Category: Life

The end of the world (as we know it)

Apparently the song It’s the end of the world by R.E.M is topping the charts at the moment, and it’s not hard to understand why. We are currently in uncharted waters, we are dealing with something new and dangerous, and so how we react to this is also uncharted territory.

I for one, am not upset about the current changes to my life here in Australia (at this point). Yes, it is a big and scary thing, but having to stay home for as much time as possible isn’t the end of the world. It gives me time to be creative, to read, to write, to study astronomy, to learn a new language. All the things that get neglected in real life. I am hoping I don’t just spend my time watching Netflix.

But the reality is, life is going to change not just for the next few months but forever. Our habits and behaviours should be changing over time…

I am currently working from home, as my current workplace is equipped for that (and my white collar work makes it possible). There are plenty of other people who are also currently working from home, people who were told they never could because it didn’t fit with their role. Now we know the truth, now we know we can all work from home, the way we work will continue to shift rapidly. I am not saying that people won’t continue to go to the office, they will. Some F2F interaction will still be needed. But as a whole, people and companies will realise the world doesn’t stop just because their employees work from home. This will mean places will have less office space, people will live further away from the CBD, and hopefully means house prices start to drop because people won’t need to live in the cities anymore.

We also know that over the next few months people won’t be able to travel overseas for some time. For a time, borders will close and people will probably err on the side of caution when it comes to overseas adventures but that won’t last forever. I think eventually people will start flocking overseas again in hordes.

Finally, I think after spending lots of time cooped up we will want to break free and get out as much as possible. Pubs and restaurants will be full, sporting teams will be full, parks and pools will be full.

That’s my hope anyway. Because we will need something positive to come out of these hard times.

 

Where are all the leading heroines at?

This International Women’s Day I felt empowered looking at all the inspirational women around me and their contributions to the world. I felt hope that maybe we were getting somewhere in the world and that the pay gap and sexist agendas really could become a thing of the past.

Then I settled in to start reading one of my favourite female authors, JK Rowling. I was settling into the 4th novel of the Cormoran Strike series when the thought hit me. JK Rowling is one of the most well-known feminine icons, and her books have some of the strongest feminine heroines in them too (Hermione, Professor McGonagall, Molly Weasley, Bellatrix Lestrange, etc.) But as I thought of all the strong female characters, I realised that none of them were ever in the lead. You have Harry Potter, you have Fantastic Beasts, you have the Casual Vacancy and you have the Cormoran Strike series. All of them with male leads, and strong supporting females. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to have strong female roles who are often just as (if not) more powerful than their male counterparts, but as a strong feminine icon, why isn’t JK Rowling writing about women at the front of the story?

Luckily it doesn’t happen much in today’s society anymore, but this caught me. We should be celebrating the women who are putting women at the front! I wonder whether the male lead is subconscious, or whether it’s because we know that in today’s society, books with female leads are never going to have the impact that those with male counterparts have. It’s hard to know, all I know is that growing up Hermione was someone I aspired to, and how good it would have been to be following a series that was about her and her saving the world.
Don’t get me wrong, JK Rowling is still a heroine and I still aspire to have an impact on the world like her, but she is also missing an opportunity. An opportunity to write more female characters who are the star of the show, so more young girls can grow up aspiring to be great, and realising they can great in their own right, not as a side show for someone else.

 

Happy International Women’s Day everyone, I hope one day thoughts like this will never have to cross my mind because we will see just as many female literary heroes as male ones!

The rise of the plant parent

There is a new trend hitting the shores of Australia at the moment, and by new I mean a trend that is as old as time but has really been becoming the new smashed avo toast for millenials. The ‘plant baby’ or for anyone that isn’t a millenial, owning a house plant.

I don’t know about you, but this one has really slowly seeped out. Don’t get me wrong, it’s completely normal to own plants and try and grow something of your own, particularly as you mature and age a little. But bragging about ‘plant babies’ and caring for them, but also bragging about murdering so many of them, is all the rage right now. People see owning plants as a status symbol. You can’t be a trendy cool young person living in a metropolitan area unless your house is overrun by plants that you don’t care for and that have no use.

To be fair, I am not immune to this trend. I made an attempt to grow a chilli plant which went well for a solid 18 months, and then winter hit and work got busy and like all neglectful plant mothers, I forgot to care for it and I lost the chilli plant. (Miraculously, somehow the chilli plant jumped into a new pot and grew itself without any watering which makes me think I am better at this than I thought, but that’s a story for another time).

I started thinking about the rise of the plant parent today after spending some time scrolling through Instagram. Since it was a Sunday today, and a rainy one at that, it was peak time for adult activities like gardening, so I would say about 1 in 5 stories from my Australian millenial friends was about raising plants, at least. It really started me thinking about why we have all become so obsessed with this lifestyle.

Firstly, we all know how trendy things become after one meme or one celebrity or influencer posts about it online, and then everyone has to follow, and that would explain some of the new-found plant lovers, but I think there is a little more to it than that.

I think for those of us living in the city, we are so deprived of nature and anything to do with the environment that we seek out plants as a way of clinging on to anything green, or reminding ourselves of life outside of the concrete jungle.

The real reason though, I think, is for us millenials that earn so little and struggle to reach the same levels of adulthood that our parents and grandparents did before us. We’re in our 20s and 30s and despite working our butts off, we still can’t afford houses, and we still can’t afford to settle down. We can’t have pets because we’re renting and our landlords won’t let us, we can’t have kids because we don’t earn enough to look after ourselves, never mind another child. So what’s the cheap and easy alternative? Plants.

Boomers and the older generations love to point the finger and say millenials are irresponsible but really I think the move towards being plant parents is everything but that. We are responsible and mature enough to know we can’t necessarily afford to give our children the lives they deserve, and beyond that, it’s not fair to bring a child into this world when it is all falling apart due to inaction on climate change. So call us irresponsible, but really, we’re just having to deal with the consequences of the world that you created.

All the while, killing off a lot of pot plants along the way.

The (not so) long debate about Australia Day

For everyone in Australia, we are fast approaching the most tension-fuelled day of the year, Australia Day. Whilst in many countries around the world, there are days of Independence, and days to celebrate their country which everyone enjoys, in Australia our day is always filed with controversy.

The reason for the controversy comes from the date, January 26. The day that the First Fleet arrived in Australia and changed the lives of the native people on the land forever. This is the day that we choose to celebrate every year, not the day that we became our own country, but the day that the first white man settled on the land. What followed this day was mass genocide of the indigenous people, the effects which are still being felt today.

I am not an indigenous person, so I admit, I am not the most educated of people about the impacts that white settlement has had on their culture. For years I celebrated Australia Day in ignorance, without realising that this day was a problem for so many. I have to be thankful to the people that are finally speaking up, who are raising their voices, because without them I would have no idea of the day’s impact on them.

Now that people are becoming aware of the issues, though, the tide is turning. More and more people are calling to #changethedate. There is basically one demographic that is choosing to resist this, and they are the most powerful. Yes, you guessed it, it is the white man. The white man who feels threatened for anyone ever thinking that one of his kind might have done the wrong thing. They feel scared to admit that another white man could ever make a mistake, or make a bad decision, so they continue to bury their head in the sand. Don’t get me wrong, not all white men are like this, just mainly the ones in power in our country, particularly some of our politicians.

We always make a big deal about our ‘multiculturalism’ and I grew up believing in that. Believing that as an Australian we are a diverse community, not realising the irony that in my small country town, everyone was either white or indigenous, and our indigenous people for the most part were doing it pretty rough. We had no multiculturalism, but yet I believed the messaging around me. As a kid you don’t know any different, and you listen to what the adults are telling you. You think that Australia Day is an important day and we have to stick with it, without realising there could be another way. I only hope that now as an adult, I can educate other kids as to what the right way is, and hopefully others around me can do the same.

All hope is not lost though, plenty of people are making positive changes. For instance, Triple J (the Australian radio station) now holds their annual ‘Hottest 100’ on another day, the annual lamb ad that often raises eyebrows for its controversy this year took its turn calling for us to change the day, and even at a local level there are many indigenous groups trying to hold events to remember the time before the First Fleet landed and celebrate indigenous culture, such as Enoch being held at Barangaroo Reserve this year on the 25th of January.

We have come such a long way, but there is still so much further to go. We need to find a way to make Australia Day a day that we can all celebrate, instead of one that just white men can celebrate. We need to educate our children so that they are aware, and they can make better decisions. Finally, we all need to stand up for what is right and best for everyone. Instead of saying not our problem, we should stand with our indigenous friends and call for change until finally, we #changethedate.

 

 

The era where Handsmaid’s Tale could be a reality

For my first post, I am going with a heavy topic, but it is something that is on my mind right now because it is everywhere.

In the last week, the issue of feminism and toxic masculinity has been everywhere in the media in Australia. There are two main reasons for this; Gillette’s new ad about toxic masculinity, and on a much more somber note, the death of an Israeli student in Melbourne.

Let me start with the ad Gillette just released. For those who haven’t already seen it, you can find it here. There has been a mixed reaction to this ad, ranging from those that are praising Gillette’s move to tackle such an important issue, to those who are boycotting the brand, to those who are criticising Gillette for taking so long to reverse the damage they have done to female empowerment previously with their own ad campaigns. In my opinion, this is such an important issue and one that impacts not just the half of the population that is female, but everyone and I am glad that a company like Gillette has taken a stand. Toxic masculinity has run rampant for far too long, and all the people upset by this ad are those that are the problem. They are the people that are making women feel uncomfortable, disrespected and downright unsafe around the world.

The proof is in what has happened in Melbourne. Aiia Maasarwe. Let’s not forget her name. She is just one of the hundreds of victims of toxic masculinity this year alone. She was doing what everyone says she should be doing to keep herself safe, she was on the phone to someone whilst she was getting home, and she still became a victim. What happened to her can never be considered to be her fault. She was the victim of a cruel and violent crime, perpetrated by a man who has been brought up in a world of toxic masculinity which made him believe that he had the right to do this. That he has and deserves the power given to him through being born as a male, the right to power over a woman and to take someone else’s life. Now I know, not all males are like this. I know it is the exception, not the rule. I know there are females out there that can commit the same crimes. Statistically, though, this isn’t the case.

It goes beyond violent crime too. In daily life we see men treat women poorly. We see sexual harassment (in and outside the workforce), we see men cat calling and ogling women in the streets, we see men who can’t take no for an answer. This is the behaviour that builds, and gives the exceptions the gateway they need to commit worse crimes. This is the behaviour that empowers them and gives them justification to treat women poorly.

Just today my friend told me that whilst walking back from the gym she was harassed. A truck driver sized her up, pulled over and waited for her to walk past him so he could hang out the window and harass her. This was in the middle of the day, in a public place. She was rattled, understandably so. She was upset because she felt disrespected, she felt like it happened because she was wearing shorts (on a 40 degree Celsius day), she felt guilty because when she was put in this position and she didn’t say something. She shouldn’t have to. This man should know that this is inappropriate. He probably does know, but he knows he can get away with it because he made my friend feel powerless.

These things happen around the world every day, and sadly we seem no closer to stopping it. How long will it be before men finally understand that all of this is not ok. That the women in their life shouldn’t be treated as substandard, or resources for their own enjoyment.

Handsmaid’s tale has exploded in popularity recently, and do you want to know why? It is so real for us all right now. We can see a future where we are forced back into a world where women are there to serve men, and no other reason. We can see a world where the threat of progression becomes too much for some to bear, and violence returns us to a world where females are slaves to mens desires.

I have hope that things will continue to improve, and that the progress we have made so far will continue to improve. Until men stand with us, and speak up about these things, though, there is no hope. It is time for men to pick a side. Stand with your wives, girlfriends, daughters, sisters, and friends, or stand quiet and watch as these same loved ones get murdered, raped, beaten, and harassed. Pick a side.