I'm out there!

I’ve been home for 2 months, after 6.5 in PA Hospital. I was counting on my brain, but it was in my real “at home” time that issued me with a derivable, accessed fetter which was in my wrong direction. I fought it, but in the long end I finally saw it. I ended up with an ABISO carer, Clare, who worked passionately to make sure I was getting explicatory results. So far there is no end, but I’ve become a smiley.

At the end of 6.5 weeks in BIRU, I chose to leave early – an extra 2 weeks before they said for me. My guests were needing to leave from my home, and I couldn’t leave my dogs on their own – or in a kennel. I was uncomfortable with my verbal discussion with someone in BIRU. I wouldn’t argue, I had to leave. I’m sure they could see how I would (might) ensue with unachievable targets. Under normal irreverence there wouldn’t be any – many – bad results. With me, unable to speak let alone think ahead of myself, I sat with tears in my eyes, often, getting around my goals. I was not allowed to drive for at least 6 months, so I started in the bus.

At first I found out that I had only one bus to get me into town. Pretty good! But soon I found too many kids on the bus when I chose to go earlier. Most kids, to get off in Ipswich Road at Moorooka, didn’t seem to have any consideration about older people, and would sit down themselves without letting older workers sit. They were loud, and I found wishing myself some earplugs in my handbag. Silly me, I have forgotten them often.

Sometime in the week there was another person on the bus who decided to have a yelling match with the driver. That’s not me! I found myself asking her to shut up. Funny, she did.

At some time I decided to try the bus to Garden City, because that seemed pretty good to me, until I got on the bus. Everyone went so many roads, and I hadn’t realised until the first trip that this particular bus was going down the back streets of Mt Gravatt or Wishart somewhere unidentified, somewhere totally unnecessarily. I changed my trips after that first time.

Going to Garden City was one extra to get me to Sunnybank Hills to the bank and post office. I could see that I was taking around an hour bus to getting there, and if I needed to go on to the doctor in Algester Road it would take me just a little bit more. But I needed to stop at Sunnybank Hills at least once a week, because otherwise my mail would become a problem. And it was another hour bus – or two of them - to get back home.

Bussing into the city allowed me to get off at Cultural Centre, and a couple of times I used this to go to the SLQ. I have worked it out in the last 2 months – I’m not often going there.  Why? Because I can’t get anything from SLQ. I have belonged to QWC for the last couple of years, but they seem to accept the members who can pay for anything – and give less to anyone who can’t pay.  For the next few months I can’t pay, so it’s easiest not to go there. Sad. For me, I am volunteering at BWF in September. Hopefully it will let me be.

Right now there is no help from Australian government.  I recently went to Centrelink for an interview over my medical. I can tell anyone that I can possibly work again, but I can’t fill in any jobs with the GDip OHS which I completed last year. I’ve lost WHS, and I am not happy to deal with any work place. I was extremely upset at the Centrelink interviewer, who hadn’t realised I was Kiwi, even though I lived here for 9 years. Apparently a Newstart, which he was originally offering me, was dropped when he found out I was Kiwi.  I am still convinced that I have been here for 9 years, next year I can become a citizen by RRV, so I am waiting… there have to, surely, be some kindness in government lackness. I think I’m an “only” – they can’t put me off.

Every Friday afternoon I scheduled with Speech Pathology and Occupational Therapist at PA. I felt pretty good that PA pays for taxis for me, except when the drivers are not citizens it makes it pretty hard for me to either understand or to make myself understood. I can’t say anything, because I don’t want to understand any more than where my house is and how much each docket PA pays for.  I know, when I move, that I won’t have taxis from north shore. I don’t regret it, but I do, seriously, regret not being able to meet the SP and OT therapists.

Why am I mentioned north shore?  Well, I’m moving there in 2 weeks. Woody Point, actually.  My daughter found it, I haven’t yet seen it, but I’ve seen the map and the wee cottage is only 500m in either direction from the beaches which go all the round Woody Point.  I am drizzling, I know it. It’s my time to somewhere else which I, hopefully, will really like. My present home was close to my previous employment, taken in reciprocals from my ex-husband, yet I know I truly dislike it.  I am so happy with Woody Point – in 2 weeks!

I’d met up with people from specific MeetUp groups since around February 2013, and in the last 3 months, since I was in PA for my aneurysm, I have seen people who are absolutely magic to keep me varied and happy. Thanks so much to Es, Karina, Jackie, Mitch, Anne, Debs, Loz, Prue, Taylor and many others who have helped me out, and I’m so grateful to all my Kiwi friends. Very recently Jackie blurbed me with a magical FB post, where I was identified as “competent, eloquent and committed”. That was amazing to my head, and I know I need to work to win over myself.  This end of year, while I’m still recovering, I will be helping at BWF, speaking at International Women’s Liberation summit, helping at a local animal scene, helping out at TEDxSouthbank, and meeting up – not MeetUp - with whoever I can!

See you in my future.

Degraded

I read today a story - a pdf - from (some) Australian's government department about "Valuing Australian's Older Workers". It is, apparently, professional kit for RTOs who are responsible in older worker's employment but who need to ensure older workers are employed because the government intends to increase the older worker's age retirement.  This story is 60 pages, not something most people will read but they will leave it to the RTOs. 

But hang on - do you realise this book, this website, seemed to be resourced in 2005? By Australian National Training Association? The book says "© 2005 Australian National Training Authority. This work has been produced with the assistance of funding provided by the Australian Government through the Australian National Training Authority." Who governed Australia? Labor? Surely not LNP! (By the way, these copyrights point out that they are against usual of the story, which I am not.)

If this website is still online, under http://www.valuingolderworkers.gov.au/, is this now being looked after by LNP?  Are they for real about it? Do they actually understand what it's all about?

This book is an essential read by those over the age of 50. You, like me, need to know how (this) government will work. Are we supposed to realise whether Labor was working in 2005? Or is this now part of LNP, with them working under it to make it easy?   

If you don't read normally, read today: http://www.valuingolderworkers.gov.au/common/pdf/Valuing%20Aust%20Older%20Workers.pdf to your PC, so you have a copy of it. To approach LNP. Or ANTA. 

But wait!  The AIM has a 2013 book, using the similar resourcing:  http://www.aimqld.com.au/downloads/AIM-Engaging-retaining-older-workers.pdf and it's looking at various ranges - are you 40 - 65, or are you older?? This is mockery! The AIM has declared copyright of this book, created in 2013. It doesn't indicate that LNP is using it - to help the older people over 50, 55, 60 or even 65. However, this organisation says approved use is by "written permission of the Australian Institute of Management NSW & ACT Training CentreLimited." Got that.

Do any of you know the National Seniors Productive Ageing Centre 2010 document? It's titled "Valuing And Keeping Older Workers".  I think I'll be reading that one.  You can at http://www.dinosaur-exchange.com/FTP/valuing_and_keeping%20older_workers-national-seniors-australia.pdf if you're going to read it.  Or the last one. Or the original. Or maybe there are in Google a whole heap to find?

 

How about you go into http://australia.gov.au/atozgovsites/v if you need a notice to tell you you've gone in the right location?  Oops, ANTA (2005) is still showing up.  Under "Valuing Australia's Older Workers". 

Is that for real? What we are supposed to know?  Even if it was profiled at 2005? 

Along the Google page there is also the iVET.  Which allows one to click on a 2011 website (iVET) to get to the Valuing Australia's Older Workers website - which is already ANTA, without a head dressing, and which still have 2005 on their publication.

Okay, so at this moment there is nothing that any site can help over 50 aged peoples. Or over 55 aged. Or realise that our retirement is being adding on. But if we lose out work, we still can't get anything.

Good luck to all of you.  If you have a job that you've been in for 7 (or more) years, you should have a good deal now. 57. Me.  Right now, it's not good.  Ever.

Words can hurt

Recently on Twitter I denounced Andrew Bolt as a racist. That’s not a new claim, and one that many people I know agree with. The documentary evidence is there over a long period of time, and he has been taken to court more than once – and lost – for his racially divisive comments. However, one of his Twitter supporters decided to have me on and called for me to provide “evidence”. I should have realised this person was a troll – it didn’t matter what I provided, he asked for more and claimed I had not provided any. That was exactly the tactic Bolt used to deny Professor Robert Manne had ever answered his “name 10” question, despite constant and consistent evidence that Professor Manne had done exactly that more than once.

What Bolt did to Manne, and what Bolt’s follower did to me on Twitter, is a bullying tactic often used by media. Deny, continue to deny, and eventually people believe you rather than the factual evidence. Unfortunately for the whole country, the government is talking of overturning section 18C of the Race Relations Act, to make racial vilification no longer a crime. There is, in my opinion, far too much bullying in our society now. We need less of it, not more.

Every day there are stories in social media about bullying, more and more often relating to severe bullying of children and adolescents who are a lot less able to respond or defend themselves than adults. Yesterday I read the story of Josh Taylor on the FB “No Bull” page.  Josh committed suicide last year after been severely bullied at school.

Anti-bullying website NoBullying.com says: “Studies performed by Yale suggest that victims of bullies are between 2 to 9 times more likely to commit suicide at some point in their teenage years. In Great Britain, a study performed there went so far as to suggest that almost half of the suicides committed in that country were directly related to bullying.”

The following poem is by a blogger using the pseudonym Icing on the Cupcake on the teenink.com website:

Monday, they called her fat, stupid, ugly.
But words are just words, so they thought. Looking into a mirror, she wept.
Fat, stupid, ugly she thought.
But words are just words, so they thought. Tuesday, they called her freak, slut, retard.
But words are just words, so they thought. Looking into a mirror, she saw herself.
Fat, stupid, ugly freak, slut, retard constantly in her mind. 

She cried. The tears came streaming down. 

Wednesday, they called her psycho, useless, skank.
But words are just words, so they thought.   

She cried. Until tears came no more. 

Thursday, they told her to go die.
But words are just words, so they thought.

Friday, they said nothing. For she wasn't there.

But words are just words, so they thought. 

A picture of her was shown everywhere.
They soon found out, they had killed her.
But words are just words, they questioned.

On Twitter I follow a chap named John McPhilbin (@JohnMcPhilbin) of the Injured Workers Support Network, who is a tireless advocate for the rights of those bullied in the workplace. John’s profile notes that “Workplace bullying is a symptom of poor management and leadership which costs Australian economy between $6-$36 billion annually and destroys lives of workers”.  John has a video on workplace bullying and is featured in an About The House magazine article in December 2012.

The statistics on both personal and workplace bullying are horrific and we are right in questioning what is causing this. A TED blog popped into my FB feed today about how language can affect the way we think. The writer quoted some examples from Stanford psychology professor Lera Boroditsky, including, in a section titled Blame and English, “…there’s a correlation between a focus on agents in English and our criminal-justice bent toward punishing transgressors rather than restituting victims…”

Social media sites offer prime examples of language misuse which can be threatening, racist and distressing, yet are considered by those who repost and share to be humorous. Our language is filled with terms that are abhorrent when one considers the real meaning of the words – words like “retard”, “fat”, “bitch”, “mole”, “slag”, “useless”, “thick”. Our society has normalized gender-provocative terms such as “like a girl” which are intended as insults to boys but we rarely, if ever, question why being “like a girl” is, in fact, something to be ashamed of. Distressingly, it is this acceptance of misuse of language that allows not just bullying but also a sexual violence culture to perpetuate.

Yet if we pull the perpetrators up on their misuse of language, we are told to “chill”.

Well understand this. I will NOT chill when I hear derogatory comments. I will NOT chill when I see memes passing across my FB feed that use derogatory, insinuating, sexist, racist or gender-biased language disguised as humour. I will call them out, and I expect others to call me out if I slip up.

Take a moment to reflect on what exactly is being said in the poem I quoted above. These are the terms used, and the dictionary meanings for each term.

Fat - having too much flabby tissue; corpulent; obese

Stupid - lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull

Ugly - very unattractive or unpleasant to look at; offensive to the sense of beauty; displeasing in appearance

Freak - a person or animal on exhibition as an example of a strange deviation from nature; monster

Slut - an immoral or dissolute woman; prostitute

Retard - a contemptuous term used to refer to a person who is cognitively impaired

Psycho - a crazy or mentally unstable person

Useless - not serving the purpose or any purpose

Skank - a promiscuous female

This is the abuse that the victims of these words are being subjected to. Would you want to be called those things every day? Seriously?

Words can and do have enormous power. Our language can be subjective – based on opinion – when it should be objective – based on fact. Bullying is nearly always subjective. We must turn that around if we are to succeed in combatting bullying.

THINK before you speak. It may not just be someone’s feelings you are playing with – it may be their life.

The unwitting feminist

When I was growing up it never occurred to me that my dad's insistence that my sisters and I learn such basics as changing a wheel on our cars, helping him with basic engine maintenance, teaching us about the power and other tools that he used every day in his business, might actually mean this man's man was, in fact, in unknowing feminist.

It would have been hard for dad not to be, in retrospect. With four daughters (and one son) he had two choices - the very time consuming option to do it all for us, or make sure that we knew how to do it for ourselves. That he chose the latter option is now a reason for me to realise that, at 57, I actually have some very valuable skills that many women - let alone feminists - today simply don't have. I am very grateful to him that I have, throughout my life, not needed to rely entirely on anyone, male or female, to help me with these tasks, something that stood me in good stead the many years I was a solo parent. If I do allow others to do it now, it's because I have that choice.

I have fond early memories of dad knocking about in two old Vanguards to build one new family car for us as our family expanded. The first car dad bought for my older sister and I was a 1957 Morris Oxford, side valve. Most people today, I suspect, would have no idea what that means. But it had a motor problem, so our first lesson in car maintenance was performing a valve grind on this ancient piece of equipment - even new to us back then, it was 15 years old.

As a full time builder and part time home handyman and mechanic, dad had tools of every description. We learned early the difference between a hand saw, power saw, bench saw, skill saw, band saw and jig saw. Dad built our first homes for me and two of my sisters, and we were required to help, under his expert instruction. We learned to use hammers and screwdrivers, we dug ditches and footings, we poured concrete - some of which we even made ourselves in dad's little builder's concrete mixer. We learned to back a trailer and how to operate his home-made tilt bin.

Dad probably would have found it highly amusing if I'd suggested that he was a feminist. To him it was just natural and obvious. You changed your own wheel or you didn't drive anywhere. We didn't have RACQ then, at least not as it is today, and why get a boyfriend just to change a flat? As for the building, he was good enough to build our homes labour-free so of course we should help!

Over the years I have found that what dad taught me/us has stood me in very good stead for the times I have been on my own with no man to call on, should I have felt so inclined. It amuses me somewhat now that if I do ask a man for assistance - such as recently when I asked a young man to open my radiator cap only because my arthritis wouldn't let me - they then feel the need to take over. I appreciate an offer of assistance, but only if I have the option to decline. Too many men seem to think that because I am (a) woman and (b) mature-aged I have no comprehension of how to do something. Well, sorry to disavow that misapprehension. I can change a wheel (and yes, I know the difference between changing a wheel and changing a tyre), I just no longer have the strength in my hands to undo the wheel nuts that are usually done up ultra tight by an air-assisted gun. I can put a picture on the wall with the correct size and weight of picture hook. I can glue and screw the faulty leg on my chess table - which, BTW, I made from scratch including routing, lathe turning the pedestal and finishing each square individually. (I just haven't got around to fixing it yet, doesn't mean I don't know how!)

Dad wasn't just a handyman, he also sewed - curtains, upholstery, halter necks tops for his daughters - and he cooked, he knew how to operate a washing machine, and when mum was in hospital he looked after the five of us without needing to get in any help. If more men today were like my dad - accepting of a girl child's right to know the same stuff that boys are taught, and accepting of the need for a man to also know some "women's" tasks, I believe we would be a heck of a lot closer to equality than we really are, because 'equality' is about treating boys and girls the same from the time they are small children. We fail in that because we are conditioned to treat boys as stronger, less emotional, more technically minded. That becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy only if we persist with that particular fairy tale.

Where are all the old role models - male and female - who just knew, naturally, that inclusion was the best educator? If I can pass on some of my knowledge to a younger generation who didn't have the same advantages, I will be happy to do so, and celebrate the fact that my dad, as an unwitting feminist, was way ahead of today's men. Good on ya dad!

Can we start today again?

I had great plans for today. I woke early, as I usually do, still tired after very little sleep, as I usually do. Cuddle and feed my dogs, and first up is go for a walk. Except by the time I'm ready to go, it's raining.

Okay, Plan B. Have breakfast and go to my gym for a swim. Into my swim gear, pack my bag for my shower afterwards, head off and lock the door. House keys in my laptop bag. Almost got the whole pool to myself - love it when that happens. 40 lengths, shower, and off to my local post office and shops. So far so good. 

Park in my usual spot and check my bags for my house key ring, which also has my post office box key. I can't find them. Except it must be here, I know I had them after I locked the door, when I got into the car. I put them on the car seat, I remember. Search both my gym bag and my laptop bag again, not there. Search the car thinking they must've fallen out, not there. Okay, so maybe I dropped them at the gym. Head back towards the gym, but stop halfway because I'm sure I didn't take them into the gym. Hang on, what's that lump in the back of my laptop case? Oh heck, it's my keys, in a pocket I'd forgotten was even there, even though I put them in that very pocket earlier this morning.

Back to the shopping centre, decide to park in a different spot than usual. Head inside and have some lunch and get a few groceries, go to take them to my car - and it's not there.  Stop for a minute and think.... okay, that's because I parked it in a different spot! Doh! Head back into the centre and decide I'll go to the library first and do some writing. Down two levels, find a quiet spot at the back of the library and try to open my Word doc. Won't open. Seems that I forgot to register my version of Word and I've run out of the trial period and have to register before I can open my document. Language starting to get a bit more colourful by now. 

Hook into the library internet and see if I can find a free Word clone to see me through the hour I have left for writing. Read a few reviews and in the end decide it's not worth the messing around, might as well go home and register my Word copy and write from there.  Pack up again and head out to the car - and it's not there.  Stop for a minute and think.... okay, that's because I parked it on a different level! Doh! Language is by now rather profane.

In one way or another I have wasted most of my morning, with only my swimming to show for it - glad nothing happened to ruin that! Head home, decide to stop on the way and shout myself a nice bottle of Yalumba South Australian Merlot - I think I've earned it.

I just have time to catch 30 minutes nana nap before the dog wash guy comes. At least my spoilt pooches have had a good day!

So right now I really would like to start my day over again, but since that's not going to happen I'm going to take the next best option - put my feet up with a glass of Merlot. And hey, if I happen to nod off while I'm sitting here? Don't wake me!!!

Homeless older women - a growing demographic

"The gender gap in retirement savings and retirement incomes is a consequence of events across a woman’s lifecycle. It stems from deep and systemic gender inequality – ingrained attitudes towards gender roles and caring; women’s vulnerability to violence; the gender pay gap; constrained choices and decisions about paid work and care; the impact of divorce; discrimination and harassment. Each of these experiences affects subsequent opportunities and finally leads to women accumulating poverty instead of financial security."  

S Cerise, K O’Connell, E Rosenman & PS Chandran 2009, "Accumulating poverty? Women’s experiences of inequality over the lifecycle. An issues paper examining the gender gap in retirement savings, Australian Human Rights Commission", Sydney, p27. 

In August 2013 for Homeless Persons' Week, Pro Bono Australia reported: "More than 105,000 people in Australia experience homelessness on any given night, and just six per cent of them are sleeping rough. Others are in specialist homelessness services, boarding houses, hotels or motels, or sleeping on the floor or the couch at someone else’s place." Upwards of 44% of those homeless people are likely to be women. On Census night in 2006, the ABS reported that 46,058 females identified themselves as homeless, and that "While more males were counted as homeless on the 2006 Census night, more women than men are supported by specialist homelessness services each year." However, Sue Cripps, the chief executive of Homelessness NSW, said in an ABC report in 2010 that the number of homeless women in Australia was severely underestimated because "women are hidden, they don't sleep rough at night because of the dangers and boarding houses are largely unsafe for women."

Domestic violence may often be the precursor for homelessness amongst women with children who may be forced to flee the family home in fear of physical violence. However, the rise in homelessness amongst single women (divorced, widowed, never married) over the age of 50 may be more likely attributed to financial circumstances. 

In 2012 UQ researchers Maree Petersen and Andrew Jones of the Institute for Social Sicence Reserach conducted a study under the auspices of the National Homelessness Research Partnership with the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs. Their report noted that: "... [The] housing crisis ... had negative consequences for physical and emotional health and wellbeing. This pattern appears to be particularly prevalent for women where domestic violence, income insecurity, ill-health and age discrimination cumulatively led to housing insecurity and risk of homelessness."  

The Petersen and Jones report quoted a 2010 study which found that "... of older homeless women in Sydney, one third of the women had lost their home after separation from or death of a partner." (Ludo McFerran, NSW 2010). Petersen and Jones noted that other pathways into homelessness may include life events associated with never obtaining or dropping out of home ownership, unmanageable rent increases, termination of lease, etc. Women, they stated, may be under-represented in homelessness residences, but women are much more likely to be staying with friends or relatives, in supported lodgings or other temporary accommodation.

Section 3 of McFerran's report is well worth a read. It is based on the personal stories of 31 homeless women over the age of 45. Whilst a statistically small sample, McFerran report has some disturbing findings. The risk factors that emerged were:

• Leaving school and having children at a young age
• Employment in low income jobs
• Living alone
• Renting or sharing
• A crisis such as eviction, illness, or losing their job
• The family being unable to help.

The Hanover Housing for the Aged Action Group Inc (HAAG) in Victoria also has a very informative report looking at the impact of gender and location on people aged 55+ who have experienced homelessness or housing crisis. This report compared census night statistics from 2001, 2006 and 2011 to find an serious picture: "Census figures show that between 2001 and 2006, the greatest increase in homelessness occurred among those aged between 55 and 64, where the rate soared by 36% (AIHW 2012)" and "If persons living in other crowded dwellings, other improvised dwellings and those who are marginally housed in caravan parks, are included in the ‘total homeless persons’ category, then homelessness among the 55 and older age group increased by 40% (ABS 2012)."

Older homeless people seem to attract less media attention than families, young people or those who are homeless through violence, but homelessness has no less detrimental effect on them. Quite apart from the psychological effects, there is danger in living on the streets or not having a safe place of one's own. According to a recent report in The Age, "Homelessness experts are pushing for the condition to be listed as an official cause of death, as murder, chronic illness and festering sores continue to claim the lives of some of Victoria's most vulnerable."

Whether this ever happens, in Victoria or nationally, the fact remains that homeless women are a growing demographic and society, as a whole, needs to take responsibility for and care of these people who are so often brushed under the mat as if they don't really exist. They do.