Like many children growing up,
Karen Pickering saw many injustices in the world, and although she didn’t find direction until her early twenties, she knew she’d be most effective fighting the one she could relate to the most. After all, she is a woman. Today the self-proclaimed ‘feminist organiser’ has her fingers in many pies. Leaving behind the outdated ‘60s notion of burning bras and unkept underarms, she instead embraces her childhood loudmouth. As the host and collaborator of a bevy of feminist-focused platforms, including
Cherchez la Femme and the seemingly-risqué-until-you-take-closer-look
SlutWalk Melbourne, Pickering also acts as a writer for Crikey and is the current editor of 2012’s Emerging Writers' Festival publication,
The Reader.
Jasmine Phull: You’ve been labelled a number of things, from initiator to bad feminist. What title do you prefer to embrace?
Karen Pickering: I normally call myself a ‘feminist organiser’ because usually the work that I am doing, aside from the work I get paid for, is organising feminists.
JP: Is there something from your childhood that influenced the path you took?
KP: I was a show-off and a loudmouth but I was a deeply unhappy child. I think those things are connected. I was always a performer and there’s an element of that in what I do now, in terms of being able to put on a show, but now the show is just the delivery method for the message.
JP: Were you quite a righteous child?
KP: When I was growing up I had a very strong sense of injustice, but it was usually about how unfair things were for me [laughs]. Because of the tough things that happened in my life that sense may have been overdeveloped during my youth. My mother left when I was really young and things like that. I had a strong sense of: “it’s not fair, why does this happen to me?” Then as you get older and more outward looking, you realise a lot of the times when things are unfair, they’re unfair for groups of people. It’s not bad luck that at my girls’ school we couldn’t do rowing. You start to realise that things are set up in a particular way and if [that’s the case], it can be set up in a different way. I’m a really incurable structuralist. Examining all the structures around us helps us understand.
JP: Working on such public platform must be bittersweet. You have the opportunity to voice your concerns and opinions but you’re leaving yourself exposed – voluntarily throwing yourself out to the lions. How do you handle the public and the media’s response to your, some would say, provocative writing? Does it motivate you or infuriate you?
KP: It doesn’t deter me but it’s hard to be constantly criticised; it’s hard to be the victim of abuse. Sometimes it amuses me, sometimes it upsets me. Mostly it reminds me that I’m probably on the right track. Anything you say in the public sphere is going to have someone come out and be strongly against it. Even things that are as blindingly obvious as climate change have organised resistance, which is just ridiculous. It’s just the nature of being in the public light.
JP: In terms of your writing and your work, there are two words that aptly describe you but also paint a rather misleading picture: 1. Feminist – for obvious reasons, and 2. Provocateur – because of the issues you challenge. They immediately bring with them negative connotations - are these the sort of sticky stigmas that you work so voraciously to squash?
KP: It’s funny because in the circles that I run in they don’t, but we’re not representative of the mainstream. Most people that I know wouldn’t think it was a pejorative thing to call someone a feminist. Like, “he’s good, he’s a feminist.” It would be a way ‘in’ rather than a way out. Part of my job is to reframe public perceptions.
SlutWalk is explicitly about reframing public attitude around rape and sexual assault. It’s not about the victim, there’s no way we can profile victims – they’re from all classes and ages. It’s about reinvesting in words, like ‘feminist’ and ‘provocateur’ with positive energy.
JP: Is your past a direct link to your present actions?
KP: I grew up with just a father but also with very strong women including my grandma and aunties. I saw them in action but I didn’t really become politicised about gender until my 20s. I guess it was realising that there are many injustices in the world. You can’t fight all of them, but I might be effective in fighting this one because I am a woman; though I do approach it with humour and a welcoming, safe environment. Everyone, including men, is welcome in the feminist circle.
JP: Do you get males coming up to you and saying there should be a SlutWalk for men?
KP: Every year I organise something for International Women’s Day and some trolls come out of the woodwork and say when’s International Men’s Day? Apart from the obvious answer of: “it’s everyday you fucking banana,” I always take every question at face value. The nicer you are the more ridiculous they seem. So anytime they ask me, I always say: “really interesting question. Movember is about men’s depression, this day is about…” etc. We got heaps of hate mail during SlutWalk. Some of it was scary and a lot of it was really laughable. One letter said: “why don’t you call it RapeWalk? It’s just gonna make everyone wanna rape all the sluts who are dressed up asking for it.” A lot of feminists hated SlutWalk too, and that’s totally cool with me.
JP: Would you say you’ve found your niche in feminism?
KP: It feels very organic, like it’s an every day part of my life. It’s like saying, “is being human a part of your life that you are good at?” I like organising people around feminist thought and action. Not every one is going to be an activist, and that’s fine, but I don’t accept that everyone can’t be a feminist.
JP: In terms of writing, when did that come into play and why are you so good at it?
KP: I write to communicate ideas, so writing is an idea delivery system. I work really hard at it; I want to be a good writer so I can get across these ideas I value so much. I envy poets and novelists because I get to read their beautiful prose, but the words I write don’t have beauty in mind.
JP: They’re just tools?
KP: Yeah. Writing lyrically and beautifully is a different skill-set to writing persuasively, which is how I write. My challenge is always to make sure that it doesn’t start haranguing people; that it doesn’t become polemical because people can quickly see that it’s propaganda and switch off. How do I get my ideas across and organise people through my writing whilst not alienating them? In the end my writing has to be quite good.
JP: Your writing is highly opinionated. Over the years, how have you managed to persuade readers to believe your words? Was it a hard slog in the beginning?
KP: It’s because I mean what I say, that’s the bottom line. I can’t imagine putting my name to something that I didn’t believe. At the launch of the Emerging Writers’ Festival, Fiona McGregor gave a sort of writers’ call to arms and reminded us to go back and read Orwell’s essays on how to write. One is called
Why I Write and the other is
The Politics of the English Language. I know it’s really ‘happening’ to mention Orwell when you are a writer because he’s such a giant, but something that really stuck with me is to never do anything that’s an outrage to your character. That really stuck with me because as a child growing up, I felt like I was constantly asked to do things that were an outrage to my character [laughs]. Then as I got older and less angry I realised that some of those were simply things I didn’t want to do [while others] were an outrage to my character.
JP: So the key is honesty?
KP: If it feels wrong and disingenuous and you feel like you’re putting on a front and faking it – don’t do it. The audience will know. That’s the secret if there is one; always mean what you say. When my writing is good and I feel like I’ve nailed it, it’s when I’ve managed to get across exactly what I think is so important about a particular issue.
JP: As a provocative writer how long has it taken for you to stop taking things personally?
KP: Over about 20 years, I’ve transitioned from someone who took everything personally to someone who takes very little personally. Whether it’s well-meaning criticism or the structural disadvantages that women face, don’t take it personally because often it’s not about you. That’s something I learnt from my dad. He’s a very hard man and when I was about 13 or 14 I was complaining about something and he said, “you know Karen, most people in the world don’t care about you” [laughs]. But then he said, “some people will be really strongly against you and some will be really strongly for you, but most people don’t care either way.” I remember finding that really devastating but when I got to about 25 I actually found it really comforting. Most people don’t care what you’re beating yourself up about, they’ve got their own shit to deal with, and the group that do [are] haters anyway. Then there’s this other group that’s totally for you, and that’s awesome.
JP: Could the same ethos apply to the editors vs writers debacle and vice versa?
KP: Definitely. Don’t feel rejected and think editors hate you because you’ve pitched to them five times – they might say yes the sixth time. The relationship between editors and writers is a bit like drivers and cyclists. When you’re on a bike you’re like, “effing drivers, they’re the worst,” and when you’re a driver you’re like, “that bike cut me off!” When you’re an editor, authors can seem really precious and invest too much in a particular paragraph; they’re simply impossible to manage. When you’re a writer the editor can be a tyrant and not understand how good your work is. [laughs] A lot of it is about maturity and realising it’s not about you.
JP: Why did you decide be involved in the
2012 Emerging Writers Festival?
KP: From beginning to end it’s an unbelievable feeling of community and support. Everyone is there to ignite everyone else’s skills and confidence. It’s a chance for professional development for writers. Writing can be really lonely and it can also be egomaniacal and send you so far up your own arse you can’t get out. The EWF publication has got over 41 contributors; writers from all over the world have given us their absolute gold and I got to put it all together in one book. The official launch of The Reader is on Friday. The first 100 sold come with a pass to the launch. And it’s gonna be pretty glitzy since the government is paying for it.
JP: Party’s on them!
KP: [laughs] For sure!
Karen is hosting the EWF event Industry Insider: Emerging Editors. You can also follow her on twitter. The
2012 Emerging Writers Festival runs until Sunday 3 June.
WORDS: Jasmine Phull