Sunday, February 07, 2010

My Choice.

Yesterday I worked all the given hours. I mowed and dug and weeded and planted. I achieved some neatness and tidyness around the garden that pleases me. This morning a windless night has left it that way. I was a very tired person by nightfall. I worked  hard so today it would be My Choice all day to just do just as I please - a rare thing.  R left early to go across to the airport to the Airshow . I will get to hear and see anything that flies over head here which started yesterday when they were all practising. I hope he has a satisfying day.
     Mine is going well....I have sat eating my breakfast and scrolling through your blogs. I intend to sew.This is the fabric that would not behave as I wished the first 2 times I tried it out. BUT I thought I must be able to make it please me, cause individually I like the fabrics. I also am incorporating left over strips from a jelly roll so have started by using 2.5 inch squares. I know they would look good on black or white but I am trying any darker plainish fabric that I have sufficient quantity of ...this is one...but is it slightly too busy and bright? .....stll playing. I will show progress when there is some.
The ball has just 2 motifs left to decide on and make. So, sewing by hand outside I think and machine piecing these squares. 
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Women make up more than 50% of the population, but in some ways still don't get a fair share of things. Nor do young people and children. What am I on about ??? One of my pet grievances.....TV time. All programmes, but in particular NEWS coverage.Take yesterday for example ...it was Waitangi Day ...New Zealand's National Day.....the news naturally covered celebrations ( men making speeches, men rowing Waaka, men singing at concerts etc .) The news as always had a huge section on sport - men's sport...Rugby Sevens, men's golf, motor racing etc etc.  Where were women and young people yesterday?  Watching men do their thing????? Oh yes, a woman read the news and another lovely young Karen forecast the weather. ( the criteria here being pleasant on the eye. )
       Sometimes, as the night before the Halberg Awards ( for NZ sport ) were on and women did feature - well too, but we are talking about the elete of sport in this country, which for women is a tiny percent of the population.
   For the first time in 60 years a woman had won the top producer for a film....well done, but that illustrates just how far we still have to go in many areas. Why are so many of the things women do and are good at still not considered newsworthy ? Why do young people only get coverage for the wrong reasons - when they stuff up. Why do we have so much coverage of crime -  men shooting each other or abusing females or children.( does testoterone have so much to answer for ? )  
      Someone else mentioned on their blog how it was okay for mature males to read the news or forecast or front programmes but the women doing these things had to be young and attractive and have the latest hairstyle. Intelligence and experience are not the criteria...it's how they look.
       With other programmes on TV, only the Living Channel has alternative and hobby items  often at wierd hours. Women are supposed to be happy with cooking programmes or restoring houses or buying property. It's time for something new and stimulating I say.
      Luckily on the radio programme I listen to ( National radio ) women do get coverage. Some doing amazing and unusual things ( like breeding queen bumble bees for export to countries where they have disappeared  - this young lady is the only person in the world with this particular job). The front person ( on national radio ) in the morning is female and in the afternoon male; that seems fair. There is less balance with political broadcasting as we have now returned to a very much male dominated arena.( At least when we had a woman prime minister she got some air time. )
       What can we do to make things more equitable.... (would I have been a suffragette? )Women (who rock the cradle ) do have influence, but maybe not enough. Young people and children and older people matter in this world - give them a positive voice!
        

9 comments:

Jennifer said...

Definitely agree! If the little green beings from space were to land here on earth and watch TV they would be forgiven for thinking that only men inhabit this earth.

Laurie said...

Oh! I agree whole heartedly...the bit about women having to look good along with their achivements is the one that gets me the most.
I would have been part of the sufferage movement with out a doubt.
I also believe that males crack in the end but women just keep going and going ......we are actually made of far sterner stuff.

Laurie said...

OH! my gosh I have just read my comment to you and I sound like I should be burning my bra........!!!

Joyce said...

I so agree with you. If I want to see a quilting program I have to be up at 5:30 Saturday morning. If I want to watch men doing sports, any time of any day is fine. Plus how can Sean Connery be "Sexiest Man in the World" when women have to always look 25 even if they are 50? (They don't but they have to try.)

Meggie said...

I had my rant about some of these points. I hope I would have been a suffragette. Because my mother raised us alone, we grew up being very aware of the discrimmination out there.
At least Joyce, you do get a quilting programme- if we dont have cable we get nothing!
Great Rant Ali.

molly said...

I think women maybe get a bigger piece of the pie over here, but there is still that double standard. A hunched over, balding, male octogenarian with three chins and tufts of hair sprouting from his ears can wax poetical, and at length, on all manner of topics on television and people will hang on his words. Any woman answering to that description, regardless of intelligence, wouldn't have a prayer!

Ali Honey said...

Oh, I love that description Molly!

Unknown said...

I so agree with that women and young people are not as much in the news as men are, it is the same here Iceland.

Jenni said...

I was recently trying to take the mast down on a small sailing boat with a female friend when the Police boat came into the ramp. The policeman picked up his microphone and broadcasted to all and sundry nearby some smartar*e comment that he certainly would NOT have made if we had been 2 men trying to do the same thing. I barely stopped my finger going up and it still makes me angry 2 weeks later!!!