First female leader for Australia - enter the style police

This morning history was made in Australia as the first female Prime Minster was sworn in by the first female Governor General (the Queen's representative in Australia). Julia Gillard is now the country's leader and the significance of this event is not lost on many women.
(New Prime Minister Julia Gillard left, Governor General Quentin Bryce right)

The Labour party in Australia voted internally to oust Kevin Rudd, the Prime Minister who was lead Australia into environmental responsibility, and who finally apologised to the Aboriginal population for the way they have been treated as a people. Recently his popularity plummeted and Deputy PM Julia Gillard stepped up to challenge his leadership of the party and of the country. The party gave her full support and she took over the leadership in one night.

Although the support she received from the right faction in the otherwise slightly-left-of-centre Labour party was what made the difference in taking up the lead, Julia Gillard has the courage and unapologetic leadership skills to take this position the way she has. She has said to the media that she made the move because she saw a good government losing its way and she felt it was up to her to keep it on track.

A former lawyer, Gillard worked for an industrial relations law firm, first as a work experience junior, and later as partner. She moved to state politics in 1996, and federal politics in 1998. Australia is a truly sporting nation, and the fact that Gillard is a big fan of Australian Rules football club the Bulldogs raises her popularity amongst the most blokey of Aussie blokes as well.

So why is it that within HOURS of being sworn in as the country's first female PM, this highly qualified, highly educated, strong leader has news items appearing which speak of the colour of her hair (she's a natural redhead) and her style of dress??? With headlins like "Enter the Style Police" and "Julia Gillard needs a new stylist". Why is it that a woman in politics is judged so much more harshly on her appearance than her male counterparts?

A few years ago when Hillary Clinton addressed a graduating class at Yale, an audience of America's most brilliant young women, she remarked with weary irony: "The most important thing I have to say today is that hair matters ... pay attention to your hair. Because everyone else will."

My guess is it's simply because it makes for popular media. Women in politics have had make-overs and been photographed for glossy mags, which can be seen as a degradation of their professional position, but it can also be seen as a way of speaking to women through popular media and demonstrating the many faces of the female role models we have. While it can be frustrating just how much attention was focused on what dress Michelle Obama wore to Barak's inaugrual ball, it can also be seen as a way of drawing popular attention to this strong, influential, intelligent woman in a position of power.

While it's a shame that women have to measure up to the fashion industry's judgment rather than be judged on her capacities professionally, I did learn something from Naomi Wolf's "The Beauty Myth" when I read it as a 16 year old: the popular media culture can be damaging in terms of what we are shown as the "perfect" yet impossible ideal of beauty which we are supposed to compete with and live up to, but it is also a means of mass communication which connects women automatically. In fact it may be an opportunity to display female role models in many different lights.

I deplore the fact that style police enter the scene purely because the new PM is a woman, but I applaud the fact that Julia Gillard is seen as a role model in all forms of media. As long as it continues to be an empowering context, that is!

Viva La Burlesque!

I have had many discussions with feminist friends about the pro's and con's of burlesque. One friend doesn't see any difference between this vamped-up, slightly tongue-in-cheek version of strip tease and the pole dancing hype that has recently disguised itself as a form of fitness. To her, it's all about selling female sexuality and fulfilling the ideal of the "male gaze".

Another friend can't see any similarities between these two worlds. Stripping and pole dancing are cheap, false versions of sexuality to her, and burlesque is all about the celebration of the body in all its glorious forms, the women owning the stage and using narrative to express themselves positively.

I guess I'm somewhere in between. There is something beautiful about a pole dancer who really brings dance and skill to her art. (Check out Ali Robbins) The discipline and strength needed to make it look graceful is impressive. That said, there is plenty about the strip joint and the typical pole dancer that is abhorrent to any woman who claims her sexuality as her own, since it is a commodification of sex and sexuality at its cheapest and with one impossible physical ideal at its centre.

Burlesque, on the other hand, is all about the celebration of sexuality and the diversity of female bodies, and each and every performer has her own style, her own touch, her own wink. She determines what she wears, what she dances to, for how long she is on stage, what she takes off and how, and there is such a playful edge to it all. One of the most famous burlesque dancers in Amsterdam has enormous breasts, a big nose and large lips which she paints bright red and covers in glitter. And she is fabulous and sexy as she twirls her tassled nipple-covering pasties and waves her big feather fans or tap dances across the stage.

Burlesque originates in the 19th century cabaret and circus world, where dances were becoming raunchy and acts mixed music, dance and more than brief glimpses at the female form. At the turn of the 20th century, Isadora Duncan danced barefoot and used Grecian imagary as she stipped off thin veils of cloth, everything about her movement sensual and beautiful and artful, nothing reminiscent of can-can dancers.

And in the 1920's Josephine Baker danced topless as the roaring 20's let women's freedom on the dancefloor speak of a certain sexual freedom as well.

The Hollywood choreography, the large feather fans and the sneak-peek at the female form became the taste of the 1930's. In the 1950's the glam pin-up style burlesque was a trend unto itself, and while Betty Page took it to another level, there was always a wink, a slight innocence, as if the disappearing layers of clothing were almost accidental.

In the last decade or so burlesque has seen a revival in many cities around the (western) world, and classical burlesque performers range from Dita von Teese, who does large-scale performances in a giant chamapgne glass, to Pepperminsky who immitates the Sally Rand feather dances, to those who bring the circus element back in and make it all a bit of a laughing matter. And then there is the neo-burlesque, the boy-lesque, and the combination of various arts (ballet, modern dance, charicature costumes, club music and dance tracks, narrative burlesque, fire-breathing and fire juggling, swords, belly-dancing, gothic, fetish, you name it!).

The reason I love the scene is that it is diverse, celebratory, free and all about the performers celebrating their bodies as they are - reagrdless of age, colour, size, shape. And the audiences are often made up of at least 60-70% women, who more often than not dress up in corsets, fascinators, frilly knickers or skirts, over-the-top high heels and long gloves. It's the opportunity to get playful, permission to think of oneself as a sensuous goddess and enjoy one's body and that of others in a non-judgmental, playful atmosphere.

And though it has nothing to do with the male gaze, the funny thing is the men enjoy it at least as much as the women. There is nothing sexier than someone who finds themself sexy exactly as they are and wants to celebrate that!

(In Amsterdam check out http://www.madamerisquee.com/index.html)

Women in Power

Last month I attended a 4 day workshop in the north of England with women from all over the world, under the guidance of ALissa Starkweather and some other highly trained women. We were taken into a ritualised world of symbolic animalism, of shadow work, of reconnecting to our inner predators and in doing so, reclaiming our power.

The weekend is called Women in Power and I would recommend it to absolutely any woman interested in doing some deeper work on herself. (it's only held once a year in the UK and not yet anywhere else in Europe, but a few times a year in the US, so check it out!) Some women went to heal old wounds, to claim a power they hadn't yet dared to claim as their own, to find their voice. I went because I know I am a powerful woman, but I have never truly owned all of my power, particularly that of my predator energy!

Jung spoke about our shadow as being the disowned part of ourselves, which we either try to supress or project onto others, never taking responsibility for it and therefore rather than owning it, it owns us. For me, the shadow is an anger, a hatred, a buried aggression, a desire to destroy. I saw so much anger and aggression around me as I grew up that I swore I would never be the way my angry, bitter parents were towards each other. But in doing so I disowned that aggression and it comes out left, right and centre without my willing it to.

Through the work we did over this magical weekend, I got to really enact and own that shadow in a safe space, where the women around me trusted my shadow. I got to feel what it is to destroy, and to recognise that this shadow is jsut energy, like everything else, wanting to be expressed. I discovered it is life energy and it wants me to know I am life itself. And through this I came to the recognistion that I am both destroyer and life-giver, like the dark goddess Kali.

I had women who are mothers bless my womb, I got to ritualise the abortion I had over 10 years ago and finally let go of the dead energy I had secretly been carrying around. I got to see other women look their own shadows in the face and be with their darker sides like never before. And I discovered my purpose in this: to hear and take the suffering of others, swallow it, devour it, abort it and bury it. Destroy the suffering that life may be given anew.

We shed so many tears as we felt compassion for each other, we laughed out loud, we discovered fun things about women's sexuality and biology, we ate divine food together, we danced and sang together, it was a transformational weekend. We all left feeling powerful, beautiful creatures.

Not everyone is open to taking on this kind of thing, but it's such important self-actualisation, self-awareness, growth and individuation. I was turned on to it by a friend who has done similar work with the Mankind Project - I was so excited to learn men are doing this kind of work together! There is nothing sexier than a man who knows himself and who is unafraid to step into his masculinity. And now to step into the predator, destroyer part of myself, I trust and know myself on a deeper level than ever before, and I can step into my femininity, knowing it has many sides to it and I own all of them.

I always thought of myself as a powerful woman. I now know myself to be a woman in my power.