This is a report from International Women's Day in Brisbane (Meanjin) on 12 March '21. 

During the course of the broadcast there was an intervention in the show and it was subsequently pulled by station management. Paradigm Shift has been suspended till further notice. So this week's show about the new whale structure to be built by the state government on Minjerriba was not put to air.

My personal feelings about this are mixed. I attempted to report on IWD21. I believe the show met the relevant Community broadcasting guidelines but, in hindsight, I would not play the show again because it has not advanced the cause of women at a very difficult time.

However I do not wish to self-censor Paradigm Shift so I have made the speeches available here. I have added a song that relates to one of those speeches. 

Also I am doing this to save having lots of personal conversations with people. 

I think there is agreement on both sides over the issues covered but there is a sticking point on who is a woman. As far as I can tell there has been an attempt to conflate sex and gender when they are distinct. This has created confusion, with too much heat and dust.

Ian Curr
20 Mar 21

Notes on issues covered
Cashless welfare card.
Job Seeker allowance.
Needless medical intervention in women's bodies.
Anti-poverty
Save Women's sport
Unnecessary surgery on Trans people
Equality at work and in society.
Opposition to men's violence.
Freedom to dress and behave as we wish.
Reproductive Rights - right to choose.
Anti sex work, anti porn - controversial "hypersexualisation of girls".
Conflates female genital mutilation with trans people's own decisions about their bodies.

Doesn't want to de-gender spaces.

"Safety, dignity, fairness and privacy are being eroded by gender identity ideology" - the Left needs to show more solidarity. Not sure what this is about?

Genderism - what does this mean - "women could be anything"?

Women's sex-based rights - who is saying we should not defend women's rights?

Define women as "adult human females".

Men's violence is related to the power dynamics of gender, and a world view that puts one particular form of masculinity at the pinnacle.

We must keep including radical feminists that came before the current generation as well as having a space for new feminists and new ideas. Given what's happened so far over the trans issue, it is a difficult undertaking to resolve this huge rift, but I do believe that it would be worthwhile.

Notes by Ian Curr

Report on International Women's Day 2021

International Working Women's Day

You don't often see events for this day with the word "working" in their title. 

But for ourselves it is a very deliberate inclusion. We're here demanding for and building a movement that is for all of us, not just for a privileged view. 

So on that note, I'd like to acknowledge that we are gathering today on the land of the Yuggerra and Torubul  people and pay my respects to elder's past and present. I'd also like to acknowledge that sovereignty over this land was never ceded, meaning the land we stand on now was stolen. 

It's important to have this at the forefront of our minds, because the system that depends on women's oppression, and poverty was born from colonialism. And if we refuse to look at the horrors that continue to occur in this country, we will be forever doomed to a feminism like I mentioned before, one of expensive luncheons for nice white ladies the privileged few instead of one that can bring us true liberation. 

So we called this rally last week, when the news came out about the LNP government's so-called raise to "job seeker". This raise is actually a cut of $50 a week, coming with this false raise or a bunch of awful welfare changes that our speakers will be talking about today. 

One of the most pertinent to International Women's Day, being the employer dob-in line. This line allows bosses to dob-in interviewees who supposedly refused suitable work. 

It's obvious a lot of dodgy shit is going to happen from this. The scariest being bosses coercing women, alone in a room with them into awful situations with the threat of having their centerlink payments cut off hanging over their heads.

It's obvious the LNP detests women's rights. Over the past few weeks, the news that broke about how deep this rock goes. The rape allegations and cover ups aren't an aberration. They come from a political party and a society where misogyny is deeply embedded. There is in charge to test anyone not at the top of the pile. We can't rely on their consciences to fix this. So we need to come together to collectively to demand a safe and fair world. 

Today is one step in that fight.

Transcribed by Ian Curr

Sian intro to Internatonal Working Women's Day

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks out after Republicans sexist attack.
Anna McCormack on men's violence.
Brian Sullivan on creeps speech.
Calypso - Anti-Poverty Network
Hannah on poverty.
Julia Gillard's anti-misogny speech.
Kath Deves - Save Women's Sport
Sian intro to IWWD
Taylor McGowan - poem
Jumping Fences - Yo Vengo a Ofrecer Mi Corazon
HELEN REDDY - LIVE GRAMMY PERFORMANCE OF I AM WOMAN - THE QUEEN OF 70s POP (couldn't be played here because of copyright restrictions.
Image - Snr Constable John Watt arresting a woman at the 1978 IWD rally in Brisbane (Meanjin) at KGSq.

Alexandria Ocasio - Cortez Speaks out after Republican's Sexist Attack

Julia Gillard's anti-Misogny Speech

0:00  
We're angry at the hyper sexualization and objectification of our girls, which sets them up as victims of male violence. 

0:11  
We're angry that no one ever mentioned war, or the prostitution of women as factors in boys and men sexual violence against girls and women. 

0:22  
And we're angry at the ongoing failure of our politicians and our courts and a place to deal properly with domestic violence. 

0:34  
We're angry when gender identity ideologues attack women campaigning against female genital mutilation as the ongoing and parent abuse of anti-FGM campaign, people watch their shows. 

0:56  
We're angry that women's and girls sports are disappearing, that women in prison risk having to share accommodation with male sexual violence predators who demand to be called women. 

1:09  
These things occur because we're a subordinated sex class. 

1:15  
Let's not pretend these things occur in a vacuum. They don't. 

1:19  
They're all connected. 

1:21  
They occur at a time when the rise of gender identity ideology, and its support by governments, including the Queensland Government, including the Australian Government has become the new orthodoxy, and has minimized our response to men's violence against women. 

1:39  
Terfs are the new witches. We're fair game. 

1:47  
The very essence of totalitarianism is the criminalization of thinking. Surely we've learned that from other totalitarian movements. 

1:58  
So criminal behavior, like rape, and domestic violence are downplayed and thoughtcrime as evidence, for example, by misgendering. 

2:09  
When we call a man "he" and he demands to be called "she" becomes an unforgivable sin, which women must atone for forever in the cult of gender ideology. 

2:27  
It's time for left and progressive groups to show a bit of solidarity with women and girls, whose safety dignity and fairness and privacy have been eroded by gender identity ideology, because these groups have shown precious little solidarity today. 

2:47  
Instead, they tell us to ignore genderism to pretend that gender identity ideology isn't happening. Even as it erases us and renders us subhuman. They tell us it's not the right time to defend women sex based rights. 

3:07  
Gender ideology has to be tackled, if any other women's issue is to be tackled. 

3:14  
We can't fight men's violence against women if we're not allowed to mention or define woman as adult human female. 

3:23  
We can't tackle systemic change or pay inequities or women's property or women's homelessness if we're not allowed to mention women. 

3:35  
Or if the new orthodox definition of woman a woman is anyone who feels like it is meaningless and it is meaningless. 

3:45  
It means nothing

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

'Terfs' are the new Witches

Brian pays tribute to the work done by women counsellors who try to get violent men to realise that what they are doing is wrong. Men’s power plays are hurtful to everyone, to society at large.

At one point it seemed like he was making fun of "woke" people but when he explained it it turned out what he was saying was really good. And that he might have even taken on board what some woke people were saying, as evidenced by the use of the term "virtue signalling".

Brian Sullivan 'Creep' Speech

Hannah on Poverty

Calypso - Anti - Poverty Network

Creep by Allie Sherlock and 'The Three Busketeers'

Kath  Deves speaks on behalf of Nerissa Scott from Save Women's Sport (Australasia)

Speaking on behalf of Nerissa Scott, and we are both representatives both say women's sports Australasia NGO. We're a nonpartisan grassroots group, which is part of an international coalition of women's organizations, athletes and supporters of women in sport who assert that male athletes should not compete in female sport. We believe that Well, everyone has the right to play sport. No one has the right to play in any category that they choose.

Sport is meaningless without fair competition, which is why we have separate categories for disabled people, for children, for men, and for women. However, I desire to be inclusive is having unintended negative consequences for women and girls who are losing their and meaningful competition at all levels of females for a woman is an adult human female, not an identity, not a label, not a costume and not an idea in a man's head.

Kath Deves speaks on behalf of Nerissa Scott - Save Women's Sport (Australasia)

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