Last Updated:
May 26, 2008
Contact us: wmnsweb@iprimus.com.au
2. Willing Up and Keeling Over
Cold tea for Brandy
A Tale of Protest, Painting and Politics
Joan Coxsedge
Published Vulcan Press
8 Leicester Street Balwyn North Vic 3104 joancoxs@tpg.com.au
BOOK REVIEW by Barbara Hall
I got from this book health matters, pollution matters, geography, history, international politics and a story of life as a feminist politician in Victorian politics.
Once I was on a committee run by a woman with such powers of reiteration you knew that if you drifted off you only had to tune in again and catch up.
So with ex-state of Victoria politician Joan Coxsedge who takes us back over the local terrain in her brisk accounts of what it was like when Victoria was quarantined from the rest of Australia by a polio outbreak in 1937.
Joan explains digger hostility to US troops during World War Two stationed in Australia because they were exempted from our laws meaning any offenders would be handled by the US army and not our courts. As we objected to this so do the Okinawans at present and so has a similar arrangement in PNG, whereby Australian Police are exempted from PNG laws, broken down because of local opposition.
In 1982 Joan was part of a group within the Victorian Labor Party who presented recommendations on sexual offences, one of which suggested that incest between consenting adults be decriminalised. Antagonistic response came from within the Labor Party. From the Right and media came the twisting of the issue so that Joan was accused of wanting to legalise incest. So resubmerged the last taboo and any hope of open discussion.
The constant frame to her autobiography is how our common wealth is deployed in health and education. What many Australians don't realise is that we are a socialist country with a mixed economy. And yet ...
And yet ... nowadays only 20% of young people between the age of 18 and 24 are doing tertiary education or training for skilled work because they are daunted by the HECS debt or unable to survive on the the cheap rated of pay for apprenticeships. My niece passed year 12 and like other young women works in retail or take away food.
It is this erosion of access to the common weal which Joan describes for us here in Australia. Meanwhile Cuba has had to bide with the stranglehold of the US over its access to resources and redouble its efforts to provide a common weal.
To be getting from and giving to the common wealth is what really matters.
Film Review for Women’s Web by Petra, Co-ordinator, National Network Against Trafficking in Women .
PROJECT RESPECT, 7/9/2007
Directly confronting an issue which is over-looked and ignored by society, The Jammed is a cinematic tour de force about the trafficking of women into the sex industry in Melbourne. Showcasing both the streets of Melbourne and young Australian actors, writer-Director Dee McLachlan has convincingly brought this controversial issue to the fore.
Human trafficking is a global issue, with the United Nations Office of Drugs and Trans-national Crime estimating that there are more than 700,000 women trafficked for sexual exploitation and forced labour each year. Most of these are in Europe and Asia, but there are a number of victims of trafficking in Australia.
Project Respect and other NGO groups estimate that the number of trafficking victims in Australia is far in excess of the Federal Governments estimates of less than 100 women. The large bulk of trafficked women in Australia are in the sex industry under conditions of almost total control; conditions of sexual servitude. Many of these women come from South-East Asia, in the film there is Crystal (Emma Lung) from China, Russian Vanya (Saskia Burmeister) and Rubi, also from China (Sun Park) via Bangkok.
Why each of them have come to Australia is not clear, but what is clear is the ‘push/pull’ factors of trafficking: the ‘push’ factor of young women looking to leave their homes in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe for better lives in the West. One of the ‘pull’ factors represents male demand for easy access to prostituted women. Trafficked women in the sex industry are held in conditions of virtual slavery with their aspirations of a new future for themselves and their families shattered by the traffickers.
The Jammed accurately represents the journey which the women take as they progress from arrival in Sydney, to the harrowing realisation that the women are going to be doing more than just dancing to make a living. Physical violence and psychological abuse are key weapons used by traffickers to wield control over their victims and force them into submission. Although a trip to the beach represents a rare outing from their days and nights in the brothel, this is just another tactic used by the traffickers as a means of control; one which is not dissimilar to the control methods used by violent male partners.
The women are helped by a young woman Ashleigh (Veronica Sywak), who meets a Chinese woman searching for her daughter. Ashleigh’s maverick approach in helping the trafficked women is a dangerous and potentially foolish one. Her behaviour is a reminder that whilst the film takes much of its information from existing court transcripts (specifically the trial against Gary Glasner) and personal attendance at the trial of Wei Tang, some dramatic licence has been taken. More accurate however, is the indifference of the Department of Immigration to the plight of these women.
Project Respect believes that trafficked women deserve to be treated with empathy and consideration for their situation.
Controversy has surrounded the film’s release. After inclusions in the Brisbane and Sydney Film Festivals, The Jammed was ignored by the selection panel of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), Australia’s premier film festival.
Through rave reviews by Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, in addition to those in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald, the film received a limited release at Melbourne’s Cinema Nova. The release has now been extended, and the film is showing at cinemas throughout the country. See the website www.thejammed.com for further details.
The streets of Melbourne are the showcase for The Jammed’s tale of trafficking, a tale which, as in the film, occurs right under the noses of the community. Melbourne, as a “character” in the film, stands up very well on the big screen.
The commercial and critical success of The Jammed indicates that there is scope within the community to further speak out against the acceptance of human trafficking.
BOOK REVIEW by Barbara Hall 7/8/07
‘WILLING UP AND KEELING OVER’ makes sense of end of life issues.
The persistent pain in my arm joints and the fact that I will probably not run or jump again make me attend to the terrain ahead.
I have need of this book as I have need of a cup of tea and friends. To all of us who have been disadvantaged by lack of due respect and its injurious aftermath comes this need to check what controls we do have.
This book is written for and by members of the Lesbian community of Melbourne but the information is relevant to all Victorians who seek to choose what medical treatment they receive, the practicalities of dealing with dead bodies, knowing about wills, family rights … biological and non-biological, dying with dignity and recognition of the role of grief. Not for this book is there crap about closure.
That this book addresses death as a matter for the individual, the family and the community, shows us that we need to have culture and ritual to mesh us together. How else do we thumb our nose at the powerful establishment and give ourselves due recognition. Collectively this book has been put together and collectively is the normal way we deal with death.
This book sets out deliberately to promote Lesbian culture and family. Its tone is made intimate by the recounting of personal experiences by different women such as ‘Dying Intestate: A Cautionary Tale’. It reassures by providing the information you need in an easy and attractive to read format which assumes you can interpret the play with metaphor and tells you where you can get the relevant forms and extra information.
My copy has already served me well in family matters because I was able to look up powers of attorney and work out which one I needed to assist my sister-in-law and personally so that I can start to think about doing a ‘medical power of attorney’.
WILLING UP AND KEELING OVER
A Lesbian Handbook on Death Rights and Rituals
Long Breast Press Inc 2007
ISBN 978-0-9803568-0-9
$20 plus postage ($5 for one and $9 for two to seven copies,
more for overseas) and the book is available from Long
Breast Press, PO Box 168, Brunswick East, Melbourne,
Victoria 3057