Stared at.

 There was a guy getting around my local shopping centre recently with a set of elaborate facial tattoos, a couple of nose rings, those plastic-circles-in-your-earlobe-thingies and, lastly, some kind of coloured contact lens in one eye that made him look like a demon. 

 Little kids were tugging at their parents' arms as if they'd just spotted Willy Wonka (the Johnny Depp version, not the Gene Wilder). A boy, aged about five, pointed at the dude, saying loudly, "What's wrong with his face, daddy?" as the man tucked into his sushi.

 The guy was pretty unfazed by the kid's comments but, if an adult stared too long, he gave a sulphurous gaze that could have belonged to Medusa herself. At one point a group of teenagers said something and laughed and the dude looked up and zoomed in on their ringleader saying, "What are you looking at?"

 I was eating nearby and wanted to tell him: "You mate! They’re staring at the carefully constructed attention-getting billboard you've turned your face into. That's what you wanted, wasn't it?" I didn't though, mainly because the guy seriously did look as if he could shoot magma out of his fingertips. However, later in the day, I reflected that the bloke had as much right to look like Satan's doorman and eat his California rolls in peace as I did.

 He's really just an extreme variant of a bloke wearing a turban, who does not deserve idiots yelling "terrorist" at him, or a woman in a miniskirt not wanting to have blokes lean out of a lowered Nissan, screaming, "How much, baby?"

 I'm pretty sure the demon dude wanted some attention, or at least wanted to stand out in a crowd but, like anybody; he'd prefer that attention to be respectful. We all walk this line when we style our hair, wear revealing or flattering clothes, slap on make-up or try out a jaunty new hat.

 We do it because we want to be admired, to be looked at: we want attention, but we want it to have boundaries. I find most men don't really understand the concept of being ogled or stared at unless they have some kind of disfigurement, are morbidly obese or have lived in a country where they are an obvious ethnic minority. Women, however, know all about it and I guarantee just about every female reading this aged 12 and upwards has been ogled to the point it's made her feel uncomfortable.

 According to a recent article in The Guardian "studies conducted in Yemen and Egypt showed that, regardless of dressing modestly or wearing a veil, a majority of women had experienced whistles, catcalls and worse from men in public spaces". So, a woman can be dressed demurely - in burlap sack, a school uniform or an ankle-length trench coat - and still cop comments from the wrong group of guys.

 I say "group" because it's rare a man will whistle or make a comment to a woman - or to a fat person or an ethnic minority or someone with a facial tattoo - when he's by himself. It's something people tend to do for the benefit of those around them - to impress mates or peers - and it's got little to do with the subject of the comment or "showing appreciation" for how a woman is dressed.

 I said nothing to the Lord of the Underworld out of a fear of reprisal and I must admit fear's a great editor of behaviour sometimes and a good test to apply to all our actions. If you wouldn't say something to a guy who looks like he could kill you, saying it to someone who obviously can't just makes you the weak one.

Black gold that gets you going.

 You are what you drink. It comes as no surprise that the coffee run is the modern “smoko”. It’s what wakes us up in the mornings, hauls our butts onto the train and motivates us to push through the glass doors into work and office hell. We drool at the thought of that first sip of creamy milk, savour the warmth of the cardboard cup against our skin and revel in the office bitch session on the way to the local barista.

 Coffee is also the backbone of the private sector. The hours they need to bill, the budgets they have to exceed and the profits they need to bank are all driven by coffee. It defines who they are and what they will be in corporate world. Your local barista should be a mandatory attendance at your annual performance review as your coffee choice is an accurate insight into what kind of employee you are.

Skim mocha: this coffee drinker is most likely a university graduate who is still within their three-month probationary period of employment. They have very limited experience with coffee, having only sampled instant coffee that one time they had to stay awake to finish a 3000-word essay on imperfect competition and market failure. They have progressed from hot chocolate in week one of their employment and are eager to please anyone with “manager” in their title.

Soy chai latte: this fake coffee drinker is a fraud. Fake coffee equals fake private-sector professional. They only turn up to use the computers, internet, photocopiers and even staplers to fund their own start-ups. Typically these are the ex-hedge-fund manager types who import leather jackets in their spare time.

Cap with one: this coffee drinker is contemplating retirement. They have had extensive experience with instant coffee in the ‘80s and tried to participate in the latte revolution in the ‘90s but now default to cappuccino with one sugar because of complete boredom with coffee, work and life in general. They spend their lunch breaks looking into running that mango farm they have always dreamed about.

Skim latte: this coffee drinker is never at their desk, does not answer phone calls and always has their out-of-office assistant on hand. The coffee shop is their office. They have a favourite table at their favourite coffee shop and hold meetings, catch-ups, performance reviews, presentations and planning sessions at that table. They know all the staff (including casuals) by name and have not met their own office’s receptionist.

Short black: this coffee drinker is on their way to the top. Their corporate attire normally consists of dishevelled hair, newspaper under one arm, notepad, calculator and meeting agenda in the other. They like their coffee hot, bitter, and on the run. They are not loyal coffee customers and aren’t swayed by coffee reward cards or brands. The cheapest and closest coffee shop will do.

Green tea, hot chocolate or cola: this ex-coffee drinker has, at some point in their career, decided to kick the coffee habit and replace it with a quasi-caffeine hit. They are actively seeking employment elsewhere but their prospects are doomed as caffeinated corporate go-getters will view them with deep suspicion.

Olde world ogling and modern Mrs.

BY: Claire Harvey - The Daily Telegraph.

THE lovely photograph accompanying this column is 55 years old (but still so stylish). It encapsulates, I think, something powerful about old Europe.
It's the classic milk-bar picture; one of those framed posters as familiar as the scrape of chairs on a linoleum floor and the smell of hot newsprint around steaming chips.
I've always hated this photograph, in a funny way.
For single women travelling alone in old-fashioned Europe, the daily joys of life are leers from across the footpath, the romantic brush of a stranger's hand over the bottom on a crowded train, the small grunted slurs from some fellow in the street.
With a male chaperon by her side, however, the life of a lady on the continent is extraordinarily different. She won't be ogled but she will be ignored.
After years of travelling, I just took my first holiday with my husband by my side and boy, what a difference.
The Greek hotel clerks kept their eyes studiously averted. The rental-car agents handed the keys directly to my husband.
He got the wine list, and the restaurant bill, and the change, even when I was paying. Our separate surnames didn't compute.
The Turkish highway patrol cops looked to him in plain confusion when they pulled me over for a licence check: what's with the chick behind the wheel?
It wasn't bad it was just noticeable, and a sharp reminder of how easy, how free it feels to be a woman in modern Australia, where marital status is irrelevant, customer service is generally gender-blind and public leering is generally confined to the building site.
There's a special art of enduring the sleazy attention of men in the Euro-street, or anywhere else where it's considered normal for men to click or wink or touch or whisper in the street.
I've never bothered to get too worked up about it and I've learnt not to make the mistake of interpreting it as flattery.
A woman need not be even passably attractive to attract attention on the streets of Venice or Paris; she merely needs a skirt and a pulse.
The catcalling and the ogling happens to everyone.
It is not, I presume, meant to be offensive, although it can be excruciatingly embarrassing like the time I fell on my face while trying to jog in deeply unflattering track-wear through Zagreb, feeling nothing but indignity and mortification as the whistle of some unseen bloke turned to laughter.
The photograph, Ruth Orkin's 'American Girl in Italy, 1951', is hard to fault as an image; a striking icon of American photojournalism. It appears beautifully fluid and choreographed.
In fact, according to the photographer, it was a real moment in time.
Orkin, then a young woman travelling alone, was walking through a Florence square with a woman she'd met in a hotel, Jinx Allen, when they encountered this lounging group of girl-watchers.
Orkin heard the whistles, turned to photograph Allen walking among the men, and then had her backtrack and walk past a second time, to get the picture right.
The fellows happily obliged with more ogles and whistles. For them, it was presumably a harmless moment of Saturday afternoon street theatre.
For the young American woman, it was what? Enjoyable attention? Harassment? It's hard to tell. The ambiguity is what makes this image powerful.
I think, framed on a truck-stop wall, it's meant to suggest European sophistication and a sense of sexual liberation beyond our own mundane Anglo-Australian stitched-upness.
But I've always felt a sense of menace beneath the flattery.
The picture captures something essential about the nature of solo travel for women, I think the emotional isolation of being female and unaccompanied in a foreign land; the feeling of being utterly conspicuous as a foreigner; the rawness of unashamed European flirtation.
The blokes in this picture and the ones who stare and flirt in Florence today don't seem terribly interested in speaking to the object of their attention.
They don't particularly care if she's embarrassed or not, interested or not.
They do care, as I discovered over the past couple of months, if she's married or obviously with a man.
Male respect for masculine pride or perhaps wariness of masculine temper acts as a kind of sharp-edged protection for a married woman. She might not be harassed, but she also won't find it easy to catch the waiter's eye.
And if she is harassed, say in France, she's expected to keep quiet about it.
Turns out there are dozens of Frenchwomen who've been tormented by the likes of grotty old French silverback Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his friends over the years, but their stories have gone untold because well, because what's wrong with groping and ogling?
Take it as a compliment, mademoiselle.
In Australia in 2011, thank goodness, none of that really applies any more. There's very little public harassment or even overt flirtation between strangers, regardless of what a woman is wearing.
In hotels and restaurants and pubs and car-hire joints, a woman will usually be treated exactly the same as everyone else, regardless of whether there's a bloke standing behind her. It's delightful.
It's one of the underappreciated joys of Australian life and although I'm not pretending our society is completely free of sexism, I'm delighted that particular brand of it has died off.
The colourful difference of Euro-style gender relations stay behind the glass of the picture-frame; picturesque and no longer our problem.

                                      Ruth Orkins famous American Girl in Italy, 1951.

Don’t forget the unsung heroes.

 There was a time, not long ago, when the most pressing issue for the average grandparent was which brand of lollies to buy as a sugary bribe to offer the grandkids when Mum and Dad weren’t looking. Or to agonise over the logistics of a trip to Luna Park versus a ferry ride to the zoo when choosing a weekend outing.

 Now it’s less about the fun stuff and more about the day-to-day tasks associated with taking care of toddlers and children such as cooking meals, supervising homework and changing nappies. With grandparents the largest providers of informal care in Australia; caring for grandkids has shifted from an occasional babysitting favour to, in more extreme cases, a full-time job in itself.

 The current court case, in which a Sydney woman is defending an action brought by her daughter and son-in-law after she fell down the stairs while holding her five-month-old granddaughter, leaving her severely disabled, is indicative of the changing role of grandparents.

 That the matter even made it to court is arguably a symbol of the increasing pressure that this particular group of the community find themselves under. You don’t have to look far to identify the reason behind this trend. For many young families feeling the strain of childcare costs and struggling with long working hours, grandparents are an invaluable resource.

 Uneasy about leaving a six-month-old in a crèche? Just ask Grandma. Caught up at work and can’t make it to preschool on time? It’s Grandpa to the rescue. Another two weeks of school holidays yet you’ve exhausted your own supply of annual leave? Time to call Nanna and Pop.

 From the couple who rely on Grandpa taking care of the little ones every Monday to the family who pays Grandma to act as a full-time nanny, almost every workplace in Sydney has at least one employee relying on the older generation. Forget about the kindness of strangers. If you want to survive the work-family juggling act without spending a not-so-small fortune on childcare fees, what you really need is the kindness of grandparents.

 But, as with all miracle solutions, there are a few hiccups. For a multitude of reasons, this particular option of “informal care” is not available to everyone. Many grandparents live interstate or overseas. Some are unable to help out due to old age or illness. Others are no longer alive. And then there are those who are estranged from their now grown-up offspring, or simply have no interest in being involved in their grandchildren’s lives.

 It’s easy to feel sorry for yourself when you’re denied the same assistance upon which many friends and colleagues so heavily rely. But while it’s not fair on parents who miss out on the grannies-as-caregivers lifelines, the real injustice is reserved for the grandparents themselves.

 Nothing puts a dampener on dreams of taking a well-deserved rest in retirement more effectively than a family member in need. Thoughts of travelling around Australia, much less the world, aren’t often compatible with pleas to help mind the grandkids one day a week.

 Some grandparents of course, wouldn’t have it any other way. But for others, having already raised a family of their own, the prospect of doing it all over again is more exhausting than exhilarating. And yet, when confronted by the sight of their children struggling to keep on top of escalating childcare costs and balance the competing demands of work and home, guilt prevents them from complaining.

 “How can I expect them to leave the kids with a stranger when I could help them out instead?” rationalises the well-intentioned but weary grandma. All the while, their support of working families only enables the government to continue in its failure to address the high-priced cost and limited availability of quality childcare. Everybody loses.

 None more so than the nation’s grandparents, unwittingly transformed from figures of fun to their grandchildren into an army of unsung and exploited heroes.