Many Women Go Homeless Around 46,000 women were homeless on Census night 2011, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, a good number of whom were sleeping on the street, or staying with friends or family or living in insecure/short-stay accommodation. Sixty six per cent of homeless children are accompanied by the care of a…
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Most Influential Australian Women Fairfax website Daily Life has compiled a list of Australia’s 20 Most Influential Female Voices. Prime Minister Julia Gillard takes out top honours, mostly for that misogyny speech. Gillard commented: ‘I thought I had given a hard-hitting speech but I didn’t have any inkling of the effect of it…I said to…
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Surge of Aboriginal Women in Jail An ABS report shows the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander female prisoners has risen by 20 per cent since June 2011, compared with a 3 per cent rise in non-Aboriginal female prisoners. The problem is not that Aboriginal women are simply innately more criminal, but rather they…
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Gillard calls out Abbott (again) The AWU scandal, involving allegations that Prime Minister Julia Gillard was responsible for unethical conduct back in her days as a lawyer at Slater and Gordon, just keeps going. On the last sitting day of Parliament this year, Abbott has called for a judicial inquiry into the matter and demanded…
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Before there was 50 Shades of Grey, there was Lace. Not that I’ve read 50 Shades (an admission which ironically undermines my status as a reviewer), but you think BDSM is shocking? Shirley Conran, author of Lace, describes it as ‘baby porn’. She shocked everyone with Lace, it’s frank discussions and depictions of sex (from…
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Uganda to pass bill to harshly punish homosexuality In Uganda, homosexual sex is already considered a crime. In 2009, lawmakers with the ruling party said a stronger law was needed to protect Uganda’s children from homosexuals. People in the party said that Western homosexuals in particular ‘recruited’ young Ugandans to the ‘gay lifestyle’. The bill…
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The Invisible Thread is an anthology of one hundred years of writing by those with an association to Canberra. Its launch in November will also mark the launch of Canberra’s official Centenary celebrations. Further, it is an official publication of The National Year of Reading 2012. The Invisible Thread will include short stories, essays, poetry,…
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Four more years thanks to feminism This week (just in case you missed it) Obama won the US Presidential election against his Republican opponent, Mick Romney. A survey by the pollsters YouGov of 36,000 Americans in final week of campaign gave the incumbent president a 12 point lead among women, by 56 per cent to…
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Historic: Equal Pay This week, legislation passed which will lock in equal pay increases for 150,000 social and community services sector workers. This legislation means that workers in one of Australia’s lowest paid industries, which comprises mostly of women, will enjoy a pay increase. The increases follow Fair Work Australia’s landmark decision in February to…
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Melbourne Reclaims the Night Following the death of Jill Meagher, Melbourne feminists held a Reclaim the Night event earlier this week. Around 5,000 people marched in order to take a stand against victim blaming and to campaign for the end to violence against women. Read a speech given at the event here. The many kinds…
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Gillard makes awesome speech while single parents get raw deal Earlier this week, lip reported on Julia Gillard’s speech which in fifteen minutes thoroughly took down Tony Abbott and labelled him a hypocrite for suggesting that she was being misogynistic because she wanted to leave the Peter Slipper affair to the courts. While mainstream journalists…
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Tony Abbott is a feminist now There are numerous politicians who call themselves “feminists” as a trick to pretend that their bizarre beliefs are pro-woman. Sarah Palin, for instance. Joining their ranks is Tony Abbott, who despite thinking that virginity is a girl’s ‘greatest gift’, proved once and for all that he is a feminist…
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Published in 1856, Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary was kind of obscene for tastes of the time. The book depicts the eponymous Emma Bovary have several affairs. The fact that it was put on trial for obscenity ensured the publication’s success. It became – and has largely stayed – a popular novel. Emma Bovary is a…
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Zoo Time opens with novelist and narrator, Guy Ableman being caught by police for stealing a copy of his own book from an Oxfam shop. Only, Guy doesn’t see it as ‘stealing’, rather he’s ‘releasing’ it from the gaze of a woefully stupid public. Author of Zoo Time and man booker prize award winning novelist,…
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