Yadda, Yadda … International Women’s Day

Warning: Aunty Cate somehow got a dose of Uncle @SuperTriviaGuy’s grumpy pills this morning. Maybe it’s the hang-over from a day and a half in bed with the mother-of-all-migraines dosed up to the eyeballs on Mersyndol. Maybe I’m just grumpy.

So anyway, International Women’s Day today, coinciding with the Oscars – nice combination. I think in general most women in Australia miss the point of International Women’s Day, because we’re a fairly self-obsessed nation, and we see it as an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back and say “Go women!” “We rock”, yadda yadda… me, me, me.

Fortunately today Australian women have had the opportunity to mix their self-appreciation with a fairly healthy slathering of Oscars red carpet fashion bashing. Now, let me just say that I have no problem with the Oscars as a concept. I think it’s a great thing to acknowledge great achievements of any kind. I know some people have this vision of me as being a massive kill-joy, hating all things that cost money that don’t “save the world” and that’s not exactly true. Entertainment is a crucial part of happy, harmonious human existence, so “Yay for movies! Yay for entertainment!”

We were at Movie World not so long ago checking out the set for the new Narnia movie, and the detail and extent to which they went to make things look so realistic and lifelike just astounds me – but in a good way. Yes, I always have that little cartoon figure sitting on my shoulder saying “hey, look at that money… how many orphans could that feed” but there’s a place for entertainment, even very expensive entertainment. We need that escapism, we need to be able to take a break from reality, watch a movie and just “be”.

My issue with the Oscars and other such glamorous soirées is the whole secondary industry – the gossip industry if you like. The paparazzi, the ridiculously expensive gowns, the unhealthily high high-heels and all the commentary that goes hand-in-hand because now, the red carpet is a whole TV show on it’s own. It’s not enough that we line these celebrities up and judge them on their acting ability but now we’re going to lead them like pigs to the slaughter to comment on their clothing.

No, it’s not enough that you’ve slogged it out for decades, waiting tables, auditioning your ass off, going hungry and clawing your way to the top to become an Oscar nominated Actor – because we don’t call them actresses anymore – because we’re past that. It’s not enough that you’ve relinquished your right to any privacy, whether it be in relation to your grocery habits, your marriage or the position in which you chose to deliver your child.

On this, the International DAY that we women pay tribute to ourselves, the vast majority of us are – as I type this entry – criticising the who’s who of Hollywood for their dress, shoes, handbag, hairstyle, baby-belly, flabby thighs, poor make-up choice or breast size. And that, my friends, is where half the problem of women’s inequality in the developed world lies.

When are women going to take their Jimmy-Choo-clad feet off the heads of their own gender and start giving each other a hand up instead of a heel in the back?

In the midst of all this we forget that in China baby girls are still being killed at birth or abandoned to die, lesbian women in South Africa are being subjected to pack rape to “correct them” in their sexuality, and in North Korea today, concentration camps still exist where mothers new born babies are killed at birth.

Just for one day, can’t we all just accept each other for who they are, what they’ve achieved, and who they aspire to be? Can’t we just look at our fellow woman and smile?