Contemporary Australia: Women

31 Lauren Brincat Australia b.1980 High horse (still, detail) 2012 Video projection full HD (looped), 16:9, colour, sound, timber framed pyramids, tambourines Installed dimensions variable Following Rebecca Baumann Australia b.1983 Untitled Cascade 2011 Tinsel curtain, domestic fan, 1.2k Selecon Zoomspot Dimensions variable Installation view, ‘Rounds’, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2010 Photograph: Kristian Laemmle-Ruff Image courtesy: The artist And we have them! Forget the metaphor of feminist waves — it’s outlived its usefulness. What we have now are pools and splashes and waterfalls and oases and a fully-functional, interconnected, ever-growing network of pipes delivering the water right where it’s needed. Perhaps this is why today’s movement is invisible to so many — the pipes are hidden and we only think about them when they aren’t working. That said, there are still too many deserts in Australian life and there are still far too many people of all genders and backgrounds going seriously thirsty. Even knowing about all the bright, enlightened water-carriers out there, it is difficult not to feel impatient waiting for them to get to where they need to be. I am optimistic, however, because I have watched and listened to these women and I know they won’t give up. They won’t shut up. As Arundhati Roy said, ‘another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.’ 7 Today’s young feminists — and older ones, too — are committed to working for a society in which certain types of people are not considered more worthy of dignity, respect or personal agency than others. They see dismantling gender-based inequalities and oppressions as a key — but not the only key — to creating a more just world for everybody. And since it is impossible for any one person or organisation to attend to the issues and concerns of every woman, today’s feminists are living their values, doing their work wherever they feel best qualified and most useful. The movement today is about acknowledging that we need feminists working at getting women into positions of economic and political power, and we need feminists working for those women who will never be — out of choice or circumstance — at the top of the professional, economic or political heap. We need feminists to argue for the rights of single mothers and those who cannot afford childcare or to take time out of work to bond with their newborn baby. We need feminists to speak up for working-class women, for Indigenous women in remote and urban communities, for immigrant women, for women with disabilities, for same-sex attracted women, for abused women, for teenaged girls, and for senior citizens. We need feminists working to get more women elected to Parliament and feminists working to secure the right of factory workers to have untimed toilet breaks. And we need feminists telling the otherwise unheard stories of women and making visible the otherwise unseen realities of women’s lives. I can hear her breathing