This is the story of a crime. This is the story of a miracle. There are two stories here. Catherine Noske’s debut novel The Salt Madonna is set on the fictional island of Chesil, where a single terrible event begets religious hysteria that threatens to destroy a close-knit community. The book, which was a decade in…
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This time of year is an excitingly busy one for the Lip team. We work for months to put together what we believe to be a worthwhile writing competition: we come up with a theme that we hope writers will find creatively inspiring and engaging; we contact potential sponsors to contribute to our prize pool;…
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We launched the Rachel Funari Prize for Fiction in 2013 in honour of Lip’s founding editor, Rachel Funari, to recognise her lasting contribution to the arts and her determination to better the opportunities extended to young women. As many of our readers may know, Rachel passed away unexpectedly in 2011 and we hope that by…
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Women can avoid rape by staying at home, says Indian politician This just in: your vagina is like a car and to avoid “accidents”, it’s best you keep it parked at home. At least that’s what Indian politician Kodela Shiva Prasad said while speaking at a press conference before the National Women’s Parliament in Amravati. ‘When…
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Eve Ensler’s still-controversial – and bloody brilliant – The Vagina Monologues has been performed in cities all over the world since its New York City debut in the mid ’90s. It has sparked conversation, debate, and revere, and this weekend, in honour of the grassroots social justice movement it inspired – V-Day – The Vagina…
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Here’s a round-up of the things that caught our eye this week. From the Interwebs Egyptian cleric says it’s OK for a man to spy on a woman while she showers – so long as he intends to marry her. And in news a bit closer to home, a NSW man who filmed women in…
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Ahhh, Tony Abbott, so you’ve done it again, huh? During an interview on ABC Radio Wednesday morning, the Hon. Tony Abbott MP, leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister of this dinky-di land of ours, was busted on camera winking and grinning after a caller to the radio show – who wanted to discuss…
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High-profile writer and feminist, Anne Summers has dutifully “congratulated” our PM Tony Abbott on his recent conversion to feminism and his adoption of ‘the principles of equality of the sexes’ – but not before offering him some advice ‘on how to ensure his government and polices are, in fact, feminist.’ In the Sydney Morning Herald,…
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Sydney University magazine censored for controversial vagina cover The latest edition of Sydney University’s student-run magazine, Honi Soit, has been pulled from campus shelves as its front cover, which features uncensored photos of students’ vaginas, has been deemed a criminal offence. According to a statement on the magazine’s Facebook page, the cover was intended as…
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Robin Thicke has defended his much-criticised hit, ‘Blurred Lines’, in an interview with BBC Radio 1 on Wednesday. He claimed, among other things, that the lyrics are anything but misogynistic, and could even be empowering to women. ‘For me, [the lyrics are] about blurring the lines between two things. One, men and women and how…
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The doctor drew the curtains, asked me to remove my pants and underwear and position myself, legs apart, on the exam table. It was my first pap smear, I was 18, and I did as he asked. (But I refused to remove my sunglasses. Smear chic, y’all.) ‘There’s no need to be nervous’, he said….
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Tunisian Woman Vows to Bare Breasts Again. Tunisian woman Amina Tyler, who sparked controversy last month when she exposed her breasts online in protest and was subsequently committed to a psychiatric facility by her family, fled captivity this week and vowed to continue to use her body as a symbol of protest. In a video…
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Biennial pap smears – it’s just what we do, right? Well a paper prepared by the Medical Services Advisory Committee suggests that not only should women screen for pap tests less often, but we should also delay our first test – advice that’s raised concerns among cervical cancer advocates that women’s lives could be put…
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Teen rapists convicted in Steubenville, Ohio. If you’ve kept on top of the news this week, then you’ve likely read about the Steubenville rape case and the conviction of teen footballers Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond. The boys, aged 17 and 16 respectively, were convicted of rape, each receiving the minimum sentence for their crimes…
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