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Keywords: Womanhood

  • AUSTRALIA

    ‘True womanhood was motherly’: The social role of Mother’s Day

    • Kerrie Handasyde
    • 03 May 2022
    7 Comments

    Mother’s Day was a religious event, as was the older English tradition of Mothering Sunday in which worshippers returned home to their ‘mother church’. But as this new celebration of Mother’s Day spread around the English-speaking world, it preserved in public and private ritual a particular idea of womanhood. It asserted that true womanhood was motherly. 

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Singing the unsung

    • Louise Miolin
    • 15 September 2020
    2 Comments

    I stare out the bus window, my eyes chasing raindrops down the glass. They jiggle in unison as we jolt over speed bumps. I imagine they’re dancing along with the songs belting through my tangled earphones. A Carla Geneve lyric catches my attention: It's raining on Tuesday, got my Doc Martens wet. I glance down and smile at my soggy docs.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Choosing to be childless is more than okay

    • Vivienne Cowburn
    • 31 January 2020
    18 Comments

    The modern 'old maid' is no longer confined to the attic. She's in the workforce, the senate, leading in the community. Yet while gender norms are being deconstructed and cultural ideas of femininity are evolving, the idea women exist only to procreate still persists. Women are not only supposed to have children, they're supposed to want to.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Aboriginal women face triple jeopardy

    • Katelyn Jones
    • 19 July 2019
    6 Comments

    Intersectionality describes the experience of overlapping oppression faced by black women. Criminologist Chris Cuneen discusses the double jeopardy faced by Indigenous women in Australia who live under both colonialism and the patriarchy. Throw in capitalism and you get a sometimes-lethal triple threat.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Best of 2017: Why 'white' isn't a racist slur

    • Sonia Nair
    • 10 January 2018
    5 Comments

    I hung out with a group of Indian-Australians while I was a university student who called themselves 'curries', but the unspoken camaraderie that ensued from this self-identification stood in stark contrast to that time I was called a 'f***ing curry' by a passing car full of white people.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why 'white' isn't a racist slur

    • Sonia Nair
    • 13 July 2017
    11 Comments

    I hung out with a group of Indian-Australians while I was a university student who called themselves 'curries', but the unspoken camaraderie that ensued from this self-identification stood in stark contrast to that time I was called a 'f***ing curry' by a passing car full of white people. You often hear from white people that they can't be called 'white' because that too is racist language. This reflects a flawed assumption that societal structures advantage and disadvantage people in the exact same way.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    All minorities are not equal in the fight for justice

    • Moreblessing Maturure
    • 07 March 2017
    5 Comments

    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.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Feminist 'us first, you later' mentality doesn't work

    • Neve Mahoney
    • 07 March 2017
    5 Comments

    International Women's Day was founded in women's rights movements across Europe, demanding better labour conditions as well as calls for suffrage. So though these days it is primarily about celebrating the achievements of women, it is rooted in feminist protest and activism. In the spirit of the 2017 theme #BeBoldForChange, I think we should change it up a little. While it is important to look back on the achievements of feminism, we should also look back to learn how to be better for the future.

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  • MEDIA

    Sports Illustrated's plus-sized push is deeply sexist

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 24 February 2017
    3 Comments

    Women everywhere are celebrating Sports Illustrated's 2017 Swimsuit Edition for including among the innumerable images of slender young models a picture of a voluptuous woman wearing a bikini which doesn't conceal the stretch-marks on her stomach. This is Denise Bidot - a so-called plus-sized model, though probably average-sized in reality. This response is problematic, for it salutes a publication that objectifies women for widening the definition of those it is willing to objectify.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The problem of privilege in transgender stories

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 04 February 2016
    11 Comments

    As a white, middle-class, straight, cisgendered man, I am conscious of the extent to which the chips of social privilege have been stacked in my favour. As such there are some public conversations that I am patently unqualified to enter. One of these is the sometimes fierce debate that exists between some feminists and some members or supporters of the transgender community. One of the pitfalls of telling a story about marginalisation from a perspective of privilege is that you can overlook ethical nuances.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Feminist Christmas story

    • Dorothy A. Lee
    • 23 December 2008
    6 Comments

    Feminist biblical scholars ask two fundamental questions of the biblical nativity story. First they ask how female characters are portrayed. Second, they ask how these biblical myths can be reinterpreted in a woman-friendly (rather than misogynist) way.

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