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Keywords: Vile

  • RELIGION

    Pope's Catholic health check

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 01 August 2013
    31 Comments

    Both Francis and Benedict emphasise Christian faith in the Catholic Church as the privileged way of finding meaning in life. But where Benedict might picture the Church as a treasury of all the beliefs, relationships, liturgical details and traditions, Francis might imagine it as like a dispensary from which health workers go out to share their life saving medicines.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Lament of the 21st century man

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 10 July 2013
    10 Comments

    His body itself is a symbol of his inherited power and privilege. He hears women talk about being afraid to go out at night alone. He sees the great strides women have made in the workforce, yet sits in management meetings where nine out of ten leaders are men. He sees bikini clad women on his television screen and feels guilty at admiring their bodies.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Sex and power in football and politics

    • Barry Gittins and Jen Vuk
    • 28 June 2013
    5 Comments

    A young writer has crash tackled the ugly questions of non-consensual sex, coercion and the male privilege and misuse of power that can flow from sporting success. Yet when it comes to our football codes — let alone our political arena — a conversation needs to move beyond gender name-calling or the 'us and them' polemic.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Disrupting sexism

    • Fatima Measham
    • 26 June 2013
    18 Comments

    Chief of Army Lt Gen David Morrison summed it up well. In condemning the culture of 'permission' that allowed defence officers to exploit women, he said: 'The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.' Framing sexism in terms of permission should sharpen the way we respond to abuse of women — the same compulsion to conform presents us with opportunities to disrupt tacit permissions.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    History repeats for powerful Australian women

    • Brian Matthews
    • 21 June 2013
    14 Comments

    On the face of it, life for a strong, talented and ambitious woman in 19th century Australia was much tougher than it is now. Yet even Louisa Lawson, a pioneer of women's rights who was grievously discriminated against and derided because she dared to excel, was never demeaned or personally debased to the extent Julia Gillard has been.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Roman Polanski and the chain of abuse

    • Lyn Bender
    • 12 March 2013
    15 Comments

    In 2009 I wrote an article examining the suffering of Polanski, the acclaimed filmmaker who was wanted on a rape charge he'd pled guilty to 30 years ago. I soon discovered how cruel an online lynch mob can be. Some commentators wished rape upon me, so that I might know how bad it was. The truth is I was already 'in the club'.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The sinister side of African Aid

    • Ellena Savage
    • 23 November 2012
    5 Comments

    The picture disturbed me: a small child, my own age, sitting beside an infant on the stoop of a simple wooden house with a dirt floor. I cried at their hopelessness, and my helplessness. The point was to make Australian kids aware of their economic privilege. But I wonder if it also made us believe in the weakness of others. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Feminist mothers' domestic dilemmas

    • Madeleine Hamilton
    • 13 November 2012
    4 Comments

    When I'm scrabbling around wiping up cereal under the baby's highchair and she's twisting her milky fingers into my hair, what good is it to recall that it is due to the privileging of men's professional work and their superior earning power that it is me, not my husband, who is being subjected to this assault?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Sins of the Church and the BBC

    • Michael Mullins
    • 29 October 2012
    8 Comments

    The Jimmy Savile scandal in Britain shows the Catholic Church is not alone among trusted public institutions undermined by their own silence and denial. An Irish clergy abuse victims advocate has written of the hypocrisy of the BBC in its reporting of abuse crimes in the Church.

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  • RELIGION

    Confidentiality in the confessional and psychiatrist's rooms

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 02 August 2012
    19 Comments

    The news that Aurora accused James Holmes had sought psychiatric help may broaden the Australian discussion of the secrecy of confession. The exemption of certain privileged conversations from the duty of disclosure may be justified on the grounds of the public good.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Knowing the needs of refugees

    • Susan Metcalfe
    • 27 June 2012
    22 Comments

    It should be mandatory for anyone writing on asylum seekers to spend time visiting detention centres. Many commentators ignore the hard work of those who have. Moreover the politicians are too poll driven to even explain the human desperation that leads to boat journeys.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Lay off the Gina Rinehart fat attack

    • Moira Rayner
    • 15 June 2012
    33 Comments

    My first secretary later worked for Rinehart, and never had a harsher word to say other than she was 'an unusual lady'. She must have been raised by a mum, like mine, who said if you can't find something nice to say, don't say anything. Good advice for anyone deriding Rinehart for her 'unattractiveness'.

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