Live To Win

Next to my friends' house in Kensington was an old abandoned home, faded and cracked weatherboard, with holes in the deck and fallen timbers cluttering the doorway. One night while we were partying, I slipped under the construction fence with some mates and took a look inside. Almost as soon as we'd entered the house, one of my friends wanted to leave - the energy didn't feel good she said. It felt like there was a old, angry force pushing her out. She left, but me and Ben felt good. It felt warm and dusty and cluttered, like there had been someone living here, growing old, collecting their cloak of darkness around them and their belongings; waiting. There was a large workshop attached to the house on one side of the main hallway, full of hand tools and bolts, all stored in that classic shed fashion of carefully marked containers fashioned out of old fruit tins and plastic cartons. Perhaps it had been a man, alone, dieing slowly who lived here. We felt safe, welcomed, resp

--> A number of conversations and events have influenced me greatly in the last few months. My friend was harassed twice while on her way home - on streets that I walk every day. One man attempted to pull her into a car. Another time two guys followed her on bicycles taunting and provoking her. Talking about this with my girlfriend I must admit that I was stunned when she told me that on a weekly basis she is verbally harassed and whistled at from passing cars while walking home – again along a street that I use every day without problem. (Here by harassment I mean the type of behaviour by men towards women that demeans their person, and reduces them to an object of that man’s desire – be it via a wolf whistle, calling her a slut, or by using physical force i.e. dragging her into a car.) Thinking about the harassment experienced by women on a regular basis in my neighbourhood caused me to reflect on the nature of gendered space in society. Whereas a man like me walks