angela pippos

You don’t need to have written an Honours thesis on Vida Goldstein’s contribution to first-wave feminism to know child beauty pageants are unnatural.

Six year olds plucked, shaved, injected and waxed, sprayed orange and sent out looking like mini drag queens so their parents can feel better about their own accumulation of failures. Really, how can any decent person see this as anything other than insanity? Let alone exploitation.

Descendants from Planet Barbie believe you can never be too young to embrace stereotypes about female beauty. No amount of hairspray is too much. No pout is too pouty. No pose is too contrived. For them there is only one type of physical beauty and it’s heading our way in July.

Actually there is a way to make this whole scene more palatable – all you have to do is turn a blind eye to negative body image, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and low self-esteem. There you go. Book me a front row seat.

By the way did you see Pippa Middleton’s maid of honour arse in that white dress the night of the royal wedding? I missed it. I was upstairs exfoliating the dry skin off the balls of my feet.

Not wanting to feel excluded from the mass hysteria I checked it out online. There it was staring at me – an arse in a white dress. Groundbreaking stuff. Life-changing even. Rumour has it her buttocks are in deep contract negotiations for their own chat show, clothing range and fragrance – I can’t wait to spray on some ‘Royal Crack’.

Meanwhile in talkback radio land a caller had whipped herself into a real state of agitation: “Our Prime Minister should either travel alone or as a married woman, not with her livid partner!”

I couldn’t agree more. I wouldn’t want to travel overseas with a livid partner either. We’ve all been there and god it’s boring – the frosty reception you receive as you hand over your complimentary bag of airline nuts, the puckered mouth and the head shaking. Do us all a favour and stay home.

Not to be outdone, another caller followed up with something along the lines of our PM should respect the values of the vast majority of Australians and get married. It’s wrong she’s representing us overseas with her live in partner.

Oh I see, the First Bloke wasn’t livid after all. He was something far more sinister. He was a live–in.

The horror. The horror.

How can we as proud Australians live with ourselves while our leader is gallivanting around the world with her de facto? The shame of it all! How can we as proud Australians embrace a leader who hasn’t picked confetti out of her hair? Or danced that special dance to Bryan Adams?

How will Silvio Berlusconi bring himself to look her in the face at the next G12 meeting?

Hey, read this SMS out on radio: “Throw her in the river and see if she floats.” There’s my contribution to the debate.

Media release – “The Australian Womensport and Recreation Association condemns decision by World Badminton Federation”. Read on.

In a nutshell the sport’s ruling body is making it mandatory for women to wear skirts or dresses, even over shorts, in an attempt to raise the profile of women’s badminton.

Holy shuttlecock why not grease them up and send them out onto court nude. That should fill the stands. Because that’s what it’s all about isn’t it?

Deep sigh… I know I should be grateful. (Another deep sigh.) We’ve got the vote, we’re allowed to drive – occasionally we’re allowed to read a map, in some states we’ve got control over our bodies, we’ve almost got equal pay, we’ve had the debate about normal sized models, it hasn’t gone anywhere but we’ve had the debate, there are about three women on Australian TV over fifty, and most countries have banned stoning.

I know I should be grateful, but you know what, sometimes grateful just doesn’t cut it.

When the Pippos clan gets together the stories flow. Some more authentic than others. High on the list is the one about my brother dacking me in front of my first ever crush. Hard to tell who was more horrified – me or the boy next door? To this day I haven’t been able to wear a tracksuit in public.

Then there’s the hilarious tale of my sister getting tangled up in the net at the base of the giant waterslide at Dreamworld in front of hundreds of other captivated Griswolds. Even now the image of Marina trying to extricate herself, her face locked in horror, makes me chuckle.

For gruesome value, nothing beats my brother’s extreme nosebleed on a family holiday to Sydney. Most onlookers thought he was an extra in a B grade horror flick. He always did have a knack of finding new ways of getting out of sightseeing.

All three are true and compelling in their own right but one story, more than any other, demands to be told over and over again.

In 1937, a devilishly handsome young man by the name of Spiros Pippos came out to Australia from the Greek island of Ithaca in search of a better life. He settled in western New South Wales, where he peeled potatoes out the back of a Greek cafe. From there, he headed north where he found some work on a banana plantation and this is where the story gets juicy.

He broke the golden rule – he fell in love with the property owner’s daughter – which wasn’t a good idea in the 1930’s with a name like Spiros Pippos.

The star-crossed lovers met whenever they could, wherever they could, away from the prying eyes of her family and the local community. Thankfully Spiros was resourceful like the most famous of Ithacans, Odysseus – “A man of brawn who thinks.” If he weren’t, I probably wouldn’t be here today.

My pappou and his Australian sweetheart ran away in the middle of the night to be married, returning more defiant than ever. “You accept my husband or you don’t accept me”, my nanna told her parents. Even today at the age of 90 she raises her voice when she gets to this part of the story.

Her family’s unwillingness to accept my pappou was based on irrational fear and ignorance. He looked different, sounded different, smelt different, he liked different foods and he went to a different church. He was kind, hard-working and he adored his wife but that didn’t matter. He was just different. “Not one of us”, was the phrase so often heard in those days.

In time they accepted my pappou and for both families it became an enriching experience. From the sharing of food to the sharing of language, laughter and ideas it was mutually rewarding. And continues to be for the generations that followed.

Why do I love this story? As a young girl I loved the romance of it. It was my family’s version of Romeo and Juliet without the unfortunate poisoning in Act V. And yes, I’d be lying if I said the “up yours” to authority didn’t appeal to me too. But as I grow older the story takes on added meaning, especially now as the nation debates the merits of multiculturalism.

For me this story is now about hope and optimism.

Stories of racism targeting Greek (and other post war migrants) have largely disappeared. My father is now proudly Stavros after years of being “Steve” and my mother’s name, Athena, doesn’t attract the same confused look it once did.

And this weekend tens of thousands of people will flock to the Antipodes Festival Glendi in Lonsdale Street – a souvlaki in one hand and a slice of baklava in the other – celebrating all things Greek, not thinking too much about the struggle that came before. Non-Greek coffee lovers may well know the difference between a sketo, a metrio and a glyko and most non-Greeks will have some idea of what to do when the bouzouki starts playing the Zorba.

For this we can thank multiculturalism.

The hope and optimism I take from my family story is for those who have come to Australia after my people – whether they be migrants searching for a better life or refugees seeking asylum. My own little story shows attitudes change. People change.

Let’s celebrate difference not denigrate it.