hollyeyoung-blog

[hollyeyoung-blog]

Escape

I don’t get it. Everyone loves it, but I don’t get it. I sit in the dark basement of New York’s New Museum watching a film that disjointedly follows a young girl whose been told she’s too pretty to go outside. She walks into a milking shed where we then listen to her mother talk to the camera about how modern dairy practices have reduced the spread of mastitis amongst “the milkers”. The girls hair gets brushed while her brothers fight amongst themselves and drink glasses of milk. I wonder to myself if this is meant to be a feminist project. I can sort of see it, but it’s too much of stretch for me to be certain. 

  I don’t know what’s wrong with me, it could just be my mood, but I’m just not feeling it. I had been reminded of my failed marriage just hours before, and, feeling like a scruffy reject bin doll, I numbly walk out of the museum and onto the freezing pavement. Not bothering with gloves, I intentionally walk in the wrong direction away from the subway, and around a block I could not tell apart from any other. 

Walking past shop fronts filled with kitchen sinks, knives and industrial ovens, I follow a path set out for me, led by a slowly increasing presence of poster art not unlike comics and school book scribblings. Walking past one poster of Marty McFly on his hover board, and another of batman with a stuck-on fluffy moustache that I cannot help but reach out and stroke, I find myself being pulled through a doorway covered with heavy curtains to keep out the cold.

Before I know it, I’m sitting at the bar drinking Riesling and staring at the wall. I spend the next 3 hours engrossed in a book scribbling violently in the columns, underlining sentences that, at the time, I firmly believe are going to change my life. 

The world outside could have dissolved, and it did. I thought of no one and nothing, but the bar tender and when he was going to bring me my next full glass. 

  I’m brought back to reality by the sound of a man talking to a woman about his writing. I wonder what their relationship is… are they married? Are they colleagues? There is a sense of familiarity and trust between them, but I wonder why I care. He asks himself aloud, “why do I write?... because I have to.” She nods understandingly. I go back to my book, I’ve had enough of giving my attention to people who don’t need or want it. 

What I guess was an hour later, I am once again brought back to reality, this time by a group of young Australian men now sitting where the couple once stood. One of them orders the same small meal as I had, French fries and hot sauce. I don’t know if you can call that a meal. I guess to myself that they’ve come from Sydney, and later I over hear them discussing the Sydney suburb of Marrickville and I’m vindicated, I mentally pat myself on the back. Then, unexpectedly, my self-congratulations turns quickly to annoyance. 

Annoyed because I can’t escape myself. Marrickville was the last place I had lived with my estranged ex. Annoyed because I had worked so hard removing everything that reminded me of that sad time, that finding myself in a bar on the other side of the world being confronted with that mess struck me with a bolt of injustice. I calmly remind myself that I’ll never truly escape it. It’s part of me now, a part of me that forces its way into every crevice of every place I go.

That thick curtain at the door had lied to me. It wasn’t keeping the cold out, nothing could. 

The bar tender ends his shift and asks me to finalise the tab. He passes me the bill and whispers that he’s not charged me for half my drinks. I blush sheepishly, leave a heavy tip and walk out. Standing outside in the cold, I look back at the bar. I can take the cold, I know this now. 

Was it a feminist project? I’m certain now it was, I’m certain it still is.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

I am not kind

It is the time of year you’ll be getting an influx of self-reflective personal essays and articles about the approaching end of the year and the beginning of a new one. I guess you can count this among the fold, but at the risk of being annoying I’m going to push my luck and ask that you consider me as being the black sheep of the group. So, if you please, bear with me while I air some of my self-depreciating thoughts and watch me attempt (with all the grace of a drunk Gough Whitlam at a Young Liberals meeting) try to articulate my genuine, yet masked in sarcasm, thankfulness and hope for the future. 

This week, I had every plan to write about being kind to yourself, but I ran into some trouble. Yes, even at Christmas I found this difficult, feel free to chalk it up to my atrocious year. The trouble I’ve run into hasn’t been a lack of thoughts or convictions on the subject, but rather an entire lack of confidence and practice in the execution of any such so-called self-kindness. 

In short, I am not kind to myself and you shouldn’t listen to me on the subject. 

It does feel as if every other day there is some advice piece or personal essay on self-care or being kind to yourself and they’re all very nice. I read them, I nod… I think yeah, that makes sense, I’m sure I do that, but in truth I don’t. In fact, I do the opposite. I won’t bore you with the specifics…yet, but I’ve had a bad year. truly. Friends talk to me about all my important learnings and how I’m going come out the other end a stronger and wiser person. I’m glad they believe this and I hope they’re right. 

So, the marriage didn’t work out, you get not one but two triple figure bills at the same time, things aren’t working out at work, you lose your appetite, your plans for the future fall through… these are all shit. there is no denying this and I am not even going to bother wasting your time or mine by trying to dress them up as lessons in disguise, because they’re not. they are all entirely unrelated things that happened. We can chose to learn from them, or we can continue making the same mistakes. this is something only time will be able to tell. *side note: time is on your side and friendship is a privilege. 

Also, Trump really did get sworn in as President of the United States of America back in March, we didn’t dream that, it wasn’t some new version of the Mandela effect (sadly). 

At the time of writing this (isn’t it terrible I had to stipulate that?) there have been EIGHT school shootings in the U.S.A.

Severe flooding lead to deaths running into the thousands in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sierra Leon, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Peru and China. Landslides in Colombia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as snow avalanches in Afghanistan lead to hundreds of deaths, and major earthquakes in Mexico also lead to further deaths running into the hundreds.

 Here are some more natural disaster for the month of December alone. It’s a collection of natural disasters as well the knock-on effects felt by those living in the social and economic constructs imposed upon them within the criminality of late capitalism (she types arrogantly on her MacBook air). One headline reads “Debts add to disaster for climate-hit nations”. lovely…. 

oh yeah… and one million people in Puerto Rico are STILL without power, you know… only three months after Hurricane Maria. 

Also, women all over the world had to repeatedly endure the infuriating lecture that “not all men” hurt women and that getting angry won’t help us. Well, complicity hasn’t protected us much at any stage in history either. But thanks for your input Matt Damon, now kindly shut the fuck up.

(image nicked from a Facebook feed. If it’s yours please speak up)

Naturally this is not an exhaustive list of the 2017 shit. There are four days left of 2017 and that isn’t enough time to cover it all. 

But as for you, I’m sure you had your own shit going on too. 

Yeah…. that bad thing/things that happened to you this year? yes. it really did happen. 

Here comes a good thing…. a great thing that happened to me this year, was I learned to ask for help. I know this sounds dumb, but it was a revelation. I was musing earlier today with a friend about how isolating it can be when things go bad. You find yourself in shame spirals, even over things that were not your fault. However, as soon as you start talking, as soon as you begin to open up and become just a little bit vulnerable this magical thing happens… people start wanting to be there for you, friends from long ago call out of the blue and come back into your life. You start seeing the beauty in small kindnesses. Even strangers jump out of bushes screaming “MEEEEE TOO!!!! LETS HAVE COFFEEE OKKKKKKKK????”… no? was that just me? ok, that was me. 

Back to the point. 

We internalise our problems and blame ourselves. Hey, it’s what we do. This constant pushing of blogs and personal essays flying the positivity flag over look one thing, it’s healthy to feel sad and uncomfortable, maybe not all the time… but we aren’t robots…yet. Or are we??? what did I miss??? THE BOTS.

It’s totally human to feel like a failure. It’s well rounded to wonder what the hell the point in all this is and if there is even a place for you in this world. how could you ever possibly know what makes you happy, what makes you feel alive if you never considered why you’re even here? I realise this sounds bleak, and I promise this is not a cry for help (but it would be ok if it was, and it’s definitely ok if you need help. Do you need help?).

All I’m trying to say here is that if you don’t ever question what you tolerate, how could you ever possibly know why you tolerate it or if you should? 

Why do we tolerate debt, jobs we hate and people we could do without? No, really, I’m asking. why? In the stark light on the truest drunkest honesty, I’ve yet to have a conversation with anyone who has been able to attempt this question without crying. 

My wonderful housemate gave me a book for Christmas (books are my love language). This particular book is called You Do You, I’ve only just started it so no reviews yet, but so far, it’s been a laugh out loud type of read and already it’s done one thing for me. That one thing? it has drummed into me that I am a-ok. I really am. 

It has been a heck of a year, on both micro and macro levels. When considering what everything looked like this time last year, I certainly do not recognise this world, or even myself. Maybe, for better or for worse, you feel the same way. 

I think it will be ok. You know how I know? Because the world kept spinning, and so far, we’ve survived 100% of everything that has happened on this little blue ball. Truly, we’re fucking killing it. 

also, I’ve been listening to this  a bit today. Have a safe new years kiddies!

[hollyeyoung-blog]

refusing to wish my life away

A friend keeps banging on to me about the ‘remembering self’. It seems to me the ‘remembering self’ is the only part of the past the survives the present. Yeah, I had a bad 12 months. My ‘remembering self’ will most likely struggle to trust, to love, to be vulnerable…I don’t think I’m alone in this though. But I’m also thinking, these things aren’t all that dissimilar to child birth.

You know when a woman has a traumatic pregnancy or labour? Then, after some time, she finds herself wanting another child (what the hell is with that guys?). I always wonder how a woman just forgets how truly shit the whole first experience was for her, yet she finds herself tracking her cycle and taking pre-natal vitamins in the hope of going through the whole glorious thing again. then there’s another type of woman. The woman who finds herself pregnant too soon after the first and hasn’t had enough time to forget the pain. What does she do? How does she reconcile the fear?

A friend recently told me that in one single day thousands of things go right, yet we only seem to notice what goes wrong. Sure, there were points this last week where I did want to change my name and disappear, but there were some amazing moments too. During this last week I cried, yes, but I also laughed with all my might. Arguably I had a great week!

Why do we measure our lives in these time frames anyway? Days, weeks, Months, Years…Decades... You may have had a good year, I hope you did, I on the other hand had a shit one. However, what I cannot escape is the irrefutable knowledge that without the shit I would not have had the joys and new experiences this year brought. I wouldn’t have met the people I did, I would not have discovered the depth of my own personal strength, and I would not have been inspired by new and old friends. I would have been just another year.

There are 52 weeks in a year, and it does feel like this year has had more bad weeks than good. Do you want to know something though? the reality is time is a man-made construct. It does not exist, we made it up. It’s a form of measurement, nothing more.

So, if we are going to hold fast to this thing called time, then this is my plan. I want to wake up and say to myself that it’s a new day, not just another day.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

on hunger.

When friend X stopped eating, it was about needing to control something. When friend Y stopped eating, it was about fear. When I stopped eating, it was because I didn’t feel safe. If you drill these reasons down, they have a commonality, they were all responses to things happening to us. 

When I stopped eating I felt like a wounded animal. Have you ever seen a mounded animal eat? It will only eat if it feels safe, if not they shrink into nothing. I knew this about animals, so I got help. This help got me thinking up a theory. It’s well known that, as women, our responses to trauma often make us want to become as small as possible. I’m thinking this an acknowledgement on our behalf that yeah, in one way or another, we are targets. Our attempts to take up as little space as possible, to assert as much control as possible, are attempts to become the smallest possible target with the sole goal of becoming really fucking difficult to hit. 

I remember being assured that my hunger would come back. I remember assuring friends and family that my hunger would come back. Me? no, I was not so assured. I was obsessed with the food I didn’t eat. Then one day I woke up and ate three breakfasts. 

When that hunger hits, and it will, it’s like being hit by a train. You want to eat everything that isn’t bolted down. That hunger will scare you and your usual coping tricks won’t work. Give up on these tricks. Don’t fight this hunger, its natural and real and you are going to be ok. I know it’s not about weight. That’s not what this is about either. You’re allowed to take up space, you’re allowed be something. Grow girl, and when you’re big enough let them take their aim… let them fucking dare.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

On being jilted

There is a certain stupefaction that only comes from being jilted. I say this because when I look at the things I packed in that first bag I just feel stupid. I mean, I packed a letter from my super fund but no underwear? stupefaction.

I could have analysed it forever, but the truth remains that one day I was booking accommodation for the wedding photographer and the next, well, I was sending cancellation emails. 

I was meant to get married on the 20th of September. 

Here is a breakdown of how that day went instead: 

 - at roughly 10am, I woke up 

- immediately made a tea 

- at some point, I shuffled into the shower 

- read 

- at noon, I opened my first beer for the day (I have a strict no-alcohol before mid-day except on special occasions rule) 

 - read some more 

- at maybe 2ish wandered down to Argos to pick up a toilet brush and clothes-rack for a friend, waited around a bit. (They sell arm chairs there!) 

It was while on my way back from Argos, walking down a main road in Tower Bridge with a toilet brush under my arm that it finally occurred to me “oh shit, it’s the 20th!”. I stood at the lights waiting for the red man to go green. Finally, he did. then red again. then green again…. I stood there waiting to care, waiting for the upset to hit me. To be fair, I’m still waiting. 

I know this sounds cold, but hear me out. 

Right there at the lights, I compared a mental image of what I had originally intended to do that day with what I was doing, and I realised something. I would have regretted marrying that man, but I won’t ever regret picking up a toilet brush for a friend.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

Other women, continued...

There is so much out there on this topic. 

I’ve been moved over the last few weeks by social media posts and comments on sexual assault and violence against women (side note: these things are done to women by perpetrators, they are not just things that happen to women by freak avoidable accidents). I’ve been moved not because the discourse that is occurring on social media platforms continues to attract likes and hearts and “you go girl” responses (even though these are great), but because at the time of writing this online chatty has translated into the flesh-world. Don’t get me wrong, the online world is just as real as the flesh one. For one example, thanks to a cool girl here in Sydney and her choice of drake lyrics on a tinder profile, there is now a legal precedence for rape threats made online to render the writer a convicted crook *see Zane Alchin. 

Speaking of crooks, I come back to the point at hand. The women I sit next to at work had a former boss try rape her in the toilets. After pressing charges her boss’s wife stuck by him and even called my colleague a slut in open court. My colleague stuck it out, and good that she did because the creep got sent away for six months. He was a graphic designer and as a result of the conviction he lost a multi-million-dollar contract with a cigarette company on “morality” issues. Should we stop and chuckle a bit about the irony there? I mean fuck. If a cigarette company thinks you’re too much of a creep to do business with then why even bother huh? Just go home mate. 

Seriously but, without the current online discourse about sexual assault encouraging open speak about this heavy triggering gear I doubt my colleague would have ever mentioned her former boss. That’s where the likes and “you go girls” become so much more than anecdotal ticks. Don’t get me wrong, I have been incredibly encouraged and uplifted by women who, if it weren’t for some interactions and tenuous links on the interwebs, would be perfect strangers. But I guess what I’m trying to get at here is behind every strong woman is another strong woman encouraging her. While we do operate online don’t forget we exist in the flesh, and it is our flesh, our female flesh, that gets hurt.

If we were to speak frankly, I’d say we are watching a new chapter of history being made. Like those women who were imprisoned and went on hungry strikes (some women, like, proper died) so we could vote, countless women have lost everything; family, friends, jobs, their places in universities and even their homes, for speaking up and naming their rapists. For us to get where we are now, where women are increasingly celebrated and encouraged to make public statements about their assaults (hashtags included) and actually be believed, there is no measurement that can quantify the cost paid by the women who have gone before us. They did all of it for us. These truly courageous women paid a steep and unspeakable price- for us.

 Can we just quickly take a moment to thank them? I’ll wait……

It is my hope all this current online and flesh world talky results in an increase in actual convictions of sexual assault. Simply because the stats are still shockingly and horrendously discouraging. 

This morning while walking to my office I made brief eye contact with some lady at a distance, and briefly we smiled at each other. I can’t explain it, but in that instance, we understood each other. In that moment, we were for each other. 

Let’s be women who smile at each other. Please? 

[hollyeyoung-blog]

Maybe one day I’ll grow a pumpkin that won’t go weird.

I just couldn’t get that last pumpkin to cross pollinate. I had spent months cultivating a garden with flowers with the sole purpose of encouraging bees in preparation for a pumpkin. Just one pumpkin. The pond even had a god damn frog in it. In the end the pumpkin did grow, but it shrivelled up and turned weird one night. Then after all was said and done, he pulled the vine out by the roots.

The warning signs had been propped up and screaming at me for months, hell, maybe even years. I hadn’t slept properly since last October, and it was now June. I used to think to myself that this is just what I am now, a creature that does not sleep. While lying awake in the last bed I would share with the first man I had made a life with, waiting for the light to seep through the curtains I had bought yet he would keep, I obediently continued believing that I was the broken one. Just a little something that was irrevocably broken yet miraculously “loved”. 

I once explained to him the concept of “gas-lighting”, he nodded understandingly and we conversed for a while about the shit things men to do to women. Fuck. I don’t think either of us knew what we had become, not then. Gas-lighting, for those not in the know, is defined by the googles as to manipulate (someone) by psychological means into doubting their own sanity. I mean bloody hell can you even believe the irony?

Like common forms of abuse, it’s unlikely he ever woke up one day and thought “hey, I know, I’ll sabotage my significant others mental health and by extension our relationship by making her doubt her own sanity and then I’ll say it’s the reason I’m leaving her”. I mean it sounds a bit far-fetched and frankly, a lot of effort. It’s exhausting just thinking about that kind of grand plan. No, I don’t believe it was intentionally done, yet here we are. 

I slept shockingly well that first week after the end. I was on a friend’s sofa bed experiencing this thing called “homelessness” and sleep time became my strongest skill. I mean I was killing it. Sure, I couldn’t listen to music, watch tv, read, talk to anyone, look anyone in the eye or even tolerate my own thoughts but god dammit I was going for gold with the sleep. Looking back, I think it was relief, and a little bit (a fuck load) of depression, but also relief. Sheer unadulterated relief that perhaps I wasn’t mad, that maybe all the anxiety, the insomnia and the regression of any shred of self-esteem where not all directly due to any kind of fundamental manufacturing flaw in me as a real human person. 

Within two weeks I found an apartment with a cool girl. It was the first real thing I achieved in nearly a decade without his help. while shopping for a new bed, well, new everything, I stood in the bedding section of Ikea staring at the bedspreads. Which one? he doesn’t like patterns. I do. at least I think I do. But what kind of patterns do I like? Maybe I don’t like patterns. Maybe I’ll get a plain one. no. I’ll get a pattern. which pattern? I want flowers, but not those flowers he wouldn’t like those flowers. wait. stop. this is for me not him. I’ll get the flowers. hang on. Do I even like these flowers? what about these other flowers? no. what about the stripes. the stripes could work. He’d be ok with stripes. wait. stop it. I won’t get the stripes. This isn’t about what he wants. I won’t get the stripes. I’ll get the flowers. But I like stripes. Can I never have stripes because I know he’s be ok with stripes? is this my life now? no stripes? I can’t get the stripes for him because, let’s face it, he doesn’t give a toss. But I can’t not get the stripes because of him. fuck. I’m fucked……I am so fucked. 

I don’t know how long I stood there, I don’t know if I just thought all this in my head or if I was mumbling it all out loud. No one came near me so….. I couldn’t tell you. In the end, I got the stripes. I’m still not even sure I made the right choice. I still, occasionally, think about those flowers. 

This, of course, is just a light-hearted anecdotal story, but to speak of the serious mind fuckery that is gas lighting and what it looked like in my life, well…. you don’t have the time for that shit. All I will say is If only this was the worst it got for me. After some time, I began to unwrap us, unravel him from my thoughts. I stopped caring what I knew he would think. I even saw him on the train once from a distance and I didn’t feel a god damn thing. All I thought was oh, there’s a stranger I used to know wearing a suit. Oh, such sweet beautiful relief. 

Then he moved into my new street. I can see his new house from my balcony. Ok. Oh hey there set back, I see you there. Now, let’s start this again. I bump into him on our street on my way to the bottle shop. we stop and chat for a while and it’s nice. We say nice and encouraging things to each other, we talk about the neighbourhood and for a brief few minutes it’s us again. chatting. reverting to our old world where we don’t have to explain the finer details of our lives for the conversation to make sense. I even for a few moments forget that because of him I had recently gotten myself “checked out” at the local GP (good news- all clear). We part ways. He goes inside and I head on to the bottle shop. I get home feeling confident, more at peace with myself and less stupefied by my broken heart than I’d felt in months. I settle into the couch.

Then mum called. I was on the next flight. It was Grandad and I didn’t make it in time.

I don’t have a garden anymore. There’s a fern in the corner of my room that collects the little direct natural light my apartment gets. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t live in a dark place. My apartment is full of light, just no direct light. But, the truth is there’s no room for a pumpkin on this balcony anyway and I’d never seen a bee all the way up here on the 7th floor. That was until this morning. This morning I saw a bee buzzing around the dog’s water bowl. I stared at my new little mate wondering what series of decisions lead him all the way up here. What I knew for sure was that he has purpose and has his part to play. We’re not that different, me and that little bee. 

Let’s entertain something crazy. Maybe one day I’ll grow a pumpkin that won’t go weird.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

This is what they call growing

"She could not so soon throw off what had come to be a habit of suffering almost, and yet his reason was the stronger, his need was the greater. At length with pain and remorse she, courageous as she was, more truly courageous perhaps than her husband, bade herself face the truth in all its aspects the fact that joy was to be endured as well as sorrow" - Virginia Woolf, Reminiscences (Moments of Being)

[hollyeyoung-blog]

Other Women

One of the biggest crimes the patriarchy has committed against women, I say one not the, is the crime of pitting women against women. growing up I never felt like I was the coolest, smartest, prettiest or fastest girl in my class. I used to always think that the reason I had such cool and pretty friends was down to my witty and humorous personality, now of course I know it was because I too was awesome. Looking back on my primary school days I was good at long distance running, but sucked at sprinting. I’ll chalk this up to my being especially good at the long game and always staying true to the goal, but ultimately what I’m trying to articulate to you is that I am not, and never have been, an especially competitive person. I’ve always been content with watching other women do well. 

I’ve always been a champion of the women around me, even before I identified with feminism. The qualities and charms of other women, especially my friends, have always been self-evident to me. Anita is smart and passionate, Jess is a bleeding heart and strong willed, Leah is caring and insightful, Erin is wise and strong, Caris is creative and loyal, Stef is generous and loving, Rochelle is inspiring and hard-working, Mills is encouraging and adventurous, and Belinda is simply intent on world domination. These women give me something beyond support. They are sources of hope and strength… they give me life. 

There is a common thread that links them all, and yet not all these women have even met, nor is it likely that they ever will. Yet this common thread is something real, life changing and at times tangible. What I mean to say is that have all been through some serious shit. They were, and are still being, refined and galvanised by fires lit by heartbreak, disappointment, rejection, illness and death. 

The sad truth is that while we all know and love women who inspire and support us, there are many lady folks out there who see other women as a threat. Now, as mentioned earlier, the patriarchy has a lot of answer for this, and capitalism isn’t exactly innocent in this either. As Clementine Ford explains in her book Fight like a Girl: 

Part of the patriarchy’s modus operandi has always been to keep women tethered to a constructed idea of femininity and therefore distracted from fighting for their own political and social equality. Confusion is also a key component here, with the changing whims of fashion and how they tie into capitalist goals… 

it begins, in my mind at least, with fast fashion. I, a white middle class skinny girl, can head out to the shops and buy myself a pair of jeans or a hand bag with a mark-up of at least 250% from the cost of production without blinking. I can afford to do this, thanks largely to a mode of production that exploits lax environmental protection laws and limited employment rights. These two flaws in our world have not only allowed but actively encouraged manufacturers to exploit that which is most exploitable in this world; the earth and adjectively poor, uneducated brown women. 

This of course is not new to anyone. Unless you’re a child or have been living on another planet for the last 30 odd years (since at least the “roaring eighties” where many of the legal restraints on such exploitations where dismantled by those our parents foolishly elected) you already know about the exploitation of female labour. 

Has this changed your consumer habits? it may have, but even a cursory glance at consumer trends and the growing tonnes of fabric gathering in landfill over the last few decades suggest that the western middle class world couldn’t give a serious shit about what our consumer choices do to brown women. Why? it may have something to do with the fact we don’t see it on a daily-basis, out of sight out of mind really. What we do see are ads with Kardashians pushing handbags and make up down out fucking throats until we scream ENOUGH! and put ad blockers on our browsers so our endless social media gorges and online shopping isn’t interrupted. 

Consumer feminism is another example of this girl-on-girl crime. Just today I read an outstanding essay by Kath Kenny of the Conversation, in which she explores the idea that feminism and the popular maxim the personal is political is being sold back to us via old and new media such as Daily life, Mamamia, Teen Vogue and so on… she explains: 

But this is a consciousness-raising version 2.0, branded VougeTM. It has to be a good thing for a struggling and isolated teen to read about a celebrity coming out, or coping with depression, or the mechanics of safe anal sex. But I find it hard to celebrate what is also, in many ways, a major corporation effectively “selling your politics” back to you, as one friend recently put it… 

Do you see the consumer habit being fed here? even in the enlightened circle of feminism we fall for the trap that a click and scroll feeds our deep desires for connection and happiness that have been poked by the bright lights of shopping centres and our screens. I’m going to say something controversial here… and I mean controversial. The thing is though, I’m not afraid of what may get thrown at me because it will kind of prove my point… 

I don’t like Beyoncé feminism. 

 There. I fucking said it. 

The thing about Beyoncé feminism is the fact you buy it. so really, it should be called for what it is, consumer feminism. We buy the work-out clothes, the records, the ticket to the concert with a big FEMINIST signed lit up on stage. Which is all tickety-boo except when you think about who made those work-out clothes and how much they were paid for their work. I’ll give you a hint, it wasn’t Beyoncé and it wasn’t a liveable wage. 

Yeah I get it, I’m dragging a woman though the mud, which is the actual problem here. Beyoncé can sell albums and book sold out shows. In fact, good for her. The problem is not her; the problem is the impact of anything that goes unchecked and unquestioned. The real problem is that she isn’t the only one, She’s simply the easiest example. 

The fact I’m reticent to type up any kind of criticism of Beyoncé feminism speaks to a deep mistrust women have of other women. This is especially true for a white middle class feminist critiquing what has been a lightning rod of inspiration and celebration for women of colour. 

I get it, this smacks of hypocrisy and privilege. 

To be clear… I love that a woman of colour is one of the most influential, powerful and successful people in the world. I love that she is unapologetic for who she is, and, as her music and performances can prove, she is full of opinions and not all of them are comfortable. I fucking love that about her. Thank God for Beyoncé, really. 

What I don’t like is that I cannot say a bad thing about her on the internet without having brace myself for a shit storm. 

I concede that I cannot tell anyone how to do feminism, the world knows I get it wrong all the time. What I do take umbrage with is anything that covers itself in the cloak of “empowerment” *shudders from the word* to make a profit at the expense of other women with less opportunity, less education and less share in those profits. One of the biggest criticisms of (white) feminism has been that it has not included the voices of women of colour, and that it has not considered the experiences of women of colour. It is for this reason it astounds me that Beyoncé feminism continues to commit that same crime and any criticism is shouted down. 

This however is not a dig at Beyoncé, she is not perfect and neither am I. I use Beyoncé feminism as an example of how the structures of patriarchy and consumerism continue to pit women against each other. May it be Beyoncé making crazy profits off the exploited labour of poorer women, or me criticising her for it, or media outlets selling our femininity and feminism back to us one click at a time. What I’m trying to get at here is us women are meant to stick together. I know we don’t, but we know we should. 

To the women who have given me life, I love you and I thank you. To the women I’ve failed, I am deeply sorry. To the women who have hurt me, I sincerely forgive you.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

keep the rage. keep ranting. stay true.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

“Feminism has fought no wars. It has killed no opponents. It has set up no concentration camps, starved no enemies, practiced no cruelties. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety in the streets, for child care, for social welfare, for rape crisis centres, women’s refuges, reforms in the law. If someone says: ‘Oh, I’m not a feminist’, I ask, ‘Why? What’s your problem?’”- Dale Spender, Man Made Language.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

[hollyeyoung-blog]

In defense of Lamingtons

who said they aren't cool? me.

they were all I ever got for morning tea at school! Everyone else had dunkaroos and bags of crisps, but I always had either a lamington or an apple, both if I was sneaky enough. Lamingtons never fair well in a school bag either (I was one of those kids who always lost their lunch box).

  OH! the shame of pulling a crumbled, mushed up lump of chocolate and sponge mess. I wanted so badly to be one of the cool kids and have a dunkaroo, i felt like a fool. I begged my mum to buy the cooler snacks, and finally she gave in. I won.

But I had it all wrong! Please allow me to make amends!

Lamingtons are great. they are wonderful example of Australian baking. we have this knack for taking English foods (in this instance the humble sponge)...and making them better.

So come this spring, I'm making lammis.

I'm out.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

The difference between Cameron Kim Jones and Merran Reed is evident in the way they both describe something they like.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

well unimpressed.

[hollyeyoung-blog]

The Metro, Paris. 

[hollyeyoung-blog]

Back garden in Seven Sisters, London Town.