Well Said!

  By Helen Said, semi-retired single mum   Single mums need superannuation to look after ourselves later in life. We are less likely to own our own homes, and more likely to become homeless if we don’t have retirement savings to fall back on. Unfortunately, some Australian Tax Office superannuation rules are stacked against single mothers. The government offers low-income earners up to $500 per year, as a superannuation co-contribution, until we are 71 years old. If single mums were given this money, we could retire with a nest egg of tens of thousands of dollars or more. But most single mums will never get this money, at least not while we are bringing up children. To get $500 a year from the government, paid into your superannuation account, you need to lock away $1000 every year. When you are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table for your children, how can you lock away $1000 each year for your old age? How it works : if you earn less than $47,488 thi...

  By Helen Said, Autistic advocate, Melbourne Australia Some people who come across this blog might wonder,  do we really need another "ism"?  "Isms" are needed to help us think critically about our attitudes and the world we take for granted. When we notice a pattern of bad attitudes and structural problems that cause disadvantage to a group of people, we need to discuss it, name it and address it. The term "racism" was coined in 1902 by Richard Henry Pratt, a brigadier-general in the US Army who opposed racial segregation. It was to be many decades before the word "racism" was commonly used and understood. As I was growing up, after Martin Luther made his historic "I have a dream" speech, the words "racial prejudice" started being used. In those days, many colonised countries, such as the US, Australia and South Africa, legally segregated Black people. As there were no anti-discrimination laws, racial prejudices were openly ...

By Helen Said, a proud migrant living in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia)  Pictured above is the anti-refugee boat trophy that conservative former Prime Minister Scott Morrison kept on his desk, which had a sign reading "We stopped these". The sign has been corrected to say "We arrived on these", to remind Australians that 97% of us are of immigrant origin. Last weekend, a misnamed "March for Australia" was organised in a number of cities in Australia. The marches scapegoated immigration for domestic problems such as the current housing shortage. People who marched had varying motivations. These marches were led and addressed by aggressively racist politicians and violent Nazis, however many who marched were not violent racists.  Australia's mainstream political parties condemned the marches as racist, however many people have been manipulated into believing that migration levels are responsible for the current housing crisis and they were unaware of the v...

  by Helen Said, Autistic advocate, Melbourne, Australia Autistics live in a world that wasn't designed for us, shopping centres and supermarkets being a prime example. In many shops, music is blaring, lights are harsh and bright, shelves are crammed and over-stimulating and crowds and obstacles are everywhere. Although I like shopping, I often need to get out of the shops as quickly as possible to preserve my physical and mental energy for the rest of the day. The self-checkout gives me, as an Autistic shopper, a break. The self checkout area is much quieter and roomier than the rest of the shop. I am not forced to socially engage with a cashier if I don't feel up to it. I can stand by myself, arrange my own shopping in my own bags and go home.  Queueing up to pay a cashier is seen by some as taking a noble stand to save cashiers' jobs. Some of us have very tired feet by the end of a shop, especially Autistics who quite commonly have low muscle tone or flat feet.  Packin...

By Helen Said, Autistic advocate, Melbourne Australia I first heard about the US Sister Study, and its worrying findings regarding carcinogenic hair products used by many women, in late 2019. I then began researching coercive, dangerous beauty products of all kinds, and found out that they impact most heavily on CALD women and Women of Colour, especially those with disability. https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/permanent-hair-dye-straighteners-may-increase-breast-cancer-risk The 2019 US Sister Study found “ Among African American women, using permanent dyes every five to eight weeks or more was associated with a 60% increased risk of breast cancer as compared with an 8% increased risk for white women.” The higher danger for Black American women is apparently linked to the type of breast cancer they develop. Because of health and socioeconomic issues, they are less likely to detect breast cancer in its early stages. These findings could well have parallels amongst African Aus...

  The late Jewish American feminist author Michelle Haimoff once wrote, “Black women wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see Black women. White women wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see women. White men wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and see human beings.” This sums up the experience of many Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) people, especially Women of Colour, living in Australia. We are defined by our differentness in a society which places whiteness and maleness at the centre and at the helm. For undiagnosed CALD Autistics, the path to discovering our Autistic identities is clouded by the way we are seen by society, which ultimately penetrates our own psyches. CALD women are made to feel that race, culture and gender are our ultimate immutable differences, that all our thoughts, actions and attributes are conditioned by these differences, that we are extensions of this otherness, forever on the outer, foreigners first, women s...