The Year of the Female and other Nonsuch Babble

I read in the news today that 2012 was, for Australia, the year of the female. This was a year when our Prime Minister Julia Gillard proudly denounced the leader of the opposition with a fifteen minute rant about misogyny.

But other than that, what else happened?

Kate Ellis, a local MP, gets shot down on a panel show only days after Julia Gillard did her inspired speech. She was constantly interrupted and disrespected during her answering of an audience member's question:

What else happened this year for us gals?

Maybe pay went up a little more for us in Australia. We're still about $5000 behind men in the equal pay department. Yay?

Women still idolise skinny models and bimbos who've had more plastic surgery than sense and are tanned to the point of looking more like oak furniture than human beings.

We can only buy skimpy bikinis in summer; and is it me or are denim shorts getting shorter this season?

Let's not even talk about the lingerie football league on TV. I've had many a heated conversation with friends about that.

So I wouldn't QUITE be so optimistic to call 2012 Australia's 'Year of the Female' just yet.

Me personally? I care about how women are treated in certain media (games probably being the second worst, behind comic books). The way women are constantly portrayed for ads, comics etc. to the younger generation sets about problems we still have to solve.

As a computer gamer, where are the strong female characters for me to relate to? Samus Aran? A grand total of one. At least there WAS one until Metroid Other M made her incredibly dependant on strong male figures and I stopped caring about her. Lara Croft? You're joking, right? She's a female character for men. I can't stand it when the appeal of a female character boils down to her wearing next to no armour while their male counterparts seem to be a whole lot more survival conscious.

Samus Aran as per her usual appearance
in the Metroid series in practical armour.

Most female characters in game box art (as in comic books) are posed to look like models trying out skimpy suits in the mirror. How is that characterising them? How does a sexy pose say 'this is a sorceress who must save the world by retrieving an enchanted book'? Or 'this marine must lead her troops in battle against the flesh-eating alien invaders'. All it basically says is 'check out this rack'. I have a problem with this far more than what the Leader of the Opposition says during Question Time on Parliament TV. Solve this problem and there won't be any more rants. So please, please, please solve this problem.

A fan art of Samus now, as per her appearance
in 'Metroid other M'.

Let me get this out there: I'm a feminist. I learned from the best: my history teacher was a feminazi. Whenever she taught us about female suppression in Victorian England it was an interesting experience. She said something I'll never forget: "by being here in this classroom, you are a feminist. You believe you have the right to be educated" and from then on I couldn't help but feel like a revolutionary going to school every day. I don't shout 'Stop sexually opressing me!!' from the rooftops for one reason: I was born and raised in Australia and in Australia beneath the male sports and macho attitude, things are pretty damn equal. It's not the most misogynist nation in the world but not the least either. Early colonial Australian women were summed up as 'God's Police and Damned Whores'. But this is the nation of Germaine Greer and 'The Female Eunuch'. Yes, things were bad back in the past but it's all in the past now. My generation is in a far different place than my mother's.

I wasn't really exposed to female characters at all until high school. I found females difficult to 'get' because they never did anything relateable to the point of irritation and unbelievability. I'm sure there are exceptions in the infinite number of novels out there but I haven't found them yet. During English classes and at University, I found the Feminist female writers we studied absolute try-hards, writing verbose, overly inflated fiction in order to compete against their far more prominent male counterparts. But look at Lindsay Davis, or even Rosemary Sutcliff, Agatha Christie, Mary Shelley. They just knuckled down and wrote some pretty damn good prose - some with strong female characters too. Why can't Feminists write like them?

On the whole, the typical female character is an alien wonderland for me. I won't call out any particular books to highlight the issue but one of the worst rhymes with 'Starlight'. It's like trying to explain the financial motivations of characters in 'Death of a Salesman' to a Socialist. But because of this blokish culture in Australia, I understand the guys and can relate to them. When a man on TV says 'Damn that girl's annoying', my brain responds with a deadpan 'I know what you mean, bro'.

If a TV series has male leads I'll inevitably enjoy it more. I get a thrill when the lead male gets throttled by his own necktie and hurled down the stairs and I can only imagine the same sense of fear over a physical threat for a female lead. But heaven forbid if a women gets hurt on TV. Apparently that's cause for rage in blogging circles I don't quite sympathise with. In the online world lots of bloggers take offence if it happens to a lady. Doesn't batter an eye here - not even mine; I honestly can't tell if TV programmes are being overtly sexist or women just take it personally. To me both sexes are vulnerable, they both are at risk in a dangerous situation and it's only up to the writers to decide who gets out alive. I was two episodes in to Ripper Street before I realised something was apparently wrong and I should be outraged.

You know what? I'm not. I enjoy the show and I wouldn't change it. I would be outraged if the women were wrapped in bubble-wrap and only taken out for maybe two seconds of screen time in rather poitless roles - but they're not. If the killer and rapist of women achieves fortune and fame at the end of an episode I'd be shouting rather loudly in protest (James Bond gets away with about as much in Skyfall and I only read one review calling him out about that!). In Ripper Street's case the culprit meets a violent end for his crimes - as does the bad guy in episode two (Spoiler Warning). By episode Five I'm assuming the coppers equal the Ripper's body count so all is square.

If the women in Ripper Street are seen as negative stereotypes, pick up an Australian History Book. You know, the ones about British colonisation? The ones that say all the early pioneer women were Damned Whores or God's Police. Prostitutes or Nuns, essentially. I read that in 5 seperate school history books. I think the dependance the three leads of Ripper Street have with the women around them is rather touching in comparison.

I was two episodes into Ripper Street before I realised something was
apparently wrong from a woman's perspective and I should be outraged.

I feel, as a young girl growing up in a nation where both genders wear the trousers and earn the bread, I didn't have enough exposure to strong female role models - both sides look the same to me.

This is the world I live in.

Yes, I'm a feminist and I regret the lack of strong female rolemodels in my life. Maybe if I was a feminazi like my History teacher I'd be more outraged about stuff the media blows out of proportion. I do earnestly read blogs by feminists and many of them do make good points about injustice and inequality in their parts of the world. I just don't get a sense of it where I am or in the industry in which I work.

Not less than minutes after Julia Gillard called Tony Abbot a misogynist people and press were calling her a bitch, telling her to shut up and so forth. Not just men, mind you, women too. While the world applauded her, in her own country she was mostly grounded within a week. If she wasn't the PM, a journalist wouldn't be talking about it in a 'Best of 2012' news article.

Did Julia Gillard deserve the applause? Maybe. It was a minor thing Abbot said and the magnitude of Gillard's well-scripted response was unwarranted - but I can't deny it had to be said sooner or later. If not the PM, then a CEO or a Sportswoman or a young student or a single mother trying to make do. Someone had to hold up a mirror to this country and find a strong female role model for young girls.

Let's call 2012 a rehearsal.

Let's make 2013 the real Year of the Female - not for Australia but for the other nations that have it worse than we do.