Tribute to Margaret Whitlam

Hi there friends who remember this era

Photo - ABC News

Margaret Whitlam passed away at 92 and I believe she wouldn't have wanted us to be saddened by her passing; rather to celebrate her life and achievements of which there are many.
Being married to a strong politican can't be easy - yet she appeared to achieve this with grace.  Personally, I went through the Whitlam regime - at the time not being very politically minded either way.  So when I look back at the reforms and social changes during this era, I somehow know there had to be a good strong woman behind the man. 

"Though all of the papers and all of the biographies describe her as the former prime minister's wife, it's the wrong description. She was Margaret Whitlam, leader of women and leader in women's rights and achievements."

Joan Kirner

Visit my website
"Memoirs of a Babyboomer" then go to 1970's, where a personal, non-political endorsement of some of the achievements of this era are covered and why I feel gratitude towards the important changes to Women's Rights during this period.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the age and stage.

Goodbye Margaret and thanks x


Clara

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Babyboomer Women relating to Marilyn French book 'The Love Children'

Dear Babyboomers 
R wrote - Started Marilyn French's last book, The Love Children. So far so good.

 http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/ review this as follows

The Love Children (2005)
A novel by Marilyn French


Marilyn French's 1977 novel The Women's Room epitomized the feminist movement and became one of the most influential books of our time. Now she has captured the complexities of life for the daughters of the Women's Room generation in her highly anticipated new novel The Love Children.


It is the late 1960s in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Grateful Dead is playing on the radio and teenagers are wearing long hair and blue jeans. Jess Leighton, the daughter of a temperamental painter and a proto-feminist Harvard professor, is struggling to make sense of her world amid racial tensions, Vietnam War protests, and anti-government rage. With more options than her mother's generation, but no role model for creating the life she desires, Jess experiments with sex and psychedelic drugs as she searches for happiness on her own terms. In the midst of joining and fleeing a commune, growing organic vegetables, and operating a sustainable restaurant, Jess grapples with the legacy of her mother's generation.

Clara - Can't wait to read it - sounds great -  set in the era we are revisiting especially with G being in Vietnam.  Love your mobius scarf - silk screened with a photo - I had a Silk Screen Cottage Industry in the 80's but my mind boggles at being able to silk screen knits. 
Still haven't forgotten Time Management or Looking in Mirrors.
Cheers Clara



Welcome to my journey as I photograph something I create everyday for a year... RRT

In Ruins...March 21st
Continuous Scarf silkcreened with a photo I took of indian ruins in New Mexico

http://www.shopatnextdoor.com/

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or visit my website at http://www.babyboomerconnections.com.au/

Our daughters don't even know they have been liberated.

Dear Babyboomers
R wrote,"I tested the waters today by trying to enlist my 30 something employees in a discussion of the the women's movement. Nothing, nada, zip. I fear we have done such a great job of liberating our daughters that they don't even know they have been liberated. In fact, it seems the most important items on their agenda are Facebook (their faces), the latest episode of Housewives of Orange County and how they look in a pair of jeans. I long for a meaningful discussion of a great book or a critique of a movie rather than a reality show. It seems that I have become an old model rather than a role model. Invisible to most everyone. And yet it is this invisible cloak that has liberated me. I can spend an entire day absorbed in my work without even a glance in the mirror. For me the blueprint to retirement is not to retire. I plan to spend every precious moment creating, designing, reading, recording, expanding. I hope we will be cogging for a long time to come."

Clara - I doubt if you will ever be invisible - your creativity and energy will rule that one out. However, "and yet it is this invisible cloak that has liberated me", is a very liberating concept to me. It takes me beyond my ego, my self as I present to the world, to a deeper level, where I can just be 'me'.

Our daughters are not really as different as the 70's feminists expected they would be - 'You've come a long way, Baby', appears from my observation of successful women, to put a lot of pressure on them to juggle work with family life. No doubt, however, if they choose this path, the climate is more supportive and their partners more aware of sharing the load. We should make sure that our daughters are taught this aspect of history in order to help them develop a perspective and if they choose to, take important aspects from the lesson and apply it to their lives

'Life is not a series of isolated ponds and puddles;
It is a river which flows from the past to the future
Only in the most literal sense are we born on the day we leave our mother's womb
In the larger, truer sense, we are born of the past - connected to it's fluidity,
Both genetically and experientially"......

Our children have grown up in a different pond, but it is all connected. They inherit what has evolved before their time, then like us, have their opportunity to make the most of it in order to survive and grow.

The process of writing has given me a new perspective (not always comfortable) where in looking to the past, patterns do emerge:- Creativity - always a different way of looking/thinking ; Enhancement of self and environment - (I love to decorate) ; Love of great food ; a passion for preparing food - creatively yet with health ; and wine (not always great but quaffable) ; Joyful appreciation and love of children, in particular facilitating their creative development ; and in latter years a love of writing, having fun with web pages which allows me to express the many ideas I/others have to share (children's books are on the agenda.)
Above all, the need / appreciation of loving stable family / friendship relationships emerges with prime importance. I have a need to be authentic and hope that my voice is true.

ps - the word 'successful' is one which today seems to refer to women who are out there in the work force. Society needs also to value highly the success of stay at home mothers for their stable contributions to the well being of the next generations.
Cheers Clara

http://www.shopatnextdoor.com/

Welcome to my journey as I photograph something I create everyday for a year...

Loom knit cardi with hand printed birds, worn with flower necklace.

Bird Bath...March 12th


Hand printed as well. Is there no end to your creativity?

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I was a woman moving silently through the women's movement.

Dear Babyboomers of all ages

R wrote, "Well C, you out did yourself with this picture. My heart just jumped. I actually have dreams about the niddy noddy, quite complex ones in fact. It was my salvation at the time and I guess still is. I'm in a bigger, newer version today, but I still have my place to go. I never really entered the work world in the traditional sense. I never encountered all that you write about because in fact I created my own perfect job where I was chief, cook and bottle washer. No glass ceiling or harrassment for me. I took all the things I love; fashion, design, photography, marketing, writing and created a job. Then I hired myself. In my heart I know I'm the only one I could have worked for. I was a woman moving silently through the women's movement. C, I really need a loom to lean over and a cup of coffee to continue this discussion. It is so complex and I fear a topic that has gone by the wayside for alot of women, young and old alike. I will continue my crusade to enlist COGGERS to join us in our virtual niddy noddy world. Cog on!

Clara - I had actual, not virtual goosebumps when I read this. R, I need a loom to lean on too. Your description is powerful and inspiring, where you demonstrate that you have achieved what most people dream about ie creating your own perfect job and hiring yourself, thereby the job becoming an extension of you.

It brings up the eternal question in my mind - "What am I going to be when I grow up?" ...............

Perhaps a writer........... Maybe I am already doing it by being a COGGER, where I can pull together the strands of my life, and create new ones, such as photography and marketing. Who would ever have thought that i would find so much pleasure/passion in doing this - it's all about communicating - with the computer being the very clever tool.

Great to see signs of Spring. How quickly it happens. Autumn is glorious here - the humidity has gone, the sun still hot with welcome coolness in the air. Great for gardening, not that these need much looking after. Cheers Clara

Welcome to my journey as I photograph something I create everyday for a year... RRT

Spring Showers Bring Flowers...March 11th

Neckpiece of copper and faux amber.

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Questioning the Values we Absorbed - pleasant and pretty

Dear Babyboomers
Once I get started on this ie Women's Movement, I have to keep going because it is 'History in the Making" and we were there........ I need to take it through to its conclusion.

What should women have done?
One value which I absorbed, and still has credence was that "If you were pleasant and pretty that you would be OK / rewarded." I almost edit the "rewarded'" aspect but realised that this was all part of the Set-up / Payoff. The movie "Stepford Wives" depicted women / society who went along with all this stuff which in retrospect could be beneficial to both partners in a marriage; but at the same time the feminist movement in the late sixties and seventies was happening.
Educated women fought to separate their identities from the idea of motherhood, knowing that until the two came to be seen as wholly distinct, they would never be taken seriously - and in any case , who wants to be defined by only one aspect of their life?

The Women's Room' by Marilyn French, published 1977, (I actually bought it in a second-hand book store recently) questioned the traditional role of women. Like the main character, Mira, a conventional and relatively submissive young woman who ended up in a traditional marriage and encountered male-female power politics, I had expected to have an equal voice in my marriage.

Young educated women of that time were right on the cusp of change - largely educated by women who endorsed the Women's Movement, and nurtured by home-maker mothers, influenced by the changes and independence the war forced on them. Women needed to move forward from the war experience - and they did - rejecting stereotypes, exploring new possibilities, challenging old limitations and insisting on defining themselves. Women, after realising this independence, wanted to achieve beyond child-raising, home keeping; to where society valued her in a paternal society.

This is still the way it is - but society doesn't value the most important contribution - ie bringing up healthy, well adjusted children to secure the future - not only for them but for past and present generations.

When money became the goal, real values were diminished and women started to think that they needed to adopt the principles in order to be valued. She also demanded the same rights as men, to be able to own property, the ability to borrow money for whatever reason. Women didn't just want to become men - to grow balls - all they needed was to feel that they had the ability to operate in the world with the same rights as men.

Women, those who are able to progress along these inroads, remain few in number. The few who do attain high positions still have to deal with traditional attitudes towards women: the belief that they are less capable than men, sexual harassment and public focus on their appearance and their family responsibilities.

For the majority of women, things have changed even less. A natural order remains to put pressure to get married and have children, and once women are in this position it is very difficult for them to exercise freedom and independence. Within a marriage, women take most domestic and child rearing responsibilities.

It is more possible for women to lead interesting and fulfilling lives these days than it was until the 1970s, but for women who choose this path it is a long and difficult one, and the vast majority do not get to exercise their newfound freedom.

ps I still try to be pleasant and look pretty.

Cheers Clara


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Babyboomer Women Influenced by Women's Movement

Hi R, and other friends
R wrote - For some reason I have never been a good lister (is that a word?). Maybe it's because I don't like being told what to do, even by myself. Now my husband, HE likes lists, especially grocery lists. He also likes to dictate while I dutifully take the dictation. It must be the boss, secretary relationship between men and women that he revels in and I rebel against. Another problem with lists is I lose them. They just seem to disappear. Never the less, I will start a list of COG words for you.

Clara says:- Thank you. There is, as usual, so much of what you write which triggers my jostling ideas, but the winner today has to be the relationship between men and women, since I have just read another article re Germaine Greer, from SMH 'Call to a New Generation' - Gabriella Coslovich.

I would like to state my position re the Women's Movement. I am not a women's libber or against men, nor do I believe either gender is better or more important, just different. However, we were young adults in 1970 when Greer's 'The Female Eunuch' was published, and we lived and were no doubt influenced within this climate of change for women.

Paraphrasing this article - Germaine wanted the book to provoke, polarise and galvanise, "...if it is not ridiculed or reviled, it will have failed it's intention", she wrote in the introduction. She incited a generation of women, US, to ponder the significance of their lives, challenging concepts of marriage (domestic servitude), the nuclear family, the obligation to breed, and the culture of sexual harassment. She encouraged women to study, to become doctors, pilots and even fashion designers, stating that being successful was not incompatible with 'femininity'. 'The Female Eunuch' was then and has remained symbolically important, giving a generation of women, US, the impetus for change.

Greer monopolised the limelight with her brash behaviour but it was left to other second wave 70's feminists, such as Eva Cox, leading spokeswoman for the Women's Electorial Lobby, and it's current chairwoman, to effect changes such as domestic violence and sexual assault laws, equal pay legislation, no-fault divorce, unpaid maternity leave, child support and anti-discrimination laws. Cox says,"...she had her role to play and she played it well. Greer galvanised, others organised."

I now see how different we were from previous generations of women, but did we realise how different our underlying idealism and expectations were? How much influence did the movement have on our expectations of our men, who were probably bewildered by the difference from their motherly example of domestic goddess / slave and their wives, US!

Cheers Clara






www.shopatnextdoor.com.
< Welcome to my journey as I photograph something I create everyday for a year... RRT

What a Difference a Day Makes...March 9th

Necklace of copper and jasper with shard pendant

What a difference a day makes, 24 little hours. I feel a song coming on. Necklace of copper and jasper with shard pendant.

Clara - Where has that sun gone? The background is wonderfully bleak and your piece very significant and bold in the foreground. What is shard?






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