Fun Adventures of Rachael the Cleaner!

Having recently finished up at uni for the year, I eagerly prepared myself for the exciting summer ahead. Beers and barbeques; sunbathing and beaches; picnics in the gardens! I settled down to enjoy all of the spoils of summer...for about a week. Next thing I know I’m eating a stale egg sandwich in Temuka Tea Rooms before re-boarding my bus bound for Christchurch and six day work weeks. For the past few summers I have found myself working for a rental company cleaning properties between tenants. Being hot boxed by cleaning chemicals in small bathrooms, ruining all my clothes with Janola and acquiring second degree oven cleaner burns are many of the fun activities that I have enjoyed during my employment. In only my second or third day back at work, I found myself stationed in a flat that acted as the ‘office’ of a group of, um, working women. While pulling multi-coloured wads of hair out of the shower drain and scrubbing candle smoke from the walls (the ‘romantic first date’ package had been proving popular this year) a man walks in off the street and yells up the stairs,

“Excuse me? Are you available, or are you about to head out?”

My boss, an attractive blonde female dressed head to toe in bleach stained cleaning clothes somewhat similar to this [see below] misinterprets this entirely and answers,

“No sorry; this flat has already been rented out.”

The 'sexy maid' option, for men who get off on realism.

Confused and dejected, the man slowly backs out of the room and out the door.

Following him is venom from my judging eyes.

Anger and hatred simmer beneath the surface for the rest of the afternoon. Satisfying imaginary scenarios where I come running down the staircase brandishing my scrubbing brush and screaming “women are not for sale, you misogynistic son of a bitch!” replay themselves in my mind, increasing in scale and intensity with every rerun. My instant, unprovoked anger revealed to me that afternoon a severe prejudice I never really knew I had; I hate the sex industry. More specifically, I hate the people who use it. I know that it is generally seen as more progressive for feminists these days to be totally down with the prozzies, but I just can’t. Please don’t get me wrong; I am firmly pro legal prostitution, and am proud to live in a country where sex workers receive valid legal protection, recognition and an opportunity to work from a safe environment (even if I do have to clean it up after them). But that doesn't mean that I have to sympathise with their choices, or the choices of the men who visit them. The fact that it is not seen as completely unthinkable to buy a woman like she is a piece of meat makes me very sad, and very, very angry.

Maybe one day I will be mature enough to sit down and rethink my disdain of sex work. I will look at the issue from multiple perspectives and hear this man, and others like him, out in an open minded and understanding way. But today, my friend, is not that day. Get out there and earn your sex through personality, mutual respect and a dash of charm like everybody else has to you lazy, sad little man!

Toilet Conundrum

So...I just used a man's public toilet by mistake...and I feel nothing.

I didn't even realise until I was washing my hands next to a most unusual looking silver contraption. I now understand that this is what a urinal looks like. Interesting...they are not how I imagined.

Urinals in Dunedin public toilets don't look like this.

I then turned on my remarkably lady like high heel boots to dry my hands next to a stunned and silenced man.

"Whoops" I say, and stroll on out.

I know that at this point I should be running home in shame, hiding myself from all public view for a period of a week or two, crying softly while rocking back and forth, lamenting my earth shattering mistake.

But, here's the thing. I used the wrong toilet by accident. The sun still rises in the east and sets in the west. Birds still cheep and cows still moo. Nothing bad has happened, and I feel fine (although somewhat bad for my new toilet friend. I don't think he is taking this quite as well as I am, probably because he is still trying to work out how where I hide all my man bits).

I've been studying gender for far too long.

Why is Slutwalk Important?

Photos taken at Dunedin Slutwalk 2012 by Michael Morris

                One of the most personal and challenging things that feminism has taught me... well, not so much taught as revealed...is that I have been raped. At the time I didn’t understand it that way; it didn’t seem like rape, just unwanted. It’s quite remarkable really that it took years of engaging with feminism and gender studies to understand that rape and unwanted sex are the same thing. When rape is discussed in the mainstream, we are told of stranger danger, weapons, home invasion, ultra-violence and night time alleyway struggles. So when it happens, say at a party or casual drinks at a friend’s flat, with someone who you know well enough to nod to in acknowledgement when you pass each other in the street, to call it rape almost seems disrespectful to anyone who has ever encountered any ‘legitimate’ rape, to quote our friend Todd Atkin. Women are effectively silenced out of respect for their fellow sisters, and out of fear of appearing hysterical. Mostly though, they are silenced through not even knowing that what just happened was rape. Anything less than bloody, traumatising violence made out to be of your own doing.

                My ‘incident’ (even now I have trouble using the word “rape”, for very emotionally and socially complex reasons) left me feeling skanky. Easy. Weak. Don’t be mistaken into thinking me a prudish and easily guilted young woman; I have been relatively liberal with my sexuality for most of my sexually active life. Sexual encounters, even of the fleeting variety, very rarely inspired in me feelings of gendered guilt. But of course, this was different, because I KNEW it wasn’t something I did, but something that was done to me. And because I was young; because I was drunk; because I was passive, I felt wholly to blame. I felt slut shamed. All without ever uttering a word to anyone, and never a word uttered to me.

                The power of rape mythology is omnipotent and omnipresent. Without properly engaged discourse that directly confronts rape culture, it will remain unchallenged. That is why I was very encouraged to hear that Dunedin was putting on another Slutwalk this year. Even though I didn’t make it to the rally, I feel that Slutwalk is incredibly important because it revives the conversation that is so desperately needed. Some people asked me “why do we need another Slutwalk? We had one last year!” But this is not a topical issue, it is an ever occurring issue. Without frank and unashamed dialogues dealing with rape culture, generations of women will feel that the everyday rape that occurs is justified and to be expected. Sometimes rape is spectacular, it is violent and hugely traumatising. In no way do I wish to discredit women who have experienced situations more terrifying than I could imagine. But mostly this is not rape; rape is banal. It is underwhelming, but none the less damaging. Even banal rape is wrong, and the ignorance surrounding it must come to an end.

Samantha the Sexy Snow Leopard: a night of celebration and condemnation

Ever since watching Marie Antoinette in my high school days I have been desperate to go to a Masquerade. The mystery, the excitement...the ball gowns! Finally, my fairy tale inspired dream of going to the ball arrived with Sammy’s highly anticipate Wonky Masquerade. As if I had somehow known this day would soon come, I had already acquired a bitching 80’s style formal dress, complete with mullet skirt, ruffles and oversized bow. I was feeling pretty damn good; that is of course, until my boy friend, Michael donned his own costume that not even the most dedicated masquerader could compete with.

Michael Morris has created quite a reputation for himself as being one of the best at costume parties. Everyone anticipates greatness, as he just can’t resist going far beyond the dress requirements for any given event. Harbouring a passion for costume since child hood, Michael is not averse to putting in a lot of hard work to achieve brilliant dress up. Michael’s quintessential dress up of choice are his famous crazy/sexy, excessively form fitting, home-made pants. His most infamous pair were made for  his own 21^st, aptly themed ‘distastefully sexy’. Tight, white and laced up all the way...and I mean, ALL the way! For the Masquerade, Michael paired a laboriously made mask with said pants to create one of his raunchiest alter egos of all time... Samantha the Sexy Snow Leopard. He spent two days making the mask, and almost as long lacing himself  into those glorious pants.

 Can't...even...handle...the sexy!

That's Michael receiving his prize for best dressed at the ball, beating out all the gowns, sparkles, feathers and sequins to take out the most lusted after prize of the night! Pride (and, I won’t lie, a little jealousy) was overflowing from all my pours! The night was everything I had ever hoped it would be and more,  surrounded by like minded eccentrics who revered  the beauty of the outrageous. But, as the story goes, we had to get home before the strike of three in the morning so that I wouldn't turn into a hungover pumpkin at work the next day.  We left on such a high, but as we gaily stumbled down the four blocks between Sammy’s and McDonalds (I get so hungry), we descended into world of abuse, anger and violence.

It started as simple high fives and other signs of bropproval, but then the attention began to bubble with aggression. It wasn’t long until Michael and I were cooking in a boiling pot of testosterone fuelled hatred. Now, on more than one occasion, I have seen young men wandering the chilliest Dunedin nights dressed in nothing but Borat style swimsuits, tight super hero lycra and many other costumes of a highly revealing nature, so it couldn’t be that which spazzed out the typical Scarfie male.  My hypothesis  is that it was Michael’s gender ambiguity that sent these fine male specimens into fits of rage. Simultaneously disregarding the conventions of masculinity which rigidly confine the everyday reality of many men and looking goddamn attractive doing it was just too much for our beer filled male friends into fits of rage. Simultaneously disregarding he conventions of masculinity which rigidly confine the everyday reality of many men and looking goddamn attractive doing it was just too much for our beer filled friends:

 “How dare you force me to feel attracted to your bodacious man-booty! Angry heterosexual is angry!”

Be honest with yourself, wouldn't YOU question

 your sexuality over these legs?

“Just relax”, I wanted to say, “and allow the beauty of these glorious thighs to wash over you. To resist is futile; I should know, I struggle with it every day.” It’s not like ones entire sense of oneself as a man is tied in to unwavering heterosexuality, am I right? Oh...actually...

The shock of our night’s juxtaposition was enough to send Michael and I home feeling pretty stink about the world at large. It’s natural for the freaks and geeks of society to congregate at our age, as the tightly regimented social hierarchy of high school seems to disappear into oblivion. It is around this time when life starts to look up for us weirdoes. Finally, a group that understands and celebrates us! A group which accepts the unusual, the queer, the strange and the scary! Loudly and proudly we communicate our disdain for narrow minded society through our dress, our music and our politics. But if it only takes four blocks to tumble straight out of our self constructed liberal-Kansas into a nightmare land of macho aggression and rigidly policed gender rules, then what does that say about our affect on the world at large? When it is only the already converted who bother to listen, then what is all our shouting, screaming and celebrating really, honestly, achieving?

Creeps...creeps everywhere

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