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Keywords: Rape Culture

  • AUSTRALIA

    Historical perspectives on Slutwalk

    • Madeleine Hamilton
    • 31 August 2012
    15 Comments

    The post-war migration policy favoured single men as labour for the burgeoning heavy industries. By the mid-1950s thousands of lonely male migrants populated the cities, and many local women found them threatening. Like those women, Slutwalk participants defend their right to walk the streets wearing what they want without being harassed.

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  • MEDIA

    When rape is a joking matter

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 20 July 2012
    6 Comments

    US comedian Daniel Tosh sparked a furore with his now notorious rape joke. Many women have at least one story about being inappropriately and non-consensually touched — it first happened to me when I was 13. While jokes like Tosh's perpetuate such a culture, other comedians' 'rape jokes' seek to enlighten as well as entertain.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Afghan terror past and present

    • Jan Forrester
    • 05 December 2011
    8 Comments

    In Afghanistan, the past isn't the past yet. The last 150 years bear directly on its present perilous state. Now that the US is leaving, some US lobbyists and Afghan women wonder what will happen if the Taliban return. 

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  • RELIGION

    Catholic Ireland's watershed moment

    • Gerry O'Hanlon
    • 26 July 2011
    13 Comments

    The surprise in the Irish Prime Minister's frank and undiplomatic speech on sexual abuse is that his target was not the Irish culprits but the Vatican itself. He articulated the anger of the Irish people towards the Vatican, which is undoubtedly on a learning curve on these matters.

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  • RELIGION

    Are martyrs good role models?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 July 2011
    14 Comments

    To defend the dignity of the unborn, asylum seekers, prisoners, indigenous people, enemies in war, gay people or the unemployed will invite criticism and rejection. It might be unduly dramatic to describe this as martyrdom, but the example of martyrs can encourage constancy in hard times.

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  • MEDIA

    Politics of Slutwalk

    • Ellena Savage
    • 27 May 2011
    9 Comments

    Slutwalk is an international feminist movement in response to victim-blaming in cases of sexual violence. Detractors argue that supporters are mistaking their sexual subjugation for liberation. That assumption entirely misses the point.

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  • MEDIA

    Sex scandals and SNAG soldiers

    • Lyn Bender
    • 21 April 2011
    5 Comments

    Listening to the Defence Force top brass talk about the 'female' cadet scandal is like taking a trip back to the 1940s. The stoic military 'warrior culture' can be tempered by encouraging men to develop appropriate self-disclosure and empathy against the dehumanising effects of training.

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  • MEDIA

    Oprah and WikiLeaks

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 10 December 2010
    14 Comments

    Winfrey's style is confessional in therapeutic mode. Wikileaks is confessional in a heroic mode. Winfrey will be feted in Australia, while Julian Assange's enterprise will, one way or another, be brought to an end. The grace he offers is not cheap enough. 

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  • MEDIA

    Julian Assange's problem for feminists

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 09 December 2010
    36 Comments

    Julian Assange claims to be fighting for freedom of speech and government transparency — ideals that feminists also hold dear. But Assange has been arrested on rape charges and many feminists will find it hard to reconcile their defence of him with their support of rape victims.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Thirty years of Jesuit Refugee Service

    • Mark Raper
    • 17 November 2010
    3 Comments

    May I tell you about one refugee whom I met during the 20 years I lived and worked JRS? The story has no happy outcome, indeed far from it. But it may help to communicate some of the feelings that inspire many who accompany the refugees.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Politicising women's bodies

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 06 May 2010
    36 Comments

    What's the difference between wanting a thin wife and wanting an invisible wife? Which is more democratic: the western tendency to idealise the porn-star aesthetic, or the old-fashioned imperative for modesty and virtue? When the chips are down, is raunch culture really more dignifying than discretion?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Carols in the gangland

    • Sarah Ayoub
    • 18 December 2009
    5 Comments

    Men of dark hair and olive skin travelling in packs, bound by an unbreakable tradition. They have found a niche for themselves in South-West Sydney, and no matter how they are stereotyped, they continue to meet, greet and roar as they beat, pa-rum-pum-pum-pum, on their drums.

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