Hi. I am Cece.
And Ana has asked me to contribute to her website Anaffliction and I'll be
talking about a female identifying
person who has had an impact on my life.
Now when Ana asked me to contribute to
this project
I... I had a lot of conflicting feelings because I feel like, you know at first I kind of went
oh my goodness how am I going to
choose just one person, there being so
many women who have influenced me and a lot of them have been theorists
because i'm a gender sexuality and
diversity student.
But a lot of them have been family members. I come from a family of strong women.
And there have been friends of mine, people I've met um, through my life.
But, the other thought I was having was that talking about, you know, an amazing woman who'd influence me
with her absolutely shining politics would be too easy for me.
And yes that might be problematic in
itself but anyway, it got me to thinking
about setting a challenge for myself
with this topic.
So I want to talk to you about problematic faves and early feminist idols or...
women who were role models for us as baby feminists, um and my role models as a baby feminist.
And in particular one:
Germaine Greer.
I know, I know. If you're a feminist and
you're watching this you're probably
rolling your eyes or you're about to close
the window and I totally understand.
But just bear with me for a second because I did say problematic fave and
its a little bit more complicated than just
talking about...
her.
[chuckles]
And her politics.
So...
I'm gonna tell you a story and hopefully it's going to...
make things a little bit clearer for you,
but before i start i want to tell you that
one of my...um,  one of the things I
write about as a feminist theorist
and an academic is... the power of memory and histories and feminist epistemology.
Which basically means piecing all of these
histories together,
And especially the ones that are lost and incomplete, and have been taken from us
because of the way that the patriarchy operates.
Throughout everything.
Throughout our entire culture, throughout everything that you're reading about a woman in history
that isn't written by the women themselves.
Because that really impacts on those stories a lot
and it means that, as feminists, it can be really hard to draw from
a rich canon.
Because there have been so many things that have got in the way of building that canon and keeping it intact.
So, back to the story.
So I was 11 years old and growing up in Brisbane, Queensland.
And we'd just be given a
project at school.
So the project called 'Night of the Notables', and what we had to do is choose an influential
Australian and do an extended research
project on them.
So we could choose whoever we wanted to
and...
a lot of the kids in the class were struggling to find an Australian figure so...
It's funny young girls can be undercover feminists sometimes without even knowing it.
Like, all of the girls in the class were like, "Well I'm gonna do a girl. I wanna do a girl."
Um
And you know, they were choosing Rosa Parks and Florence Nightingale
and all of these, you know, influential women, um...
But I wanted to so something different and I didn't wanna do what the other girls are doing.
Because we already had five Florence Nightingales, like I wasn't gonna do her.
[laughs]
So I went home and I  asked my mum, and
I said, "What do you think I should do?"
And she said, "Oh, I think you should go
and ask your Grandma or your Nan."
And I was lucky enough to grow up with my Nan living in my house, so she had a flat downstairs.
Um
And I would often go down
there and talk to her about lots of different things.
And she would trim my nails for me and dream me stories and
talk about her travels through Europe
and we had an incredibly strong bond from a young age.
And we still do. So I went in there and of course asked her
about my project and said, "What do you think I should do?"
And she said, without too much
consideration, "I think you should do Germaine Greer."
And I asked her who that was, and she said that she was an Australian feminist and activist and
someone who was really prominent in the seventies and had helped the women's liberation movement be what it was.
And I didn't really have the language at that time as an eleven-year-old to fully grasp what she was talking about
But I knew I liked the ideas and I was interested in learning more.
So she handed me this giant biography- Well, she went to the library the next day,
which is just down the road from where we lived and
we got out this book together, a biography of Germaine Greer. And it had this gorgeous
black white photo on the cover, I still remember it, of Germaine and looking very
stern and into the distance as a young woman.
Um
And I think that she had her mouth open like she was, you know, she was mid-sentence.
And
I thought she was so beautiful. But also so harsh. And wild in a way.
And I started writing- reading this biography from start to finish and I just fell into it.
I was a big reader as a kid, and I would always become immersed in the story that I was reading.
And this was a story unlike any I'd ever read.
It was the first time I was introduced to any kind of feminist politics, that's for sure but
it was also the first time that I'd ever read anything about queer women.
Because one of the stories in the book that really stood out to me and that I hold on to, as a memory
today was the story of Germaine having
an affair with another girl in her high school.
I remember reading it and feeling this kind of stirring somewhere in the back of my mind.
And feeling like it was a solicit thing that I was reading and that I shouldn't really be reading it but
not being able to stop and also feeling really lucky and like it was this secret thing that I could-
that I could have to myself and understand.
And now as a 25-year-old who is out and really comfortable with my sexuality
I think about how long that journey took
me and the fact that was actually
probably the beginning, or one of the
beginnings but because of
heteronormativity, and internalised
homophobia, and Brisbane [laughs],
I took a really long time for any of
those feelings to rise to the surface.
The other memory that I- that
comes to mind when I think about
preparing for this project was, we had
this other part of the assignment where,
we had to create a box of items that
were symbolic of the person we'd chosen.
So I had a lot of little trinkets and bits and pieces and you know, like at a scroll
for um, Germaine's degree and that sort of thing in the box, um...
But it was my Nan's idea to include a burned bra in the box [laughs]. And I remember standing in our yard...
it was late in the afternoon, so around
dusk, and I remember how the garden smelled
and I remember how my Nan and smelled when I was standing next to her, I remember what she
looked like and she just said this very
quietly concentrated look at her face as
she very carefully burned holes and
singed pieces of her old bra.
And it was just this really beautiful, potent moment.
And again I- I didn't fully grasp the- what was so powerful about it at the time.
But I felt like I was standing on the edge of something and looking down and I felt like I was almost travelling back to the seventies.
To the time of, you know, Germaine's
activism, and that I was part of it.
And that I was part of it because I was
standing there with my Nan, who'd lived through it.
So we got to the night where we had to
present this 'Night of the Notables' and
we had to dress up as the person we'd
chosen and I had a lot of fun with that.
Because as I said I was just drinking in this history and in the book that I had there were all these
gorgeous black-and-white pictures of Germaine at various ages.
And there was this particular one of her in a white blouse,
and you know, an a-line skirt with her
hair all sort of long and wild, you know
looking every bit the seventies hippie that
she was and I just thought, okay I want to be her.
By this point I was so absorbed. And I'd
picked an outfit that was almost exactly
like the one in the picture. And it was
actually one of the first times I can
remember feeling beautiful. Because as an
11-year-old I was very uncomfortable in
my body and in the way I looked.
Which 11 year old isn't?
[laughs]
Um... so I was really excited and I got there,
and I prepared all of these answers to
the questions that we have to write for
ourselves that the parents who'd come to
the night could come around and ask us,
and go through the items in the box, and
look at the posters that we made and
talk to us as though we were that person.
During the night I- I didn't get that
many people coming up to my table. I sort of,
I saw the Florence Nightingales
dressed in their nurse's outfits with
swarms of people around their- around their tables. And of course all the boys had
chosen various scientists and engineers
and politicians and they were having no trouble.
But know many of you were coming
up to my table and I didn't really get why.
But you know, my Nan came and she seemed happy. And so did my parents and they were
proud of me and very supportive. Um, and it got towards the end of the night, and
one of the dads of one of the kids in
my year, sort of approach my table and he was-
he was smirking.
I remember that. I remember the look on his face.
And I felt instantly kind of embarrassed and uncomfortable. But that was pretty
characteristic of me, as a quiet,
introverted bookworm and he started to
ask me the questions and sort of, continued to smirk at my answers but kind of
nodding his head. And I was determined to
to get it all right and I did.
Of course. I was amazing.
Um...
And then it got to the end of my questions and he said to me,
"Now I have question of my own, is that ok?" and I said yes and he said,
"Well, I would like to know Cecilia are you wearing a bra?"
It's really hard to sum up the feelings
I have about this memory.
And why it's edges are so...
[sigh]
tactile and sticky for me because...
[scoffs]
I mean I was 11, that's really fucked up. But I mean if it was just t his one time and then I lived a life unmarred
by harassment and abuse, and that kind
of thing that so many women go through.
maybe, maybe it wouldn't mean so much to
me but...
It kind of signified the start of
a long string of situations that I have
been in, as a young woman. As a girl
and as a young woman.
And those things that we as women find really really hard to talk about,
but that we need to talk about.
And I guess that kind of a moment that everything dropped into place it wasn't just this story
that I was throwing myself into. It was -
it was the content. It was the feminism.
It was this woman's strength. In the face
of all of these challenge,  that you know
some of which I could understand, and some of which I couldn't. A lot of which I couldn't.
And just the searing embarrassment of
that moment.
The questioning why. I thought it was my fault. I thought it was because he thought I was stupid or
that I hadn't  done a good enough job, or that I look silly, or that my breasts looked lumpy
under my white shirt.
I had no idea why he'd said, but I just
knew that I felt utterly humiliated.
And now I understand obviously why he did it.
Because I've been lucky enough to continue down this path as a feminist and part of becoming the feminist I am
today has meant shedding- shedding skins as- as we do. You know we were always on this pathway of learning.
And...
Now, I've obviously had to shed the skin of- of- Germaine as being that
influential person over my politics now
because she is so problematic and I was
even talking to my Nan recently on the
phone,and she brought up Germaine being
on a panel and was talking about it and
I felt my heart sink because I didn't
want to have to tell my Nan that I'd
broken up with Germaine.
But I thought no no, I've got to explain
it this is part of my duty I- I want her
to understand and she always listens to
me. So I started to say that and she just
responded, "Yes I know. It is a shame, she
hasn't come on the journey." And that's it.
She, she hasn't come on the next wave with
us and that's why she's not somebody who
I would ever reference or refer to now
in any kind of work that was advocating
for her views. But I think that when we
have these problematic faves and we get
scared because they're called, out and we
feel like we're being called out so we
agree and then we throw them in the bin.
We lose so much of that conversation
that needs to be had around
why they're problematic and what
happened and at which point. And...
I'm a big nerd,  I'm a huge feminist nerd and I love delving into those histories. I love
looking at the different waves and that
the changes in the politics and the
whitewashing of early feminism and how
awful that was and how they're you know
the feminist at that time were just able
to overlook large groups of women who
were going through different but
extremely similar struggles.
So letting go of Germaine is not that simple. It's quite fraud because
it felt like letting go this really important moment that I- that I had with my Nan and with myself.
But I think that actually what that memory is about... what this feminist memory is imbued with is-
is my grandmother and her influence on
me. And how she's opened me up to so many
things and how she continues to come on
the journey with me. And that's so important.
So that's- that's what I wanted to talk
about, that was the challenge I set and
I hope that I've got an okay job of
explaining it to you.
Thanks if you got this far, and thanks Ana
for asking me to be part of your project.
