Earlier in the year I was considering voting Liberal in the 2006 Victorian state election. After all, Ted Bailleau promised to bring the party back to its liberal roots - a necessary task if Victorians, a more liberal people than their counterparts across the Murray, are to re-embrace the party of Menzies and Hamer. My political soul searching was intensified by Bailleau’s promise to bring in civil unions in Victoria in defiance of the homophobia of the federal party. This should be no surprise, as it was the Liberal party after all which oversaw the decriminalisation of homosexuality only twenty five years ago.

Nonetheless I was uncertain of the commitment to this pledge by Bailleau’s parliamentary colleagues. My partner wrote to our local member, Helen Shardey, to determine just this and never received a reply. This is bad form for a local member, but more concerning given that I already had concerns that once elected, civil unions might become a ‘non-core promise’ in John Howard style.

Laborites will be quick to point out that Bracks, while refusing to countenance civil unions, oversaw a significant law reform that saw equality given to same-sex de facto couples under state law. Civil unions however are a vital extension of this policy which Bracks, a social conservative Catholic, has refused even a proper debate or cross-party conscience vote in parliament. Former Liberal and now independent MP Olexander drafted a private members bill for civil unions this year and it was rejected by all parties in parliament for both political and personal reasons. Olexander himself claimed there was a ‘culture of homophobia’ within the Liberal party that had forced him out. Of course, he had also disgraced himself with a drink driving episode - but Olexander suggested that the way this was treated in the party smacked of opportunism on the part of those in the party who were angling for a way to get rid of an openly gay MP.

The Olexander episode and the failed civil unions bill further cast into doubt the new liberal credentials of the state party. Clem Newton-Brown however, the Liberal candidate for Prahran, ran a very spirited campaign among the gay community - getting involved in Pride March, Midsumma and supporting Bailleau’s push to bring the party back to the liberal mainstream. If I were in Prahran I would be doubly tempted to vote for him on this basis, as the Labor member seemed starkly absent from the scene in that regard.

However, as anyone will admit, sexuality is only one part of a gay man’s politics. For example, there is the broader civil rights and environment agenda to take into account. On women’s issues, the Victorian Liberals have also charted a more liberal course. Bailleau supports the legalising of abortion for example, while Bracks has repeatedly stalled on the issue. On the other hand, the Victorian government under the attorney-general Rob Hulls has implemented a Charter of Rights - the first state government to do so. The bill comes into effect on 1 January 2007, and Bailleau has been silent on whether his government will support the new charter. So, the verdict on the Liberal’s social agenda is ultimately as mixed as that of the Labor party. Progressives must ultimately vote on a range of other issues. Yet here too, it is a mixed bag.

On environmental policy, Bailleau’s party has blundered by threatening to withdraw state support for the wind farm industry in Portland. On the Labor side however, there has been no fallout from the recent scandal exposed by Four Corners, of logging companies infiltrating both local environmental groups and branch stacking key policy posts in the ALP during the last round of Regional Forest Agreements. That system is clearly broken, and neither party has committed to cleaning up the processes that determine how much of our native forests are being woodchipped and sent down the world’s toilets. Both Bracks and Bailleau will undoubtedly go ahead with channel deepening in the bay - and while the Liberals are clearly a threat to the clean energy industry, the ALP’s promise to cut greenhouse emissions by 60% by 2050 is meaningless without closer targets and strategies.

Like any election, the road to 25 November 2006 is littered with promises, targets and platitudes. This means the vote comes down to issues of trust. Here, Bailleau is sadly tainted with the Kennett regime through his extensive shareholdings and position as president of the party during those cut-and-burn years. Now, Kennett was a consistent liberal in both economic and social policies and inheritted a state in financial ruin thanks to the incompetence of the Cain-Kirner governments. So, this ultimately doesn’t swing my vote to Labor.

What did make my mind up however ended up being incredibly petty. In this, I am sadly not unlike the vast body of voters. State politics should be as passionate as any other level - but I’ve had difficulty getting worked up about this one. The result is pettiness.

What undid Bailleau for me was an interview he did for the Age weekend magazine. In this interview, he was asked, if he had one thing he could remove from Melbourne, what would it be? His answer - graffitti! When asked about his favourite places, he nominated a number of beaches in seats the Liberals are targetting. This could be coincidence. He even mentioned the Aussie barbecue in an attempt to ingratiate himself with the common man. I was unconvinced. And I can imagine a lot of other things I’d rather have removed from Melbourne, like poverty, homelessness, drugs, corruption, waste - than the graffitti on the Sandringham line which ultimately brightens my journey to work. Bailleau would replace that with a whitwash that so far would be emblematic of his banality.

Bailleau may be the scion of a great and noble family, but there seems little of the patrician in him except for his closely guarded share portfolio. That the election comes down to personality and class is probably the worst outcome for Bailleau, and the best for Bracks. It’s probably not healthy for our democracy - but if both parties are promising some good and some bad, then maybe it says something positive about Victoria. In New South Wales, we would have had race riots and mob baiting within the first week of campaigning.

People will fairly point out that voters do not have to choose either of the major parties first - but I’ve focussed on them first because we have to give our preferences to one of them ahead of the other.

I attended the Democrats launch and was fairly impressed by their upper house candidates Karen Bailey and Paul Kavanaugh - but I’m biased here because I’m a former Democrat member myself. Their theme was ‘clean water’ and the record of the Democrats in crafting a robust house of review. The Democrats are not fielding lower house candidates.

The Greens are positioning themselves to be the ‘new Democrats’ and are obvious favourites for keeping the environment on the agenda - important given the lacklustre commitement of both parties in that regard. In the second week of the campaign we had the unusual spectacle of a Greens candidate arguing that elm trees in Fitzroy Gardens should be ‘left to die’ rather than watered during water restrictions. This led to Greens being labelled ‘tree killers’ - an ignoble label indeed for environmentalists to carry, and a nasty reminder of the more extremist element in the party.

The other party angling for the Democrats’ place in the political landscape however is the dark horse in the race - the new ‘People Power’ party, led by shareholder activist and journalist Stephen Mayne. While the Greens are outflanking the parties on the ‘Left’, People Power is gunning directly at the ‘Centre’ and could cause an upset by taking upper house seats from the Greens if they perform well enough, and could gain from any combined collapse in major party votes. Their strength may be in the range of strong ‘community candidates’ - drafting people already prominent in the community to run for parliament under their banner. People Power is particularly anti-pokies and anti-gambling. They have also promised to purge the public sector of wasteful jobs by sacking thousands of superfluous beaurocrats.

I should also mention Family First, if only to point out that they are a Pentacostal church based party out to glorify and implement a conservative ‘religious’ agenda under the rubric of a particular model of ‘family’. They too however have benefitted from the collapse of the Democrats and have operated in the past by scaring centrist voters away from the Greens. Personally, I do not think they warrant the demonisation by the Left that they’ve received in the past, as they are in respects more progressive (or no more regressive) than the federal Liberal party. However, I doubt their political competence and independence given the manner in which Steven Fielding has been co-opted by the Liberal party in the Senate. For this reason I suspect that of all the minor parties they are the most vulnerable to being seduced by power and hence the least to be trusted with the upper house.

Perhaps this is the most interesting aspect of this state election - not which major party wins government this time around, but which minor party, if any, successfully challenges for the political ground vacated by the collapse of the Democrats. The Liberal and Labor parties on the other hand will both be hoping to remain the only guests at the dinner party of democracy. Of course, the Democrats could stage a miraculous comeback - but even Lazarus needed a saviour.

Coat Hangers and Jail Cells:
The Case for Abortion Reform in Victoria
- Erin Dolan

It was a fitting location for a man who had recently faced the prospect of a jail sentence.

In a section of the Old Melbourne Jail, a group of pro-choice supporters gathered to hear the case for abortion reform in Victoria. Reproductive Choice Australia, the national body of women’s reproductive organisations, had organised speakers, yet this wasn’t a speech for the converted. Amongst the pro-choice groups was a variety of dissent. A month before the State election and some factions were concerned about how abortion reform would divide the left. Dr Leslie Cannold, spokesperson for Reproductive Choice Australia, acknowledged this in her opening comments.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Leslie knew this was the thinking. Even amongst the active pro-choicers there was a fear that lobbying for legal reform could backfire. Safe abortions are accessible in Victoria regardless of the archaic 1861 UK law that technically makes abortion a crime. My generation has never known a time where women needed backyard abortions, and like the idea of bra burning, coat hangers seemed like a feminist fairytale. Nowadays, no woman would be prosecuted.

Instead, it was the obstetrician gynaecologist who would go to jail. For legal reasons, he can’t be named, and so you haven’t heard his side of the story, although his actions made the papers. His choice was either a five years jail sentence under the law relating to abortion or 20 year for manslaughter if he did not help a suicidal woman.

‘The women I see don’t want an abortion,’ I was surprised to hear. In his position, he had dealt with expectant mothers whose pregnancy had been welcomed. He performed abortions as an unfortunate necessity when the pregnancies went wrong for reasons such as fetal deformity or physical danger to the mother. He believed that it was these women, and the doctors that helped them, that were most hurt by the current system.

Without clear laws regarding abortion, doctors struggle to provide women with options. While there is no viability limit in Victoria, fear of the sort of persecution suffered by the ob/gyn largely restricts availability of terminations in the State to 18 weeks. After this, women are largely confined to the public hospital system where their cases are decided by secret committees with unknown decision-making processes. Women whose early ultrasounds raise the alarm can be pushed into a premature decision to abort for fear of losing the opportunity – at later gestations – of the choice altogether.

Far from being too common or easy to get, only 219 number of post-20 week terminations were carried out in Victoria in 2003, a quarter of those on women from states where the option to terminate has been foreclosed by laws, medical convention, or both. Many doctors are confused and are fearful of prosecution under the current legal regime. Some doctors choose not to provide services they know their patients need because of fear of political or legal prosecution.

Abortion should be legislated, but under a health, rather than criminal act. As is apparent from the ACT, the only state that has repealed abortion entirely from the Crimes Act, the fear of a conservative backlash is unwarranted. Before election day, make sure you ask your candidates two questions: Will they push for a bill to repeal abortion from the Victorian Criminal Code after the next election, and if so, how will they vote.

Erin Dolan is a WIRE volunteer who has lobbied for transparency in pregnancy counselling advertising on her website donotbequiet.com. Further information on abortion reform can be found at www.reproductivechoiceaustralia.org.au or nfaw.org/social/papers/abortioninaust05.pdf

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Hit Me with Your Best Shot:
Women in Boxing
- Lyle Daymond

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Boxing is for men, and is about men and is men. A celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for being lost.

Joyce Carol Oates, "On Boxing", 1987

The only reason for women to be in the ring is as ring card girls.

Frank Maloney, British Boxing Promoter, 2005

I am a great fighter, and people like me.

Laila Ali, After defeating Valerie Mahfood, 2003

Women’s amateur and professional boxing is currently enjoying a renaissance that began in the 1990s. During that decade a series of legal challenges based on anti-discrimination legislation were successful. In 1993 US Boxing, the controlling body for amateur boxing in the United States of America (USA), announced it would start registering female bouts nation-wide. The emergence of popular professional fighters such as Christy Martin, who featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated after defeating Deirdre Gogarty, and then Laila Ali, daughter of one of the world’s sporting legends, added to the profile of the sport. The widespread use of fighting techniques in fitness regimes also encouraged white collar, including female, participation to the extent that many boxing gymnasiums in the USA depend on this support for their existence. Certainly the 2004 film Million Dollar Baby was the first time a major studio, Warner Brothers and moviemaker, Clint Eastwood, had used women’s boxing to explore its themes, although an independent film Girlfight had been made in 2000 and boxing movies have often been a Hollywood staple.

Opposition to women’s boxing has often centered around four distinct areas: simple discrimination based on the ideas of a woman’s proper place in society, medical objections based on the lack of research into different physiological risks that women have compared to men, revulsion at the brutal nature of boxing irrespective of who is involved and some feminist concerns that female boxers merely mimic male aggressiveness and violence.

A typical case involved Jane ”The Fleetwood Assassin” Couch’s action against the British Boxing Board of Control (BBBC) which led to the first licenced women’s bout in the United Kingdom (UK). Previously Jane had been forced to box in the USA. Reasons advanced by the BBBC had included medical reasons such as possibility of non-malignant lumps appearing on the breasts to being unstable if suffering from pre-menstrual tension. The issue of health is an interesting one as the BBBC refusal to license bouts meant women were only able to participate in fights where they would be “handled” by untrained, amateurish support staff. During the case it emerged that the BBBC were more concerned that if a woman were seriously injured in the ring, there would be a public outcry putting the whole sport in jeopardy. Jane Couch’s subsequent bout against Simona Lukic was successfully completed just like hundreds of male boxing matches held in the UK every year.

Female boxers do mimic their male counterparts, the traditions of colourful nicknames, pre-fight press conferences with obligatory stare-downs, public weigh-ins and immediate post-fight declarations are all part of women’s boxing. They also participate for the same reasons men do: the discipline that allows them to straighten out chaotic and violent lives, to engender self esteem, the dream of a big payday and simply because they are good at it.

Women’s boxing also has many of the less desirable aspects of boxing in general. Promoters will often pander to the prejudices of a mainly male audience. High profile Christy Martin and Mia St John once took place in the “Battle of the Covergirls”. Mia St John’s cover had been Playboy rather than Martin’s Sports Illustrated. Even in Australia, the WBC Women’s World Featherweight Champion, Sharon Anyos, has an image crafted as much by mini-skirts as boxing gloves. Despite the professionalism of their training and sporting endeavours, the marketing of female boxers is often cringing sexist.

In a sport where a multiplicity of sanctioning bodies has led to a lack of credibility, women’s boxing is even more disorganized than men’s boxing. The Women’s International Boxing Council (WIBC), Women’s International Boxing Federation (WIBF), International Female Boxers Association (IFBA), International Women’s Boxing Federation (IWBF), Global Boxing Union (GBU), Women’s International Boxing Association (WIBA) and the World Boxing Foundation (WBF) all proclaim champions and publish rankings. Many of these organizations were only founded in the 1990s with the increased interest in women’s boxing, although the proclamation of female champions by the prestigious World Boxing Council will hopefully improve this situation.

The credibility of women’s boxing is also called into question because of the lack of depth, although this has somewhat abated. Many professional boxers convert from other combat sports, or even other athletic careers, and Marcela Acuna’s previous career in karate was deemed good enough for her first two professional fights to be for world titles in 1997 and 1998. This situation would not have been tolerated in men’s boxing. Competition in lower weight classifications is more evenly contested by boxers of greater skill.

Women’s boxing also suffers from a sideshow element. The bout involving Tonya Harding, controversial former US figure skating champion, and Paula Jones, one of Bill Clinton’s harassment victims, in 2002 is symptomatic of this.

The future of women’s boxing does look secure at the elite, professional level for some years to come. Laila Ali’s famous lineage, backed by an undefeated 22 bout career, has been enough to secure her sponsorship from the troika of footwear (Adidas), soft drinks (Dr Pepper) and automobiles (Ford). Her fights are often shown on pay-per-view television. The success of Million Dollar Baby also saw promoter Bob Arum, once picketed for his refusal to promote women in boxing, offer a million dollar purse to the winner of a proposed fight between Christy Martin and Lucia Rijker. Unfortunately Lucia Rijker, who played Hilary Swank’s protagonist Billie “The Blue Bear” in Million Dollar Baby and had compiled an undefeated record in boxing (17-0) and kick boxing (36-0), ruptured her Achilles tendon while training for the fight in July 2005. Other high profile fights feature well up on heavily promoted boxing programmes.

In amateur boxing, the International Amateur Boxing Association (AIBA) organised its third World Women’s Boxing Championship in 2005 and continental championships occur across the world. No doubt many of these women will be tempted by potential professional careers. While the International Olympic Committee has rejected a bid to introduce women’s boxing at the 2008 Games in Beijing, it is likely the AIBA will make another bid in 2009 for inclusion in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Women have come a long way since Miriam “Lady Tyger” Trimiar went on a month long hunger strike in 1987 protesting how women were treated and paid in boxing. Her words then were prophetic. “Unless women get more recognition, we will be fighting just as a novelty for the rest of our lives. There will be no future." That could apply in many areas where women seek equality, not just boxing.

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Am I Transgender now?
The Politics of Identity in the “POST FEMINIST” Era
- KJ Elizabeth

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When I look around at women I know in their late 20s and early 30s, who are strong and non-conventional women. I wonder how they would experience and feel about their gender non-conformity if they were now going through university and entering progressive circles in 2006, where queer politics and ideas seem to have surpassed and overtaken feminism. My observation of this “change of the guard” is not a criticism, or necessarily a concern, it's simply an observation that raises some questions in my mind as to how gender non-conventional people now think about themselves.

10, 15, 20 years ago or more, when a woman did not find herself fitting into the conventional ideal of a woman, if she cut her hair short, wore masculine clothes and did not shave, this was seen in the context of her rejection of conventional femininity and her embracement of feminism. Today, however, with the concept of transgender coming to the forefront and feminism to the background, the gender non-conventional woman now has a different reference point from which to consider her self.

So while my friends who were in their late teens and early 20s ten years ago, gravitated towards feminist ideas where they could position and identify themselves, my friends of this age today, have a different framework in which to consider themselves, and that framework is transgender.

Now, when a woman rejects the feminine and chooses or feels compelled to present herself in a different way, if that different way resembles masculinity, she is now more likely to ask herself the question; if my gender orientation is more masculine, does that mean I am transgender?

The rise of transgender has meant that questioning ones gender is now more strongly associated with the questioning of gender identity. And this is what constitutes the most significant shift in the way we think about our own gender, from a more feminist, to a more queer/transgender perspective.

Feminism and transgender are of course not mutually exclusive, they are very much interconnected and influence each other. But while feminist ideas called for a liberalisation of the gender categories, or their complete obliteration, although transgender also calls for a liberalisation of the gender categories, in some respects it still keeps the gender categories in place. Yes, transgender fucks with the categories relentlessly, but in order to say one is transgender, one must label aspects of themselves as masculine or feminine, or a mixture of both, in a way that is supposedly incongruent with the sex assigned to them at birth. And in order to do this, we use the pre-existing cultural and social constructions of gender. Transgender fucks with the gender dichotomy by saying that a biological female can have a male gender identity, or a biological male can feel both masculine and feminine, but it doesn’t fuck with masculinity and femininity itself in the sense that it utilises the pre-exting culturally constructed gender labels to describe aspects of character, much in the same way that a gender conventional person might.

A male who describes himself as having masculine and feminine aspects, if he expresses this externally, we might say he fucks with and challenges masculinity, but he only fucks with masculinity in that he does not portray himself as a conventional male and other people might find this confronting. If he's still using the label of masculinity to describe aspects of himself he considers to be “typically male”, how does this fuck with the concept of masculinity? If he says that the feminine aspects of himself are part of his masculinity THAT is fucking with masculinity, because it's challenging the way in which we define it. And that's the way gender atypical women of 10 or so years ago were more inclined to view their unfeminine interests, behaviours and appearance. Rather than see having a typically "masculine" orientation as an indication of having a male identity, women of this time sought to broaden the scope and way in which females could be women, without being defined as lesbians or wanting to be a man. They created other ways of being a woman that existed independent of the concept of gender. In other words, being significantly gender atypical was not linked to gender identity like it is today, there was a strong resistance to having oneself viewed as “like a man”? or even masculine, and did not necessarily feel that their gender identity was mixed, incongruent, or problematic.

I have no opinion or preference for which is the “better” framework for people to think about who they are, but it does illustrate the precarious nature of identity. Identity is something that we believe is fixed within us, innate, possibly there at birth, and that part of our quest in life is to find our authentic identity. The shifting dominance of feminism and transgender shows that how we define our identity is in part dependent on the cultural categories of identity that exist and are prominent at a particular moment in time. Right now, gender atypical or gender queer people have a very rich, varied and available pool of ideas and ways in which to identify themselves. And while feminism/feminist is still part of this mix, the elements of ourselves we may have been more inclined to attribute to our feminist inclinations or beliefs, we are now more likely to attribute to being transgender. And transgender may be a more fitting label for some, but I wonder if others, had they come of age in a different era, they may have found contentment with their gender atypicality amidst the backdrop of feminism and feminist ideas.

Some will argue that the comparison I have drawn between feminism and transgender in the context of identity politics is a naïve and crude one. I disagree. Transgender is a broad term that a wide range of gender atypical people use identify themselves. It is not my suggestion that feminism can provide an “alternative” framework for all persons who identify as transgender, I am simply pointing out that the way we define ourselves and figure out “who we are” is not uninfluenced by the theories and ideas of the day.

Some people will disagree and maintain that they would have felt they were transgender regardless of when they were born. This is a difficult position to maintain; how can one think of themselves as transgender or gender queer if they lived in an era when the concept did not exist? With the rise of transgender, people who do not feel comfortable in the gender that is supposedly congruent with their sex, do not have to see themselves as transsexual, such as the case 30 years ago, when the idea of being gender queer as opposed to transsexual was a much more radical notion than it is now.

What is interesting about this issue to me is that we are still talking about gender. Some feminists had a vision of the future that was essentially genderless. Instead of moving beyond the labelling of emotions, interests, and appearances as either masculine or feminine, the concept of transgender has provided non-conventional women with a framework where they can give the non-feminine aspects of themselves a gendered, masculine label. And as such, some might argue that transgender does not “transcend” gender but reinforce it, specifically, that it reinforces the idea that certain interests, personalities, mannerisms, occupations, emotions, can or ought to continue to be categorised as more masculine, or more feminine, and the extent to which we possess more masculine or more feminine traits tells to us what our gender identity ought to be. Transgender represents a step forward in that it acknowledges that each sex can have a mix of typically masculine and feminine aspects, and that people should not to be forced to conform to the gender that “matches” their biological sex. But others, such as the feminists who envisage are genderless future, would argue that it hasn't gone far enough, because we continue to use socially constructed gender labels to describe aspects of ourselves.

* A footnote to the subtitle of this article, I don't believe this is a "post feminist" era. My use of it here is acknowledging that this era has been described as such by others. As far as I'm concerned, I agree with the sentiment: 'I'll be a post-feminist in the post-patriarchy!'

** And as for the title of the article, it's purely tongue-in-cheek

KJ Elizabeth is the editor for www.pretty-ugly.com

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