Sacha Jones's Blog, page 3

Mosque magic

It felt right somehow that we were stuck in traffic for over an hour making our way in to our local city-side mosque (the country's oldest mosque, Ponsonby's Al-Masjid Al-Jamie, opened in 1979), a place the existence of which we had just learnt of earlier that day when it was reported that it and other other mosques in our city (Auckland) would be opening their doors for people of all faiths to pay their respects and show their solidarity with the Muslim community of Aotearoa New Zealand in the wake of the slaughter of fifty Muslim people, men, women, and children, whilst in prayer at their mosques in Christchurch the previous Friday. 
There was an armed police presence beyond the flowers and words of love and solidarity that gave me a jolt of unfamiliarity bordering on fear as we walked in through the double gates, having been greeted at the gate by a young Muslim man who told us 'thank you for coming' with a smile that was also disarming for its openness and warmth. We had been asked to dress 'modestly' whilst attending the mosque, though a head scarf for the women was not required, and I had chosen not to wear a scarf, after some considerable deliberation. Now, seeing that every other apparently non Muslim women, except one, later on I saw one more, had chosen instead to wear the scarf I felt my choice consistent with my faith in the ongoing fight for female freedom and equality was questionable in that moment when the purpose of our visit to the mosque was solidarity with Muslims and the scarf, worn so poignantly and I think rightly by our prime minister Jacinda Ardern when she spoke in the wake of the killings to Muslim people in Christchurch, has become one of the most public symbols of solidarity. 
It is not about me indeed and I did not intend for my bare head to be a political statement at all and hoped it would not be seen as that or make anyone uncomfortable - I certainly dressed modestly in every other respect. I just felt I could not consistently wear a scarf and hoped that my bare-headed attendance at the mosque, humble in every other way, and sincere in my solidarity with the suffering of the Muslim people of Aotearoa and outrage at what was done to them and their faith by a man of my race and country of origin, might show its sincerity all the more. In hindsight that was probably presumptuous, and standing out with my bear head was probably drawing too much attention to myself, though for me wearing the scarf felt more conspicuous and a little gratuitous, even culturally inappropriate on some level too. But it was not about my feelings, it was about the feelings of others, those who were inviting me into their place of worship in the wake of terrible violence done to them and their community because of their faith. That was what I should have considered more.
There is much to be learnt from this violent act of racism and anti-Muslim aggression, not least for those of us who take it upon ourselves to try and teach others and fight for what we believe is right, as I have done for much of my adult life, if on a very small scale, and visiting a mosque for the first time last night, being warmly welcomed by several Muslim people serving us tea and snacks, inviting us to join them in prayer, has taught me that as individuals we are small indeed, as factions we are divisive, but as one people fighting with kindness for each other, for peace, for tolerance and togetherness, we are powerful and strong. As-salamu alaykum, peace be upon you and us.   

Comeback?

It's a funny word 'comeback', isn't it? Perhaps not for everyone. I think it might sound funny to my ears because they still ring with Rose in Titanic calling 'come back!' so pleadingly and pathetically for the life-boat to pick her up before she freezes to death. Of course that was two words not one. But still. In my head they're similar enough. But they worked rather better for Rose that night than they did for me this Sunday night just gone when I attempted my comedy comeback...

In hindsight I probably made too much of the comeback concept, after having had only ten months off stand-up, if following a fairly big and traumatising brouhaha between me and the comedy boss and associated people. Have I mentioned the details of that here? I can't quite recall. But it was messy and life-changing for me, having waited so long to start comedy and doing pretty well at it up until then.

'So this is my big comedy comeback' I said to kick off my Sunday night set at the small trendy inner-city bar with corner stage, 'well, medium sized', I added after a pause. That got a faint laugh from the FOUR people in the audience, one of them my husband, and whichever of the other comedians performing that night who bothered to watch from the shadows at the back of the room. I couldn't tell how many of them there were.

I was the only female on the line-up apart from the emcee - Mexican, cute, young and bubbly - and courteously sat through all of the other comedians' fairly samey young male comedy about dicks and dope. My all-new (not young) set about tree masturbation and horse clitorises was probably not quite so samey and seemed to throw and or exhaust the patience of the tiny audience, though they didn't respond much better if better at all to the dudes and emcee. Comedy really does need a crowd.

But my husband said heading home that my material was too absurdist and 'brainy' for a pub audience, not that the three people with him constituted an audience exactly. But he reckons I'll have to 'dumb it down' next time, and shorten it too. What me, long-winded? Noooooooo.................

We'll see, if there is a next time. The guy who runs these gigs and who lured me back to stand-up - which took some luring as I was (and am still) pretty battered and bruised by that brouhaha - didn't show up, as he had said he would and as he invariably does. He texted forty-minutes in to say he wasn't feeling well but might come in later. He didn't. And I didn't get his text till I got home (forgot my phone as usual), when I replied 'you didn't miss much.' But when he got back to that to say they 'usually have a good crowd' I couldn't help telling him that his presence there (he's a very well known local comedian) probably makes the difference. He hasn't replied to that comment, possibly assuming it came with some blame, which I guess it did, but only a little. If you're sick you're sick and there is a bug going round. The thought that that 'bug' might be me and that the fallout from the brouhaha was responsible for keeping other comedy people and friends and possibly even him away, I am trying not to entertain, though there is some strange comfort in it. At least I might matter, if in all the wrong ways.

If I do have another comeback after this, I think I might have to dumb down (or is it dumb up?) my outfit too. Not quite sure what I was going for there, I changed my mind to my dance shorts (cut off long pants) and tights (red) at the last minute for reasons not entirely clear to me. I heard an old and wacky comedian recently comment that when he dressed smartly the audience were more willing to accept his wackiness and laugh at it rather than cringe with worry that they were listening to the sad ramblings of a madman. I think I might have to take a leaf out of that guy's book, I'm sure people's tolerance of wackiness (and scruffiness) in women is even less than it is for the unfairer sex.   

'It's a bit like Louis C.K.'s comeback, only I don't like to use the term "comeback" in his case....don't want to encourage him' I also dared to say last night. It got another faint laugh. But I don't think I'll be able to re-use it; you can probably only comeback once.

Pussy Riot (Auckland)

Pussy Riot founding member Maria Alyokhina's, imprisoned for her gender anti-Putin and church-state protestSo I took my daughter to Pussy Riot in Auckland last night and it was an experience and a riot alright but we had to work for our riot (and our 'pussy'; there were a couple of blokes added to the line-up of five, in my view two too many).

First of all our tickets bought online were invalid, thanks to a scam run by someone called 'Dada King' and the booking agent Viagogo, though we thought we were booking through Auckland Fringe. And second, the female punk rock band from Wellington (forgot their name) who were on before Pussy were SO loud and ranting I had to rush out and buy ear plugs, well in fact the guy at the bar took pity on me and gave me a set for free. But still.

There is a common thread here I know, I am too old for this shit! The Dada King's of this world see people like me coming and people ranting at insanely high volume, girl, boy or other, is not anymore my idea of a fun night out, though the wild vibe was some fun with the bright orange, I don't look square at all, plugs in. And Dada won't see me twice! No sir. With our bank's help we are working to get our money back from Dada and Viagogo, who facilitated his (apparently he is a he, no surprises there) shameless thievery. I'm embarrassed to say how much he took us for, but hopefully we can get it back and he can go to hell with all the other false (and real life thieving) kings. We were not the only Riot fans he scammed either. There was a whole queue of us, and not all of them 'old' either.

But the show, despite these slight obstacles, was still worth going to (with freshly minted legitimate tickets) on a wet humid Friday night, standing room only, especially to see the principal Pussy and founding member, Maria Alyokhina, who was sentenced to almost two years in a Siberian prison for her efforts to challenge the corrupt patriarchal administrations of church and state under Putin. She makes for a compelling front-woman providing the main narration of the story they told with surtitles and video taken of their church-based protest and political aftermath that is drawn from her memoir.

I think they might have had their day though, Pussy Riot, and been co-opted a bit by the wider cause of fighting against church and state and political imprisonment -- they showed footage of a whole bunch of blokes, old and young, apparently former political prisoners now released; there's obviously a lot of that still going on in Russia -- at the expense of the feminist fight against the actual man that Pussy Riot was, or at least seemed to be, originally focused on, even if that apparently wider protest against corruption in high places is no doubt worth rioting about too.

It's just that we've had so many riots about that, indeed Russia practically specialises in them. And the extent to which what has happened to Pussy Riot is yet another case of feminist activists being sacrificed and partly silenced for the so called 'greater' good and purpose of serving one or other fight for power and justice between men, then I can't help thinking it is a bit of a sad sign and day for women of the world. 

But let's hope this is not the essence of the situation and that Pussy Riot can still symbolise for women around the world the power and importance of our voice to stand up against corrupt men and the women who continue to put up with and defend this gender hierarchy and ignore the inevitable corruption that results from having too many men at the top.

Pussy Riot reclaimed the p-word from a term of female sexual objectification and demeaning used by men to a term of empowerment and solidarity for politically woke women. That is a great thing. Let's remember that and make sure that the riot doesn't become louder than the PUSSY. Riot on!

 

Loving Levy

Deborah Levy 's second memoir  The Cost of Living saved my sanity in Sydney over Christmas last year when our sons... well, let's just say there was a midnight visit from a man and woman in blue. It is too close to the blood bone to say any more than that now. Even this probably says too much. With my boys (now young men) I feel increasingly it is better I say nothing at all. I am trying.

It was a very emotionally expensive time, a time when the cost of family and motherhood especially rose steeply in my eyes and I felt I might fail to rally the emotional funds necessary to pay for it all. I had brought Levy's slim book (a pre-Christmas gift from my husband) with me to read -- if I had time, between all the festive family fun I had planned and organised from a great distance of time and place before this watershed moment. Badminton was going to be involved in these festivities, the best value family sport because nobody cares if they don't win and any number can play, even an odd number -- as we are. And a shuttlecock has no sharp edges and moves in such a playful way too, sometimes getting stuck in the strings before you realise it and give the thing that isn't there a great hopeful thwack with your racket. Ha, ha! What a great, easy laugh that never failed, or never did fail. There would be no badminton this festive season; there would be no boys in fact after the first night (22nd). And it was going to take more than a stuck shuttlecock to save us.

So after drawing breath the next morning with my husband, who was not spared but blamed for taking my side, I picked up Levy's slim book and it, she, spoke to me of motherhood and womanhood in my time, and time of life, and I felt immediately I could face what I was living, the cost of living my life in and through those terrible moments to find a way back, or forward, to... I don't yet know what or where yet. But Levy made me believe there would be some way through it.

And yesterday I finished her even slimmer, fantastically titled, first volume of memoir, Things I Don't Want to Know and felt again my breathing ease as the hope of recovery and redemption from the challenges ongoing with my boys (men) returned. This is what a good book, a good author, can do. It is better than badminton indeed.

And it did not matter that I had read her memoirs in the 'wrong' order, the second first, for this one is in part a long essay response to Orwell's 'Why I Write', and a stand-alone piece in that respect, plus one that plays with chronological time anyway.

She writes, she says, to 'speak in my own voice', which she knows is much harder than it sounds, harder for a woman, that is. She challenges Orwell's claim that 'sheer egoism' is a necessary quality for a writer, countering that 'even the most arrogant female writer has to work overtime to build an ego that is robust enough to get her through January, never mind all the way to December.' I know exactly what she means.

Right now, January just done, I am not sure how I will make it all the way forward, and back, to December. Indeed I can't imagine how we will ever achieve another family festive season. But knowing that Levy is writing a third volume makes that imagining a little easier, and gives me the courage to figure out how I might find the words to write and fight my way out of the mire and back into the magic of motherhood. Perhaps I need to turn down the volume a bit.       

Sisters to Saturn, brothers to brioche

It's a brave new world indeed and Netflix's new series 7 Days Out showing the final week of preparations leading up to some of the world's biggest live events (albeit almost all in America) provides an insight into some of this brave newness...

Saturn, image courtesy of NASA's Cassini mission 1998-2018
Or at least the first three episodes do, we baulked at the fourth episode on the Kentucky Derby. But the first three, and especially the second and third episodes, were brilliantly done and offered inspiring insights into our changing world.

The first episode on the top dog show (Westminster, NYC), shows us just how BIG dogs are in our world and that the people who become the biggest dog people are some of the most colourful (crazy and charismatic) people in that world. There is something about dogs indeed, and even though I don't quite get what that something is (my sister is the dog person in our family), I found it fairly compulsive viewing from a social science point of view.

But the second episode on the final week of the 20-year NASA mission to scope out Saturn for new information about the sexiest planet in our solar system, including taking this image and thousands more, was next level inspirational and has deservedly been nominated for an Emmy.

It also provides another revelation (Hidden Figures take two) into the influence of women in space exploration, with a woman being responsible for engineering and building the Cassini probe that would travel a billion or so miles from Earth and through the eye of a space needle to find its desired target and gather the information needed. We always have been good at sewing (She is pictured here hugging the project manager upon the completion of the mission). Oh and the lead scientist on the project (pictured applauding) was a woman too, so it was a regular sewing circle situation, you could say, except it was in space, the final sewing frontier, it seems.

The third episode provided a nice point of contrast with the second on almost every front, being about the re-opening of a grand New York restaurant, voted best restaurant in the world in 2017, after a total restaurant makeover, from the food to the forecourt. It all had to go. It doesn't sound quite as impressive as the Saturn probe, but it almost was, the tension in the final week before re-opening with a full guest list of people prepared to pay not hundreds but thousands for their dinner, almost makes earthly cooking look harder than space sewing.

And more interesting to me indeed was that blokes (cis gender) were at the helm of this event, a team of two men, one in charge of the kitchen, the other the front of house. And so it struck me watching this episode that although the Saturn probe was a little like sewing, it was really more about space exploration, a challenge that has tended to be thought classic men's work, whereas work in the kitchen and dining room has tended to be thought classic women's work, celebrity chefs notwithstanding.

So for me these two events are big indeed in so far as they challenge gender stereotypes and show how well we can do when we think outside of imposed and, for women especially, narrow cultural confines and expectations to allow all people to discover what we are good at and have a passion for.

These funky space-age chef hats, with cunning air vents for head cooling, are enough to show us how far we can go when we stop caring about expectations to look cool and focus on being cool and useful instead, even if the greater purpose of wearing any kind of large white hat in a kitchen remains something of a mystery to me. The universe works in mysterious ways indeed. 

Me Two (Gillette)

Putting my two cents worth in on the debate over the Gillette 'the best men can be' ad...

I know it's a little last week - or was it the week before; time certainly flies for feminists these days - but I've been a bit caught up and it's never too late to discuss razors, I feel. Plus I need to get my January blog tally up to a towering two before the month's out tomorrow. So two is the word of the day.

I have seen the Gillette ad of course, it popped up fairly promptly on one of the online feminist groups I follow, with mostly favourable commentary, though some thought it didn't go far enough to address men's unmanly behaviour towards women. I call it 'unmanly' because that's what I think it is. More on that later. A few thought it was a shameless attempt to jump on the bandwagon of the Me Too movement and make some money - for men. It is probably a bit of both of these things.

But it is always hard to say how messages will impact on people in the long run and harder still to set about to change people's views on anything, not least the fantastically fraught subject of gender politics, and I think Gillette's attempt, variously clumsy and too-calculating though it is, is a mostly positive attempt. Better shaved than un-shaved, you could say, though beards are trendy. I wonder if that's why Gillette is upping its game? Hmm....

And drawn to the fantastically fraught as I am and being just four when I first noticed clearly that boys, and not just my brother, were given more options and consideration in all things than girls, I would say that gender politics is my subject. Indeed once I noticed this difference I couldn't un-notice it and have been noticing and compiling a considerable dossier (including a PhD, she said quietly) on the subject ever since, a very long time indeed. So Gillette should really have come to me. Oh well, there's always next time. I am getting younger, with the help of my new and improved, extra-sharp, feminist-friendly Gillette blade in blue! Who'd have thought women could use blue razors. Men using pink? Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Moving on...

I have also raised a daughter and two sons and though they (25, 23, 20) hate me in varying degrees currently, I believe they loved me once (pre-shaving) and will again, once they get used to the varied burdens of adult life, not least shaving EVERY DAY, and realise that what their mother did for them (the boys especially) to care for them and to try and instil an awareness of the complex and critically important challenges of being a good and responsible human into them, they will come round to me again and we will all live happily ever after with our blue and blue blades. Hmm...

I think, on balance, the Gillette ad (which my boys - men - probably haven't seen) helps in this battle to raise good humans, especially those of the male-identifying persuasion who have, most of them, lawmakers and breakers alike, never properly got a handle on - they really should make better handles - the basic gender facts, namely, that boys and men are not, contrary to what we have been led to believe for thousands of years by Gillette, God and other guilty G-words, better or more deserving of consideration or entitled to have their way more than girls and women.

But my concern with the ad that tries to turn the tide on this rather epic error, is that it over-generalises and confuses the main issue, which is, or should be, the unmanly disrespect of and sense of entitlement to dominate females that too many so-called men still have, a disrespect that research shows is the main cause of male domestic violence against women around the world, a violence that is the most pervasive, enduring and destructive in the world.

Gillette, I feel, should have focused its call to arms for men to wield their razors with rather more care and understanding on challenging this endemic, often casual and unquestioned but incredibly harmful disrespect of women, which to my mind is the essence of toxic masculinity, and not to dilute this message with comment on the male propensity to physically fight in general, with each other, a propensity that starts in very young boyhood and to my mind, and in my experience as a mother and close observer, one that doesn't have anything to do with the male arrogance towards and sense of superiority over females or the violence that that arrogance breeds. Male-to-male bullying is related, yes, still I wouldn't have included it in this ad because it is only indirectly related. But young boys play fighting, which the ad shows a segment of with an adult male intervening to break it up with gentle words, is off-topic and I think understandably aggravating to many men watching.

Male animals fight each other, and we are animals, for better or worse, and nature is a force we can generally trust. But we are worse than other animals indeed, much worse, when we turn a blind eye to our males fighting and intimidating and seeking to control our females. That is not natural. That is toxic, and that is what most public messages and media, including past Gillette ads, have consistently reinforced as healthy masculinity. That is the problem that needs addressing and undoing by focusing squarely on it. If we do that we might just find out the best men (and women) can be.

Therein ends the lecture. Now I am off to shave my toes with my new blue razor. And that's not a sentence you read (or write) every day. That's gender progress for you. 

 

Really, Sarah Silverman?

Don't be a silver man, Silverman, be a gold woman...
'I heart you, America?' Really, Sarah? I can think of another h-word more fitting than heart for a woman living in the US today. And it's no surprise to me that the show on Hulu was cancelled after one season, even if this was, according to some, because it was too left-wing and PC. Rubbish; it just wasn't funny (I never saw it but that's the word on the street) and I am not surprised, because Silverman seems to have come to politics a little late and with a degree of naivety that is frankly disappointing and very unfunny.

Her choice in 2016 to be an outspoken advocate for Bernie Sanders (he was apparently a guest on her show; enough said) before coming round to support Clinton too little too late, being a case in point. She did nobody any favours with that first major public political decision of hers, least of all herself.

I like her comedy, generally, and think she's pretty sharp and daring too, which is good in a comic. But since the election flip-flop and then more recently her decision to tell the world that she sometimes used to like watching Louis C.K masturbate (though sometimes not) and that it was different for her than it was for those other women who very much did not like being pressured into watching him masturbate because she and Louis were 'equals' and he had 'nothing to offer her', I kind of have a last-straw feeling about her comedy and character now.

Her long friendship with Louis obviously put her in a difficult position, but deciding to attempt to support him in this way that clearly added insult to injury for the victims of his perversion by implying that these other women were victimised because they weren't Louis' equal, is hard to reconcile with a person who actually understands or cares anything about the seriousness of the endemic sexual abuse and harassment of women by men, especially men in positions of power. It's so not reading the room, which is something a comic should be good at.

Perhaps they should get a room (do a show together).

Sure she has a right to 'speak her truth' and see the world her own way and not empathise with women victimised by men because she personally hasn't suffered it. But I don't have to like it. It's just so fucking old to be confronted by yet another influential, successful woman whose first reflex is to support and defend a powerful man rather than the less powerful, some of them career-ruined, people of her own gender who have been victimised by that man and had to hide their wounds for years or risk losing their careers.

Her apology when one of his victims stood up to her comment was genuine enough, but the woman, who was clearly re-victimised by Silverman's cocky assumption that it was different for her, did not seem to think it was enough.

And she is right. If we want true gender equality, it's not enough for one or two of us to get it at the expense of the rest. Indeed that minority success of a few women has been a major obstacle to real equality for women for centuries, an equality where we all get to live with a sense that men (and other women) recognise our shared and equal humanity. No one who makes another person watch them masturbate, clearly against their will, cares about that person's humanity. That's the bottom line, and the top line too, and Louis needs to own it and apologise for that and explain it. What was he thinking? Was he thinking? If not why not? Let's have it out either way. It's your turn to squirm, Louis.

So I say don't be a silver man Silverman, be a gold woman and get Louis to apologise and explain himself properly and humbly. Never mind feeling the Bern, get Louis to feel the squirm, as he got all those women to squirm, and you might just redeem yourself. Now is not the time for naive politics and patriotism. Now is the time to get them to feel the squirm.

Happy New Year..

Funny Cows

This is not about cows -- heads up for the uninitiated.
I miss this shit This is my final blog for the year, a year that has been very fucking funny and very fucking far from funny too.

It has been an interesting year you could say, on and off the comedy stage. I put on my first hour-long 'one-woman' comedy show at the Auckland Fringe Festival and it sold out. We even had to turn some people way. Some of my friends may never speak to me again. Serve them right for underestimating my selling power. There were a lot of laughs at that and one English bloke in the audience even told my husband he should pack me off to the Edinburgh Fringe pronto: 'She's just as funny as that lot', said he. So you never know, after what happened later in the year, my husband may well do that.

Because after I made it to the semi-finals of the Raw Comedy Quest, my second and final year of Raw, you only get two years, and performed to a great reception on the night, I got royally shafted by the man who runs and judges the comp and had to watch another batch of less funny (on audience reaction) teenage and twenty-somethings, 70% of them male, be put through to the finals ahead of me for the second year in a row, some of them only in their first year of Raw, and I snapped. I became a very unfunny cow indeed.

And Friday last week, after months of wrangling with the Comedy Guild and then the Human Rights Commission over my claim of gender and age discrimination against that shafter in chief, I spent three hours in mediation with him and a woman called Holly who did her best to keep things civil between us but did not entirely succeed. Nothing was resolved (I'm sworn not to disclose any details of what was said there), so I might still take my complaint to the Human Rights Tribunal that is a public process open to the media, to get this thing out in the open and on record. It shouldn't happen, what he did to me. Change is needed.

Meanwhile the shafter in chief has banned me from his club, which happens to be the only comedy club in the city and the main club in the country, which has shut down my stand-up 'career' for the time being. Last month I also bailed on my Fringe show before cancellations fees for the venue kicked in, losing my nerve after all that has happened since the last one.

"Maxine Peake is magnificent in Adrian Shergold’s
unflinching drama about a stand-up on the 70's northern club circuit".
The Guardian.All is not lost, though. I am still laughing indeed, not least at  the Brit film Funny Cow , reviewed by The Guardian as a film full of 'grit and wit' that we watched a couple of weeks back and it reminded me of all that female stand-up, especially mature female stand-up, can be and and is, which was reassuring, even if I can't be doing it for the time being. It's one of the best films I've seen in years. You've got to hand it to the Brits, they do grit and wit better than anyone.

Hopefully I find a way back to stand-up some day soon and even make it to the Ed Fringe, preferably before I lose my grip on the wit.

Merry Xmas.      

Grace and gracelessness ('Not all men')

Grace Millane 22 murdered in Auckland last week.
National vigils held this week for her and all the women victims of male violence
in this country (and every other).When I was researching and writing about male violence against women and the public-political response to it in the first decade of this century, there was no 'not all men' protest when there was a public outcry against this violence.

Apart from the global uptake of internet commentary since then, this was because a) there was scarcely any public outcry against this violence then, though it was no less rampant, and b) the male lament of blaming the feminist man-haters for making up stories to bring men, all men down was implicit in this lack of public outcry and in the much louder narratives written into law and public policies of female provocation, denial of the extent of the problem, especially with domestic violence, which was my focus, and the outrageous claim that women are just as violent as men when the facts tell of women experiencing injury and death at the hands of men at a rate for which there is simply no female-to-male comparison.

My own mother bought into all this women-blaming and denial of the problem, as did the vast majority of people, men and women, commenting and making decisions around male violence against women. Feminists have been fighting such an uphill battle for so long to get the public and parliaments of their countries to care about murdered, raped and maimed women, especially those in a domestic setting but really all of them. They are all connected.

This is changing as we speak as the vigils attended by thousands for murdered women like Grace and for all the women slain at the hands of men are a powerful sign of significant change. And it seems to me, as someone watching the public response to gendered violence for a long time that this change has been fuelled by the global female indignation over Trump's election and the Women's March in early 2017 and the Me Too movement that was also in part a response to this that has shown women who had not previously identified with feminist causes, and perhaps some men - but far from all men - that what we have here is a serious problem of male power and violence out of control and women being the main victims of this rampant power abuse and toxic masculinity but everyone being the victims in the long run.

And although thousands of men, many more men in fact than are joining the outcry against the violence, are contributing publicly to what one journalist here has well described as 'the astonishing selfishness of "not all men"'  protests, the fact that men are having to yell so loudly about how unfair we are being to them in protesting about male violence against raped and murdered women and are being rightly and widely shamed for this, is a sign that the balance of the public narrative and concern has shifted significantly and hopefully lastingly in favour of taking male violence against women seriously and in realising that the male sense of superiority and entitlement and unchecked power to disrespect and dominate women at every level of society is all part of the problem.

RIP Grace, your violent, tragic death has already sewn the seeds of a movement towards a world in which women like you and their daughters and granddaughters may indeed be able to rest (ramble and riot) in peace.

A Rock Between: Top Ten Comedians Now and Then

This image, the only one I could find that sort of fit Time magazine's ranking of the "10 best comedy specials" of 2018, is a little misleading. Hannah Gadsby's special was ranked top and Ali Wong's special was ranked third top. Chris Rock's special came in sixth. Yet this image puts him front and centre, like he's the main event.

The gender ratio is about right, the top ten included six women and four men, but the image doesn't really reflect the gender ranking, which had women in the top five spots. As this ranking is an unprecedented event in the ranking of male and female comedians anywhere it is surely the biggest news in this story, yet the article (which pictures Gadsby alone), as with this image used to advertise the list elsewhere, downplays if not distorts this part of the story.

If you compare Time's top ten with Rolling Stone's 2017 Top 50 stand-up comedians of all time , the gender ranking and ratio of Time's top ten is historically very big news indeed, because in RS's top 50 only one woman made it to the top ten (Joan Rivers), and only one of the women in Time's top ten this year (Tig Notaro) made it onto RS's top 50 last year, albeit RS's list was of dead as well as living comedians which is going to bias the list in favour of males, even if a significant percentage of the women included in that list are also dead.

Overall there were eleven women in the RS top 50, so a little over a fifth (22%), most of them in the bottom half, and just 1% in the top ten, whereas the Time top ten list has 60% women and all but one of these women ranked in the top half. Rock is ranked 5th best stand-up comedian of all time in the 2017 RS list, and none of the women comedians who outranked him on the Time list rank anywhere on the RS list.

Time and Rolling Stone are different magazines no doubt, and their lists were for slightly different purposes, too. But still the comparison and contrast of these two lists tells I think of a significant cultural shift in the industry driven by increasing numbers of women standing up, more of these women being given the platform to stretch their comedic legs on their own terms, not as one of the blokes - thanks mostly to Netflix - and then these women being recognised for these talents. The first move has been occurring for some years now but the second and third shifts have happened largely since early last year when RS presumed to tell us who the funniest stand-ups of all time are, and included five times as many men as women.

Since that time less than two years ago systemic sexism in the comedy and wider entertainment industry has been exposed and the cost of that sexism through women speaking out about sexist men, not least comedians like Cosby and C.K. (who both ranked in RS's top 10) - and Rock too, who made fun of sexism, indeed of rape, after the RS ranking had been published, and didn't get away with it as much as he had expected to - has been brought to light and taken seriously in a way that has not happened before in any industry.

So one way or another 2017 and 2018 have been watershed years for women in comedy, which means for men in comedy too, and for women and men everywhere else as well, because changed perceptions about who and what is funny changes everything, at least it has the potential to. Flying on our local Air New Zealand carrier earlier this year I tuned in to listen to 'The Comedy Hour: Various Artists', drawn by the 'various' as much as by the 'comedy'. Alas 'various' was not so various in this 2018 comedy line-up, recorded in this order (I didn't listen to all):

Louis C.K.
Joe Rogan
Bill Burr
Bill Hicks
George Carlin
Patrice O'neal
Artie Lange
Jimmy Carr
Eddie Izzard

The all-male comedy line-up suggests we have some way to go before lists of 'various' comedians include, for the sake of accuracy if not fairness, at least one representative from the other half of the human race, preferably more than one. Time's line-up makes a good start towards this much needed change.