Single mothers and cultural narratives

Tonight I had the pleasure of attending this event hosted by The Business School at The University of Technology in Sydney:

Hosted by UTS' Verity Firth - Pro Vice-Chancellor (Social Justice And Inclusion)

Centre for Social Justice and Inclusion - and featuring Dr Anne Sommers and Laura Tingle, it was worth attending.

I met some great people and people were really nice to me.

(They didn't get out firehoses or tasers or anything. Not even a bottle of holy water. I was all but surrounded with psychological counsellors and anti-suicide campaigners at one point, but I think that was purely accidental. Probably. You can never quite tell with people who stand inside a 2 meter radius from me. That's just going by hard past micro-data.)

I was interested in determining what it was that they thought made their campaign to change anti-single-mother financial legislation work. Spoiler - the answers are:

- Data and research (and specifically - historical government micro-data.)

- Hard work

- Networking teamwork

- Cleverly lying to politicians (Or something. I don't think I quite caught that part.)

- Smoke and mirrors

- Stalking and grabbing the PM, and having brothers-in-law in the Canberra press gallery

Professor Carl Rhodes, feminist bulwark and democracy activist extraordinaire, was clearly (and appropriately) proud of the entire event. He didn't miss a beat under the most prospectively stressful of circumstances (I felt really sorry for him.) Luckily for the Professor no-one in the front row had the slightest propensity to chuck water at him (and the one guy there that eventually grokked that this could even be perceived as an actual threat calmly put his glass under his chair.)

Well done Professor.

Being that it was an event involving lots of discussion of victory in an internecine political lobbying battle there was lots of back patting, ample political sledging, and much use of the word 'poop' in conjunction with the word 'policy'. Or words to that effect. If you take my meaning.

Aww shit, man. There's a recording available and so I don't know why I am not being direct.

Perhaps it is because of the humbling influence of basking in the intense glow of all of that feminist, democratic, and feminine power and brilliance and enthusiasm? The panel member who apparently grab-handled the PM (I can't very well say 'manhandled') was some kind of motivational-speaker guru medicine woman - or something? That's a level of feel-good emotional energy I've not seen outside of certain controversial TikTok videos.

Firth - whom I do not remember seeing in action in person before - was a force to be reckoned with. No goofs or gaffes at all. A flawless social-coordinating and rhetorical machine. That's why she gets the big bucks, I expect.

In any case - in addition to my curiosity about what they thought worked - I was also interested (as I always am) in what cult they might all belong to. I can make some guesses (although some of them may have been godless like yours truly) but I think the answers are likely to be found in the confusing but partisan history of the ALP, of UTS, and of the traditional ideological and religio-cultural lines of division between the ALP and Liberal party in this country since the era of Gogh Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, and Bob Santamaria and before.

There were apparently few fans of Julia Gillard, who is a known atheist Satan like moi. Former PM Julia has the enviably right hair colour for it! I have to wear a red tie to get the diobolical effect, and I hate ties. (I hate the egregious concept of power ties even more avidly.)

Also - aren't redheads supposed to be cursed or something - like lefties?

(No - not those lefties: the ones who say 'shit policy'. The left-handed variety.)

The panel seemed to think this was a possibility. Or something. I might be confused. Maybe it was just their hate of the hateful single-mother-hating fiscal policy and legislation FPM Julia's gover-dement 'shat into existence'. (Hat tip to almost-as-godless, heretical Spinoza there. For those who are daft enough to have studied philosophy.)

I am just communicating the spirit of the event here. Don't shoot the messenger. Or at least - take a number and get in line with the taser and the fire hose.

Dr Anne Summers revealed the information about the impact of the micro-data from the report. Evidence-based policy is a big thing in goverbusiness right now, and so getting that right was very effective, methinks (and Dr Summers evidently thinks so too.)

Sommers and Tingle were both daunting figures to behold holding court. The surprise for me, however, was economist Sam Mostyn. At the end of the evening when the whole place was waning (except Firth and the medicine lady) Mostyn came on for the final round with some of the best political and socio-cultural improv-analysis off-the-cuff I have ever seen (and this was after a male member of the audience had all but pooped his pants and rubbed it in his hair during question time.)

If there was a question I would have asked the panel it was going to be:

"So what's next? You have changed this legislation, but you have also shared that the social problems that led to it being needed are entrenched and endemic, and it's clear you're aware that legislation and policy are in flux and can change again with a new gover-dement. As a researcher in cultural and social psychology, and a philosopher of health psychology, I'd like to know what else you think is needed? Legislation can have indirect and direct feedback effects on culture and social values by increasing the ability of victims to contribute to the national narratives and changing the narrative from the top down, but there are other forces at work that mitigate this. What else would you do?"

I didn't need to ask, because Firth was all over it and Mostyn hit it out of the park .

Just as I suspected: legislation for stopping gover-demented financial abuse that contributes to misogynistic social abuse is important, but there is going to have to be some serious psychoeducation and social psychology introduced into schools - or something along those lines.

Because women are still dying in sickening numbers at the hands of intimate partners and ex partners, and that is truly diabolical.

Personally I still think - now more than ever - that the Christian megacult and the Islamic megacult have to go. People having an imaginary misogynistic, infidelophobic, patriarchal sky-daddy is the best (worst?) part of the problem.

Again - don't shoot the messenger. Take a number first.

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