While being supported by many sex industry groups, feminists have labelled Amnesty International’s decriminalisation of prostitution a betrayal of women’s rights.
Writing about the women’s and feminist movements is a definitional minefield. The two are often conflated, more so in Africa.
For black women demands for equal dignity and fairness do not necessarily entail a desire to do away with male leadership in the home, community and country.
EPA/Jim Hollander
National Women’s Day in South Africa marks the historic protest in 1956 of women against apartheid policies. But, six decades on, black women have yet to fully embrace feminism as a discourse.
Cyberhate would deny women their full democratic rights as citizens, yet this is trivialised and dismissed – just as sexual violence, discrimination and workplace harassment have been for decades.
Eleanor Catton won the 2013 Man Booker Prize, for a novel centred largely on men.
EPA/Tal Cohen
We know that male writers win more prestigious literary awards than female writers, but sadly, when women do win, it’s typically because they write about male characters, or “masculine’ topics.
Changing perceptions of women doing time.
Jill Greenberg/Netflix
Wednesday Martin’s book Primates of Park Avenue has stirred debate over the so-called “wife bonus”, but feminism needs to be about more than the ability to buy things.
Susan Hopkins, University of Southern Queensland dan Jenny Ostini, University of Southern Queensland
Magazines like Zoo not only reproduce and legitimise sexist and predatory views of sexual violence and gender roles. They also make such attitudes seem normal and acceptable.
Mary Cassatt, Little Girl in a Blue Armchair, 1878, National Gallery of Art.
Is it appropriate that a Playboy centrefold from 1972 is still being used as a standard test image in image processing circles?
Wife of the late former South African President Nelson Mandela, Winnie Madikizela Mandela (centre), led a march during a ‘Women’s Day’ rally in Pretoria in 2000.
Reuters
Girlhood expresses the irrepressible potential within us all not to follow, not to echo, but to live a life defined by those moments in which we feel joy.
‘Choice feminism’ asks nothing of you and delivers nothing in return.
Floriane Legendre
Feminism is back in fashion – and this time, it’s all abut choice. But does more choice really equal more freedom? And are all women free to make the same choices?
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne