This year’s Head On Photo Festival, a celebration of photography exhibited in various locations across Sydney, presents a range of poignant photographic surveys dealing with diverse subjects, including a plethora of topical social issues. Many of these issues are related to, or a consequence of gender inequality in international contexts. The voice of these issues…
Read more
The ‘joys’ of motherhood are undoubtedly lost on me. The inverted commas that I have deliberately and strategically placed around ‘joys’ say it all. Mind you, I have never experienced being a mother for myself, so of course I wouldn’t know. But I have my conspiracy theories. I have heard too many horror stories…
Read more
Dear Princess, You were less than a week into the world and already people were placing bets on you. You will probably need to get used to this. It started before you were born, even. Gamblers were pooling money to guess what your name would be. Charlotte. A diminutive form of the masculine Charles,…
Read more
Full of sex, criminality and queer-dom, it’s little wonder why Orange is the New Black (OITNB) has amassed a devoted following. The show launched in July 2013, and quickly shot to the leader board for Netflix’s most popular shows. Responding to pleas, producers will release the third season late this June. Inane at times, the…
Read more
Growing out of the Women’s Art Movements of the 1970s, a new movement of Mother Artists is gathering strength in Australia and internationally. Intertwined: Exhibiting Mother Artists, at the Australian National University School of Art in Canberra, shows the range of social concerns that feminist mother artists are aesthetically and culturally addressing: What is a…
Read more
Earlier this year, Netflix Australia was launched in an effort to reach a larger worldwide audience with its services that continue to replace any need for cable TV for most people. And while the original launch only included 1,500 shows, it’s anticipated that it will continue to release new content as time progresses to bring…
Read more
Australian actress Rose Byrne recently announced the formation of a new local production company, endearingly named The Dollhouse Collective. The group, made up of Byrne, actress/director Gracie Otto, actress/writer Krew Boylan, director Shannon Murphy, and publicist/producer Jessica Carrera, has been put together with one aim in mind: to redress the film industry’s gender imbalance….
Read more
It is a murky practice that is rarely discussed within its own culture, let alone outside it. Khadija Gbla is a nationally recognised spokesperson and survivor of Female Genital Mutilation. ‘I didn’t even know what Female Genital Mutilation was growing up, I never heard of it being spoken of,’ Khadija says. Khadija, aged 27, was…
Read more
In my experiences of working in retail, I’ve been pretty fortunate in regards to sexism. Apart from a few stand-out occurrences, most of my working retail life has been sexism-free, at least on the surface. However, the few times when I have been made to feel uncomfortable – because I happen to identify as female…
Read more
Xavier Dolan’s Mommy (released on April 9) brims with an exuberance that threatens to split its very illusion at the seams. Violence brews just beneath the surface of chaotic and charming almost-teenager Steve’s countenance (played by Antoine-Olivier Pilon). Diagnosed vaguely by his mother with “ADHD… attachment disorder” he is thrust back into her life when…
Read more
Meet Harnaam Kaur, a 24 year old British teacher’s aide and anti-bullying activist who happens to have a whopping great beard. The self-proclaimed “Bearded Dame” was diagnosed with a hormonal disorder called Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) at age 11. This relatively common disorder – affecting 12-18% of women of reproductive age – is diagnosed based…
Read more
We are all aware of Kickstarter and Pozible campaigns: a slew of projects all worth supporting that are vying for our attention and our jingling pockets. Well, sometimes a particular campaign can really make you want to dig deep because it hits a note within you. With Madeleine Ryan’s GINESTHOI, I felt something stir in…
Read more
Electroconvulsive Therapy: kind of conjures up images of sterile hospital rooms with old-world medical machinery attached to a helpless young woman strapped to a gurney. Well, sadly, if you pictured that image, you would have been pretty close to the truth. Electroconvulsive Therapy, otherwise known as ECT, was a form of treatment used primarily in…
Read more
Friendships are as complex and varied as the people in them. It’s one thing for a film to pass the Bechdel test, but it’s sometimes hard to find in depth explorations of female friendship. These films are some of my favourites, and they all contain very different yet interesting portrayals of girlfriends. Thelma &…
Read more
