The Equality Illusion by Kat Banyard is a great book to read if you haven’t yet read any other feminist non-fiction. I say this because while it was well written, powerful and convincing, overall it didn’t give me anything I hadn’t already read about elsewhere. If I had read this before everything else though, I…
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The High Tea is back and in a big way; it’s our trendy new thing to do and it’s not hard to understand why. Tea-sipping ladies wearing their Sunday best while indulging in sweet treats and juicy gossip? What’s not to love! Here’s your chance to enjoy that luxury and do something worthwhile at the…
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Finding something that makes you laugh hysterically, clutch your chest at a shared painful memory and then reminisce fondly on the way you fumbled through it is really quite difficult. It’s pretty hard to write something that one person, let alone thousands, can relate to like this, but Caitlin Moran has done just that in…
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This book by Leora Tanenbaum is all about growing up female with a bad reputation. It is novel about slut bashing, sexual encounters and the horrors of group mentality. Primarily it all comes down to sexual inequality and the problems it is causing. My favourite part about this book is the afterword because it includes…
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I’ve been watching SBS after 10.30pm on Fridays again… They always seem to feature documentaries on ‘uncomfortable topics’. Brothels, prostitutes, nudity. Most recently, SBS featured one on genitalia. The documentary was made in relation to the growing trend of girls and women, of basically all ages, feeling as though they need surgery on their vagina/vulva…
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Name: Melissa Wellham Age: 22 Occupation: Student / Freelance Writer / Blogger How would you describe yourself and your life? I’m a movie buff, word nerd, music snob, mag hag, comic book aficionado and political hack – and like to write about all these things, for various publications and on my blog. I studied…
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As a movement, and speaking in very general terms, feminism has been guilty of marginalising the voices of other people. While it has been rejected on ignorant grounds which rely on stereotypes (feminists are hairy, scary people who hate men and burn undergarments), it has also been quite fairly rejected on the grounds that it…
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The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler is a book I honestly believe every man, woman and young adult should read – excuse the cliché. It is unlike anything I have ever read before and was so gripping that I read it in one very emotional sitting. The book was first written in 1966 after Ensler…
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Name: Cath Bateman & Josie Swords Age: Combined age of 50(ish) Occupation: Co-founders of feminaust.org How would you describe yourself and your life? Our lives are quite similar in that we are both very busy (Cath thrives on chaos), live in the same street, are generally the ‘feminists’ at every party/event/social encounter and proudly disagree…
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In ‘Female Chauvinist Pigs’ author Ariel Levy questions what it means to be sexy today. Her search takes her all over America into strip clubs, women’s living rooms and onto a Florida beach where girls are encouraged to strip off their clothes for the cameras of hit TV show ‘Girls Gone Wild’. She finds a…
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Name: Stephen Benko-Nehme Age: 31 Occupation: Library / AV Technician How would you describe yourself and your life? I’m a Western Caucasian male nearing middle age, living in middle-class suburbia. Why are these specific details important? Because my relatively easy existence alluded to by my demographic puts me in a unique position – I…
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The main thing I learnt by reading this book is that the sexism that existed pre-1950s is definitely sneaking back into society. While today it is mostly swept under the rug and hidden away, there remain aspects that are right out in the open just begging us, as women, to make a move to change…
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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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Sex sells. I’m not denying that, but it shouldn’t have to be used to sell everything. Anyone with even an online advertising degree would agree. There was a time when advertisements for socks didn’t include a mostly nude woman lying in a provocative pose just to guarantee sales. Now it seems that the advertising world…
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