Women

Virginity has become been a hot topic of late, especially after the 29-year-old American Olympic hurdler, Lolo Jones revealed to HBO’s Real Sports program that she doesn’t want to have sex until marriage.

The interview – in which she called her extended abstinence “harder than training for the Olympics” – has further fueled Jones’ social media stardom. Her Twitter (@lolojones) following has jumped by 40 per cent since the news broke a week ago.

But why has virginity suddenly become such a popular discussion point? Should this kind of information be private or do we like to know the sexual history of not only celebrities and athletes, but also our friends? Do we admire people like Lolo coming forward and being so frank and honest about sex?

Continue reading "Women can lose their virginity whenever they want" »

Opposition Leader Isobel Redmond has sparked controversy over her advice that young women should sometimes just ignore discrimination.

Just get on with the job at hand, she said. SA Senator Penny Wong disagreed with the gently gently approach, saying: “I don’t think silence in the face of unfairness leads to greater equality.” Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick said if people didn’t complain change wouldn’t happen.

Listening to the talkback radio this morning showed there’s plenty of confusion about the issue. Some people thought she was telling people to stay quiet about sexual harrassment or bullying. What do you think? See what was said below.

Continue reading "Do women need to know when to walk away?" »

Positive discrimination is, if not dead, at least on life support with an overeager nurse reaching for the off switch.

That’s according to a decent-sized survey out today that found two thirds of Australia’s bosses will not mandate that females be included in shortlists for senior management positions.

I reckon I wouldn’t be alone in turning a blind eye to that nurse, and wanting quotas put out of their misery. There are much better ways to achieve workplace diversity.

Continue reading "Time to put ‘positive discrimination’ down?" »

Here’s a theory on why true gender “equality” still, in 2012, eludes so many workplaces across the country. I’ve started to think that the reason for the achingly slow pace of change is because we are a nation of doubters.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a CEO or senior manager who doesn’t (publicly, anyway) agree with the premise that attracting and keeping more women can only boost their talent pool, that helping staff better mesh their work and home life would help morale and loyalty, and that putting more women in senior levels and on their boards can improve their company’s performance.

But that doesn’t mean their companies are necessarily following suit.

Continue reading "Less talk and more action on workplace diversity" »

You’re the worst mother in the world,” she yelled, running to her bedroom. “Well, go find another one,” I yelled back, because I’m mature like that.

It had been an awful morning. The cereal was wrong, the rockmelon too hard, the floor too cold. And those were just my complaints.

In that horrible way where one person’s mood dictates the others’, I’d PMTed my family. The dagger-infused hormones may have been coursing through my body, but by 7.03am, I’d infected the lot of them. “Will someone feed the damn cat,” I yelled, because that sort of tone is guaranteed to prompt one to say to the other, “Hey sis, I know you have homework – leave it to me.”

Continue reading "PMT alert! Quick kids, retreat to your bedrooms!" »

We live in a world where economics is valued. People in business get paid more than in most other professions. Yet business fails to recognise the talents of women. Repeatedly. Only 2 per cent of the ASX200 CEOs are female.

I’m old. I’m a baby boomer and was an expert in Affirmative Action in its early days. Affirmative Action is of course an oxymoron. Here in Australia we had no such thing as mandated affirmative targets for women in business or any kind of mandated action much at all.

Recent research by The Reibey institute in Australia showed that ASX500 companies with more women directors make more money for shareholders.  Return on Equity was 9.2 per cent versus an average 4.5 per cent. Those with no women on boards made a measly return of 0.5 per cent.

Continue reading "Are women caged in a masculine workplace?" »

Have you envied, admired or checked out another woman’s shoes, hair, handbag, clothes, figure or makeup today?  Walked into a party and seen a woman surrounded by men and thought: slut? Breathed a sigh of relief when your ex’s new girlfriend turned out to be fatter, uglier or poorer than you?

Welcome to the world of female competition where nothing is as it seems. Competition is not a gender issue - we all compete, men and women, but it’s how it manifests in young girls that grow into adult women that is alarming. 

Female competition is covert and under the radar because girls are rarely taught that competing openly with other girls is OK.  By the time most of them hit a team sport where they could potentially be encouraged to openly compete the damage is already done.

Continue reading "Sisters are doing it to themselves… and each other" »

Blindfolded in a room, I could smell her. I could seek her out, smack kisses on both cheeks as is her continental preference, feel the swing of thick red hair, then throw off the blindfold to laugh into eyes as dancingly brown as mine are blue.

My friend. My lovely long-distance friend with whom I’ve traversed nearly half my life in conversation as tangential as it is profound; hair, husbands, miscarriages, mothers, books, babies, crumb-wiping, bum-wiping – all tumbling out down the phone. A lifeline of succour and good sense.

I can’t imagine life without her, or the other half-dozen women who both anchor and buoy my world. Friendship, I’ve learnt, is a love story as sweeping and sustaining as anything you’ll find in a romance novel.

Continue reading "How can women function without friendship?" »

At the Beijing Olympics, Australian women took home eight of our 14 gold medals. At the Vancouver Winter Games, women won both our golds. Our last tennis Grand Slam champion was a woman, our last golfing World Number One was a woman, our last cricket world champs were women, our last world surfing champ was a woman and our best horses at the moment are all female too.

That last point might seem a trivial addition, but Black Caviar has reminded us all lately that you don’t need dangly wedding tackle to be a sporting superstar. Gai Waterhouse’s mare More Joyous and Mark Kavanagh’s filly Atlantic Jewel both also won emphatically on the weekend, just in case anyone missed the point,

Without question, these three lady steeds are easily the best horses currently racing in Australia. And it’s an interesting coincidence that Black Caviar will lead the equine Aussie charge in England this northern summer, just as our females will do likewise at the London Olympics.

Continue reading "The female of the species is more sporting than the male" »

As best I know, Australia has no true accounts of white people being kidnapped or rescued and raised by tribal Aborigines. In America’s West, punitive parties were always on the search for white women held captive by the feared Comanche tribes of Texas and New Mexico.

Repatriating stolen white women was a considerable political and military issue, so much so that it arguably contributed to the destruction of the Comanche people, the largest and most warrior-like of the native American tribes.

In Australia, stories of Aborigines raising whites really only exist in fiction. There’s Michael “Crocodile” Dundee, born in a Northern Territory cave and raised by a helpful tribe that schooled him in his broad Australian accent.

Continue reading "Stolen and raised by a different tribe" »

WhenI started this column, I vowed I wouldn’t write about my weight. Or diets. I figured if you’re female, you have enough going on in your own head. If you’re male, well, you don’t need it confirmed that we’re all bonkers.

But I’m not one for self-imposed rules. And with so many young women seeing body image as the greatest concern of their lives, I don’t think ignoring it is going to help. So, let’s talk about weight. We’ll start with mine.

For the past few years, I’ve had no idea what I weigh. I’m a words, not a numbers girl, so rather than curse the scales, I’ll realise my thighs feel a bit flabby, or – as has been the case this autumn – my jeans are a bit tight.

Continue reading "I’d rather climb a mountain than stick to a “diet”" »

It was the line that brokered the ceasefire of the century: “Let’s declare peace in this phony war and go back to focus on the substance.”

With that simple sentence came a halt in the so-called “mummy wars” between working and non-working mothers - just as a fresh bucket of kero had been dumped on the embers this month by campaigning US politicians and their media-savvy wives.

This olive branch was delivered by Democratic consultant and working mother Hilary Rosen by way of apology to Ann Romney, Republican candidate Mitt Romney’s wife and a stay-at-home mother to five. Rosen had controversially accused Mrs Romney of “not having worked a day in her life”. Naturally, an online skirmish followed, with plenty of publicity smart-bombs.

Continue reading "The Mummy Wars are over. They never actually existed." »

Hey, equality lovers! Unsure whether to get all ideologically outraged and bra burny over the new Australian reality TV show WAG Nation? The solution is a simple commutation test away!

Oh, OK. Maybe commutation tests (which come from the arcane domain of semiotics) aren’t that simple. But they are useful when it comes to understanding why having a special word for the wives and girlfriends of elite sportsmen is so damn objectionable.

Commutation tests are a thought experiment which involve swapping one part of a text for another and then dwelling philosophically (preferably positioned like Rodin’s thinker) on the significance of any resulting changes in meaning .

Continue reading "This WAG Nation show simply does not commute" »

It’s called a glass ceiling because it’s invisible. There’s no roid-filled, bicep-thrusting bouncer at the door denying you entry, just a mysterious mix of gender-flavoured factors that prevent ascension.

On the other side of this barrier are the Chosen, bathing in their power, chuckling smugly at those stuck outside. They’re definitely involved in unholy rites and they shun both the patriarchy and the razor. And they’re probably lesbians.

It’s called the Sisterhood, and I have no idea who’s really in it or how you get in. I don’t think I’m in it, and I’m sure Samantha Brick won’t get a guernsey.

Continue reading "One divine secret about this ra-ra Sisterhood" »

As the body count has grown on the streets of Syria, and the people of Burma have enjoyed their first taste of democracy, the number-one issue which has dominated the opinion pages in the western world this past week has involved a column by an English woman called Samantha Brick who is worried about being too pretty.

Brick, a regular columnist with London’s Daily Mail, set some sort of world record for self-absorption with a 1000-word rumination on the curse of being attractive, specifically taking aim at her female friends (and ex-friends) for being intimidated by her apparently stunning looks.

The column was a shining demonstration of first world problems. Brick talked about how she dreaded going to dinner parties and would even dress as a frump so as to not show up the other poor women in attendance, who even then would pale in comparison to her untameable beauty.

Continue reading "Samantha Brick’s first world problem" »

As always, it’s tempting to blame everything on Ms Antithesis-of-“Germane” Greer.

Bloody Germaine. Doesn’t she realise there are enough misogynists taking pot shots at Julia Gillard without women’s libbers joining the mob?

Stubborn Germaine. When will she accept that Australia’s “stupid” media isn’t “making” her sound crazy by quoting her out of context; it’s simply quoting her?

Continue reading "Women just can’t win when it comes to our appearance" »

With a blockbuster film adapted from a popular book series, hot young cast and devoted fans, the dystopian epic that is The Hunger Games was always going to be compared to that other huge franchise, Twilight.

The books might sell the same theme: Teens vs the world. But they’re different where it counts.

After having to swallow Twilight’s mellow and passive lead heroine Bella, her Hunger Games counterpart Katniss comes as a breath of fresh ass-kicking air. Finally, there’s a popular teen heroine who can kick butt without a dude by her side.

Continue reading "Satisfying my hunger for an ass-kicking female heroine" »

How things have changed. When Jane Maas, a real life Mad Woman among the first wave of females to crack New York adland, started out in the ‘60s, women were were fired if they got pregnant and they were mainly secretaries – and if they did work on accounts it was only for domestic goods - and a client even once asked sympathetically of Maas: “Have you forgotten your steno (stenography/note-taking) pad, dear?’’ She was running the account at the time.

But that was the 1960s, and the women’s movement had yet to flex its typing-toned muscles. Today, it just seems ridiculous that they would be treated this way in the workplace.

Maas was one of the first working mothers in the industry, and despite the fact that its corridors of power were skirt-free zones she toughed it out and has written the tale Mad Women: The other side of Madison Avenue in the 1960s.

She made for fascinating listening on ABC radio recently when she confessed that in the wake of the outlandish hit series Mad Men, she is routinely asked “Were women really treated that badly? Were all those three-martini lunches real and was there all that sex in the office?’’ The answer to all three, she said, was ‘‘most definitely yes’‘.

Continue reading "Being a working mum is actually good for your health" »

If the new ARL Commission wants to do something positive about the involvement of women in rugby league, then they can get rid of the Cheerleaders.

The NRL can dress the players in pink, dedicate a round, hold lunches, media conferences, use supportive, inclusive language about women in league, but there’s an obvious hypocrisy when they still allow an outdated, irrelevant and demeaning use of women in the sport to take place at every game in every round.

They prove the game might have grown, but is yet to grow up. It’s baffling that when women can play such big roles in this sport as players, administrators, referees, physios, fans and commentators, why we still have these cheerleaders who do little more than objectify women into bouncing eye-candy.

Continue reading "I’ll lead the cheers when the NRL abolishes cheerleaders" »

I love men. Truly, I adore them: how they smell, the timbre of their voices, the sexiness of their forearms, their almost universal belief that life is better if you’re laughing along to it.

Perhaps I’ve been blessed with good ones: an ex-husband I’d happily still hug, a current husband who brings me to tears of laughter, a stepfather who treats my mum like gold, and many friends who’d be there in spades if my world fell to pieces.

That’s why I became a bit peeved recently when I went along to a feminist forum featuring trailblazers such as Germaine Greer and Naomi Wolf, and found some of them still peddling the man-hating schtick.

Continue reading "Women need “old” feminism like a fish needs a bicycle" »

Islam does not have a monopoly on sexism. The concept that sons hold a special place over and above daughters is not held solely by the more orthodox practitioners of the Muslim faith, but can be found to varying degrees across a range of cultures.

For example, at the suggestion of British Prime Minister David Cameron, our very own Royal Family is considering scrapping the system whereby the first-born son will always be the next in line to the throne. There’s a progressive idea. Equally, in a country such as Australia, built as it was through waves of migration, there are plenty of communities which have historically favoured sons over daughters on issues such as the carve-up of property, or where sons have always been deferred to as the decision-makers on any family issues purely on gender grounds.

But while this column is not intended as a generalised criticism of Islam in all its forms, I would argue that there is still a very specific problem when it comes to the treatment of women under the more conservative interpretations of the Islamic faith.

Continue reading "1400 years of tradition is no excuse for sexism" »

Two women in snappy heels and skirt-suits are sitting at a boardroom table, when one leans to the other in a break in the meeting and whispers, “He’s bought a Mini”. A look of sympathy crosses the face of the listener, as obviously this means the other woman’s poor husband is in the midst of a mid-life crisis.

“A Mini?”, she asks, looking concerned. “Yes, he’s bought a Mini, a bright red one. What next? Flower arranging? A new career in window dressing?”

Offensive, right? And sexist. And not very witty. That kind of ad would never get to air, would it? Well, probably not. But something that feels similarly jarring has been on TV lately, and, as Kimmy from Kath & Kim would say, it’s been really getting up my goat.

Continue reading "Jeepers, these sexist car ads are bugging me" »

At the very bottom of this piece on The Australian about the Forbes Billionaires List is this gem:

A new entrant, Sara Blakely, 41, joined the list with a fortune of $US1 billion, making her the youngest female self-made billionaire in the world. At the age of 29, Ms Blakely invested her $5000 life savings on developing Spanx when she could not find flattering knickers to wear under white trousers.

Her invention - stretchy, flesh-coloured underwear that is designed to smooth bulges under tight-fitting clothes - won over women around the world. Ms Blakely’s private company, which has never advertised and of which she holds 100 per cent, now makes annual revenue of just under $US250 million.

Is there anything more go-girlfriend than a 41-year-old self-made billionaire who got there by making middle-class women feel great about their bums?

Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.
Gloria Steinem, 1969

I love how old-fashioned this Gloria Steinem quote seems today. Women’s lives have changed dramatically over the past forty years.

This is especially true here in Australia, where women and men of my generation have grown up as equals.

Our notions of being held back are focused inward. We are self-reliant, independent and act with genuine ambition on our own terms. We are free to make our own choices, and spend our lives with people who encourage them.

Continue reading "On International Women’s Day, let’s thank the blokes" »

Today is a day to reflect on the progress made towards equality for women, but it is also a day to consider the road ahead.

We know that women are innovators who are increasingly making a serious impact in industry and in business. 

This is backed up by findings of the first national survey of women business owners and female entrepreneurs released this week.

Continue reading "Australian industry need women leaders" »

This week I received some bad news. OK, it wasn’t as worrisome as misplacing a child, but it was worse than having a bird poo on my head – which also happened.

Anyway, grab the tissue box because it’s a biggie. Here goes… I can’t wear black. Yep, I can no longer wear the colour that makes you look slim, hides bulges and camouflages bolognese spills (a more frequent occurrence than I’d care to admit). LBD? Gone. Skinny black jeans? Finito. Timeless Audrey Hepburn style turtleneck? History.

This news was delivered by wardrobe consultant Sally Souter, a no-nonsense lady who solves style issues. You see, I have outfits aplenty, and most days I take the trouble to get dressed. (I could dispense with the whole clothes caper on days I work from home, but it’s really not fair to frighten the tradesmen.) But whereas opening my closet used to be akin to tiptoeing into Narnia – tantalising and full of expectation – lately it’s held all the appeal of teeth flossing.

Continue reading "Saying goodbye to black" »

Two mates of mine – one large breasted, one small breasted – were talking about the first thing they’d do if their mammarial situations were reversed. They both said they’d go jogging on the beach without a bra.

Weird, huh? Boobs are weird. We can all agree that they’re great, but they’re also non-ergonomically designed appendages that need special treatment. Hence all the infomercialtainment time spent discussing the best wire/elastane/Kevlar combinations to mould them into the perfect shape.

Bras used to be such a simple affair. A bit of wire, a couple of cups. Straps. Now the industry is making mountains out of molehills and turning a simple chest restraining device into the lingerie equivalent of cricket’s Duckworth Lewis method.

Continue reading "Watch out - it’s a booby trap" »

Last week Tory Shepherd explained the seven things she’d miss about men if they vanished from the earth. Punch regular Erick commented this piece earlier in the week. Since it may have been overlooked amongst this week’s leadership clusterpunch, we’ve republished it here.

A few days ago, Mahhrat, Emma and others asked me if I could come up with a list of seven things I’d miss if all women disappeared from the world. That’s not something I’d ever considered, so it took me a while to come up with an answer.

Of course it would have been trivially easy to list seven things that I find sexually attractive, but that’s a rather shallow view. It would be equally easy to just say the human race would end, but that wouldn’t necessarily be true since biological science could probably find a way.

So what’s left are those nice things that men just can’t provide in the same way. In no particular order:

Continue reading "What I love about women" »

Fertility is a precious commodity for the modern woman. Greater opportunities, education and choice, along with the difficulties of finding the right partner can make it easy to delay falling pregnant. Being able to stow eggs away for the “right time” is an alluring prospect.

In this context, a recent discovery by Dr Jonathan Tilly of Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital offers massive temptation. The American scientist has found that ovaries of young women harbour very rare stem cells capable of producing new eggs.

He made the discovery after an initial study found that stem cells in the ovaries of adult mice could give rise to viable eggs. This means that although women are born with a finite number of eggs, they now have more chances to fall pregnant later in life. But it’s also a risk of epic proportions.

Continue reading "Scrambled science or an ovulation revolution?" »

Vivienne Westwood thinks modern women are too cheap to be stylish.

The 70 year old British designer, known for her eclectic fashion range says “blatant consumerism” has left us with no sense of style.

Basically if you a) dress for comfort or b) dress to blend in, then Westwood thinks you’re both dull and un-inspiring.

Continue reading "Cheap clothes don’t make you a fashion disaster" »

Any day now I’m expecting to open the paper and see a man starring in a maternity shoot. The man, of course, would be the toast of Broadmeadows, 20 year-old Andrej Pejic, the it-boy model of the moment for whom so many international labels are clamouring.

This beautiful boy, whose androgyny is so convincing he could easily pass as a beautiful girl, has this week featured in another swimwear campaign; this time for Aussie designer Nathan Paul.

The well-liked model – who from all accounts is a lovely guy—pronounced the range ‘’very virgin-like’’.

You may recall that last year, as well as being voted by FHM readers to be the 98th sexiest woman in the world (creepy), he rocked a lingerie shoot, thanks to a Dutch company, and a lovely fitted wedding gown on the catwalks of Paris, care of Jean Paul Gaultier.

So, surely all that’s left to conquer is maternity, and no doubt the prosthetics experts are overcoming any annoying anatomical hurdles to that right now.

Continue reading "What hope for women when the feminine ideal has a penis" »

In the interests of research, I once squeezed a woman’s breasts. Yep, a full-on fondle – with both hands – up under her pink bra. Well, that got your attention, didn’t it? Hi, fellas!

I’d been sent to a lap-dancing club by an editor keen to stroke, sorry, stoke the usual media outrage that occurs whenever a sexual establishment sets up in suburbia.

But far more interesting than the girls getting their kit off for a bunch of bankers (honestly, they were happily coining it) was their bodies. Or, more specifically, their breasts. Because, while I’d been cruising through the ’90s thinking shoulder pads were the most offensive blight on my generation, a score of women had been secretly upholstering their boobs so they were as plumped and shiny as the vinyl seats on a Ford Escort.

Continue reading "Busting the myth that breast implants make you beautiful" »

He rammed her head against the headboard. She tried to master the silent scream. She is left with a limp and her neck in a brace.

This is the ethical treatment of animals, PETA style. Watch the ad above. Then watch the Sourcefed lads’ excellent discussion.

It’s about a woman getting the ‘bottom knocked out of her’ by a virile vegan. But don’t worry, ladies, PETA also offers some tips on protecting yourself from his aggressive advances!

Continue reading "I wanna knock the bottom out of this advertisement" »

I am not a fan of romantic comedies, or as they’re called in my living room when I’m alone and in the word for low-level wordplay: “vom-coms”. My housemates are fans of romantic comedies, however, and often offer up their DVD collections for my viewing “pleasure”.

Unfortunately, many of the DVD covers have been lost, due to the fact that my housemates may or may not have procured their movie collections via legitimate means. This means that, when I’m in the mood for a bit of Hollywood, I have a great teetering pile of almost identical discs imprinted with only a movie title to choose from.

No pictures of Matthew McConaughey leaning quirkily and sickeningly against this week’s femme. No scrolling silver script to indicate impending matrimony or whimsical flirtation. No Heigl or Aniston or Roberts or Jessica Parker on the cover looking diagonally upwards. Just titles.

Continue reading "How to spot a “vom-com” in 10 easy steps" »

It all started with the empty fruit bowl on a stark kitchen bench in Altona. The Fairfax profile of Julia Gillard in her first early days of prime ministership was a sign of times to come. Being Australia’s first female PM was going to be far from easy.

From grooming, decorum and the sound of her voice, to the appropriateness of her relationship with de facto partner, Tim Mathieson. To the lack of emotion displayed on cue from the devastation of the Queensland floods. 

When it comes to scrutiny of the personal nature, as a politician Julia Gillard has copped more than most.  As a prime minster it’s been unprecedented. The only real question is why.

Continue reading "Is it sexist? We’ve got nothing to compare it to" »

Can you hear a faint sort of teeth-grindy sound? No it’s not the rats in the roof gnawing the wires again, it’s just those thousands of lady drivers with the windows down as they motor past the bottle shop.

Even just four days into Febfast, the annual excruciating month of alcohol abstinence, the novelty will have well and truly worn off and we’re already down to the bare bones of resentment and “I know it’s for charity and all but what the feck was I thinking”.

All around Australia there are mild-mannered ladies cursing the leap year, too, as were it not for that stupid spare day, there would only be 24 grogless ones left. For many of us talented drinkers, when it comes to one’s consumption of alcohol there is the comfort of denial and “look over there, is that a rare orange-bellied parrot? (Yes waiter top me up)” for 11 months of the year, and then there is the long, hard look in the mirror that is horrendous February.

Continue reading "Working women need to escape the grog bog" »

When the annual figures come out on the gender gap in salaries the standard argument is that women earn less because a) they take time off work to have kids, and b) they dominate lower-paid industries such as health and education.

While both those points are solid explanations for the gap, new figures that have nothing to do with either (a) or (b) show women graduates are paid less than the men who graduate from the same degrees - 14 per cent less.

Graduate Careers Australia found in 2011 graduate males started work on a full-time median salary of $52,000, and women on $50,000 (which could be accounted for by different industries). But in 14 industries male starting salaries were higher than female starting salaries in the same industry.

Continue reading "Maybe women are just bad at asking for a higher salary" »

Next week New Idea will feature a half-naked George Calombaris on the cover. “I want to be a role model for all the short and stocky men out there,” he says. Meanwhile, Hugh Jackman reveals all on the cover of the Australian Women’s Weekly about how to stay fabulous in your 40s.

“I’m doing it for all the insecure men out there,” he grunts between his 112th and 113th rep. “You too can look like this!” Of course, this is all happening in a parallel universe. Generally, men don’t feel the need to take off their clothes for the cover of a magazine. So why do some women?

This wasn’t what the suffragettes had in mind when they fought for women’s emancipation all those years ago. Emmeline Pankhurst, speaking at the Women’s Franchise League in 1889 didn’t say: “One day, women will be able to remove their clothes in public and be judged on how hard they work out at the gym. What a glorious day that will be!” Let’s start with Deborah Hutton’s cover shot.

Continue reading "If you really want to help the sisters, keep your gear on" »

The BBC has compiled a list of 12 Female Faces of 2011 (one for each month) and guess who took out the final spot?

Angela Zhang who at the age of 17 discovered a nanoparticle that kills cancer cells? Nope.

Eman al-Obeidi, who defied Muuammar Gadaffi’s regime by confessing to the foreign press that she had been beaten and gang-raped by members of his militia? Nope.

Continue reading "BBC’s panda propaganda is utterly bamboozling" »

So, at last, and hopefully once and for all, women in the workplace no longer have to regard being a mother as some kind of dirty little secret.

Thanks to the frankness of Tanya Plibersek and Julie Collins, the idea that working mothers need to somehow disguise or apologise for their maternal status has been blown to smithereens. I, for one, am rapt.

News of this welcome development came in simple form last week; a single-sentence intro on a plain old news story, but one that felt a whole lot like a turning point.

Continue reading "Don’t keep Mum about being a working parent" »

What do women want? This question has vexed philosophers, feminists and talk show hosts since time immemorial (or at least since Mel Gibson started making bad romantic comedies).

The good news is that we now have a definitive answer – and it doesn’t involve equal pay, housework help or a nude frolic on a Northern Territory balcony.

As it turns out, nothing brings a woman more pleasure, euphoria or knee-trembling jouissance than… (anticipation-enhancing trumpet flurry)… chowing down solo on a salad.

Continue reading "You don’t win friends with salad. Unless they’re women" »

Picture a woman. She might live anywhere in the world. She could be part of any socio-economic group, of any ethnicity, of any religion.

On a typical day this woman starts her day before the sun rises. She works for 8-12 hours in a store or on a farm or at a factory or in someone’s home for a small wage, but her children and elderly relatives depend on her income for survival.

When she comes home, she asks her children what they learned that day at school and what they want to be when they grow up. She spends hours bent over a small stove or fireplace preparing meals for an extended family. In many parts of the world, she also grows the food that feeds everyone at her table.

Continue reading "Strike a woman and you strike all of society" »

The federal government wants to give women easier access to the contraceptive pill by making it available, without a prescription, over the counter at the local chemist.

Hooray for that, says anyone who’s ever waited in a fit of frustration just to get an appointment to see their doctor when a script runs out.

But the new legislation, that’s been kicked about since last July, has ruffled some feathers among the medical profession.

Continue reading "Forget over the counter, give us the pill for free" »

Yesterday, Mission Australia released the results of their 10th National Survey of Young Australians. Among the most reported of their findings was evidence that more young girls than ever before have a problem with body image.

“All the well-meaning efforts to combat the problem have failed,” said Mission Australia spokesperson, Eleri Morgan-Thomas. “More work needs to be done.”

That should not come as a surprise to anybody. Good body image campaigns have failed because so very few people actually have it. Good body image is a myth.

Continue reading "Good body image is a big fat myth. Let’s change it." »

Yesterday the Australian Financial Review published a report on executive salaries in Australia. The paper provided us with pages and pages of analysis of the post-GFC public outcry over executive salaries, and into the industrial relations debate that has reared its head again since the Qantas fleet was grounded. But amongst all this analysis, the paper overlooked a glaringly obvious and disturbing issue.

The AFR no doubt knows that IR reform, which goes hand-in-hand with the old CEO executive remuneration versus union bargaining for pay increases chestnut, is shaping up to be a key battleground in the next election campaign. However, the newspaper completely overlooked the issue of gender and executive salaries.

The list of 287 companies and roughly 300 or so individuals that make up Australia’s highest paid CEOs and Executive Chairman comprises just eight women. The statistics here are almost as alarming as the fact that there was entirely no mention of this in the commentary.

Continue reading "I am woman, hear me roar… except in the boardroom" »

As White Ribbon Day comes around again on November 25, I’m wondering what it actually does to address a culture that celebrates – indeed eroticises – violence against women.

Sure, men buy white ribbons. They attend events where they eat sausages and swear not to hurt women. They raise money (none of which goes into services supporting survivors of violence).

Of course it’s good that men stand up and pledge not to be violent and put white ribbons on their shirt collars. We need men to be engaged in the issue. But since the inception of White Ribbon Day, violence against women and children has continued unabated. And the culture that helps to makes violence against women permissible, even something to be celebrated, remains unaddressed.

Continue reading "Violence against women is endemic to our sick culture" »

Birth is unpredictable - unless of course you have booked in for a caesarean and know exactly the when, where, why and how. Nowadays this is an acceptable form of giving birth, however at the other end of the spectrum there are women birthing at home with no medical intervention.

And then there is the majority that falls in between. Every day, all over the country women are birthing in hospitals with healthy babies. Some without any intervention while others have a full gamut of procedures. Some are elated by their experience and some are shattered.

When pregnant, hospitals encourage us to write a birth plan. It is a document that details what procedures you will and won’t accept and whom you want there. A lot of time and energy is spent creating them. It is our formal statement about how we want our bodies and babies to be treated by the hospital.

Continue reading "Birth trauma in hospital is driving women to homebirth" »

Growing up in the 1950s and the 1960s I witnessed my mother being brutally beaten and verbally abused and belittled regularly by my father. For over 30 years Mum put up with this abuse and her health deteriorated over that time, so much so that she died in 1983 at the very young age of 49.

My father was responsible for her death, I don’t doubt it.

I will never get over the fact that during the many occasions Mum was being attacked by my father no one stepped in to help her. Neighbours saw and heard what was happening and did nothing to help her. I remember my brother, my sister or I running next door or across the road for help but there was none. People in the street would not stop and help when she was being abused or hit in public. Family friends would do nothing when they were around and saw the violence.

Continue reading "No-one lifted a finger as Dad raised his hand at Mum" »

Every bloke has a mother. Many of us also have sisters and daughters. Some of us have all three. When it comes to the question of violence towards women, our default position is that if anyone laid a finger on our mum, our sister, our daughter or our own partner, we’d probably want to kill them.

There is a gap, however, between this zero-tolerance rhetoric on violence towards women in the immediate personal setting, and instances of violence towards women in the more distant context of friends and acquaintances, neighbours and work colleagues.

One of the most powerful and moving programs of 2011 was the Australian Story profile on Catherine Smith, who over the course of 30 years was raped, bashed and tortured by her husband Kevin Smith. He choked her with power cables, attacked with her with a cattle prod and a fire poker, sexually assaulted her at gunpoint.

Continue reading "The price of male silence on violence against women" »

Today’s message to young women is: All girls are beautiful. But some are more beautiful than others. Oh, and frankly – you over there! – you don’t make the grade at all.  What the hell’s going on with those eyebrows? What is this? 2008?

In a world awash with far too many beautiful girls (for the purposes of this article for ‘beautiful’ read ‘fully coiffed, immaculately made-up, grain-fed, and catwalk-ready) today we also have the announcement of the 2011 Girlfriend Rimmel Model Search winner.  You can meet the finalists here.

UPDATE: The winner was 13-year-old Irish, Croatian and Pacific Islander and Sydneyite Chloe Glassie. And she has braces!

Continue reading "Why beautiful people should be made to suffer" »

One hundred and fifty social and community services (SACS) workers yelled and cheered. Some seemed close to tears as they sat in an auditorium at Technology Park in the Sydney suburb of Redfern last Thursday morning.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard was standing before them to announce that the federal government would support pay increases demanded in the ASU’s Pay Up campaign.

The emotion of the crowd was not surprising. They have been waiting for this result for a very long time. They have campaigned hard, and with the knowledge that the case will benefit not just them but their families and the communities they work for.

Continue reading "Win for community workers is a win for communities" »

That’s it. I am done with fashion magazines. Officially. I am never buying one, or reading one … or even nonchalantly flicking through the pages of one in my dentist’s office again. Ever. Again.

Since my teens I have bought women’s fashion magazines off and on. The frequency dropped off as I got older but I would still occasionally buy one on impulse, sucked in by the glossy pages, the surreal photo of that actress I like on the cover and the promise of a few hours of mindless engagement with fashion, celebrity and perhaps even a decent article or two. 

However, every time, from the first page to the back cover, I would travel a well-worn path through the six stages of fashion magazine consumption:

Continue reading "Real women don’t wear white silk jumpsuits" »

It’s the first rule of the playground: don’t pay attention to the bullies. So what do a bunch of highly intelligent, respected women bloggers think they will achieve by creating the Twitter hashtag #mensaybadthingsaboutme?

The hashtag highlights the derogatory and often violent comments female bloggers receive from anonymous online readers.

They claim to be “fighting back”. According to yesterday’s Age, the hashtag is the weapon for a campaign led by leading female Australian bloggers to highlight the “abusive misogyny of anonymous posters online”.  It follows a similar movement by female British bloggers, started by Guardian journalist Laurie Penny. But more on that later.

Continue reading "So what if #mensaybadthingsaboutme" »

Wearing a bikini turns me into a woman I don’t want to be: neurotic, angsty and hyper-pervy of every female in sight.

I’m a shocker at ‘compare and despair’, so all those holidays when I should be enjoying a good book or contemplating a surf are, instead, spent in a ridiculous silent dialogue with myself:

“Are they looking at my thighs? She’s game to go the white; What’s that Miranda Kerr lookalike doing in Bermagui? Sod off back to Mauritius! Who’d have thought four triangles of Lycra could turn me into such a cow?”

Continue reading "Bikini rules for any old bum" »

Listen up, all you fun-fem po-mo abuse-loving heteronormative PIVster types. The radical feminists are here to set you straight on just how bent you really are.

If you don’t even know what the above sentence means, well, gather around.

In the good old days feminism was easy. Eiffel Tower? Phallic symbol. HB pencil? Phallic symbol. Statue of Mary? Phallic symbol.

Continue reading "A Pivster’s Guide to Radical Feminism and Man Hate" »

Most young women are not lying in the gutter with vomit in their hair.  Nor are they starving themselves so they can drink more booze, sleeping with everyone they meet or stuffing endless amounts of cocaine up their nose.

But you’d be forgiven for thinking so if you’d read a newspaper over the past month.

Three articles in just as many weeks have painted an extraordinarily dark and reckless picture of young Aussie women.

Continue reading "Young women have not gone to the dogs" »

Growing up as a girl in England, manners and etiquette were drummed into me. My mother wore white gloves to go to the shops and we were never allowed to eat in the streets.

Our private thoughts and concerns would never be discussed in public. So not surprisingly then, never ever would a lady discuss her ‘bits down there’ - not even with the people closest to her or her doctor.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Continue reading "We aren’t talking enough about vaginas" »

In the first episode of Mad Men, the deliciously complicated American drama set in a fictitious advertising agency in the 1960s, “new girl” Peggy Olson goes to a doctor to get a prescription for the contraceptive pill.

Fresh out of secretarial college, wide-eyed and eager to fit into her new and sophisticated surroundings, Peggy is encouraged by her colleague Joan to see Dr Emerson, a swaggering and leery middle-aged, male doctor in standard issue white coat and stethoscope.

Poised at the end of the examination table, cigarette in hand, Emerson is suggestive and familiar; a pompous fountain of abrasive, misogynistic and downright creepy “advice” that goes something like this: “There’s nothing wrong with being practical about the possibility of sexual activity… at the same time, we have to make sure that it’s not going to turn you into a strumpet. But the fact is, even in our modern times easy women don’t find themselves husbands.”

Continue reading "Hey Scipione, don’t lecture us on sex and booze" »

Amanda Knox’s looks shouldn’t matter, but they do.

In court, it wasn’t just the university student who ended up in the dock, it was her image.

From the minute she was dubbed ‘Foxy Knoxy’ - the juvenile, nudge, nudge, wink, wink nickname given to her early on in her trial - to the fact that her boyish prison haircut made news, her whole trial has been read through the prism of her gender and appearance.

Continue reading "‘Foxy Knoxy’ and the shock of a hot chick in the dock" »

The female bosom is rarely short of attention. High brow art. Low brow ogling. Web sites such as www.whoppin’greatboosiewahwahs.com.

While that last URL may be a tiny bit made up, we all know that the big problem with boobs is usually a surplus rather than a deficit of interest.

Which is why it’s so bizarre that it’s become so hard to find a decent bra fitter.

Continue reading "Ms Jellybonkers’ guide to backyard bra fitting" »

In a New York nursing home, a bunch of 80-year-old women are sitting around in cliques, bitching about each other.

They’re also hogging the communal television set, saving seats at the dinner table for “certain” people and bossing each other around during the leisure activities: That is not how you play bridge, Ethel, so you can’t come anymore!

I’d like to think they’re wearing hair nets, knitting for their grandkids and drinking copious cups of tea with lipstick smeared on the cup,while they’re doing it.  But the point is they’re doing it – mouthing off about each other, just like a bunch of teenagers.

Continue reading "The benefits of showing your bitchy side" »

Defence Minister Stephen Smith may see the first female body come back from the frontlines in Afghanistan and rue the day he peeled back the discriminatory laws that stopped women from taking up the most dangerous roles.

But he probably won’t. He probably won’t be Defence Minister and he probably won’t have implemented the changes before Australia withdraws from Afghanistan.

And, because he’s a fairly intelligent sort of bloke, he’ll probably have thought through the squeamishness of letting women do dangerous jobs and realised that’s what you do in a liberal, non-discriminatory society, even if it means poor press if things go to shit.

Continue reading "A woman’s right to choose war is her own battle" »

Is Julia Gillard copping more flak than past prime ministers because she is a woman? No. And yes.

Julia Gillard has been the subject of much public debate and media scrutiny over her appearance, her voice, her de facto relationship, her lack of children, her disinterest in domestic affairs.

Some of this debate has been quite rugged and quite insulting. In caricature she is often drawn as a rectangle; Peter Nicholson in The Australian habitually draws her with such a big bum that her buttocks appear to be chasing the rest of her body.

Continue reading "Is Gillard a victim of sexism?" »

Imagine you are a woman in your mid-twenties with the world at your feet. You believe that as a grown woman in Australia, you have the right to express yourself emotionally and sexually.

Now imagine that you are hounded and berated for your honesty. You’re constantly insulted for being yourself and standing on your own two feet. Your chosen career is the catalyst for threats and bullying; you are subjected to abuse and scathing remarks.

Whether you want to believe it or not, this is the reality many women - including those in the sex industry - face today. And sadly enough the attacks are not solely from men. A lot of the time they are from women - with most of it derived from outdated feminist views.

Continue reading "Old-school feminists need to respect women’s choices" »

Full credit to designer and Australia’s Next Top Model judge, Alex Perry, for declaring he would never call a model “fat”, and that his fashion embraces curvy women.

Perry took a media beating this week, and with what seemed good cause: Appearing to suggest that a size eight teen was too fat to model.

Not only was comparing her to “overstuffed luggage” offensive (even if he was referring more to her pose, in a coffin of all things, than to her body), it was dangerous. Mountains of research attests that “socio-cultural” pressure - ideas picked up from TV, fashion magazines and other media -  is a leading cause of the eating disorder epidemic among young Australians.

Continue reading "Even models should not have to suck this up" »

Shove your shoulder pads and pipe down about the equal pay debate.

This week’s annual Equal Pay Day completely overlooked the fact that it’s flexibility that woman want. And we’d prefer not to beg for it, thank you very much.

Yes, women still earn approximately 17.5 per cent less than male counterparts in full-time work. Actually, it’s been that way for about 25 years.

Continue reading "Screw equal pay; what do women really want?" »

I’m standing on stage in front of a few hundred people wearing a tiny Swarovski crystal-covered bikini and six-inch Perspex platform stripper heels. That’s just the start. If you are a female figure bodybuilder, as I am, you get to wear nail art, big hair and lots of bling-bling jewellery. I even have crystals embedded in my false eyelashes.

My deep dark tan is painted on and then there’s another layer of shimmer gel so I look like a bronzed-up Barbie doll with muscles.

I turned 50 this year and decided to enter a bodybuilding competition - a memorable way to mark what might otherwise be a year of regret.

Continue reading "The 50-year-old bodybuilder" »

When this new picture for my column (headshot) was emailed to me, I zoomed in. And zoomed in again.

What do you reckon I saw? Smart top? Nice jeans? Fab blow-dry? Nope. I saw lines. Big parenthesis-shaped ones running Jack Nicholson Joker-style from my nose to my chin. You didn’t notice? You do now.

Apparently, they’re called nasolabial folds and are caused by ageing and laughing – which is unfortunate because, short of sticking myself in the deep freeze or being perpetually glum, they’re only going to get worse.

Continue reading "Reading between the furrowed lines" »

Shut down the Productivity Commission. There’s only one reason shopping as we know it will never die, and that’s women.

That’s right, you heard me. From the malls to the arcades, we fairer sex are the lifeblood of shopping and it will take more than a little internet habit to put us off our game.

Here’s why.

Continue reading "Half of us were born to shop" »

Boasting everything from alleged molestation, a mistress, a suicide attempt, a chlorophyll/chloroform Google mix-up, a concocted character “Zanny the Nanny” right through to fake employment at Universal Studios and at the very heart one very dead toddler, the Casey Anthony trial had it all.

On July 5, the jury, after deliberating for a mere handful of hours, found Casey Anthony not guilty.

Not quite the same as saying she’s innocent. Nevertheless, the jury’s verdict came from the leftest of left field. And it was on that not guilty pronouncement that the story got really interesting.

Continue reading "Casey Anthony and the thirst for crocodile tears" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit. Let’s get straight into it. So some bloody smart-arse congregation of designer-stubbled preening ad men have concocted a ridiculous campaign suggesting milk will take care of PMS.

Picture them sitting around their long shiny tables, bums squeaking in their exxy leather chairs, waiting for a cute secretary to bring them (soy) lattes and discussing just how ‘cheeky’ their new milk ads are.

Oooo and we’ll have a website and do social media and piss off the feminazis by suggesting women are hormone-ravaged banshees who can be tamed by calcium intake. IT’LL GO VIRAL, they probably thought, with pants-wetting glee.

Continue reading "ICB. PMS. Don’t. Get. Me. Started." »

Who said fashion can’t change the world? On this day in 1850 women’s “bloomers” made their first ever appearance at a New York fashion show. The western world’s first pants for women were long and baggy; designed to be worn under a skirt to protect a woman’s “decency”. They also allowed more freedom of movement than conservative and restrictive traditional Victorian dress. 

It’s Tuesday. What’s got your knickers in a knot? Share it here.

Pregnancy is a lovely thing. Lovely, obviously, because it usually produces a baby, but also because it keeps you warm, excuses cake consumption and ensures you score a seat on the bus.

It also makes everyone smile and ask pleasant questions, which is doubly nice when you’ve had your head down the loo half the morning.

But, for some, the sight of an expectant mum is torture. They may enthuse with the rest of us, but behind the plastered smile, they’re splintering into a million unspilt tears. Because there’s no keener reminder of what you don’t have than someone else’s swollen belly.

Continue reading "Spare a thought for those who can’t have kids" »

The federal Labor government announced on Wednesday of last week that it would “meet it’s responsibilities” to fund equal pay for community workers.

This announcement represents one more step toward wage justice for people working in the sector, whose equal remuneration case has been running for over a year.

It came after intensive lobbying efforts by those same workers and union members, who were emailing, calling and dancing for equal pay in the weeks leading up to this most recent commitment.

Continue reading "Wage justice for the people holding up our community" »

For a decade, my friend Sarah and I acted as mutual wardrobe mistresses. Every six months, I’d park myself on her bedroom floor and drink tea as she went through each item in her closet. Six months later, she’d come to mine and do the same.

It was ruthless. “If you want a vanilla life, wear vanilla clothes,” she’d tut, discarding my sensible Gap T-shirts and raising an eyebrow at the leather skirt I clung to for years despite it only fitting for one night, post-gastro and mid-love affair. In return, I’d note when her penchant for vintage lapsed from funky and charming to smelly old dead person.

One thing we never said was: “Hon, don’t you think you have enough clothes?” Why? Because we didn’t.

Continue reading "We buy half our body weight in clothes each year. Why?" »

Welcome to this week’s I Call Bullshit. Get ready to get steamy. The hot topic du jour is romance novels and the apparent threat they cause to women’s sexual health.

A UK medical journal has published a piece from ‘agony aunt’ Susan Quilliam arguing that bodice-ripper romantic fiction is discouraging condom use and giving women crazy ideas about orgasms.

Before we go any further, let’s have some gratuitous ‘literary’ sex scenes, just to give you the flavour.

Continue reading "ICB: Steamy romance novels are bad for your health" »

I’m now the owner of a designer handbag and I’m not sure I want to keep it. The story of how I got it isn’t one I’m proud of - let’s just say the story of how I got it involves a garage sale, a tussle with a Russian septuagenarian and a fistful of notes. (Elbows people, use your elbows). 

The point is, I now have a rather nice brown leather bag which, new, would have cost about the same as the GDP of Burundi - and I’ve discovered a whole new world.

I now get admiring nods from strangers and comments from friends about my new purchase. I come across women with similar designer bags slung over their shoulders and they nod and smile at me, like we’re members of a select group who think it’s perfectly reasonable to spend a four- figure sum on what is essentially a very nice calfskin thing to keep your Travel Tens, old Biros and the occasional pair of knickers in.

Continue reading "Luxury bags have lost their shine among the masses" »

Every woman hits a time in her life when she suddenly becomes invisible. I am at that age. 

Except yesterday. I was walking down the street, not looking like a mum for a change, and a young guy wearing too much aftershave stopped talking to his mate as he watched me approach and pass him by. 

It was sort of flattering: that I can still stop a conversation and even more flattering knowing that they weren’t drunk.

Continue reading "The benefits of being an invisible woman" »

When a friend told me I was mentioned in The Punch, I looked forward to reading the article because I associated The Punch with Punch, the British weekly magazine of humour.  Instead of wit, I found the article by Tanja Kovac in The Punch yet another inaccurate diatribe against pro-lifers.

Tanja asks where are Archbishop Hart, Margaret Tighe and Babette Francis? Archbishop Hart is very possibly on his knees praying for you and for the many social welfare agencies of his Archdiocese. 

Tanja, just look up the phone book under “Catholic” and you will see the long list of activities undertaken by the Catholic Church to help those in need. Ever heard of “The Vinnies” (the St. Vincent de Paul Society)?  Or Mother Teresa’s “Missionaries of Charity”? As for Margaret Tighe, like me she is probably working at a computer replying to tiresome articles from those who don’t bother to get their facts straight.

Continue reading "Pro-lifers: we’re self-funded and we don’t discriminate" »

“No fat chicks” is not just a Homer Simpson-esque T-shirt slogan. It’s also the bottom line of the fashion industry. And when I use the word “bottom” here, I’m not referring to a voluptuously padded Venus of Willendorf derriere but one of those pointy Paris Hilton numbers that look like they could deliver a nasty needle-stick injury.

Cast an eye over shots from the big 2011 couture shows and you’ll see scores of emaciated young women limping down the runways with flesh-less knees, stringy necks and rib cages that make ET the extraterrestrial look like a fatty boomsticks.

These human coat hangers are held up as exemplars of feminine beauty yet are eerily reminiscent of Sidney Nolan’s infamous photos of dead-but-alive-looking cow and horse carcasses from drought-stricken Queensland during the 1950s.

Continue reading "How to raise a defiant finger to fashion" »

Labels are the problem. Male or female, black or white, comedy or drama, PG-13 or R? In which section of the DVD store will this film end up? How do we market it? To whom should the product placement and the trailers before the film be skewed?

It is for these reasons that a gem like Bridesmaids receives qualified approval like “the funniest R-rated female driven comedy of all time”. There’s a glaring missed opportunity, given the ethnicity of one of the film’s leads – surely an enterprising reviewer will dub it “the funniest mixed-race buddy film R-rated female-driven romantic comedy of all time”. Perhaps with an exclamation mark or two for good measure.

Bridesmaids stars Kristen Wiig, who co-wrote the film with Annie Mumolo, and a host of other Saturday Night Live alumni. At the time of writing, it has made almost US$125 million in the US alone and is one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year.

Continue reading "Bridesmaids: The funniest mixed-race buddy film ever" »

Some might be wondering why two days of our national media cycle have included debate over a man miaowing like a cat and the appropriate level of offence it should or shouldn’t cause. While we’d like our parliament to set a standard for the rest of the community, the truth is we often fall well short - in terms of behaviour and sexism.

There has been progress but it is still a parliament dominated by men in suits. Women here, like women in any workplace, are entitled to enjoy equal treatment in all senses. No-one is asking for favours or complaining about the hustle and bustle that accompanies hard-fought debate but there is just one request - maybe we could treat members of both genders equally.

There were howls from the Opposition when the Government described the noise that was made towards Penny Wong as sexist. The reality is that not only was it sexist but it also pointed to a pretty unpleasant pattern of behaviour, which has flourished under the leadership of Tony Abbott.

Continue reading "How a 19th century leader sets a tone of sexism" »

International Whores Day is commemorated each year in June around the world to acknowledge the origins of the sex workers’ rights movement.

On June 2, 1975, sex workers in Lyon, France decided to protest against the continual police harassment and violence against Lyon’s sex worker community.

This was coupled with the French government’s refusal to meet with the worker representatives or support any legislative changes in the sex Industry.

Continue reading "No bad whores, just bad laws" »

Using slut as the flagship word for this new movement puts women in danger through giving men even more license to think about women in a way that suits them, and not as targets of violence and terrible social discrimination.

The global phenomenon that is SlutWalk makes its Australian debut today in Melbourne, with other walks planned for Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide.

While I support all efforts to challenge violence against women in all its manifestations – my blog is a witness to the global level of that violence – I hesitate to join the marching ranks. I welcome any confrontation with those who would blame the victim in rape. No woman deserves rape or invites sexual assault. I support the basic intention of the march. But I fear it has become more about the right to be ‘a slut’ than about the right to be free from violence.

Continue reading "Should women walk away from the word ‘slut’?" »

Wearing tights as pants is the fashion for women as the winter months approach. Tights should never be used as substitutes for pants. It is not a flattering look.

Whenever a female appears wearing tights or leggings as pants this topic is discussed robustly within families and workplaces all over Australia. 

The website tightsarenotpants.com has gone as far as publishing a manifesto against tights worn as pants and even offers copyright-free templates of a logo and stickers to be used as protest material. Editor’s note: Aussie readers would be more familiar with the term “leggings” instead of tights. “Jeggings” presumably come under the same category.

Continue reading "Tights, jeggings, leggings. They’re all pants." »

In a room full of females, raise the issue of women in sport and you can expect a collective groan and eyes rolling in unison. And, given the facts on sponsorship, media coverage and support, it’s hardly surprising.

Take the Matildas, Australia’s national soccer side. They regularly qualify for the World Cup and the Olympics but still play to half-empty stadiums while making the same commitments as their male counterparts, the Socceroos.

It’s a given perception that women in sport get a raw deal, and arguably the focus for too long has been on their appearance and sex appeal. But over the past few years there’s been a substantial shift in the paradigm of women’s sports coverage. Sponsors and television networks alike are starting to see the value in investing in women.

Continue reading "TV finally gets it: viewers like watching women’s sport" »

One of the beautiful things about the internet is that you can quickly and easily hear from people with vastly different views from your own.

For example, I wrote a piece yesterday about SlutWalks, a series of worldwide protests reclaiming the word slut, but more importantly railing against the idea that a woman is ever to blame for her own sexual assault or rape.

I had (blithely, it must be admitted) assumed that people no longer blame victims for being victims, and realise that of course it is the perpetrator at fault.

Continue reading "It’s my flesh and I’ll bare it if I want to" »

Embrace your inner (or outer) slut, reclaim the word, reclaim the night, take to the streets. But watch out for the unintended consequences of the planned SlutWalk rallies.

Passionate protestors too often get caught up in their own hype and do themselves and their chosen issue an enormous disservice.

Last week a father who just wanted access to his children instead earned the wrath of a city after his one-man protest closed the Sydney Harbour Bridge and left irate drivers stuck in traffic for hours.

Continue reading "The sluts protest too much, methinks" »

Before we had children, my husband and I had dual careers. We both jumped on planes at a moment’s notice, saw each other when we could and, in rare, quiet times, pinched ourselves because we had jobs we loved.

Then I became pregnant. My husband bought baby clothes. Lots of them. Being the literary tragic I am, I daydreamed about a daughter with a Shakespearean name: Cordelia, Ophelia, Perdita. As if.

What we didn’t think about, because neither of us are planners, was how we’d share looking after said baby. I was determined to be a mother, first and foremost, but I was also young, freelancing and the first of my friends to have a baby. Wouldn’t it just fit in?

Continue reading "Having babies is a choice and a sacrifice" »

The fetishisation of the female backside reached royal heights this week with the global worship of Pippa Middleton’s bum.

The frenzied prostration before the bottom of HRH Catherine Middleton’s younger sister and bridesmaid highlights anew the objectification of women deeply entrenched in our culture.

This was in the Daily Mail: Many women admired her dress, but an army of male fans were happily distracted by her shapely rear as the procession went up the aisle.

Continue reading "Pippa’s arse has become porn for the slobbering masses" »

Margaret Cruickshank became New Zealand’s first female doctor today in 1897. Good on her.

It’s Tuesday at The Punch. What’s on your mind? Share it here.

Last September Julia Gillard rushed out her first ministry list and made a mistake no male Labor prime minister would have been allowed to live down. She forgot to appoint someone with responsibility for the status of women.

A few days later she fixed up that error by giving the job to Kate Ellis. The rebuke from feminists was mild. The first woman Prime Minister, sworn in by Australia’s first woman Governor-General, was not going to be savaged on her first official pronouncement.

It is absurd to argue that the fact Gillard is a woman has not affected the conduct of politics in Australia. It so obviously has.

Continue reading "She is woman: Gillard’s gender still too hard to ignore" »

Safe sex used to be simple. Step A: take one vending machine prophylactic. Step B: use it.

These days, everything is much more complicated. These days, protecting yourself from “going viral” may also involve checking for hidden webcams and erasing your ex-partner’s flash drive.

Most of Australia is now familiar with the case of the 18-year-old Australian Defence Force Academy cadet whose peers called her a “skank” and a “dirty whore” after a male cadet secretly recorded the two of them having sex.

Continue reading "When old misogyny meets new technology" »

Generally, I like being a woman. The conversations are great; breasts are both useful and attractive, if I do say so myself; plus, we get to wear more interesting stuff than jeans and variations on the blue shirt. But, recently, I’ve been hankering for a gender opt-out. I’d like a day – actually, make that a week – of being a man.

From the outside, I’m sure it looks as if Girl World is all book clubs and mutual support, and long phone calls and caring, sharing emails. Which it is. Mostly. But while we weren’t watching, a serpent must have slithered into the Garden of Eve because, right now, us girls are in danger of critiquing ourselves to death.

There’s barely an issue that doesn’t polarise us: breast vs bottle, caesarean vs natural birth, tramp vs virgin, tiger mother vs western mother, Botox vs wrinkles, skinny vs fat, airbrushing vs real. And on it goes.

Continue reading "No winners when women turn on women" »

In light of laws which have recently come into effect France banning the wearing of the niqab and burqa, and WA Minister for Women’s Interests Robyn McSweeney’s recent comments that she finds the burqa to be ‘a very oppressive garment’, Senator Michaelia Cash, opposition spokesperson for the Status of Women, outlines her thoughts on the veiled women in Australia.

Much has been made of the debate over whether women living in Australia should wear a burqa.

As a Liberal, I believe in a free, fair, open and democratic society where people have the right to make their own choices about the way they live their lives.

It is my opinion however that the wearing of not only the burqa, but any apparel that completely covers a person’s face, is alien to our Australian culture and our values.

Continue reading "We need to talk about the ‘alien’ burqa" »

The reputation of the defence force has once again been tarnished by its personnel behaving badly. A defence force cadet has allegedly filmed himself having sex with another cadet and broadcasting it to his peers in an adjacent room.

The 18-year-old female RAAF cadet spoke of her sense of betrayal and abuse on Tuesday as the federal police and Defence investigators launched an investigation. She alleges she had consensual sex with the fellow cadet who was broadcasting their moment of intimacy by webcam to his mates in a separate room.

UPDATE: Defence Minister Stephen Smith said this afternoon that the ADF will not tolerate conduct that was sexist, vilified women or was indecent or uncivilised. He also said it was possible the female cadet could face disciplinary action.

Continue reading "Will Defence ever stop defending the indefensible?" »

Dear Jackie O, what a bugger of a week!

Did you have time to read the Sunday newspaper between changing nappies, feeding your baby, changing another nappy, washing up bottles, having a shower, changing another nappy, eating some Weetbix, getting ready for work and cutting your baby’s fingernails?

I hope you did. The message was clear. Most women want you to know – you’re a good mother.

Continue reading "O, what a feeding frenzy over nothing" »

I’m a fat girl. On my wedding day I remember feeling that our special day would have been perfect, if only I was a couple of kilograms lighter.

I berate myself daily for the piece of chocolate I ate or the steps I didn’t climb. Guilt and shame are my constant companions.

The strange thing is, I’m not overweight. Never have been. But this small fact hasn’t stopped me feeling fat at every stage of my life.

Continue reading "Don’t pass your bad body issues onto your kids" »

Scientists today published preliminary studies into a new contraceptive for men, designed to be worn as a slow release patch or as an implant under the skin. 

Previous efforts at male contraception have suffered from several drawbacks, namely compliance of the males, and lack of trust on behalf of the female partners to believe that their beloved male is actually taking the contraceptive.

Females have always been keen to be the primary users of contraceptive, since they are left holding the baby, so to speak.  This new form of contraceptive solves both these problems in a unique and stimulating way.

Continue reading "New contraceptive linked to men’s animal urges" »

It’s advisable to never get in the way of a woman’s love for fashion and accessories. But now it seems, in the US, you could pay the price by getting your head blown off.

With an 83 per cent increase in women buying firearms in the States, a need to add sparkle, glamour and a supposed feminine touch to a deadly weapon has also arisen. Handguns donning a pink mother-of-pearl grip, Swarovski crystals or Hello Kitty designs are providing colourful options for the gun-toting fashionista.

While a Mail article is quick to blame celebrities such as Rihanna for glamorising guns with her neck tattoo, and heck - while we’re at it - let’s blame Paris Hilton for originally jazzing up a perfectly fine mobile phone to resemble a disco ball. But this latest trend actually exemplifies the core at the gun problem in the States – weapons intended to kill have become accessories.

Continue reading "The latest lady’s must have: A handgun?" »