Breaking Through the Glass Curtain

What's wrong with women's football?

I'm going to start by shamelessly bragging about getting a retweet from a celebrity; Baltimore Ravens rookie WR, Torrey Smith (@TorreySmithWR):

@TorreySmithWR: What do you think of lingerie football?
@MC_Odd: @TorreySmithWR sexist, objectifies women. Women who want to play football shouldn't have to become strippers to do so.
@TorreySmithWR: RT @MC_Odd sexist, objectifies women. Women who want to play football shouldn't have to become strippers to do so... agreed

I was, of course, stoked. Not just from the retweet, but from learning that this new player to my favourite football team might be a bit more enlightened than the stereotype.
It did, however, spark a lot of ignorant tweets from others who follow Smith.

@FSIDELINESHOW: @TorreySmithWR @MC_Odd they are not being forced can they quit at any time? was they forced to sign up? nope free will..
@MC_Odd: @FSIDELINESHOW there aren't many avenues for women who want to play football to do so. So it's a "choice" between lingerie or nothing.
@MC_Odd: @FSIDELINESHOW fortunately the IWFL and WFA are making moves to change that.

teacherbyday01: @TorreySmithWR but they aren't forced too... they choose to play
@MC_Odd: @TorreySmithWR @teacherbyday01 LFL is the only paid women's league. Not much of a choice, hence "forced".
@teacherbyday01: @MC_Odd @torreysmithwr You are entitled to your opinion but they aren't forced; end of discussion.

@dannyboykerr: @TorreySmithWR @MC_Odd they do if they want to make money doingit, just the world we live in

This whole exchange brought into the forefront of my mind something that I'm rather concerned about, as a pro-feminist and a sports fan: the situation of women's sports; in particular, my favourite sport, American football (commonly known as gridiron in New Zealand and Australia).


The Lingerie Football League (LFL)
The Lingerie Football League is a 7-on-7 women's football league (I use the term "women's" here lightly, as it's clearly a league designed by men, for men) which grew out of an alternative Super Bowl half-time show, the pay-per-view Lingerie Bowl. The rules and format are similar to those of Arena Football, and other indoor football leagues. As the name suggests, the league pits women against each other wearing nothing but underwear and football pads, including a helmet, which is more akin to a hockey helmet than a football one, (perhaps so the player's face is more visible to the spectators), shoulder pads which are modified to expose the breasts as much as possible (regular football shoulderpads cover the whole upper torso), and kneepads.

Before I get into the issue of sexism inherent in such a league, there are some glaring safety issues with the equipment used. Firstly, the helmet and (lack of) facemask. Aside from protecting the head itself from concussions and the like, a regular football helmet also limits neck injuries by limiting the ability of the head to snap back too far, and protects the face and jaw by way of a facemask. Regular shoulderpads cover the whole upper torso to prevent damage to the ribcage and spine, and the lessen impact at the point of collision by spreading the force over a large surface area. Exposing the players' breasts exposes them to injury. One other important element that isn't modified in LFL, but rather is missing altogether, are hip pads. These basically protect the hips and pelvic bones from injury during ground contact; particularly important on the unforgiving astroturf that is standard in indoor football.
Aside from the obvious design of the equipment to fit in with the "expose as much of the players as possible!" theme, there is probably also an assumption that the women won't injure each other because they're less physically strong. While there's a certain amount of truth in this, the women playing in the LFL are very athletic, and there's no excuse to expose players of any league to risk of serious injury.

LFL: Sexist?
Perhaps the only argumet that LFL isn't sexist is the idea that it makes women's football commercially viable, thus opening the door for women who want to play the sport. Therefore, it's not sexist, but actually good for women!
Wrong. Perhaps it opens the door, but it leaves the sliding chain lock in place, so that women can get a glimpse of what's behind the door, but without ever actually being able to go through it. I would assume that most supporters of lingerie football readily acknowledge that it's sexist, and simply don't give a damn.

First of all, yes, women's sports (not all sports, mind you, just women playing "men's" sports) are financially irresponsible, from a business perspective; in it's 15 year history, no WNBA team has managed to turn a profit. It's important to look at why this is the case, though, instead of just assuming it's "how life is" and moving on, because that ideology is what limit's women's opportunities in so many aspects of life.
There's a very pervasive stereotype that sport is a manly endeavour, and that it's something women are simply "not good at". There are probably a lot of reasons for this are probably largely to do with ideas about a woman's place in patriarchal society. The earliest record of an organised sporting event was the Olympics in 776 BC, a religious festival which women were barred from even watching, let alone competing in, lest they contaminate the sanctuary of Zeus. (It's interesting to note here that in Spartan culture, women were encourage to participate in sports as much as men, because it was believed that strong women bore strong children. Naturally, when Greece initiated the Heraen games in the 6th century BC, Spartan women dominated.) The "women = not good at sports" stereotype is as old as patriarchal society itself.
This idea affects the financial viability of women's sports directly, as it breeds the assumption that women's sports will be of a lesser quality than men's, and so not worth watching or investing in.

The second issue is the way that stereotype creates a self-fulfilling prophecy (as stereotypes tend to do), and indirectly affects the quality of women's sport, and the financial viability of it as well: it severely limits the sporting opportunities for females of all ages.
Males are encouraged from a very young age to play sport (think of a young boy playing catch with his dad), because "boys like sports". The encouragement continues through school, both institutionally and through peer pressure from other socially-conditioned boys. It's important to note that this is changing a lot, particularly in primary schools, where girls are starting to get essentially the same opportunities as boys. This tails off in high school and college however, when the boys start playing the rough "boys" sports like rugby and football, and for the most part there are just no avenues for girls to enjoy the same games. Sometimes, if she's lucky, a girl might be able to bulldog her way onto the boys' team, but then she's likely to face bullying and inacceptance, and possibly sexual abuse as well, from the boys in the team who are conditioned by that stereotype to be unaccepting of girls playing their "man's" game.
The older they get, the less opportunity there is for girls to play games like football. Understandably a lot will get frustrated and move on to more "feminine" things, reinforcing the idea that girls just don't like sports; while on the other other hand male professional athletes are groomed from just about the day they're born. Does it really come as a surprise that these men reach a higher level of athleticism?


The other major issue with LFL is the sexualisation of a largely asexual interest (even though football games often look like a great big orgy on a field). Why does a women's sport need to be sexualised to be of any worth, financial or otherwise? Because our society sees her sex appeal as having more worth than any of her other qualities; in this case, athleticism. Just as it's sexist to use a half-naked woman to sell beer, or to hire/promote a woman based on her appearance, it's sexist to use sexuality to make women's sport more palatable. As well as the direct sexism, this further hinders the cause of women's sport, because it actually undermines the validity of a woman's athleticism if she's follows an athletic career. By focussing on female athlete's appearance first and foremost, this ensures that women's sports will always be not quite as good.
There's a certain amount of sex appeal going on in men's sports too (Reggie Bush or Isaiah Mustafa, anyone?), but the key difference is that that's a side effect of their athleticism, and not what they're judged on as athletes. For women, though, it's the inverse, and ideas like LFL support and enforce that.
How many men's leagues do you see putting their players in crop-top jerseys to expose their abs, to increase popularity?

Perhaps the biggest issue with LFL is the fact that it's the only paid women's football league in America (and most likely, anywhere in the world). Regardless of how talented she is, if a women wants to make a living playing football, her best option to make a living by being half-naked and sexy while she plays football. If a man wants to be a stripper, he can; if he wants to be a pro football player, skill considering, he can; if he wants to do both at the same time, I'm sure there's an avenue for that, too. But for women, it's LFL or nothing. How is that fair? How is that not sexist?

As far as I'm concerned, the NFL has a large responsibility here. That organisation makes something in the region of $10,000,000,000 a year in profit; they can certainly afford to support a legitimate, quality women's professional league, so that female footballers can have something more to aspire to than lingerie football. The NBA does it, and keeps the WNBA afloat despite the rarity of WNBA teams turning a profit, because they recognise the importance of having that goal of professional level sport to shoot for, and the empowerment that comes with it. NFL, this is a snap you need to take.


The Alternatives: WFA, IWFL, WWCFL
The good news is that, unless she wants to get paid for it, there are some other options for a gridiron girl who prefers to play with her clothes on. In USA, there are the Women's Football Alliance (WFA) and Independent Women's Football League (IWFL); in Canada there's the Western Women's Canadian Football League (WWCFL). Considering that they managed to field national teams for the inaugural Women's American Football World Cup, I would say there are opportunities for women in Sweden, Germany, Austria and Finland, too (though I can't find specific details of clubs or leagues).

The Independent Women's Football League was founded in 2000 by a group of women, with the aim to create a quality, respected women's tackle football league. The league currently has 51 teams, and over 1,600 players; however it seems to be losing steam to the newly establish Women's Football Alliance.

The Women's Football Alliance was established in 2009 by Jeff and Lisa King, with the aim to create a high quality league that was affordable enough for women of any income bracket to join. It has grown drastically in just two years, with over 60 teams now in the league.

The Western Women's Canadian Football League is a new Canadian women's league which will have it's inaugural season this year, with seven teams around Western Canada.


In sum, despite what many supporters might say, lingerie football is incredibly sexist, and counterintuitive to the cause of women's sports. The NFL has a responsibility to use a portion of it's ridiculous profits to support either a new women's league, or more likely and established one like the WFA, in the way that the NBA keeps the WNBA alive. But it's not just the big organisations that can help; you can too, by going to women's football (and any other sport) games if you live near a team, or by following and supporting your choice of league(s) from afar via the wonder of the internet. The best thing about the IWFL and WFA is that their season runs during the NFL off-season, so it won't conflict with your precious men's league, you just get more football!
It's time to break through the glass curtain.

Preserving Culture

Preservation of culture as an excuse for discrimination

Disclaimer: I'm not arguing for or against gay marriage or euthanasia here (for the record, I support both). I'm looking at how viable preservation of culture is as an excuse for infringements on human rights.


Earlier this week, Australia's openly atheist Prime Minister announced that she would not support the Green party's movements to legalize gay marriage and euthanasia, because “we have a Christian culture that we need to protect.”
A lot of people are suggesting that Bob Brown, leader of the Green Party, is the “real” PM, pulling the strings of Julia Gillard, the leader of the Labor Party and current PM of Australia. It seems to me that this announcement was more of a political play than anything else: PM Gillard wants to prove that she's not just Bob Brown's puppet. If anything, it's just costing her more of her (rapidly declining) support, pushing progressive Labor voters further toward the Greens camp, and more conservative voters toward the Coalition.

Regardless of whatever the political motivation, this argument strikes me as incredibly flawed, for two main reasons: discriminatory aspects of culture aren't worth preserving; and religious culture can (and should be) preserved without conforming to outdated doctrine.


Culture vs. Morality
Is an aspect of a culture that belittles a minority group worth preserving?
Contrary to what a lot of people seem to believe, culture and its preservation isn't an “all or nothing” issue. Any given culture is a composite of lots of little details, most of which are absolutely worth preserving: history, architecture, art, and so on; but when it comes to something that is culturally established but wrong, its preservation does nothing for anyone. The people within the culture are directly affected (in the case of homosexual marriage, the problem is discrimination; for euthanasia, a lack of personal freedom), and it tarnishes the image of the culture to outside observers.
For all the importance of preserving culture, it is dynamic, and subject to evolution. For the better, one would hope.

Prior to 1865, it was a cultural norm in the USA to have African slaves. Obviously this is no longer the case; a negative aspect of American culture was actively not preserved, and the culture as a whole is better off for it. American culture is still American culture, only a more just and, overall, better version.
The same thing happened in 1967, when interracial marriage was made legal in the States. A discriminatory cultural norm stopped being preserved, but the culture was enhanced rather than destroyed.

The best way to preserve culture, as a whole, is to abolish aspects of it that no longer fit the sociology of the time. Not doing so will actually destroy the culture in the long run.



Religious Culture vs. Religious Law
Religion definitely has a major impact on culture (and vice versa, to a lesser extent). If you observe any culture, you can see the depth of religious influence in art, architecture, music, beliefs, opinions, lifestyle in general. If you go to Ireland or Italy, you'll see Catholic imagery. Go to England, USA, or Australia, and see Protestant influence. Islamic culture in the Middle East, Buddhist culture in China and Japan; any culture with a religious history will demonstrate influence from that religion.

However, religious culture and religious law are not directly linked. If you listen to comments like Gillard's about preserving culture, you'll get the impression that not conforming to (usually well outdated) religious law will simultaneously destroy the elements of culture that that religion is responsible for, and consequently the whole culture itself will implode.
This is, simply, not true. Choosing to legalize gay marriage, even though it's wrong according to the Bible, won't suddenly make all the churches in Australia collapse and disappear. It won't change the history that has molded the culture into what it is today.


What does it all mean?
If anything, clinging to outdated concepts is the fastest way to a stale culture. If you want to preserve it, instead protect history so that we may learn from the past, and protect all that religion has offered to culture, without constricting the present, so that the culture doesn't get left behind and forgotten in an ever-changing world.

Delusions of Delusions of Gender

Why neurosexism or "hard-wired gender differences" wouldn't matter, even if they were true.

Disclaimer on the title of this post: I'm not suggesting that Cordelia Fine's book "Delusions of Gender" is delusional, or that she is for writing it. I'm referring to the delusions that she talks about in the book (hard-wired gender differences), and the extra layer of delusion that these would be relevant to modern society even if they were true.


I recently finished reading the book "Delusions of Gender" by Cordelia Fine, which I highly recommend anyone to read; whether you're a feminist or otherwise. It basically unravels all the popular science at the moment which suggests that men and women, as groups, are naturally better suited to different pursuits in life (the age-old "man = career, women = family" rubbish). She details studies that show just how much of an impact societal expectations can have on a person, particularly on a subconscious level; and she breaks down the science which has "proved" natural gender inequalities. It's well worth a read.


I've never held to the idea that person's abilities are predetermined by what they pack in their underpants, and it doesn't take too keen an eye to see how people are socialized into gender stereotypes from before they are born ("Boy baby sleeps in a blue room, girl baby sleeps in a pink room!"). But I'm going to play devil's advocate here, as I tend to, and assume that gender stereotypes are natural, hard-wired and unchangeable: does it really mean anything?


Glasses, Wheelchairs, and Amputee Sprinters
Glasses have been around for thousands of years, in some form. Emperor Nero of Rome used an emerald to get a better view of gladitorial games when he watched, and his tutor, Seneca the Younger, found that small, indistinct letters could be enlarged and seen more clearly under a glass filled with water.
The origin of the modern eyeglass is debated; early evidence has been found from the 13th century in China and Italy.

Regardless, one thing is certain: glasses are a major aid in the lives of people to whom nature gave the short straw of poor eyesight.
If not for glasses, a large proportion of the population would have a lot less in the way of career options than they have now. Bad eyesight? Sorry, you'll never be a pilot, or a pro football player, or a cop. You'll never be able to drive a car.
If not for glasses, people would probably believe that the optically-challenged are naturally dim and slow at learning, when really they just can't see the board at school.

How about wheelchairs? Before the invention of wheelchairs, anyone with a walking disability was excluded from a lot of what the world has to offer; not intentionally, but just by virtue of the fact that they were physically incapable of certain tasks.
Then came wheelchairs, and life got a whole lot easier for you if you were crippled. Stairs were still an issue, but at least you could get around of your volition.
And in response to the stairs, ramps are becoming more and more common for wheelchair accessibility.

With advancements in prosthetic technology, even people to whom nature dealt such a dire blow as leaving them with missing limbs are getting their chances. You want to be a runner, but you have no legs, hmm? Well here, just attach these to yourself, and away you go! There was even a lot of dispute in 2007 over whether Oscar Pistorius, an amputee sprinter, should be allowed to enter the Olympics the following year, or whether his prosthetics actually gave him an advantage.
Once again science comes through to give people opportunities they wouldn't have had otherwise, on account being naturally "suited to other things".


What's the Point of All This?
Scientists are "proving" these days that their are natural neurological differences between men and women: that men are emotionless, logical breadwinners; and that women are caring, comforting homekeepers. (Science has been "proving" this kind of thing for hundreds of years, and have been consistently getting proved wrong, but I digress).
The problem is, they're just looking for a justification of modern sexism. They see the feminist agenda as a problem, and they see these findings as a solution.
But really, the findings are the problem; or rather, evidence of a problem. The evidence is just evidence that nature has created an uneven playing field for different groups, and as conscious human beings we have the ability to override this. Nature doesn't always get it right.

Even if women are not naturally suited to executive, mathematical, scientific, medical, or legal positions, all of which have a lot more potential salary, why aren't we trying to find a way to undermine nature's failings, and use science to give people the opportunities that nature denied them, the way we have so many times before?

Global Sherwood

At a recent UN summit meeting, French President Mikolas Sarkozy and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero have suggested a "global financial tax on all transactions."
Apparently as many as 60 nations have stood up in support of this; but for some reason, there is (somewhat expectedly) some heavy opposition, even though it is an excellent idea.

Now I'm not an economist by any means, but it doesn't take a whole lot of brainpower to understand that there is something severely wrong in the world when 80% of the world's wealth is owned by only 20% of the world's population, or that there is a problem when over a billion people (15% of global population) is expected to live on less than a dollar a day. One man somewhere can literally afford to wipe his ass with a wad of $100 bills, while millions live on the streets, unable to afford a roof over their head.


But nobody wants to help, everyone looks to someone else to fix the problem.
Sure enough, the major corporations in the world are the ones who are in the best position to make a positive change, and are unfortunately the last people who are ever going to do so, because its all about profit, "every dollar counts". A company reeling in billions in profit "can't afford" to part with a few hundred thousand dollars to help those who can barely scrape together a bowl of rice for dinner.


But its not just the big companies; for as little as $40 a month ($1.30 a day), John Everyman can sponsor a child through World Vision, which contrary to what many believe, doesn't just help one child out of a billion, but help the entire community, and everyone who as anything to do with that child.
(I learned about how World Vision actually helps thanks to Alex Day's vlog, more specifically this post: Cabbage. Watch his other stuff as well, though, he is hilarious, and an all around excellent bloke.)
Aside from World Vision, there are thousands of other charities to whom John Everyman can donate whatever he can spare, and unlike businesses, this is a situation where every dollar does count.
Even without an organised charity, John Everyman can simply drop a few loose coins into the hat of the homeless guy he usually just ignores. Money that he'll forget about, and find a week later at the bottom of the washing machine could be the difference between the homeless guy having a meal or not.

But John Everyman has no money to spare, because it's "the big corporates' job."

Now I ain't even gon' act holier-than-thou.
I didn't go to Jacob with 25-thou', but I do generally conform to John Everyman's thought process that "I can't spare the money," or "helping one child won't make a difference." I don't donate to any charity, and I usually just shake my head when someone comes to me and says "spare a dollar?".
The reality is everyone living above the poverty line can afford to help those who don't.


And so, to have a real impact, we need something to be enforced, beyond our control.
We need France/Spain's suggested Robin Hood Tax.

Now I don't know how they plan to implement it; all the sources I've read have only suggested "a tax on every financial transaction," which to me suggested that employers get taxed when they pay employees (no doubt they'd look for a loophole to pass the tax onto the employee, but I digress), and the employee is taxed when they spend their income.

For the ease of argument, lets assume that everyone spends all their income in some way or another (spending, investing, whatever.) So the tax they give can simply be calculated as a % of their income.

Okay, now lets use an easy tax of 0.5%. This works out to 1% tax per person, 0.5% taxed from the person, and 0.5% taxed from the company that employs them (or bank that pays them interest, or tenant that pays them rent, etc, etc.)

The average income in Australia is $50,000 a year (rounded). So, that's $500 of tax per person per year, but only $250 taken from the person.

If you earn $50,000 a year, having $250 less PER YEAR is not going to impact on your quality of life at all. You won't even notice it.
$250 a year is $20.83 a month, $4.80 a week, $0.69 a day.
NOBODY earning $50k a year will notice have 70 cents less each day. And of course, earning less means losing less. I earn $36,000 a year; I'll be out 50 cents a day.

On the other hand, lets look at how this affects how much money is raised.
Australia has a population of 21,431,800 people. $500 is raised per person (based on average salary, $250 from employee and $250 from employer).

21,431,800 x 500 = ....

Australia, alone, will raise $10,715,900,000 per year.

Almost 11 billion dollars per year, at the expense of less than 70 cents a day for the people it affects. And that's just from Australia, a relatively small (population-wise) country compared to the likes of America, Japan, and Russia.


$10,715,900,000 for people who are lucky to have a bowl of rice for a meal. At the expensive of 1/5th of a coffee each day.

Tell me that's a bad idea?

Dear Those Trying to Prove the Existence of God:

I'm afraid you've missed the point. So well and truly missed the point, that you've found yourself in a parallel dimension, where everything is perfectly circular.

Now I myself am an atheist, but I have many friends and family who are religious, with varying degrees of extremity. Despite my atheism, I very strongly acknowledge the power of faith.
Now for clarification, in this post (and in any other religion-oriented ones, and just in general in my everyday speech), when I refer to faith I refer to the belief in God(s) and it's/their ability to make our lives better; while by religion I am referring to a community or organisation of people who share the same or similar beliefs.

The power of faith is the power that you gain as a result of their belief in (a)n omnipotent being(s) and it's/their vested interested in your personal welfare. It's most strongly present in particularly hard times, when you feel completely at loss and incapable of dealing with the issue, so you look to a higher power for guidance. This creates hope, a tiny spark of light in a tunnel that was previously completely black. And small as it may be, you can see that light, and so you know it can be obtained.

Faith begets hope, begets strength.

Whether or not this is in fact an interference from a higher power, or simply the accessing of a hidden well of strength within you, is unimportant, but the unimportance of the source is important. Confused yet? I'll explain.

Faith is illogical by it's very nature. Faith is defined as a belief in something despite a lack of empirical evidence to support this belief. If a friend who's opinion of film I have faith in tells me that something is good, I will believe them, and go see it. Until I've seen it myself I don't know whether or not I like it, but I have faith in their opinion.
You have faith in God, for whichever reason, even without evidence of his/her/their existence.

This is different to believing something that you know, through experience, is true. I know that if I buy a pair of Nike's, I need to buy size 11.5s. I know this because I have tried on and subsequently bought that size, so I have evidence to support this belief. Therefore, it isn't faith.

This illogicality is precisely what gives a faith in God it's potentially life changing power.

God is an abstract concept: we don't know what it looks like, what it's purpose is, how or when it was created, we don't even know if it exists. We know nothing about God. All we have to go on are faith and scripture. The scriptures, though generally claimed to be "the word of God", are written by men who we've never met, and so for all we know they could be as real as the idea that there isn't actually such a thing as "space" and what we see when we look at the sky are just a bunch of very large TV screens. To believe in the scriptures is to have faith in them.
Thus, any concept an individual has of God is a projection of their faith.

This abstractness means that you can (and will) create an image of God that suits your needs to get through whatever it is you need to deal with. If you've lost a loved one, you have faith that they've gone to a better place, and God is a loving looking after them. If you're scared of terrorists, you have faith that God is a righteous, vengeful god who will protect the good and smite the wicked.


Which brings us back to the point of this post: if you're trying to prove the existence of God, you've missed the point of believing in God.

What happens if someone actually does prove, with empirical evidence, that God exists, then God loses its abstractness.
God becomes something definably real; everyone knows exactly what it is and isn't capable of, and we lose the strength gleaned from faith in what "could" be real.

"Gay is Unnatural" Round 2: Gay Animals

Reading the comments section of a newspaper the other day, I was reminded of another popular pseudo-argument that homophobes throw about, without realizing how stupid they sound. It's very similar to the "Being gay is unnatural" rubbish, and the reasoning for why it's so ridiculous is similar too, but I felt I needed to raise it.

"No other animals have same-gender sex, so why should people?"

The first reason it's so flawed is that it is totally wrong: List of Animals Displaying Homosexual Behaviour
"Homosexual behaviour has been observed in close to 1500 species, and is well documented in 500 of them."


Secondly, humans are a species of animal. Every animal is different, and a lot have unique traits which aren't shared by any other animals. Praying mantis females eat the male's head after sex, starfish have no brain, dolphin calves and their mothers don't sleep at all for months when the calf is first born. These are all unique traits, and are in no way wrong because of that. Even if homosexuality was peculiar to humans, it would simply be a unique homo sapiens trait. One of many:


Lastly, humans are very different to other animals, and we have a lot of unique qualities. Civilization, advanced language, and consciousness to name a few.
If you're going to suggest that being gay is wrong because no other animals do it, then everything else we do that is unique to us is wrong too.

The only way you can stand by that argument and not look like a complete fool is to give up everything else that separates humans from animals.

Having a penis does not a good Prime Minister make

A week ago, as a result of some internal politics, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, stepped down from his post and was succeeded by his deputy, Julia Gillard.
Just like that, Australia took a major step toward being a truly equal society; Gillard marks the first female Prime Minister this country has seen.
Now we still have a long way to go: around the same time that this was happening in Australia, Iceland's lesbian PM was legally marrying her girlfriend. But still, this is a step in the right direction, and every step is a victory.

Perhaps I shouldn't be, but I've been surprised by all the backlash and bigoted comments that have surfaced as a result of this event. I guess I knew on some level how prevalent sexism still is, even in the 21st century; but you don't often see it rear its ugly head so blatantly.

Such comments as, "I for one will by voting for Tony Abbott in the next election, as I feel more confident having a man in charge."
Now for those who don't know, Tony Abbot is, essentially, an Australian George Bush, complete with apelike appearance and inability to string a series of words into a coherent sentence. He believes that a woman's place in the kitchen making sandwiches, while a man goes to work. He believes that homosexuality is wrong, and that gay couples are less deserving of the rights that straight couples are privilege to. He believes that everything in the Bible is true, and that if you're not a Christian, you're a heathen.
If he should ever become Prime Minister, he will set the country back 50 years. If we're lucky.

Now it really does concern me when people, and otherwise Labor supporters at at that, would choose this, over having a woman in charge. How can anyone hold this opinion and not see the ignorance in it?
Just to be clear, I'll say this now, loud and clearly in bold text:

Having a penis does not qualify one to run a country.

Nor does having a uterus, or breasts, or a vagina impair one's ability to do so.

Intelligence, charisma, decisiveness, passion, strength of character, sense of morality: these are the characteristics that count as a leader, and these have absolutely nothing to with one's gender. These are also characteristics that Gillard has in spades; and things that Abbott wouldn't know the meaning of if he was a senior editor at Oxford.

I'm also not saying that being female automatically makes one suitable to run a country; Sarah Palin has quite clearly demonstrated this during her time in politics.

At the end of it all, candidates for Prime Minister, or indeed any seat in government, should be voted for or appointed based solely on their suitability for the job. The only way this is going to happen is if minorities in politics - females, non-whites (less of an issue in Australia than in, say, USA, but an issue nonetheless), and out-of-the-closet homosexuals - continue to do as Julia Gillard has done, and fight through the discrimination to secure these positions. This opens the door for others to follow suit, and eventually we will reach the point that the likes of Iceland and India are at; where female rulers are not even newsworthy because of how ordinary they are, and have legitimately equal footing with their penis-owning adversaries in the fight for positions of influence.