Sarah Waters’ latest novel has made the recently-announced Booker Prize shortlist. It’s the third time on the shortlist for Waters and we’re wondering whether this might be the year the darling of lesbian lit takes the gong. Carolyn Ride reviews the book that’s put Waters in contention once again.

Sarah Waters (Tipping The Velvet, Fingersmith, Night Watch) is renowned for her sexy, visceral and engaging historical fiction and for enjoying both a loyal lesbian fanbase and mainstream appeal. Three of her novels have been adapted for the small screen. Her new post- World War Two novel, The Little Stranger, may disappoint some. There is no overt sexuality, straight or gay. However, the key elements that make Waters so beloved to readers – detailed prose, unreliable but compelling characters, increasing tension culminating in a shocking twist – are all there in spades.

The narrator is Doctor Faraday, an ageing bachelor who – thanks to the sacrifices of his servant parents – has become a doctor in rural England. He has not succeeded financially, though, and is as resentful of the persistent English class system as he is fascinated by the memory of Hundreds Hall, a grand mansion he visited once in 1919 when his mother was a maid there.

His chance to revisit the place 30 years later comes when he is summoned to attend to 14-year old Betty, housemaid to the aristocratic but shabby Ayres family who own Hundreds Hall. Neither the crumbling hall nor the three remaining Ayres are doing well in an age of postwar austerity and money-fuelled class mobility. Doctor Faraday gets increasingly involved with the family, helping wounded and bitter son Roderick with his injuries and falling for universally overlooked spinster daughter Caroline. Yet the Ayres’ troubles go from bad to worse, with the appearance of a mysterious, malignant force which terrorises the family and causes events – their gentle dog savaging a neighbour’s child, a devastating fire – that threaten to destroy their already precarious position. Is it a poltergeist, psychological reactions to stress, or deliberate acts by one of the characters (all of whom have the necessary malice to ruin others)?

As a huge Sarah Waters fan, I was surprised to find The Little Stranger slightly long-winded and unengaging at first. Usually she plunges the reader straight into the world she’s describing. However, perseverance paid off; at least until the anticlimactic ending. At least for most of the novel, I was hooked by the story, fascinated by the characters (all of them intriguing, none of them loveable) and seduced by the author’s sense of place and plot. Hundreds Hall is a character in its own right, and Doctor Faraday is one of literature’s ultimate ‘unreliable narrators’. Best of all, Waters’ characters are products of their place, time and class, with all the gruesome prejudices and snobbery of the time. None of them are modern people, with modern liberal viewpoints, plonked into a historical setting to make the reader identify with them.

Spooky and spectacular or overwrought and overlong? Both were true for me with this book, but it would make a great discussion point in a book club.

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and reviewer – when asked nicely.

Related posts:

1. Want to publish a book? Become a passionate expert

Fiji Time – that wonderfully elastic concept which makes a mockery of Western schedule fetish – doesn’t apply to the country’s politics. Events there seem to run at warp speed.

On Thursday April 9, the Fiji Court of Appeal ruled that the 2006 coup that installed Commodore Frank Bainimarama as leader was illegal. The next day, Fijian President (and Bainimarama ally) Ratu Josefa Iliolu sacked the Appeal Court judges, installed himself as head of State and abolished the constitution. He also ruled out any elections until 2014, thus cementing Bainimarama’s rule as Prime Minister. Fiji has had four coups in 20 years, and this is the second time the 1997 constitution has been displaced.

The Australian government is not happy about this state of affairs; the question is, what should we do about it? Institute trade sanctions? Refuse visas to Fijians associated with the army or government? Kick Fiji out of the Commonwealth? Oh wait; we’ve done all those things before and they didn’t work.

Now, I’m not one of those people who believe democracy and human rights aren’t relevant to any society outside our own. The current Fijian government has shown its contempt for the people and helped cripple its economy way before the current recession hit everyone for six. Police and military brutality are rampant and the institutional racism against Indo-Fijians is disturbing (though, strangely enough, Bainimarama has championed the Indo-Fijian cause). 

Australia should condemn Iliolu and Bainimarama’s actions in the strongest terms. Treating Fiji as THE delinquent of the Asia-Pacific block is another matter, which I think is hypocritical and counterproductive.

We’ve hung out with bad boy dictators before and been happy to overlook their behaviour as long as they acknowledged us (President Suharto of Indonesia). We’ve sucked up to dictators who have ruled out having any elections ever (Chinese premier Hu Jintao, probably Kevin Rudd’s real political soulmate). For years we pledged to follow to the ends of the earth a President (George W Bush) who thought his country’s constitution was pretty expendable. Why should Fiji be a special case?

Maybe the Australian government got jealous of New Zealand’s status as self-appointed conscience of the Pacific. Maybe Queensland – which, like Fiji, produces idyllic islands, sugar and synapse-melting rum – lobbied to get rid of the competition.

Or maybe we have just decided that one badly-behaved country needs to be made an example of, and it might as well be one without natural resources or a large market for Aussie products.

I reckon this is a shame, because Fiji also has some qualities that could make it more receptive to the carrot than the stick. Compared to some of the neighbouring countries, it’s peaceful. For a poor country, Fiji has relatively high levels of education, literacy and skills. Lastly, it has cultural and sporting ties to Australia.

Hell, they really like Australia; no matter how many travel warnings we issue about them, visas we deny them or drunken expats we exile to their shores in return for superior rugby players.

Here’s my fantasy alternate reality Fiji foreign policy: demand elections now and reinstate the constitution, and in return they get

• favoured regional trading partner status.
• large-scale, official Australian government partnerships to train them in policing, infrastructure and health
• Aus government grants for Fijian manufacturing industries. If we aren’t going to have a manufacturing industry any more, I’d like to see it go somewhere close and mutually beneficial
• a chance to get dual citizenship (of course, the Fijian government would have to allow this too!)
• guaranteed Australia-wide distribution of Fiji Bitter beer. I’m happy to volunteer my services now to promote this excellent endeavour.

Seriously, wouldn’t it be better to engage with the government and political system they have, rather than the one we’d like them to have? Surely that would be better than having to send troops in once the country has degenerated into a failed state.

Guest blogger Carolyn Ride spent one month in Fiji in 2008, which here on Weston Culture qualifies her as the resident Fiji expert. Hey, that still makes her more qualified than Eddy Groves was to run hundreds of childcare centres Australia-wide.

Related posts:

1. What next? A lesbian Prime Minister?

In the wake of the Federal Government’s overhaul of the Job Network I bet Job Network staff are crying into their chipped “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!” coffee mugs. I usually have sympathy with those in slashed government-funded services, but not this time. In fact, the only argument I have is that the Government should have killed this bloated, self-serving efficiency drain outright and not just wounded it.

A dumb idea is born

The previous Liberal government replaced the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) in 1998 with a decentralised and privatised system, the Job Network (JN). Different organisations – some private, some non-profit, and some specialists in supporting the disadvantaged – would be funded to match jobs to jobseekers and train and support the unemployed. Allegedly, it was going to be cheaper and more efficient than a centralised, unwieldy bureaucratic agency. The number of agencies reflected, in the jargon of JN aims, “the use of competition to drive greater efficiency for the taxpayer and increased choice for consumers”.

In reality, the Job Network spent ten years too busy elbowing their way to the funding trough to reflect on what they were doing for the unemployed or employers. Which was bugger-all; something that even the politicised Productivity Commission admitted in its 2002 report into the system.

How it ‘works’

There are two main ways for a Job Network provider to get money: place their client in a job or offer Intensive Assistance to disadvantaged clients (long-term unemployed, disabled, indigenous etc).

Putting someone who’s been unemployed for less than two years in a job nets the provider $1650 if they stay there more than 13 weeks.  It doesn’t have to be the right job for the right person, just a job. “So it should be,” say some. “I pay my taxes and I don’t want some dole bludger turning down work to go surfing”. The problem is, cramming anyone into any job isn’t good for employee or employer. JN providers are uniquely gifted at putting the shy and/or poor English speakers into telemarketing, people with bad backs into cleaning, over-40s computer-phobes into admin, and people with no transport into a two-hou-a-day casual job 90 minutes away by car with 5am starts.

$1650 is a nice little earner, but the real money for the Job Network is in Intensive Assistance. That’s Job Search Training and ‘Customised Assistance’ for the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged. After a tragically long unemployment stint a few years back, I landed in a leading provider’s Job Search Training course. Over three fulltime weeks, I learned that resumes should be good, not bad; that most jobs weren’t advertised so we should cold-call; and that jobseekers shouldn’t be fussy about the jobs they apply for. That took care of an hour, leaving only 104 hours to twiddle our thumbs and fight over the one cold-calling phone.

The Job Network has been criticised for failing the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged by focusing only on work and not on overcoming personal barriers but I think some of it misses the point. I have friends who’ve worked in the Job Network who have been strongly encouraged to keep Highly Disadvantaged (HD) clients in training programs and face-to-face assistance as long as they can. In other words, they’re worth more to their JN provider unemployed than employed. The Productivity Commission’s 2002 assessment into the Job Network found that “Intensive Support (comprising Job Search Training and Customised Assistance) will comprise around 80 per cent of Job Network providers’ revenue in ESC3”. ESC3 was Employment Services Contract 3, a contractual obligation for long-term unemployed and/or disadvantaged.

Inside the asylum

The average Job Network office combines the efficiency of Fawlty Towers with the cheeriness and warmth of a Romanian orphanage. Don’t get me wrong; some nice people work there. Or used to, since the staff turnover is so high that, if you don’t like your employment consultant, just wait five minutes.

Job Network clients are encouraged – and after a couple of months, forced – to travel to a JN office to use their jobseeking resources. These usually consist of the local jobs section from three days ago, a roomful of computers with no staff around to tell people how to use them or unlock the passwords, and the Yellow Pages. Sometimes they have a jobs board; I was impressed that my current JN provider included (in March) a job ad with a closing date in early January.

The staff, victims themselves of pressure to deliver profit and suffering from high burnout levels, don’t appear to have many useful skills to share with the unemployed. They tell participants that most jobs are unadvertised, but can’t tell them how to use informational interviews or networks. They just order them to cold-call from the phonebook. They tell their clients to jazz up their resume, but don’t provide anything helpful like a resume service, or even a colour printer. I guess they don’t get funded for such things.

In other words, these paid professionals can’t provide a service that can be found free in your local library via the book What Colour Is Your Parachute? They can’t even help with specific applications advertised with their service, since they routinely withhold information about the employer from the jobseeker. (“It’s a retail position in a big company somewhere. I can’t say more”). This is insanely counterproductive, since everyone knows that the applicant who demonstrates knowledge of the company they’re applying to increases their chance of getting the job.

JN providers get lots of money taking on High Disadvantage (HD) clients, but seem to have no idea how to remove their barriers to employment. Even specialised services for the disadvantaged, I’ve heard from friends in the Disability Employment Network, have no idea how to help their clients. I have seen JN caseworkers flummoxed by women re-entering the workforce after raising children (odd, considering that they come across as the most highly motivated clients). (See True Stories From Job Network)

They don’t get paid for letting a client from another Job Network provider fill their vacancy, so they tend to fob off ‘outsiders’ calling about a job. (See: True Stories From the Job Network)

They do get paid, though, when their clients get a job; even if the client gets the job through no help from the Job Network provider. I’ve only gotten jobs through ads, contacts and door-to-door resume shopping – never from the Job Network. That has never stopped them from demanding my employment details so they can claim government benefits. I’m not alone in this; check out other people’s experience in Web forums. 

So JN services, and their ever-changing roster of employees, are pressured to chase profits and at the same time comply with Byzantine Federal Government requirements. This is the problem with semi-privatised or ‘purchased’ services. Which master should they serve, the market or social need? The usual outcome is that they dither between the two, to the satisfaction of neither. They can’t afford to cast off the shackles of government funding guidelines, but they can’t afford to annoy potential employers either (especially considering how few they have). Job Network flunkeys have got to take it out on someone, and that would be their hapless clients.

Powerless in every other regard, the JN is the omnipotent overseer with their clients. Anything they regard as ‘noncompliance’ (lateness to appointments, refusal to cold-call employers from the phone book) can be used against the client in the form of recommending a Centrelink breach. Anecdotally (ok, in my experience and that of my friends who were either clients or JN workers) frustrated JN workers learn to take an adversarial approach to the unemployed. Don’t want to apply for cleaning jobs because of your back surgery? Noncompliance. Get an ulcer even thinking of talking to strangers? Go for an interview at the telemarketing company or get reported for noncompliance.

If the JN has to comply with government guidelines even when it’s impossible, their clients have to comply with the JN even when it’s impossible. (See: True Stories from the Job Network) 

Can we end the Job Network?

What we’re learning from current worldwide recession is that governments should provide services; not purchase them, provide rebates for them or farm them out. You can’t run a service for the disadvantaged as a business, and you can’t run a business that’s solely dependent on the government teat.

Maybe the former CES was overly bureaucratic, expensive and unwieldy. Still, the Job Network has been an unfortunate experiment in proving that privatised doesn’t always mean more efficient, and government-funded doesn’t always mean equitable. 

On December 2, 2006, the Australian newspaper obtained a leaked document showing that the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations paid $158.7 million to Job Network providers between July 2003 and April 2005. Two organisations had been paid more than $10 million, and 37 were paid more than $1 million.

I’m glad people are finally questioning the usefulness of the Job Network, but the next step would be to actually dismantle this nadir of grant-fuelled middleman inefficiency and corporate welfare. I suppose such a radical move is unlikely under a Prime Minister whose wife, Therese Rein, made a personal fortune from leading Job Network provider Work Directions.

Still, in my crazy Keynesian fantasy, the Federal Government will replace the Job Network fiasco with a revitalised, more efficient CES. (Government services have learned to work smarter, not harder, before. I’m sure they can do it again). 

The Government of my imaginary social democratic world will create jobs for the long-term and disadvantaged unemployed themselves, rather than trying to persuade reluctant employers to do so. They’ll include confidence-building and the fostering of networks in their job search training. Lastly, they’ll encourage their staff to read books like What Colour Is Your Parachute and use their wisdom.

Well, I can dream…

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and, according to the Job Network, has excellent communication skills which make her the ideal candidate for the position of baker’s assistant. 

Related posts:

1. True stories from the Job Network
2. Good karma job hunting: Connecting with the hidden job market

The following stories were all either experienced or witnessed by me…

True Story 1: Helping women return to the workforce

In a group orientation in a leading Job Network provider, we were told we had to make three cold calls from the Yellow Pages every time we were there or face a breach recommendation. One participant, a fifty-something woman re-entering the workforce after raising a family, got flustered. She wanted to do whatever possible to get a job but wanted some guidance on how to approach employers. Should she target companies she already recognised? What would she say if an employer asked about her work history, given that she had not worked for an employer for thirty years? The employment consultant snapped “I’m not here to answer every little question or hold your hand. Just call them and ask for a job”! This employment consultant was also too impatient to show the woman how to use the computer, so two clients did it.

True Story 2: The right person for the right job

I saw a job advertised on jobsearch.gov.au, placed only an hour before I saw it, by a Job Network provider I didn’t belong to. They gave no details of the employer, but the job looked good and just right for me, so I rang them. I spoke to an officious and frosty woman, who demanded to know if I was a Job Network member and had a job ID. Yes I did. She asked me if I was registered with her Job Network provider. I said no, I wasn’t, but I was with another provider and very keen to apply for the job. She said, “Well, the job requires editing skills, so it probably won’t be right for you”. I said I had edited a magazine, two theses and multiple business publications. She was silent for a while. I filled the silence by asking about the employer. She said, “Well, I can’t tell you anything or everyone’s going to go swamping them with phone calls”. I asked if I could send my resume. Sighing theatrically, she answered, “I suppose so. You’re definitely not our client?” I emailed my resume. Half an hour later, I got an email saying the job had been filled.

True Story 3: Don’t mess with us

Amazingly, this all happened in one morning at a major JN provider which has managed to avoid this week’s funding cuts. Obviously at the time the staff had been told to put a boot up the bludgers’ bums, because two Employment Consultants (ECs) did the rounds of the ten clients who were there, dispensing stern words (in tandem) to all.

First, the fiftysomething man who, as a result of three knee surgeries, told them he preferred not to do any heavy labouring.

EC 1: “You shouldn’t discount any type of work just because you don’t feel like it. I have a feeling that you’re using the excuse of a sore knee to avoid work”.

Man: “I have a medical certificate. I’ve had three surgeries in the last couple of years”.

EC 2: “It really does sound like you’re leaning on this knee stuff to avoid participating. Have you read Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life? She’s really clear on how so-called physical symptoms are actually emotional problems”.

Man: “No, I haven’t heard of her, but it sounds interesting. Have you got anything about that here?”

EC 1 (angrily): “We’re an employment services provider, not a lending library. I suggest you go to the library and get your own copy”.

Second, another fiftysomething man who had had no luck with the Yellow Pages or the Internet.

EC 1: “(Company X) down in Brisbane has jobs sometimes. Here’s the address. You’ve got a car, right? Well, hop in it and take your resume down to them. They might have something”.

Man: “So they have jobs going now? Why don’t I ring them”?

EC 1: “No, but it never hurts to go see them. Don’t ring them; it’s much better for them to see their applicants”.

Man: “It’s an hour away and I don’t even have enough petrol money. I’m not going all the way down there with no money for a job that doesn’t exist. That’s ridiculous!”

EC 1: “You’ve got no excuse. We reimburse transport costs. In some instances, with receipts. I think maybe you’re refusing to comply with your mutual obligation requirements. Let’s go to my office right now and ring Centrelink and say you don’t want your payment since you’re not a sincere jobhunter”.

EC 2: “Yes, they’d be really interested to hear that!”

Thirdly, a twentysomething man looking through newspaper ads and minding his own business.

EC 1: “Yes, I know you, and I hear you’ve got a lot to say about us. I was standing behind you at Centrelink the other day and I heard you complaining to the lady at the counter about us. I suppose you didn’t think we’d find out about that, did you? Well, actions have consequences, you know.”

EC 3: (previously hiding behind computer in the corner): “I’m pretty sure that’s a breach. I think the rest of you can learn something from this”.

Me (really sick of it all by now): “Excuse me, but I think service users actually have a right to complain about their Job Network provider. I don’t think anything in the employment contract says they can’t”.

EC 1: “We’ll be the judge of what’s appropriate or otherwise.”

EC 3: “I think it’s time to check this young lady’s job contacts for the day, isn’t it?”

What about you?

Got any true stories from the Job Network?

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and one of the many ‘customers’ of the Job Network who .

Related posts:

1. Dismantle the Job Network
2. Good karma job hunting: Connecting with the hidden job market

Torture: Ticking time bombs and slippery slopes
A Talk by Dr John Janzekovic

Embiggen Books, Noosaville, 25 March 2009

John Janzekovic discusses the ethics and politics of torture at Embiggen Books, Noosaville.

We’re not all recession-immune luvvies thinking about nothing more taxing than our next Restylene appointment in Noosa, you know.

Last night, about 30 thoughtful and concerned folk of all ages got together at  Embiggen Books in Noosaville to hear Sunshine Coast University professor John Janzekovic talk about torture. Specifically, is torture ever ethical, and are we in the West complicit in torture when  we don’t take steps to prevent it? (i.e in Abu Ghraib or ‘rendition-friendly’ countries)

What followed was a lot of lively, intelligent and occasionally frustrating debate – just what I like as a politics junkie. Dr Janzekovic has published extensively on military history and made some very thought-provoking comments. Basically, he refuted the idea that torture can prevent the jailed terrorist from activating the ticking bomb (it’s a fantasy scenario) and he said any ‘civilised’ country practicing torture is on the slippery slope to non-civilisation.

However, some major questions remained unanswered (by audience or speaker). If you don’t use torture, what DO you do to prevent terrorism? If torture is a slippery slope towards brutality, is excessive leniency a slippery slope towards advertising our vulnerability to our enemies? As one older audience member commented, we’ve been discussing the ethics of this issue for decades; where are the answers?

I agree. I respect some of Dr Janzekovic’s opinions, but he had no alternatives to torture as a means of information gathering besides ‘do something else’ and ‘trust in the UN’. Do what else? Trust in the organisation with the shameful legacy of Rwanda (and many more), which can’t even get ‘civilised’ countries to agree on a Women’s Rights Charter or ratify the International Convention on the Rights of the Child?

Like so many political discussions I’ve had recently, this one seemed to be unhelpfully split between both personal-political lines and left-right lines, and sadly this is usually the road to hypocrisy.

The It’s Personal defend torture as just something people do, so what are you gonna do about it? Or it’s something you’d do if you had enough reason to do it, so what’s wrong with it?

My confession: I can imagine myself torturing someone for any of a possible hundred reasons. Molesting children. Setting wildlife-destroying bushfires. Stoning women. Making my girlfriend unhappy. Kicking my cat. Thank God the KGB never recruited me when I was a communist, since I appear to be so prone to political violence. Sure, communism’s dead now, but don’t EVER kick my cat.

The political Right defend torture as the ultimate crime prevention tool, happily in line with human nature. At their extreme, like Dubya, they seem to think anyone who doesn’t believe in God, Guns and Money deserves a life of solitary confinement.

The political Left are righteously offended by torture – as long as it’s practised by the US, Australia or Israel. If it’s practised by China or Iran, we should engage in mutually humanistic and non-offensive dialogue with them. And forget, say, intervening in Zimbabwe. As one man said, “The Chinese wouldn’t like that”. Settles that then.

So there’s my problem with torture debates. So few people admit their own weaknesses that would lead them to support torture. So few people admit their own hypocrisies. So few people want to design alternatives, even those folks smart enough to design them.

Despite this, credit due where credit must be due. The folks at Embiggen Books have created a real space for fascinating debate and discussion in Noosa. They made informed and interesting points in the general debate (gender! religion! thank you!) They have a non-fiction bookclub which discusses this stuff, and quantum physics, and humanism, where most bookshop-related talks stick to the safest and most middle-class topics (like renovating in Tuscany).

I’m a bookshop girl, having worked at five of them while you slackers were off studying and building careers. I was at first dubious about Embiggen being a nonfiction bookshop, but now I’m sold. Like Red Books (RIP) in Brisbane, it’s a cauldron of ideas, about more than the sale. I can’t wait to go and hear the talk on humanism in a month, which will almost balance out my being vaguely nice about Christians last month.

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and is frequently embiggened by a noble spirit.

No related posts.

Guest blogger, Carolyn Ride, is wondering whatever happened to old skool lesbian feminism.

Of course all you sisters went to the International Women’s Day Rally on the 7^th with the theme “women demand justice” didn’t you? Don’t lie, you didn’t. Let’s face it, the lesbian feminist wombyn stereotype wearing a labrys necklace and waving a placard is dying if not dead. 

Lesbian feminists had their glory days in the 80s and 90s. They ran communes and women’s dances. They showed women could do anything. (If they were sound engineers or graphic designers, they showed women could charge other women anything too). They ran the women’s refuges and crisis centres when no-one else cared, wrote weirdly wafty alliterative books – thanks Mary Daly – and even out-argued socialist women in meetings.

As a major force in non-mainstream politics, lesbian feminism had to end. Most took the personal is political thing way too far; even debating whether lesbians should give up their boy children to avoid “putting energy into men”. Having spent so much time at the coalface of gender relations, they overgeneralised women as victims. Lastly, I think they just got co-opted as they got older. It’s hard to argue your lesbian feminist purity from a six-figure government adviser job or a tenured professorship.

If you are one of the few lesbian feminists left flying the lavender flag, thanks for paving the way for the next lesbian generations. But now it’s time to accept change. Young dykes and queer women want explore polyamory and porn or gay marriage and gaybies for the same reason you wanted to escape it: to have the choice. Get to know some of them. (You might meet them at the IWD breakfasts women do now instead of rallies). Just remember: bisexuality is not a disease, sex trade doesn’t automatically equal slave trade, and intellectual rigidity is not intellectual rigour.

Of course, this play nice rule applies to the opposition too. If you’re one of those so-called radical queers who whinge that sex-negative lesbian feminist types are oppressing you, toughen up! It was probably your mother who made you feel ashamed of your desires. Sheila Jeffreys is not your mother. And yes, you may feel a negative vibe at some queer event from some disapproving 60-something women in fisherman’s pants from Lismore who don’t “get” the queer, femme, switch, boi, burlesque thing you’re performing as genderfuck. That’s not discrimination. Getting beaten up on the train home by angry yobs; being blackballed by future employers because that’s your identity on your facebook page: that’s discrimination.

Again, get to know some of them. They might not all be so conservative after all! Try to be indulgent about the disapproval thing. After all, the generation after you will at best find you quaint and at worst rebel against everything you stood for. 

Carolyn Ride is a writer and editor … who still has a copy of Lesbian Nation on her bookshelf. 

Related posts:

1. What next? A lesbian Prime Minister?
2. Apparently, Audre Lorde said
3. Lesbians: The hidden victims of the Bonds clothing crisis

Guest blogger, Carolyn Ride, is just realising the real impact of the Bonds layoff…

There are many tragic aspects to the decision this week by Pacific Brands (maker of iconic Aussie label Bonds) to cut 1850 Australian manufacturing jobs and move production to China.

There’s the effect on the workers and their families themselves; especially since it seems they had no idea it was coming. There’s the fact that (surprise!) they rewarded their CEOs for failure with multimillion-dollar payouts (AUD$1.86 million a year salary for current exec Sue Morphet). Then there’s the revelation that Pacific Brands milked millions of dollars in research and investment grants from the Australian government in recent years, just before pulling the plug. Oh, and the loss of yet another iconic Aussie brand to faceless, soulless globalisation.

And yet there are other victims in this tragedy unremarked by the media; untold millions of lesbians who will now officially have nothing to wear!

Bonds Chesty Girl

According to a straw poll of friends etc, I’m apparently a femme. Either it’s the dress fetish or my taste for ladies’ drinks that gave it away. Still, when I look in my wardrobe I have about four men’s “Chesty Bond” white Bonds singlets; not to mention two fitted black cotton T-shirts, two sports bras and three pairs of sports socks. They’re all Bonds products which fit lesbian fashion demands (simplicity, practicality, natural fibres, moderate price, mildly androgynous) better than anything else made.

I don’t know why this is, but only men’s Chesty Bonds singlets give adequate support for the braless bosom while equally able to cover up the straps of one’s comfy yet supportive 16DD Bonds cotton bra. (Just try to find a regular brand bra in larger cup sizes that doesn’t feel like a mammogram).

The indispensable Bonds raglan tee

They also make the only T-shirts I know that mysteriously make me look 20% trimmer and more muscular. They have been a way for women at a certain end of the Kinsey scale to look smart and stylish,  yet classically lestastic, for decades. 

They also answered the most important lesbian fashion demand of all time, the one that never changes: the ability to buy all your clothes, from underwear to jackets, in one section of any major department store. Thus, getting a whole season’s wardrobe takes only half an hour, leaving ample time for the electronics and outdoor goods sections.

Let’s face it, many Bonds products were already manufactured in China. At least, though, the company had enough presence in the Australian market to know its certain attachment to fit over fashion, durability and the need for the odd classic product that never changes. Much like the lesbian market.

But now? Even if the products don’t go downhill, I – like so many lesbians – am a world-class boycotter, so I won’t support a company which so obviously screwed its employees. Meanwhile, wild horses wouldn’t drag me into one of those Cotton On, Rivers etc chains that sell T-shirts that lose shape if you look at them harshly. And those singlets with giant, gaping armholes presumably meant to advertise the age and discolouration level of your bra.

I propose a general f*** you to Pacific Brands’ contempt for its employees, the Australian taxpayer and the mass of lesbian consumers that kept it going through bad times and good. Meanwhile, the entrepreneurial door is now open for any lesbian with an industrial sewing machine and the desire to make a killing in a very captive and very desperate market.

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and owns enough Bonds products to attend shareholder meetings.

Related posts:

1. The Global Financial Crisis is My Fault
2. Good karma job hunting: Connecting with the hidden job market
3. Farewell to lesbian feminism

Guest blogger Carolyn Ride has been attempting to Feel The Spirit in her recent encounters with modern Christianity but is just left shaking her head in disappointment. Oh dear. What would JC do?

In my circle of friends, most of whom fit very comfortably at the left libertarian end of the political compass, I’m kind of the token apologist for Christianity.

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t brought up religious, so I can look at faith with a distant and benign eye. Maybe it’s because, given a choice of opinions, I masochistically gravitate to the unpopular ones. Whatever the reason, I often end up pointing out the good bits about our much-despised Judeo-Christian cultural norms.

For example, many Christians take their responsibility to the poor and dispossessed seriously. They run charities and feed the homeless and take refugees into their homes. The idea that poor people matter was so radical to the ancient Romans – normally tolerant of religion – that they banned Christianity. It’s still a radical idea and one I share from the atheist side of the fence.

I also respect the fact that so many Christians are the poor and dispossessed. Missionaries did some horrible things to other people’s lands and culture, but now – for whatever reason – the Global South has really embraced the Christian God. So I can’t say all Christians suck without writing off most of the population of sub-Saharan Africa, South America, Asian countries like the Philippines and the Pacific.

Lastly, I like the Bible a lot (as literature, not moral guide). I like the fact that if I really want to hear about Jesus I can do so for free – a bargain in a New Age of $520.00 per weekend workshop of loving gurus and healing avatars. I like gospel music and Christmas hymns and the fact that, even though Christians think I’m going to hell for being an unbeliever, most won’t use bombs or rockets to expedite my journey there.

So when Christians do bad and stupid things I – unlike my fellow pinko radical friends – feel disappointed, like a parent whose child bullied the shy and sensitive kid. I got to get in touch with disappointment THREE TIMES this fortnight.

Firstly, I went to an unnamed Catholic church with my partner and her sister (the one who actually goes to church). No, I wasn’t there to feel the Spirit, just because it was on the schedule that day, and I was quite happy to tag along. Unfortunately, the experience was quite off-putting.

It wasn’t that there were only about six people there besides us two Godless sinning homosexuals. It wasn’t that I didn’t know the songs. No-one tried to save us or interrogate us or quote Leviticus at us. It’s just that it seemed flat and joyless. People recited Bible quotes, responded to the sermon (or whatever the Catholic equivalent) and sang hymns in the same unenthusiastic monotone. My partner, Ms Weston(Culture), nearly elbowed me for putting too much woo and hoo into the Lord’s Prayer. I didn’t expect a slammin’ black gospel choir and people to shout “Testify!” but I did hope to see people getting something out of the belief system that keeps them going.

Maybe I just don’t get the quiet dignity of Catholicism, you say. But I have been to a Catholic church where a packed house oozed Jesus Love; which brings me to my second disappointment. Yesterday I learned that the Catholic hierarchy excommunicated Father Peter Kennedy of St Mary’s Catholic Church in Brisbane for “unorthodox practices”. Archbishop John Bathersby acted on complaints by Catholics (not from St Mary’s congregation) that Father Kennedy was blessing gays and letting parishioners lead the service.

Yep, St Mary’s was the church I went to in my brief spiritual searching phase. I realised I just didn’t believe in God, a bit of a barrier to picking Christianity. But I was still mightily impressed with St Mary’s. There were so many people there they were bursting out the doors, who sang hymns with gusto and shook hands with the people next to them with joy. I recognised lots of queer acquaintances, socialists, ex-druggies, former nihilists. It appeared St Mary’s welcomed them with open arms and supported them for being who they were.

It’s true that Father Kennedy and his fellow St Mary-ites were pretty provocatively unorthodox. They talked up gay rights, they called God both him and her. Then again, Jesus was quite unorthodox in his day. The heads of a declining faith (in the West) that supposedly values theological debate surely had better options than excommunicating a priest known for his work with the marginalised (homeless, indigenous, refugees) as well as popular.

The Archbishop must envy the fundamentalist Pentecostal-type churches, which get to be both wildly intolerant and Popular Wit Da Kidz. One of these churches in the US, p4cm, is causing a big stir with their evangelical T-shirts announcing that the wearer’s an ex-Diva, ex-Hypocrite, ex-Homosexual, ex-Fornicator, ex-Porn Addict, ex-Hustler and….ex-Masturbator! Someone sent me the video of the p4cm loons discussing the ex-Masturbator shirt (apparently it’s sexually immoral and says so in Corinthians, so there) and at first I thought it was a piss-take. Then I realised it was serious, but still pretty bloody hilarious. But now I think it’s kind of tragic.

I suppose it’s brave to walk around proclaiming yourself an ex-masturbator or ex-fornicator. Maybe it’s bravest to walk around as an ex-hypocrite. Much has been written about these shirts, but I don’t know if anyone else has noticed that the mainly young, black evangelists modelling these shirts aren’t exactly ugly. So can you wear an ex-hypocrite shirt when you’re using sexy young thangs to sell a no-sex message?

While we’re at it, what’s with the endless fundamentalist focus on so-called sexual immorality while ignoring financial immorality? Don’t they have some sort of financial crisis thingy in the States (and everywhere else now; thanks, guys). Doesn’t the Bible have some not complimentary things to say about money changers and temples, and workers of iniquity, and the love of money being the root of all evil? I’ll be impressed when p4cm “rocks” – as they put it – an ex-Hedge Trader shirt or an ex-Money-Grubbing Televangelist shirt.

The shirts and the ex-Masturbator video are pretty bloody funny. Sadly, some people – too many people – will take it seriously. Like the girl they chose to model the ex-Homosexual shirt, who was about to marry her girlfriend of five years before she got saved and is now a repressed idiot in a stupid and mean-spirited T-shirt. That’s what turns the “ex” shirt enterprise from ridiculous to revolting.

What would Jesus do with all this? I’d like to think he wouldn’t bore his flock to tears in his house of worship, ex-communicate his followers for asking questions or wear an Ex-Suspiciously Single Man Hanging Around A Bunch Of Blokes t-shirt. Then again, as a Godless homosexual pinko, what would I know?

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and has a lovely collection of hell-worthy handbaskets.

Related posts:

1. A very Ted St Patrick’s Day

Guest blogger, Carolyn Ride, gets the vapors while watching some political thingy happening on the other side of the world…

Call me schmaltzy (because I am, plus it’s a great word), but it was hard not to be inspired by Wednesday’s inauguration of 44^th US President. 1.8 million people were there in Washington to watch President Barack Hussein Obama address the nation from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. Billions more worldwide watched it on TV.

Of course, you know this already. Like me, you might have watched the whole thing on TV, then all the news reports showing the highlights. I have to mention it again because I was amazed at how Obama’s speech, while not perfect, touched all the bases for where people are at (in America and the rest of the world). Yes, I know it was written by a speechwriter, not Obama himself. Yes, the frequent references to God, God bless us all, Scripture and God bless America were a little creepy. They were for me at least. I’d probably be the atheist in the foxhole. Thank someone (but not God) there was one little mention of unbelievers being part of the nation.

I still got chills though. I was reminded that day why, despite all the evil America commits at home and abroad, the country’s ideals ring out to billions of people around the world. Obama’s speech reaffirmed all those ideals while acknowledging the crises of economy, environment and war that threaten them. Even the all-American emotive patriotism was a welcome change from the endless realpolitik we’ve slogged through the past decade.

Luckily for me, I can always find something to whinge about in the midst of the best circumstances. My whinges are the following:

• The bloody awful boring celebrity guest appearances. On Wednesday, you could have looted all the swankiest neighbourhoods in LA and no-one would have noticed. Why? Because they were all in Washington doing bad covers. No, I don’t want to lean on Mary J Blige. When I hear political speechmaking, I don’t want it to be from Tom Hanks. And though I love U2, someone should have told Bono it wasn’t his inauguration.

• I’m glad Obama, not Clinton, is the new President. I’m no personal fan of either of the Clintons, but there’s no denying that the criticism of Hillary during the election was as much sexist as policy-based. Now Michelle Obama is the first lady. Though she’s an Ivy League graduate ex-lawyer who used to be Obama’s mentor, it seems her most important decision so far has been the outfits she wore to the inauguration and the inauguration balls. Now there’s all sorts of breathless commentary about how she’ll redecorate the White House. What kind of mother is she? Is she sufficiently devoted to Obama? How will she, like, stay so stylish? It all makes me nostalgic for Bill Clinton’s promise that you ‘get two for the price of one’. Finally, America has shown it’s ready for a black President. I don’t think it’s nearly ready for a female one. I doubt it’s even willing to let Michelle Obama use her formidable guts and intelligence for more than invigorating dinner parties. Maybe the US will one day follow the lead of more gender-blind countries. Like, um, Pakistan (one female President who, if not assassinated, might have been re-elected) or the Phillipines (two female Presidents). Hell, even Ireland has had two female Presidents, and they had the most repressive abortion laws in Europe.

• Oh yeah. Rick Warren, who compared being gay to pedophilia, leading the pre-inauguration prayer. Bridge-building is admirable, but that was a bridge too far.

Overall, though, almost nothing can ruin my warm inner glow from the inauguration of America’s 44^th President. Just give Michelle a real and important job, tell the Hollywood hangers-on they’re on salary cap from now on, and deliver America and the world from this recession in an environmentally responsible way. That’s all I ask of Obama really. I’ll keep Barack-ing for him.

Carolyn Ride is a writer, reviewer and editor who loves to vacuum.

No related posts.

Oh, and it’s yours too.

Guest blogger, Carolyn Ride, comes clean and reveals the real players in the economic meltdown. It’s ugly folks but the truth must out.

As the storm clouds of the global financial crisis were gathering in the US in early 2008, and we watched in alarm as the map showed said storm ready to flatten the rest of the world, the experts started looking for who to blame.

I have to say, a lot of, like, fully unfair stones were cast at those unsung heroes of the financial coalface (or, in the case of our mineral exports, the literal coalface). These bankers, non-conforming lenders, stockbrokers, retailers, wholesalers and insurers, whose only mission is to provide their customers (us) with superior, internationally competitive and best practice products were accused of heinous crimes. Over-borrowing. Over-lending. Falsifying their reports and covering up their losses. Spending more profligately and unwisely than an oil sheik at a gold bathroom fittings warehouse.

Fortunately, wiser heads eventually prevailed and now we’re hearing financial commentary that’s not afraid to take on the real architects of all this global pain. Me and you. We wanted it all. We wanted to own the giant McMansion in the burbs and the tree-change weekender powered by positive thoughts. We wanted the plasma screen TV and the Tivo and the King Island brie and the closet full of Made In China clothes (timed perfectly to fall apart in one month or when fashions changed, whichever came first). We wanted to make two grand a week digging polluting coal out of the ground and to get flown to the city for R&R by long-suffering employers. We were perverse with Thing Lust, feverish with Affluenza, and controlled only by forces even darker than our own impulses: Tween girls and toddlers drunk on pester power.

It took real courage for a brave few – economists, politicians, a couple of Wall Street Warriors – to speak out, hesitantly at first, to say that the crisis was regular people’s fault and not the experts unjustly singled out simply because it was their job to manage money, market cycles and consumer demand.

The debate had been hamstrung by muddled thinking. Should an organisation whose business is loans be forced to take the blame for encouraging the financially unstable to get into debt, then using their repayments to play (and lose in) the short-term money market? Should the government of, say, Australia, be criticised for basing all their plans for prosperity on selling raw materials instead of encouraging clean industry and knowledge economies? Should CEOs be forced to pay back their megabonuses when their companies fail, or even get prosecuted for falsifying corporate reports?

Plenty of bitter, jealous types like Ross Gittins of the Sydney Morning Herald thought so, not even caring how such sniping could damage a leader’s self-esteem. Lucky there was the example of the corporate and government response to global warming to guide the experts, or we might still be ruled by Tall Poppy Syndrome. “As a giant agribusiness corporation, we would be so hurting if you made us go green. We’d have no choice but to make the economy suffer. Anyway, it’s not our fault. It’s those yobs who drive old cars, do five loads of washing in a top-loader and leave their lights on”. Cue “10 things you can do” awareness pamphlet sponsored by agribusiness corporation and a government-sponsored “dob in a V8 driver” hotline.

Sure, as individuals we are learning to be more aware of our patterns of excess and debt. But that hardly means we have learned the real lesson, which is “It’s ALL our fault”. Our Federal Government took valuable time at the end of last year away from bailing out car manufacturers and success-phobic childcare centres to hand some of you cash money to ease the financial stress of Christmas. All they asked in return is that you do a little bit of meaningless consumption – I mean, do your bit to support the economy. Yet so many people (I’m ashamed to say, including me) didn’t do the big Christmas shop. Some even, as the financial analyst on SBS News said with disgust, put their handout into debt repayment or savings.

So I take responsibility for all the credit-fuelled consumption frenzy that led to the economy overheating and the subsequent crash. I also take responsibility for saving when I should have started spending. As should you. 

On behalf of ordinary people who should have done better, I apologise to the people who simply found themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong bag of money in their hands – ours. I’ll apologise to you in person should we ever meet at the traffic lights as I’m washing the window of your Lexus for small change.

Carolyn Ride is a writer, reviewer and editor who has generously contributed this article in the hope that I will stop nagging her about doing her own blog. I would love to provide a link to her other writing, but, she doesn’t have a website. (Or a blog!) – TW

Yeah, but I have my own team of scribes chiselling my words of wisdom as we speak. Check again in ten years – CR

Related posts:

1. Lesbians: The hidden victims of the Bonds clothing crisis
2. Does Fiji deserve Pacific pariah status?