Everything I say is wrong, because I'm too privileged

It occurs to me that I owe my gentle readers an explanation of just exactly what I mean when I say "bogan". I mean, obviously, as a bastion of heteronormative middleclassyness*, I hate the workers and want to grind them under the heel of my very expensive shoe**, but I would like us all to be "on the same page" (as they're always saying in my middle-class professional work-place, where we are all paid enormous wages and laugh at the thought of poor people and their monetary struggles).

As I sit here in my Toorak mansion*** with the stables out the back****, it must be admitted that the thought of a bogan does make me feel somewhat queasy in my pilates-toned stomach#, but nevertheless I press on, as my readers must become as educated as me, otherwise we might all be forced to mingle with the hoi polloi instead of inside one of those delightful corporate tents at the races##.

So, the bogan.

What exactly do I mean by bogan?

Is it, as LindaRadfem accuses me, a term of class disparagement? I think not. In fact, it has fuck all to do with class.

As I sit here in my kitchen, in a leafy inner south-east suburb of Melbourne, I can hear something that sounds suspiciously like Slayer being played at top volume in the apartment out the back of ours. Now listening to Slayer is not, in itself, bogan. I say this as someone who has, in fact, listened to Slayer myself. Back in the day, I was know to wear a boyfriend's Slayer t-shirt, on occasion###.

Playing it so the neighbours are all forced to listen to it (other than, say, at a party about which you have warned them previously)? That, my friends, is bogan. Yes, I am forced to admit, I live in an apartment block with not one, but two lots of bogans (the man and his son in apartment one are utter, total bogans. And not just because they steal our Herald Sun on the weekends - also because of the time the son wouldn't stop screaming abuse at me and I had to call the cops).

Owning a large dog with large teeth? Not bogan. Letting your large vicious dog roam around the neighbourhood killing cats and smaller dogs and mauling passers by and small children? Bogan.

Putting your rubbish in the bin? Not bogan. Dropping your rubbish on the ground? Bogan.

Getting drunk? Not bogan. Getting drunk and then standing on the street having a conversation at the top of your bogan lungs? Bogan.

Driving a beat-up car? Not bogan. Driving your beat-up car 20 kms an hour over the speed limit in a side street and then yelling abuse at pedestrians you've nearly run down? Bogan.

I would go so far as to add, driving a ridiculous great four-wheel drive (that's an SUV, for my foreign readers) around the suburbs? Bogan.

Pushing in queues in front of people? Bogan.

Taking up more than one seat on a peak-hour train? Bogan. Also, not standing up for old people, disabled people, or pregnant women? Extra bogan.

Boganosity, as I see it, is about an attitude that says you are more important that other people. So important that the car you drive can destroy the planet and mow down pedestrians, and that's ok. So important, you don't have to wait in queues, so important your conversation or music is more important than everyone else's peace and quiet, so important that it's more important that your handbag has its own comfy seat on the train rather than another person. So important that if your dog wants to snack on other people's pets, that's just fucking fine, and screw you if you don't like it, you're just being MIDDLE CLASS.

Excuse me while I pop open another bottle of expensive imported wine, to indulge in moderately because we all know alcohol abuse is a lower-class thing. Oh, don't go away, I'll send my butler to do it instead.

Oh no... I hear the footsteps of the Man Of The House! I must go put on some lipstick, high-heels, and a French maid outfit, and start cleaning the house furiously, because of course I am his domestic/sex slave (as are all women in "heteronormative" relationships) - and am enjoying all the privilege that this status implies.

Of course if I was a "proper feminist", I wouldn't be living with a man. If only I was attracted to women and didn't have so much privilege (it's amazing, the status that being a domestic/sex slave brings with it) then I could be a "real" feminist, like LindaRadfem. Oh, the shame of being me.

Why, WHY was I not born a working-class disabled lesbian? Then everything I said would be right, ALL THE TIME, no matter how fucking ridiculous it was to start with. Privilege, it makes you wrong.

Right, that's all from me, I'm off to put on some sexy suspenders and be spanked by a man - any man, doesn't matter really, because my worth as a heteronomative middle class woman is defined by such things.











*For the benefit of any extra-stupid readers, LindaRadfem I am looking in your direction, this is said firmly tongue-in-cheek
**Which was made in a foreign country using cheap child labour, because you just don't get fine enough stitching unless it's done by foreign children.
*** Which unfortunately, is neither a mansion, nor in Toorak.
****Because we all know us middleclassy types, we like to bathe ponies in pink bathtubs and plait pretty ribbons into their manes because they are STATUS SYMBOLS. Sort of like the Jag, darling, but more hay and less premium high-octane fuel. And you take them to be serviced at the vet, rather than with Tony at the Jaguar specialist garage, dontcha know.
#ha.
##And by delightful, I mean populated by drunk corporate whores.
### And by occasion, I mean if I'd stayed the night and was slobbing around his house the next day.