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Keywords: Feminism

  • AUSTRALIA

    I'm not hysterical. I'm angry

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 04 October 2018
    12 Comments

    Tone policing describes when someone from a minority group expresses thoughts on oppression, but a person dismisses the content of their opinion in favour of commenting on how they said it. Anger in particular is tone policed. While men are encouraged to express their anger, women are socialised to feel like they can't be angry at all.

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  • MEDIA

    Trickle-down white feminism doesn't cut it

    • Laura La Rosa
    • 27 June 2018
    16 Comments

    #MeToo, a movement founded and nurtured by Tarana Burke (a civil rights activist and a woman of colour), was intended to be collective and accessible. By contrast, in Australia we are seeing a mainstream picture of women's liberation that ignores a longstanding struggle for diversity, genuine inclusiveness and radicalism.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    New ways of gauging films' feminist cred

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 22 March 2018
    1 Comment

    The Bechdel test, which deems there must be two named female characters who talk to each other about something other than men, has become shorthand for gauging gender imbalance in films. But it isn't always a good test. If you take the rules literally, Suicide Squad, which is aggressively misogynistic, passes on a technicality.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Germaine Greer at Heathrow

    • Ian C. Smith
    • 26 February 2018
    1 Comment

    I once read The Female Eunuch, the only bloke taking a course on feminism, admired Greer's chutzpah, knew she lived in England where I came to dwell on the edge of belonging. I mourn unplanned lives, mine, others', back stories, each of us carrying private clouds of sadness. What happened next, that distant dawn?

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  • PODCAST

    Eva Cox on macho economics and the feminist lens

    • Podcast
    • 07 February 2018
    1 Comment

    In many ways, feminism has pushed the boundaries of where and how women participate in the economy. But there is a deepening sense that this has not been enough. So what got missed? Prominent academic and feminist Eva Cox discusses the impact of neoliberalism on women, and why the social lens is more critical than ever. 

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    The rise of Iran's feminist resistance

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 02 February 2018
    1 Comment

    Yasmin opens the book and runs a lacquered fingernail down its table of contents. 'How we can seduce a man and not fall in love,' she reads. Then: 'How we can learn to keep secrets from men.' Is the government okay with this? 'What can you do?' Yasmin shrugs. 'Everybody knows people fall in love, have sex. This is how life works.'

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Courting women's and gay rights

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 27 September 2017
    2 Comments

    The showdown between Bill Jean King and self-styled 'chauvinist pig' Bobby Riggs came at a time when King and other women tennis pros were protesting against unequal pay, and while King herself was coming to terms with her identity as a gay woman. A film about the match and its context should have plenty to say to present day socio-politics of sexuality and gender. But this one suffers from an identity crisis.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Raising feminist men in 1970s America

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 07 June 2017

    Abbie introduces Jamie to the paired liberating movements of punk rock and second-wave feminism. Both lead to illuminating experiences, from his first rock concert, use of alcohol, and kiss, to being beaten for casting aspersions on a peer's grasp of female sexual anatomy. His relationship with Julie on the other hand provides a difficult counterpoint. His peevish concern over her promiscuity is largely possessive; his theoretical understanding of women's agency falling down in the face of adolescent hormones.

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  • RELIGION

    Muslim feminists have their work cut out for them

    • Rachel Woodlock
    • 29 May 2017
    9 Comments

    I used to have a t-shirt that read 'this is what a radical Muslim feminist looks like' and I got my fair share of raised eyebrows and challenging questions. The most obvious group that thinks Muslim feminism is oxymoronic are those who we've started to call the 'alt-right'. This group salivates over images of burqa-clad Muslim women scuttling in fear from their bearded oppressors. It is not that they want to free Muslim women so much as it is they don't want the Brown Man ruling.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Lament of a pro-life feminist

    • Kate Moriarty
    • 10 March 2017
    51 Comments

    I'm what you might call a feminist outsider. I'm passionate about the rights of women. I believe every girl should have the opportunity to be educated, and that workplaces need to become more accommodating of families. I spend a worrying amount of time shouting 'You wouldn't say that if she were a man!' to commentators on the radio. I'd like to be called a feminist. But I don't think I'm allowed to be. You see, I also believe a baby is a person before she is born. And I believe that person has rights.

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  • MEDIA

    Conversations about rape

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 09 March 2017
    5 Comments

    Last Monday, there was a Q and A discussion about feminism and women's rights. On the panel was Thordis Elva, an anti-violence campaigner known for hosting a TED Talk with her rapist Tom Stranger. The debate emulated my own internal monologue. Is there a place for rapists in the conversation about rape? Did I want to hear what a rapist had to say? At the time I was on the phone to someone close to me who had been sexually assaulted in the past. Would I want her anywhere near her rapist again?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Feminist 'us first, you later' mentality doesn't work

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 07 March 2017
    5 Comments

    International Women's Day was founded in women's rights movements across Europe, demanding better labour conditions as well as calls for suffrage. So though these days it is primarily about celebrating the achievements of women, it is rooted in feminist protest and activism. In the spirit of the 2017 theme #BeBoldForChange, I think we should change it up a little. While it is important to look back on the achievements of feminism, we should also look back to learn how to be better for the future.

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