Couldn’t have said it better myself

Via

p_cat

: In the cor­ridors of power, the best woman knows her place.

This opin­ion piece, by Fair­fax’s Cath­er­ine Deveny, is a bitter swipe at Aus­trali­a’s fairly per­vas­ive miso­gyn­ist cul­ture. It’s a funny thing: we’re moving into a new era with our new gov­ern­ment, where Quentin Bryce can be appoin­ted Gov­ernor-Gen­eral, where both parties now have female Deputy Lead­ers and where Penny Wong is given respons­ib­il­it­ies and accol­ades, but it takes time for the “main­stream” to catch up to that. Foot­ball cul­ture and celebrity cul­ture espe­cially are still stuck in – or have returned to – a world in which men have brawn and women have beauty and those who don’t fit those moulds are reviled.

Doug remem­bers coming to Aus­tralia on St Patrick’s Day and being amazed at how many gor­geous, smart, avail­able women were indic­at­ing their avail­ab­il­ity at the pub he went to while the men stared goggle-eyed at the footy on the tube above their heads. Not to sug­gest that there is no sexism in Amer­ica or else­where; of course there is, and yes, we should be thank­ful we can drive (unlike those in Saudi Arabia), that we can wear what we want (mostly), that we can go to school (unlike those in Pakistan and parts of Afgh­anistan and else­where) and vote and all those other things. The points that ring true for me with Deveny’s art­icle are about smart women who rock the boat and how we’re treated, and how com­puter sys­tems insist I identify my mar­ital status and how every day, in thou­sands of tiny ways, we are reminded of our pos­i­tion as inferior. Espe­cially if we don’t see ourselves that way.