As an aspiring Lady Writer (or as feminist writer, Inga Muscio, provocatively calls herself, a ‘Word C*nt’), I was intrigued by author, Maureen Johnson’s Twitter project for her followers to ‘Redesign book covers by Literary Dudes, imagining they have been reclassified as by and for women.’ Johnson’s project, ‘Coverflip,’ shows us how there is a…
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A life-sized Barbie Dreamhouse is opening in Europe, in what newspaper articles call a feminist nightmare. And they are not the only ones a bit perturbed by the idea, with more than 1700 supporters joining the ‘Occupy Barbie Dreamhouse’ facebook page since it was started in March. When I agreed to write this article, I…
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Israeli Justice Minister, Tzipi Livni, has announced the drafting of legislation that will outlaw all gender-based segregation in public spaces. ‘Today, I instructed the Justice Ministry to draft legislation … that will make any segregation of women and their humiliation in a public space a criminal offense,’ Livni posted on her Facebook account. The proposed…
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As we saw at the end of Mad Men season five (Spoiler alert!), the luxury car industry was especially sexist in the ‘60s. However, when it comes to gender and cars, not much has changed. Technology plays a significant role in our everyday lives today, as does our gender. In fact, the two are often…
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Six months out from the federal election, shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, refuses to be drawn on the Coalition’s policy stance regarding women in executive positions. Addressing an audience of 350 women at the Executive Women of Australia’s inaugural leadership symposium, Joe Hockey expressed his support for mentoring programs as a way of redressing the…
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I hope you like Mexican food because we don’t have the usual sausage sizzle organized for this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award. It is tacos for everyone! Just a few days ago the 2013 Miles Franklin judging panel unveiled an all-female shortlist—the first in the awards 57-year history: Floundering by Romy Ash (Text) Questions…
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This week is Bluestocking Week, a week of festivities held to recognize and celebrate the participation and achievements of women in higher education. Much of the progress made by and for women in terms of access to a university education can be attributed to the birth of women’s studies in the late ‘60s-‘70s, which actively…
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I am an only child and I hate sharing, particularly bathrooms. As I have the pleasure of being a poor uni student and still live at home, I must tolerate my mother’s house guests using my amenities. My mother and I live alone with no man in sight except for when we occasionally wave to…
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A Melbourne doctor has revealed that a Victorian couple demanded an abortion because the woman was carrying a girl. In response, obstetricians have proposed keeping a foetus’s sex a secret until it is too late to terminate the pregnancy. Dr Mark Hobart revealed in an interview with the Sunday Herald Sun that the couple wanted…
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Last weekend I found myself at a baby shower. It was held in the park on a glorious Sydney Sunday. The mother is having a girl and so we found ourselves surrounded by pink paraphernalia: cupcakes with tiny sugar shoes, cranberry juice and pink champagne, and of course, a pile of presents wrapped in candy…
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Janine Rostron is a bit of a personal hero of mine- I’m just going to chuck that disclaimer out right from the start. Go and watch her latest single Misxgyny Drxp Dead under the moniker Planningtorock and you’ll know exactly where my kiddish adoration springs from. Her commitment to pushing boundaries in sound, video and…
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‘Me Tarzan. You Jane.’ Men are assertive. Women are nurturers. Women scrapbook and men play videogames. Men want no-strings sex while women seek intimacy and love. We have defined the difference between the sexes for centuries by grouping behaviour into masculine or feminine categories, believing that’s just the way it is. We’re made that way….
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By now, we all know the story of JK Rowling, who, at the request of her publisher, published the Harry Potter books using her initials, instead of her full first name. Her publisher believed the book would appeal to boys, and thought boys wouldn’t want to read the book if they saw a woman’s name…
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Joumana Haddad is a truly a remarkable woman. Born in Beirut in 1970, she speaks and writes in several different languages, is an advocate for women’s rights, is studying for her doctorate on the Marquis de Sade and also teaches Italian at the Lebanese-American University in Beirut. I was so inspired after I read and…
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