April 2007

International Women's Day Rally

10 March 2007, Brisbane

I've never been on a march through the streets of Brisbane City before in my life. You know the type of march I mean: large banners, police stopping traffic, chanting led by vigilant political activists who go red in the face because they actually, really believe in their cause. I did so for the first time, this year, on Saturday 10 March 2007. The Annual Women's Day Rally for Social Justice was exhilarating, exhausting and, well, it was also the only exercise I'll probably do for a year.

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We marched (and shouted) from the corner of George and Elizabeth Streets, down Edward Street to Charlotte, up Charlotte Street, back down George and over the Victoria Bridge all the way to Musgrave Park. Then we had a great feed at the end (sausages, salads, bread rolls, veggie patties, of course, which were Yum-oh, and I say this as a die-hard carnivore) and watched our kids - white and black, Euro- and Indigenous-Australians - belting the bejesus out of each others' legs and feet with those soft u-shaped devices they use to teach kids how not to fear water (what are they called? Jeez, I MUST be a bad mother).

I'll come back to this last point - the kids' foot bashing, not my bad status as a mother - which for me was the highlight. First, however, let me tell you about what it felt like to shout out things like "Get your rosaries off my ovaries!" and "Whose Streets? Our streets! Whose world? Our world!" and "Hey hoh, say no! Put an end to sexual violence!"

At first, I was embarrassed. I don't like attention drawn to myself. But then I realised there were maybe 50 or 60 selves there of which I was but one. And I saw a number of students (some I had taught), young women with big voices. Dedicated women who knew nothing about shame because they were there to shout out a cause and they didn't give a flying hoot about anything but the ideas of resistance and solidarity, safety and women's rights, their disgust at the idea of a false war and their anger at the dispossession of a people. The very causes I have passionately pursued and written about for a number of years now. It is quite rare now, at university, to encounter a young, political mind (most think uni is nothing but vocational training, which it is for many -and should be - but not for all, especially our Arts students). And so, with these great young women, I found myself shouting ... a little.

I guess I'm not, after all, one of those women I admire, those women who get up and SCREAM for rights. I'm an academic. I write. There has long been a schism between academic writers and activists - the thinkers and the doers. But on this day, we all come together for a bit. I felt a little better because beside me was an acquaintance (and now friend), a Polish woman who laughed and laughed when I mimicked her own quiet chant "Get yooooour chrosarrries off my ovarrrries" with her beautiful Polish accent. And it was fun taking turns pushing the pram of a friend and colleague, a grannie-Professor (see below), while we each smoked cigarettes. Actually, despite my resistance to resistance (vocal, at least) I had an absolute ball with these gals and guys who, like me, were a little hung-over, a little bit tender ... can't we organise the revolution at any time other than Saturday morning? Sheesh.

Yet, I hope, despite this, if you're like me next year you'll come along and bring your daughters, your sons, and your hubbies (if you have them), and quietly chant for the rights of women - we fabulous beings who make up more than half of society. We all just expect them, rights that is, and when we go through a spate of rapes - of women jogging, walking, cycling alone, as we should be able to do in a so-called civilized society - we hope that things will simply change. We have a long, long way to go. And my anger at masculine culture (not men; masculine culture is something women participate in as well) for these crimes against women - all of them, but especially the recent ones in BrisVegas - has always been vigorous. And will continue to be so.

Amazingly, and humorously, on our march, many men on the sidewalk were cheering. A number of women as well, but I swear that more men were clapping and whistling. And, well, let's get this straight: we were not a mob of "models" or "good girls." These great men were not whistling for reasons we might imagine.

Our group was fabulously eclectic: mums and dads and their kids, lesbians, lesbian couples and their kids, old-time activists like Professor Carole Ferrier, who marched with her two grand-daughters (and whose pram I pushed so she could smoke a durry), young feminists, old feminists, mid-aged feminists like me, aboriginal men and women, even one young guy wearing bright-pink pants and bearing a placard high above his head which read (proudly passé) "Peace, Love, Harmony, Joy." He had told me earlier that he was a new "recruit" to feminism. He wasn't there with a girlfriend, or a group of girl friends. And he wasn't there to 'pick up' (though I reckon he just might've anyway, god bless his organic cotton socks). He was there because he believed in the importance of women's voices and he just wanted to support that. He must have been all of nineteen. I swear, ladies, that's a good sign. Someone's bringing their boys up well.

Thing is, I think these men on the sidelines, who were mainly builders, pub-workers and such who had to work on a Saturday (hopefully for better than normal wages), were cheering and laughing and chatting with us because they were both bemused and excited by the sight of a rally, something that rarely happens in Brisbane these days.

I'm not naïve enough to believe that they all agreed with our causes (it is well known, and from my own experience growing up, that the working class is quite sexist and racist). Only that for a few moments on the streets the traffic had to stop, their work had to stop, and consequently everyone heard and saw a group of men and women peacefully asking for a better society. These men showed us that, while they were bemused (and maybe even laughing at us for a bit), they understood the importance of having a voice (particularly in this Fascist Australian age of 'do what you are told, or else').

By the time I got to Musgrave Park I was cactus! My feet hurt, and I was damn hungry. Near the park, when our chantress led us in the cry "What do we want?" I answered "Um…lunch!" That may have been the loudest this selfish academic got. But, at our destination, there was food and drink and entertainment put on for us marchers.

What got me, what got my heart, was that at the end of our march (which also had a lot to say about Aboriginal land rights), our communities came together - feminists, socialists, aboriginal activists, etc. My mentor, Professor Carole Ferrier - an extraordinary woman (anyone who has worked in a male environment and had a high-powered woman decide to watch over, instruct, and protect her will understand my willingness to laud this great woman. If you don't feel that, because you never had it, I hope that, nevertheless, if in a position of power one day you'll be that person for some young woman in your care) - and I went and watched as her grand-daughter got drawn into kids' games.

Two young women/girls (maybe twelve or thirteen) from the local Aboriginal community got all the kids, black and white, male and female (though they were screaming out for more girls!) to come in to play a team-based game of whacking. Kids love whacking. The smiles on all these kids' faces made me sad that my own girl, Lillian, wasn't there (she was doing piano and Fruition Tuition, which her father organises). But more so, it made me think about why we put our kids through more education on weekends, when these kinds of activities are there for our kids to share! I don't know about you but, remembering my own childhood self, I would have willingly foregone weekend education for a rollicking good time with other kids, one that involved a bit of whacking!!

I am going to think about this some more and get back to you. To be a part of a fabulous aboriginal community on weekends, with our kids laughing and beating the shit out of each other with foam ... and, remember, laughing ... I think that is a weekend our kids would cherish.

And something our society, our wonderful city called Brisbane, needs.

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Julie Kelso e julieanne.kelso@uq.edu.au