Being a Brit in Sydney on Australia Day

.So here I stand. On the shores where the First Fleet landed on January 26th 1788 and planted a Union Jack in the soil and claimed Australia as their own. The British government needed somewhere to ship their convicts, wanted a military outpost, and when Captain Cook discovered the east coast of "the great southern land", "terra nullius" was declared and so the invasion began.

"Terra nullius" means "land belonging to no one". Now there is no debate - this land belonged to someone. This great Southern land belonged to it's Aboriginal inhabitants. And the Cadigal people that lived where modern day Sydney stands suddenly found themselves sharing their home with white men.

Governor Arthur Phillip kidnapped Aboriginal men to try and communicate with the community, learning their language, teaching them English so that they might get on. Initially, the British tried to foster positive relations with the Aboriginals. But how positive can relations ever be with a community of people that suddenly had the land they'd lived on for 40,000 (or more) years, that they believe they are part of, taken from them and changed beyond recognition within just a matter of months?

3 years after the First Fleet arrived, the majority of the Cadigal people had died, from smallpox mostly. A death toll only added to over the next 200 years.

This morning I excitedly got out the Australian flag my great uncle had bought me. I put a temporary tattoo of the flag on my arm, and I went out excited to see the city on the biggest day of the year. To see the day when Australians celebrate their country, their traditions, their democratic society in a free land.

And then I read this http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/26/australia-day-is-a-time-for-mourning-not-celebration. And my naivety disappeared and disgust at my own ignorance emerged.

But it's a big day for everybody except this land's original inhabitants. It's a big day for white Australia, and for other non-white Australian citizens and residents whose families have emigrated here, like my great uncle and aunt. But how can we all, in good conscience, celebrate this day in the knowledge of what the coming of white British settlers meant for the Indigenous people? The years of continued systematic oppression. The denial of rights. Generally speaking, the goddamn racism.

So in good faith I wanted to see Sydney celebrate. And instead I was confronted with the truth that no matter what the event was - a Ferrython, a Tinny muster, a concert, a market, a BBQ - this is not a day of celebration. Not for Aboriginal people. And not for anyone that stands with them. Which should be every Australian, and every other person that believes in justice and equality.

One down?

So technically yesterday I completed one of my New Years Resolutions. I completed number 3, "Write something creative which isn't a blog."
Yesterday I published a poem on my other blog. So, I've completed one of my resolutions, right?

Well. According to one of my friends, resolutions can be changed. I hate the idea of changing what is essentially a promise to myself, but if I'm changing it for the better... 

So that resolution, "Write something creative that isn't a blog - like a couple of chapters of a book, a poem or a short film script" what if I changed the or to an and? What if my resolution was to write a poem AND a couple of chapters of a book AND a short film script? I have 12 months, after all... 

Gender unequals

You know what makes me mad? 

Sexism.  

The looks, the tone, the language 

Of sexism. 




And in case you didn't know what sexism looks like, let me show
you.  

Because oh shit there it is, right behind you!  

Sometimes it comes from between your lips.  

And whether you meant it as a joke or not,

The root of gender inequality lies between my hips. 




Movember- woo! Armpits for August - boo! 

Women aren't meant to have hair under their arms or stretched over their
calves, didn't you know? It doesn't grow because it's meant to be there... So
make it go.

"I don`t care how much money it raises, no woman should have hair below
their bottom set of eye lashe`s. Fact!" 

Thank you, Daily Mail Online commenter. I knew I could count on your
support. 




Wage gap, wage gap, gaps in pay. 

Not paid the same for being Rebecca and not Ray.  




Maternity pay - acceptable, conditionally. 

Paternity leave - inexcusable, start acting traditionally. 




The phrase "having it all" and hearing women can't, don't.

And knowing that men can, do. 




That bloody glass ceiling that still exists. 

We can see it because our nails, short and long, polished and plain,
scratch at it every day.  

We can see it because our hands, grubby with sweat from work, working
out, cleaning the house, cleaning up the kids, those grubby hands leave marks
there to stay. 

We can see our reflections in it. Our bruised and battered reflections
as we push and push and push and puuuuush.  




Gender inequality is hearing the phrases "don't be such a
girl", "man up", "grow some balls". 

Because god forbid you should in any way act like less than a man, like
a female. 

Wait, how does a female act anyway?




Do proper women cover up? 

Do real women have curves? 

Do all women have some deep down desire to fill their womb and go
through an average of 12 hours of pain to birth another human being? 




If you cover up - good for you! If you have curves - good for you! If
you have a child, or multiple children - I stand up and applaud you because I
think it's the stupidest yet bravest action a woman could do. 

Actually, bungee jumping also requires bravery. So does joining the
army. 

So does crossing the street in Thailand apparently. 

So giving birth is simply a fantastic thing to do, well done, but it's
not the BE ALL and END ALL of a woman's abilities.




Gender inequality is reading about a Texan hospital keeping a brain-dead
woman alive because she's pregnant and they won't turn off life support because
Texan law requires the doctors to save the baby. A brain-dead woman, who was
administered drugs and electric shocks to try and get her to live, who cannot
be an active part in the life of a baby who has probably suffered because of
the aforementioned medical practices used to try and save the mother, is still
hooked up to a machine DESPITE her family asking doctors to turn off life
support.







http://abcnews.go.com/Health/family-pregnant-texas-woman-sues-hospital-keeping-life/story?id=21531385
 







 A woman is a human being, not an incubator. Do you need proof?







Here is a picture of a woman.   




 










Here is a picture of an incubator.






 


  

  
borrowed from aboutraisingchickens101.com



 

  

  

Well, look at that. They're different. Who'd've thunk it...







Gender inequality is Marion Bertolli winning Wimbledon and being berated
for being "ugly". 

(Beauty, beholder, you fill on the words.) 

When does a woman's face stop her playing professional tennis to a
championship winning standard?

IT DOESN'T YOU MORONS. 




It's seeing the headline that 3 in 4 girls have low self-esteem, and 7
out of 10 over the age of 13 have suffered sexual harassment at school or
college.

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/girlguiding-report-sexism-blamed-as-three-in-four-girls-report-low-selfesteem-8971885.html




It's a woman protesting to not have women wiped off the face of British
currency. And then succeeding. And THEN getting days, weeks, months of abuse
and hate online. It's other women sticking up for her and getting the same sort
of abuse. And bomb threats. Actual fucking bomb threats.




It's a man shouting boo at a woman at an ATM and then repeatedly trying
to hold her hand as she walks in the same direction at them, at the same pace.
And you laugh it off as them being friendly, if not slightly annoying. But my
hand. Why did he want to hold my hand? Why did he feel he could touch me at
all? 




It's a 17 year old boy shouting "slut" at you because you
don't fancy him. Does he even know the definition of "slut" according
to a dictionary? Because surely not fancying any random boy off the street
makes you the opposite of the definition of a slut. Surely a more accurate
thing he should have shouted was "well I don't fancy you
either." 




It's your hostel room mates asking if you want to see them naked. And
you laugh it off and say no thanks but then the next day when they wolf whistle
at you when you return to the room from a shower you tell them if they do that
again you'll take their testicles off. 

And it's them saying "it's just a joke. Don't take it like
that."




Why are woman always the butt of the joke? 

Why these three things in three days?




It's an old man touching you up in a Lidl's car park. 

It's a guy you thought was your friend, that you trusted, giving you a black eye and sexually assaulting you because he wants
you so bad and you don't want him back.

It's the destruction of your trust in men. You know not all men are like that, not all men would do that.
You know it somewhere.




It's hearing that all the stories on Everyday Sexism project couldn't
possibly all be true. Some of them must be made up. That one hurts much more
because you've contributed to it. Twice. And you have so many more stories that
could go on it.




It's reading Project Unbreakable. http://projectunbreakable.tumblr.com/ 




It's hearing that men can't be raped. 

That a woman was asking for it because of what she was wearing, or some
other bullshit excuse. How can we stop rape? Get women not to walk down dark
alleys at night. Get women to cover up, and not go out drinking. Get women to
carry mace or pepper spray, or even their house keys in their hand when they
walk home, walk anywhere, just in case.

No. We stop rape by teaching that rape is wrong. Rape is caused by
rapists. End of. So shut up.




It's getting this bullshit day in, day out, and feeling weary and worn
out from having to constantly defend yourself, justify yourself. It's all so
exhausting. 




And if you think I'm not acting very ladylike by being so, so, so beside
myself with anger, then ask yourself this: why are you forcing your ideals of
what a woman should be on me? Where did you get them from? Was it your parents?
Your friends? School? The media? 




All of the above.







Gender inequality is men and women being given ideals
of themselves in terms of appearance, personality traits, and skills. It's
being told there are roles for men and there are roles for women. 

Why are there not roles for people? 




I'm done with this shit. It has to end. 







Just because it's the status quo

Doesn't mean it should be so.

Free Entry

Less than two weeks into 2014, and I have completed my first New Year's resolution. On Thursday I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It cost my over $300 because I booked it 3 days before, but it was worth every penny cent. 

I have also read (or technically finished reading) two of the books on my list of books to read this year: Better than Fiction, and Because A White Man'll Never Do It. Of these, Better than Fiction was a free download from a Starbucks iTunes code. And as I write this, I'm standing in a queue to a free bouncy castle in Hyde Park in the city of Sydney. Not a bouncy castle, but a bouncy Stonehenge.

For 2 weeks leading up to Australia Day, Sydney is having a festival. A festival of music, theatre, performance art, magic. And in Festival Village, the home of it all, sits Sacrilege. You might remember it from the greatest games of all time, in 2012.  A massive, inflatable, bouncy Stonehenge. And as the evening sun peaks through the clouds, it looks incredible. And the bouncers look like they are having so much fun.

I'm in the queue as I type this on my phone. I need the loo, and no doubt this is going to impact on my bounce -ability, but you could not stop me if you tried. I am almost in tears from the sheer enormity of what I'm about to do. 

Ha. The sheer enormity. Am I talking about the inflatable wonder of the world or the decision I've come to about moving on? It feels like both. 
My plan is now Melbourne for February, Adelaide for March, before back to Sydney briefly before my adventures with my mother to Uluru and the Whitsundays. And then into the unknown again. The sheer enormity of the unknown. 

Without trying to sound pious, I am already changed from the person I was when I left England. There is something so liberating about travelling. Apart from the actual, real, financial implications, it's like getting free entry into new worlds. And it is so freaking awesome. 

Space Invader

I just have to write this blog. Like literally, if I don't write this I might explode a bit.

Yesterday I went on a date. We went for coffee, even though I don't drink coffee. But that was ok, I got peppermint tea. 

He, we'll call him Captain Neg, was half an hour late. This turned out to be a good thing because by the end of the date we were counting down the minutes til we could leave. It was that awkward.

He mentioned his penis, or masturbating, approximately every 30 seconds. Now I know that people masturbate and that men have penises. But what I would rather not have to endure is a guy reminding me of this on a regular basis. In a coffee shop. 

But the thing that I dislike most about him was that he invaded my space. I noticed it first when he approached me on the street and started chatting me up. In fairness, I asked for his number, a) as a way of hurrying the already awkwardning conversation to a close, and b) so I could go and Skype my nan. I noticed that he kept inching closer and closer to me. It made me feel uncomfortable mostly because I'm a small person and he's a tall person. 

Then yesterday, when we managed to grab a table in the coffee shop, I noticed it again, this time more clearly and it was so off-putting, so intimidating, I couldn't help but adopt a defensive pose. Arms crossed, back against the wall so I could turn my body slightly outwards towards open space because when I turned towards the table he was just there. He was just everywhere, all over that table. 

Now there's a very good spoken word poem about shrinking women and how women subconsciously try to fit ourselves into tiny spaces, try to take up as little room as possible. But I was doing this because there was no space to occupy. He took it all.

Imagine you are sat at a coffee table, opposite a person. Generally coffee tables are not huge. But if there's two of you, then usually you both occupy half the table. If you're intimate then you might hold hands across the table, or you might reach over to touch the other person. But his arms stretched across, his coffee cup was on my half. Everytime I put my hands on the table I was at risk of touching him. And I didn't want to touch him. 

We are all very protective of our personal space. We have reason to be. So regardless of his punctuality or immature constant talk about his appendage, it was his space invading that put me off him the most. You know a date is not going well when you're going out of your way to not touch them. 

Fighting Fears

Throughout September and October last year, I was having frequent attacks of nausea. Once a week on average, sometimes with vomiting. There was no rhyme nor reason to it. When I spoke to my GP, he said it was because I was eating dinner so late. 

But it wasn't. By that point I wasn't even eating dinner that late frequently, not like I had done in the months before. I still don't know exactly what it was, but I have a theory.

My theory is that nausea was me panicking about leaving for Australia. I was scared. I had no idea what my life had in store for me. I had no idea what Australia would be like, whether I'd cope. Cope with the weather, the insects. Cope with the hostels. Cope on my own. 

Before I went to university I had a few panic attacks. Like the nausea there was no pattern. I had one attack within the first few weeks of uni - because I was scared of one of my flat mates! - but they stopped just as abruptly as they'd started. Just like the nausea.

By late October the nausea stopped. I haven't had any bouts of it here. I'm two months in. I'm still afraid, fearful every time I got to a new place. But despite all the fear, I'm still doing this. I was so petrified I cried as the plane left Heathrow for Tokyo. I cried once in Cairns because I felt so hopeless at talking to people. I cry whenever I say goodbye to my mum on the phone because I don't know when I'll next to her again. What if I don't get the chance? What if something terrible happens? It would be bad enough at home but while I'm on the other side of the world?! Urgh! I'm tearing up as I'm writing this, which is dangerous as I'm walking as I write. Which is dangerous in itself without the tears.

I'm typing this on my phone as I walk along the Manly Scenic Walkway. It's a 10km walk from Manly to The Spit, and I tried to do it two days ago but actually got lost and went the wrong way and never made it. In fact I got lost down a pathway that led me into the bush and as I walked along an increasingly rocky path, jumping at any twig that moved because I thought it was a snake, I was scared. It was hot, and I was running out of water. I just kept saying to myself that it had to lead somewhere. I just had to keep pressing on. And it did lead somewhere - to the edge of the cliff. So then there was nothing to do but go back. 

Sometimes in life we just keep pressing forward regardless. And sometimes we have to go back. And everything, even, especially our mistakes, are things we can learn from. Every day we do nothing, every day we do something, every day of work and every day off. Life is an adventure. Not just in the people we meet and the places we go and the things we do. Life is an adventure of learning about ourselves. Right now, in my adventure, I'm learning about who I am. 

I turned my dream into a reality, as one of my friends put it. 

But when the dream becomes a reality, the fear does too.  



P.S. Here is a map of the scenic walk, from the manlyaustralia.com.au website, arrows for start & end points added by me.

And then here is me with The Spit bridge behind me. I probably should could have run this through photoshop, but meh. This is what I look like after 2 hours of WALKING MOFOS. Suck it. 

And here is the map to prove that I was actually at the end. Ta da!