and sentenced to 25 years for importing drugs to Indonesia. At the time you couldn't NOT hear her name every 5 seconds, Australians were threatening a full scale boycott of Indonesia, we all felt the pain and anguish of her potential innocence. But now, she is still rotting in jail and I haven't heard her name for months. Now the scandal has died down, it's like we all think it's over, like she too has packed up and gone home. At the time, I found the immense outcry interesting as I hadn't heard so much as a whimper about the many, many innocent Indonesians crammed into Australian jails for the sole crime of being a refugee.

So the mainstream media makes us immoral. We only care about anything while it is sensational, which means the media can force news down our throats happy in the knowledge that when they stop writing about it, we'll stop thinking about it. Out of sight, out of mind. Sometimes I wonder how it must feel to be a 'victim' of the mainstream media, to be like Schapelle, so overwhelmed with support for the first few months, only to have virtually everyone forget your plight shortly after. Or the women of North Dakota. When the 'abortion debate' has been publically debated, nothing changed and their lives now just that little bit worse, will they feel sad that the rest of the world has kind of forgotten about them?

Maybe that's why I get a little frustrated about 'baby steps', because the way our news is presented needs a complete overhaul. A little more practicality maybe, not the sudden drench then drought we currently get that allows us to think when the hype is over, the movie is over too. Maybe we could stop seeing the news as being a sort of reality TV Programme and realise the pain lasts longer than the scandal.

What I have never understood about 'homophobia' or whatever the term is for people who make other people's lives a misery because of sexual preference, is why? I know that seems like a dumb question because most people have an answer: 'They' are 'different', it's 'unnatural', 'they' are child molesters, "I don't mind it as long as they're not gay around me", "I'm not homophobic, but I'm not gay". But these are not the reasons why we are homophobic, the real reasons are nothing to do with homosexuals, they are to do with the threat they pose to accepted power structures.

Power Structures? Nah, it's just unnatural, look at what the bible says!

And I'm sure you believe that racism occurs because of skin colour and sexism occurs because everyone truely, innately believes females are weaker. Both actually stemmed out of a threat to power, mainly because each group under attack posed a real threat to the accepted power structures. There are a lot of black people, together they would naturally be quite globally powerful, or at the very least simply ignore the insignificant power of the white man. Women make up 50% of the planet, the easiest way to knock them out of the game? Make it generally accepted that they are too weak, make it impossible for them to become economically independent and prove you wrong. Phew! now we're just down to white men controlling the world. Lets keep it that way.

I know that sound a bit crazy, but realisitically the belief that humans intuatively feel prejudiced against non white males is just ridiculous, of course these beliefs are planted in us and of course those planting the seeds of hate are not doing so out of the same beliefs.

But what threat does homosexuality pose?

What was the motivation behind embedding in us this notion that it is so wrong? I don't see the major threat to white males. Is it simply removing a few more people from the power equation? A way to justify the testing of the Aids virus for later release on the Black Africans? Does that sound too extreme? The reason I think it's a biggie is because homosexuality is so very entrenched in nature that it must have been awfully hard to convince us it was 'different'.

Take, for instance, this article, a true story about two male penguins in Central Park Zoo in New York who adopted an egg and raised the baby. This story was tuned into a book and could be found in the non-fiction section of the childrens library. It caused quite a stir for having 'homosexual undertones' and had to be relocated to the fiction section so the children didn't realise it was a true story. How possibly can we logicalise a true homosexual story being banned from the non-fiction section because it has homosexual undertones? We can't. And since I believe we are largely logical creatures APART from in the face of overwhelming brainwashing, I must assume there is some serious brainwashing going on. I just wish I knew why.

Following on from my current theme of female rights, I have to point out this absolute tragedy for women in America. Despite all the evidence pointing to the fact that making abortion illegal doesn't curb the abortion rate, only increases the number of unsafe and unhygenic surgeries, good old America (with the full backing of God I assume) has decided. No. We the old men who run the world will decide whether or not a female in one of the most frightening circumstances they have faced has any form of decent choice. Nice notch in the belt for the land of the free. What freedoms exactly are you trying to protect with all these wars, the freedom to decide for others how they run their lives? mmm hmmm.

Im not sure what credentials those two terribly old men on the right have to be involved in a choice like this (thankfully these two voted against the legislation), however their fellow old men collegues felt differently and now the poor American women who, it appears have lost yet another freedom to the land of the free will have to follow the 'moral' advice of the old men who decide their fate for them.

Can some old man please tell me what right they have to make this choice? One who is one hundred percent sure that they or no one they know and respect has ever ever left a woman with an unwanted pregnancy and carried on their merry way. For goodness sake, you'd find that most women who get abortions are well aware they are killing a baby. Do you people understand how hard that is for someone? That females do not need old men to prescribe our morals for us that we have our own thanks, which makes a decison like that one of the hardest things some women have to face. EVER. Maybe you should instead inprison men who have unprotected sex, you know, the ones who lead women to fall pregnant with unwanted babies? That would cut the killing, oh but right, it may infringe on the rights of a male to do as he pleases in this world.

I don't hate many people, but I hate you for doing this. It is so so so wrong.

UPDATE  - For anyone who may potentially need this in the future, Molly Saves the Day has posted The Abortion Manuel

""Ski jumping is just too dangerous for women. Don't forget, [the landing] it's like jumping down from, let's say, about two meters to the ground about a thousand times a year, which seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view."

Sometimes it comes up in conversation when I do something like claim that something is 'female only' and my boyfriend takes issue with it being a type of reverse sexism, that girls having time alone will not fix anything or be an answer. What I always maintain, while knowing that is the case, is that you guys have NO IDEA WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE A GIRL. I wish I could explain just how different my life is because I was born with certain chromosomes, so you would undertsand how it feels to live like this, the tiny little things you never even have to notice that boil my blood, the way that our world is still run by men, the way we can never escape their decisions and have to live by their rules every single day, except for those moments we can say 'ha! you like this? you want to do this? well tough, YOU'RE NOT INVITED'.

Petty maybe, but from what I have learned in this life, you never truely know how something feels until you've experienced it yourself. And the reaction I always get from men about the miniscule number of times they are excluded is like it is the most immense human rights violation they have ever experienced. That is when I realise, it is and that is why it's important to feel it so you have some slight notion of the endless frustration and tiny little irritants that we feel every single day.

This anger all stemmed from this article, I'll finish with a final quote:

"Tiresome is the word. Many American women over the age of 45 can remember when girls who wanted to play Little League baseball were told the same excuses. The women's marathon wasn't added to the Summer Olympics until 1984 because it was supposedly bad for their health."

We were sitting down by the stunning Ohiwa Harbour on Friday night (post triathalon), with a couple of friends chatting about the world, the news etc etc, until one of us piped up "look I really don't care about Bird Flu or whether or not Hilary Clinton is the next US president, can we please not talk about it?". The comment, which was taken as an insult at the time, was actually quite an interesting thought. These days, we believe that freedom of speech is to be cherished, and to use that as our weapon at all times. Through open conversation comes education and hopefully action, also though, comes validation of things you really wish were not validated. So what if we did the opposite? What if, instead of spending one hour one the strip of sand overlooking thousands of stars talking about the things we neither influence or care about, we just didn't? What if instead of mass communication, came mass silence?

In the past few years we have had a variety of potential disasters paraded in front of us on the nightly news, from Y2K, to Mad Cow Disease, SARS and now the wildely mutating, out of control virus that comes from those dirty asian chickens Bird Flu (Wow, what a script for the 3rd rate horror movie). Yet none of them have arrived, none of them have led to a global plague, but what every single one has succeeded in is wasting our precious time, the time we spend talking about them, discussing with our neighbours, friends, relatives, shop keepers, idle conversation on the streets about impending doom. The time we spend validating what is otherwise simply a news story.

It's true, I actually don't give two hoots about the next American president, nor should I. They should have no ability whatsoever to influence my life over here on the other side of the world. They are americas president not the worlds president, and no amount of media hype about their power will do anything until we internalise it and we too believe that for some reason some person in a foreign country about as far away from here as you can get in both culture and geography has any right at all to influence us. At least until we can influence them right back, and to be hoest until everyone in the world gets a vote for the American president, that will never be the case.

So why do we bother to talk about it? How much less power do you think George Bush would wield if no one in any other part of the world aside from the US actually gave two seconds to thinking about him, let alone waste time talking about him while we could be talking about something that we can actually influence. What about if instead of invoking our right to freedom fo speech over every matter that comes to light, we invoke our right to simply ignore it? To respond with mass silence?

Sometimes, in all the anger and logical arguments that are bandied about like tennis balls, we forget. Sometimes, in this world, logic, reason, the ability to debate ideas at a level above what is expected from a ten year old is not important. Sometimes, simply being rich and powerful is enough to justify your continued wealth and power, to allow you to stand up in front of the entire world and singlehandedly degrade the human race, to ensure future generations will look back on us in disgust. Thanks George Bush's speech writer.

In the face of massive destruction, of sheer loonacy at extremely high levels, we settle back and watch the final episode of Desperate Housewives and pretend for another day that somewhere, somehow, someone has this whole war thing under control.

What are these words? 'victory' 'terrorist' 'honour' 'corruption' 'democracy' 'repressive'? Are these not the saddest words in the world? Glued together with propoganda and flawed reasoning, the story should be religated to a trashy novel, but is instead spoken by the president of our 'free world'. There is good and evil, the good guys have to emerge victorious against the innately develish evil guys. Did the government borrow that storyline from hollywood? or visa versa?

At the very least, please, save me from hearing any country in the world who fails significantly to have EVER had a female president to self instate themselves as an authority on who'se looking out for women. Or was that the little comic moment?

And also, when you are faced with any choice, there are always more than two options. Maybe it would pay for someone to teach that to presidential candidates before they inherit massive power without even the most rudimentary of reasoning skills. 

Or was that one of those immensley clever speeches, like those double sided pictures, you need only to swap 'Iraq' with 'America' to get a perfect description of 'the greatest democracy on earth'.