A violent attack on a female student at one of South Africa’s prominent universities was not an isolated incident. It told a universal tale of how patriarchy still rules.
Hillary Clinton is a flawed presidential candidate. But she’s still probably the best on offer.
Reuters/Lucas Jackson
The rise of women to very powerful positions has not, to date, opened the way for other women. So there is no reason to believe a Hillary Clinton presidency would change that.
She has been through some trying times of late, but the Madonna machine has not been derailed.
Walter Bieri/EPA
Madonna, who attacked “sexist” criticism of her Rebel Heart tour, has always had a troubled relationship with feminism. And there is little about pop’s perfectionist workaholic that is rebellious today.
Sexting is a co-authored, negotiated experience that can empower young people.
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There has been something of a moral panic around sexting – but research suggests that it can create safe, empowering spaces for young people exploring their sexuality.
A British company has just introduced menstrual leave for female employees. But such a policy risks creating a blanket expectation that all women are crippled by their periods.
Hillary Clinton epitomises women’s shifting place in the American polity – and her struggles to win over younger women reflect that.
Beyonce struts onstage in her concerts as a kind of warrior goddess while the word ‘feminist’ lights up in colossal letters behind her.
Reuters/Robert Hanashiro
They claim to be new-age feminist, but pop stars like Beyonce and Taylor Swift have – even if unintentionally – reinvented feminism as “getting paid” and “being sexy”.
It will be difficult to make headway on gender equality while it is framed as “women’s issues” and no everyone’s problem. The answer? Bring men on board.
Girls star Lena Dunham suffers from endometriosis, a condition that affects one out of every ten women of menstruating age.
EPA/Peter Foley
We must try harder to explore what causes endometriosis and not reinforce theories that imply fault on a woman’s part, or are shaped by old ideas about women’s roles and bodies.
Girls are socialised early and told normal functions of the female body must be spoken of, if at all, in strictest privacy, indirectly, and not to men.
from shutterstock.com
There are endless euphemisms for women’s conditions and body parts. If you can’t name a body part, how can you seek medical help if something appears to be wrong with it?
Everyone ticks multiple demographic boxes.
Form image via www.shutterstock.com.
No one is only their sex or only their race or only their sexual orientation. Social psychologists are starting to investigate how people of multiple minority groups are perceived.
Cleo, brainchild of Ita Buttrose, has closed after more than 40 years in print.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
Cleo has been part of Australia’s media landscape for more than 40 years. We look back on the magazine that “wrote about sex as if we invented it” and its unique brand of pop culture commentary.
A student faces off with a policeman in riot gear. Private security forces on campuses are a show of dominance and control.
EPA/Nic Bothma
The way in which one group of South African student protesters has acted and engaged with university managers shows how valuable a feminist approach to protest can be.
Daisy Domergue’s story sits at the centre of The Hateful Eight (2015).
Double Feature Films
The Hateful Eight has been praised as a violent but optimistic story of men working to come together – but it’s also been derided as a thinly veiled exercise in misogynistic violence.
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne