Editors --- "Sit Down Girlie'" [2003] AltLawJl 61; (2003) 28(4) Alternative Law Journal 199

• 'SIT DOWN GIRLIE'
• On the benches
• Drunks
• Dummy spit
• Vale Glen Tomasetti
• Well done Sister!
• Wrongful life
• 'Little Meat Pattie'

'SIT DOWN GIRLIE'

On the benches

Australian Rules football offers myriad opportunities for violence, gouging and maiming. Girlie remembers well the stories her father told her of his long footy career as nineteenth man. He would sit shivering on the sidelines in his dressing gown with tom loyalties, suffering pangs of guilt for hoping one of his team mates would get injured so he could get a game. In Victoria, Foot­ ball Victoria has a rule that prevents girls playing football with boys when they reach the age of 12. In July 2003 the rule was used to ban three young women from playing for their teams, which would have excluded them from playing in the finals. Their parents took on Footy Victoria and succeeded in gaining an interim injunction against the ban.

Team mates, coaches and parents of the young players supported them, saying they are excellent football players. One of their coaches was quoted in the Herald Sun as saying, 'We played against her once and I didn't even realise it was a girl. She was a good player and I sent someone to man up on her, but was told, that's not a man, it's a girl.' Football Victoria's spokesperson Ken Gannon, has said the ban on girls is necessary because of 'medical reasons'. The same kind of reasoning was used to ban pregnant women from netball, despite specialist medical opinion to the contrary.

Support for the young players has not been universal. A correspondent (male) to The Age (28 July 2003) has decried the decision because, he argues, the boys will be forced to tackle the girls and therefore grab them around the breasts. This, he says, will send out an inappropriate message that groping girls on the field is okay. Another correspondent (female) argued that footy is a tough game and 'a 14 or 15 year-old boy could cause enormous damage to a young girl whose body is going through huge biological changes'. Girlie is re­ minded of dire warnings by her mum to her brothers at the time of puberty that they must not wrestle with girls because girls have 'delicate inner parts'.

Back in the 1970s a Royal Commission of lnquiry Into Violence in society identified Australian Rules Football as a major promoter of violence. Football does not have to be violent- it should be skilled. Perhaps the presence of fe­ male players could assist to promote better, safer footy for all.

Drunks

Girlie grew up next door to a pub and often heard her mother threatening to 'Burn the bloody thing down'. There was a fire at the pub one day and mum raced in after the fire truck with a tin of kerosene. Indian women, it seems, are made of the same stuff as Girlie s dear old mum. The Australian reports that women in Western India have started thrashing and stripping their drunken husbands in public after destroying five illicit liquor outlets in retaliation for repeated beatings.

Dummy spit

So Fred Nile has spat the dummy and left the Uniting Church following its decision to accept gay clergy. Girlie can but agree with Kirsty Leggatt (The Australian Letters 23 July 2003): 'The Church should not be too distressed at losing such a narrow-minded bigot. We could be lucky and see him resign from politics as well.'

Vale Glen Tomasetti

Glen Tomasetti, folk singer, activist, radical, feminist has died. She was a wonderful musician and person who managed to achieve the almost impossible by combining a successful musical career with her fearless pursuit of, and fight for, justice and human rights.

Well done Sister!

The President of the Australian Medical Association Bill Glasson has taken some sound advice from one of his pa­ tients and now supports reversing AMA policy on easy access to the morning-after pill (The Australian 31 July 2003). The AMA's policy was that women should not be given the pill without seeing a doctor first to get a prescription, thus providing an opportunity for advice about such things as sexually transmitted diseases. Dr Glasson told the National Press Club his patient, a nun, told him he was out of touch with the reality of young women's lives. The good humoured nun told the AMA President, 'Bill, you just sound like a middle-class male with a teenage daughter. You don't realise the types of lives that some of these kids live and how they're brought up.' The AMA will now support allowing the dispensing of the medication without a prescription in emergency circumstances.

Wrongful life

There has been much discussion following the case in which the High Court of Australia, purporting to follow the views and values of contemporary Australia, went down the path of awarding damages for the costs of rearing a child said to be as a result of a 'wrongful birth'. Is it a brave or a reckless judiciary that purports to be able to gauge with any accuracy views and values of contemporary Australia? Indeed are there any that can be identified and asserted? Views around these issues are extraordinarily diverse with strong variances among and between various interest groups. Some doctors have de­ cried the decision claiming it will in­ crease insurance costs and force doctors to leave obstetrics. Other self-proclaimed guardians of public morality have characterised the mother as being greedy and ungrateful-after all she has a healthy child so what is she moaning about? The mother in question had undergone a sterilisation operation that failed. The High Court awarded $105,249.33 for the costs of rearing the child. The same approach has not been followed in the United Kingdom, United States and Canada.

'Little Meat Pattie'

Australian 1960s pop star Little Pattie is apparently heavily into meat. According to The Age (31 July 2003) she has become an ambassador for Meat and Livestock Australia, flogging the virtues of red meat. She attributes her energetic rock and roll performances to the consumption of beef or lamb before going on stage. Wonder what she had after the performance?

Poppy Cock

Poppy is a Feminist Lawyer.