Now, I’ll be honest. I was always a FEMEN-naysayer. I found their protest methods bizarre from the beginning, and couldn’t shake the feeling that just ‘raising awareness’ of issues through the use of bare breasts and sensationalist news stories isn’t entirely effective when it comes to the broader feminist movement. I have had many an…
Read more
(Image via Flickr) Four men have been convicted in New Delhi over the gang rape and murder of a 23 year old physiotherapy student onboard a moving bus in December last year. The victim was viciously assaulted by the group for an hour before being thrown from the bus along with a male friend she…
Read more
Torrents of misogynistic abuse, both online and off, is nothing new. Anybody who dares to present as female and exist in a public space is almost certainly going to experience street harassment at some point, and the age of the internet has allowed misogyny to establish itself in a new, more anonymous format. Somewhat dubiously…
Read more
In case we weren’t convinced yet that she’s the queen of controversy, a recently leaked song from Lady Gaga’s forthcoming album, ARTPOP, has the pop singer regaling us with half-formed, ignorant lyrics about the burqa. The song, either entitled ‘Aura’, or ‘Burqa’, includes the lyrics ‘I’m not a wandering slave I am a woman of…
Read more
I was tempted to ignore the Federal Election completely this fortnight. Really I was. The problem is, half of my job at the moment involves candidates, announcements and mud slinging, so a good half of my brain space has been cleared out to stuff the facts in. There’s an inevitable spill over into the rest…
Read more
‘Daily feminist news’ collects news stories from around the world and brings them to you, Lip reader. If you have any stories to add, let us know in the comments below. Liberal candidate Kevin Baker pulls out of election after sexist website surfaces Kevin Baker announced he would not run in the election after…
Read more
The 1960s is associated with many things; flower power, great music, Woodstock and free love. There was also a darker side which is equally well documented, the Vietnam War, political movements and the racial and social tensions of this period. Many of these elements were explored in the Australian movie The Sapphires, based on…
Read more
Don’t let the subtle references to rape and slut-shaming, and the less subtle, all-out objectification of women in Robin Thicke’s viral floor filler, Blurred Lines, cloud your judgment. Throw feminist Ryan Gosling under the bed like Woody in Toy Story 1, because Robin Thicke is our new feminist ally! He said so himself. In…
Read more
Professional networking site LinkedIn has been forced to reverse its decision to block images of female engineers posted by engineering company TopTal. TopTal CEO Taso Du Val wrote in a blog post that: ‘Today was a disappointing day at Toptal. We saw extreme sexism within the tech community, from an industry leader and advertising…
Read more
Before the leadership spill that removed her, then Prime Minister Julia Gillard gave a lengthy interview to Chloe Hooper for The Monthly magazine. She talked about the combative turn politics has taken, about Barack Obama, about her famous misogyny speech. She also talked about the sexism she was subjected to as a result of being…
Read more
In new research, the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has found that the Australian labour market is one of the most inequitable in the world when it comes to gender. The institute says that Australian women are consistently underpaid and underpromoted in comparison to men, resulting in an 18% gap between the average male…
Read more
Nobody likes to hear of animals suffering in the name of fashion, cosmetics or even entertainment. Sadly, horrible mistreatment still occurs, and the work of various animal rights activists can go a long way in raising public awareness and shaming abusers. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is one of these groups: conducting…
Read more
So you’re tired of your job, you’re well qualified and have bags of experience. You should be able to chuck it in and get a new one pretty quickly based on your impressive CV, right? Well, one Australian man had a completely different experience, with his CV leading to workplace discrimination rather than a fantastic…
Read more
If the back (and often front) cover of your local News Corp paper is anything to go by, sport is big news in this country. The last few months have been sufficient proof, if anyone needed any more, that a culture of sexism in sport continues to be tolerated – in fact – accepted, in…
Read more
