This Is 42 - Roxane Gay and Christina Hoff Sommers

Pic author's own

There are 2 things I took away from the Dr Roxane Gay and Christina Hoff Sommers talk for This Is 42 at Town Hall in Sydney last night. Firstly, the notion that some people believe Feminism is now too radical, divisive and exclusionary, as Ms Sommers suggests. Secondly, that the way to address this is for women to come together and, in particular, to reach out to the most disadvantaged women in “developing” nations to progress forward.

My take is that Feminism is absolutely radical and militant right now and needs to be because we find ourselves at a time when misogyny is no longer an open secret, but a full blown, in your face, mainstream and acceptable way to behave both in everyday and political life. Whether this is a backlash to the supposed gains that women have made or simply the scum rising to the surface, scum that has always been there but has been allowed to flourish and is now undeniably seen, is just a chicken and the egg argument, futile.

We have Trump in the White House, right wing misogynist politicians, both men and women, in every developed country on the globe, in our media, judicial and education systems. In Australia, 1 woman is killed a week by an intimate current or ex-partner. We are not doing fine!

The democratisation of information through social media, has meant that women have come forward to disclose their experiences, can come together to support each other globally, organise and mobilise in real time, in response to individual events and broader social issues. Whether these events are tokenistic, few and far between, selective only to demonstrate who is deserving of support and who maintains power is debatable. Perhaps people who feel that feminism is too radical are those who have held onto power for so long and think they own feminism. Suddenly marginalised women have a voice. Marginalised people are seen. “Equality feels like oppression when you’re accustomed to privilege.” Privilege isn’t necessarily wealth either, white skin is a privilege, as is an abled body, being a CIS hetero, being raised in a Judeo-Christian religion, not ever having experienced war, having access to education.

Feminism is radical and militant because it is responding to a capitalist, patriarchal, colonial, imperialist and white supremacist world that is destroying not only the planet and subsequently our species’ existence on it, but also the lives of othered people that don’t fit the dominant paradigm of that narrative on a daily basis.

People that DO fit the narrative of the dominant paradigm; white, male, able bodied, straight, Christian, wealthy, educated, ‘western’ or any of those combinations are having those values and traits questioned and measured against an alternative lived experience, one that is not any of those things and can never be and that applies to the majority of people. Suddenly, aspiring to this narrative, the impossibility of it and the demand that people do that to the exclusion of everything else is being rejected.

We need to go back to talking about ideologies. Yes, the bodies we inhabit matter hugely. The intersections of our privileges and oppressions, individually and collectively are important and dictate our lived experiences as citizens and as nations.

We need to continue to shed light on these individual experiences but that does not eliminate the need to talk about structures that continue to be racist, white/western supremacist, sexist, heteronormative, homogenised and classist.

Tracey Spicer with Anne Summers at Warringah Library

Last night I went to Warringah Library to see Tracey Spicer talk to Anne Summers about her new biography Unfettered and Alive. I've been an admirer of Anne Summers since I was in my 20s and working in the Women's Refuge Movement of NSW, for which she was partially responsible for establishing through founding the first women's refuge in Glebe called Elsie. 

When I walked in the room my first thought was the same thought I have in most places in this geographical area where I've lived for the last decade, but also in this type of gathering of white feminism - it's a thing. Everyone was white. Myself included of course. I pass as white, mostly. I avoid the scrutiny that people of colour face that attracts erasure, racism, victimisation and incarceration, but I'm not fair enough to pass as a 'real' Aussie for some people, because I'm not Anglo.

I looked around trying not to look too conspicuous, to see if I could spot some diversity - there was a smattering. I was born and have lived in Australia most of my life, but my background is Maltese, and if you don't know me, it's hard to tell if I'm European or Middle Eastern. I interpret all frowns in my direction as suspicion, so I work hard to adjust my standing bitch face and smile, even though I enjoy my SBF as my neutral face. It's comfortable. I made the assessment that most people were white and past middle age, mostly women, some men, and a few young people.

I looked up at the projection of the cover of the book on the wall and instantly thought to myself 'oh look that's white too, with blonde writing'...

Image via: Allen and Unwin

Then Tracey and Anne walked in and I thought 'Barbies'. That's my childish reference, what we all grew up with as the ideal girl; tall, thin, blonde, in a pants suit. I do respect both women immensely, but they don't reflect myself back. I read Tracey Spicer's book The Good Girl Stripped Bare and enjoyed it, but I couldn't relate to a lot of it. She had the Barbie life I would never have as a child of migrants. As removed as her life experience is from mine, I found some commonalities about her experiences in the workplace, but mine were not in elite news rooms or like Anne, in academia or offices of government. My experiences were in take away shops, factories, offices and the public service. It's hard to relate to someone when their life, while being portrayed as ordinary, is actually kind of extraordinary to someone from my own background - migrant and working class.

Anne and Tracey talked about a number of issues and experiences that Anne has covered in her book. They discussed the gender pay gap and the necessity for equal pay to be legislated, like in countries such as Iceland. Anne said it's no use leaving this issue in the hands of tribunals like Fair Work. It doesn't work. It complicates the matter and makes equality not only too difficult to access, but too complex to establish in the workplace. While I've never really worked on a professional basis, so was never really comparing my wage to my male counterparts, I've certainly experienced sexism in the workplace. They wouldn't let me get my forklift driver's licence in the factory I worked at with my dad while I was at Uni and I've worked with more incompetent and mediocre men who excelled while their female counterparts worked twice as hard for half the recognition, than I can count. My refuge experience was my link to Anne. I only spent three years there, because the pay was terrible compared to the risk and stress I was experiencing. Some types of work are simply not valued because they are considered feminine and are largely occupied by women - nursing, teaching, community support, early childhood, aged care. That influences the pay gap too.

I worked in a refuge named Bonnie in the western suburbs of Sydney, after graduating from my Arts degree at Sydney Uni, where I spent three invisible years, floating through the old buildings and gargoyles, not really making any friends, overwhelmed by the social pace, barely able to raise my voice above a husky whisper. Bonnie was established around the same time as Elsie. Folklore among the three generations of women I worked with was that Bonnie may have preceded Elsie but the attention was always focused on the city refuge not the one out in the sticks. The demographic was different too and may have contributed to Bonnie's obscurity. In the 1970s and 80s the western suburbs became home to a large number of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees following the exodus of people at the end of the Vietnam war, but the western suburbs were and still are largely populated by migrants from all over the globe.

Customs Officer Frank Dalton holding a Vietnamese refugee child, Xye Than Hueon the deck of the Tu Do in Darwin, November, 1977. Courtesy National Library of Australia - Image via: Migration Heritage NSW (site no longer active)

It was the 90s and I worked with women in their 60s who'd been there in the 70s when the refuge was established. There were also the baby boomers who secured funding, assets and corporatisation and me and my peers who began the process of digitising our newly created systems including policies, procedures, values and mission statements. The refuge is still in operation today as an advanced network of support services, thanks to the tireless work of the women who insisted on networking with the community and running the organisation efficiently whilst maintaining its independence. Elsie was taken over by St Vincent De Paul, (religious organisations tend to be preferenced for funding these days) in 2014 and while it still operates today, it can be argued that it lost its feminist principles by having to adhere to the NSW government's Going Home Staying Home policy, a problematic concept for women experiencing domestic violence and those supporting them to leave an abusive relationship. 

I was keen to hear about the establishment of Elsie, how local women squatted in a disused house and turned it into a safe haven for battered women and wanted to ask Anne about the value of grassroots movements today. She talked a little bit about 'hitting the barricades' again and using social media as a tool for activism and I would have loved her to elaborate. I was too shy to speak up, still the intimidated migrant in a room full of Anglos.

Tracey and Anne mentioned briefly the factionalism that can happen in feminism, almost as though women are all individuals with different backgrounds, experiences, thoughts and lives. Go figure! This idea that women can't disagree or experience the world from opposing views and ideologies is one of the problems that keeps us subjugated and all lumped in together as 'other'. Men can be valued as individuals, but as a women's movement, we've often had to homogenise to maintain our solidarity, which almost always reverts back to white and middle class. They briefly touched on this with discussion about Anne's experience working with Gloria Steinem on Ms. Magazine in New York and the disagreements they had which she elaborates on in her book. But more than that it was palpable in the room that discussion about women being different to one another and having different needs, agendas and disadvantages was only going to remain on the surface. What white women tend to do is hold onto their perceived superiority at all costs, for the good of unity they say, by erasing the intersectional needs of marginalised women. We need a balance of both. We need to refrain from attacking each other, but reverse racism isn't a thing. When you're white, your skin colour isn't the thing that marginalises you and yes, we still need affirmative action. Anne talked about being criticised as being Anglo and commented that it wasn't something she could help or change about herself, but she could be vigilantly aware of her given identity, (at least as much as non-white women are) and white women need to learn the art of stepping aside. They need to stop stealing the work and achievements of women of colour and passing it off as their own, give them credit when it's due and by using their privilege help non-white women to be self-determining and independent so that they can strengthen their own communities. And they need to let them disagree with their brand of feminism, which doesn't always serve everybody equally. For more on this, start following Ruby Hamad on Twitter and her experience as a journalist who is constantly ignored when she writes something, only to have her work plagiarised, discredited and celebrated as the work of someone else. I see it all the time, particularly at work. They'll talk to you when they need something, but it's really hard to break the white barrier! That invisible wall that not only denies you credit where it's due, but I've witnessed and experienced the existence of women of colour literally being ignored, being othered by white women, the same way men other women generally.

The discussion was interesting, anecdotal and covered many issues including abortion and how important it is to achieve reproductive rights in the form of safe, legal and accessible abortion, and to keep talking openly about our experiences, all good introductions to the content of her book. Check out the Shout Your Abortion movement. 

I was a bit distracted to be honest, missing some of the content because I wanted to pay more attention to the audience's responses. Like, nobody booed like I wanted to stand up and do when Tony Abbott was mentioned, of course not, it's his town. People wriggled in their seats a bit though, it was hard to tell what the feeling was as it is definitely shifting. Anne didn't defend or criticise any politician too much or unfairly. She talked about both sides of government on merit and spoke fondly and honestly about Julia Gillard and her horrendous experiences as our first female PM, even mentioning that her speech in Parliament directed at Tony about sexism is still talked about globally to this day. 

My interest was piqued when discussion turned to childcare. I have three kids under five in daycare two days a week and it costs us an arm and a leg. It has meant that I could only return to work two days a week and as a result my career prospects and superannuation have suffered the most. Anne talked about the childcare rebate and the change in culture that has seen childcare places and their funding go from in the thousands to in the millions over the last decade or so. She talked about the Liberal government's push to privatise everything, including childcare and the impact this will have not only on cost for families, but on women, their agency, their place in the workforce and public life and children's learning.

Anne argued that she has always noticed that Australians have a particular kind of disdain for women without children - a distrust or judgement that she herself has suffered alongside women like Julia Gillard. She also said however, that on one hand we exalt the value of mothers, but then punish them by expecting they withdraw from life to care for their young children (and the aged too by the way). Anne has always advocated for childcare to be absorbed into the education system. In many countries this already happens (including Malta), making childcare, like primary and high school free, paid for by the taxes of the population to benefit everyone equally. It pushes the quality of the service to higher standards, ensures qualified providers and promotes access across the board. How awesome would it be if childcare was of excellent quality and free! The trouble is there is an attitude that is growing in Australia that public services are not an entitlement. I work in public health and I have heard it from staff and clinicians alike that the public get the service they pay for (in other words, if it's free it's crap), and use this idea to deny or give sub-par service. I find it concerning that people don't understand the importance of public service, in particular public health. I challenge them to consider the situation in countries like the US where people go bankrupt when faced with unexpected health crises or ordinary health events like childbirth, unless they have expensive health insurance that not everyone can access or afford. I am tempted to tell them that if they don't believe in public health, they should cut up their Medicare card immediately and go and work in a shoe shop! It's the same with education. I wholeheartedly agree with Anne's notion that childcare is an important aspect of a child's education. It's not baby sitting. My kids get the attention, activities, learning and specialised guidance that only a trained early childhood educator can provide. As much as I love and care for them, the daycare staff do it better in some respects and it enhances their development. It also benefits them to see me happy and working, living the same kind of life that my partner is entitled to and the family benefits financially as well. I send my kids to daycare so that I can work and have a break and a life, yes, but I also send them for the same reasons I will send them to school. They need it and it's good for them. That is why it is the norm now. The majority of children attend daycare because its importance has become incredibly obvious. In my childhood it wasn't as prevalent. 

In Australia we have seen years of cuts and neglect for public education. Private schools are given precedence without a shred of evidence that students perform any better, in fact the opposite is true. I was interested in the response of the demographic in Warringah last night given there are so many private schools in the area and while the public schools are fantastic, because they are supported by privileged communities (through corporate and small business sponsorship, no less) and do better than public schools in other parts of Sydney, they are still overshadowed by the prevalence of the private schools, particularly those marred by religious indoctrination, which in my opinion has no place in education or public life. But we know all this, surely, and the opposite is happening. When we privatise education and make it expensive and exclusive to access quality schools, we risk dumbing down the population and ending up with someone like Trump in charge - we're not far off. The same happens when we privatise public services. The quality diminishes when the goal is profit not service provision. Public service should be the benchmark for private industry to aspire to, not the other way around. Better still, we should encourage community style organisations and co-operatives that are relevant to the communities and people using them. I kept thinking to myself, I hope Jane Caro runs as an Independent and with her wealth of knowledge about and advocacy for public education, I hope she wins and makes changes in Warringah! I hope the audience remember that next time they vote.

Finally, I want to address a question by one of the audience members. An older man asked Anne what she believed the genesis of violence, particularly against women was. She'd talked about her knowledge of domestic violence and the reasons why she'd established Elsie, and mentioned the 61 women that have been killed this year already, 8 up on last year and only 40 odd weeks into the year. These are some very confronting numbers and there is no presser from the PM about this kind of terrorism. The audience member lamented about the prevalence of violent images in our media, film, television, video games and social media and how desensitised young people are, as though violence is a new phenomenon in Australia. I wanted to answer the question. I wanted to say that we live on a continent that was colonised violently and that same violence continues today. We have not faced that history properly as a country. Tokenistic government apologies achieve nothing when First Nations children are still being removed disproportionately from their families, at greater numbers than the first stolen generations and when child protection legislation is about to change to force adoptions within two years, with no provision for extended family to have any input and to make these rash decisions largely outside the courts. Add to that mix the establishment of a My Health Record with the necessity to opt out (I believe the cut off date has been extended to January 2019) and the risks FN people in particular face of being monitored and judged based on prior health experiences in child protection matters is terrifying. Tokenistic acknowledgements of country as was performed in passing at the beginning of the night are meaningless when there is not enough visibility of FN culture in our mainstream. And not just in this area. Throughout Sydney and Australia I'm sure, we use a lot of FN culture - place names, animal names, concepts without allowing leadership and acknowledging origin and ownership. We don't have treaties. It's blatant erasure, complicity and continuation of colonial violence.

As a country we still haven't reconciled our past. We haven't owned it properly and until we do, violence is an acceptable means to an end. We also need to address toxic masculinity, the notion that aggression, conquest, exploitation and destruction - human traits which are masculine and not necessarily exclusively present in men, that these traits are superior and desirable to feminine traits, again prevalent in both sexes that are deemed inferior: nurture, kindness, creativity, humanity, honesty, integrity.

I also wanted to point out that while it is a concern that people, particularly young people, become desensitised to violence, we can't allow violence to be cloaked in secrecy and remain in the shadows. The world changed when the Vietnam war was televised. It was no longer the words of surviving soldiers, journalists and historians we relied on to imagine the details, we could watch it with our own eyes on TV. Same now with the democratisation of information via social media. We get to witness wars, atrocities, violence, corrupt governments and militaries, and violent crime in real time on our phones. Yes it desensitises us to some extent, but what if it also allows us to confront it head on and nurture the desire to stop it. Check out the #ThisISMyLane hashtag on Twitter where doctors in the US are answering the NRAs appalling comments to stay out of the gun debate by sharing pictures of gun trauma they deal with daily. The images are confronting, but necessary.

It was a really valuable night and got me thinking about so many things. Sometimes we forget that the purpose of feminism is to change lenses and see/move through the world with a feminine gaze and that gaze is diverse. Feminism isn't about aspiring to conform to a masculine world, by becoming the tyrants we abhor. It's about deconstructing and dismantling the patriarchal, and in our case, colonial systems that oppress us and damage people regardless of their gendered bodies and sexuality. The questions we need to start asking within the feminist movement must include the intersections of race, class, sexuality, gender and lived experience. We need feminism to lead us away from white supremacy, the cost of which is not only our humanity and our planet, but our future.

How To Avoid Career Interruption When You Have Children

 *I wrote this article for a Canadian job search site. The editor refused to publish it. His response and my retorts are below the article.

Working in one company or field, from graduation till retirement, is almost unheard of these days. For many people, their career goals, life paths and interests alter over time, leading them to change direction at least once or twice, sometimes several times, over a lifetime. Organisations and companies, in fact, the world, is dynamic too and change is inevitable. Success relies on the ability to adapt to change.

At times, choices associated with career interruption are made consciously and thoughtfully, the benefits and risks taken into consideration carefully and the pros and cons weighed up, to help make the best possible decisions to suit financial position and desire. A hybrid career can sometimes only be realised after years in the workforce, through trial and error and can benefit both individuals and companies.

However, sometimes a career can veer away from its initial route unexpectedly, which may lead to uncertainty and even hardship. The most common reasons why people may face career interruption are life events such as starting a family, developing illness or becoming incapacitated by an accident. It is interesting that having a baby can seem like an unfortunate obstacle, particularly for women in the workplace, closely related to getting sick or being injured.

While there are checks and balances in place through employment legislation to prevent discrimination against women of child bearing age who become pregnant, the reality is vastly different and many women find that they are either overlooked for positions from the onset, at the interview stage; they are disregarded when it comes to career opportunities and promotions; or they are being forced to exit the workforce through involuntary resignation and redundancy, usually when flexible work arrangements or accessible and affordable childcare are unavailable.

For women who are embarking deliberately on motherhood, this should be a time of celebration and joy, but unlike men, the fact of their biology means that they will need to juggle child bearing with their career in one way or another. Furthermore, women are not only physically responsible for gestation and birth, often the bulk of domestic labour and child care commitments will fall on them also. In fact, recent Australian census data shows that women are still highly disadvantaged when it comes to unpaid domestic labour. In Canada, the statistics show a similar trend, with women doing 50% more domestic duties than men, and men doing 37% more paid work than women.

It is possible that for some women, embarking on intentional motherhood and facing the prospect of career interruption, may be an opportunity to explore new avenues and pathways to find a better balance between work and life, and perhaps even discover new interests and life goals along the way. Having a baby might be the ideal time to allow life to take on a new direction and to pursue alternative and innovative experiences in relation to work, without ending up unemployed for an extended period.

Career interruption can thus be either avoided altogether or used to one’s own advantage, allowing women to be prepared for the changes and to gain benefits from the disruption to what may have become a stagnant employment situation. Men too should be advocating for more flexible workplaces to allow for better work/life balance, not only when embarking on parenthood, but also in the unfortunate event of illness and injury, resulting in unanticipated career interruption or unemployment.

Here are some tips to avoid career interruption all together, or use an inevitable disruption, as an opportunity to enhance paid employment.

 

• Negotiate a contract and maternity leave policy, prior to recruitment

This is one of the biggest obstacles women face, because as soon as it becomes known that they are planning to start a family, the discrimination begins. It is wise to keep personal details private at the interview stage. In most instances, it is illegal to be questioned about your plans for child bearing in an interview. This information is irrelevant to your capacity to do a job and cannot be used as grounds for discrimination. It is also important to familiarise yourself with an organisation’s maternity leave and return to work policies. Finding a balance between contract negotiation and disclosure can be tricky, however doing some research early on can be beneficial. Don’t be intimidated about asking questions and reading company material. Also, know your rights. Understand workplace legislation, equip yourself with knowledge to not only protect yourself, but to give you the tools and language to negotiate your terms. Whenever possible, join an industry union.

• Participate in further training and education 

Being temporarily away from full-time employment can be a perfect time to update skills and training through further study. There are more options to do this remotely nowadays and this activity can improve your chances of not only returning to your old position or industry, but gaining new employment in circumstances where you find yourself unemployed. Retraining can seem daunting, but brushing up on new technology and innovations, by for example improving computer skills, obtaining an industry related certificate or building on already attained qualifications, will not only keep your mind active and motivated throughout early child rearing, it will ensure you are still “in the loop” so to speak and are not drifting further away from the workforce. It may also be a chance to do a course in something completely different to your current field. Changing career paths is always an option and taking that first step will put you in a better position for when you are ready to re-enter the workforce.

• Impart industry knowledge

Sharing your expertise is also another way to maintain focus and experience, while you are on maternity leave or should you be facing redundancy. You may wish to do this through pathways such as writing or teaching within your field. Both these endeavours can be extremely flexible professions and can be performed on a part-time or casual basis, sometimes at excellent rates, and in the case of writing, may even be done from home. Finding ways to utilise your intellectual property can also help you to refine your interests and strengths and will lead you to more job satisfaction and prosperous endeavours.

• Start your own business

Finding yourself without work may be a signal that there is a better fit for you elsewhere, but it may also indicate that you are capable and prepared to forge your own way in your field of expertise. Running your own business is challenging and requires both an investment of time and finance, but if successful, the benefits are abundant. You may want to start something from scratch, or perhaps invest in an existing business or franchise, whether within your current field or in a new area of interest.

• Sound financial planning

It is always beneficial to live within your means. That is, spending according to your earnings and affordability, and ensuring that a financial safety net exists for when the unforeseen happens. This could mean setting up a high interest savings account as soon as you begin paid employment, that is only accessed in the event of an emergency. Minimising debt is another way to ensure that if career interruption occurs, you are not being burdened by superfluous financial commitments such as outstanding debts or credit cards. Participating in a high yield superannuation scheme, and one that may offer access to your money in the event of financial disruption is worth exploring early also. Having a financial safety net simply means you will have more options to explore new opportunities and avoid career interruption. It can allow you to pay for further study and childcare, while you re-establish yourself in the workforce.

• Advocate for affordable and sustainable healthcare, childcare and education

It is vital as a society that we support public services that are accessible and inexpensive. This means educating ourselves about our governments and choosing wisely when we vote. On a more practical level, we can utilise public health systems and educational institutions, including those that facilitate further and vocational study, and support the provision of community childcare services to enhance the demand for them and improve their quality and availability. When mothers are faced with the prospect of balancing family and work, it is these services that are going to determine how much support they can access to maintain employment choices and financial independence, even if their hours and income are reduced as a result of career interruption. 

**************************************************************

* The editor:

Hi Diane,
Thanks for your article. It's well-written, but the content is not there. Here's my feedback:
1) You spend 7 paragraphs introducing the topic. I'm not sure what I should take away from these 7 paragraphs. The topic is how to avoid career interruption when having children. It's mainly targeted at women, but you add a few sentences at the end of the intro for men. You also go into various tangents. Your intro should not be more than 1 paragraph or two. Women facing this issue know about the problem. They read your article looking for solutions, not for a lecture on how difficult or unfair life is.
2) You then go on with tips to avoid career interruption altogether. But the tips that you give don't make sense or are just plain obvious. i) Negotiate a contract or maternity leave policy prior to recruitment. That's not realistic for most people. ii) Training and education. After giving birth, most women struggle to just keep up with the newborn. iii) Same thing for sharing your knowledge while on maternity leave. iv) The rest of the tips are obvious. There aren't any insights.

After reading your article, although you have good grammar, I don't know what I should take away. Can you rework this article, do more research and take at least a week to think it through?
Sorry, this may sound brutal, but I'm just trying to give you my honest feedback.
Let me know your thoughts. 


* My response:

Oh dear. I’m afraid you’ve missed the point entirely and have inadvertently exposed your own male privilege and internalised gender bias. Sorry to be brutal. I don’t need a week to think on this, I thought about it over breakfast while we fed the kids.

I didn’t spend 7 paragraphs merely introducing the topic, I used those words to tease out the issues. Women are engaged and empowered by being empathised with and having their experiences validated. I used the statistics relating to domestic duties in two countries to back it up. I also included men in the scenario, to highlight how childbearing for women in the workforce is not dissimilar to a disadvantage like an illness or injury suffered by men. I also attempted to highlight how men are needed to support women to avoid career interruption, particularly when they often possess the structural power to do so, but also within their own households.

I think it is patronising and quite incorrect to suggest that women are not capable of participating in paid work, study or training whilst caring for a newborn. That is entirely the attitude of discrimination creating these barriers in the first place. Two points here. Firstly, where are their partners? Shouldn’t they be doing 50% of the work and negotiating flexibility in their own careers to make space for women to preserve theirs? That is why I mentioned them in the beginning. Not only to include men and make a comparison to their own possible career disruptions through illness/injury, but also to make them accountable. The fact is most men won’t participate equally in domestic duties and child rearing specifically because it is difficult, tedious and UNPAID work and to preserve their own careers and sanity. Secondly, this statement is blatantly untrue. I can tell you I wrote and self-published a novel with TWO newborns and a toddler and recently Senator Larissa Waters breastfed her baby whilst putting forward a motion in the Australian Federal Parliament. Google it. 

The other tips I mentioned such as maintaining financial independence and having a monetary safety net are not obvious to women, within a patriarchal system that largely expects them to abandon their careers and financial independence, instead becoming dependent on their partners (often male/husbands – but not always), when they have children. That is the central point of the whole topic. It is impossible to find 800-1000 words describing ways in which women can preserve their careers, outside the tips I have given, within an inherently sexist system, which you have very clearly demonstrated. This is yours, many men’s and society’s views:

• Women are solely responsible for looking after newborns and can barely cope, so can’t retrain, work part-time or work from home 
• Women already know to have a financial safety net, that’s why they get married and let the man work so they can stay home and do the housework and look after the baby
  

I could have written a three-word article to help women avoid career interruption: don’t have kids!

You also suggest that it is unrealistic to negotiate maternity leave. Rubbish. This is exactly the type of empowerment women need and the kind of resistance men need to stop creating in relation to career interruption. It is absolutely realistic, in fact necessary, for both men and women to start demanding flexible workplaces in regard to family/life/work balance. It is not only a woman’s obligation to surrender her financial independence and her career aspirations to build a family, it should be everybody’s responsibility to participate in child rearing equally. Including society in general, which is why I mentioned how we should educate ourselves about our governments and the structural systems they maintain that for the most part, disadvantage women. The most progressive nations in the world already do this. They provide free or at least affordable childcare, they have school drop off/pick up compatible work hours and don’t depend on the false economy of working 9am-5pm, focusing instead on productivity not hours sitting at your desk, and they encourage equality in parenting by both men and women.

I anticipated that you may not be brave enough to include a feminist perspective on your website. You said you didn’t want me to write fluff, but I think that is exactly what you wanted. Not an article that actually empowers women by validating and articulating their lived experiences and provides them with tools to empower them to maintain an intellectual and financial pursuit whilst raising children, and demanding that there is someone to pick up the slack when they surrender some of the burdens associated with child rearing. By not using articles like this, you are simply alienating 50% of your market. Don’t underestimate women’s, especially mother’s, capacity to engage with an academic level, politically rich article. Who knows, it may take your site to the next level. I know how women think and feel. I am a woman who writes for and about women. And not women with internalised misogyny and a sad case of Stockholm Syndrome. Google it.

I’m not surprised you didn’t take anything away from this article. I didn’t write it for you. I wrote it for your female readers. This is how I write. It won’t change. If you don’t think it’s a good fit for your site, we can terminate the relationship here.

PS – I wrote this response in between clearing the breakfast dishes, changing one nappy, wiping one bum, brushing four sets of teeth including my own, putting on three sets of fairy wings and preparing morning tea for three children under four. Women can multi-task, we just need to start getting paid for it!

 Thanks for your article. It's well-written, but the content is not there. Here's my feedback:

1) You spend 7 paragraphs introducing the topic. I'm not sure what I should take away from these 7 paragraphs. The topic is how to avoid career interruption when having children. It's mainly targeted at women, but you add a few sentences at the end of the intro for men. You also go into various tangents. Your intro should not be more than 1 paragraph or two. Women facing this issue know about the problem. They read your article looking for solutions, not for a lecture on how difficult or unfair life is.

2) You then go on with tips to avoid career interruption altogether. But the tips that you give don't make sense or are just plain obvious. i) Negotiate a contract or maternity leave policy prior to recruitment. That's not realistic for most people. ii) Training and education. After giving birth, most women struggle to just keep up with the newborn. iii) Same thing for sharing your knowledge while on maternity leave. iv) The rest of the tips are obvious. There aren't any insights.
* Editor:

I won't be publishing your article, but I will still pay you for it. I didn't appreciate your reply and the assumptions that you made. You talk about discrimination, but do you realize that I probably suffered more discrimination than you, as a visible minority? The feedback I gave you was as an editor of a site for over 10 years. And I am a father and took one year off as paternity leave. I know how hard it is to raise kids. Maybe you and some women can do it as well as advance your career, but it is a real struggle. My suggestions were from real life experience. When a new baby is born, the parents want to spend time with them, not think about career. There's more to life than career. Btw, my wife is a lawyer and is an accomplished woman who worked hard her whole life. Even she struggled. I'm glad you can do all that you claim, but I regret to inform you can most people can't live up to your standards...you should really reconsider how you deal with people.

 
* My final word:

It's not about living up to standards. It's about removing obstacles to allow people to struggle less. With all yours and your wife's experiences, I'm baffled you don't agree that we should have more balance. Of course people want to spend time with their children, but not at the expense of their lives and careers outside parenthood. And it's often mothers who are expected to give up more. 

It's interesting that you interpret my assertive response as aggressive. Very telling too. 

  It seems you are entitled to be brutal in your criticism and I am not. I suggest asking your wife and other women in your life to read the article and see what they think about it.

I won't be publishing your article, but I will still pay you for it. I didn't appreciate your reply and the assumptions that you made. You talk about discrimination, but do you realize that I probably suffered more discrimination than you, as a visible minority? The feedback I gave you was as an editor of a site for over 10 years. And I am a father and took one year off as paternity leave. I know how hard it is to raise kids. Maybe you and some women can do it as well as advance your career, but it is a real struggle. My suggestions were from real life experience. When a new baby is born, the parents want to spend time with them, not think about career. There's more to life than career. Btw, my wife is a lawyer and is an accomplished woman who worked hard her whole life. Even she struggled. I'm glad you can do all that you claim, but I regret to inform you can most people can't live up to your standards.
Hi Diane,

Thanks for your article. It's well-written, but the content is not there. Here's my feedback:

1) You spend 7 paragraphs introducing the topic. I'm not sure what I should take away from these 7 paragraphs. The topic is how to avoid career interruption when having children. It's mainly targeted at women, but you add a few sentences at the end of the intro for men. You also go into various tangents. Your intro should not be more than 1 paragraph or two. Women facing this issue know about the problem. They read your article looking for solutions, not for a lecture on how difficult or unfair life is.

2) You then go on with tips to avoid career interruption altogether. But the tips that you give don't make sense or are just plain obvious. i) Negotiate a contract or maternity leave policy prior to recruitment. That's not realistic for most people. ii) Training and education. After giving birth, most women struggle to just keep up with the newborn. iii) Same thing for sharing your knowledge while on maternity leave. iv) The rest of the tips are obvious. There aren't any insights.