First came the now iconic ‘Dove Evolution’ clip, followed by the ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ earlier this year, two parts of cosmetics brand Dove’s “social mission” to ‘creat[e] a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety.’ Aww, ain’t that nice of them? Now, their follow up to these previously viral videos is the…
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I have to admit that sometimes the relentless one-dimensional portrayals of women in advertising and the media wear me down. I start to reach the point where I almost feel like I’m past caring; like it needs to be a very special kind of offensive for me to drum up any outrage. It’s not that…
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**Spoiler Alert: Scandal fans, you’ve been warned** It’s unfortunate, but Scandal, Shonda Rhimes’s successful network drama, has mostly come down to one word: Olitz. The show’s protagonist Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) and her lover Fitzgerald ‘Fitz’ Grant (Tony Goldwyn) have a romance so extraordinarily dysfunctional that a portmanteau was inevitable. It is a nifty hashtag…
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When I was in school in Singapore, my Primary Six class had a peculiar book called ‘The Slam Book’. One of the popular kids in the class started up this Slam Book, and in it, she wrote down the names of everyone in the class. She circulated it amongst the rest of us, and it…
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The rape and murder of Jill Meagher has shocked the Australian people. Now, as the trial against the accused, Adrian Bayley, unfolds and with sentencing set for today, it has become apparent that not only was Bayley known to police, but he held a significant criminal history. This history includes charges of rape, attempted rape,…
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Looking back at Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s now famous/infamous “Misogyny Speech” from last year, I am still filled with pride. Here was the Prime Minister of our country speaking up about issues that have, until recently, been swept back under the rug of our apparently post-feminist cultural milieu. Feminist issues have sometimes been understood to…
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When we are kids, people ask us what we want to be when we grow up, and the answers usually revolve around occupations. Do children ever answer ‘a homeowner’? And how does one decide they’ve reached grown up land? 21st birthday parties don’t really count anymore. We seem to have a picture of someone who…
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As a twenty-something self-proclaimed hipster from Tasmania, it might come as a surprise to hear that I have no interest in travel. I didn’t go on a gap year. I didn’t volunteer in Indonesia, teaching dispossessed orangutans to build sustainable housing. Sorry, guys, but I didn’t. But I have been on enough flights to know…
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I first heard about the protests in Turkey when I came across a picture on the Facebook page, The Real Art of Protest (TRAP). The photo showed a woman being hit in the chest by a great jet of tear gas at such force that her arms were slayed backwards. She looks a bit…
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