We’re all pretty familiar by now with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl: the term coined by the AV Club’s Nathan Rabin to describes characters such as Natalie Portman’s Sam in Garden State, and pretty much every character played by Zooey Deschanel over the past few years. They’re essentially designed to catalyse a male protagonist’s development,…
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Albert Nobbs was a labour of love for Glenn Close. The Oscar-nominated actress performed the role in the stage production of George Moore’s short story in the eighties, and was so taken by the character that she would co-write the screenplay and produce the film. It underwent a series of transformations over time, which is…
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Men’s magazines aren’t generally known for fostering positive attitudes towards women, if at all. However, a recent study conducted by psychologists in the UK has revealed that most participants in the study could not readily distinguish comments made in popular men’s magazines from quotes from interviews with convicted rapists. Men between the ages of 18…
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As someone who is studying Primary School Teaching, and who previously studied Social Work, it was only a matter of time before I started talking about this issue. Namely the idea of ‘women’s work’ and ‘men’s work’ and how this idea still seems to be so prevalent in our society. In my social work class there…
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Today marked a momentous occasion for any man. One of those coming-of-age milestones (no, not of the sexual nature) but rather an event that made me realise that I am indeed encroaching on a new phase in my life in that I may actually be one of these adults I hear so much about… I…
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Christmas can prompt pretty ridiculous purchases (tis the silly season, after all). Even so, the concept of syringes and permanent marker on flabby body parts are not exactly festive imagery. Given that plastic surgery and anti-aging processes are actually pretty gory, what’s with their creeping into the market as a new Christmassy gift possibility? The…
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This new column will summarise events that have happened in the last week relevant to women, feminism, and sexuality and link you to related articles. It will also offer a brief analysis on some stories. Please feel free to give us feedback! You can read last week’s round-up here. This week has a mixture of…
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I was sitting with my ma when I told her I wanted to get portfolio photos taken so I could apply for minor acting and host roles, when she turned and said to me “You’d better stop shaving your head then.” We all know that I have a history of cutting my hair very short…
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Babies, babies, babies are everywhere. There are so many people around me having babies lately. They’re little and cute and completely underestimated by the majority of the adult population. With the knowledge that the first five years of a child’s life are the most influential, it seems crucial that everything that surrounds these early learning…
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Recent reforms and policy decisions related to maternity leave may be to the delight of women throughout Australia, but new research shows that such policies do not overcome the serious wage toll suffered by women who decide to take time off work in order to be the primary carer of a child. Paid parental leave…
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‘Jordan texted me 49 times last night,’ Momo told me as she walked into work one morning. Jordan was a guy that Momo had been seeing (exclusively, but still “seeing”) for a few weeks, and as more facts came to light (he was drunk, and they were largely sentence fragments varying between ‘please come get…
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The brand of feminism has suffered considerably over the years. I’m not sure when exactly it happened, but somewhere along the line, being a feminist became a really ugly label, one that apparently means you’re an angry, humourless, hairy-legged man-hater. No one wants to be associated with that image. Girls and women are always careful…
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In the 1970s, Robin Morgan said that ‘pornography is the theory, rape is the practice’. She was an integral part of the Women Against Pornography association, which had set-up an office in New York City, setting up tours to show interested people, even high school students, the places around the city which exploited the bodies…
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I think I was Googling something rather pathetic like ‘why do men lie’ (which speaks volumes either about the men I foolishly fall in love with, or the pitiful level of desperation I’ve succumbed to) when I somehow came across Dick Masterson’s Men are Better Than Women blog. Now, I’m going on the assumption that…
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