My latest piece at Overland Journal — “Not a crisis of misogyny: a crisis of political authority” — went up yesterday. It was written in response to a series of recent arguments on the Left, most especially “If Julia Gillard isn’t safe from the Liberals’ sexism, who will be?” by Van Badham, which appeared in The Guardian [...]
15 Jan
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For ease of reference I have copied and pasted a debate on the connections between women’s oppression and the capitalist mode of production that started with a blog post by Richard Seymour at Lenin’s Tomb. I have copied that opening post as well as my reply, Richard’s rejoinder and a further reply from myself. The debate ranged [...]
13 Apr
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This post was first published at Overland Journal earlier this week. In high school my English teacher gave advanced reading to students who were keen, and the first novel was To Kill A Mockingbird. Harper Lee’s book is a story of racism in the American South, as everyone knows, but it also included a salutary lesson [...]
25 Jan
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Here is a link to my article on feminism, published yesterday at the ABC’s The Drum website. I don’t call myself a feminist. But some of my best friends are feminists.
21 Dec
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Photo of Cairo street art by Hossam el-Hamalawy. A new issue of the journal Interface was released last week, announcement below. Volume 3/2 (November 2011): Feminism, women’s movements and women in movement Issue editors: Sara Motta, Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Catherine Eschle, Laurence Cox Volume three, issue two of Interface, a peer-reviewed e-journal produced and refereed by social movement practitioners [...]
03 Jun
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It seems each day there is a new item in an Australian newspaper or online forum about the nature, intention and value of SlutWalk. My lunch breaks of late have been reduced to reading articles and poring over the comments. The related discussion on Twitter seems equally unstoppable, and just when I think the [...]
08 Jan
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Now cross-posted at the Overland Journal blog. One Dimensional Woman is Nina Power’s 69-page treatise and call to arms, articulately railing against contemporary portrayals of women. Power’s anger is at the narrow confines within which women must locate themselves, and the “trademarking” of feminism for a range of projects that are harmful rather than liberatory. Acutely sharp in [...]
07 Nov
As I wrote previously, Stephen Fry was under fire earlier this week for making comments regarding women’s sexuality. Subjected to condemnation, he left Twitter and nothing further was heard from him. Since then he has published a piece on his website, explaining himself: I suppose the keenest disappointment I feel about the past week and the almost [...]
04 Nov
Stephen Fry has quit Twitter. Some are saying that his tweet, “So some fucking paper misquotes a humorous interview I gave, which itself misquoted me and now I’m the Antichrist. I give up.” and his subsequent, “Bye bye” is a “hissy fit”. Maybe. We’re all entitled to bad behaviour. I also wonder if it is a reaction [...]
05 Aug
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Soon after becoming leader, Mr Abbott stated in parliament “I have even been accused from time to time of flirting with the deputy Prime Minister”. And in rising to congratulate him, Ms Gillard reciprocated the banter with “obviously I know Tony well, we spent a lot of time chasing each other round…we were for a [...]
22 Jun
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