…and she always knows her place is a project promoting female and female identifying driven narratives, exploring what it is to be a woman in contemporary life.
I spoke to Rachelle last year about the importance of women supporting women, and what it's like raising two girls in the current socio-political climate. What stands out is how much the public conversation about women's experiences has changed in twelve short months. These topics once niche, have a place in mainstream discourse.
A: What kind of things are important to you at the moment?
R: At the moment? My family, and trying to finish my degree. I’m working, so my job’s pretty important. Paying bills is pretty important, keeping a roof over my family’s head, so I suppose it all comes down to the girls really.
A: What are you studying?
R: Community Health
A: So is that going into social services?
R: Yeah, I already work in the field. So I think, I would like a piece of paper to validate myself. I kind of set myself a personal challenge to finish it. It’s something that I've always wanted to do. I've started it and you know, it’s not a good time at the moment because I feel like I've committed myself in lots of areas, but I'm still going to finish it.
A: So just broadly. Are you pay much attention to what’s going on in women’s rights in the world at the moment?
R: As much as possible. I believe that woman are still not on an equal playing field to men. I don't think we ever will be. I don't agree with it. But I just think sadly, it’s just never going to happen. Because at the end of the day men are never going to be able to carry a child. We have to. When we choose to have children we have to leave work for a certain amount of time to do that. And there’s always that thing; ‘oh she is ever going to have children? Is she weak because she’s a woman? Is she going cry? Is she over sensitive?’ I feel like that is still going on in the workplace. I've heard it, I've heard it from other women. I’ve heard other women go, ‘ohhh what if she goes away and gets pregnant?’ So I think, part of the biggest barrier to women is actually other women. We should to be lifting each other up, but we tend to not lift each other up. we tend to niggle at other.
“ I’m really happy to say that at the moment, as much as their attitudes give me the shits sometimes, and they talk back to me. I have to celebrate it a little bit, because I want them to be leaders. I want them to be able to fight and say no, and I want them to feel equal.”
I don't know why it happens, but it does. Everyone is like, ‘ohh look at that skinny bitch’ and you know women are still seen as sluts. Men are never referred to as sluts. I think someone’s sexual prowess has got nothing to do with character, but no one would ever call a man a slut.
So whilst I think things are better for women than they have been. I think there’s a long way to go, and hope that I see it become equal. But call me a pessimist, I just don't think that it will.
A: I haven't asked anyone this before because I haven't spoken to a mother of girls. Do you worry about that for your children?
R: I do, but I’m really happy to say that at the moment, as much as their attitudes give me the shits sometimes, and they talk back to me. I have to celebrate it a little bit, because I want them to be leaders. I want them to be able to fight and say no, and I want them to feel equal. Yeah I do. and I want them to know how they should be treated.
When I was younger, when a boy hit a girl it was because ‘he liked her.’ How stupid? I don't want anyone to say that to my girls and I hate the term ‘boys will be boys.’ It really irritates me, because what does that mean? Badly behaved children will be badly behaved children, it doesn't matter what gender they are. I just want the girls to be strong and independent and to be leaders, and to come to decisions on their own that are good choices. So yeah, it does worry me. I don't know the secret formula to giving that to your kids that. I’ve seen plenty of young people who are going through things who’s parents are great, who gave them everything. But they still have their free will and they still make a choice. So, I don’t know? I suppose you have to surround yourself with good people and hope for the best.
A: Yeah. So there hasn’t been anything that stood out to you politically or socially?
R: In terms of…. the US? I try to block that out of my mind. because that man is a pig. Women have been protesting for years and it gets us things slowly. If we didn't have the Suffragettes protesting we wouldn't be voting. Look, it is difficult to be a woman in a mans’ world, quote unquote. I ran for Council when I was 21 years old and got elected. I was a 21 year old female on a Council full of middle aged men and it was difficult.
“ I’m not accusing anybody of sexism. It’s just that’s immediately where I go to. Rightly or wrongly, the fact that I go there shows that perhaps maybe I don’t? Maybe I don’t feel valued as a woman?”
A: Did they just not really value your input?
R: Yeah, just intimidating, quite condescending at times, and bullying. It’s hard. I was just a young girl and the men were all… I think the youngest man would have been 37. Then up from there, it was 45 plus. So I've been there. Women will protest, and I think that that’s a good thing. At the moment I’ve signed a petition to advocate for portable long service leave in the Community Services Sector. Although everyone in the Community Service Sector is disadvantaged in the same way, in that we go by government contracts and things like that. If you don't get your eight years once your place closes down, well your seven years, you get nothing. So we’re at the mercy of that tender. I’ve been with my organisation for eight years, but a year of that, a bit more I had to have off for maternity leave. And a lot of other women are in the same boat. We are affected quite a lot by things that you wouldn't even think about. So while what happened in America, and women’s rights are not great globally, we have to fix our inner circle before we can fix the other stuff. I would’ve have loved nothing more than to see a female president, but you know sadly people looked at her and she was a ‘bitch’ and she was this and she was that. Never mind that this other misogynistic person was making these comments about grabbing women, I'm not even going to say it. All we looked at was, ‘oh that women’s got balls, doesn't she?’ You can’t fix that stuff unless we fix what we’ve got at home. So we have to start small. We have to change mindsets. Like I said, we have to lift each other up. We can’t be passing women over for middle management jobs because they have to get to work at 9.45am because they’ve had to do school drop off. You know? We could do job sharing, but we don't do that, why? Because we can get a man to do the one job. We have to fix the smaller stuff first. If everybody did one small thing then that would snowball into something quite big.
A: Do you feel valued as a woman in our society?
R: I feel valued in my inner circle. Sometimes there have been comments that have made me feel devalued.I love my workplace, I really do. But I watched two males get promoted who have no technical knowledge of anything at all. There wasn't even an interview. I found that quite interesting. I don't know why, I don't know how that happened. But it did. I'm not accusing anybody of sexism. It’s just that’s immediately where I go to. Rightly or wrongly, the fact that I go there shows that perhaps maybe I don’t? Maybe I don’t feel valued as a woman? I'm sure my workplace isn't prejudiced, but my mind still goes there.
A: I was part of a discussion recently about the workplace. You kind of have to decide if you're going to be the person that stands up for women or not. And if you are the later you’ll probably have a more successful career because you’ll not be ruffling feathers. Otherwise you almost become a martyr for the cause.
R: It’s because Feminism has got such a dirty connotation to it, because men have put it there. ‘Feminists have hairy legs and hairy arms and burn there bra. They protest and march, and oh my god speak their mind! how awful.’ I don't know why the word is so dirty, it shouldn’t be. I mean it’s really interesting how as a woman we are undervalued. Like, our right to chose. It’s either pro-life or pro-choice right? Well shouldn’t be pro-choice or anti-choice? But it’s not, and I wonder who put that there? Because that’s just designed to make a person feel like crap about a decision that belongs to them. In a decision they chose for their own body, or they’re not allowed to. That’s what’s going to happen in America now. Woman are going to loose their right to choose no matter what the circumstance. Not that I think it matters what circumstance is. I think a woman’s right to choose is a woman’s right to choose. And that’s another thing I am trying to teach the girls; the whole ‘my body, my rules’ kind of thing. Because it’s important. But it’s really hard to do that when you’ve got these people in power saying ‘no this is right, this is the way it has to be.’ And it’s not based on anything medical. It’s all based on religious biblical stuff.
A: Do you mind if I ask, when did you have to consciously be aware of how these kind of issues would affect the girls?
R: I think we’ve been aware from the word go. One of my kids likes wearing pink and the other one likes wearing blue, and that’s a choice that they’ve made on their own. They like to play with toy cars, they like to play with lego, they like Star Wars but they also like ballet. You know? They like traditional girls' things and they like traditional boys' things. I tried not to have anything based on gender. Yeah, I don't think we’ve tried to push on that boy and girl gender sort of stuff. They’re very different. One of my girls favourite Disney cartoon is Pocahontas, I couldn’t have been prouder. The other one likes Aurora. So you know, less proud (lol). But she’s happy, she likes the story. They make their own choices and you just kind of, guide them to be respectful of other people. If they want to dress in pink frilly clothes or they want to dress in mens’ clothes, I don't care. One of them, when she was three said she wish she wasn't born with curly hair, so I said ‘let’s straighten it.’ Because I was afraid one day she’d come to me and go, ‘I wish I wasn't born a girl’ and she’d be too scared to say it because I said she couldn't straighten her hair? Which is a long way to go from, ‘oh god, I don't like curly hair.’ What if then later on down the track she’s got something much more significant in regards to her gender choice or sexuality or whatever it is, and she’s too scared to come to me because I wouldn't straighten her hair? So I guess I've been aware of it for a long time and I'm trying to empower her to feel comfortable and to speak to me about whatever it is so I can give her as much guidance as possible. So that’s why she gets her hair straightened at the age of three. How could I say ‘my body my rules,’ when she sees me straighten my hair and I say, ‘no you can’t straighten yours.’