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Inequality is not an aberration that comes with neoliberalism. It is the foundation of neoliberalism, along with its partners in social crime: patriarchy and colonisation. As Sharan Burrow, the Australian General Secretary of the ITUC, puts it so poignantly: 'We live in a fragmented world.' The excluded form the majority across the globe.
The Victorian state election is on this Saturday and if I’m being honest, I don’t think I could be less inspired about it if I tried. I want readers to understand just how much of a statement this is coming from me. I loathe our political system and most of our politicians but being an Aboriginal woman who works in the union movement and writes opinion, I am deeply invested in it all.
Men need to understand that other men in their close circles are capable of behaving in a manner that they have not seen first-hand. They need to retrain themselves to exercise doubt and then act on it to encourage a fairer, more thoroughly investigated outcome. It is a question of morality and duty rather than interpersonal loyalty.
Using memoir as a kind of litmus, Atkinson challenges the myth that traumatic events are socially 'out of character' and asks us to look at how by its very nature, patriarchy demands the abuse of its most vulnerable citizens.
The common thread through all of these stories is the need to have a mature conversation about the ways in which we can afford a meaningful voice to our communities. If human rights are the benchmark, then rights must be afforded to all. It is not right that those with the least power must continue to compromise.
The showdown between Bill Jean King and self-styled 'chauvinist pig' Bobby Riggs came at a time when King and other women tennis pros were protesting against unequal pay, and while King herself was coming to terms with her identity as a gay woman. A film about the match and its context should have plenty to say to present day socio-politics of sexuality and gender. But this one suffers from an identity crisis.
I used to have a t-shirt that read 'this is what a radical Muslim feminist looks like' and I got my fair share of raised eyebrows and challenging questions. The most obvious group that thinks Muslim feminism is oxymoronic are those who we've started to call the 'alt-right'. This group salivates over images of burqa-clad Muslim women scuttling in fear from their bearded oppressors. It is not that they want to free Muslim women so much as it is they don't want the Brown Man ruling.
Australian kids are being bashed, raped, starved, scorned and otherwise treated with no dignity or kindness. The study states it is not simply a case of one-off abuse, noting that 'research has demonstrated that maltreatment sub-types seldom occur in isolation (e.g. sexual abuse is often accompanied by psychological maltreatment or physical abuse)'. That is difficult reading. It makes me sick to write it. But the paper should, in a just society, serve as a catalyst for a national conversation.
In the current climate, minorities and oppressed communities are branded as 'divisive' when attention is drawn to the void which exists between those with power and those without. This allegation stands firmly on the understanding that our 'unified strength' against a common enemy will bring about the change we so passionately fight for. But often the assumption is that all parties are to unify with the majority, that those of lesser power should fight for equality in a way that those in power see fit.
The recent viral footage of 'alt-right' spokesperson Richard Spencer taking a punch to the chops caused considerable debate. There is no doubting the moral clarity that non-violent resistance achieved in the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King and the Indian independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi, and the real result of justice for African American and Indian people. When it comes to the odd individual act of public pushing and shoving, though, asking 'Is it okay?' is a red herring.
No-one doubted Trump's ascendancy would deeply fracture the world as we know it. But few of us could have anticipated the swiftness with which his orders would impact some of the world's most disadvantaged citizens: vulnerable, impoverished women. With just one signature, the newly-installed president snatched from these women access to services that are essential to their physical and mental wellbeing and their economic prospects - and, in so doing, endangering countless lives.
It came as a surprise, in our apparently post–feminist world, to hear that human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin had adopted her husband George Clooney’s surname upon marriage. By deleting her own birth name, Amal Clooney is buying into the Western tradition of coverture, established with the express intention of legally constituting women as possessions of their husbands.