Tuesday 28 August 2018

The everyday awful problems confronting women

As ever it's been too long since I wrote my last post, and many things have happened, including the political turmoil of last week, resulting in a new PM who is less popular and possibly more likely to lose the next election than his predecessor, but is more conservative and probably less likely to act on climate change, which apparently satisfies some powerful people. We can all speculate as to what has 'really happened' here, but that's my take on it.

Rupert Murdoch, and the rich fossil fuel and conservative interests who ally themselves with him, may think they can play us like fools, but who knows? Even Scott Morrison may be more complex than he appears. Peter Dutton, when he still had hopes of being PM, said he would have liked to bring all the refugees on Manus and Nauru here. Of course, we on the left scoffed at him, but it shows he wanted to be seen as a decent human being. In a weird way, it suggests there is (maybe, perhaps) hope for this country. I can only hope so, for the sake of those people, particularly the children, locked up in those camps.

But anyway, I am turning back to my personal/political problems, which are mine, and personal, and include particular individuals, but which are those of all women on the left - how we do ally ourselves with men who have behaved badly? How much should we ask for, in terms of apology and reconciliation? It's a difficult balancing act, when those on the right can do so much harm. But we should not be asked (again and again) to sacrifice our right to decent treatment for the greater cause.

This is like the issues that face Indigenous people and people of colour. I am always amazed at the generosity of those who accept me as an ally and a friend, when my ancestors were amongst those who dispossessed their people. I feel they should spit in my face. But they don't - they accept me, kindly and graciously, and I feel blessed by a kindness I have no right to expect.

So if I learn from them, maybe it is this - I won't pretend that injustices didn't happen, but I will forgive and work with those who admit the wrongs they were part of. And I won't pretend that I was perfect, or that I never made mistakes or did bad things, but I won't let that hide the structural injustices that translated down to some individual men treating me unfairly.

I am in a position where one of those men who treated me unfairly could now help me in achieving a really worthy cause of addressing climate change, promoting environmental sustainability and equity. I think it's a goal that we've always shared, but in the past he was prepared to sacrifice me, a middke aged woman, while young men were protected, all in the name of the greater good. So it's a difficult quest.

Will try to write the next episode more quickly, but this is hard.

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