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Past Issues: Issue#7 January 2006
The new face of Anit-Abortionists Interview with an Activist: Reta Kaur Victorian Young Liberals on the Internet Sunblock: The Simple Solution Campaign Update: The Greens enter the debate 
Women’s Forum Australia: A certain amount of kudos must be given to the religious right for listening to the voices of women. They have finally heard our concerns, listened to our fears and acknowledged the inequalities in our lives. Now, after taking detailed notes, they have stolen our slogans for their own conservative gains. The latest of these groups is the Women’s Forum Australia. The Women’s Forum appropriates both the language and concerns of established feminism. Their interests, as listed on their website, make them appear like a women’s human rights group. These range from the effects of media on girls body image to women’s work/family juggling act. But do not be fooled. Their campaigns to date have focussed on the traditional religious right strongholds: euthanasia, bio-ethics, and – above all others – abortion. By name alone, the Women’s Forum seems to distinguish themselves from other anti-abortionist groups. Similar to strategies used in America, conservatives in Australia are colonising the human rights vocabulary to attract a wider group of people. In America, the Independent Women’s Forum, a seemingly pro-women’s group, was established to combat feminism. In the days when fundamentalism is an alternative word to terrorism, the Christian Right have tried to move their argument to the middle to stop appearing extreme. Much like its American counter-parts, the Women’s Forum Australia attempts to distance itself from the placard-carrying stereotype of radical anti-abortionists. While hardline anti-abortionist use foetal pictures to dissuade non-believers, smiling women grace the pages of the Women’s Forum web site. Instead of quotes from the Bible, Martin Luther King speeches are twisted to suite their argument. Instead of inciting violence against abortion providers, the members of the Women’s Forum claim that abortion violates women. And as women, they seemingly provided a more valid voice to the male religious leaders and politicos who have traditionally dominated the debate. Yet its links to established anti-abortion groups is undeniable. Although it claims to be an ‘independent women’s think tank’, the Women’s Forum was spawned from a conference held in Sydney in December 2004 titled ‘Pro-Woman and Pro-Life’. The NSW Right to Life section confirmed that the Women’s Forum conference and objectives ‘are almost precisely what we at NSW Right to Life and the Foundation for Human Development continue to provide via education, counselling, support services and media work.’ While its roots may lie in the traditional realm of anti-abortionists, the Women’s Forum presents as a more sophisticated group than their Right to Life friends. Of the seven board members, all but one have ‘researcher’ listed in their bios. Two work for universities while another two are listed as freelancing for the ABC on health issues. Only one has an overtly religious connection, and even then it’s listed as a ‘Research Officer’ for the Anglican church. Intellectualism has now replaced religious fanaticism. To mirror their credentials, the Women’s Forum supports their arguments with quotes from other women of intellectual renown. Displayed in their press releases and conference proceedings are names such as Naomi Wolf, Germaine Greer and Hillary Rodman Clinton, used more for their relation to feminism than their anti-abortion stance. More convincingly, the Women’s Forum locates its anti-abortion argument in relation to women rather than traditional right to lifers’ reverent arguments on the creation of life. More importantly, unlike most religious right groups who alienate women by prescribing them inferior status, the Women’s Forum acknowledge the social, cultural and legal challenges that limit women – but then add abortion to the long list. Domestic violence, rape, homelessness, inequitable working conditions, including wage inequities and lack of substantial maternity leave are all given lip service. This is more than mere tokenism, but an innovative way of presenting abortion as a result of patriarchy. The language may include key words, yet the Women Forum does little to advocate for the real health of women. They do not campaign for changes that would decrease the incidents of domestic violence even though pregnant women are more exposed to this type of abuse. Amidst the current Industrial Relations Reforms, the Women’s Forum have yet to cry foul play, even though these proposal will invariably limit women’s choices with regards to family time. And like so many other groups of its kind, the Women’s Forum doesn’t advocate for things that would decrease unwanted pregnancies, like better sex education in schools. The new face of anti-abortionists are women who have packed up their placard in place of footnoted feminist tropes. Their language has been updated but their ideology remains in the tradition of conservative men. 
Interview with an activist: On 11 November 2003 Reta Kaur, the woman behind the activist peace group Women For Peace, was arrested and charged with 'trespass' at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance. Her crime was handing out pamphlets calling for 'No More Wars'. I spoke with Reta before her court case, in which she had to defend herself alone against the charges. On the 5th of this month (December 2005) Reta was found guilty and sentenced to a one year 'good behaviour bond'. It is a sentence that may strike many as ironic, with 'good behaviour' defined as compliance with the militarisation of school children on Remembrance Day – that ritual that once commemorated the 'war to end all wars'. 'I used to be a very good woman', Reta confessed as we started talking. Reta grew up in Malaysia, and worked in Dallas, Texas between 1971-2, during some of the heady days of the Vietnam conflict. As a child she imbibed the vivid stories of her mother's suffering during World War II, and in the United States, during her work as a cleaner she recalls opening broom closets to be met with an avalanche of guns – 'in houses with children!' She says that during this time and after she 'talked a lot', was 'always concerned' but had 'never stood up in public before'. Yet it was Reta Kaur who, in 2002, stood up in the Melbourne Town Hall to ask visiting celebrity Germaine Greer to lead an international women's movement for peace. Well, Germaine didn't, and Reta kept standing. 'I'd never stood up in public like that in my life' she told me. From there, women started calling her at her work, and now she 'can't stop'. 'It is all I have now.' She said., and the most difficult thing about standing up in public, 'is the shoes ... lots of shoes.' The Town Hall meeting meanwhile became obscured by yet another controversy over headscarves, with Pamela Bone attacking Greer for replying to Reta that perhaps all women should don the black headscarf in solidarity with the women suffering in the invasion of Iraq. It is a side debate that Reta regrets, but she explains also why she stood up at that meeting dressed in a veil, 'like an oppressed woman'. The black veil, shes explained, was the international symbol of women's protest. In the context of ANZAC and Remembrance Day, the black veil also harks back to the long silent rows of war widows who once guarded the solemnity of those rituals. Their tears and their memories have been lost to what Reta decries as the hijacking of Remembrance Day by male militarists. It was following her first appearance at ANZAC Day that she was called 'an old hag' by former RSL President Bruce Ruxton. His abuse was nothing compared to the undisguised hostility that Reta and her small band of Women For Peace encountered as they protested silently in the lead up to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The abuse, and the police actions, reminded Reta of one of her mother's maxims: 'if you stand up, be prepared for the shoes'. She has had to face the shoes of the public, the police, and the law. My first memory of Reta was seeing her on television behing arrested at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne. There she was, one voice, one woman dressed in black, like the long dead widows of the great war, and the whole aparatus of the police, courts and the press screaming against her simple act of protest. Why should everyone be so upset but for the insecurity of their own empty ritual, their own collective guilt? I thought of the war widows in black, their solemnity and their tears, contrasted to the hollow celebratory pride of today's ceremonies. I also thought of Vaclav Havel's Power of the Powerless, an essay on how small and simple actions by individuals who stand up against totalitarian regimes can undermine those very structures simply by 'living in truth'. At some point in her life, Reta says she could no longer live in the world as it is and do nothing. The truth of war cries out that something be done. For a public increasingly determined to retreat into a false domestic and national myth, the will to forget is strong, perhaps nowhere stronger than at those memorials that should act as the greatest reminders of war's grim reality. This in part may explain the public rage against Women For Peace. This year I attended the Shrine of Remembrance on 11 November and I was struck by the numbers of schoolchildren attending as part of uniformed school groups. There were also marching cadets – as Reta would say, more children with guns, marching to the merry tunes of 'Inky Pinky Parlay Voo'. It is a tune that might have had meaning to veterans of the Great War of 1914-18, but in a crowd of children it had a surreal, carnivalesque tone. It was into this scene of absurdity that Women For Peace had tried to intervene, if only to 'be present as witnesses', so that the children might realise that they have a choice – that 'when the call comes' they too can stand up and 'say no to war'. Indeed one positive story that Reta told from their ANZAC Day vigil was of a 13 year old boy who told her he was 'glad you are here'. From the adults however, the shoes kept coming. In certain respects there was also a cultural dimension to Reta's protest style. During actions and demonstrations she dons the veil or headscarf, not out of religious or cultural piety as many assume, but in order to identify with oppressed women, 'to stand there and present an image of Muslim women' that is not the passive, victimised image society demands. In her 'Western' styles, she 'climbs a hierarchy of whiteness', while in traditional Indian clothes she 'immediately becomes the other', ignored or condescended to by authority. It is a style however that has worked at rallies, grabbed headlines, and inspired hundreds – if only because it does challenge all those expectations and in so doing hint at something else beyond appearance – a truth that is so often burried. After all this, Reta says she is tired. She started her movement as an idealist, dreaming of 'a million women in the streets', but bitterly disappointed not only by shoes, but by the wall of silence. At the Shrine when she and her small band were under attack, 'nobody stepped forward' to defend them – and it is this image that lingers with me most. Afterwards I thought of my mother's uncle who faught at Gallipoli, and who saw his own brother blown up beside him in Flanders. He never marched, because war was what it is. I think he would have stood up for Reta. 
Don't think about it!:
So, where are the Young Liberals of
Victoria? Media reports in newspapers like "The Age" and magazines
like "The Monthly" point to a collapse of this once proud
institution, as evidenced by its dysfunctional meetings and elections. This
article examines another aspect of this self-destructing organisation: the
Young Liberal's presence on the Internet. The wasteland of broken links,
out-of-date pages, and strangely apolitical musings is further evidence that
this branch of the Liberal Party, the governing part of Australia, is nearly
moribund. 
Sunblock:
Louise James 
Campaign Update: MEDIA RELEASE Greens Senator Kerry Nettle has written to ACCC Chair Graeme Samuel, asking him to investigate whether some pregnancy counselling services are in breach of the Trade Practices Act. “I am very concerned that certain providers of pregnancy counselling services are being misleading and deceptive in the manner in which they advertise their services.” Senator Nettle said today. “I have provided the ACCC with promotional material from some pregnancy counselling services that claim to offer neutral counselling and referral to all pregnancy related services. These counselling services are run by anti choice organisations that refuse to refer women for a pregnancy termination regardless of her wishes. “I have also asked the ACCC to investigate whether the information these services provide on abortion is misleading and deceptive. “Women accessing pregnancy counselling are often feeling vulnerable and the behaviour of anti-choice organisations offering biased counselling may be found to be unconscionable under the Trade Practises Act. “Women deserve to be fully informed about what sort of service they are about to utilise.” “It is important whilst Federal and Victorian governments are discussing requirements for mandatory pregnancy counselling services that unscrupulous and deceptive pregnancy counselling services are exposed and not supported. “Mr Abbott needs to come clean on what sort of pregnancy counselling he wants women to access. “Genuine pregnancy counselling explains the latest medical and legal facts in an unbiased manner. This includes information on all three options of abortion, adoption or continuing with the pregnancy. Ethical counsellors do not coerce women. They work with her to ensure that the woman’s values drive any decision she makes.” Read more on The Greens position on women's reproductive rights back to index |
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