Category Archives: Blogging

Eight and a half Ways to Smash the Patriarchy Today – International Women’s Day!

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Help a sister out, and make sure you do at least one of these today. And if you can do it today, you can do it every day.

So,  perhaps we should all just agree to START today, if you haven’t already. Ladies – we salute you.

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1. Check yourself out in the mirror and give yourself a “helz YEAH!”. You don’t need validation from nobody but yourself lady! You are smokin’ hot AND awesome!

2. Don’t say sorry. You can apologise for a mistake you made, if you made it, and should genuinely express this, but NO MORE superfluous mutterings of penance! Find a new word, like “fudge” or “yep” to replace it.

2.5. Fix a printing press yourself and get a bunch o’ grease all over you *

3. Post a great feminist meme on social media. Make your own, or /share one, like we did! (hint: combine it with the heady thrill of nostalgia and you’re onto a shareable winner gurrl!)

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4. Write that sternly worded email/letter you’ve been wanting to send to that person who has stepped all over your self-worth and value. You know who they are.

5. Celebrate a woman who has inspired you. Give her a call, write her a note or shoot her a text. Let her know that she’s awesome and valued.

6. Pick up a piece of feminist literature to read. Go on, challenge yourself a bit. Or, if you’ve had one of those days where your brain needs a break from erry.damn.thing except Tay Tay and baby kitties, flick on a movie like “Sisters”, or “Bridesmaids” and have a laugh at some damned funny ladies doing their thing .

7. Identify a skill that you rely on a man to do, and set about learning how to do that thing. Srsly. Can’t change a tyre? Then ask someone to show you. Not sure about building your own deck? YouTube it. Goddamm just do it woman!

8. Read our blog. Oh no she didn’t! Yep. Shamelessly self-promote yourself ladies. To everyone. Not just to other “biz mommies”, or “boss lady chicks” – but to everyone, across the board. Learn your value, and own it.

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*this may be somewhat limited to those who own/run printing presses, however Amy did this today, so we felt it was important to include cos it’s bad-ass, thus giving it a half a point . Also, we wrote the damn piece. So there.

 

 

The Anarchy of the Anecdote

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We’ve all got one. A tale that ties us to the topic of discussion. We share them, often excitedly, with friends, colleagues, family and strangers (I personally love a stranger-delivered anecdote. Rarely substantiated or requested, but always delivered with fervor). But when these tasty morsels that people wait to desperately share find an audience on social media, and begin to be held up as reasons to question topical issues – well, that’s where the fun ends.

Take, for example, the debate on feminism and equality. Women’s rights, the gender disparity in the workforce, domestic violence against women – these are important social issues that are currently in the spotlight, and for good reason. Powerful pieces of writing and debate have been posted on personal blogs, news outlets and social media. Thought-provoking, exploratory long-form that hope to insight debate and encourage reform.

Unfortunately, within minutes of these pieces hitting the interwebs, in swarm the ol’ anecdotes. If you glance at the growing number of comments, any hope of intelligent debate all too often boils down to a game of “swap the anecdote”.

“I have two sisters and they have had the same opportunities as me and they chose to be stay-at-home mums”

“I have two sons and they respect women and I’ve always taught them to be considerate”

“My husband is the most amazing man in the world AND he cooks sometimes!”

Wow! That instantly negates everything I know about equality. That one guy cooks! Bugger it, maybe we should just give up this whole struggle! He makes PASTA guys!!

It’s important to understand these acecdotes exactly as they are: A singular personal story that, although holds meaning and power to the sharer, doesn’t actually lend itself to continuing or enriching an argument.

My particular fave is the constant, incessant, shouty stories coming from the #notallmen brigade, in defense of any issue that cites men as the majority in any crime or outcome. Clem Ford has them thrown at every piece she writes. Every issue, every statistic. It must be so damn tiring.

“But what about this woman on TV who also made a pass at some guy?! What about HER!!!?”

OMG, that’s awkward! How unprofessional – I hope someone worded her up on that. Thank you for giving me somewhere to hang my sexist hat and ignore the glaringly obvious cultural disparity and statistics around sexual harrassment in the workplace. If that one lady can do it – it must be happening EVERYWHERE. So. You know. Equality.

Yeah, Nah.

This is NOT the discussion we should be having. Your anecdote does not add to the debate. It distracts. It minimalises. It reduces. It does nothing to solve the issue.

Which is, when looking at the  statistics, glaringly obvious. For example, when it comes to assaults in family and domestic violence, there are:

  • Four times as many female victims (4,534) as male victims (1,157) in South Australia;
  • Four times as many female victims (3,482) as male victims (807) in the Northern Territory;
  • Three times as many female victims (10,648) as male victims (3,860) in Western Australia;
  • Three times as many female victims (465) as male victims (145) in Australian Capital Territory; and
  • Twice as many female victims (19,488) as male victims (9,261) in New South Wales.

That the ratio of female to male victims is only two to one in NSW might be surprising at first glance. But of those 9,261 male victims of assault, only 3,305 incidents involved a partner or an ex.*

But the expectation that with one story, we should sweep aside these horrific numbers and agree with “this guy”, shows pure ignorance.

So let’s all put our righteous anecdotes aside and look at these statistics, look at the research and findings from people that are qualified to present them, and figure out how to solve this problem together. Let’s not bicker or get distracted by one story that represents the small minority, and hold that up as an example. Let’s not get on our personal high-horse keyboard and yell our story to the masses. Understand that your story is part of a bigger picture that needs to be re-drawn, and pick up a pencil.

 

 

*Stats taken from the Business Insider 2015.

Let Me Be Your Daddy Blog

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My husband was actively involved in my pregnancy (up to a point of course, and then the eating of donuts/carrying of child/aches and pains were all mine), and was also involved in the planning of said pregnancy. And now that we have August, we co-parent as much as possible. Sound too good to be true? The fact that to many people, it does, is the issue here. There are heaps of great Dads that are taking an equal share of raising a child, but do we hear about it (apart from when it’s reported in wonderment)? Nope.

Throughout my pregnancy and now as a Mother (always with a capital for marketing purposes), I have at my fingertips an overwhelming amount of information, mostly in the form of Mummy blogs, ranging from the inspirational to the contrived. Some I felt resonated with me, but others were eons away from my way of thinking. But that’s cool – I have a heap to choose from. From the very beginning of this crazy child-rearing adventure, I was learning and absorbing. But I soon realised that my partner hadn’t been worded up on this stuff, nor had he even been invited to the party.

See, he’s a Dad. And therefore, he’s struggled to find a blog for this role. He wanted to be able to connect and share this new experience with other like-minded Dads, preferably in the same country. But it appears that the Daddy Blog is a rare beast. When he did find a ‘group’, the promise of beer, sport or food was apparently necessary to grab and keep a male’s attention, and often overshadowed the main purpose of the group. He was dismayed, and I can’t help feeling that this is hugely patronizing to those men wanting to connect with other fathers, and this certainly didn’t fly at our house.

Why do we do this? I don’t want to downplay the value of the parenting blog or forum, in whatever format it works for you – but it appears as though women have staked a claim in this area, with an almost righteous attitude about it. There are clubs, awards, societies, and everything in between for mothering blogs – in the Kidspot Voices of 2014, the parenting blogs in the Top 100 are all by women, with various forms of the word “mum” in the titles.

The reality is, women are continuing the vicious circle of parenting roles by keeping men out of the loop, and I’ve found that the assumption is continually made that if something needs to be researched or checked in regards to our son, all eyes on me. Why do I need to be the one to Google, call or ask – that’s a BIG responsibility dude. Ask my husband. Get his signature on August’s immunisation form. Have him sign the boy up to a daycare waiting list. His handwriting is much nicer than mine.

I’m not for a moment suggesting that just because a women is writing a blog about parenting, there isn’t a place for that. We have bits that men don’t, and these bring with them a whole range of fun stuff to LOL about (or FML about). But there should exist a more shared experience, where the joys, trials, and hilariously confusing aspects of having a child can be discussed by everyone involved. And this, in turn, will go towards both parents taking on a more equal responsibility.We know of a couple of great fathering blogs, like this one, and we love people like Brian – but we hope ours will also become somewhere for everyone to go and laugh at ourselves and our kids equally.

Spread the love peeps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Soft Can Your Launch Be?

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When discussing the methods of launching ones new venture or website, there are generally two that are utilised; a “soft launch” or a  “hard launch”.  One method is subtle while the other is brazen. Now, we’ve certainly never shied from being classified as brazen, however our approach to the launch of the Daughters of Eccentricity blog was somewhat beyond subtle. We preferred to go with the “faff for quite a while until the day before its mentioned in a nationally-recognised publication and tell literally no one in advance” method.

We knew what we wanted to say, and we knew aesthetically how we wanted to say it, but pulling it all together did happen somewhat at the last minute. But don’t all good things tend to happen this way? We needed that kick up the backside to get the ball rolling.

Insanely lucky to secure the talents of the always amazing (and quirktastic) Letitia Green, our DoE logo and branding was in safe hands as she really set the mark for what we wanted to achieve. And she totally got what we were doing. Which is awesome. A new mum herself (to the positively edible Tippi), It wasn’t the first time we’d been lucky enough to work with Letitia; while she worked her magic on the logo, Amy got down to business creating some truly beautiful birth announcement cards (check them out!) that came straight out of Amy’s brain and into letterpressed beauty. And by golly we’re tickled pink with the outcome!

So what are we about? What are we here to say that hasn’t been said, or isn’t going over old ground? Well, we gots quirks you see. And plenty of them. And we think we’re not alone. There are so many parents out there, dealing with their everyday eccentric lives that somehow include family, work AND being a creative. Or sometimes just rotating two of those in and out, at different times.

We had/have quirky parents. Yah, we really did. We’ll get to that, and perhaps along the way create some unintended new heroes of the Australian parenting landscape. Or they could just make you groan. We shall see.

Unsurprisingly, we have become quirk-tastic parents ourselves. We take a positive, progressive and, dare-we-say it, feminist approach to modern parenting. So we think there is a space for the daily musings on being such a parent in 2014: the decade of the Supermum, Helicopter Parents, Yummy Mummies and all other kinds of competitive parenting practices. And just a heads up – we like a little bit of cussing and a bangin’ anagram or two.

Importantly though, we love learning. From others, from each other, from unexpected places. This is one of the most important aspects of what we hope to achieve. An exchange of thoughts and positive growth that helps not only us as parents, but our kids as people. In general.

We can’t – bloody – wait.