A Year in Feminism

The ANU Women’s Department’s 2017 Magazine

Bossy

A Year in Feminism

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We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples, who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Bossy is sourced, edited, printed and distributed.

We pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

We also acknowledge that this land – which we benefit from occupying – was stolen, and that sovereignty was never ceded.

Within this ongoing echo of colonialism, we commit – as editors and sub-editors – to amplify the voices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people within our community.

We will honour the diversity of their stories and stand by their right to recognition.

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Bossy accepts contributions from women-identifying, femme-aligned, non-binary and genderqueer ANU students, staff members and alumni.

E: anubossymag@gmail.com W: www.bossymag.com F: www.www.facebook.com/ bossymagazineanu T: www.twitter.com/anubossymag

Letter from the Editor The world reflected in the mass media develops in partnership with capitalism. For this reason, social movements are nearly always supported by alternative media platforms.

In 1971 in America, Ms. was published for the first time; in 1972 in England, Spare Rib was founded; since around 2000 in Iran, the cinema has allowed women filmmakers to challenge internal forces of oppression and debunk external and Westernised myths about Islam.

It goes without saying then that we too need an alternate media platform if we are to incite change at ANU. This alternate media platform would serve to address issues that are important to us, develop and reflect our identities and community, and champion our causes. Bossy, in my opinion, is this platform. This is not to say that those who fought the fight on campus long before us did not win battles and gain ground, but rather, it says that our movement has recently gained enough momentum to warrant such a platform.

From here on out I believe Bossy will serve as a way of educating, recruiting, uplifting and inspiring feminists. It will offer a way to send a message to certain men in a certain fortress without the need to make an appointment. It will serve as a connection between feminists at ANU and feminists from around the world. It will be an anchor which ensures alumni and current students stay and feel connected. It will be a link to bigger media outlets, so that your stories can be picked up and reach an even larger audience if you so wish.

Ultimately, the purpose of Bossy is to magnify the voices of contributors, and in some cases, help contributors find their voices. We are committed to working to remove the stigma that has become associated with feminism, and also to remind people at every turn that there is no one way to practice feminism and that there is no stereotypical feminist. We also, above all, aim to educate the masses about the fundamental importance of intersectional feminism.

“A Year of Feminism” is broken up into four sections, each with a very different tone. It is ironic but fitting that this magazine is divided by emotional state. Us non-men are, after all, very emotional beings – some might even (and do, frequently) say that we’re too emotional. But, as you are soon to discover, this magazine is pretty darn wholesome, which is also fitting because our capacity for emotion is one of our greatest strengths.

Men could do well by taking a leaf out of our books – or a page out of this book for that matter.

Never be ashamed of your emotions. Never be afraid of them either. I have decided as of late that anyone who isn’t both angry and sad at the state of the world is not worth my time. Use these emotions. Don’t waste them or supress them. Our emotions and our awareness are our superpowers and they will be what brings about change.

So, thank you to each and every person who contributed in some way to “A Year of Feminism”. And thank you to all those who have picked up a copy and are reading this now. I hope you enjoy the content that will follow, and that you have meaningful conversations about it afterwards.

Bronte McHenry Bossy Editor-in-Chief

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Holly Zhang

2017 ANUSA Women’s Officer There’s nothing quite like the clarity of hindsight to give one a broader perspective on things.

Reflecting on my term, I can almost see the contours of the (often stormy) seasons that we went through, and feel the overlapping waves of women advocates who have carried, inspired and found strength in each other to bring the Department forward over the last few years.

Organisationally, the Women’s Department has grown a lot this year, and I’m sure that any member you ask will tell you that they have too! It’s been both humbling and inspiring to watch our new initiatives and diverse communities flourish within our own autonomous space, and then take up the place they have always deserved in the wider ANU context.

As advocates, I know that we had a lot of hopes about what we wanted to see happen this year, particularly following the release of the AHRC report. ANU’s response has been inadequate and disappointing. Pushing for change can be a tough grind, and where we get is almost never as far as where we were aiming for. But I believe that falling short is part of daring to set directions for the future – it is not a failure. Believing in potential is the very thing that keeps us going, even if we have to take breaks occasionally.

I trust everyone in this community will keep learning to work, love and give sustainably. I hope you will all take on the collective responsibilities of being a part of the Department, and support each other’s individual development too – wherever we happen to be. We owe it to ourselves, and to each other, to keep growing and building – together.

And I know we will.

Nathalie Blakey

2017 PARSA Women’s Officer Ever loved somebody who didn’t love you back? I loved ANU, but I’m not sure it really loved me back – especially in my role as 2017 PARSA women’s officer. Meh. Initially, my mantra was to work with the aim that one day the role wouldn’t

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need to exist. I wanted to see ANU become a place where sexism was non-existent, or at least not tolerated.

Every decision I made or action I took was to create systematic, structural or whole-of-institution change.

The majority of my time was spent on the issue of sexual assault and sexual harassment on campus. At first, I was charmed by the University. They fed me a line about owning the problem and wanting to work on it. I remember not really understanding what the University’s approach to sexual assault and sexual harassment was; I really beat myself up for not getting it and blamed myself every time a postgrad had a terrible experience.

And then I uncovered the lie. There was never a policy dedicated to challenging sexual assault and sexual harassment at ANU; there weren’t any institutionalised resources dedicated to challenging or mitigating it; there was no system for reflection, debriefing or feedback.

When I figured this out I was furious.

Not as furious as the Hulk – but it did motivate me to smash the patriarchy. But that task isn’t something one character can do – it’s not even something that The Avengers or entire Marvel Universe could undertake. Change still needs to be pushed for, so please proactively offer your help and support to Emma (the current women’s officer) and the PARSA team. I threw my punches out of total love for this university. I hope it helped. I love you ANU. I love you PARSA. Always.

Intersectionality Campaign

Freya Willis

Intersectionality has become something of a buzz word in feminist spaces, but it is such a broad and catch-all term that it often feels difficult to know where to begin. How do we fight all the forces of oppression equally, and at once? How do we capture all the complexities of identity and identity politics? The aim of the intersectionality campaign was to put a face to the term intersectionality and remind people that it is not just an abstract concept. The photos reached thousands of people, many of whom were outside of the ANU community.

It was a simple but powerful idea because diversity offers a genuinely

new perspective. The campaign made people stop, think, listen, share stories and discover new things and, because of this, it was a huge success.

ANU Women in Leadership

Jody McPhee

ANU WiL was founded in mid-2016 because ANU lacked the space and opportunities for cross-disciplinary leadership and skill development for women and non-binary people.

We aim to create opportunities for leadership and skill development and to promote students in leadership roles within and outside the ANU. In 2017, we hosted two panel events: women in community leadership, and women in innovation. We also held a workshop to help people prepare for the professional workplace, a discussion about 50/50 in leadership with Virginia Haussegger, and two networking events with a wide range of accomplished women from the Canberra community. In 2018 ANU WiL will continue to host a range of events and support women and nonbinary students.

Transfeminine Campaign

Celeste Sandstrom The ANU Women’s Department is open to all transgender and nonbinary people, but it can take a long time for people with these identities to engage with and feel comfortable in the Department. The Transfeminine Campaign will overtly present the inclusion of transfeminine people in the Women’s Department, and state that transmisogyny and trans-exclusionary sentiments are not welcome.

Transfeminine refers to people who are transgender and identify with experiences of femininity – this includes trans women, feminine-aligned, nonbinary, agender or genderqueer people (regardless of pronouns), and anyone who experiences transmisogyny. The campaign was suggested by Kat Reed and I took lead on the campaign in term three. The campaign will kick off in 2018 and consist of two parts – a poster and small flyer campaign, and a video campaign – both of which will be widely publicised.

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Get to Know Your 2018 Women’s Officer Name: Laura Perkov Pronouns: I’m a cis woman and I use she/her/hers pronouns.

Study: I’m heading into my fourth year of law/ arts (anthropology).

Home: I currently live in Kaleen, Canberra – but hail from Liverpool in Sydney’s southwest.

Languages: English and some (very bad) Croatian.

Favourite word: “Legit” If you could choose your last meal …

Sarma: a Balkan dish of rice, spices and meat, wrapped in cabbage and served with potato.

Favourite genre of movie: Science-fiction and romantic comedies.

Favourite song of all time: “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac. Drink of choice: Iced coffee or a gin and tonic.

Tell us a joke: ANU’s idea consultation.

of

student

survivor

Five-year goal: Hopefully I will have graduated. I honestly don’t have a specific career path in mind, but would love to be doing work in the social justice sector. Let’s be real though – I will probably end up in the APS along with half of ANU’s graduates.

Biggest inspiration: The countless amounts of brave, inspiring women and non-binary people I’ve had the privilege of meeting and working with over the past three years at ANU. Define feminism: Feminism means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. To me, it means acknowledging and working towards dismantling systems and structures of oppression such as the patriarchy and white supremacy. But it also means

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solidarity and community, and the countless powerful and inspiring people I’ve had the fortune of knowing.

Tell us a tiny bit about your work with Restorative ANU. Restorative ANU is a movement of students, staff, and alumni dedicated to advocating for change in how the ANU responds to violence and sexual assault.

I’m really excited for what we have planned over summer and the next year, and to work with such a great group of activists and advocates.

How do you intend to interact with the university in demanding positive action to combat the culture of sexual violence at ANU? I want to take on the feedback from previous student representatives and how they have managed working relationships with the university. I think there needs to be a balance between assertive advocacy and more behindthe-scenes negotiation, and this will depend on context and audience.

Of course, my perspective on this is open to change. After seeing decisionmakers drag their feet on discussing and implementing our recommendations, create committees that eventually drive out student and survivor voices, and continuously disrespect the needs and experiences of survivors, I have become increasingly sceptical.

Pastoral roles are incredibly demanding; how will you actively look after your own mental, emotional and physical health in your capacity as women’s officer?

Previous women’s officers have been into yoga, but I’m more of a swimmer.

I’m also going to be structuring the role and delegating responsibility to make it more sustainable and hopefully prevent burnout. Department officers and other students in pastoral care roles should be able to take leave from their responsibilities when they need to, and should not be expected to be constantly available. I want to continue emphasising that the women’s officer is a referral service rather than a crisis service, which

will hopefully make the pastoral care easier to handle.

What did the Department do well this year?

I think the mobilisation and momentum we gained on our campaign addressing violence on campus following the release of the AHRC Survey is something that we did really well this year. We got a lot of media traction, and did a lot of things we can expand upon in the next year.

What could be improved about the Department?

I want to make our events calendar and community outreach more consistent and inclusive – we need to actively make the Department a space where people feel welcome and empowered. This is particularly important for members of our community that are less visible, or face specific experiences that make it difficult to engage with the Department – such as gender diverse members and international students.

What are your B I G ideas?

• A fortnightly events calendar.

• A big event, series or campaign every term.

• Campaigns to engage members of the Department who have been less visible or engaged thus far.

• A weekly meeting structure with alternate times: Monday 6.00pm one week, and a time in business hours the following week.

• Effective delegation of responsibilities among deputies and the collective • Empowering members to run their own events, campaigns, groups and advocacy.

• ‘Portfolios’ of small, tangible and trackable responsibilities that people can sign up to complete and pass on easily.

• Stronger relationships between the Department and residential advocates.

• More resources: a list of bulk-billing doctors in Canberra, recommended hairdressers, a guide to how the university administration works, a list of ANUSA services, and more.

• Disciplinary action for perpetrators of violence and the implementation of a restorative process.

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5. A Letter to 20-Year-Old Me – Anonymous 6. An Invitation to Boys and Men: Champion the Cause of Girls and Women – Veronica Fynn Bruey 8. In the Wild: A Thursday Night in Civic – Georgie Sheridan 9. Succubus – Prisca Ochan 10. Is It 2017 in the World of Women’s Sport? – Mehar Chawla 12. Flipping the Script – Ji-Soo Kweon 14. White Man Acknowledges Privilege “May Have Played a Part” in Job Offer – Zoe Saunders 15. Poverty and Insecure Work Through a Gendered Lens – Aggi Court and Jill Molloy 16. The God of Men – Ksenia Bestuzheva 18. Beauty in Colour – Jane Nguyen 20. Featured: Jean Luc 21. A Bride by Any Other Name – Maddy Castles 24. Market-Models Like the NDIS Are Failing People With Disabilities – Vanamali Hermans 25. Our Mother – Lucy Bei 26. An AMA with a Real Life Lesbian – Juliette Baxter 27. Period Pains – Diana Tung

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Ablaze Agitated by centuries of mistreatment and humiliation. Fuelled by passion, fury and a thirst for vengeance. Sustained by desire and longing.

“Gender as it functions today is a grave injustice.

I am angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

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A Letter to 20-Year-Old Me: A Guide to Your New Life as a Bar Wench Anonymous You got a casual job in Canberra!

Congratulations little me. It only took you seven months.

Unfortunately, this job will be a little harder than you expect, you naïve, first-year hospo ingénue. So, I made a helpful guide to prepare you for some of the things you will experience over the next year.

1. You will be called a slut for not serving a customer quickly enough.

2. You will be told to smile by the chefs every time you carry a plate of food into the restaurant. You will be ridiculed for trying to express that this is an inappropriate demand that is not made of the male staff.

3. You will be informed you are the “token plain girl” and are valuable because some of the older regulars don’t like their female bartenders looking too sexual. But luckily (!) you will be deemed “girl next door” enough for 75-year-old alcoholic men.

4. A new bartender will arrive and tell you the story of his father dying when he was a child while running his hand up and down your thigh to your crotch. But you will freeze and not say anything because he’s telling you a deeply sad, personal story and you are a nice girl.

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5. You will be asked to serve espresso martinis in schooner glasses because it would be embarrassing for men to drink out of cocktail glasses (obviously).

6. One day you will notice that behind the bar there are pornographic images of women stuck where customers cannot see. You will ask about this and will be enlightened to the idea of the hospitality boys club. You will develop imposter syndrome.

7. Your work friends will say “fuck we got absolutely raped today” when you have a busy shift.

Sometimes the other women will say it too. You will privately attribute this to internalised misogyny and the patriarchal bargain.

8. Your boss, who is obese, will loudly and unashamedly fatshame female customers.

9. Male customers will be visibly confused and irritated if you serve them their drinks with a straw – because straws are for chicks (obviously).

10. The owner’s father will come in every day to drink but will not learn your name, even after a year. He will know the names of the male staff members, but that’s probably just a coincidence.

11. That guy who tried to roofie you once in Civic will come in every day and pretend like he doesn’t know you while you pour his pint.

12. You will watch as a drunk man becomes violently angry and homophobic after another man touches him on the shoulder.

You will watch as many drunk men become violent for many different reasons.

13. You will mostly be referred to by customers as “oi”, “sweetheart” or “the girl”.

14. The exhaustion of constantly being indignant will creep up on you until you realise that maybe you should find a job where you are treated the same as your male colleagues. . You will realise this job probably does not exist and will stay a bar wench for the time being.

Be patient little me – this job will make you a strong woman and a strident feminist.

Best of luck, 21-year-old me.

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An Invitation to Boys and Men: Champion the Cause of Girls and Women Veronica Fynn Bruey Historically and across diverse settings, men have always managed to denigrate and subjugate women. The following selection of quotations is indicative of male prejudice against women. I understand your impatience; it seems onerous to review a long list of derogatory remarks about women. Albeit, bear with me. I strongly believe the persistence of stereotypes and myths against girl and women is so rooted in our social construct of the world that a painful reminder is crucial for putting our case to men.

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“If it were not for women being admitted into our order, my teachings would have lasted 1000 years; now they will not last 500.”

Gautam Buddha, founder of Buddhism, 563/480 BC - 483/400 BC “Women, with their two-fingered wisdom, have a difficult time understanding what I teach.”

Gautam Buddha, founder of Buddhism, 563/480 BC - 483/400 BC “It is the law of nature that women should be held under the dominance of man [so that] one hundred women are not worth a single testicle.”

Conficius, Chinese philosopher, 500 BC “All the pursuits of men are the pursuits of women also, but in all of them a woman is inferior to a man.”

Plato, Greek philosopher, 428 BC - 347 BC

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“A proper wife should be as obedient as a slave.”

Aristotle, Greek Philosopher, 384 BC - 322 BC “Any woman who does not give birth to as many children as she is capable is guilty of murder.”

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo Regius, 354 AD - 430 AD “The words and works of God is quite clear, that women were made either to be wives or prostitute.”

Martin Luther, German protestant reformer, 1484 - 1546 “Women is more guilty than man, because she was seduced

by Satan, and so diverted her husband from obedience to God that she was an instrument of death leading to all perdition. It is necessary that woman recognise this, and that she learn to what she is subjected; and not only against her husband. This is reason enough why today she is placed below and that she bears within her ignominy and shame.”

John Calvin, French protestant reformer, 1536 - 1555 “Nature intended women to be our slaves … they are our property: we are not theirs. They belong to us, just as a tree that bears fruit belongs to a gardener. What a mad idea demand equality for women? … Women are nothing but machines for producing children.”

Napoleon Bonaparte, first Emperor of France, 1804 - 1814

“Woman seems to differ from man in her mental disposition, chiefly in her greater tenderness and less selfishness”.

Charles Darwin, English naturalist, quote from The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871 “Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one solution, it is called pregnancy.”

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, quote from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883 “When a woman has scholarly inclinations, there is usually something wrong with her sexual organs” Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, quote from Beyond Good and Evil, 1886 “The have the right to work wherever they want to, as long as they have dinner ready when you get home.”

John Wayne, American actor and filmmaker, 1926 - 1976 “Educating a beautiful woman is like pouring honey into a fine Swiss watch: everything stops.”

Kurt Vonnegut, American writer, quote from Happy Birthday Wanda, 1971 “A little bit of rape is good for a man’s soul.”

Norman Mailer, American Writer, quote from address on Richard Nixon and women’s liberation, University of California Berkeley, 1972

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“Henry VIII didn’t get divorced, he just had his wives’ heads chopped off when he got tired of them. That’s a good way to get rid of a woman - no alimony.”

Ted Turner, Founder of CNN, 1983 “Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women access to the mainstream of society.”

Rush Limbaugh, American talk show host, quote in Sacramento Union, 1988 “If rape is inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”

Clayton Williams, American businessman and former state governor contender, quote from Texas gubernatorial race, 1990 “Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

Pat Robertson, American TV evangelist and former presidential contender, 1992 “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Todd Akin, former United States representative for Missouri, quote from interview on KTVI Television, 2012

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In a man’s world, women are inferior, unintelligent, weaker, rape material, and should be completely confined to the home. The outrage of radical feminists against the unsubstantiated hate of men is nothing short of empathy, tolerance and consideration. In fact, it is this incessant male oppression that partly agitates our relentless rebellion, resistance and determination to change the world for unborn girl babies. Some such resistance fighters include: Yaa Ansantewa, the Ejisu Queen Mother in the Ashanti Empire; Queen Nandi, mother of Shaka Zulu, King of the Zulu Empire; Naguset Eask, a Mi’kmaq activist who joined American Indians in education and resistance; Rigoberta Menchu Tum, a Guatamalan’s native rights activists and winner of the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize; Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani girls’ education activist and youngest Nobel Prize Laureate; and Kula Fofana, Liberia’s budding advo-

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cate for young girls and women empowerment.

In 1946, women began the long battle to enter the field of international law, specifically pursing the basic principle of equal rights for all in the 1945 United Nations Charter. The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) – originally a subcommittee of the Commission on Human Rights – sought to define and elaborate on the general guarantees of non-discrimination from a gender perspective. Seeing a failure on the part of the UN system to comprehensively address discrimination against women, the CSW set out change this. Having worked on a number of important declarations and conventions to protect women’s rights, on 5 December 1963, the CSW requested the Economic and Social Council draft an instrument that would articulate the equal rights of men and women in a single document. After 16 years, on 18 December 1979, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) was adopted with 130 votes and 10 abstentions. Since 1982, when the Committee was first established, a total of 104 experts have served as members, five of whom have been male. The current membership comprises of 22 females and one male. Considering the vitriolic attack on women by men, women are completely justified in carving out a safe space in global polity. Notwithstanding, CEDAW has been criticised by the Against CEDAW blog as: “A tool for mischief as it promotes feminism and destroy cultures and families and undermines sovereignty of nations.”

As a war survivor who was internally displaced multiple times, and a refugee for well over nine years before becoming an immigrant in Canada, England, Switzerland, Australia and then United States, I have been exposed to much violence, discrimination and abuse.

The trauma associated with my experiences is ever-lasting, and made worse by the fact I have been separated from my entire family for 13 years.

My past prompted me to embark on a PhD journey to question and understand the persistence of gender disparity; I was armed with the empowering label of educated independent feminist. I was excited about the fact that the parallels between systematic violence against Indigenous Liberians and Australians had not been re-

searched, I began a year of fieldwork data collection for my doctoral thesis: Gender Violence and the Rule of Law: Indigenous Communities in Australia and post-war Liberia. I targeted service providers in law, health, education and civil society. By the end of the data collection periods, a total of 231 service providers were surveyed, 29 in-depth interviews with Indigenous women advocates were carried out, and 22 informal email exchanges with male colleagues took place. Additionally, historical, statistical and content analyses were conducted on 127,708 convicts to Australia; 14,996 former slaves to Liberia; 2,701 sexual and gender violence cases reported to the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in Liberia; seven case files from the Sexual and Gender-based Crimes Unit in Liberia; and 1,200 interview entries from the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children in Australia.

During my fieldwork, though I felt strong and ready to tackle violence against Indigenous women, I became vulnerable to sexual harassment and assaults, both in Australia and Liberia. Three incidents and offenders in remote Liberia haunt me to this day: a circuit court public defender; a Human Rights Officer at the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL); and a circuit court judge. All three made sexual advances, with one attempting rape – each occurred either during or after interview sessions. One said: “I’ve not seen such beauty since I was posted here.” Another: “When my driver returns from dropping my wife I’ll like to spend the evening with you.” Yet another, who had a wife and two daughters, proceeded to kiss and touch me inappropriately. I was frustrated and angry. Worse of all, I felt helpless and worthless. What is wrong with men? Is it really true that men are ruled by their dicks? Do these men care about their mothers, sisters, wives and children? I screamed and cried.

I am still hurting now that my PhD is almost done. Certainly, radical feminism can’t be working if we have had all these years of struggle. Among others points, my thesis recommends that violence against women isn’t going away unless women consciously engage boys and men to champion the gender justice cause. After all, aren’t men responsible for the persistent increase in discrimination and violence against women?

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In the Wild: A Thursday Night in Civic Georgie Sheridan Note: this is a heteronormative, satirical description of a night out in the David Attenborough tradition.

The sticky black floor of Academy is regularly the setting for one of the most remarkable dramas in evolution.

A male with long, straggly brown hair broods over the DJ discs, feeling his creation reverberate through his soul and the room. It is just a touch after midnight on a pulsating Thursday night in the traditional Canberran socialising grounds, and six species of male residents have come out to play.

Crowding round the bar, bands of *bois’ bois* chug their $2.50 basics and periodically erupt in their mating call – “Yeah the boys!!” – seeking solace in their established masculinity.

Meanwhile, the *soft bois* are attempting to strike up conversation with any girl they see by proudly noticing their fashionable attire, and following up with pseudo-intellectual musings and a casual mention of their affinity for feminism, in the hope of arousing interest.

Far off, on the couches and in the corners, lurk the swarms of *flirty year olds*, drinks in hand. They’re busily telling anyone that will listen that they’re “stunningly beautiful” in the hopes of catching a smile. In the same vicinity cower the *players*, who have retreated from the mating scene to the couches in the hopes of avoiding their previous conquests – who are flitting round the floor of Acads – in fear they are bound to bump into them, and each other, and catch on.

Soaking up the attention, packs of *fuck bois* swagger around, on and near the side stage in their blue Ralph Lauren polos, rolled-up jeans and white sneakers. They are elbowing each other and scoping out ‘tens’ with aggressive head nods. Sharing the dance floor are the *metrosexuals*, trying to enjoy the night even though their meticulous-

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ly-structured Insta posts tanked. They distract themselves by desperately reminding everyone around them that they’re “straight EVEN though they love booty dancing and dropping to Beyonce”. Come on guys, own what you like already, sexuality isn’t determined by song preference! *Insert rolling-eye emoji* In and around this clan warfare swoop the gaggles of girls, glittering in superiority amongst the strobing lights as they feign obliviousness at their centrality as the objects of desire.

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As the night goes on, the pheromones intensify. With a few drinks under everyone’s belts, the competition for the females begins. Unique courtship displays abound with varying levels of success. *Flirty year olds* are an ever-present danger, hovering in the background and hoping to lure girls in. The *bois’ bois* seize their moment and swashbuckle in, trying to establish their masculinity by warding off ‘unwanted’ advances for the helpless ladies. Increasingly often, this is responded to by girl gaggles forming their own bands to make sure these benevolent ‘protectors’ know that they’re not entitled to anything. Two *soft bois* act out their meticulously planned manoeuvre, with one talking about the feminist awakening his girlfriend recently gave him, while dropping that his mate is single and ready to mingle.

Some of the girls inevitably get separated from their friends in the tottering journey to the bathroom. After an avalanche of compliments at the sink mirror, they realise they desperately need to find their friends if they are going to survive the inevitable onslaught of invitations to have a drink or a dance upon their exit from the bathroom.

One of the *bois’ bois* at the bar decides to break away from his crew. He

flashes a smile at a girl he spoke to earlier in the day, before he commits the unforgivable advance of a casual butt grab (also known as ‘sexual harassment’). It’s a courtship move that is tried on every night out, but consistently without success, and is never legal without consent … It’s a wonder it hasn’t died out altogether at this point in time.

In other spots, some of the males have been luckier, and are now engaging in tonsil hockey with their chosen counterpart.

Meanwhile, the *fuck bois* guide girls off the dance floor to “talk”. Their quick wit and ability to simultaneously ‘neg’ and compliment while assuring the continuance of their ‘nice guy’ demeanour is key to their courtship display.

The ego’s get larger as more drinks are downed and unbeknownst to the males till they get back to a bedroom, whiskey dick sets in. The night draws to a close.

Some males and females have formed suitable attachments and leave the establishment with the promise of a good night. The rest are left to go home and muse at their misfortune and dream up better ways of dealing with it next time.

This is except for the *soft bois*, who have gallantly offered to help walk some of the females they’ve engaged in conversation with home. They are expecting to be invited in, as a reward for their benevolence, but that is not how the story ends this time, nor how society works. Their night inevitably ends with being turned back out into the -5˚C Canberra weather at the girls’ doors.

Thanks for accompanying us, but we don’t owe you shit.

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Succubus Prisca Ochan She stalks him in the deep of the night Walks the battered footpaths inscribed with forgotten teenage love affairs, plastered in blood and broken glass, strewn like shattered dreams gently cajoled to the surface, gently ebbing like sad memories of disillusionment and slit wrists, and past the streets defaced with the depressing haikus of a fucked up people She watches as the dilapidated houses sway side to side, as if they were held together with double sided sticky tape, and takes special note of the neon signs advertising ‘Girls!Girls!Girls!’ And she waits patiently for him Deftly moves back and forth from place to place, weaving the delicate cadence of the illusion of movement, but she never really goes anywhere Because time is nothing to her She could wait for an eternity She could go on like this forever if she wanted to Forever and ever, and ever Round and around and around While she waits she kisses all of the other boys and makes them cry, and briefly takes them away from their lives of chagrin and little consequence For a moment, she makes them happy For some time, there is no more self-deprecation, flagellation and masturbation But eventually even the sun sets in paradise And then they are back to drowning in their reservoirs of shit

She sets a devious trap Seducing Stimulating Manipulating Until he blindly stumbles in Then she pounces Devours him whole Gently and irrevocably She envelops his whole body in her noxious saliva He does not fight it because he enjoys it She has convinced him that it is fun: Carefully coloured her own need with desire---convinced him that he was everything she ever wanted and that she was everything he will ever need She deprives him of all life Slowly sucks it out Only stopping when nothing remains And he is a dead, shrivelled up heap of oblivion

----

Staring at his lifeless body, she smiles to herself Content She picks up the menu And moves on

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Is It 2017 in the World of Women’s Sport?

Mehar Chawla I still remember sitting there, with three minutes to go; Sydney led West Coast by four points and the entire crowd was frozen with fear, excitement and frustration – the latter mostly for fans who donned blue and yellow. With 30 seconds to go the ball is marked by Leo Barry, winning the Sydney Swans the 2005 AFL Premiership for the first time in 72 years. Young boys and girls dressed head to toe in red and white screamed at the camera, flashing their merch. Elderly fans, who had lived a lifetime without seeing their team win, cried into their loved one’s arms. I remember seeing the boys on the pitch, who had just won their first premiership, running into each other and falling carelessly into a pile. Most vividly, however, I remember wondering whether a stadium would ever fill to a capacity of 91, 898 spectators for a women’s league.

It is a common narrative: the pay gap between men and women in day-to day society. This disparity, however, is much more pronounced in the world of sport, with the differences in income going from thousands to millions.

Cricket Australia – the national governing body for cricket – pitched a proposal to the Australian Cricketers Association (ACA) in March 2017, which would have seen an inflation in the gender pay gap both domestically and internationally. Among the recommendations most contentious was the suggestion to scrap the shared revenue model for player payments, which has existed for 20 years. If adopted, this would push Australia’s male cricketers amidst the highest paid sportspeople in the nation, while failing to adjust

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Australian female cricketer’s salaries – rendering it a “win for cricket administrators, but a loss for cricket.”

The ACA is the representative body for male and female cricket players and has been campaigning strongly against unfair treatment by Cricket Australia. Despite the series of protests and strike that took place earlier in the year, which even saw the existence of the Ashes called into question, the matter is yet to be resolved.

You may have heard that the Matildas, the Australian female soccer team, cancelled their US tour in 2015 due to a dispute with the Football Federation of Australia (FFA). The Matildas made Australian history in June of 2015 when they played Japan in the quarterfinals of the FIFA Women’s World Cup – a suc-

cess that t h e Socceroos h a v e never tasted.

Despite being ranked sixth in the FIFA/ Coca-Cola World Ranking, members of the women’s team earn $750 for each match, compared to a Socceroos player who earns $8,500 per match despite the team being 50th in the equivalent men’s world rankings. In

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fact, if the Matilda’s were to make to the women’s World Cup final, they would be paid less than the Socceroos get for a simply turning up for a single group-stage game.

It is understandably difficult to encourage young women to engage in sport when Australia demonstrates – on a domestic level as well as to an international audience – that they do not value women’s sport as they do men’s.

I’m sure that we have all heard the popular misconception amongst sports fans that the reason women’s sport is underfunded and underpaid is simply because it is less enjoyable to watch – and that this is backed up by men’s sport having more viewers.

Indeed, world tennis star Novak Djokovic said only last year that male tennis players deser ved to be

paid more than their female counterparts because they attracted more spectators and TV viewers. Albeit offensive and sexist, his comments are not entirely false: women’s sports do have less

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spectators at the stadium and audiences watching the screen. However, there is more to this narrative than just the number of ticket sales made.

The perception of a higher entertainment value and male hegemony in the sports world is directly linked to funding decisions, visibility, sponsorship and traditional societal expectations of femininity. As highlighted above, the funding decisions made by associations such as CA and FFA commonly see women’s sport under-funded, despite performance achievements. Funding covers wages and salaries, but also determines the amount of money and effort devoted to training facilities, equipment, uniforms, coaches and trainers.

Despite a continued growth in participation, women’s sport remains less visible than men’s sports, in terms of media coverage, scheduling decisions and media representation. It is not difficult to see these differences. Weekend television is dominated with men’s AFL, NRL and cricket matches, spanning across all of 7’s channels (7, 7Mate and 7TWO) while there is not a women’s game in sight. During the European League, masses of Australians set their alarms for 3am, ensuring they wake up to watch the soccer. Female league, however, is only offered on pay-TV forums such as Foxtel. This kind of scheduling, which prioritises men’s sport, is loosely based on the assumption that there is a lack of audience interest for women’s sport. Thus, a perpetual cycle emerges: women’s sport is not broadcasted on free-to-air TV, much of the public is unaware or uninterested in seeking out the game, the game reaches a minimal audience, there is a lack of revenue and funding based on the number of spectators, and all the money is subsequently poured into the men’s league which upgrades its facilities and equips its players with the tools they need to play better.

A 2010 study that looked at sport coverage in the Australian media found that only nine per cent of news and seven per cent of non-news content covered women in sport, demonstrating the relative exclusion of women’s sport in the media.

Moreover, any air-time that is devoted to women in sport does not come without negative commentary. Female athletes are often subject to harassment

by the media: they are either overtly sexualised or ridiculed for not adhering to traditional societal conceptions of femininity. A study in the 1970s of professional sports photographs looked at gymnasts who combined youthfulness with athleticism and a slender figure, demonstrating the how the idealised images of the female form depict the gender ideals in a given era. This study served to highlight how sports photographs construct and establish gender and body standards through popular media and advertisement.

We see this on a day-to-day basis: when we open a magazine and often see images of female runners wearing tight, sexualised workout clothing that attracts dialogue surrounding her physical appearance rather than athletic ability. Furthermore, female athletes with more ‘masculine’ physiques and characters are often met with slander, taunting and mockery for not fitting within society’s framework of a timid, soft-spoken and feminine figure. The victor of the 1999 Australian Tennis Open tournament, Amelie Mauresmo, faced aggressive discourse surrounding sexuality and masculinity in the media coverage of the game, and it seems it has not, even now, dissipated. Andy Murray recently revealed that upon hiring Mauresmo as his coach, he received an amount of criticism aimed directly at her coaching abilities, incomparable to any he received with other male coaches. He stated that with other coaches, his failures were always blamed on him, but with Mauresmo, the reproval was aimed solely at her.

Upon looking at the disparities that exist across the board in women’s sports in Australia, we can’t help but be saddened at the lack of progress we’re making. Indeed, it is important to recognise the (slow) developments that are taking place: it is a pleasure to think of my thoughts during the 2005 AFL Grand Final, and recognise that 12 years on, in February 2017, Australia kicked off its first women’s AFL league.

However, despite this incredible progress, netball is still the only professional women’s sport in Australia. As a nation, we need to show more interest in seeing women’s professional sports leagues broadcasted on the big screen.

Preferably at a higher rate than the current one women’s league game a week being aired on free-to-air TV.

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Flipping the Script Ji-Soo Kweon

CW: sex, rape, sexual assault, BDSM When you are discussing sexual assault and rape culture it becomes evident that most rapists have no idea that they are one – and that most men have very little concept of what constitutes sexual assault or harassment. Sexual assault in our cultural imagination is generally a very violent, bloody affair, or simply anything that you yourself would not personally like, regardless of context.

Some straight people I know can only conceptualise sexual violence by imagining a gay person’s unwelcome advances.

My experience of sexual assault is one that follows the script. This happens, then this happens, then this happens.

The story starts with me flirting and ends with us having sex. The thing I remember the most was not pain, but loneliness. I don’t think I’ve ever spent so much time with one person without talking. It became clear to me that he was following a script. I had been communicating to him in a code I didn’t know existed: a silent code of what women allegedly do to ask for sex without actually asking for it. And if you follow the script, apparently all is fair game. No blood, no foul.

As someone who has had the word “sex” pop up in almost all the units I took at university, I talk more about sex than the average person. But it took me a while to break through the deafening silence around sex, even and especially, amongst people who are having sex.

I was 14 when I was taught how to put a condom on a banana, but 18 before I managed to successfully negotiate condom use. I was 20 before I really felt

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like my partner and I were on the same page about sex – how to keep it safe but also how to make it fun.

BDSM stands for bondage, dominance/ discipline, submission/sadism and masochism. It refers to a broad range of sexual practices that play with interpersonal power dynamics and physical sensation. Most people think of the BDSM community as a kind of en masse gathering of BDSM enthusiasts in specially-built dungeons. But, in my experience, BDSM is most frequently practiced privately and sort of accidentally – especially as internet shopping has unleashed a Pandora’s Box of every sex gadget imaginable onto the average consumer.

For me, BDSM is primarily about language. There are words for roles and objects and activities, but also a greater willingness to just talk about sex.

Although ‘sex’ in its most boring, unoriginal, heteronormative, ‘vanilla’ form is nonetheless a violent act of violation when performed without consent, it’s the notion that one might do something ‘freakier’ that tends to open up the dialogue. Practicing BDSM, or asking if you can do BDSM play, is an open admission that you like sex and you want to do it, which, despite our over-sexualised culture, is still taboo. Rape culture has built up strange taboos around talking about wanting sex, but none around taking it without permission.

One of the many consequences of being sexually assaulted was that I have had vaginismus ever since. Although my former partner and I eventually managed to have penetrative sex, penetration doesn’t work for me until a se-

cure personal and sexual relationship has been established. To get around this I’ve been forced to be pretty blunt and loquacious about boundaries, even to almost-strangers. Every person I’ve slept with since then has had ‘the talk’. I refused to let vaginismus interfere with my sex life so I started every standard slightly-tipsy university hook up by boldly stating that sexual intercourse was off the menu. In being forced to have these very taboo conversations I started a dialogue. I started to talk more. I don’t like being on top.

I absolutely insist on condoms. I like keeping my stockings on – I have weird feet but expensive taste in stockings. If you put all your weight on my hips I will absolutely not be able to walk tomorrow and I will not thank you for it.

Slowly, talking about what I do and do not like made my partners start to talk too. One of the first conversations I had about sex with a partner resulted in him asking me to put my hands under the pillow so we could pretend I was restrained. Sex became less scary without the silence. Even without my hands, I felt supremely in control and able to stop or start anything at will.

It is very empowering – especially in a culture where women are expected to be polite and never voice discomfort – to create a situation where you are allowed to object and refuse.

I love BDSM. It feeds my curiosity just as sex in general does. I like playing with different sensations and exploring different power dynamics. It keeps things interesting and intense and breaks the ice, especially when I was navigating university hook up culture.

But I like the conversations around

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BDSM just as much. You can’t talk in code when you’re rewriting the sexual script. There are words for things and roles and activities – and there are words for ‘yes’ and ‘no’. I’ve always found it strange that while our society is elbow-deep in rape culture, the notion that ‘boys can’t hit girls’ seems to be branded into many a male psyche.

Encouraging people to break that taboo, just a little, teaches a lot of important lessons about consent. Namely, that consent has very little to do with what is being done, and is really about what someone does and doesn’t want to be done. I know BDSM spaces are not immune from instances of abuse and assault, but the language and dialogue that BDSM encourages makes me feel safe.

The release of 50 Shades of Grey, an allegedly ‘BDSM’ fanfiction of Twilight, provoked general ridicule and mild excitement – but it just made me angry.

As a survivor of both emotional abuse and sexual assault, BDSM has become a safe space for me to express and explore my sexuality, and facilitate productive conversations about safety and consent, even with casual partners. It has been in BDSM situations that I have felt comfortable saying stop, saying no, not faking orgasms, and not pretending something isn’t uncomfortable or painful. As many feminists on social media have stated, Christian Grey is not only a terrible person and a terrible partner, but he’s also a pretty lousy BDSM dom.

Grey rarely follows standard BDSM protocols of safe words, discussion or aftercare. Unfortunately, manipulating broader social awareness and curiosity about BDSM to facilitate an abusive relationship is not unheard of and I urge anyone wishing to dabble in kink to do their research about what should and shouldn’t go down in a BDSM scene or relationship. Like all sexual encounters, you should never feel scared or unsafe at any time. It’s meant to be a game, with a certain element of make-believe and suspending disbelief. Everyone involved needs to be able to snap out of character at a second’s notice.

Unfortunately, BDSM is used not only to excuse violence, but an interest in BDSM is sometimes weaponised in victim-blaming. A recreational interest in ‘edgy’ or ‘kinky’ stuff never excuses abuse or assault, in the same way that punching a pro wrestler outside of the boxing ring is still a felony.

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The most important part about a BDSM relationship is aftercare – when everyone involved has some down time, together, out of character. Mostly, I just like a cuddle. But it’s also important after doing anything intense to kind of unpack and unwind together. It’s important to make sure everyone’s on the same page. One of the biggest issues with hook up culture for me is that there is this expectation to pretend that it’s not weird to suddenly go from being on, in, or under someone to not talking.

Sex, no matter how casual, no matter how vanilla, is still an intense and intimate experience, and I think women are straddled with a lot of unfair stereotypes that we’re incapable of having sex recreationally without immediately wanting to get hitched. In an effort to not get ‘attached’, I’ve had several male partners refuse to cuddle or talk or even look me in the eye when the sex is done, which is jarring, just plain rude, and wouldn’t really fly in a BDSM situation. It is much easier to process what has happened and to accept that something was just a one-off, if that is the case, if everyone involved is being honest and a bit vulnerable, rather than ploughing through a rather impersonal sexual script. The first person to introduce me to some, very light, bondage was a lovely guy, who was not afraid to just be a nice and thoughtful person due to some misguided attempt to stay detached. He gave me a piggyback when my feet hurt, made sure I had breakfast the morning after, and gave me a lift home. I never saw him again, and that’s okay. There were no messy confused feelings, just something fun and crazy from the halcyon days of fresher year to look back on and smile.

There is a general misconception about BDSM that scenes and relationships are structured primarily around the dominant partner’s desires and that submissives are coerced into going along with it. Just as with abuse in BDSM spaces, I won’t say this never happens, but as a usual sub I find this assumption a bit frustrating. I’m typically the one who introduces BDSM and takes charge of most of the conversations and negotiations, purely because I’m usually the person more accustomed to frank conversations about sex. As a small, queer Asian woman I normally can’t afford to be seen as meek, or even easy-going, with all the gendered and racialised stereotypes about submissive Asian

women. I cannot afford to be a pushover if I want to break the glass ceiling or get people to treat me like an actual human being with real human rights.

At any rate, I am naturally disposed to be quite assertive, even bossy. I have been a vocal feminist since high school and I’m generally not afraid of picking a fight or laying down the law. So it is nice sometimes, in my private life, to put on a different persona for a while.

To simulate a loss of control in a very controlled environment. It’s a bit like going on a rollercoaster – we thrive off fear, but we don’t actually want to put ourselves in dangerous situations.

I try to resist pathologising the sexual desires of myself or the people around me. It’s hard to explain why I enjoy BDSM, but it’s also hard to explain why most humans enjoy recreationally smooshing their sweaty, germy bodies against other sweaty, germy bodies. It is a really taboo, subversive thing to be a woman who is interested in sex and is prepared to do some pretty weird and strange things to have a fun and fulfilling sex life. But living in a society that is afraid to talk about sex – afraid even, to admit to the existence of sexual desire – breeds a dangerous culture of miscommunication and silence on sex, consent and sexual violence. Whether or not your sexual proclivities include whips and handcuffs, I think everyone could benefit from sexual encounters and relationships that include conversations about consent and boundaries, an atmosphere where everyone can stop or refuse anything, for any reason, and where people are not afraid of the intense and confusing feelings that sex can sometimes provoke. Like all sexual taboos, shaming and persecuting BDSM and its enthusiasts only pushes it underground, where it is more likely that the rules will not be followed and abusive dynamics will be allowed to fester. BDSM, for me, has allowed me to be more open-minded and non-judgemental about the weird and wonderful spectrum of human sexuality, and to not be afraid to walk away from our society’s silent, violent sexual script.

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White Man Acknowledges Privilege “May Have Played a Part” in Job Offer Zoe Saunders

Since receiving his offer to paralegal for Clayton-Utz, Dustin Dobbs has acknowledged his inherent privilege may have played into the hiring decision. Dustin is a heterosexual cis-male whose dad plays squash with Alfred, the managing partner, on a Tuesday.

“Why didn’t she get the position? It makes me so angry!

Dustin’s father, James Dobbs, had this to say of his son’s success:

“I mean, I’m a credit average student with no extracurricular involvement.

There were definitely more qualified candidates.”

“Yeah look I wasn’t surprised to when I got the position,” Dustin revealed as he opened his complimentary bottle of Moet, received as a welcome gift from the firm, “but I felt a bit weird when I thought about how much more qualified the other candidates seemed to be in comparison. When I realised I probably got the position because of my privilege I just felt so much better.

Not that I got the position, but that I acknowledged it, you know?

When asked to comment, Saanvi responded: “He’s by no means as qualified as me, but he’s definitely more confident. Maybe he was just a better culture fit? Or he interviews better than I do,” she said, before signing up to a $400 three-week course on ‘Assertive Interview Skills for Women’.

“I’m proud of him. Really. He’s worked hard to fit into the mediocre male hiring pattern that allows more senior members of staff not to feel threatened. Plus, women are just less consistent workers, which is something you really need at a law firm. Alfred just can’t afford someone handling a big case to get all irrational because of some blood coming out there whatever.

“Look, I know there were better candidates out there. Like my friend Saanvi?

She’s the President of the LSS, has paralegal experience and volunteers at a CLC part time”, Dustin espoused to his friends at the pub, shortly after signing the employment contract.

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“Feminism has come so far, but we’ve got so far to go you know?

I’m glad I can recognise there’s something not quite right here.

Most guys would just assume they’re entitled to the position, but I was really nervous at this interview stage. Like, I was going up against some really strong candidates.”

“And God maternity leave is a scam.

Although you don’t have to pay them as much, so that’s a plus.”

Dustin was unable to make Saanvi’s Fight the Wage Gap Protest earlier today due to it conflicting with his hangover from the night before. He is excited to attend his first ever day at work next Monday though, particularly as his parents still pay his rent so all money earned will go directly onto his tab at Acads.

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Poverty and Insecure Work Through a Gendered Lens Aggi Court and Jill Molloy

Aggi Court is ANU Labor Students Club President and ACT Young Labor Women’s Officer.

Jill Molloy is NUS Welfare Officer and ACT Young Labor President.

Insecure employment and low wage growth are growing problems across Australia. Wealth inequality is at a 70 year high and wage growth is at its lowest in two decades. Widespread of the Australian workcasualisation ­ force – which means the replacement of jobs that were previously permeant part-time or full-time contracts with casual roles –­ has led to lower wages and fewer workplace entitlements. As of 2017, 25 per cent of the Australian work force is employed casually.

And while financial insecurity affects many in the Australian community, women are heavily over-represented in insecure and casual work. Workplace insecurity, therefore, must be analysed through a gendered lens.

But first, what is insecure work? The Howe Inquiry defined it as “work [of] poor quality that provides workers with little economic security and little control over their working lives.” This manifests as unpredictable hours, no paid leave, inferior entitlements and fluctuating pay.

Generally speaking, women are paid less when compared to men, are less secure in their workplace and retire with less superannuation. In 2011 and 2012, 14.7 per cent of all women compared with 13 per cent of all men in Australia experienced poverty.

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The over-representation of women in insecure work is part of a complex structure of barriers and disadvantages faced by women.

Women who are single mothers, immigrants, Indigenous, students, fleeing domestic violence or in rural and regional communities, as well as women with disabilities, are particularly vulnerable to financial stress and have fewer employment options.

Because women are more likely to undertake unpaid work – in their homes and communities – they are often in a weak bargaining position in the labour market, making them more vulnerable to exploitative or insecure workplace arrangements.

Women are also more likely to work in low-paying fields such as retail, hospitality and the community sector. For example, within the community sector in Canberra (aged care, child care, social work and carers), 78 per cent of employees are women and 85 per cent of workers in the sector are employed on a part-time basis. Earnings for employees in the sector are 43 per cent to 55 per cent lower than in other industries.

This is an expression of the systemic devaluation of women’s labour.

Overall, in 2013, 27 per cent of all female employees were in casual jobs compared to 21 per cent of males. In the ACT, 59 per cent of casual and contract employees in part-time positions are women.

Further, the 2011 Census showed that 41 per cent of Canberra women earn less than the minimum weekly wage of about $600 per week, compared to 29 per cent of men.

These statistics demonstrate the structural discrimination that women face in the workplace.

Not only does this insecure work and low wages affect women’s immediate economic security, it also has flow on effects for women’s retirement. Low wages or inconsistent income means women are more likely to retire with insufficient superannuation. This can lead to further housing stress and even homelessness in retirement.

Arguments in defence of the gender pay gap by conservative men often cite that women are more likely to work part-time, casually or in low-level jobs.

But the argument is circular.

The fact that women work in low-paid jobs says less about their capabilities than it does about the devaluation of ‘women’s work’ and the implicit assumption that women are unworthy of workplace protections and economic freedom.

As feminists, we must work to improve the material reality of women’s lives.

Women cannot be safe, successful, happy and fulfilled if they cannot financially support themselves and their families.

Fighting to improve industrial laws is, therefore, a profoundly feminist issue.

Sisters, on a final note, join your union!

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The God of Men Ksenia Bestuzheva

CW: descriptions of abuse and sexual assault It was a beautiful valley surrounded by hills, stunning white in winter and bright green in summer. Tree branches formed arcs above the soft sandy paths, making them look almost magical. On one of the hills stood a graceful church, a landmark seen from every point of the valley.

I remember walking in the valley with my grandfather. Me, a cheerful girl with wide-open curious eyes, and him, a bearded man with a doctoral degree, passionate faith and Important Things to Tell. I had a hunger for these Important Things, and so I listened and learnt about the struggle between good and evil in our world and in the souls of people; about the laws that guide our spiritual lives; and the absolute higher power, the being that created us and watches over us, in whom lies the ultimate meaning, God.

---There are many reasons one can come to faith, and many ways in which faith can sustain them. Some seek enlightening experiences, trying to get a glimpse of eternal wisdom and love. Some crave a sense of certainty, and live according to a set of rules and belong to a community that shares the same values. Others are in desperate need of grounding and guarding by some great principle against the terrible forces they don’t have power over.

But among all the beautiful and pure things, there are other purposes that religions too often serve. In saying this, I speak on behalf of my own experienc-

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es, and those of other faiths to whom I have spoken. Men, kings, presidents and all those standing on the upper levels of social hierarchies often use religion to gain power, and what is then left for women and all oppressed groups is glorified submission and losing of the self.

This is the other side to faith. Yes, religions are extremely powerful, but just as often happens with power, it can be wielded as a weapon. Some sacred texts contain passages that justify and even sanctify violence and oppression, and a lot of the rest is vague, metaphoric and contradictory enough to leave much space for various interpretations.

Christianity is one example of this. Its power has been wielded by men since it was created – again, by men. They laid layers upon layer of misogynistic teachings to shape culture and law. It starts with the biblical story of Adam and Eve, where Eve is presented as the one who initiated the Fall by succumbing to sin and who was, in Tertullian’s words, “the gateway of devil”.

From here, the texts dictate that wives “submit [themselves] unto [their] own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord” (Colossians 3:19), and that “the woman does not possess the image of God in herself, but only when taken together with the man who is her head, so that the whole substance is one image … as far as man is concerned, he is by himself the image of God” (On the Trinity by Augustine of Hippo, who is still venerated as a saint by the modern church).

The subjugation of women according to these teachings is not a crime committed by man-kind, but a divine plan – defying this order thus means defying nature and the Lord himself. (Of course, this is himself). Christianity has walked hand in hand with hierarchy for many centuries, demanding obedience to the

authorities of this world who claim to be blessed by the higher, heavenly Authority. The punishment for rebelling is said to be eternal torment inflicted by the “merciful” and “loving” God. There is no need to prove that this (or any other problematic statement) is true according to the common rules of reason and justice; it is enough to say that this is God’s will, which is impeccable and unquestionable.

The suffering that has been inflicted by men upon women is immense, and Christianity played an important role in making this possible. The resulting pain is hard to describe, too terrible to imagine it in its full scale. Men literally possessed women, raped them on a regular basis and called it marriage, or raped them and labelled the woman a sinful seductress. Men have beaten women and called it discipline, and done many more things of horrendous cruelty, all the while declaring women evil and deprived of any creativity or intellectually capability so that male control over them would be seen as necessary and good. And this was presented as God’s plan.

It is important to be aware that these offenses didn’t just occur in the past.

Despite the many achievements of feminism, all these problems still persist in the modern world.

---This oppression undermined my faith: how can such a kind, just, loving God be so cruel to women? Confronted with the troubling teachings of Christianity about the world and about women, I had a choice: to accept that God hates me and made me inferior, or to

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reject him. At that point in my life, after discovering feminism and feeling the joy and pain of reassembling my free, powerful, true womanhood that was shattered by the male-worshipping culture I grew up in, this choice was not that tough anymore.

More and more often, I have arguments with my grandfather. Men lead, women follow, he says. Men are strong, women are soft. Women cannot be priests, because Jesus was a man. Women cannot enter the altar, because if a woman menstruates in this sacred place, she will defile it. If a man sexually harasses or assaults a woman, she must have provoked him. All these hateful words hurt twice as much because they come from a person I love.

that this somehow includes women, in reality it does not. In truth, we are not made in the image of this hopelessly male God, and if we don’t reject him, women will continue to be seen as but a distorted image of men.

In Christianity, the connection to the divine is presented as the defining trait of humanity, and thus, depriving women of it means depriving us of humanity.

----

I disagree.

He disagrees with me. He shouts at me, I shout at him. And then he says: “That is the order established by God. Are you going to argue with him?”

Our debates always lead to this: the final argument. That is how God made us. No need to prove anything, just refer to the authority that no religious person will question. But today this is not going to work. The anger that boils within me is liberating.

I look back at my grandfather.

“Yes”, I say, “because this tyrant is not God, but a lie created by men in their image.”

---Men robbed us not only of power and freedom, but of spirituality and even humanity itself. The connection of men to God is a crucial part of the Christian world view. God created men in his image, so they say, and while attempts are sometimes made to convince us

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Women become secondary, women become the other. It is clear that we need to smash old patriarchal values to move towards women’s liberation. But simply destroying these oppressive principles is not sufficient. Just like many generations that were before us, we need great ideas, the ones that are carved in our collective consciousness and are to our everyday ideas like an ocean is to a pond: deeper and fuller. These ideas may have their origins in the past, or in a dramatic change in the present. Women seeking our own uncorrupted spirituality can tap into both past and present, so that our new emerging consciousness will be like a tree: with roots in ancient matriarchies, erased from history but not completely forgotten, and with fresh young leaves absorbing the light of the great social change of the modern time.

A different time, a different land. I am walking along a lake.

Nature has always been one of my major gateways to those bigger-than-everydaylife experiences. The curious girl has grown into a woman, but she still wants to believe. I let my thoughts flow freely, unhindered by any rigid ideas. I feel the ancient life-giving earth under my feet; the crooked branches of trees look like fingers of a crone. There is something ancient and powerful about it ... something that is hard to express, and I don’t even try to. I was uprooted, but now I finally get a glimpse of belonging, of being part of something great. I have tears in my eyes, tears of sorrow and joy: sorrow for what we lost and what I will never be able to experience, and the joy of being alive, being real and being free.

I am part of history that is being made right now – a young woman who has rejected old, male-defined values and is in search of a great meaning she can relate to. I don’t and can’t know where the ideas that are taking shape now will lead us, but I feel that the global sisterhood of women who think and seek outside of the patriarchal norms can create something new and powerful.

For now, all I can do is believe.

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Beauty in Colour Jane Nguyen

I love makeup. I really do. I think I could be accurately described as a “girly-girl” (at the risk of perpetuating traditional gender roles). I went through all the rites of passage as a self-described beauty lover: I collected lipsticks, I obsessed over every new makeup release, I even ran a fashion blog while I was in high school.

I am often asked: “Why is the way we look important?” Society tells us that vanity is superficial and shallow. I suppose it can be. But vanity is an aspect that permeates every moment of our daily lives: we get advertisements on our devices telling us that we need to look this way or that way, we have dating apps where people are required to swipe yes or no purely based on physical attributes, and we have a beauty and fashion industry that dominates our shopping.

We cannot deny that the way we look is very important to us – for reasons superficial or otherwise. Now, I am going to make a disclaimer. I will not be addressing the way society has imposed these vigorous beauty standards, which are arguably artificial to our makeup as people. I will start by assuming that makeup and fashion is important – to individuals and society – because they are partially determinative of social attitudes, especially pertaining to women of colour.

Let me spend a moment briefly describing how I look. (I swear this has a purpose and not just vain self-indulgence.) I am ethnically Vietnamese. I have long, black hair that falls straight around my narrow, oval face. I have tan, olive skin. My eyes are dark brown and they are framed by thick, dark eyebrows. My eyes slightly angle upwards, and I have a subtle shadow of double

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eyelids. My lips, which happen to be my favourite feature, are big and shapely: I have a sharp, defined Cupid’s bow on my top lip and a full bottom.

Growing up, my lips were a cause for teasing by classmates. I don’t even remember what they found funny about my lips but I remember classmates throughout much of my schooling laughing at how “fat” they were. They also made fun of the colour of my skin.

I used to be much darker than the average Vietnamese girl; I often heard classmates laughing at how I looked “black”. Though I never understood what was so terrible about looking “black”, I always felt so embarrassed and I despised the way I looked. I was also called “Mulan” for my eyes – and while it may appear to be a compliment to be compared to a Disney heroine, it was definitely not intended nor taken as one. It meant I didn’t look white and I wasn’t beautiful.

Of course, things have changed a lot since then. I see girls on social media declaring their intention to get lip injections. Men and women tan to achieve my skin colour. I often have white men approach me and tell me that they “love Asians” and that they find me beautiful.

I once had a man ask me what my ethnicity was and after I reluctantly told him I was Vietnamese he exclaimed: “I knew it! You know, I think Vietnamese women are the most beautiful of Asian women.”

Throughout my life, there have been many instances where I felt like my Asian physical features were a source of fetishisation. I’ve met many men with this fetish in a wide variety of places: from the train to the line at the coffee shop.

I don’t entirely blame these people for ‘yellow fever’ – it’s an epidemic. Nowa-

days, it’s almost trendy to be a person of colour and being Asian is viewed as ‘exotic’. I don’t mean to assign such a special snowflake feel to myself; the truth is that I share the same face with millions of other women. I look Asian.

I went from being teased for being Asian to being sought after for being Asian. You can see why I don’t take these recent developments to be improvements. Why does being a person of colour mean you forfeit your right to being a person independent of cultural stereotypes? I blame this entirely on the beauty industry and the way beauty standards have evolved.

It is beautiful to have ethnic features: the tan skin of an Asian girl, the big lips of a black girl and the full figure of a Latina. But you must be ethnically white. Women of colour aren’t endorsed for these features and are exoticised. They are seen as a measure of beauty on an ethnically-exotic canvas, but not beautiful themselves.

The exploitation of ethnic stereotypes is rampant within the makeup and fashion industries. This is where you get such items as “Oriental dresses” or “Asian-inspired makeup”. I once observed an online boutique selling a traditional Vietnamese áo dài as a “Vintage 90s Azure Oriental Tunic Dress”.

The dress is traditionally worn with long wide leg pants and Vietnamese women wear áo dài on special occasions: on Lunar New Year, when they visit the temple, when they get married, when they graduate … The point I am trying to impress upon you is how important this garment is to Vietnamese women: it forms the pinnacle of their cultural and social lives. On the website, however, the white model was posing suggestively, naked from the waist down.

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Asian women have traditionally been fetishised by Western cultures. Popular depictions like Lucy Liu in Charlie’s Angels or musicals like Miss Saigon have further propagated this archetype of Asian women as exotic sexual fantasies. Depicting the traditional áo dài on a Caucasian woman dressed and posed to look exotic and sexy only reinforces these racist stereotypes. This particular dress did not celebrate Vietnamese culture – it exploited its stereotypes for profit.

Our vast and diverse culture had been reduced to a single umbrella term: oriental. In the past, oriental was the term used to reference people who live in the East, and was used by the British to degrade and belittle Eastern people.

The modern equivalent of the word oriental would be to describe Asian people as gooks. Today, you wouldn’t design a dress and call it a “gook dress”, yet historically ignorant terms like oriental are overused in the fashion industry.

Being Asian is not a fashion statement; it is not a wearable accessory. “Asian“ refers to an entire culture – an eons-old line of people with a rich and beautiful history. To reduce an identity to a shallow prefix is insulting. This is where objectification also comes in: some men reduce women of colour to a collection of ‘exotic’ physical features purported by modern beauty standards.

Rihanna recently released a makeup line called Fenty Beauty that boasts 40 different foundation shades. Rihanna has said that her aim was to create makeup that women of all skin tones would feel comfortable wearing. Since then, the conversation about racism in the beauty industry has become popularised on social media. People are finally becoming aware of the inherent discrimination in the beauty industry.

The reality is the beauty industry does not acknowledge the unique beauty of women of colour. Why is it that we only now have Fenty Beauty? Why is it that in the past, black models have been told to bring their own makeup to runway shows because the make-

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up artists won’t have foundation that matches their skin colour?

I think I can speak on behalf of other people of colour and say that it’s difficult to shop for makeup if you’re not white. Colours never turn out how you expect them to. Foundation caters to Caucasian women with pink undertones. I use the third-darkest shade in my current foundation brand and I am nowhere near what you would describe as “deep” in skin colour. I hate switching foundations simply because I dread the ordeal that will come with colour matching.

Foundation forms the base of our makeup. It is designed for what is arguably one of the clearest defining features of our face – our skin – and yet the beauty industry does not acknowledge the existence of darker skin colours. This tells us that the beauty industry wants to sell ‘beauty’ and it views women of colour as unattractive.

I know what you’re thinking: do you have to be so painfully socially conscious about something that arguably doesn’t exist anymore with the release of Fenty Beauty and the recent social media recognition that the makeup industry has been discriminatory in the past? My reply to that is: yes, I do have to be so very painfully fussy about this.

Why? Because I’m sick of settling. I’m sick of politely laughing – “oh, haha!”

– when someone tells me that my makeup looks “super Asian”, as if that’s a bad thing. I should not have to compromise on or apologise for something that affects me and only me.

Discrimination in the beauty industry directly affects social attitudes concerning women of colour in the real world. Women of colour face discrimination very differently to Caucasian women, and it is important to acknowledge this. This fact in itself is not divisive; it is a simple recognition that race provides very different mediums of experience. Identifying the subtle differences in experience when it comes to people of colour is crucial to our understanding of sexism on the whole. To ignore these differences shows a lack

of social recognition of ethnic agency and ignores the fact that the beauty industry and social beauty standards reduce women of colour to their physical appearance.

This is true for white women too, of course – there is a long-established history of society determining the worth of women based on their appearance.

But eradicating discrimination against women of colour is imperative for all feminists. Whatever your ethnicity is, women will never be truly liberated until we recognise and address the discrimination that women of colour face. Discrimination against women of colour hurts the equality of all women: it validates objectification, fetishisation and degradation – all of which are foes to the feminist cause.

Rihanna’s makeup line will not alter deeply-entrenched societal attitudes – it is not simply about providing women of colour more options when it comes to beauty. Meaningful equality can only be achieved through complete social change. This needs to stay a continuous conversation until all makeup brands start catering to women of colour as well. The ongoing battle for equality will not be over until we can stop heralding makeup brands like Fenty Beauty as pioneers for catering to skin colours that match a majority of the world’s population. It should not be such a shock to see dark makeup in stores. The facts don’t lie: makeup for darker women is in high demand.

Fenty Beauty sold out of its darker shades within days of release. We can no longer accept the excuse that there is too little market demand.

It is our responsibility, as feminists, to change the way society thinks about beauty. The first step to changing the way beauty is perceived in society is to embrace beauty in all colours and appreciate the different forms of beauty that women of colour offer. However, it is also important to remember that our appearance does not determine our character. To reiterate the age-old cliché: beauty ultimately comes from the inside.

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---Jean-Luc Jirayut Prasopa-Plaizier

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A Bride by Any Other Name Maddy Castles Disclaimer: I am a cisgender white woman writing from my own Western-centric viewpoint of marriage.

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“You belong first to your father then to him who Chooses you” - Adrienne Rich

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When my parents got married 26 years ago my mother kept her maiden name. Despite this, mail constantly arrives addressed to “Mr and Mrs Castles”. Telemarketers get similarly confused, and my mother takes great delight in telling them “no one by that name lives here” before hanging up.

Names are incredibly important.

They mark your identity. As are honorifics: when a female signs any official document, goes to the doctors, or boards a plane, they are required to identify their marital status – a male, on the other hand, never has to. While names are important to everybody, traditionally it has been women who have had to give up their names, and still today, women’s names are often secondary to their father’s, husband’s, or family name. Historically women have been denied the opportunity to hold on to the name that gives voice to their individual identity and experiences. Marriage was a way of silencing women

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behind the name and face of a man; any action a woman performed, any time she spoke, she first had to think of her husband, his reputation, and his name. Still today, in feeling the need to define themselves through someone else, or through an institution, some women are giving up some of their agency, some of their individual power.

Section 4AA of the Family Law Act 1975 now provides for de facto relationships if two people – whether of the same or opposite sex – are living together on a genuine domestic basis.

People in a de facto relationship are entitled to the same rights as a married couple under Family Law, including those relating to financial and custodial disputes. De facto relationships therefore provide couples with legal rights without the historical baggage of ownership and disenfranchisement that is inherent in marriage.

So why, then, are people still getting married?

Do we get married because our parents did? Because our families expect us to? Because men ask us to? Because society tells us to? Or perhaps, as Aziz Ansari brutally suggested in Master of None, we simply get to a certain age and get married to whomever we’re dating because we think we should.

In 2016, IBISWorld estimated Australia’s bridal industry was worth $300 million dollars, growing by two per cent per annum over the five years previous. And while many get married for religious reasons, in the 2016 census showed that a third of the Australian population identified as having no religion. However, atheism seems to have

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had no impact on the booming industry. Significantly, the media, many celebrities and Hollywood have unfalteringly promoted the idea that being in love and a big white wedding go hand in hand. And while I admit there are many positives about publically declaring your love for another person, and celebrating love with family and friends, we must acknowledge the dark side that continues to permeate within the institution of marriage.

Until the end of the 19th century, married women possessed no legal identity. The doctrine of coverture meant that when a woman was married her very legal existence was subsumed by her husband – not only did she no longer have any independent legal rights, but her very social identity was incorporated into that of her husbands. When a woman walks down the aisle she is literally passed from the hand of her father to that of her soon-to-be husband: she is a possession. A married woman’s very survival, therefore, was entirely dependent on her husband. She was not entitled to own property, enter into a contract or legal agreement, and any salary she did earn was his legal property.

Moreover ‘consenting’ to marriage meant unconditionally consenting to sex, with rape in marriage not recognised under law. As famously said by Lord Justice Hale, a husband could not be found guilty of marital rape “for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract.” Divorce did become available for men who were able to prove adultery – for women, adultery, violence and rape remained insufficient reasons for separation. When the Matrimonial Causes Act was finally introduced in 1857, women had to prove not only that their husband had been unfaithful but also that violence or sexual assault had occurred in order to obtain a divorce. It was only in 1975

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with t h e introduction of the Family Law Act that ‘no fault’ divorce was legislated for. The immunity for rape in marriage, however, wasn’t abolished in all Australian jurisdictions until 1994.

The idea of romantic marriage only became a widespread reality in the 19th century. However, the literature of this period written by women can reveal a great deal about the continuing harshness of the institution. While many people see Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice as the ultimate romance, the reality is that Elizabeth Bennet ultimately marries Mr Darcy to escape the spectre of poverty– she would have been denied any individual property by unjust inheritance laws upon her father’s death. Ultimately, 19th century romance novels had to end with a wedding to reinforce societal norms and return stability to the world of the novel, and also, because marriage was the only meaningful avenue for the ‘independent’ woman destined accept her fate as an object. The modern concept of love in marriage could not reform the institution – for every Elizabeth Bennet, Jane Eyre or Margaret Hale who marries for love there’s a Catherine Earnshaw driven to death by two men, a Charlotte Lucas who is forced into marriage with a stupid and inferior man, and a Bertha Mason who remains locked in the attic by her husband.

There was, of course, societal pressure on men to get married as well. Marriage was often necessary to keep property within the family and also to produce

heirs to continue the patriarchal line. By the 20th century, marrying, settling down in the suburbs and supporting a wife and family was how society perceived ‘manhood’. The nuclear family, therefore, became embedded in nationalism. Throughout the marriage equality debate we have increasingly heard from the ‘no’ side about the importance of protecting family values and ‘traditional’ families. As Tony Abbott argued: “It’s marriages that create families, families that make up communities, and communities that build our nation.”

However, gender roles and double standards are inherently imbedded in the ‘traditional’ family. While men were expected to provide for the family, women (even working women) were expected to take on sole responsibility in the domestic sphere. Similarly, a refusal, or failure, to conform to societal expectations posed different risks for men and women. While a man who remained single, or left his wife, might be judged, the consequences for a

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the obsession with women being married remains.

woman who remained unmarried were far more serious. While w o m e n gained important political and social rights in the first half of the 20th century and were no longer legally required to subsume their identity with a man’s, marriage remained the only acceptable end for women. As Betty Friedan argued in The Feminine Mystique: “There is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children’s mother, her husband’s wife.”

Still today, women – particularly women in power – are criticised for being unmarried. Prime minister Julia Gillard was repeatedly asked why she wasn’t married, and was accused of being “deliberately barren”, as if her childlessness rendered her unable to effectively run a country. There’s also a whole new genre of romantic comedies – take 27 Dresses or Bride Wars as examples – which insist that women should ultimately aspire to marriage. One only has to Google “TV shows about wives” to see an absurdly long list of shows including Mob Wives, Army Wives and Sister Wives to realise how prevalent

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One might argue though, that marriage has fundamentally changed in recent history. Women no longer rely upon marriage for financial security. It is (largely) socially acceptable to have children outside of wedlock. Yet, many of the double standards inherent in marriage remain present today. Historically, because a woman literally became her husband’s property she was legally required to take his surname. Significantly, this legal requirement no longer exists, but over 80 per cent of Australian women still choose to take their husband’s name following marriage.

Publically this remains an issue. Following her marriage to Bill Clinton, Hillary Rodham was widely criticised for choosing to keep her maiden name.

So criticised, in fact, that she eventually took her husband’s name, becoming Hillary Rodham Clinton. By the time she ran for president in 2015, however, Hillary had completely dropped Rodham. And while there are now many reasons for changing one’s name – including wanting to have a ‘unified’ family surname – men are not the one’s making the change. In fact, a survey in Men’s Health in 2013 found that 96.3 per cent of respondents said they wouldn’t take a woman’s last name.

Names are important, they mark identity. Names allows you to own and acknowledge your own experiences, story and achievements. Choosing to take your husband’s name is a loaded choice, embedded in a history of patriarchal ownership and control. Hillary

Clinton was a highly successful lawyer and campaigner in her own right before her marriage.

This is often overlooked and forgotten by people who claim she only got where she is because of her husband.

In taking another person’s name you are relinquishing any public connection you have with your past identity and achievements. And while you may be creating a new identity, it is an identity which is also embedded with your husband’s history, and his family’s too.

Same-sex marriage might have the potential to fundamentally change marriage. Historical power discrepancies remain inherent in heterosexual marriage. but same-sex marriage has the potential to transform the institution, for all people. If ‘traditional marriage’ exists to protect ‘traditional families’ then marriage equality is a step in the right direction to promoting diverse families that don’t define people along gendered lines. Tony Abbott, in a recent article in the Australian, asked whether “a few years agitation should unmake a concept of marriage that … has always been regarded as the rock on which society is built?” My answer, Mr Abbott, is that I fervently hope so.

We need to once and for all break open and destroy the cage that marriage has placed women in. In voting no, in voting for ‘tradition’, in voting to ‘protect family values’, you are only reinforcing a patriarchal system that has been used to oppress and control women for generations. It’s true that voting yes is fundamentally a vote for marriage, but it’s also a vote to change marriage for the better. To acknowledge that there are diverse relationships, and that making a public declaration of love can defy societal norms, rather than reinforce them. Same-sex marriage fundamentally lacks the gendered disparity that is inherent in heterosexual marriage. And it’s for this reason that I have hope for change.

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Market-Models Like the NDIS Are Failing People With Disabilities Vanamali Hermans

The National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) has been one of the most significant social reforms of our time, transforming the way people with disabilities access services and funding. We generally accept that the NDIS has improved the support and quality of life for people with disabilities, but the underlying inequality within the scheme is rarely talked about. So, let’s talk about it! If we take a closer look at the NDIS’s criteria, application process, and ongoing rollout, we can examine just how much is going wrong, and why market-based models of disability support are further entrenching oppression.

The NDIS, introduced as federal legislation by Julia Gillard in 2013, is an individualised, social insurance approach to providing disability support.

This means that government funding is directed to individual ‘clients’ of the scheme, who can then choose the disability providers they want to ‘purchase’ from. This policy shift has been heavily based on neoliberal ideology, in which individual responsibility is fetishised and agency, control and choice over consumption is seen as ‘empowering’.

This market model, like all others under capitalism, ultimately disadvantages those who face multiple oppressions and doesn’t account for heterogeneity in the population of people with disabilities.

To access the NDIS, people with disabilities need only apply – sounds easy enough right? But this application process is arduous, often excluding marginalised groups and those who deviate from the conventional subject seen in disability discourses: a white, middle class man.

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As the NDIS assumes a basic level of English and education, requiring people to request support, understand the application process and make informed decisions based on this information, those who are already marginalised in different ways are disadvantaged by the scheme. Those with poor education – most likely to be people of colour, migrants, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders or working class people – may all struggle to overcome the bureaucracy of the scheme, and be unable to apply for the support they need.

For migrants, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and those with intellectual disabilities, cultural and language barriers further impact this ability to access the NDIS. For those with the means to apply for the scheme, roadblocks present themselves in a strict set of criteria. The citizenship requirements of the scheme exclude those who aren’t permanent residents or don’t hold a Protected Special Category Visa, as is now the case for many NZ citizens living in Australia. While I am sure many of us would like to hope that the needs of people with disabilities transcend borders and nationality, ABC News has reported that severely disabled children born in Australia are being denied access to the NDIS because their parents are NZ citizens. You read that right: severely disabled children are being denied disability care because of arbitrary citizenship requirements.

Criteria surrounding psychosocial disability produce similar horror stories, with many people with mental illnesses being denied disability care. Psychosocial disability benchmarks are hard to interpret, especially given the

NDIS requires an impairment to likely be permanent. This means that people with mental illnesses are at risk of missing out on NDIS support due to their fluctuating support needs; most people with periodic mental illness struggle to qualify for NDIS support packages. The NDIS’s psychosocial criteria disproportionately affects some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, who we know are most likely to be disadvantaged by these restrictions. For Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, who suffer some of the highest rates of psychosocial disability because of unresolved social injustice like the removal of children, mass incarceration, and institutionalised structural violence, NDIS support becomes almost unattainable.

It’s important to understand that inequality within the NDIS extends far beyond this criteria and application process, having been just as evident in the scheme’s rollout. What often goes unacknowledged when discussing different states’ and regions’ gradual transition to the NDIS is that many areas in remote and rural Australia are left waiting; government support has been withdrawn in some places leaving people with disabilities without specialist allied health services altogether.

We know that people living in rural and remote Australia are those most likely to be living in poverty, with lower median gross household incomes, widespread unemployment and highly-priced goods and services. We also know that rural Australians already face challenges when accessing healthcare; these challenges associated with higher rates of chronic conditions and disabilities. Although there is no dif-

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25 ference in the prevalence of disability for women living in rural and remote Australia compared to those in cities, for men rates of disability are 20 per cent higher.

It is impossible to deny that this spatial inequality is racialised, with colonialism rearing its ugly head in a disability scheme that fails to meet the needs of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people living in remote communities across Australia. Because providing adequate services in remote locations may not be ‘economically viable’ for organisations, many remote communities continue to be unable to access disability providers. This is despite the fact that there is a significantly higher rate of disability in the Indigenous population, with up to 45 per cent of Indigenous Australians over the age of 15 saying they experience a disability! As one of the starkest examples of neoliberalism’s perversion of disability care, this demonstrates exactly why market-models fail people with disabilities – they will disregard those who are in most need of support if there is no economic incentive.

This is only a snapshot of the ways in which the NDIS continues to leave many people with disabilities behind.

It is undeniable that race, class, gender, and one’s overall material conditions determine access to the scheme.

It’s easy enough to blame the Gillard government, or the subsequent Liberal governments as responsible for poor planning and ongoing healthcare cuts, resulting in this mess. While these people are all responsible, this misses the point – it is neoliberalism and blind faith in the market that has failed disability care in this country. Market-based models that fetishise the individual in the name of ‘empowerment’ only further entrench oppression, with profit and marketing, rather than the welfare of people with disabilities, driving the provision of services.

Our Mother Lucy Bei

Dry as a bone our Mother is these days, as she Sits there, silent, slowly simmering away.

Her fruitfulness, scorched, her vitality, sapped, as she Draws on, smouldering; breaths of life lost.

Full of nurture Mother used to be, when she Fed us, bathed us, and gave us her whole.

And by giving us her whole, she gave you her soul, Only to be betrayed, by Judas, you played.

And now what’s left of her, is what’s left of us, As a child without their Mother, is a child in need.

Like a season’s end, we wither and wilt, But this season is one that cycles no more.

Memories of Mother’s nurture you chose to forget, Memories of our linkage you choose to neglect.

Because you don’t care, As Mother’s not dead, Yet.

Sociologists, policy makers and governments alike should turn to the words of Peter McLaren, who reminds us that bodies are the primary means by which capitalism does its job. As such, disabled bodies, often incapable of contributing to capitalism, are fundamentally at odds with this system.

A neoliberal approach to providing disability support then, like the NDIS, will never achieve liberation for people with disabilities.

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An AMA With a Real-Life Lesbian Juliette Baxter After watching Orange is the New Black at sixteen, I knew that I was gay, and over the past three years I have gradually come out to many people in my life. In response, I’ve been faced with a slew of questions regarding my sexuality. Some questions are annoying, others make me laugh, but to set things straight, I thought I’d answer them for you.

“Do you have a boyfriend? I promise I can keep a secret.”

No I don’t. I’m actually too busy studying to date. All the boys are interested in my friends anyway. (Oh and also, I’m gay.)

“But are you sure you don’t like boys?”

Honestly, I’m not 100 per cent sure. But I’m fine with that, and you should be too. Why does everyone have to focus on the fact that I don’t like boys if I’m gay? Can’t we just focus on the fact that I do like girls, and non-binary people?

While these two statements technically mean the same thing, my disinterest in boys makes me feel much more like an outsider than my interest in girls and non-binary people.

But you’ve never really had an actual girlfriend. Are you sure you’re gay?

True! But you know, requiring queer people to be in relationships to validate their queerness is a practice which is getting tiring. There’s never a need for straight people to be coupled to prove their sexuality. Yes, queerness is about who you love, but it’s much more than that. It almost seems like queer people are only palatable to broader society if they’re in relationships, because that’s the only way we are relatable.

You looked so pretty with long hair! Why did you cut it? Are you going to grow it out?

I had long hair until two years ago, but felt like it was time for a change. I also

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lacked motivation to do anything with it and was sick of showers taking forever. For the moment, I think I’m going to keep it short; I can save money on shampoo and conditioner that way.

Aren’t you just conforming to lesbian stereotypes by cutting your hair short? Doesn’t that set a bad example for young girls?

Maybe I am. But that isn’t a bad thing.

And in many ways having short hair defies gender norms for women, and shows young girls they don’t have to fit that Barbie doll mould.

Also, what the fuck does this question even mean?

Aren’t you conforming to lesbian stereotypes by becoming a vegetarian? Don’t you have any sense of individuality?

I actually feel like I might be conforming to the B&G stereotype more than the lesbian one by becoming a vegetarian.

Don’t you also play softball, and study gender studies and visual art? Do you ever want to be employed?

Gee, you really know a lot about me. I actually started playing softball before I realised I was gay.

And yes, I would like to get a job someday. I’d like to think that my visual arts degree will make me stand out from the crowd when it comes time to apply for jobs. Maybe that’s just naivety though.

Why don’t you wear makeup?

Don’t you want to look your age?

Honesty, because I’m lazy and would prefer to sleep that extra half an hour. I also didn’t endure nine months of roaccutane for nothing.

– which is mostly great. There is a tendency to associate attractiveness with maturity and confidence though, which many people achieve with makeup, so I do worry it also means that people won’t be attracted to me.

Do you think you were born gay?

I don’t know. And I don’t really care.

So, do you have a crush on me?

I really don’t.

Truthfully, I’ve never been asked this question, but I feel others are harbouring it internally. This is actually one of the reasons I’m scared to come out to friends. When I was younger, I particularly feared coming out to my swimming squad, as I was worried they would treat me differently in the change room. I wish that my sexuality wouldn’t impact the way people understand our friendships. I truly just see my friends as friends and nothing more – and even if that wasn’t the case, I don’t think it’s fair that queer people are treated differently than straight people by their friends.

Do you think you’ll always identify as a lesbian?

I’m not sure. I usually don’t label myself as a lesbian: I prefer queer. I think the term lesbian can be quite restrictive.

Perhaps this is because it has historically meant someone attracted to only women (though that is changing now).

Or maybe it’s the expectations and stereotypes placed upon lesbians that I don’t want to have to live up to. But maybe my dislike of the word is just my internalised homophobia talking, who knows.

I do think people see me as younger because I don’t wear makeup though

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27

Period Pains Diana Tung

Collage by Sylvia Gunn

In March 2015, Canadian art student Rupi Kaur received a notification from Instagram informing her that a photograph on her account depicting her on her period, lying in bed with bloodied pants, was blocked for violating “community guidelines”. As Kaur pointed out, Instagram is filled “with countless photos/accounts where women … are objectified. pornified. and treated less than human”, so why was a photograph of “a source of life for our species” considered offensive?

Given the contradictory nature of the seemingly universally silenced experience of menstruation, I set out to interview ANU women on this topic.

[1] I wanted to focus on the nebulous topic of period pain, and to understand how women negotiate the social and physiological implications of recurring, and sometimes debilitating, pain, in addition to their treatment by medical professionals and the wider public.

I put out a call for participants in the closed ANU Women’s Department Facebook group and conducted 20 - 60 minute interviews with four women. My four interviewees – Paula, Jenny, Shannon and Danielle – felt so strongly about sharing their experiences that when I explained that I would be using pseudonyms, all four women responded that they did not care if it was attributable to their actual names.[2] As Shannon stated, she would take “any chance to talk about period pain” given the dearth of information she experienced.

Period pain[3] is estimated to affect 20 - 90 per cent of women. This absurdly wide-ranging figure alludes to the difficulty of measuring or even researching the topic, so much

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so that there does not even exist a clear consensus among medical practitioners and researchers on the definition of period pain. Despite the experience of period pain differing for different women, however, there are symptoms that are commonly cited. It is also important to note that symptoms of period pain are non-exhaustive, and that women rarely experience just one symptom in isolation. My interviewees described their own symptoms as including “striking pain” in the abdominal area, back pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, mood swings, immobility, heavy bleeding, and in one case, fainting.

The development of modern biomedicine has rendered certain forms of suffering – including emotional suffering – void, in that illness and discomfort that cannot be proven via test tubes, autopsies, screens or monitors are often dismissed as nonexistent. What’s more, even though multitudinous symptoms are a part and parcel of period pain, my reading revealed that in medical school, young doctors-in-training are often taught that the greater the number of symptoms a patient reports, the less likely they are to be telling the truth. Instead, complaints deemed too complicated are dismissed as fictional or caused by indefinable stress.

Shannon is painfully aware that since the symptoms of period pain are “not physically showing” doctors often “don’t understand.” Shannon’s experience of period pain was so painful, in fact, that she found herself regularly exceeding the recommended daily limit of overthe-counter painkillers. Her menstrual flow was also so heavy that she felt like she was “swimming in it” and needed

to change pads every two hours. She started taking the pill at 14 to escape the pain, but went off the pill at 18 due to social pressure from her friends.

Since then, she has resorted to taking Panamax, as well as Panadeine, which contains codeine. As painkillers are heavily regulated, Shannon is unable to get refills on her prescriptions, so has to visit a bulk-bill doctor each time she has her period. On one particular visit to the health clinic, when Shannon complained of severe pain and clotting, her male doctor implied that it might have been due to a miscarriage.

On other occasions, male doctors countered Shannon’s complaints by telling her that by their estimations she was “the epitome of good health.”

Shannon later switched to a female doctor, who she found more receptive to her medical complaints.

Although the pill has offered relief for women such as Shannon, it is not an option for everyone. Paula started taking the pill in year 12 to deal with the severe period pain and clotting.

However, after three months, Paula had to stop because of the side effects – feeling miserable, lethargic, unhappy, and “cry[ing] myself to sleep” – and also because it exacerbated her Turrets condition.

Given the socially taboo nature of periods, it follows that women’s experiences of period pain are similarly silenced. Women are more likely to opt for over-the-counter pain relief medication which may not even work, and to practice selfmanagement strategies instead of seeing a doctor – and if they do seek medical attention, often feel they’re not being taken seriously. The delegimisation of women’s pain and

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suffering is reinforced by an array of people – doctors, boyfriends, and even mothers and other women – ultimately conditioning women to think of their pain as natural and their suffering as isolated. Shannon spoke with frustration about her boyfriend’s inability and unwillingness to empathise with her. On the occasions she expressed her pain to him, he responded that because in past periods she “didn’t die [and] made it through” that she could

medical attention, instead thinking that the pain was “just how it was” and that “it’s not a medical problem, everyone gets it.” Jenny’s

At the level of scientific research, medical researchers tend to adopt a silver-bullet approach to finding solutions to period pain.

“handle it”.

He also asked: “Aren’t you used to it by now?”

Discussing period pain with other women may also inadvertently normalise the pain, in that the sheer commonality of period pain, in conjunction with public silencing, condition women to think of period pain as a non-medical issue and simply part of being a woman. For example, although Jenny had experienced period pain to the point where she had to miss work, she did not seek

bossy2017mag.indd 28

pads. The themes of shame and stigma present in my interviews were disturbingly similar to the studies I came across in my reading, some of which were with women born in the 1940s.

mother works in the medical field as a nurse, and refers to periods by other names. Jenny recalls hearing her mother refer a period as being in the “red tent”, and that when her grandmother went shopping she would write “chocies” (short for chocolate) on her shopping list as a pseudonym for sanitary

Numerous studies have been conducted, but each primarily focuses o n isolating and testing one product to assess its potential in alleviating pain. In surveying scientific literature and interviewing my subjects, however, I found that women employ a myriad of strategies to alleviate period pain, including: over-the-counter drugs like Codeine, Ibuprofen, Naprogesic and Ponstan; the pill; alternative medicines, such as acupuncture, naturopathy, herbal supplements;

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home-remedi­es, like hot-water bottles, heating pads, hot baths, compression socks; dietary changes; intrauterine devices (IUDs); and trying to avoid stressful environments.

Over-the-counter drugs are perhaps the quickest and easiest way to deal with period pain, but can have alarming side-effects and unintended consequences. In 2007, two doctors wrote to the British Medical Journal to raise an alarm over the abuse of over-the-counter painkillers, citing menstrual cramps as one of the ways in which patients begin their spiral into addiction.

There are, however, concrete and tangible ways to reduce women’s suffering during their periods. Instead of seeking answers to period pain strictly from within biomedicine, we must examine biomedicine within its social embeddedness, which assumes and exacerbates existing tensions, to also address the ‘nonmedical’ issues that contribute to women’s suffering. Advocating for better and more comprehensive treatment for period pain is thus not simply a medical issue, but one which requires a strategic and political reframing of the menstrual cycle to an integrated and valid part of a woman’s total life. In other words, we need concerted and consistent efforts to expand the view whereby women are reduced to their reproductive ability. This essentialised notion of womanhood as defined by the experience of menstrual pain and suffering has meant attitudes on period pain have remained largely stagnant for the past 30 years. The non-exhaustive list below offers potential strategies that serve as possible steps toward addressing women’s period pain.

Infrastructure: On the most basic level, adequate service provision in the form of bathrooms needs to be taken seriously. My reading has revealed that while faecal and urinary matters are sometimes discussed within the context of human waste, menstruation is rarely considered an issue worth discussing.

This has resulted in women being less accommodated for with fewer facilities than men, despite their need arguably being greater. Women in general are provided less equitable services and suffer disproportionately

bossy2017mag.indd 29

when public toilets are not available or closed – my reading even revealed a correlation between health referrals for urinary tract infections, distended bladders and a range of other urogynaecological problems with public toilet closures. As mentioned earlier, some of my interviewees who faced heavy flows during their periods need to change pads every two hours to keep blood from leaking onto their clothes, so unobstructed access to bathrooms is essential.

Ultimately, ‘gender-blind’ approaches to research, city planning, and architecture inadvertently obscure the differentiated needs of women and reinforce the taboo nature of women’s health issues.

Couples therapy and alternative medicines: Some studies reassert periods into the web of social relations by conducting randomised control trials to show that therapy – especially for heterosexual couples – can help to reduce PMS. In addition, a study on acupuncture emphasisedt the need for empathetic medical providers that listen to their patients.

These methods may not provide the silver bullet that is biomedical research is so often predicated on, but they serve to counter the ultimately dehumanising nature of biomedicine.

Pop culture and art: Societal change requires both legislative and cultural transformations, and art is one powerful vehicle for changing public attitudes. Artists and activists – such as Rupi Kaur and Kiran Gandhi – audaciously counter the taboo surrounding menstruation and period pain that justifies the policing of women’s bodies, and the shame that women learn to internalise. By showing periods as they are, they uncover the way in which social meaning is embedded in biomedical categories.

Paid menstruation leave: The Victorian Women’s Trust announced in May 2017 that they would begin to offer paid leave for staff who were experiencing severe period pain.

Critics of the policy point to the way menstrual leave could be used to undermine women’s ability to perform at work at the same level as men and ossify gender differences, whereas proponents argue that menstruation leave recognises the lived experiences of women

and that women should not need to act like men to succeed in the workplace. These arguments point to the unresolved tensions between second- and third-wave feminism and are unlikely to be resolved soon. Even in countries such as Japan, where period leave has been in place for decades, the debate is far from over, and this topic deserves much further research and scrutiny.

Ultimately, the treatment of women’s pain is informed by the complex and intersecting dynamics of biomedicine, gender and culture, and there are no easy solutions. The small and diverse strategies listed above may not dismantle patriarchal gender norms overnight, but they offer some concrete and non-exhaustive ways of addressing women’s period pain, while recognising the crucial social-cultural dimensions of their treatment in biomedicine. Given the ways in which the biomedical approach seeks to make the social invisible and keep sickness inside the individual, it is through research, writing and open discussions that we can shine a spotlight on and dismantle the harmful and pervasive gender stereotypes hidden within medicine.

---[1] Although I focus on those who identify as women in this essay, it is important to note that periods and period pain is also experienced by those who do not identify as women, and that not all those who identify as women experience periods and period pain.

[2] Please note that despite respondents stating that they do not mind attribution, I have adhered to using pseudonyms to protect respondents’ anonymity throughout this piece.

[3] While widespread gynaecological conditions such as endometriosis and uterine fibroids share commonalities in terms of stigmatisation and women’s reluctance to seek medical help, delving into diagnosed medical conditions and the minutiae of the menstrual process are outside the scope of this piece.

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30 31. How to Tie a Knot – Nigarish Hyder and Sumithri Venketasubramanian 34. Out of Time, Out of (My) Mind – Lizzie Storor 36. Featured: Imogen Clarke 37. Milestones in Intersectional Feminism – Swagata Lakshmi Ghosal 38. Papa don’t Preach: Unravelling The Christian Patriarchy – Hannah Sami 40. The Art of Non-Gendered Insults – Casley Rowan 42. How Deep Is Your Love? – Ruohan Zhao 44. The Ones Who Dream – Julia Faragher 46. Canon-fodder – Isabella Keith 48. Poem by Nadia Kim 48. This Poem is Pointless – Alessandra Panizza 49. Featured: Jean-Luc Jirayut Prasopa-Plaizier 50. Yelling into a Godless Void – Ji-Soo Kweon 52. Girl Powers – Nell Morgan 53. There is a Girl – Mahalia Crawshaw 55. Cooking in the Eye of the Storm – Mia Jessurun 56. Feeding the Soul – Anonymous 57. Home Is Where the Kueh Is – Janine Wan 58. In Search of Home – Vishakha Nogaja 59. Janus – Jean–Luc Jirayut Prasopa-Plaizier 60. In Defence of Arts: Two Perspectives – Maeve Bannister and Emily Faithful 63. Hair – Annabelle Nshuti, Lyndsay Bassett, Sumithri Venketasubramanian 66. Featured: Imogen Clarke 67. Reading The Second Sex for the Fifth Time – Helen Pretorius

II

Gather Inspired by the battles fought by those before us.

Aided by the passing on of knowledge. Sustained by a thirst for information and education.

“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum. Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

Margaret Atwood

bossy2017mag.indd 30

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How to Tie a Knot Nigarish Hyder and Sumithri Venketasubramanian NIGARISH: Looking back at my childhood, I have come to the conclusion that the existence of other religions and belief systems was something I was always aware of; after all, our neighbours were Hindu, I attended a Catholic primary school, had close friends of Jewish background, and so on. The religious diversity I was surrounded by never specifically came up as a topic of discussion in my household, but was instead viewed as a normal feature of our life in Australia.

Essentially, I grew up without ever noticing anything alien in others when it came to religion – a view encouraged by my observant Muslim parents, who had spent the majority of their lives in the company of people of different faiths. But as I got older, I noticed the discourse changed entirely when it came to the subject of marriage.

It was, ironically, at a family wedding where I had first encountered the idea of ‘religious incompatibility’. It was the answer given to me when I’d wondered out loud: “We live, work, study and maintain friendships with people of every religion, so why do we only ever marry Muslims?” Though I was only a child at the time, the answer to my question has followed me and made an appearance in every thought, argument and discussion I have had on marriage since.

All this thinking and arguing always brought me back to the same question: what makes two religions incompatible? How much of this incompatibility comes from within religious texts and teachings themselves, and how much from the manner in which religion is

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practiced and expressed across different cultures and through individual lifestyle choices? And where do generational and contextual differences come into all this?

Ultimately, and for whatever variety of reasons, there seems to exist a fine but impenetrable distinction between interfaith relationships in marriage, and those of other kinds (our relationships with neighbours or co-workers, for example). What is interesting, however, is how pivotal a role context and individual interpretation of religion plays in the existence of this disctinction. As I grew up, my understanding of Islam changed and I gradually became less observant than my parents; I now have a hard time identifying said distinction or understanding why it is as significant as it is. It has become difficult for me to see marriage in the same light as they do, and to abide by the same religious boundaries they themselves maintained in their marriage. This is where the conflict arises, and it is, in ways, the answer to what makes interfaith marriages incompatible in the eyes of some.

That answer is that there is no specific answer; notions of ‘incompatibility’ in relationships are subjective. They are based on what individuals – who are influenced by factors such as cultural context, upbringing and historical tensions – uphold as being of importance.

This marks the greatest hurdle to overcome in the debate of interfaith relationships.

And I’m not alone in recognising and challenging this hurdle; reconciling conflicting views between members of different generations on religion’s

role in marriage is a common dilemma.

Drawing from my own experience, and the experience of others who have spent years navigating relationships with non-Muslims where marriage was on the cards, I’ve come to understand that resistance to interfaith relationships often comes from a place of paternalism rather than a desire to maintain some sort of status quo. The resistance is the result of wanting to protect and shelter others from the perceived pressures of mixed marriages.

To illustrate this point: I know my parents would have what they genuinely believe are my best interests at heart in preventing me from ever marrying a non-Muslim. They, and those like them, would see it as their responsibility as parents, as adults, perhaps ever as pious people, to protect relationships from internal and external strains and the pressures of social ostracism – all of which are too often said to be the unpleasant ‘side effects’ of mixed marriages. This stems from the innate desire of parents – and to an extent family in general – to maintain centuries-old traditions, to protect reputations and religious standings.

And this is where religion takes centre stage, as do broader issues of navigating individual differences in interpretation and attitude towards religion. This is because mixed marriage can fall outside the boundaries of what is permitted by religious laws and teachings – as is the case in Islam, where a nikah (marriage contract) can be deemed invalid if both parties are not Muslim. And here enters the desire to protect – a desire rising out of a fear of God, religious consequences, and of accumulating sin. In my family, every argument about mar-

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r ying outside of Islam has ended at the aforementioned ‘incompatibility’, but this has more often than not been tied to an honest concern for one’s position before God. By means of compromise, or maybe as an honest attempt at reconciliation, conversion comes up in response to this. Usually, the conversion of one partner occurs with the best of intentions – but does this decrease the pressures on a relationship as intended, or make them more pronounced? Is there the potential for it to erode the relationship from the inside over time, and is it really a ‘solution’?

Perhaps in an ideal world, these would not be concerns. They would not be questions that needed asking. In this ideal world, differences in religious beliefs would only be a concern if deemed to be by those in the relationship, and how central religion is to those individuals. If and when these differences were raised for discussion in the relationship, they would be talked out and worked through privately, rather than becoming a public affair. But reality is not an ideal world. In reality, we have to ask who else is ‘involved’ in the relationship, and more importantly, is it really that simple?

I found my answers in a series of absolutes that I have always known. For example, I have always known that if I were to marry a non-Muslim, it would be a matter of choice – specifically, a choice between that person and my parents. I have always known that while the religion of that person may not be of concern to me, it would be to my family. I have always known that this kind of marriage would not be solely of two individuals, but rather, of two societies and worldviews – two interpretations of God. So the short answer is: no, it is not that simple.

SUMI: Growing up in Singapore, I faced a world in which I was of the minority – where it was impossible to keep from interacting with people different to me. Most of my friends were Chinese anyway, and religion was rarely talked about (justi-

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fied as to avoid inflammatory conversations) – but it was common knowledge that some celebrated Christmas, some Eid, and some Deepavali like myself. My disadvantaged position in society as a result of my race, however, was something I was made aware of by my parents from a very young age. Caste was acknowledged as a part of religious rituals and practices at home, but never used to isolate me from those of other castes. My friendships were never less than just because I was raised differently to my friends, and it was never raised as an issue.

But apparently, marriage is a whole other ball game.

Marriages between people of different backgrounds have never been unknown to me. My parents didn’t pass judgement on the decision of a Hindu relative to marry somebody of the Catholic faith. They maintain close relationships with and continue to love friends and family who marry those of entirely different races and religions.

But that is them, and it’s not the same when it comes to me.

“It’s easier to be with somebody similar to you,” was always the final answer of any discussion (or argument) had on this topic. “You may not see it now, but

when y o u ’r e older you will realise this for yourself.”

I couldn’t help but wonder what they mean by “easier”. Why would it be easier? Is that because we’d have supposedly been raised around similar rituals and beliefs, so there would be fewer questions asked in our marriage? Or because of existing negative attitudes against such marriages?

Would external pressures slowly chip away at the relationship over time? But then why would I choose to surround myself with people who would judge me for my choice to marry somebody different to me? And then it struck me: maybe, just maybe, there are underlying prejudices hiding behind the “it’s in your best interest” veil.

Caste is a funny thing – we don’t talk about it, and yet, it’s everywhere and influences everything in its sneaky way.

To ignore its existence is to subtly support the past and current oppression experienced in its name. I was born into a Brahmin family; the Tamil we speak is distinct from that of non-Brahmins, and the attitudes of people in ‘our community’ towards those of other castes is distinctly patronising. The disapproval of marrying out of one’s caste undoubtedly has at least an inkling of the de -

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sire t o ke e p the family ‘pure’. Just as we can’t simply brush off the concept of race in the hope of erasing past injustices and starting on a clean slate, it’s important to consider how historical tensions between different communities play a role in the “incompatibility” argument.

Okay, so let’s assume that religious/ racial/caste incompatibility is real and that it is easier to marry somebody like you. Wouldn’t this mean that it would be easiest to be with somebody of the same gender too, because you would have been socialised similarly? And yet, queerness* is starkly missing from the entire discussion about marriage.

This absence can be understood in light of attitudes toward queerness* itself. It is unfortunately seen as a Western import – although embraced in non-Western societies for millennia – and has no place in traditional families. And up pops that pesky term again: queerness* is apparently “incompatible” with doing marriage the “right” way. Being interested in people of the same gender supposedly only happens when one hasn’t met the right person of the “correct” gender for them.

Of

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course, there are peop l e

w h o h a v e reconciled with queerness*, such as a mother in Mumbai who put out a matrimonial ad for her gay son in the local newspaper while ironically stating a preference for Iyer men. (Iyers are a subclass of Hindu Brahmins.)

Non-heterosexuality is still a point of immense stress for many people due to be married, and who are already married to people of a gender they are not attracted to. And though there are a few “seemingly-logical” folks (like that mother from Mumbai) around, their approach to marriage still leaves out gender-diverse people.

But in order to discuss marriage fully, we’ve got to talk about something I’ve been tiptoeing around thus far: arranged marriage. While in some cases arranged marriages no longer involve a man and woman meeting first time on their wedding day, whose parents have settled dowry and decided their kids’ futures on their behalf without their input, the narrative of a marriage being the business of people beyond just those partaking in it is still maintained. It is about the coming together of families with cultures to honour and, perhaps more importantly, reputations to protect.

When seeking arranged marriages there are expectations: “Can the girl make good chai?”

“Are her rotis round?”

“Will the boy

make enough to support the family?” These expectations basically stem from gender roles, where men and women are expected to contribute in mutually-exclusive and complementary ways to their relationship and future together.

When these roles are not conformed to, the process of seeking out brides and grooms becomes complicated, because the criteria for a good wife or husband are challenged. Thus, another reason why homosexual matchmaking has not caught on is that same-gender relationships necessarily are incompatible with gender roles. As a result, non-binary people are forced to conform to the gender binary, and non-heterosexual people are subject to heteronormativity should they choose to enter into arranged marriages. But why would they do so in the first place?

Forced marriages still happen, and where they aren’t absolutely bound, such relationships may be at least coerced. The reason for this is not unmentioned: ease. It is simpler to accept things the way they are because resisting is exhausting and often pointless; it’s so tough to challenge and change attitudes which have been nurtured and promoted over generations. So when we speak of it being easier to marry people similar to us, it may not come from a place of cultural or religious incompatibility but rather avoiding a clash of a more personal, filial kind.

Ultimately, marriages aren’t always about love and passion – they may be about respect, obligation, fear, and just keeping the peace. Arranged marriages aren’t necessarily bad and marriages of love aren’t the only “correct” type of marriage to have. Traditions have been around for years – they are beautiful, complicated, problematic, and slowly changing with time. The world I may get married in will not be the same as that in which my parents did – there will be different expectations and norms. There is reason to be hopeful that those who currently lose out when it comes to marriage can, if they so choose, partake in it without having to compromise their identities or happiness in decades to come.

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Mon

Tue

Wed

9:00 AM

Out

of

Time

10:00 AM

Out

of

(My)

11:00 AM

I never planned to write this article. In fact, originally, I was meant to write about something completely different.

However, plagued with an array of different commitments at the start of the semester, I had to concede to Bronte, Bossy’s inestimable editor, that no, I no longer had the time to write an article on my experiences wearing a “Refugees Welcome” shirt. As I wrote to her, the reason I could no longer complete the promised piece was that I had too much on at uni (in week one). This situation, as my classic but problematic fave Carrie Bradshaw would say, got me to thinking: why is it that myself and so many other women at ANU always seem to be so damn busy?

When I began thinking about how this situation had come about, the first culprit that sprang to mind was the high-pressure work ethic encouraged by third-wave feminism. I thought back to my high school years at an all-girls school where, since beginning our studies as early teens, we faced a deluge of forcefully optimistic messages.

Remember, our teachers crowed: “Girls can do anything!” At every speech day alumna who had worked for the Unit-

bossy2017mag.indd 34

Thur

Mind?

Lizzie Storor ed Nations or become CEOs trumpeted the possibilities of what we could achieve if we too worked hard enough.

I still remember realising the magnitude of the fact that I had grown up without any sense of limitation on what I could achieve, unlike my grandmother’s and even my mother’s generation.

However, as the trope goes, with great power comes great responsibility. Now, although obviously not broken, the glass ceiling has been chipped enough so that the broken shards offer women a reflection of life at the top. This is one explanation for why there are now so many women taking on extra commitments. By stacking their resumes with enough unpaid internships and voluntary leadership roles, women can gather the 100 per cent confidence that studies have shown they feel is necessary to apply for a job (compared to 60 per cent for men). Recently, despairing that my pithy legal experience would not be enough to apply for advertised paralegal jobs, a wise friend reminded me of this statistic. “If you were a man”, she noted, “you would apply despite the two-years-experience requirement.”

So yes, women’s newfound ability to enter previously inaccessible workplaces may be part of this over-commitment problem. However, I still feel like this issue can be traced to some deeper causes. To uncover them, I consulted some other busy people I know from around ANU. The students I spoke to were both woman and man-identifying, and mentioned a broad variety of commitments including: study, work, internships, passion projects, creative commitments, social life, exercise and personal rituals and habits such as meditating or reading. Participants revealed a number of different, albeit often connecting, reasons for why they felt they had taken on so many responsibilities.

Difficulty with saying no was a common issue identified by the women I spoke with. I personally find this very difficult at times, and so was eager to find out why other women believe this tendency exists. One participant, Freya, traced it to self-imposed high expectations that made her feel like she always needed to be doing more.

This pressure makes her feel the need to prove herself, and she further noted:

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“Even when I am equally qualified and experienced, men often don’t treat me as an equal. That just creates more work, both to assert myself externally and to overcome internal self-doubt.”

Another related factor that drives women to take on extra emotional labour roles was traced to gender conditioning. Another participant, Aditi, eloquently summarised how this operates:

and none of us could think of nearly as many examples of men who seem over-committed. This is not to imply that men are lazy or apathetic about non-academic pursuits. A male participant, Archie, accredited the perception that men are less fazed by over-commitment to the fact that men are often better at mentally compartmentalising their obligations, whereas women are more likely to keep them running in the back of their minds.

“Societal structures [compel] parents to raise their sons and daughters differently, [which] holds women to a higher standard thereby demanding a level of emotional competence not expected of men, and that negates our womanhood if we don’t adhere to these characterisations.

It essentially relinquishes men of their complicity in the system, which can be through holding explicitly gendered expectations, or implicitly by way of maintaining their ignorance or privilege without the willingness to learn and share the burden.”

This astute analysis aligned with what many of women said made it hard for them not to feel pressured by their commitments: that it was more difficult to divorce the stress caused by their extra-curriculars with their daily life.

Additionally, my interviews revealed that women may be more emotionally affected by their over-commitment because women involved in activism are driven by the fact that the personal is the political. For example, given that the majority of sexual assault survivors are woman-identifying, it is understandable that women they are the driving forces behind the campaign to end sexual assault on campus.

Until more men who remain both implicitly and explicitly complicit acknowledge this truth and act on their awareness in a practical sense, women will continue to be weighed down by the clout of emotional labour that pervades many aspects of our lives.

However, women must also take similar steps based on self-awareness in order to affect this change. Several participants noted that their feelings of being overburdened were self-imposed to a large degree due to an urge towards constant output. Sarah, another participant, referenced her impulse towards taking on commitments because the more she has on, the more productive and efficient she feels. Several participants linked this experience to the added pressure that women feel “to work twice as hard just to get the same opportunities as men”, and “to build their resumes and pack out their lives to feel secure heading in to the future.” One participant, Laura, highlighted the impact of ANU’s “stress culture”, which “glorifies over-commitment”.

Moreover, in my experience, campaigns focussed on refugee issues and law reform and social justice projects have been overwhelmingly comprised of women. My theory as to why this is so is that all women, regardless of intersecting identities, experience oppression due to their gender, and can therefore more easily develop compassion for other oppressed groups. While the strong presence of women in activist circles should be celebrated, it should be done so with the understanding that their over-representation can leave an emotional burden and takes up time others spend on study and paid work.

This article has illustrated some of the reasons why women at ANU appear to take on so many commitments.

However, it feels somewhat wasteful to diagnose these issues without providing some sort of treatment. So, to conclude, here are some choice tips from participants that may be useful to anyone with a tendency to overcommit:

At this point, I think it is important to state that it is true that men at ANU may experience feelings of being over-burdened. However, this article is based on my personal experiences and those of the people I interviewed,

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• When that voice inside your head that is encouraging you to keep pushing yourself further causes you to sacrifice some important parts of your life – whether that be friends, relationships, study or general downtime – I think

that that’s when you need to step back and ask yourself if it’s really worth it. · For me, the thing that works best is keeping a journal which tracks all my time. This includes fixed things I cannot change (work hours, class times), self-care time (a compulsory one hour a day), and spare time. When I can physically visualise my time I am less likely to overburden myself.

• I set clear and communicated guidelines with those who set me tasks/those I work with so that I am accountable to both myself and them. I also make sure there are clear expectations that fit within both our schedules – particularly for unpaid work – so that I am not made to give up the necessities in my life.

• I often need physical distance, because if I am around and people ask me to do something or I am thinking about my co-curricular work I won’t switch off.

I’m lucky that I can go home to Melbourne quite often, but when I’m in Canberra I try to do things like delay meetings for a few days so I can have some downtime. It’s also about the choices I make – I’m trying to cut down on the amount of unpaid labour I do.

• I have been trying a lot harder to be patient, and instead of doing other people’s work helping them to do it themselves. The first time this might take longer and maybe you have to remind them 10 times before they actually do it – but that way you are actually training up the next generation of leaders. The next time they can probably do it themselves!

• Ensure you have individuals or a group of people that you can fall back on when you’re having a hard time. Remember that it’s okay to take a break – you don’t need to be always available or on call.

Thanks to Sarah Barrie, Aditi Razdan, Cameron Allan, Dominic Cradick, Freya Willis, Archie Chew and Laura Perkov for their contributions for this article.

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Imogen Clarke

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Imogen, and I hail from tropical Queensland. I have since moved to Canberra to study psychology. I aim to be an arty psychologist in the future, and am working with kids and training as a play therapist in the meantime. When it comes to creativity I have an eclectic taste, so I don’t have a particular technique I stick to. I mostly draw inspiration from nature, the human figure, religion, and psychological states of mind. I generally don’t start an artwork with a plan, so the end products are always a mash up of different drawings, paintings and images.

Have you always been a creative?

I was raised in a creative household: my mum is an art teacher and artist, and my dad is a prosecutor but dabbles in gem faceting, silver smithing and blacksmithing. I guess I always had materials at my fingertips and parents who supported me, so it’s always something I’ve loved to do.

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Has being women-identifying informed your practice? If so, how?

Historically, art has been dominated by men, but I think this perspective has flipped and art is now considered a ‘feminine’ practice. Girls are perceived as being better at drawing and painting, and I’ve had people attribute my ability to draw to my gender. This is ridiculous, because in reality, I have spent hours of my life practicing drawing so gender is irrelevant and ability is what matters.

Name three women-identifying artists who inspire you.

I’m inspired by Frida Kahlo’s ability to question identity, gender, class and racial stereotypes, while also being extremely successful. This type of passion is so inspiring given these stereotypes were so entrenched within society.

I also find Georgia O’Keeffe’s works equally inspiring – she painted abstractions of female genitalia and flowers, which was extremely controversial

within her time. I think she was a pioneer in acceptance of the female body and expressive female freedom.

Where do you see your artistic practice evolving?

I’m studying psychology and want to eventually incorporate art therapy into my practice. People differ so much, and traditional dialogue-based therapy mightn’t be effective for everyone – particularly for children, persons with verbal disabilities and those raised in an environment where emotional expression is discouraged. I think art therapy is an inclusive emotional outlet and I aspire to incorporate it into psychology somehow.

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Milestones in Intersectional Feminism Swagata Lakshmi Ghosal 1848: The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women’s rights convention ever held. It was where Elizabeth Cady Stanton, along with a team, wrote the Declaration of Sentiments demanding access to education and jobs, as well as the right to vote.

1851: Sojourner Truth – an African-American abolitionist and women’s rights activist – delivered the famous Ain’t I A Woman speech. She spoke for both the abolitionist and women’s rights movements, and the two movements worked together until the end of the Civil War in the USA. 1870: The 15th Amendment finally gave African-American men the right to vote, but still did not include women, which led to a schism between the abolitionist and women’s rights movements. Suffragists, led by Susan B Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, split off to focus solely on the (middle-class, white) women’s right to vote. This racial division would last until the advent of thirdwave feminism.

1900 - 1920: The second generation of first wavers, led by Carrie Chapman Catt, began the political campaigns firstwave feminism is most remembered for.

Their very public protests and suffering helped turn the nation’s attention and compassion to women’s vulnerability and marginalisation in society.

1920: The 19th Amendment finally passed, which was great news for white women who finally had the right to vote.

White suffragists in 1920 decided not to fight for the rights of black and Native American women; many of these women would remain unable to vote for the next 40 - 45 years.

1961: After much urging from former first lady, and all round badass, Eleanor Roosevelt, President Kennedy established a Presidential Commission on the Status of Women. The commission revealed that women were not educated to the same level as men, nor did they participate in economics or politics to the same extent.

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1963: Betty Friedan published her seminal feminist text The Feminine Mystique. Her book was described as being about “the problem that had no name”.

Friedan wrote about how women (or at least, straight, middle-class, white women) were stifled in the home, undereducated and treated as children. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 passed during this year, and stated that men and women should receive equal pay for equal work.

1968: Alice Walker published her very first collection of poetry, before going on to publish her award-winning novel The Colour Purple. Along with Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison and bell hooks, she voiced what it meant to be a black woman in America, overlooked by the white feminist movement.

1969: 400 feminists gathered in New York to protest against the Miss America Pageant, drawing global media attention. However, contrary to popular myth, no bras were actually burned.

The Chicana feminist movement, also known as Xicanisma, began at the 1969 Chicano Youth Liberation Conference. It was a socio-political movement that analysed the intersecting historical, cultural, spiritual, educational, and economic experiences of Mexican-American women who identify as Chicana. Chicana feminism challenged the stereotypes that Chicanas face across lines of gender, ethnicity, race, class and sexuality. Most importantly, Chicana feminism served to help women reclaim their existence between the American feminist and Chicano movements.

1971: Gloria Steinem co-founded Ms. magazine, providing a platform for feminist ideas to reach a wider audience.

1973: Roe v. Wade, which ruled that states could not ban abortion, changed the landscape in women’s fights for control over their own bodies.

1983: Activist and academic Angela Davis publishes Women, Race, and Class, which takes an intersectional approach to feminist issues.

1989: Legal scholar Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality theory”. In her work, Crenshaw discussed Black feminism, which argues that the experience of being a black woman cannot be understood in terms of being black and of being a woman considered independently but must include the interactions and intersections of these components of identity which frequently reinforce one other.

1991: During Senate confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas for Supreme Court Justice, Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment. The case quickly gained national attention. Thomas, an African-American man, was supported by the African-American community whereas Hill, an African-American woman, was supported by the white feminist community. The two lines of argument focused on the rights of women and Hill’s experience of being violated as a woman on the one hand, and on the other, the incentive to forgive or turn a blind eye to Thomas’ conduct due to his potential to become the second African-American to serve on the United States Supreme Court. Crenshaw argued that Hill had to forfeit her voice as a black person, and instead focus on the sexist aspects of the case. Thomas was eventually confirmed, while Hill was largely discredited.

1991: The punk band Bikini Kill published the Riot Grrrl Manifesto and began a radical feminist musical genre that took off around the world, calling for the empowerment of women’s voices and giving visibility to the issues of violence against women and homophobia.

1992: The Anita Hill case inspired Rebecca Walker, Alice Walker’s daughter, to publish a call for a new wave of feminism titled Becoming the Third Wave.

She summed up the individualist, deconstructionist nature of the movement in the final statement of her article: “I am the Third Wave.” Walker didn’t try to speak for women collectively – she spoke to each woman individually.

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“Papa don’t Preach” – Unravelling The Christian Patriarchy Hannah Sami

Collage by Bronte McHenry

In my teenage years, I came to the point in my life where I deliberately chose to commit to my Christian faith because of the peace, love and justice that I knew God intended for our world. At this time I was considerably ignorant to the sexism and inequality prevalent within many modern churches. As I attended church regularly, however, I began to notice that many of the wise, strong and capable women that filled the church community were notably absent from positions of leadership and authority. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t heard many variations of these responses when I questioned this: “Men and women were created differently by God, so of course they have different roles.” “We don’t permit women to teach or lead because that’s not what God assigned for them, that’s what God designed as the role for men.” These justifications would flow from the same lips that professed Jesus as hope for all people, and thus, I began to express within my faith the same exasperation that I had always felt at the injustice and inequality women face in the secular world.

As I delved into understanding the biblical interpretations that led to sexist, backwards views of women in the church, however, I began to realise how inconsistent they were with the good news of the gospel. The inclusivity of women is woven throughout the Bible, from the story of creation right through to Revelation, and it became clear that within all its complexity, Jesus’ life expresses a very different

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narrative concerning the nature and role of women. Focusing primarily on Jesus’ life is particularly pertinent and wide-ranging in its implications because we understand Jesus’ life as a lived example of the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom – God’s perfect and ideal foundation for the world – sets a standard for how Christians should pursue life and justice. Thus, our interpretation of how Jesus treated women within the patriarchal structures of the Greco Roman world develops our understanding of God’s intentions for our world, and how we should live out our lives in His Kingdom.

Imagine this: Mary and Martha, two women with very defined domestic roles and very limited public opportunities in the first century, welcome a Jewish Rabbi named Jesus into their home (Luke 10:38). Jesus accepts the invitation, and as per the expectations of women, Martha begins to prepare the food and home. Mary, however, completely defies her primary responsibility of domestic tasks and instead sits with Jesus as he teaches. Mary rebelled against cultural expectations for women, not only by failing to prepare the home but also by sitting amongst men and learning from a Rabbi, something that was highly restricted for women. A disgruntled Martha directly addresses Jesus, asking him to put Mary in her place and instruct her to come and share in the women’s work.

However, rather than doing what would have been acceptable in asking Mary to fulfill her role in the home,

Jesus responded to Martha: “You are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed – or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken from her.”

Through Jesus’ words, we see a banner of emancipation flying high. It is a call that Jesus has made directly to a woman, in which he restructures the societal expectations of the time.

He is saying to Mary that she needn’t worry about the restrictions placed on her; she is welcome to sit with men, as equals, and learn from him. She can set aside the socially constructed tasks assigned to her, because Jesus teachings aren’t restricted to men, but open for all – and so is the Kingdom of God. Like Mary, there were many women affirmed through Jesus’ ministry, and further along in his travels Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman alone at a well (John 4:1). Jesus begins to engage with this woman by asking her for a drink from her vessel. As they converse, Jesus reveals that he knows her circumstances: she has had five husbands reject her, and is now with man she is not wed to. After her past has been revealed they delve deeper into a conversation about salvation. She acknowledges to him that a Messiah (the promised salvation for the Jewish nation) is coming, and Jesus replies: “I, who speak to you, am he.” This story is riddled with significance and through it we see Jesus empower and elevate not only the Samaritan women, but through her, all women. If Jesus had adhered to

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Jewish practice, he would not have addressed her. Not only was it taboo to talk directly to women in public, but she was also a Samaritan, and thus despised due to a 500-year racial feud. Jesus should not have asked her for water from her vessel, as it was considered unclean and it was certainly not expected that Jesus would humble himself by asking her to fulfil his needs. We know the woman was ostracised from her community, as she was not collecting water with the other women, and we also know she had faced great rejection, due to her marital history.

Despite all these racialised and gendered barriers, Jesus reveals to her more plainly than to anyone else prior that he is the Messiah and sends her off, imbuing her with the authority to teach both men and women the good news. This woman is taught by Jesus like a disciple; sent out by Jesus like an apostle; preaches to the men and women of Samaria. This woman becomes the first female Christian preacher and because of Jesus intentional interaction with her, he destroyed barriers to opportunity and equality among men and women.

It is disappointing, therefore, that we can see greater roles attributed to women in the Bible than in churches today. What is most discouraging, however, is that biblical representations of the Kingdom of God are misinterpreted and the role of women demeaned through these misinterpretations. If any Christian theology leads to sexism or inequality within the church or greater society, it is oppositional to the message of the Bible – this I can say unquestionably. Christians do not believe in a God who enforces structural inequality, or demeans and undermines women, instead we believe in a God of restoration and justice – this is ultimately what should be demonstrated by and in churches.

Therefore we must extricate ourselves from the patriarchal lenses traditionally used to understand biblical texts, or else the Church will continue to be susceptible to injustices against women; inequalities that were never in line with Jesus teaching.

So let’s use our bibles not as instruments of oppression, but as tools for emancipation.

In addition to these women’s stories, the Bible recounts many more instances in which God dismantles the gender inequalities of the time.

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The Art of Non-Gendered Insults Casley Rowan

Disclaimer: I use the terms “women” and “female” interchangeably throughout this piece, although I recognise they are not synonymous. I also do not move beyond the binary in this analysis, because the English language is yet to catch on to the fact the world is not quite black and white.

Just like anyone with strong opinions, a love of language and a deep appreciation for the clever use of language, I love a good insult, and absolutely cannot hold my tongue when I am having an angry rant. I’ve come a long way from the cautious 14-yearold girl who used to tell her friends that swearing showed a lack of vocabulary; these days I say fuck and shit all the fucking time. For me, these two words roll off my tongue without hesitation, because I was raised to view other words as far more harmful. For example, the word “hate” was banned in my house, and the word “cunt” never uttered, I was also taught that “gay”, “retarded” and “pussy” were offensive to demographics that I was not intending to insult.

Language is complicated for its ability to inspire or insult within the space of a few syllables. The overuse of gendered insults in today’s society is something that I feel we should have moved beyond considering the acceptance and political correctness we preach in other facets of our lives. In an age where young people are increasingly

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our offensive words and get a bit more creative in our insults. Sexist insults go further than just invoking a particular meaning – they often relaying an emotional narrative and invoke a strong feeling of disempowerment. I want to break down the art of the insult so that we can tastefully insult people without it being at the expense of any particular gender.

knowledgeable and open-minded to the kaleidoscope of sexuality and gender, people are becoming more conscious of the words they use and what those words can do to other people. Yet, within our young, progressive friendship groups you are still likely to hear men throwing around the ‘c word’ and calling each other “pussies”, and women labelling men “dicks” and “fuckboys”.

To insult is to convey a particular opinion, often serving as a purely social act that belittles the other party. The problem with insults lies not in their purpose – they are human reactions to that which displeases, angers or irritates us – but in how this is achieved.

Derogatory, sexist and stereotypical comments are so engrained in our everyday language that we often forget they are gendered at all. We need to listen to the third-parties affected by

“Bitch”, for example, while technically describing a female dog, is often used to describe women who are too demanding, authoritative and dominant. We also use “bitch” to describe women who are generally being undercutting and manipulative. Now, I’m not saying that women can’t exhibit these negative traits; they most certainly can – all people, regardless of gender identification, can be really shitty people. The use of “bitch” becomes a problem when it is used to describe women who are acting outside of a stereotypical, patriarchy-driven image of how a woman should behave. The term “resting bitch-face”, while initially laughed at and meme-ed excessively, actually carries with it a myriad of sexist connotations, and brings to light the engrained expectations placed on females which are in no capacity shared by our male counterparts. This term, at face value, is meant to describe a person who looks perpetually displeased, however, is hardly ever used when referring to men. When I hear the term I instantly see Kristen Stewart’s face, rather than, for example, Justin Bieber’s or Kanye West’s, who often look intensely unamused with their lives

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and surroundings. Researcher Abbe Macbeth conducted a study into the unique elements comprised in this facial expression and found that it is not a strictly female phenomenon, and can be detected equally in both males and females. Macbeth concludes that classifying resting bitch face as a “female dominant expression of bitchiness is actually quite wrong, and probably a reflection of societal expectations on women.”

There are also a whole lot of words which are, by definition, gender neutral, but are used almost exclusively to insult women – and the male equivalents of these terms often simply do not exist either. “Airhead” or “ditsy” are often used to describe women who are seemingly stupid or idealistic, who get excited about romcoms, date nights and fashion shows, and who appear to care more about their appearance than what’s going on in the South China Sea. Interestingly, “airhead” is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a “silly or foolish person”, and until 2016 the example sentence was: “She looks like a Barbie and acts like a dizzy airhead.”

It seems even Oxford can’t avoid sexism when they contextualise these often-used phrases. “High maintenance” is another one that is informally used to describe a “person demanding a lot of attention”, with the current example sentence reading: “Caitlin is our only child and she’s very high-maintenance.”

It seems to always be the girlfriends, wives and daughters who are labelled as “high-maintenance”, so when males act in the same attention-needing, fragile, uptight or obsessive way, what do we label them as? “Pussies”? “On their man-period”? Rarely do we call them “hormonal” as women are often labelled when we experience mood swings – as if females are the only gender whose hormones can affect their moods? Women are “shrill” and “hysterical”, while men are “authoritative” and “angry”; women are “bossy” and “demanding”, while men are “uncompromising” and “know what they want”.

There are also words which were intended to be neutral and harmless, but that have shifted over time to become increasingly demeaning and pejorative.

Vagabomb.com lists various examples of words which have all but lost their original meanings, now widely accept-

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ed and used as insults. Some of these include: “hussy”, which originally referred to “a female head of a household”, but now connotes a disreputable woman of improper behaviour; “governess”, originally meaning “a woman who holds or exercises authority over a place, institution or group of people” which now describes a women responsible for the care or supervision of children; and “spinster”, originally “someone, usually a woman, who spins yarn or thread”, but now a label for a woman still unmarried or beyond the usual age for marriage. It is clear that sexism has existed within language throughout history, but that this language has arguably evolved in an even more sexist direction.

But the spectrum of human emotion is just that: human, and available to be experienced to its full capacity by both genders. So long as we continue to label the emotions and actions of women in a different and negative way in comparison to a display of the same emotion or action by men, female-biased insults will continue to impede upon the progression of women in both personal and professional capacities.

Jessica Valenti, author of Full Frontal Feminism wrote: “What’s the worst possible thing you can call a woman?

You’re probably thinking of words like slut, whore, bitch, cunt, skank. Okay, now, what are the worst things you can call a guy? Fag, girl, bitch, pussy, cunt.

Notice anything? The worst thing you can call a girl is a girl. The worst thing you can call a guy is a girl. Being a woman is the ultimate insult.” Now, while it is true that there are a few male-directed insults that have been left out in this analysis – “motherfucker”, “son of a bitch”, “dick”, “douche” and “grow some balls” – the message still stands: the female body and dignity is too often utilised and compromised in the insults we hurl at the opposite sex. There is no word for a man acting like a bitch, therefore, he must be the son of one? Don’t be a pussy is another one that just does not hold up.

The fabulous Betty White once asked: “Why do people say grow ‘grow some balls?’ Balls are weak and sensitive. If you want to be tough, grow a vagina.

Those things can take a pounding.”

Ultimately, we still have a hell of a long way to go before a cultural – and hopefully global – shift away from gendered

insults takes place in the English speaking world. Humans need language that can insult others – whether it is in the context of some witty banter or you just really need to tell someone that they are, in fact, an absolute fuckwit.

Don’t be afraid to insult others; but do be informed so your insults are rightly aimed, and be wise so they make multiple levels of sense and establish just how witty and clever you are. As I leave you to ponder, I will supply a list of my own personal favourite insults in the hope that your next argument will be colourful, cutthroat, and most importantly, free of words that equate feminine to inferior. From here on I hope you are attuned to insult just the particular asshole at which your words are intended, rather than half of the global population.

My list: Asshole – we all have them, and as stated above, they are generally a bit shitty.

Absolute white crayon – seriously the most useless crayon out there.

A walking fart – that person that lingers irksomely like that phantom fart on the dance floor.

Plank with eyes – someone who needs to loosen up.

King Louis XVI of France – ostentatious, immature, indecisive and frivolous.

Saggy mushroom – the worst kind of mushroom.

Half-chewed pencil – annoying, soggy and unnecessary.

Stencil – because “you’re such a stencil” has a great ring to it.

Toi – pronounced like toy with emphasis on the ‘y’. Example: “What a bloody toi.” (Courtesy of my fabulous friend in Melbourne who is a pioneer of implementing made up slang vocabulary into everyday chats.)

Other gems: Vile Bastard Jerk Hobknocker Piece of shit Fuckwit FNL (Friday night loner) Shoe-gum Human equivalent of a pimple Wet blanket

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How Deep Is Your Love?

Ruohan Zhao

Photography by Chanel Irvine

Disclaimer: I myself have never been in a polygamous relationship. This article does not seek to invalidate those who are in happy, monogamous relationships.

Its purpose is to deconstruct the reasons for why monogamy has ascended over other forms of relationship through the lens of power and economics.

From the moment we are born, we become enculturated in a society that is dominated by the discourse of heterosexual monogamy. We read fairy tales about princesses living happily ever after with their princes, learn about falling in ‘love at first sight’, and follow the narrative where we seek to find ‘the one’. Our status quo is monogamy, and it is viewed as the embodiment of the essential characteristics of love: namely, respect, trust and honesty.

Polygamy, on the other hand, is viewed as a deviation from our relationship norms. It is often associated with promiscuity, jealousy and moral bankruptcy, and is excluded as a legitimate arrangement by many legal systems. However, if we examine monogamy through the economic framework of capitalism, it can be viewed as a part of a broader mechanism which reinforces male power over women. Therefore, polygamy is not inherently bad, but is avoided because it would mean a subversion and destabilisation of the dominance and power inherent to a patriarchal, capitalist system.

At a broad stroke, capitalism is an economic system based on oppression, the exploitation of human labour, market competition, and the pursuit of profit and self-interest. While it is primarily an economic theory, capitalism has pene-

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trated our daily lives and social behaviours, including our romantic relationships. In a capitalist system, monogamy oppresses and controls women by requiring their fidelity to one man, whilst exploiting their roles as child-bearer and housewife. Monogamy is also strengthened by privileging romance over other types of relationships, as exclusivity to one spouse distances women from friends, support networks and political activism. From the perspective of the patriarchy, marriage and monogamy is, unsurprisingly, endorsed as the most desirable and economically-advantageous arrangement.

Marx, for example, writes that the bourgeois sees his wife as a “mere instrument of production.” Engels describes monogamy as an economic institution which is male supremacist in nature. He writes that “the first class antagonism that appears in history coincides with the development of the antagonism between men and women in monogamous marriage, the first class oppression coincides with that of the female sex by the male.” As Mimi Schippers eloquently summarises in her book Beyond Monogamy, the idea of “finding ‘the one and only’ and staking a claim of ownership on another person … reflects and maintains capitalist ideology and the inevitability and desirability of private property.” Monogamous love and romance is therefore supported by the central capitalist principal of property and ownership – with women being the property in this context. Thus, capitalism is inherently patriarchal, and monogamy is a tool of patriarchal oppression.

The narrative of finding ‘your other half’ encourages fidelity, particularly from women, who are taught to de-

vote themselves to one man. Feminist scholar Victoria Robinson contends that institutional monogamy operates “through the mechanism of exclusivity, possessiveness and jealousy, all filtered through the rose-tinted lens of romance.” In this vein, monogamy also breeds the idea that a person is only capable of loving one person at a time, and that when we move to another partner, our previous feelings for our former partners can, or should be, extinguished. Tropes such as the jealous ex-girlfriend reinforce competition between women for male affection and divide women by making them potential rivals. Men, too, can be assumed to be too jealous and possessive to allow others to share their partner.

Therefore, polygamy also has the potential to challenge and shift masculinity. Instead of competing for the affection of their desired partner, partners would instead be encouraged to ‘cooperate’ with one another – a process which is antithetical to the capitalist system.

Human emotions are complex, and we are capable of simultaneously loving multiple people and in different ways.

For example, we may still love our previous partners, even if we are in a new relationship. Yet love is often conceived as a zero-sum game, where suitors compete for their desired partner, with an ultimate ‘winner’ and ‘loser’ in any given quest for a suitor’s affection. With this mentality, we effectively enter the competitive marketplace of relationships, where partners are objectified and love commodified and sold as a monogamous product. As capitalism is profit-driven, love in a capitalist system becomes outcome-orientated and hostile. With polygamy, we may instead

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learn to share our love and affection, and move away from practices which promote jealousy and the characterisation of partners as property. Polygamy challenges the capitalist and patriarchal status quo, and pursues philosophies which embrace collectivism over individualism, cooperation instead of competition, and romantic fluidity over strict adherence to one partner.

Monogamy has also been referred to by various commentators as ‘mononormativity’. In this contest the term

describes a relation of power, where monogamy is to be understood as representing a dominant discourse which has come to be viewed as the natural and compulsory state of affairs.

While monogamy has developed to become considered natural, polygamy has not. However, what is considered ‘normal’ has always been determined by those with power in any given society – in this context the patriarchy.

As discussed above, the dominant discourse of monogamy perpetuates asymmetrical power relations between genders. If we challenge the assumption that we are naturally monogamous,

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we may come to discover that there are many different types of relationship arrangements we could pursue. Therefore, polygamy not only unmasks the myth of monogamy as natural, it also disrupts the traditional and orthodox foundation of society: heterosexual marriage and nuclear family. By understanding the ways in which the dominate narrative of monogamy has constrained our relationships with one another, we learn that monogamy is, in fact, a choice, and not a compulsory aspect of our lives. We are capable of,

However, to solely focus on the problems of polygamy would be to become blind to the limitations of monogamy.

All relationships must work on equality, respect and trust, not just polygamous ones. To cite problems associated with polygamy as reasons for its elimination, is an inadequate case.

and empowered to, subvert monogamy through other forms of romantic arrangement, such as polygamous relationships.

relationships and perpetuates male economic dominance over women. It functions as a norm which has, over time, developed into the natural and expected state of human affairs.

However, human relationships are nuanced, complicated and difficult to define – and monogamy is not a model which may accommodate the desires and needs of everyone. By weaning ourselves off the narrative of ‘the one’, however, we can regain our power to choose who and how to love.

Like all relationships, polygamy is not without problems. Polygamous relationships have existed throughout history, but often involved men marrying multiple wives. Popular depictions of polygamy, such as threesomes, often portray men as being the centre of multiple females’ attention. Thus, polygamy does not automatically displace the patriarchy within relationships and erase the feelings of jealousy which partners may feel.

Ultimately, monogamy is a political, cultural and social institution which promotes the capitalist patriarchy, erases non-heterosexual relationships, delegitimises other forms of human

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The Ones Who Dream Julia Faragher

“The Ones Who Dream” is a photo series about people who are constantly falling out of their everyday life into scenes of magical wonder and surrealism. It’s for those who ever got lost in a book, fell in love with a painting or saw something new and extraordinary in the mundane. For those who always have their head in the clouds, or are often busy thinking about their next adventure. For those who want to climb higher, reach further, soar faster, and who are pushing the non-existent limits of their imagination, terrified of the alarm that will wake them up but never seems to ring.

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Canonfodder

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh.

And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.

Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.”

Isabella Keith

Her entrance is quiet, echoing the Soft sounds of the sea as she arrives on the shore Born of foam, of roses, of myrtle — of Caelus …

“Carried o’er the sea a long time, And white foam arose from the immortal flesh; With it a girl grew”

As an afterthought of sorts; a mere consequence of castration As failed masculinity gives way to potent femininity Through preserving her modesty just so

“Take this shawl, dear,

And do cover your breasts with your hands,

Yes, just like that,” whispers Botticelli, With greying fingers ghosting across her wet body Tracing every curve, each strand of hair Each piece becoming the sum of a celestial whole As she enters the canon as the Object.

Alas, Sapphic stanzas have already summoned Her Begged Her back to the earth’s black bosom, And She returns to the darkness.

And so they must whisper, for the night has arisen And soon Her skin will sink back, Back into the sea-foam And their tongues must not speak a word of it, for they mustn’t be seen here So they sing their songs of love in darkness Amongst the clattering clamour of the great dark sea and the far too many of those like them who have perished in the sparkling nonsense of moonlight.

But they sit on roses, with thorns tickling at their feet, With the stems caught between their toes and so they bruise them like knees And the water heats up — Jupiter has a temperament — And no longer does it melt beneath the surface and simmer and sliver across Her skin But instead it scratches and screams and claws at her flesh — takes her breast In its hand; Dares Sapphic desires to disappear, Causes thorns to grow from the red-scathed skin That twist and scare you from behind…

Only to sink back into the sea-foam, back to Olympia, And so She disappears And the poetess awaits her Muse once more, crying:

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“Sweet mother, I cannot weave – slender Venus has overcome me with longing for a girl.”

As Venus spins, spins backwards, deeper into the sea.

And so Petrarch descends, summons his Muse: Bone of his bones, flesh of his flesh, woman Designed for him.

La aura, Laura, too holy to paint, Unreachable — The ardent lover croons Of gold, of gaze, of comfort, of despair, His goddess, his contempt for those who dare Speak of whom he daren’t even whisper Bar lusty vagueness, bright eyes, potent stare.

Desire flutters, mutters, stumbles, simpers, Simmers in unchecked metaphors and weeps:

“I find no peace, and yet I make no war:

and fear, and hope: and burn, and I am ice.”

And perhaps Shakespeare will thaw the frost, Will court his women well Draw a feather from his sword; Bleed into the quill.

He’ll claim Orsino’s grave surfeit, Such that his appetite For love “may sicken and so die” and that Hamlet’s forty thousand hearts beat With all their quantity of love…

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47 And over Shakespeare presides Elizabeth — Video et taceo — He writes to her — for her — For her stage, her England, The one that bears her hand in marriage…

But she has no lover — She is The Virgin Queen: She strikes the Canon with a match Which burns with sharp flames that rival her hair And leave her face ashy, eyes stony, Glaring in the light as the choir murmurs

Gloriana, Gloriana, Gloriana: That greatest Glorious Queen of Faerie lond…

Gloriana, Gloriana, Gloriana…

“So summon the witch — Summon the bitch, Bring her to her knees,” they cry.

Prick the skin and find the mark Make her swim — Then watch her sink, watch her Speak of spells, spells — Watch her learn to spell, Twisting the words at her fingertips into long strands Of poetry — Words that simmer, simmer, Rattle and hum Bubble … Double, double toil and trouble as she sinks Beneath the surface.

Duchess, Duchess, Lady o’Mine, Dare I speak against will of thine?

Dare I summon candle-light; Dare I make thou stay?

Flicker the shine across the wall Let wax weep the cradle of its fawn Amongst ceramic skin and bone of fine Please do sit, O Lady o’Mine.

We must stage an intervention, Dare’st I say With heavy heart and solemn eye You have…

A womb that wanders.

It is Freud, you see, He speaks of displaced uterus, Of the free-floating subconscious, The “mind within the mind”.

And so we must treat you, Must psycho-analyse, It’s very new, you see, my dear, He knows what I must provide.

Let us go to bed my dear, Speak of something else, Hysteria mustn’t cause us trouble — Intercourse is known to help.

And with a “Pop!”, a “Boom!” — A Pollock-like explosion, Out of the Modern treachery, the greyish weary eyes From the fog emerges — The women from the wives.

Husbands turn the gas marks up And in goes the head as the meter ticks on.

For this is the empty hum Of the virgin-prostitute The perverse-angel The two-faced sinister and saintly woman

Of the woman from whom came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die…

For how can one live as an oxymoron?

And amongst these binaries lies the… Lies the…

No! We are not of rib, tongue, wandering wombs, penis envy or afterthought!

Not taken from man, not a consequence of castration — Not sliced from Caelus, nor birthed of sea-foam and pretty pink shells, We are instead standing on the shoulders of our mothers, Birthed by our mothers, taught to speak by our mothers, And it is only in mythology that woman comes from man And only in yellowed pages that our voices are silenced But the world is a big white sheet and our toes poke tentatively out of the bottom…

And it is now that —

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That interruption is no more and Lady Lazarus will rise!

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48

Nadia Kim i At the Barracks in Islington on the side stage she gripped the cage overhead and wrapped her legs around me.

We both had soft bellies, and she was strong.

We both had blue eyes, but hers were beautiful. ii Her strong (my weak) lonely epidermal cells, folded through (what were ours) faded cornflower-blue bed sheets.

The pillows were all hers, so when she left I slept with a rolled up hand-towel under my freshly shorn (still grieving) skull. iii I’m begging you.

My strong, sweet, soft-bellied love.

Do not text me “wanna catch up over a cheeky beer?” after sending your brother to pick up your pillows. iv Do one

not

text, more

time

not

This Poem is Pointless Alessandra Panizza Why don’t I just upload a tearful selfie to Instagram?

It’d get more likes if my mascara was running but (I don’t know how to put on makeup And have I mentioned that I don’t shave my legs?)

Forget rinstas and finstas, all I need is the app in my head and my hundreds of hypothetical followers; a Plath quote in my bio (despite the irony, I still feel like a fraud) prefacing reams of squares: scattered half-empty pillbox-coffins on my desk; slim-chokered everwhite necks; the masturbatory poems I write from my anguished ever-inhabited bed.

I’d like them if my thighs in the background were a bit thinner.

(I only like #bopo pics out of some sort of feminist obligation; thinking: I’d never let myself get to that) Petulant petal of a girl, I am.

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---Jean-Luc Jirayut Prasopa-Plaizier

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50

Yelling into a Godless Void Ji-Soo Kweon I remember very vividly the moment I realised I didn’t believe in God. When I was 11 I was rushed to hospital in unspeakable pain, which is a completely normal part of having a congenital heart condition. For days I was in and out of agony as doctors tried to figure out what was wrong, and I can remember the anger and frustration as those who held authority positions in my life – my doctors, my parents – began to fail me for the first time. All they could say was that it was connected, somehow, to my heart and/or pacemaker, neither of which appeared to be in good working order.

When angry, alone and afraid, I know many people turn to God. Hospitals are always full of chaplains and prayer, and I knew people were praying for me. But the idea that this unspeakable, unfixable pain was somehow part of God’s plan seemed utterly disgusting to me.

I could never be part of any tradition that believed in a God who was somehow responsible for inflicting malfunctioning organs on an innocent person as a consequence for supposed longago sin. I decided I could spend my life angry and bitter at an invisible yet omnipotent being, or I could just accept that I had drawn a short straw and get on with my otherwise comfortable and privileged life. I wasn’t thinking about the status quo, or any community I may or may not belong to, or offending anyone. My atheism is political, but it is also deeply personal. It was formed in a dark and lonely place. I think many people fail to realise that atheism can be as personal and profound as any other religious conviction.

Outside of the endless production of flimsy paper trinkets for various Christian holidays at school, my upbringing

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was distinctly non-religious. My parents are Buddhists, but not especially devout. My maternal grandmother is Taoist, and most of us go along with it whenever we’re in Singapore. My Korean family has one of the longest extant written family genealogies in East Asia, and we still practice jesa, or ancestor worship.

Despite all of this, my parents raised me to be a sceptic. My parents talked about God – a single, omnipotent, male deity – in the same way they talked about Santa or the Easter Bunny. God was something other people believed in, but not us. This view is not especially incompatible with Buddhism – after all, there is no deity in Buddhism, because the Buddha is widely accepted to be a real historical figure. But for me, this sceptic worldview led me to challenge many of the religious traditions I go along with whenever we visit extended family. Regardless of my parents’ personal beliefs, I was always allowed to find my own way, and of all the wacky things I have sprung on them – including, but not limited to, radical feminism, bisexuality, a general disregard for all financially-viable career paths, and a proclivity for BDSM – my atheism was the most readily accepted. Because I only take part in religious practices when I am in Korea or Singapore, they have a greater cultural than spiritual significance for me – and I have a less-than-functional relationship with my cultural background.

Religion has never really been a source of solace and belonging for me – it has always highlighted my otherness and my rejection from the fold.

In the end, my main issue with the religious traditions of my heritage is the deeply Confucian ideology that underpins them. In Chinese philoso-

phy – which heavily influences Korean scholarship – Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism coexist harmoniously in the “Three Teachings”. Confucian teachings stress the importance of female chastity and a woman’s obedience towards her father, husband, and son – ideas that I see as deeply incompatible with contemporary feminism.

Confucian gender roles are everywhere in contemporary Korean society: from the absurd gender pay gap (the largest amongst OECD countries), to the male-dominated jesa ceremony for which women do all the food preparation but very little of the actual worship. Even in death, male ancestors are venerated to a higher degree than female ones. I am also uncomfortable with the deep-rooted sex-negativity in Buddhism, which stems from the teaching that sexual desire is a hindrance in the path of nirvana and results in Buddhism being used as a means to endorse slut-shaming and villainise the queer community. Confucianism (and the religions influenced by it) reinforces the sexist and patriarchal structures that still endure in contemporary Asia, and I want no part in it. This is not to say that all Buddhists are homophobic prudes or that there isn’t some cultural value in Confucianism, but as someone who lives on the fringes of these communities I am particularly susceptible to the ways in which religion and tradition have been used to isolate and discriminate.

For me, becoming an atheist has become an extension of my own personal feminism; I see it as an act of liberation from patriarchal traditions. Despite the intersection between my atheism and feminism, however, these two concepts are sometimes taken to be very contradictory. As an atheist, I notice I am often expected to be overtly def-

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erential to religious beliefs, even when people of faith have social licence to be disrespectful of the beliefs of non-religious people, or attempt to correct and convert them. This deference is especially expected of me as a woman and as a person of colour; there is a stigma associated with being an outspoken, opinionated woman, and this stigma extends to being open about one’s atheism. Because religion is such a huge part of maintaining the status quo, a woman who is out of the fold is taken as a threat to the social order.

Even when I write or speak about my atheism I feel the need to add caveats and to assure people that I am a normal person who respects religious freedom – and I really do, considering that the countries in this world that don’t have legally-protected religious freedom also happen to be the countries where atheism is a capital offence.

When you are an atheist and a feminist, you get used to being kind of counter-cultural, and therefore constantly subject to scrutiny and criticism.

I don’t necessarily take it as an offence anymore, and I encourage others not to either. Criticism does not profane the sacred, nor detract from its value.

As feminists, we should know that criticism often comes from a place of love and from a need to make the world a better and fairer place. As a feminist and a rookie academic, it is immensely frustrating that religion seems to get a pass on racist, sexist and queerphobic rhetoric that would never be tolerated in progressive circles in a secular context.

Feminism is a beautifully weird, nebulous, contradictory thing. Feminist thought and theory thrives in academia, yet academia as an institution systemically favours men over women and is extraordinarily dismissive of feminist studies. Atheist feminism is certainly not the only valid kind of feminism, but it is very important, especially as the world becomes increasingly secular.

Yet atheist spaces are famously hostile against women.

Mainstream atheist communities claim to value a logical and scientific worldview – which sounds good on paper, until you realise that both “logic” and “science” are overtly coded as male.

Throughout history, women have typically been viewed by patriarchal powers as too feeble-minded and irrational to be a monarch, or a religious leader,

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or to hold political office, or to have any position of authority or autonomy.

So, it is not surprising that women are too irrational to be proper atheists. Science, for all its cool impartiality, has a long and sordid history of being bafflingly hysterical about science by or concerning women. This is particularly evident in the medical field, where female reproductive health has been increasingly politicised, and doctors systemically refuse to take women and ‘female-specific’ diseases seriously.

Like humanism, atheism’s cultural predecessor, atheism is heavily invested in the idea of the ‘rational’ – but rationalism in an imperialist and patriarchal social order is simply whatever version of events best suits those who are invested in whiteness and maleness. In my experience, any attempt to disrupt the status quo – even with such innocuous, research-backed statements such as “there is a gender pay gap” – were met with vicious hostility and cries that the “social justice warriors” were being too “irrational”. For atheist feminists, atheism is a social justice mission of refusing to allow religion to prop up inequalities inherent to the social order.

The main appeal of atheism to MRAs, however, is a question of authority; if one preserves the current status quo but takes God out of the equation, then male authority can be wholly unchallenged. Atheism is seen as a means of liberating men from the oppression of a higher order and the obligations of a moral code dictated by a religious tradition; the idea that atheism may also be liberating for women is absolutely terrifying.

I was very briefly a member of a university atheist and sceptic society when I was a wide-eyed, bushy-tailed, 17-year-old fresher. I made my first university friends at club meetings, but I quickly learned that I only felt safe interacting with them outside of ‘atheist’ spaces. Along with meeting fascinating, interesting and deeply thoughtful people, I also met a lot of confronting entitlement to my body and a great disregard for what I said or thought, simply because I was a young woman who showed up to these meetings alone. I was usually the only woman and/or person of colour at these meetings, and I felt more like an exotic zoo animal than an equal participant. My inbox became filled with messages from men demanding my time and attention, and any attempt to set boundaries was met with righteous indignation. One of the

men I met at these meetings – a graduate student 10 years my senior – indulged in some emotional manipulation and stalking in an attempt to get me to replace a recent ex-girlfriend, with the oh-so-comforting assurance that nothing would “happen” until I was “legal”. I discovered, to my great disappointment, that atheist men are not immune to the nonsensical logic of patriarchy, slut shaming, and the like.

Atheist spaces are a hive of resentment and entitlement towards women from men who feel liberated from whatever moral code religion can claim to preach, but who are deeply threatened by liberated, opinionated women.

Standing at the intersection of atheism and feminism, I feel like I have no community. Feminist circles generally do a laudable job of being inclusive of everyone’s sensibilities, but atheist feminists are always the last to be considered, because we do not have a god that can be insulted and we are not seen to come from a tradition worth respecting. Australian society is still deeply suspicious of people who live without faith. It is very difficult to engage in vital and necessary discussion on the role of religion in feminism and society when atheists are always forced to walk on eggshells, and speak in caveats and euphemism while everyone else is free to insult and ignore. At the same time, it is impossible to be taken seriously in the mainstream atheist community as a woman, let alone as a feminist.

It’s easy to feel angry and frustrated when it seems like nobody is listening and nobody values your opinion. Despite this, sometimes I am glad that I am not firmly rooted in one community or another; whenever I try to join a crowd, I am always uncomfortably aware of the inevitable compromise of personal values necessary to existing in a collective, and of how difficult it is to go against the general consensus.

Existing outside of a community, living apart from the fold, means that all my opinions are my own; I am free to change them at will.

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Girl Powers Nell Morgan In February this year, American singer Lana Del Rey took to Twitter with a cryptic message which featured four dates and the instruction: “Ingredients can b found online”. Her fans were quick to deduce that Lana appeared to be referencing the worldwide movement of witches, who had chosen those dates to conduct a mass hexing of Donald Trump. Participants in the ceremony were to burn an unflattering picture of Trump with a small orange candle, while calling upon the spirit world to curse his presidential pursuit.

Though this ritual was undoubtedly appealing to many, Lana’s association with the world of witchcraft caused quite a stir. Such news came only a few months after another female singer, Azealia Banks, had gained notoriety for her association with the occult. In a video she uploaded, Azealia was seen cleaning a bloodied cupboard that had been used to sacrifice chickens, and saying to the camera: “Real witches do real things.”

If two high-profile celebrities were actively espousing witchcraft, the practice must have been a lot more popular than I had realised. Though witches had always played a prominent role in popular culture, and even in modern history, the idea that such a culture was thriving in contemporary society was entirely new to me. What was it that was drawing young women to these mystical icons?

The concept of the ‘witch’ dates back thousands of years, to ancient legends of goddesses who were both revered and feared for their ability to give and take life. However, use of the term today is more likely to conjure images of murder, torture and oppression, as took place on a massive scale in 14th to 18th century Europe. A fascination with the Salem witch trials of 1692 has also seen this grim history feature in many films and novels. Even today, reading the newspaper will reveal that the murder of ‘witches’ continues to occur, particularly in parts of Africa. So what is it

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about ‘witches’ that instils such fear in society, so as to have led to such brutal oppression?

With its multitude of uses across different cultures and periods of history, it’s impossible to settle on a universal definition of the term ‘witch’. Many definitions, however, refer to a woman with some sort of magical powers or skills, who is most often considered to be ‘evil’ or ‘wicked’. Aside from the association with magic, the history of witch hunts can also inform us as to which characteristics led people to be accused of witchcraft. These included being a woman who lived alone, who didn’t fit in, who worked with the earth, who was too smart, or too beautiful, or too ugly. The ‘witch’ became a scapegoat for anything wrong that befell a town, and was a way of policing the behaviour of women who refused to conform to social norms. It is particularly telling that, today, the informal use of the word ‘witch’ refers to ‘an ugly or unpleasant woman’ or ‘hag’, and confronting that women were often persecuted for nothing more than fitting such a judgement.

As I have recently learnt, the choice of many women today to call themselves ‘witches’ is more complicated than the rebellious reclaiming of a derogatory term. Undoubtedly, associating oneself with ‘witchcraft’ is to associate with this horrifying history, and to give remembrance to the thousands of women who suffered before us. However, on a deeper level, it is a championing of many feminine qualities that, through this history, women have been taught to see as weaknesses and to suppress.

Witches of the past (and present) celebrated their strong emotions, intuition and relationship with nature, the power of their sexuality, and the connection between their menstrual cycle and the cycle of the moon. Throughout history women have been conditioned to be ashamed of, or even fear, such things, not because they are particularly ‘mystical’ or ‘dangerous’, but because they

are particularly feminine. Being too ‘emotional’ has prevented women from holding positions of power; female sexuality has been systematically repressed and controlled; menstruating is seen as dirty and shameful; and respect for nature has been far from prioritised. To deliberately and actively pride oneself on these traditionally female attributes, as many witches do, is to empower oneself in a way that is based totally outside of our patriarchal system.

In our Western society, power is hierarchical, and is to be gained through participation in patriarchal institutions.

A witch’s powers – coming from within and being inherently feminine in nature – are thus particularly threatening to male-centric power structures. As the rules of the game have been designed to keep women out, the idea of a woman drawing power from within herself, without needing to follow the rules, has the potential to completely destabilise the system. This idea is what makes the notion of ‘witches’ such a popular, feminist symbol today. It connotes a self-determined power, that is dependant neither on patriarchal institutions, nor male approval. It is empowerment, not through becoming more like men, but through embracing and championing the things that make us women.

Regardless of whether you believe the legitimacy of Lana Del Rey’s curse, or whether you condone Azealia Banks’ animal sacrifices, there is a strong case for the way witches approach the world. The hegemony of masculine values and ways of thinking in our Western society – such as being rational, alert and problem-solving – has resulted in the tumultuous social and political landscape we face today.

Now, more than ever, humanity should be open to new ways of thinking, to embracing qualities that have previously been suppressed, and to allowing women to step into positions of influence. With or without ‘magic’, women have the power to change the world.

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There is a Girl Mahalia Crawshaw In my dreams, there is a girl And she wears sundresses in winter Because she wants to Her feet are bare and calloused Just like her heart And all she wants is flowers in her hair And to be loved Specks of sunshine sprinkle her face and arms Leaving patchy kisses on her skin But she refuses to sit inside Because outside she is free She doesn’t walk, and rarely runs, Instead she dances with her arms outstretched And eyes closed Her voice is a waterfall And so are her tears But her laugh is endless and loud In my dreams, there is a girl And sometimes her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes But she pretends because their smiles are so beautiful And her forearms are peppered with bloodshot dots Because she isn’t enough

Her heart hurts because she can see her little sisters Little pixies Small and happy But not actually that small Floating on nothing Laughing With those glinting eyes And wide mouths Blaming themselves for things they didn’t do Just like she did Just like she does And her sister’s poetry makes her cry Because she forgot her mum had said that And her sister writes about her like an experiment Or a patient Etherised And she is more than that But maybe she isn’t And she thought she was getting better But He said she wasn’t And broke her heart In my dreams, there is a girl Whose sister sometimes speaks in third person Because that’s what her sister does So she doesn’t cry This girl is a tragic cliché With a hesitant ferocity And an earnestness that’s so far gone In my dreams, there is a girl And I am happy Because it means I sleep

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54 SPONSORED

Interview: Fyshwick Markets Every Friday in the 1960s, local Canberran farmers would gather in Fyshwick to sell produce off the back of their trucks.

Fast-forward five decades and thanks to legislation passed by the Federal Government in 1967, this practice continues – albeit in a slightly more static way – in the form of the Fyshwick Markets.

The markets are open Thursday to Sunday from 7.30am - 5pm, and boast four butchers, four greengrocers, three delis, three bakeries, two fishmongers and various other speciality stores. It isn’t hard to see why their motto is quality, range and value.

I am a regular market attendee myself.

Every Sunday at 2pm I get a week’s worth of fruit and vegetables – enough to feed two hungry humans – for the affordable price of $40. Understandably, I was thrilled at the prospect of sitting down for a chat with some of the people working behind the scenes at the Markets to ask some very student- and sustainability-oriented questions.

What are the benefits of shopping at Fyshwick Markets?

Fresh, good food lasts longer and tastes better. You might save on some things at the supermarket, but if you are constantly throwing out items that haven’t lasted or don’t taste good then there go your savings. Supermarkets are also designed to ensure you purchase as much as possible. That is why you always leave with more than you need!

Why is shopping local important?

The large supermarkets compete on price by using their market power to exploit suppliers. All the stallholders at the Markets, however, are local residents, who employ hundreds of locals – by shopping at the Markets you are supporting local businesses who, in turn, support the local community and have ethical relationships with their suppliers.

What are food miles and why do they matter?

Food miles are the distance food travels from grower to end destination. How-

ever, the environmental impact of our food consumption is a lot more complex than simply the food miles travelled. A semi-trailer carrying tonnes of fruit across 1000km has a far smaller carbon footprint than a car carrying a small amount of fruit or vegetables over a shorter distance.

Individual travel by consumers has the most significant impact on the carbon footprint for food. So, if you can bike, walk or drive a short distance to where you purchase your food you are making a difference.

How can your average student get to the market?

The Markets has over 500 free car parks and a bus stop right outside. We are walking distance from Kingston, Manuka, Griffith and Narrabundah, and an easy bike ride from the inner North.

When should students shop?

There are great bargains to be had on Sunday afternoons!

SPONSORED

Interview: Rebel Muse Rebel Muse is without a doubt the coolest clothing store in Canberra. It was established in 2015 by local Canberran, Alicia Xyrakis, who took a big chance on Canberra which paid off big time. Rebel Muse is located on Lonsdale Street in Braddon and stocks high-quality clothing, footwear and accessories which just beg for you to invest and take them home. I sat down with Alicia to chat about her journey, Rebel Muse and fashion more generally.

Tell me about conscious consumerism.

Our main motto is quality over quantity. In a world of fast fashion, it is very easy to look at clothes as disposable. Instead, we look at clothes as special pieces that you invest in and wear many times. They are works of art.

Let me give you a bit of context about fast and slow fashion. Our designers spend five months designing their collections, we then buy pieces, and they spend six months making the clothing before it arrives in store.

Essentially, we buy our clothes six months in advance – but they are in production for far longer than that. Stores like Zara and HnM

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do the entire process – design all the way to stocking the clothing in store – in two weeks. This is mass-produced, fast fashion – much of which ends up in landfill.

We are actually trying to take our commitment to slow fashion further. By 2019 the majority of our brands will be made in Australia, and if they are made in China they will have an ethical stamp of approval.

Tell me a little bit more about your events.

We have always tried to throw events to give back to our customers and create a community feel. Sometimes we will open our store late, order champagne and cheese and just chat and shop with our customers.

Sometimes the whole building stays open for late night shopping and drinks!

One of the biggest things we get grilled on is our prices. But you have to think: if you buy jeans for $20, someone has had to grow the cotton, turn the cotton into fabric, turn the fabric into jeans ... How many people can your $20 really support?

Tell me a little bit more about your zipPay option.

We offer zipPay instore and online. Essentially, you don’t have to make a payment on the day and can choose your instalments.

Having this option just makes purchasing those investment pieces easier.

What are your thoughts on the fashion scene in Canberra?

Canberra’s fashion scene is expanding. It is! Because of the large numbers of public servants we find that a lot of our stuff isn’t super wearable on a day-to-day basis. So, we are trying to encourage people to be a little more adventurous and break out of their comfort zones.

Do you have any advice for young aspiring entrepreneurs considering giving their ventures a go in Canberra?

Know your market. Seriously, know your market. And also be aware of the one-, two- and three-year plans of your area.

We had a lot of growing pains that I didn’t anticipate because of the construction that comes with development.

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Cooking in the Eye of the Storm Mia Jessurun

I’ve spent my entire life in the kitchen. I faintly remember the first kitchen I ever had: it was too small to comfortably fit multiple cooks, and yet that never stopped us. I’d stand on a stool my dad built for me, helping mum to make dinner, snapping asparagus for her as she prepared for a catering job, or helping her sort the produce she’d bought for local families at the wholesale markets.

Later, it was the newer, bigger, lighter, bluer kitchen. These scenes may be idealised by the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia and forgetting, but the wonder has never worn off. When I visualise home, it is this kitchen that I picture, and the people in it.

My relationship with food is a privilege, and this was never more obvious to me than after moving into a self-catered residential hall last year. Meeting people who’d never cooked anything more than pasta and jarred sauce was astounding at first, and although I soon dropped, and actively confronted, some of the more pretentious assumptions I brought to our cavernous, buzzing, communal kitchen, I came to truly appreciate the fact that I grew up in the kitchen.

There is a power young women often get in this space, perhaps over their peers. It is not necessarily a role they want (although I so badly did), but one that is forced upon them alongside the expectation that they’ll stay there.

Although it’s incredibly important to fight these stereotypes, I also think we should be fighting for all children, of all genders, to learn to cook and be com-

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fortable in a kitchen if they have access to one. These skills are so essential. Watching fresh-out-of-school boys burn spaghetti is amusing, but it is indicative of a lack of self-sufficiency that benefits no-one – not these young people, who are perhaps disproportionately men due to the patriarchal stereotyping we’re all exposed to, or their friends, partners or housemates. It’s essential that we acknowledge these patriarchal structures, and also the issues of class, race, language and culture that play out alongside them.

I will absolutely always love to cook, be in the kitchen, and spend time with my mum preparing food. Her cooking is a constant source of inspiration for me – she’s taught me that sometimes cooking for someone can express love and care just as well as any words can.

For me, the kitchen is a space filled with both maternal comfort and a fierce sense of independence and adventure. There is a level of matriarchal tradition and reclaiming of the private sphere that I associate with this space.

The kitchen feels like the still eye of the storm of my own life, but I think it is also central to society as a whole. It is all too easy to reject cooking for family and loved ones as stereotypical ‘feminine’ – but we need to encourage people of all genders to embrace cooking as a form of emotional expression and as a basic survival skill.

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Vegetarian Chili Beans When I moved to Canberra the only foods I packed were a collection of spices and some frozen vegetarian chilli beans that my Mum had suggested I bring “just in

case”. There’s nothing more nourishing – this is a meal I make whenever I get back to Canberra, before the hecticness of another O-week, or at times when I need comfort. The joy of this recipe is that all you need is a few tins and some spices, and the rest is adaptable – whether it was corn, silverbeet or sweet potato, I’ve never found a combination of vegetables that didn’t work.

Ingredients: • ½ tbsp of olive oil • 1 medium onion, finely chopped • 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped • 1 large red pepper, chopped • 1 chilli, deseeded and chopped • 2 tsp of paprika • 2 tsp of ground coriander • 1 tsp of ground cumin • 1 tsp of ground chili • 1 400-gram tin of diced tomatoes • 1 400-gram tin of red kidney beans, drained • 1/2 cup of dried green lentils • 1 tsp vegetable stock • 2 tbsp of tomato paste Method: 1. Boil the lentils in 2 - 3 cups of water for about 20 minutes, or until they are soft to bite. Set aside and drain.

2. Sauté the onions in a large pan for approximately 5 minutes, until they are soft.

3. Add the capsicum and garlic. Fry for an additional 5 minutes.

4. Add in all your spices and stir through vigorously for about a minute.

5. Stir through the tomatoes, tomato paste, red kidney beans, stock and green lentils, then simmer for approximately half an hour.

6. Serve with rice, cheese and Greek yogurt.

Other ways to serve: as nachos, in a toasty, over pasta or on its own. If you’re feeling extra fancy, add some guacamole, a few wedges of lime, and sprinkle coriander leaves on top.

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Feeding the Soul Anonymous This wonderful couscous salad, filled with sultanas and squashed tomatoes, has been a constant source of reassurance in my life, particularly during the two years I lived in self-catered residential accommodation.

I have had a tumultuous relationship with food since I was 11. In my early high school years I began to despise my body – the large breasts, the belly rolls and the thunder thighs only grew. This contempt quickly escalated into a fullblown eating disorder, whereby I experienced extreme anxiety when eating with friends and family. To compensate for not eating with others I would binge eat foods with high calories for comfort. This cycle of binging and starving perpetuated a long-term lifestyle of unhealthy eating and cooking. The gluttonous voice in my head would echo my mother, who would tell me off for eating the last of the biscuits or leaving chocolate wrappers hidden in crevasses. I felt like a pig, a monster fuelled with disgusting gluttony.

During this past year my eating disorder and social anxiety swallowed my vigour for life. The social dynamic of self-catered accommodation centres on sharing in the joys and struggles of cooking and eating together. Unable to enjoy and thrive in this environment, I retreated into my shell – my room – where my eating disorder isolated me from everything, but most importantly, my closest friends.

it was this kindness that re-sparked my appreciation for food and cooking.

This recipe for couscous salad assisted me on my journey to regaining joy from food. It is a recipe that my older brother enjoys cooking at family gatherings.

It is an innately social and colourful dish which has always provided me with joy and nourishment. This humble salad yearns to be shared and can be eaten anywhere and at any time.

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Couscous Salad Ingredients: • 200g couscous (plain or pearl) • 200ml of water, leftover vegetable stock or tinned tomato juice • ½ red onion, diced • 75g sultanas • 15 cherry tomatoes, halved • ½ capsicum, diced • 15 green beans, trimmed • ½ pumpkin, chopped into squares • 1 tbsp of oil

Method: 1. Add water/leftover vegetable stock/ tinned tomato juice to the dry couscous in a large bowl.

2. Leave couscous to soak for 10 – 15 minutes.

3. In the meantime, boil the pumpkin for 10 - 15 minutes, or until soft.

Then lightly coat in oil and roast in the oven for 25 minutes.

4. Using a large saucepan sauté the red onion, beans and capsicum in oil until slightly caramelised.

5. Add cherry tomatoes and stir to create a stew like consistency.

6. After the couscous has been soaked add it to the vegetables in the saucepan and simmer on low heat for 10 minutes.

7. After the pumpkin is golden and adequately roasted, cut into small segments and add to the saucepan.

8. Remove saucepan from heat and leave to cool.

10. Transfer couscous salad to a large bowl and stir through the sultanas.

Fortunately, I returned from this terrible haze when a female friend cooked me a collection of meals to be frozen. This gesture of kindness was one of the most generous things anyone had ever done for me. I cannot thank her enough, as

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Home Is Where the Kueh Is Janine Wan I have always loved food – to the extent that it is undeniably a part of my identity. Perhaps it was inevitable, having grown up in a ‘foodie’ family – my mother is an amazing cook and my father is an adventurous eater who has always loved reading reviews and dragging us here or there for a taste of something or other. I used food to reconnect with my Peranakan identity, and this recognition of the vitality of food to identity allows me to better understand other people’s identities.

Nowadays, amidst life and university, I don’t get to spend as much time in the kitchen as I would like. I still love cooking and baking to make friends smile though, and I procrastinate by watching an embarrassingly large quantity of food videos – instructional cooking videos, restaurant reviews and even slow-motion shots of cooking that turn the act into a form of art. However, it is still a struggle to find content featuring the food that I grew up with.

I was born in Singapore, but raised largely in America. I was one of the only ethnically Chinese students at the school I attended, and this difference symbolically manifested in the contents of my lunchbox. This sounds like a set up for a stereotypical story about the other kids’ shock or surprise when I pulled out something other than a white bread sandwich for lunch – but for me this was actually a comparatively positive experience. My lunches – usually a sort of stir-fry – were highly sought after, and many times I used this to trade for foods I wasn’t allowed, such as ‘lunchables’ or something equally unhealthy.

Other memories I have surrounding food at that age involve my parents lamenting about the lack of Singaporean food available in San Francisco.

My mother is an excellent cook and learnt how to make many ‘local’ dishes – but it was often hard to find ingredients that would help her recreate the tastes of home. Now, living abroad again, I find this experience incredibly relatable. My food aspirations are often

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curbed because I have no clue where to find so-called ‘exotic’ ingredients in Canberra. Galangal for satay or mung bean flour for kueh – these are essential for the dishes with names that make the red squiggly line appear as I write this piece, but are often not even located in the supermarket’s ‘Asian’ aisle.

Food is often integral to the production of (trans)nationalist identities. The sensory element becomes nostalgic in the way that has the capacity to contain and evoke the past. Ask almost any Singaporean migrant and they will lament how much they miss the food. Though it took a while for me to warm up to Singaporean food once we moved back there from America, I came to identify many of these dishes as comfort food.

Even conventions around meals in Australia are incredibly different to what I was used to – full meals such as Nasi Lemak with sambal and ikan bilis for breakfast are typical in Singapore, but something that my Australian flatmate could never stomach eating in the morning.

Food is intertwined with my identity and, for me, the difficulty of accessing typical Singaporean foods is a very real and symbolic part of being away from home. Although I managed to bring kaya, a pandan-based spread, into Australia, the bread tastes different here and so I can never make the toast taste as it does back at home.

Food is integral to the human experience, embodying memories of people, places and experiences – that is why I love it.

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for the blistering heat and humidity of Singapore – and Canberra in the summer too, I bet!

Ingredients: • 100g hoon kueh powder (green-pea flour) • 1/2tbsp tapioca flour • 2 tbsp rice flour • 120g sugar • 250ml coconut milk • 1tsp salt • 3 bananas (pisang) • 450ml water • Banana leaves (you could probably use parchment paper) Method: 1. Steam the bananas for five minutes, then leave them to cool before slicing them up.

2. Boil the banana leaves until they’re soft, and then cut into the desired size for wrapping.

3. Combine the coconut milk, hoon kueh powder, rice flour and tapioca flour in a large bowl.

4. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine water, salt and sugar until the mixture boils and thickens.

Add the flour mixture. This mixture is known as hoon kueh.

5. (Optional) Transfer the hoon kueh to a double boiler, to prevent it from hardening while you wrap the leaves.

6. To wrap, spoon one tablespoon of hoon kueh onto a banana leaf, followed by two to three slices of banana. Top this with two more tablespoons of hoon kueh and then wrap it up, aiming for a rectangular parcel the size of your palm.

7. Allow to cool, and then refrigerate well before serving.

Pisang Hoon Kueh The name of this dessert translates to mean banana green-pea flour pudding.

It is a Nyonya dessert that I recently learnt how to make with my mother as a way to connect to my Peranakan heritage. It’s cool and refreshing, perfect

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In Search of Home Vishakha Nogaja

Photography by Chanel Irvine

The answer to the question “where is home?” is always a hard one for me.

Growing up, home was never one place – my parents travelled regularly for work, and I with them. I was born in Delhi, raised in Germany and grew up in Singapore before moving to Australia for university. The environment I was brought up in was constantly changing; for me, travel became home.

Third culture kid (TCK) is a term used to describe children raised in a culture different from the one their parents grew up in. As a TCK so much of who I am today has been shaped by the places I have travelled to and lived in. Intersecting cultures, languages, different environments and people defined my formative years and have contributed to my identity. The constant ‘in-transit’ lifestyle instilled in me a need to travel, to move and experience new places that I don’t think will ever leave me. I think this is because my fondest memories of ‘home’ are all linked to different parts of the world.

Most vacations I take with my family are in India, visiting friends, relatives and travelling through the country. India has been the place of my many firsts: the first time I went horse riding, swam in the ocean or attended a wedding and, yes, even the first time I got food poisoning

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at 6000 ft. It’s a country full of potential, thriving with life and culture. Travelling through India and visiting the places my parents grew up in helped me develop a greater connection with my motherland.

Singapore is probably the country I have lived in the longest. It was where I first fell in love, where I started school, and where I got my first real job in a digital marketing firm. Growing up in Singapore I had a very sheltered and privileged childhood, but one that I am forever grateful for. It taught me the value of hard work, of never giving up and that math would never be my strong subject.

But I don’t think it was until I came to Australia and stepped outside of my privileged bubble into an unfamiliar environment that I realised how influential these places I come from have been on me.

I’ve seen anew how these experiences have shaped my identity and perception of the world. Sometimes you need a move to another continent and gain a fresh perspective to value what you have, and embrace your roots.

Through the constant moves and fresh starts, I have come to terms with the fact that home isn’t a postcode, but rather, a feeling which you carry with you wherever you go. Home can’t be pointed out on a map – it’s your family, and it’s the

friends you make along the way. Where you live might constantly change but home is what you bring to the places you live in.

Travel helped define my concept of home. Moving from one place to another, my home became the journey, and I took comfort in its uncertainty, unpredictability and endless possibilities. Sebastian Modak’s article in Condé Nast Traveler beautifully articulated what it means to be a TCK. His experiences with travel brought me peace of mind and helped me reconcile with my own ideas of home and belonging.

He wrote: “In all those cases, including my own, travel serves as an affirmation of sorts. It’s an acknowledgement that a TCK’s roots, flimsy and widespread as they may be, cover large distances and bridge divergent cultures … When home can’t be singled out on a map, I travel because the experience, no matter where I’m headed—the unfamiliar food, the sound of music never heard, and yes, even the jet-lag - feels like a memory of things past.”

I used to think that we travelled in search of home but to me travel is both home and the ultimate destination.

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Gather

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Janus Jean-Luc Jirayut Prasopa-Plaizier

I always thought two faces were better than one.

I always thought they were more fun.

I had two faces when most saw one.

I never questioned fate.

I never believed in the question, it asked of me before it was too late.

One destined to never be answered, I guess that is fate.

Two doors are better than one.

Two doors give you a choice.

A choice sometimes better said than done.

I didn’t want to change.

If given a choice I would have chosen not to, So, I could think that I had won.

I didn’t want a choice chosen by fate.

Yet, I always thought it was better than none.

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In Defence of Arts: Two Perspectives

PSA: It’s time to stop claiming that a Bachelor of Arts is “useless”.

Maeve Bannister It is a truth universally acknowledged that a student who chooses to study an arts degree enrols themselves into three years (or more!) of being questioned about what exactly they are going to do with it. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked this, I would literally be able to pay off my HECS debt.

Which, by the way, is nowhere near as high as people who study so-called ‘proper’ degrees like law, medicine or engineering.

I think the main problem that arts students have with people questioning their degree choice is that it really seems as though there is a lack of unsderstanding about what studying arts involves. For example, my major is English literature and I have – on more than one occasion – been told that it must be great studying English because “every class is like a book club.”

Um, that is some fake news! Not one of the English courses I’ve taken at ANU has involved sitting in someone’s lounge, drinking champagne and talking about everything but the book that was assigned for that month because nobody even read it. In actuality, the lecturer will often email everyone two weeks before semester starts with the reading list and encouragement to get started because all the books are quite lengthy.

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Needless to say, there is an awful lot of reading that comes with an English major. “Wait just one second,” I hear you cry in objection, “all courses involve a lot of reading! How dare you suggest otherwise!” But seriously, is there anyone who can honestly tell me that they do every reading for every class?

job upon completion. The main thing arts courses have in common? It takes creativity to truly do well, and that is one of the most difficult things about them. Yet, arts students are consistently labelled as the kids who didn’t know what they wanted to do, or couldn’t be bothered to do anything else.

*crickets chirping*

The reality is that most of us who take these subjects do so because we are genuinely interested in them. We want to improve our expertise in whatever area it may be, and studying within this area at a tertiary level means that we have the opportunity to be taught by some of the most experienced and talented people in the field. A desire to study something that interests you is oftentimes looked down upon, particularly if it’s a subject that isn’t viewed as particularly ‘practical’ in the ‘real world’. Arts subjects often fall into this category.

What makes studying English different is that your grades are based on your critical analysis of the set texts, as well as additional research about these texts. So, you really do have to read what’s been assigned, because you literally cannot make up what happens in a book that the lecturer has read. And no, Schmoop doesn’t cut it. Not only do you read books, you read books about books! And yes, I must admit that the texts we study are significantly more interesting than that 50-page law paper you’re supposed to have read for class tomorrow, but that’s precisely why I chose not to study law.

But enough about me – let’s look at some other subjects that are typically denigrated by people who don’t study them. Theatre, music, creative writing and fine art are all possible majors within an arts degree, if not standalone degrees themselves. Each one requires an incredible time commitment to excel, and no guarantee of a

So, let’s take a look at the ‘real world’ then. Recently Mark Cuban, owner of Dallas Mavericks, shared his prediction that in the future, “as automation becomes the norm, free thinkers who excel in the arts will be in high-demand.” Why? Because people are building machines and computers that will eventually replace their own skills. Communication and critical thinking will become more important.

After all, you can teach a computer to think, but you can’t teach a comput-

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er to think critically. And you know which people are taught critical thinking skills? Students in any and every arts course.

University degrees are changing. People are becoming more qualified than ever, and doing so at younger ages than ever before. So, we should start seeing formal education for what it is: a series of building blocks. An arts degree is probably one of the strongest foundations you can lay for yourself, since it gives you the opportunity to study a variety of subjects and learn a broad range of skills.

Please stop assuming that because I study arts I’m less hard-working, or disciplined, or likely to get a job. That joke’s already been made about a million times too many. At the end of the day, university is about being able to do what you want to do, possibly for the first time ever. What I want to do is study English – for you it might be economics, for another it might be science, for another it might be law. And that’s good for you. Just not for me.

Emily Faithfull “What are you studying?”

“A Bachelor of Arts.”

“Good luck with the job hunt!’ *deeply sarcastic tone* Almost all arts students have experienced some variation of this interaction. Doing an arts degree myself (with a major in development studies and a double-minor in anthropology and middle eastern studies), I personally have had countless iterations of these conversations – most ending with the concession that I’ll probably be unemployed for the rest of my life. Arts degrees, and the humanities generally, are widely hailed as irrelevant in our increasingly technological, commerce-focused society. While an arts student acquires general knowledge, critical and analytical thinking, communication and research skills, these are valued far less than the more specifically career-oriented knowledge one gains from such degrees as law or commerce. I am writing this article in an attempt to highlight the enormous benefits that can be gained from doing ‘just’ an arts degree.

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Choosing a degree is hard, particularly when – like most high school students – you have almost no idea what you actually want to do with your life. Many choose (and I’m by no means suggesting that there is anything wrong with this) to begin a degree that will lead them into a certain field – law, for example – with clear career prospects, and a narrower field of study. The advantages of this are obvious – but on the other hand, it is entirely possible that you might begin your degree only to decide that this field isn’t the one you wish to work in. You’ve just wasted months or years and a huge amount of money (or, more likely, accrued a debt you’ll have to deal with later), and you’re no closer to a career path that appeals to you. Doing arts gives you the chance to study subjects from a broad range of disciplines, and find the area that interests and suits you the most, while acquiring useful general knowledge along the way. You can then explore career options – of which there are many, contrary to most public opinion – based on your interests, rather than choosing your career to begin with and working backwards. There is also the option to do a master’s degree if you want to specify your studies later on, once you have discovered this area of interest.

I’d like to take this chance to debunk the argument (which comes up painfully often) that an arts degree makes you utterly unemployable. In an article published by the Harvard Business Review, entitled ‘Want Innovative Thinking? Hire from the Humanities’, the author points to the capacity for complex or unconventional analytical thinking – acquired during an arts degree – as highly attractive to employers. A Forbes ar-

ticle on the value of liberal arts degrees commends the “multi-faceted view of the world” arts students develop, as well as their ability to see beyond one perspective and engage in productive debate. Gail Kelly, former CEO of Westpac (and the first female CEO of an Australian bank) was an arts graduate. In an interview with ABC, she acclaimed her liberal arts background as “fabulous, because you learn how to think, and you learn how to read, and you learn how to analyse situations, and you learn that there’s not necessarily one right answer, but to think clearly about things – you learn to communicate.” A quick bit of research should reassure any arts student that the skills they are acquiring remain both employable and desirable.

The broad nature of the study one undertakes during an arts degree also fosters something which I will defend to the very end: the opportunity to learn simply for the sake of learning. Knowledge is a privilege, not merely a means to an end, and this is something we ought not to forget. So, if you’re an arts student, make the most of your opportunity to learn about the world, to learn what you really find interesting, and to acquire a highly employable set of skills.

Allow me to leave you with this delightfully sexist and ill-informed (not to mention grammatically lacking) post on ANU Confessions, decrying arts degrees and women in general – which I hope to have proven wrong in every way!

PS If anyone knows what “laminating misogyny” involves, do let me know – I’m intrigued.

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SPONSORED

Interview: The Space Agency The Space Agency (TSA) is a place activation consultancy and place management company based in Melbourne.

Essentially, they specialise in transitioning new development sites, major infrastructure projects, and existing precincts into destinations and experiences. I had a chat with Bec McHenry, CEO and founder at TSA, to talk about her career, business and general awesomeness.

How did TSA come to be?

I got back from Africa, having been away for two years, and there was a huge vacancy rate on Bridge Road in Richmond (Melbourne). I went to the local Council and asked what was going on and how I could help – but they turned me away. That just didn’t sit right with me. I started working with local trader groups and they hired me to help activate Bridge Road and address the issues of visitation and vacancy. It was incredible successful.

I saw the same issue happening in more and more places so I started focusing on the question of how you bring people to place and what makes a precinct work.

And that is how we started. We have twisted and turned like you wouldn’t believe since then, though, and it is only in the past 18 months that we have really found out who we are. Looking back, the catalyst project was in Abbotsford, when we worked with a developer for the first time. They asked us to activate a café, but we said that we could do more with the space to bring more people to place and to make the location itself worth more money. We achieved all of this and more.

Would you agree that the demand for what you do has only come to exist in the last decade?

Yes, because we have actually created the demand. This isn’t to say that there wasn’t a problem before, because there was, but we are the first to package up a solution in this way.

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Tell me a bit more about this solution.

My role over the past four years has been educating the industry that they need something like this. We have only made traction on this in the past two years.

Our solution, or approach, is a Place Transition Plan (PTP). Essentially, we design and implement strategies that reimagine vacant, underutilised or challenging spaces – taking them from where they are now to where they need to be. We work with developers and asset managers to create uplift at every stage of the development and beyond by focusing on place. This culminates in stronger sales anvd leasing outcomes, greater commercial activity, and a coherent and active precinct for residents and businesses.

Currently, when anyone wants to develop a site, they have to do so in line with the Planning Scheme, which dictates how a city will grow over time. In another year or two my goal is to have PTPs put into the national Planning Scheme directly.

Your work focuses on people too though, right?

Of course. Essentially, we are trying to change behaviour.

For new places, it is about trying to drive behaviour in a new way to a new place.

There is this saying that is you build it they will come, but that is completely untrue. You need short-term activation on the ground and you need to provide people with the amenities and the lifestyle from the beginning.

For existing places, it is about trying to adjust peoples’ behaviour to a certain place.

Docklands (Melbourne) is a great example.

There are fundamental design flaws with the architecture which makes seriously

windy all the time. So, something we are looking into is the potential to generate energy with this wind, to use to power the suburb. Suddenly there is a reason for it to be windy – it is powering the lights!

Where is TSA going in the next 10 years?

I cannot say for sure, but I hope we will be working globally and working throughout every stage of each project.

PTPs have so much to offer. In China, for example, they are currently trying to replicate cities – they are literally building the Eiffel Tower in the middle of nowhere to try and create their own Paris. But this isn’t how you make a destination.

As a woman-identifying CEO, do you ever get imposter syndrome?

In short, no. I am lucky in that I don’t notice age or gender. And this isn’t just me being naive, this is just me as a person. I have never judged anyone based on their gender or age so I assume – probably ignorantly – that I am not being judged for these things either.

I have always really embraced being a young woman in business. I just don’t give anyone a chance to disagree with who I am and what I am doing. I walk into a room and I am refreshing, because I am an expert in my field, and it is a new field.

My story is not the story though – there are a lot of women, particularity in the corporate world, that struggle with tradition. Businesses get stuck in tradition.

But we have created our own business, solution and market – it would have been a huge mistake if we recreated these tradition dynamics, so we just didn’t.

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Hair Acceptance Annabelle Nshuti

As an eccentric, enthusiastic young girl, my hair was never a concern of mine: I don’t think I ever gave it any thought.

The odd times I did were when my Dad had to braid my hair into thick plaits for swimming lessons (which were expertly done, of course). Thoughts about my hair started to creep into my mind when I started primary school, and my entire class would use my hair as a pillow, ecstatically screaming: “IT’S SO SOFT, LIKE A BUNNY RABBIT!” I didn’t mind them touching or playing with my hair, but I stared at them, thinking: Isn’t your hair soft? Is mine that different to yours?

How I viewed my hair changed when, in kindergarten, Walter accused me of cutting my hair before an arts and crafts activity. My teacher looked at me crossly, and I spent the remainder of the activity in time out. My extension had actually fallen out – but because no one understood my hair nor cared to listen when I tried to explain, I couldn’t participate. Nowadays I just laugh when I think about what a tattletale Walter was, but this was the first instance in which I truly felt alienated from a group of people. I had experienced racism before, but I never truly felt ‘different’ until I realised that my hair was a barrier to communication, understanding and acceptance.

When I entered my teens, my relationship with my hair changed for the worse: my school culture was bleached with hatred, anger, approval and validation from others. I grew up in competition with other women of colour, thinking that my hair wasn’t enough, that it had to be cooler and longer than it already was. I constantly braided and relaxed (chemically straightened) my hair in order to somehow fit into this toxic culture. It was never about my hair, but instead about the social order

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that I belonged in; I was lowly ranked, and in order to be at the top, I had to change myself.

It took a couple of years for me to realise that my hair wasn’t handling it; it is naturally soft, so it was suffering from the huge amounts of chemicals and being braided without care. My hairline receded (I’m not even old yet!) because of the rough way the hairdressers would try to control it. My hair still had some spunk left, but it wouldn’t if I continued mistreating it.

I had to shift from treating my hair as an object of people’s attention and desire, to treating it as my own. I needed to spend my energy managing and maintaining it. As I slowly started to research hair maintenance and care, I realised that black women unwillingly face a dilemma: society simultaneously seems to care so much and so little about our hair. Afros can be seen as dirty and unprofessional to some, but to others, as self-expressive, artsy and rebellious. That’s not to say that hair shouldn’t contribute to an individual’s personality, but why is it up to another’s judgement what it signifies? It shouldn’t be – it’s up to the individual.

Everywhere I go as a black woman, my hair is the first mention of my blackness – either from sly looks by people who think it’s unmaintained, or others who ardently ask: “Did you cut your hair? I swear it was longer.” No, it is just that the straight, dark-brown braids that I had look nothing like the black, curly, short hair that I currently have.

Black hair has crept into pop culture as a characteristic of blackness through the African-American experience. It seems that “black” is synonymous with “African-American”, and that every. single. black. person. is. the. same.

What I’ve struggled with when dealing with my hair has been this perspective; most hair products and maintenance

techniques are customised for the ‘African-American experience’, and although that’s empowering for some, it feeds into the idea that all black people have the same experience, which is inaccurate.

Throughout Africa, hair isn’t discussed or considered. The maintenance techniques used are therefore terrible because there hasn’t been a wide shift in how hair is viewed. Many resort to relaxing because there hasn’t been a discussion on how best to manage our hair, which in the end severely damages it by wearing down the strands and altering the texture. It’s easier to ‘Westernise’ our hair because that’s the only way we know how to maintain it; there’s numerous Western hair manuals, techniques and products that are easily accessible, whereas you often have to search far and wide for acceptable products and maintenance techniques for black hair – especially in Australia. In some ways society is still trying to control our hair, and even when we fight back by not conforming or wearing it in a certain way, society questions us – it bans natural hair at school or work, gives a quizzical glance our way, or states an opinion on something it’s never dealt with.

My hair journey has been a long one, with many stops, halts and diversions.

I’ve struggled to commit, given up, and ultimately realised that I should be caring for my hair for myself. I ask myself: What do I want to see in the mirror next year? In three years? In five years?

Everyone has bad hair days (I’ll wear a beanie when I can’t be bothered to style my mini afro) but we shouldn’t be discouraged or ignored for our individual – not homogenous – experiences with hair.

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Subversion of Beauty Standards Lyndsay Bassett

A child’s misconceptions clash with how the world sees her (2005) “All those who wear glasses may leave!”

We all sat up a little straighter, with spines curved just slightly, envious of those who stood and hopeful the teacher would pick us next.

“Like Princess Diana”, my father had beamed.

But the little shit sneered and said: “Haha! You look like a boy!”

I’m not sure that my fist connecting with his face proved him wrong, but it felt good.

I got to practice my handwriting in detention.

The next day I wore a hair clip with a flower on it

“All those with black hair may go home”, Mrs Blackburn trilled.

And smiled at the little shit as I sailed into class.

I grinned and stood. As the only one in class with black hair, she had obviously picked me.

Somewhere in Tasmania (January 2016)

“Lyndsay! Where do you think you’re going?”

Confused, I froze.

“Umm, home, Mrs Blackburn.”

“Your hair’s not black. Sit back down!”

I stared at my teacher in disbelief. Was she serious? I did not sit back down.

“Lyndsay, sit down now, or you’ll be the last to leave!”

I stamped my foot. I answered back. I was last to leave.

One hour later I was at home with my father.

“But my hair is BLAAACK”, I wailed.

He held up a black book next to my head.

He looked at me through the mirror, a little sheepish, and said: “Actually, no it’s not.”

Eight-year-old me assumed that because I look like my mother (“Oh, I see where you get your looks from!”) that obviously I would also have black hair.

----

A child’s positivity cannot be dampened (2006) I arrived at school with new hair.

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---

In 2016, I spent January camping. This might sound like your personal version of hell, but I have never felt freer. Except for one thing; maybe I’m just a particularly grotty camper, but brushing my hair everyday was excruciating.

“This is impossible. I may as well shave it all off”, I probably said with my brush stuck in another nest of knots.

“Then do it”, my boyfriend replied.

Lightbulb moment.

“Bet you wouldn’t,” he challenged, “you’re too scared.”

All I could counter with was: “Fuck off!”

The idea had never even occurred to me.

---

National Gallery of Victoria (26 January 2016) The air-conditioning makes my sunburn tingle as a weave my way through Lurid Beauty (Pisch, 2015). There were many amazing works of art, but the memory of one will never leave me.

I can hear rumblings of male anger throughout the exhibition and when I finally find the video installation from where they originate I am relieved, momentarily. (In the video) Jill Orr walks onto a stage to a male audience chant-

ing “witch, bitch, dyke, mole” over and over. She attaches her waist-length hair to a series of suspended chains and invites female members of the audience to cut off pieces of her hair. These suspended pieces float around her as she recounts the stories of women who have forcibly had their hair cut.

Throughout history, women have been expected to have “nice” hair. Though what “nice” means varies between cultures. At Javanese weddings, women attach sanggul (hair extensions fashioned into a big bun) to their hair and adorn them with gold pins as a status symbol. A Vietnamese friend recently told me to be beautiful in Vietnam you have to have long, shiny, black hair. If we look to contemporary Western examples of “beauty” – Beyonce, Adriana Lima, people who put makeup on, people on YouTube, Kylie and Kendall, et cetera – I would argue that to be “beautiful” in Australia women must have clean, kempt hair as well.

There are many examples throughout history of women having their hair removed as punishment. But surely, the amount of money we spend to make our hair appear acceptable is a form of modern punishment. If I spend $7 for 350mL of shampoo and use the Head & Shoulders recommended amount of 10mL per wash, my shampoo will last for 35 days. That’s $73 a year, or about $5700 if you live to 80. And that’s just shampoo.

Orr’s performance rattled me and really made me think. I don’t shave my legs, or armpits, so why am I so worried about what people think of my hair? It is because it’s more visible? I think for a woman, shaving your head is the most visibly defiant subversion of beauty standards you can make. Suddenly you have no hair to keep clean.

You’re saying you don’t care what others think of you – which can be scary, for both you and others.

After shaving my head, I learnt what it feels like to be ready in ten minutes. I now know how the rain and wind on my scalp feels and that my ears are quite big. I recommend that every woman tries it, at least once. It grows back after all – and our beauty and our strength is not contained in our hair.

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Hair and …

Sumithri Venketasubramanian

Hair and racism

Growing up in Chinese-dominated Singapore, my naturally curly hair was unlike the hair of most people around me. The way it would frizz up in the humidity, its defiance of gravity and unfamiliar shape fascinated my schoolmates; I won some pretty unflattering nicknames that led to me coming home from school on some evenings crying about how I wished I had straighter hair like the other girls. Brushed, oiled and braided daily, my hair was something truly unique about me – and something I was deeply ashamed of.

I often got my hair cut at home when I was younger, but when I started going to the hairdressers for a trim, I was met with suggestions about how my hair could be “tamed”, “managed” and “controlled”. The Chinese aunties peering over my shoulder would ask me whether I would like it to be rebonded, or suggest a simple treatment to “relax” it (with a hefty price tag attached, of course). My hair was something I was born with, and something I was told left, right and centre that it was a burden to carry the rest of my life.

I began coming to terms with my curls – at their best after a wash the night before and slept on slightly damp – when I was in my later years of school. YouTube videos about deep conditioning, how often to wash, and dealing with humidity taught me that my hair wasn’t isolating, and that there are so many people out there who get it. I grew to love it, and be proud of it; it became something I got excited about showing off to the world.

To this day, I’ve only heat-straightened it thrice – and every time I’ve washed it it’s felt like I’m back home. I don’t wish my curls away anymore.

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Hair and rebellion

Our school didn’t allow us to dye our hair, and I’d always wanted to do something fun and exciting to it, so one day during my gap year I swung by the hairdressers and got bright red streaks through it. Upon coming home, my shocked mum told me to hide in the kitchen as she broke the news to my father when he pulled up in the driveway. I was brought up to perceive those who dyed their hair to be “troublemakers”, and that I was a good girl whose world existed separate to theirs.

Yet, there I was, confronting my parents with a situation where they would have to justify and explain my rebellious hairdo to our community.

To those around me, my hair was a statement to society about the circles I would stereotypically occupy. It was a (flawed) indicator of how much I respected my parents and elders, and my professionalism and credibility to the working world. And so, when the red faded to a light brown, it was a relief to everyone.

I dyed my full head of hair brown on the afternoon before I left my life in Singapore behind, and flew to Australia for university.

---

Hair and queerness*

It was 31 July 2016. The barbers in Macquarie Centre, Sydney were both amused and immensely excited when I stepped in and asked them to shave it off. My hair was, at this time, halfway down my back, with the dark brown roots exposed and transitioning to a lighter shade after half a year of growth.

“Are you sure?”

They had lots of fun gelling it up into a mohawk using handfuls of gel, playing around with leaving awkwardly hilarious bunches of hair while the rest of my head was bald, and getting lots of photos. And then, it was all gone.

Suddenly, I was visibly queer* (even though there is no way to ‘look queer*’). I was still the same person, and yet now the world saw me as a whole bunch of new stereotypes I’d never been associated with before. I was now perceived as a “butch” lesbian. My pronouns, which were never before questioned, now had to be clarified/corrected (which, can I just say, is problematic in itself that they were always assumed to begin with). My partner at the time and I were also less likely to be mistaken as friends, and were more vulnerable to homophobia. I also had to assert my femininity, now more than ever, through make-up, clothing and words.

My mum refused to see photos of me for three weeks after it happened, until she had no choice but to face the reality that was my new Facebook profile picture. Our phone calls started to conclude with: “Sumi, please grow your hair out again. I miss my baby’s beautiful curls.”

There were things about my womanhood that I assumed were universal, which I only then realised were conditional. This is something I am still coming to terms with today, buzzed hair and all. If there’s one thing I know for sure, it is that I am me and my hair is mine.

“Like a number zero?”

“What?”

“To the skin?”

“Yep.”

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---Imogen Clarke

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Reading The Second Sex for the Fifth Time Helen Pretorius I have a shelf in my room which juts out with the mismatched spines of books, some unread and some read too long ago to be remembered. The crimson cover of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles is accentuated by the dark cover of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, which lies next to it – the latter a physical manifestation of the chronology of feminist dialogue.

Sometimes when I feel frustrated about everything, I shut myself in my bedroom and lift The Second Sex from the shelf. It is one of the pinnacles of second-wave feminism, indubitably outdated now. However, when it feels like I can’t change anything in the outside world, it is sometimes easier to sit down with a comfortable blanket and try to contemplate some familiar feminist writing. It is a dangerous trap. The open dialogue that I crave in society about the various issues that autonomous gender groups face is substituted by my endlessly-repetitive ritual of reading this one book. My intellectual dialogue with ideas with which I have already become acquainted is comfortable, regardless of how much those ideas are in need of development, contextualisation and change – especially with regards to intersectionality.

This is one of the issues that most plagues activism: when change seems impossible, we become as recalcitrant as those who inflict and engrain repressive structures. It is possible to be a feminist and to still develop a fear of change. When an individual perceives their inability to change the attitudes of other individuals around them, it engenders activism burnout. It is disheartening to hear sexist jokes still being made, and it is frustrating to be excluded from certain opportunities because of your

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gender. Unsurprisingly, the seemingly irrefutable judgments that people make about certain genders does not incite scrutinised individuals to redefine the constructs which comprise their identity as powerful and valuable. Often, sexism makes me feel like it would be strategic to completely reject the feminine facets of my identity – it makes me reluctant to try to incite change.

Patriarchal structures rely on oppressed groups being reluctant to try to incite.

When I lock myself in my room and get out my dog-eared feminist text from the 1940s, I ignore the battles that vulnerable gender groups have not yet won, and focus upon the battles that have been won. I am subsumed into the cycle of repression by fearing the issues of today and choosing to ignore them, and I therefore perpetuate them. This is perhaps most exemplified by the underdeveloped dialogue between white feminists and feminists of colour – a defining issue of current feminism. As a white female, I need to be comfortable with recalibrating my conception of activism from the outdated, white-centric feminism of the past. The issues facing women are highly varied depending upon their experiences, but they are all ongoing. If activism burnout leads women like myself to recede intellectually into the feminist victories of our predecessors, ‘feminism’ remains a fallaciously hegemonic concept.

Being reluctant to incite change because of activism burnout is also how certain groups of women end up with a greater burden placed upon them to incite change – a perpetuation of activism burnout. The biggest gap that needs to be bridged so that feminism is truly an all-encompassing and mul-

ti-faceted movement, which is sensitive to the issues of different groups, is the one caused by this burnout. The reality that I have constructed in my bedroom where I can mentally commiserate with Simone de Beauvoir is not a helpful one. I do not access that reality to develop my understanding of feminism; the first few times I read the book were adequate in enabling me to absorb the key ideas. Instead, I reread the book because of a desire to imagine that the 1940s brand of feminism, predicated largely upon the issues faced by white heterosexual women, is mostly a won battle. However, it does not provide true respite from the reality of today’s perceptibly immutable patriarchal forces. Obviously, feminism of the past retains a lot of value in understanding how the movement has developed.

Moreover, many issues raised by feminists of the past remain unresolved. But this is the thing: feminism is a changing idea, which demands from us that we change with it.

What does changing with feminism look like? It looks like admitting that I’m not always sure the best way to contribute to current feminism, and not resorting to exclusively ruminating over ideas I already feel comfortable with. I’m 18, and after coming to university this year I have been exposed to many of the fluid tenets of contemporary feminism, and its many splinters, for the first time. Faced with innumerable channels of ideas that I haven’t yet traversed, I can’t turn around and hide in my bedroom in uncertainty and defeat. I have to keep going; my bookshelf still has gaps to fill.

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68 69. Mental Illness Now Over Thanks to Petting Zoo – Gillian Ferguson 69. Woman Told She Is Being Aggressive for Using Caps Lock on the Internet – Laura Perkov 70. Climate Change is Sexist, Too – Soraya McGinley 72. The Politics of Self-Deprecation – Rosalind Moran 75. Featured: Catherine Yeong 76. Featured: Maddie Cardone 77. One Of The Boys – Anonymous 78. All’s Fair in Law and Clerkships – Anonymous 79. The Wanderer – Anna Miley 80. Earthquake – Julia Rheinberger 82. The Daily Grind – Caitlin Setnicar 83. A Transfeminine Experience with Toxic Masculinity – Celeste Sandstrom 84. Asexual Coming Outs in a Sexual World – Caitlin J 85. “baire jeo-na, nahole kaalo hoye jabe” – Anamika Chowdhury 85. Maggots – Prisca Ochan 86. Featured: Emma Markovic 88. Numbly Scrolling in The Age of Technology – Lydia J Kim 89. The Wound – Lucy Bei 90. Mansplaining: Sexism in Miniature – Al Azmi 92. Ingenue – Prisca Ochan 92. X’s and O’s – Anonymous 93. Bi The Way ... – Alex Williams, Issy Ingram and Polly Sayers 94. Love is not ‘The Cure’ – Shae Maree Nicholson 95. Untitled Artwork – Mahalia Crawshaw

III

Endure Entrapped by rhetoric, greed and photoshopped standards. Hindered by binary outlooks and glass ceilings. Exasperated by their unwillingness to sympathise or change.

“Patriarchy is like the elephant in the room that we don’t talk about – but how could it not affect the planet radically when it’s the superstructure of human society.”

Ani DiFranco bossy2017mag.indd 68

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Mental Illness Now Over Thanks to Petting Zoo Gillian Ferguson

It is a crisp October morning on the ANU campus, and after months of campaigning from student activists for better mental health services, our benevolent administration has decided to implement the catch all cure for all of your ‘little moods’: a petting zoo.

University VC Ryan Mitts told Bossy: “We know that exam time is tough, so we want to give students as much support as possible. We’ve hired a petting zoo, a fleet of kittens and a jumping castle!”

When pressed as to whether this push for mental health awareness would perhaps involve better access to counselling services or wider structural changes that do not involve farm animals, Mitts responded: “Listen, these kinds of changes don’t happen overnight. But to quell your concerns, we are considering potentially appointing a steering committee to maybe consider what other changes could possibly be suggested for implementation somewhere in the distant future.”

Moments after the interview Mitts proceeded to sprint towards and jump on the aforementioned $1000-an-hour jumping castle, cutting in front of students who had been waiting in line for over an hour.

Students have been delighted with the administration’s response to mental ill health. One student told Bossy: “I haven’t been able to get through a conversation without crying in weeks but hearing that I might get a selfie with a kitten was really all I needed.”

Indeed, many have commented on the calming effects of seeing a trembling guinea pig desperately trying to wriggle out of the grasp of an equally trembling student.

“They are so small and terrified,” commented Emma, a third-year law student, “which really puts things in perspective.”

“I’ve been living off plain pasta for the last month since my Centrelink got cut off, but the photo opportunities offered by the petting zoo are priceless,” another student revealed.

Bertie, a first-year science student, noted: “With my chronic pain I haven’t been able to sit in a lecture theatre for more than 15 minutes, but staring at this goat ramming its head into a petting zoo gate in fear has really helped me chill out.

I may not be able to get out of bed but now I’m just glad I don’t have to spend my entire life trapped in a tiny cage!”

Not all were happy with the petting zoo, however, with an environmental activist group stationed outside the Chancelry building protesting the unfair treatment of animals. Unfortunately, Ryan was unavailable to address the comments as he was off enjoying a glass of his vineyard wine.

If the petting zoo doesn’t manage to fix the entire complexities of your mental illness, however, do not stress (even more)! ANU Counselling is still taking appointments for 2019.

Overbearing Woman Has Change of Heart After Enlightening Interaction in Facebook Comment Section Laura Perkov

CW: mention of victim-blaming rhetoric A local Canberra woman is currently reconsidering using caps lock on the internet after a thoughtful man informed her she was being aggressive.

“I guess I just never thought about how I present myself and come across to people.

I have literally never considered restraining myself and my language to appease other people, and I’m really grateful that I now realise how hostile I was being”, Ana told Chronicle.

“I mean, I thought the violent threats and random dick pics I used to get on Twitter were bad, but this whole experience has made me think about those on the other side, and how hurtful it must feel to have someone yell at you with caps lock in a comments section.”

Her newfound awareness of her antagonistic behaviour on the internet has also made her think about the other parts of her life where she previously lived without a care.

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“Before, I just woke up and walked out the door in whatever I wanted to wear, I said what I wanted to say, and took up the space I wanted to take up. But now I realise how selfish and unfriendly that is.

“So now, I don’t walk outside without deliberating over my outfit for 30 minutes, just in case a man on the street thinks that my skirt is too tight. I edit my social media posts over and over before posting to make sure they’re not too forceful. I started adding an inflection to the end of my instructions, just to make sure my co-workers don’t think I’m being imposing. I also started crossing my legs and pressing myself against the window on the bus to make room for the guys that sit next to me – they certainly have a more serious need for that room, just think about that leg span!”

Reports indicate that Ana’s co-workers are pleased with these changes in her manner.

Derek, Ana’s assistant, told Chronicle: “She always used to be like ‘Have this done

by close of business tomorrow’, which was just so militant and rude. Now, she says ‘Do you think you would be able to get this done by tomorrow night, no rush if you’re busy with other things though’ which is honestly so much friendlier. I like her a lot more now.”

Ana told Chronicle that she enjoys her new outlook on life and is indebted to the compassionate man who drew attention to her flaws.

“I’ll forever be thankful for Alan’s comment. Or was it Greg? Or Andrew?”

“I just never would have thought about what people think of my appearance and demeanour without him. Life is so much easier now that I care more. I am honestly surprised more women haven’t been living like this for centuries.”

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Climate Change is Sexist, Too Soraya McGinley

Collage by Bronte McHenry

At least at ANU, I think that most people understand the geophysical risks of climate change, and I’d even suggest that they could conceive the possible resulting socio-political and security risks for individuals and states. As the climate change crisis continues to unfold, these consequences will continue to demand the development of both mitigation and adaptation strategies. What I believe we less routinely notice, however, is the role of gender in all of this – and, in particular, how women* around the world are dispro-

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portionally impacted. Perhaps on the surface, drawing this link may appear far-fetched. But the evidence is right in front of us …

The Bangladeshi Department of Environment explains the inequality of climate change’s impacts through the concept of social vulnerability. They argue that people’s differential access to and control over resources – such as land, money, credit, good health and personal mobility – are all closely interwoven with their ability to survive and recover from disasters. Gender is, undoubtedly, a key determinant of social vulnerability.

Around the world women constitute

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the majority of the world’s poorest, with livelihoods more dependent on natural resources, and relatively larger social, economic and political barriers in their way. Essentially, this combination of limited access to resources, political power and social mobility will result in women around the world being disproportionally affected by climate change.

We know that women play a crucial role in agriculture and are more severely affected by food insecurity – and climate change will significantly impact both of these things. Accounting for 45 per cent - 80 per cent of food production in the developing world – and more than 90 per cent in most African countries – women will find their sources of food and income especially threatened by climate change. Environmental degradation, and extreme weather events such as droughts and floods and irregular weather patterns, are all expected to continue to occur throughout the world, and as they do, jeopardise food security. After these environmental disasters occur, not only is there the immediate loss of income and employment but often the only jobs available are in construction, re-building and development, which are traditionally male dominated. Furthermore, during food shortages the health of women and girls is seen to be decline more than that of the rest of the population.

Climate change also poses serious threats to clean water availability, which affects the domestic and productive tasks traditionally performed by women, as well as women’s health. Around the world the burden of fetching water is largely shouldered by women, who may make lengthy journeys every day to this end. As water continues to become scarcer, especially in rural and developing regions, women will have to travel greater distances. If additional help is required, young girls are also more likely to be withdrawn from education systems to help at home. Increasingly contaminated water sources also threaten the health of the women who handle the water, as well as that of their families. For people who experience menstruation, many of whom are women, a lack of clean water to wash themselves, their clothes and sanitary facilities has also been linked to re-

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productive tract infections, secondary infertility, urinary tract infections and anemia.

Biodiversity and habitat loss will also threaten other resources, which will similarly be detrimental for women.

As environmental degradation continues to occur, flows of internal and cross-border migration will be encouraged, if not forced. People from agriculturally-based communities as well as those in areas most vulnerable to extreme weather events will need to search for more secure incomes and livelihoods. These transitions will especially affect women, as they tend to heavily rely on natural products for energy, food and income. The consequences of having to relocate their families and communities include being left with less time and community support for domestic tasks, political engagement, education and public activities, as well as potential social, political and economic isolation in their new environments.

Climate change-related disasters such as heat waves, floods, storms and droughts are also believed to contribute to increases in mortality, morbidity and the spread of infectious diseases. There is an abundance of evidence that links the evolution and distribution of infectious diseases – such as cholera, malaria and dengue fever – with climate and weather. In addition to women’s own vulnerability, their traditional roles as primary caregivers for youths leaves them especially exposed as infectious diseases are largely carried by young children, who are inevitably high-risk populations during health epidemics.

Women also face a lack of global political power, which severely limits their agency in combatting climate change. This is particularly drastic in states where women still lack the right to vote, but is by no means limited to these extreme cases. This is particularly fascinating as research by the Natural Resources Defence Council suggests that women more readily negotiate and sign international agreements, which are crucial for an issue as global in nature as climate change. Another key concern is that strategies for confronting climate change, typically designed by men, are ignorant to the influence of gender, and lack sensitivity to the many

ways in which women uniquely experience its effects. Women are further disempowered by their limited access to the education required to manage climate-related agricultural risks and access assistance during extreme weather events.

Bringing all of this information together makes that ‘far-fetched’ link between gender and climate change seem far less abstract. If there is consensus that women around the world tend to have less access to resources and socio-political power, and tend to be less mobile, then it must be acknowledged that this dictates their increased vulnerability to the impacts of climate change.

So, what can we do about this? Women need access to education and socio-political empowerment – although this is easier said than done. While women are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, they can also be effective agents in global efforts to mitigate and adapt to its ramifications. The more that women around the world are educated and included in learning about the geo-physical risks at hand, the more they can empower themselves and their communities to prepare for them. Women have strong bodies of traditional, environmental and community knowledge, and when they achieve greater access to and control over resources, it is found that women are more likely to use them for family health, growth and economic stability. Moreover, women are said to be more likely to use new information to make decisions that minimize risk.

Not only are women’s empowerment and equality goals in their own right, they are now also essential if there is any hope of mitigating climate change and achieving a sustainable future. * I use the word ‘women’ to concisely refer to all women-identifying and women-presenting people.

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The Politics of Self-Deprecation Rosalind Moran

Photography by Chanel Irvine James Argent is a writer based in Brooklyn. He won this award, that award, and that award – among others – and his debut novel Pea Soup and Philosophy will be released in August.

He struggles to pull his pants on in the morning.

Delia Kantdeel lives as far away from other humans as she possibly can. Cats are her family, tea is her lifeblood, and sleeping is her passion.

Guy Flibbertigibbet is a recipient of the Guggelhuggel fellowship for the obscenely talented. Despite a lifetime spent accruing gold stars, he has difficulties writing author biographies due to regrettably possessing the life skills of a guppy.

It took me a while to realise why so many author biographies simultaneously make me smile and wish to throttle my desk lamp. The generic winkwink-nudge-nudge, overly chummy humour gets my goat, even if I’m the one guilty of writing it. But then again, humblebragging has never sat well with me and frankly gets all my farmyard animals.

Yet self-deprecation is a broader and more complex issue than that of the simple humblebrag. We already know Cordelia falls over just so she can show off her Boat Pose: the humblebrag is obvious, demoded and derided.

Self-deprecation remains widely socially acceptable, however, and can be found in a far broader range of communication forms and cultural spheres.

The underlying frameworks and politics of self-deprecation are troubling.

For example, why is the classic young author bio structure: ‘info, info, goshdarn-I’m-a-wit, website’? What makes us so quick to infantilise ourselves through comics, memes and gifs which would have our cognitive skills equated to those of a canary? Who gets to joke bout how they’re not coping?

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The problems with such humour may not be immediately obvious, but they exist nonetheless. Self-deprecation is inherently tied to power dynamics; moreover, it works best when the person employing it is privileged and in a position of power. For this reason, it is paramount we recognise how the use and understanding of humour relate to both social capital and social inequalities. After all, you may say you’re self-deprecating, but that doesn’t necessarily make you the butt of the joke.

Before I continue, it’s worth pointing out that self-deprecation is often used in a genuine manner. People who employ it are typically self-aware, or at least aim to foster warmth during their interactions with others. It’s your friend bringing a flicker of comedy to your Facebook newsfeed; the student commiserating over having “literally not started anything”; and the Canberran making wry asides about their home for the sake of a collective laugh.

This conversational tendency – our wish to put others at ease and build connection through laughter – reminds me of an ongoing theme in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel The Remains of the Day. The protagonist, Mr Stevens, is fascinated by the mechanics of conversation: he mulls over people’s “skill of bantering” (page 245) and how the way we talk is so often composed of frivolous words spoken solely to entertain others. Inhibited to the extreme and rendered an outsider through his own making, Mr Stevens is primarily an observer of others throughout his own story; he also repeatedly judges the interactions of others as shallow and pointless. Yet, by the end of the tale, even he concludes banter “is not such a foolish thing to indulge in – particularly if it is the case that in bantering lies the key to human warmth” (page 245).

Banter and self-deprecation are closely related, and I don’t deny their ability to

help conversations run smoothly and enjoyably. Self-deprecation can be one of the most tasteful forms of both banter and humour in general, for it provides the opportunity for laughter without someone being made the butt of a joke without their consent, which could risk being cruel. Indeed, to self-deprecate literally means to belittle or undervalue oneself; the self-deprecator is not making others smaller, rather, only themselves.

Or are they?

One could argue self-deprecation is the new humblebrag. It’s the “I woke up like this” of personality; too cool to care, too basic to get anything right; too ‘relatable’ to hate. Indeed, the contemporary emphasis on authenticity, particularly within hipster culture, demands an open embracing of one’s flaws. Arguably, the greater the extent to which one embraces one’s shortcomings, the greater the social cachet, at least within groups which speak the language of irony. In this sense, humour expressed supposedly to put oneself down for the amusement of others is still ultimately self-serving. The fact you may not necessarily be conscious of this dynamic when comparing your food baby with the stomach of a beached walrus does not negate the fact self-deprecation is often the humble without the brag, but with a similar effect.

Yet for all my grousing, self-deprecation still doesn’t look too bad. Granted, people who put themselves down can’t be wholly altruistic if they’re aware on some level they’ll be well-regarded for their conversational slickness – but is anyone truly altruistic? Am I simply a killjoy who expects too much from humour?

Well yes, I am a killjoy. But I also expect humour to rise to the challenge.

Self-deprecation is easy to perceive as charming. Peel back a layer, however,

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and it can rapidly appear smug and potentially even intolerable, though the person behind it would likely abhor conveying such an impression.

The problem with self-deprecation is that it’s only funny if the stated reality and actual reality are incongruous. You can only joke about failing if you’re succeeding, or complain of being rubbish if you’re not. And I deliberately use the word ‘can’ here to mean ‘permitted’ – while it is an unwritten rule, it’s socially taboo to discuss one’s problems, whether in the real world, through Facebook’s little ‘What’s on your mind?’ box, or via a 140-character tweet. ‘Discussing problems’ can swiftly be deemed ‘complaining’ – and showing anything other than a chirpy exterior can be constituted as a faux pas, especially via the glossy hyperreality of social media.

This means in order to garner the social approval and cachet of the cool and fun self-deprecator, one must self-deprecate, not complain. In order to self-deprecate rather than complain, however, one must be in the privileged and powerful position of, for example, being able to discuss poverty in jest as opposed to in seriousness. #poor is very different to Poor.

The people who voice how behind they are on everything, and laugh about it, are typically those who are furthest ahead. The friends who share a video of a puppy struggling to eat a stick of celery, captioned “Me When I’m Trying To Eat Healthy Food”, are often conventionally attractive and only go on Maccas runs on nostalgia trips. Meanwhile, the ones who claim to have no social skills are probably doing just fine; it’s easy to joke about your awkwardness if you’ve got plenty of friends.

This phenomenon is exemplified by the exaggeration present in comic books like Sarah Andersen’s Adulthood is a Myth, or even the charming Hyperbole and a Half (book and blog) by Allie Brosh. Both publications are composed of largely autobiographical stories about

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the authors’ various oddities and deficiencies, accompanied by crude comic drawings in which both authors appear distinctly childlike. Both are also bestsellers. I don’t pretend to know the authors’ lives or deem them stress-free – for example, Brosh has written openly about her depression – however, these two adults are objectively highly successful at a young age. They’re also talented and funny. Yet their success is built precisely off emphasising how very ordinary, and even lacking, they are.

Similar self-deprecation is evident in the way both ordinary people and celebrities – and among these, generally women –

talk about their weight, eating habits and appearance. Actresses such as Tina Fey (30 Rock) and Zooey Deschanel (New Girl) can slap on black-rimmed glasses and ‘adorkable’ mannerisms and successfully build careers off jokes about how awkward and sexually undesirable they are (pfft – I have eyes). Taylor Swift pulls similar tricks with both her cat-referencing online persona, and in her music video for You Belong With Me, where glasses on-screen are obviously shorthand for ‘I’m not a pretty cheerleader: I’m Relatable!’ Jennifer Lawrence, meanwhile, enjoyed a few years as an internet darling, praised for her candour, genuineness, and supposedly relatable qualities … yet it’s a lot easier to paint yourself as a charming, chip-guzzling sloth whose body is not your temple when there are people who would literally build temples to your body.

It’s unsettling to laugh along at double-standards which laud people for speaking in a ‘real’ way, when the reason them discussing their flaws is

deemed acceptable and fun is primarily because those particular flaws do not exist. If an actual plus-sized actress like Melissa McCarthy joked about sitting around eating junk food in the style of Jennifer Lawrence, she’d likely be criticised. At the very least, we wouldn’t be laughing along with her, or certainly not without a twinge of unease.

Of course, in McCarthy’s case, she was the star of a relatively popular TV series named Mike & Molly which derived much of its humour from the title characters being plus-sized. In this sense, one can see how it is possible to self-deprecate for traits which are often perceived as negative, and laughed at rather than with.

Such humour could be seen as positive, and a move towards greater normalisation and acceptance of a range of body types.

Nevertheless, the power dynamics of self-deprecation shift when a person generally perceived as ‘losing’ in some sense deprecates that very trait of theirs which is typically viewed as undesirable. For example, as with McCarthy or anyone deviating from a socially-constructed norm or value, this person runs the risk of their self-deprecation being seen by others as a chance to laugh at them, not with them.

Furthermore – jerks aside – this power imbalance remains in play even when others react in a more positive manner. For example, a person might joke about their stresses and shortcomings as a form of self-defence, and do so convincingly enough that others laugh along with them, believing their problems to be as ephemeral as the time it takes to read a tweet. Yet self-deprecating defensively can imply both a desire to lighten a genuine problem through laughter; or that a person protects themselves from judgement by either attacking themselves before anyone else can, or by presenting a problem as more palatable than it truly is.

Such possibilities bear a muffled sadness. Either this sadness is detectable,

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rendering the humour less funny and more uncomfortable; or it goes undetected, which can lead to the self-deprecator feeling even more alone and distant from their projected reality. The bottom line is that the self-deprecator with genuine problems has none of the unconscious ease or privilege of the more advantaged self-deprecator, who benefits from a lack of problems or things to hide.

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Highlighting the problems inherent to self-deprecation could seem overly sensitive or pedantic, at least to people who also employ terms like “PC police” and “bleeding-heart millennial”.

Nevertheless, even if self-deprecation’s relationship with others’ welfare leaves some shrugging, we could still do well to assess our own self-deprecating tendencies. Self-deprecation doesn’t only harm others by belittling genuine problems: it also works against self-deprecators themselves.

We’ve already established how self-deprecation can generate social approval and is not so distant from the inglorious humblebrag. Yet this is not this brand of humour’s only personal pitfall. Indeed, self-deprecation is above all about belittling oneself, which raises the question: why are we so eager to put ourselves down? And who does this hurt the most?

The second question could well answer the first. In 2010, sociolinguist Judith Baxter published a monograph titled The Language of Female Leadership, which examines the way women talk – and are talked about – and how language impacts the perception of women in leadership roles. Performing an 18-month study on men and women’s speech patterns in meetings at seven major companies, Baxter discovered that men and women use very different kinds of humour in the boardroom. The majority of male humour – 80 per cent – is made up of flippant witticisms and banter, while 70 per cent of female humour is self-deprecatory. Jokes by men are also far better received – a phenomenon no doubt helping perpetuate the stereotype that women aren’t funny.

Baxter concluded that women undermine themselves through the use of self-deprecatory humour.

While I find this disheartening, I’m not surprised. Nor am I shocked to hear that women self-deprecate more than men.

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After all, we’re also known for saying sorry too much, sitting with our knees together, and folding ourselves away in accordance with social conditioning which would have us be ever smaller.

Consequently, self-deprecation employed by women can take on a bitter taste, and not just for misogynists who think women can’t be funny. Woman self-deprecate because they’ve learnt they’re most socially acceptable when they’re small and sweet; when they’re comparing themselves to cute animals like a celery-eating puppy, for instance.

Indeed, social conditioning rewards women who belittle themselves, infantilising themselves into cuteness and thus rendering themselves more approachable through a patriarchal lens.

We do this to ourselves. What’s more, we can’t even stop without appearing uncool, ‘without chill’, and liable to being shut out of the very patriarchal systems we need to navigate in order to subvert.

What a bind.

I don’t wish to suggest women should never self-deprecate again; aside from anything else, the primary reason self-deprecation by women is poorly received appears to be related to a gendered reception of humour. Women shouldn’t have to adapt the way they joke simply because self-deprecation works best for people with two testicles and a side serving of privilege. Besides, self-deprecation can also be a coping mechanism for dealing with discomfort rather than being forced to confront it head-on. The fact women self-deprecate more than men is telling, however, and implies we should at least be conscious that we risk unintentionally making manic pixie dream girls of ourselves; the act of infantilisation is gendered, an influence extending to self-deprecatory humour. Moreover, there are so many women who consciously combat sexism with panache: it would be a shame if they then belittled themselves into the very social constructs they’re trying to deconstruct.

More broadly: like many forms of humour, self-deprecation can serve as a distancing technique which allows people to avoid talking about topics which actually matter. Granted, if someone is suffering, how they engage with the issue is their prerogative. It becomes problematic, however, if the more privileged among us applaud, say, #poor

as opposed to Poor. Not allowing the second to be discussed – or normalised in conversation – by members of our chirpy society is another way of denying vulnerable people help and dismissing genuine attempts to talk about serious issues. Not everything is or can be a joke. Nor does it need to be.

Having privileged people consistently making jokes out of issues problematic for many, such as poverty, poor health and mental disorders, can also dull the impact when such issues are discussed in seriousness. Making humour or art out of suffering co-opts the truth of a problem – truth which could incite anger and change – and can do a disservice to those who are struggling.

Empathy is diverted into complacent chuckling, and norms of communication which uphold prejudices and stereotypes are perpetuated.

And as for the author bio … everyone loves cats and drinking tea. Seriously, there are so many of you with tea ‘literally’ running through your veins that you could start a flavoured water blood bank. But you don’t have to pretend you’re flaky or floundering through life if your reality involves hard work and challenges greater than walking to brunch without falling over. Playing that ‘cool girl’ role is how women in particular are trained to operate, but it can also convey a false impression of how much effort and skill people actually employ; this in turn distances our words from reality. So why not own your accomplishments and stop putting yourself down?

Believe it or not, I don’t seek to police your humour. Interpretation of humour will always be subjective, and a joke which works in one circle may fall dead flat in another. There can be no blanket rules. Nevertheless, I do wonder whether we adequately think through what our self-deprecation means or implies, and who might be put at a disadvantage while our friends laugh along with us. Basically, would you be so quick to advertise how incompetent or badly off you were if that truly were your situation?

At the end of the day, self-deprecation works in accordance with one’s privilege. And funnily enough, I’m not sure I can make a joke out of that.

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Catherine Yeong

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Maddie Cardone Tell us about yourself.

My name is Maddie Cardone and I am currently studying a double degree in art history and curatorship and visual arts, majoring in glass. My current work explores the tensions created between form and material, and attempts to communicate these concepts through a subtle, minimalist aesthetic. I never thought glass would be the medium that I would specialise in, but it has been the one material that constantly surprises me and is the one material that allows me to realise all of my creative ideas.

Have you always been a creative?

I have always been a creative person.

As a child, I remember always turning to some form of art to occupy my time – whether it was painting, drawing, stringing necklaces of coloured pasta together, or writing short stories while staring out the car window. My mother has also majorly influenced me artistically – she studied ceramics at the School of Art in during the 1980s, and it’s a nice feeling knowing she walked the same halls as I do today.

Has being women-identifying informed your practice? If so, how?

I’m not sure if being a woman has specifically influenced my practice, but it has definitely caused me to listen to my thoughts and emotions and allow myself to be vulnerable in my work. I also think the strength behind my work is its mystery, elegance and ambiguity, which is what I think embodies the idea of a passionate yet modest sense of femininity.

Name three women-identifying artists who inspire you.

Anges Martin (1912 - 2014), a painter who explores the truths in art and its ability to embody sensations of self. I often visit the National Gallery of Australia and always find myself standing in front of her canvases – they are incredibly contemplative and honest in their minimalistic aesthetic.

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Margaret Preston, an artist whose work has always been present in my life. I always find a sense of comfort and nostalgia in her prints.

Nadège Desgenétez, my teacher and mentor, who is strong and capable, yet humble and intuitive. Not only am I in awe of her glass-blown work, but her advice and presence throughout my development as an emerging artist has been highly valuable to me.

Where do you see your artistic practice evolving?

I see my practice evolving into something that follows a minimalist aesthetic. I want my work to intrigue people through its simplicity. I hope to appeal to areas of design such as interior architecture. I would also like to build a reputation for myself on an international level, and I hope to be able to travel, teach and make art in different and exciting environments.

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One of the Boys Anonymous

It is only human to crave acceptance – and perhaps those who crave it most are young people facing often uncertain, changeable and seemingly inaccessible futures. It is this desire that the concept of being ‘one of the boys’ taps into. It seemingly offers the sense of safety that comes with belonging to a group: not having to make your own weekend plans (because after all, just as you can’t ‘dog the boys’ once you’re in, they can hardly dog you either), never worrying who you’ll go the next college party with, and never needing to consider who you’ll eat lunch with.

However, as much as I can see some of the appeal of jokes about “cracking open a cold one with the boys” or “yeah the boys”, it doesn’t make me hate them any less.

Internet culture is inextricably linked with the ‘real life’, day-to-day experiences of young people existing in the world.

“The boys” memes tap into a tangible, real-world need for security and acceptance – one that is, almost ironically, probably most prominent amongst constantly marginalised women and non-binary people. At first glance, appropriating these jokes and their language, or taking it further and joining friendship groups who define themselves as ‘the boys’, appears to be a way of escaping their own patriarchal oppression by gaining access to the masculine spaces and conversations they’re so often excluded from. Scratching the surface, though, this facade quickly falls away. Like so many other institutions, even a concept of ‘the boys’ that explicitly allows non-men to participate is a problematic reproduction of existing prejudices and patriarchal power structures. That is to say that allowing non-men honorary membership of ‘the boys’ is only an extension of the exclusive, sexist tropes this concept – alongside the memes and popular culture it produces – represents. It is not a solution.

From the outset, the language of ‘the boys’ is inherently exclusive, and it represents and reproduces underlying social bias that consistently preferences and promotes cis men as leaders and represents their experience as the norm. This language means

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that non-men enter these spaces already on the back foot, already owing something to the men in the group for making an ‘exception’ for them. They can expect to be the butt of jokes – or maybe even to make them themselves, in the self-deprecating way we’re so socialised to – about their honorary status. This line of humour is demeaning and belittling, keeping nonmen in their peripheral place within these groups and dangerously veering into binary and transphobic assumptions about the biological essentiality of gender identity.

By perpetuating the trope that the nonmen, and specifically women, who enter these spaces “aren’t like other girls”, memes about ‘the boys’ reinforce the concept that if you’re not a man, empowerment in our patriarchal world can only be attained by emulating traditional notions of masculinity. This means drinking a lot, often too much, or being teased for your inability to ‘keep up’. It means laughing at the misogynistic and transphobic jokes made by your peers, and certainly never calling them out for their language.

It means sacrificing, or at least suppressing, parts of yourself – your courage, your competency, and perhaps your own gender identity – for the comfort of the men around you.

Even though your disadvantage in the group is overtly a byproduct of your gender, you are expected to act as though this is an incidental or irrelevant component of your identity. But we know that in so many ways, for so many people, gender identity and perceived gender identity are anything but peripheral to the ways that we experience the world. While pretending to ignore gender, ‘the boys’ memes, or real-life groups of the boys, perpetuate toxic binaries of gender. The notion of “dogging” the boys suggests that to spend time in this male space is inherently more desirable than other activities or company. This concept is particularly harmful in relation to romantic relationships. Maintaining close friendships outside of a romantic relationship is incredibly positive, however, the heteronormative and misogynistic notion that spending time with a woman you’re in a close and supportive

relationship with is less valuable than – and, in fact, an inconvenient diversion of time away from – hanging out with ‘the boys’ is not.

Traditional and limiting binary gender roles are often perpetuated in these spaces too. Non-men are unduly burdened with performing emotional labour, as they become confidants, or take on ‘mothering’ roles by default. They provide important support, such as taking care of ‘boys’ who’ve had too much to drink or counselling them on their relationship problems, but tend not to be offered reciprocal care.

This is both because men are not traditionally expected, or allowed, to perform this unpaid emotional labour, and a nonman exhibiting the vulnerability required to ask for such emotional support could dissolve the very image of gender neutrality and rejection of stereotypical femininity that group membership is predicated upon. This is particularly destructive when something goes seriously wrong – sexual assault allegations are made, or the community in which this group exists experiences a particularly nasty incident of homophobia, transphobia or sexism – because the position of a non-man in the space precariously balances on their continued illusion of assimilation.

It would be so easy to directly blame this on the women and genderqueer* people who participate in this form of social organisation – but that too would be a dark perpetuation of the patriarchal oppression they face. It is the structure, not the individual, who is to blame here, as non-men try to make the best of the ultimate bad situation: patriarchal oppression. Members of any gender in these groups need to reflect upon the social reproduction they represent, and ultimately acknowledge the actively negative repercussions of any form of social organisation based on an explicitly-masculine group identity.

Let’s leave ‘yeah the boys’ in 2016. Let’s find a way to foster and encourage mixed-gender groups which are open to all forms of gender identity and expression, and acknowledge the diversity of experiences these expressions entail.

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All’s Fair in Law and Clerkships Anonymous

CW: descriptions of harrassment I like to think of myself as an assertive, independent woman – I am a year away from finishing law school, I have been working since I was 14, and have been paying my own rent since I was 17. So, it seems unfathomable that for nearly six months I allowed myself to be subject to verbal and emotional sexual harassment in my own workplace.

A spiel led me to believe I would be working for a sweet old man who at times was a little “old school”. I prepared myself for the occasional “darling”, but the infantilism, image control, emotional manipulation and sexualisation that clouded my six months went much further than “darling”.

On my first day, I had to file paperwork on the ground because of limited administrative desk space. According to him, I looked like a little girl playing with dollies. I was told on many instances that I should wear ribbons in my hair and was called “baby” and “good girl” more than my own name. As my confidence grew, I spoke up in response to some of the inappropriate remarks. All this did was intensify the infantilism and he began calling me a “naughty girl”. He also bought me gifts as some form of compensation for being under-paid and over-worked – when I tried to refuse them he acted as if

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it was a personal attack on his person. He complained that I didn’t like him and that I was an “ungrateful little girl”, so I took the gifts … but any time I wasn’t wearing one, I was apparently spiting him.

Soon started the jokes about losing my job if I cut my hair. These quickly progressed into him complaining that I did not want to look nice for him and insisting I do my nails and wash my hair. One day he went as far as to offer me a facial because my skin was breaking out.

Over-sized jumpers and baggy pants became my work uniform out of silent protest.

However, the two instances that I remember the most involved my sexuality. On one occasion, Senior Counsel had come down from Sydney for a client briefing and my employer jovially remarked that I should get with him – a man 30 years my senior. I laughed and explained that he was too old. Logic would suggest it would stop there, but it did not. He asked me if I liked boys and suggested that maybe I should be hanging around high schools instead.

On the other occasion, I asked him to call a client back and was subsequently compared to his dominatrix – asking him to perform a simple task evidently made him my slave. The explicit content of this remark in particular raised a flag.

For much of the six months I put the treatment down to his ‘old school’ tendencies and reminded myself how prevalent this experience was for other young women across industries. When I raised the issue with my boyfriend, he tried to reassure me that the position was simply a stepping-stone in the right direction, and that like many others, I was paying my dues. My dad explained to me over a long-distance call that it was part of the game’, and to get through I had to keep my head down. But it was the pressure I placed on myself to remain in the job for personal validation that kept me there. I felt as though the job authenticated my being at law school, and proved that I was capable and progressing.

It wasn’t until a coincidental conversation with my counsellor that I became aware that his behaviour was not standard conduct, and the flags I had previously ignored blared red. As a stickler for psychological hygiene, I had started using the ANU counselling service once every two months and on this occasion, I had not even considered to mention the issues at work. It was instead, a joke about my work situation, which I made in passing, which drew the attention of my counsellor to his misconduct.

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I gave my two-weeks notice that Friday, selling it to him as a struggle to cope with the university workload. I could not put another woman in that situation despite his pleas for “a pretty young thing” to replace me.

In my final few days the Law Society approached me about putting in a complaint. The individual who handled this was incredibly supportive and understanding and I was told that any evidence I gave would be confidential – so I handed over what I had and gave a statement. The process was therapeutic in the sense that it validated my experience and confirmed to me that these were completely unreasonable conditions to work in. Nevertheless, to avoid initiating my career in scandal, I let the issue rest.

Sadly, my story is not ground breaking.

The people I have spoken to about it always have their two cents, and many have a ‘friend’ in a similar situation. I started the job with zealous high spirits, and left taxed and apprehensive.

Though I now know those experiences are nothing more than humorously absurd dinner party stories, I still am angry and disappointed – both at others’ and because of my own complacency.

The experience was purely a result of my gender and the archaic and toxic masculine culture in traditionally dogmatic industries such as law.

Ultimately, I stayed in that job despite the harassment because I felt pressured. I felt that in order to keep up with my peers I had to have a clerkship and fulfil this unspoken criterion of a good law student. I thought about how hard it is to get a clerkship and believed I was incredibly lucky to have a paying one. I felt like I was making positive steps to satisfying what was expected of me, but I was exposing myself to exploitation and unconscionable conduct. After I left the job I realised that I have my own journey to take and that does not depend on gaining value from a clerkship. I realised that I have so much to offer an employer and that I have a right to equal work conditions not dependent on my gender nor the arbitrary beliefs of the employer.

Surprisingly, leaving the job has been incredibly empowering. I refuse to answer the twice-a-week call from him and have received my best marks at university yet.

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The Wanderer Anna Miley A late knock sounded as the fire sputtered; I started.

‘Will you let me in? I am a traveller, I will not stay for long.’

The knock came more insistently, my dog let out a whine, unwillingly I opened up and led him to the barn.

Grim midnight ebbed in segments; dawn spilled upon the plain and filled my dog curled peacefully beside the vagabond.

Two hands made farm work light, the stranger taught my lame dog better ways to work, he would not talk about his road but asked about its limp.

I used to welcome in more men, and once this caused it harm – in shame I sometimes beat it for its errant ways.

It came habitual to walk through broken dawn, throw wide the door to find my dog a cradled crescent in the stranger’s arms.

The last quick syrup ran toward his time to part, the hound twined frantically around his legs, at once more his than mine, he said farewell and strode away – it howled – he turned and held it to his chest, then finally let it down.

It circled desperately, but could not follow him.

I realised then I loved it. We must get by without the guest, and somehow, down the dusty path, part of it runs with him, and sometimes, by the morning door my dog curls in his arms.

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Earthquake Julia Rheinberger

The train rattled toward the city. It had stopped at nearly every station on the Northern Line, and was now shivering to a halt at North Sydney. It was a morning peak-hour train, packed with passengers standing in most of the carriages. The majority of the passengers were reading the news – most used their phones, but some older passengers still read broadsheets whilst trying to keep their elbows tucked in to conserve precious space. One woman in the fourth carriage was writing in a little leather book. She had been lucky enough to get a seat after boarding at North Ryde, almost halfway down the line, and was now huddled between a squat, florid man in a suit and a spindly, Indian woman with glasses. She too, tried to keep her elbows in, making herself small as she wrote. In tiny, neat handwriting was the date, and a single dot point: • Nice chat with Jocelyn yesterday afternoon She added another: • Listening to music on my way to the station She closed the book and stowed it in her handbag, along with the pen. The passengers on either side of her had not glimpsed what she was writing because she had been covering her work with her hand, and they were occupied with their own affairs. If you had asked either of them what they thought of the wom-

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an between them, they would both have guessed that she was a university student keeping a personal journal.

They would have been correct about the journal, but the woman had graduated from university over a year prior.

be followed by difficult evenings, made hardship in the near future seem definite rather than uncertain. Laura disliked uncertainties, but she preferred the indefinite presence of hope to an inevitable and looming, but unidentifiable, threat.

Her name was Laura Yang.

Laura tapped her Opal card at the wrong angle on the first time around.

The machine made an irritable noise and showed her an angry red cross on its screen. Acutely, painfully conscious of the hold-up she was causing, she took her time tapping off again, and she was allowed through the turnstile.

The train came to a shuddering stop at Wynyard and she stepped off onto the platform when the yellow doors jolted open. The station smelt somehow worse than the crowded, disinfected train. The scent of disinfectant was present in the station as well, but so too were the smells of smog, grime and the offensive, indiscernible, gaseous odour which seems to permeate underground stations everywhere. Laura joined the crush of people as they shuffled up the stairs into the station lobby, which was under construction. The stale, smelly air was suffocating. They crowd pressed her ribs together and condensed the contents of her stomach.

She felt as if her insides had coagulated into an unwieldy little lump.

The lump let her know that today would be difficult, just like last night.

A good evening would have meant three or four dot points, but she was conscious of the fact that she had written only two. Still, she reminded herself, two was better than one, or none.

She’d had worse days.

The discomfort in her stomach, along with the fact that difficult days tended to

On a sunny day, Sydney city is a colourful place. The ocean glints like a sapphire and the metallic surfaces sparkle silver, copper and white. But today was a grey day, and every surface of the city was dull. The water was like iron and the buildings were the same colour as the streets. The rock in Laura’s stomach had made itself at home. She plugged her headphones in and turned her music on to try and shift it before she reached the office, but she ended up skipping through nearly every song on her playlist. She did find one or two songs that she could concentrate on though, and they helped to settle her slightly.

It started to rain just as she entered the high-ceilinged lobby of her building on George Street. The lobby was beautiful in a monochrome way – all steel and polished marble – but the greyish light that filtered through the large windows made it feel forbidding.

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Although Laura had been amongst skyscrapers in the street, she felt smaller after stepping inside the building, and her sense of dread heightened.

She did her best to ignore it because, while the dread was normal, the presence of a real threat or problem was not. She knew that she had nothing to fear, as the saying went, but fear itself.

The sensation of anxiety was insidious when it lacked direction – it destabilised the foundations of her thoughts, forcing open cracks in her composure and concentration.

But concentration could be the key to composure, she thought as she stood in the lift, looking at all the versions of herself that appeared in its mirrored surfaces. As she entered her office, she assured herself that once she set about her work there would be no room for fear in her mind.

Laura maintained a semblance of belief in her own assurance for about 30 minutes, until she saw Diane, her boss, approach her desk.

“Morning Laura,” said Diane casually, genially even, “do you have that report ready?”

Laura closed her eyes for a moment.

She felt her ribs tighten around her heart. She felt her temperature rise.

The weight in her stomach became sharply painful. She felt sick, as if an earthquake was ravaging her digestive system – there was a hot, urgent feeling in her bowel. Of course she had forgotten about the report entirely. Of course she had missed a deadline. It was just like her to be so caught up in her own emotions that she neglected her work and the people around her. She was a fuck up, a disappointment. She was surely about to lose her job. Fear and frustration acted on her like a fever, muddying her thoughts with emotion and physical pain.

But if she was to have a chance at maintaining her job, or even her dignity, it was crucial that Diane detect no hint of the terrible things happening in Laura’s mind and body. Her breathing was shallow and rapid, so she tried to keep it even as she forced herself to speak.

“I’m – sorry, Diane, I just completely forgot about it. There’s no excuse – I’ll

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get it to you by the end of the day.”

Diane stared at her. She looked curious and concerned. Her expression made Laura feel panicky – Diane knew that something was wrong with her; the game was up; Laura had lost her respect.

But Diane simply nodded and returned to her office. As soon as the door shut behind her, Laura rushed to the bathroom to relieve herself.

It smelt awful in the cubicle. It always did when she was stressed, but she sat on the toilet for a few minutes after she was finished. She needed a moment or two. She shed a few tears. She sat with her elbows on her knees, her forehead in her hands. It was 10.45am. She had until 5.00pm to write a marketing report – anywhere between 1000 and 15,000 words. She could work overtime, but that would cause her to miss dinner. Her mother would be annoyed and demand to know why she was late, and Laura couldn’t bear to disappoint her also. Laura’s mother didn’t respect her a lot, but if she knew about Laura’s mistake at work, Laura would slip from Mediocre to A Disappointment in her eyes in an instant. She would have to work overtime tomorrow, but at least she could warn her mother and make an excuse in advance.

That was that, then. Laura had five hours and 30 minutes. She needed to leave the bathroom. She still felt shaky and fatigued. The report seemed insurmountable, and she wanted to give up and go home to bed. But there was nothing else to be done. She left the cubicle, washed her hands and returned to her desk.

Laura wrote her heading at the top of the page. She was very aware of her stomach pain, which had not subsided, and found it difficult to concentrate on anything else. She couldn’t think of anything worth writing down, so she opened a few files that she thought would be useful, stared at the data they contained, and painstakingly transcribed the results of previous market research into her introduction. She knew that she’d have to seriously restructure her work before submitting it to Diane.

Laura’s panic had subsided; now she just felt sad and worried about everything she still needed to accomplish. She

worked slowly but persistently. She felt unproductive. She skipped lunch.

By 4.45pm she had a draft ready. She wished she could take some time for herself before she began to edit it, but she was afraid that Diane would leave the office at the end of the day. So she scrolled back to the beginning of the document and went over it again, making changes here and there, moving text around. Laura emailed the document to Diane with five minutes to spare, grabbed her things, and popped into the office to apologise again and let her know that the document was ready for her.

Diane gave the same indecipherable nod and Laura hurried towards the elevator. Once she had reached it, she frantically pressed the button to shut the door. As soon as the doors were closed she slid down the wall into a crouch.

She felt the soothing coldness of the granite floor. She wanted to be home already, to collapse onto her bed in the silence of her room, but she took advantage of the seconds of solitude – of safety – offered by the emptiness of the lift.

“Third. Floor.”

Someone was about to enter. She leapt to her feet moments before the doors slid open and a broad, middle-aged man entered. Laura stared straight ahead as if nothing had happened. She was always pretending to be normal, professional. Professionalism meant showing the people around your capabilities, your strengths, and nothing else. Today she had displayed weakness.

It was still raining when she rushed out onto the street. She only raised her umbrella after stepping into the downpour.

The water got into her socks. The walk to Wynyard seemed longer than it was.

In the morning she had been focused on everyone around her, but now she concentrated only on the passage of her feet over the damp concrete.

Laura was glad to get a seat on the train.

Today had been difficult, but she had been lucky twice: seats on the morning and afternoon peak-hour trains. Once the train had crossed the iron bridge over the iron-grey ocean, she retrieved the leather journal from her handbag and opened it to where she had left off. She made a bullet point next to the margin. She would think of something.

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Caitlin SetniÄ?ar

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A Transfeminine Experience with Toxic Masculinity Celeste Sandstrom

CW: transphobia, biphobia, homophobia

1: I learnt at six

I never quite understood the reaction I got when, in year one, I said: “I want to be a girl so I can wear dresses.” The other children around me were confused. I heard “why would you want that?” and “that’s weird.” Apparently, because I was a boy, I was not meant to want that. I never brought it up again. v This is the first experience I remember of the rigidness of masculinity. At the young age of six, I learnt that boys wanting to wear dresses was not normal. Since then, I still come across the same idea in my interactions with people: that masculinity is so rigid that dresses or ‘feminine clothing’ is not an option for guys.

2: One of the boys

It took me a long time in high school to overcome the idea that I had to be ‘one of the boys’. Throughout middle school I attempted to fit in with ‘the group’ – however, I always felt like an outsider. They were the rowdy, backchat-the-teacher type boys, full of homophobic and sexist jokes that I never felt comfortable with. I, naturally, was a quiet, sit-at-the-front type boy.

But to fit in with ‘the group’ required a rigid and toxic version of masculinity; I adopted this version of masculinity and went along with it.

I got into fights. I became quite an angry person and dealt with anger issues throughout middle school. At the same time, I felt alienated in this persona. I wasn’t someone I liked being.

It wasn’t until year 11 and 12 that I realised that I didn’t have to play this role.

I was more than happy sitting, studying and tuning out of physics class, where the other boys, at the encouragement of our teacher, constantly made sexist

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jokes. This was in no way perfect, but at least I made peace with the fact that form of masculinity didn’t suit me.

ing in places where the reasoning was questioned… that wasn’t going to happen.

3: Coming out I – Bisexual

5: Transamory – Dating as a trans person

Masculinity and queerness often intersect in ways that are far from positive. I came out as a queer male in a regional high school environment, which considerably impacted the reactions of those around me. It was far from easy to prepare to come out as queer when half of the conversations had around me on a daily basis involved turning queer people – usually queer men or trans women – into the butt of queerphobic jokes. Because apparently, taking it up the butt isn’t manly. But, I ask, what’s manlier than two men together?

Queerness was also something that just wasn’t discussed. The only friends I had at the time were non-queer (at least not out) individuals, who found the idea weird and didn’t know how to talk about it. In light of the jokes that were made at the expense of queer men, I felt like I had no one to turn to.

4: Coming out II – Transgender

I came out as transfeminine at the end of my first year at university. This announcement was met with shock and confusion, largely from my male friends. People who I had not expressly come out to questioned why I was wearing dresses and skirts as I started to present more femininely. I felt the rigidity of masculinity trying to rear its ugly head again.

Curious, that an article of clothing – a simple dress – threatens masculinity so much. I continued to notice the way that there seemed to be a general refusal by guys to push the boundaries of gender roles. For instance, for a college drag night the guys were fine wearing dresses in the comfort of the college walls where the reasons for doing so were known, but when it came to be-

While internalised transphobia plays a part in my fears about dating as a transfeminine person, I also find all too often that these fears are not unfounded. It is not uncommon for me to be ghosted for the (non-compulsory) disclosure that I am trans. And, when it is men I am communicating with, often this message comes from the view that dating or sleeping with a transfeminine person would make them gay. That is not to say that similar attitudes don’t come from women as well. (I realise this is a very binary perspective, but at the same, I’ve never received this attitude from a non-binary person.)

There are, quite evidently, problematics in this. First and foremost, the disrespect for my gender identity, as if being assigned male at birth negates the fact that I am feminine and that they were attracted to me previously. Secondly, the fact that men seem so uncomfortable with the very suggestion that they may be queer.

The first is the result of complete disrespect. And to be honest, fuck you too. Why does it matter what genitalia I have, or am perceived to have based off the declaration that I am trans?

The second stems from a brand of masculinity which treats queer men – as well as men who are effeminate in any way – as inferior. I honestly don’t know if I will ever understand what is so damning about being even perceived as queer.

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Asexual Coming Outs in a Sexual World Caitlin J It’s 2012, and I’m at a café with my friend. We’re both 16. I’m nervously sitting on my hand and I can feel it going numb. It’s been two years since I discovered the term asexuality – and I’ve spent the time since trawling through websites, blogs and videos relating to asexuality in an effort to understand my identity. This is my first time coming out. “Guess I’ll never be your maid of honor then”, my friend responds offhandedly, completely misinterpreting the explanation of asexuality I’ve just offered her. “But you’re way too young to know for sure. Maybe say that when you’re 50.” I’m left to wonder why my choices are limited to either sexual or sexually confused.

I can’t really blame my friend. Asexuality – a relatively new word for those who identify as having no sexual attraction – has been subject to mainstream online awareness for over 15 years, but is still relatively unacknowledged in the real world. The term was coined and spread in online communities by David Jay’s development of the Asexual Visibility and Education Network (asexuality.org). The umbrella of asexuality covers asexuality itself, and identities on the spectrum of sexual attraction including, but not limited to: demisexuality – when a person needs to have a bond with someone before they’ll feel sexually attracted to them; and grey-asexuality – when a person feels occasional attraction, but not enough for them to feel comfortable with a sexual identity. These identities are different from aromanticism, which is when somebody doesn’t feel romantic attraction. These terms may be commonly used online but, as I type, my computer has underlined them with red spelling-error lines; my three attempts at explaining my identity to that friend have similarly mirrored

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this unfamiliarity. Much later, that same friend I told at 16 still firmly believes I am something akin to a nun – vowed off all relationships, forever.

I’ve had various experiences coming out as asexual since then, but most people I tell have never heard of it, and this inevitably leads to some uncomfortable moments. As well as being told I’m too young to know (solely by people the same age as me) or dismissed off the bat, a couple of people haven’t tried to hide that they felt sorry for me – they patted me on the shoulder, insisting that someday I’ll meet the right person out of some imagined need to reassure me that I don’t have to live a life of self-inflicted abstinence. As well intentioned as these people are, asexuality isn’t being too young to know yourself, or about becoming a nun. It’s not being abstinent, and it’s not having no relationships. It’s just what it says on the tin, and neither sympathy or judgment will change how somebody identifies. I want to tell these people that I don’t need reassurance or doubt, I just need my asexual identity to be accepted as legitimate.

It might be society’s treatment of sexuality itself that leads to these sort of responses. It is bound up in gendered norms, and we are surrounded by conflicting messages: women are encouraged by society to simultaneously be sexual goddesses and pure angels, chaste and heartbreakers, and to consistently embody all possible interpretations of the “perfect woman”.

Men are brought up in a culture that anticipates and applauds their sexuality (and encourages hyper-sexuality).

Stepping out of that role supposedly undermines their masculinity, yet they’re also expected to be romantic and monogamous. These expectations

also have a serious impact on anyone trans or outside of the gender binary, who are often held to even stricter societal norms of gender and sexuality than cis people are. These ideas of sex and how we should feel about it are portrayed everywhere: in songs, mainstream films and magazines, and often by our friends and families as well.

Amid all of this, discussing our personal feelings and attitudes towards sex – whether positive, negative or just neutral – is uncommon in the face of significant stigma. In my experiences of coming out, it’s talking openly about sexuality that makes people the most uncomfortable – me included. It makes some shift in their seats slightly when you mention that you don’t have sexual attraction, as they wonder why you felt the need to tell them something so personal. But in a world where everyone has a gender and a sexuality projected onto them throughout their lives, the constant pressure to conform to this predetermined identity makes speaking out difficult and necessary. Lacking the language or societal context to convey and discuss your own feelings on sexuality unites LGBTIA+ identities – asexual people included. We should feel able to keep talking (when it is safe and possible) about our experiences in order to survive and to thrive.

I believe the slow spread of awareness of asexuality is facilitating a conversation. I don’t mind my experiences of coming out – I’ve introduced people to a new way of thinking about sexuality. I like to think that the next time they saw something about asexuality, or met an asexual spectrum person, they were a little more open or prepared, and that they understood more than they did before.

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“Baire jeo-na, nahole kaalo hoye jabe.”

“Don’t go outside, or else you’ll turn darker than you already are.”

Anamika Chowdhury Dear Maa, I am tired. I am tired of hearing this phrase. I am tired of women in my life carelessly throwing this around and brushing it aside as a joke.

I am angry. I am angry that I have been taught to police my body. I am angry that I have spent 20 years of my life obsessing over my skin, wishing that I was fair and lovely.

I am sad. I am sad that my beauty is defined by the colour of my skin. I am sad that I have been made to feel ashamed of something I cannot change.

But most importantly, I am proud. I am proud that I am beginning to appreciate my dark skin. I am proud that despite the rhetoric, I have found the courage to tell you: “Hai, ami baire jabo. Hai, ami kaalo hoye jabo. But I do not care. I will throw my arms out; catch those sunrays because my dark skin is not the source of my lojja (shame) but the source of my shakti (strength)!”

From a young age my idea of beauty was warped. It was normal that in a

Maggots Prisca Ochan

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country of one billion, every woman to appear in a Bollywood movie had fair skin despite the fact that a large portion of the population that existed around her did not look like her. This normalcy continued when cousins were having their marriage arranged, and family members placed advertisements asking for a “phorsha” (fair) girl to marry their sons. It was not uncommon for the most beautiful girl in our community to also be the fairest of us all. What had been painted as the benchmark had now insidiously crept into how I measured my worth.

It became all-consuming. I would find myself in the shower ferociously scrubbing my knees and elbows with sugar and lemons, hoping to ‘naturally’ bleach my dark areas. Foundation that was lighter than my skin tone was welcomed and photos that were too dark were silently pushed away. Summer, a time everyone loved, became my most-hated season because I would have to cover myself from head to toe, checking my body for tan lines.

able in my own skin. I chopped off my hair, died it blonde, chucked on some ripped jeans, donned my traditional jewellery and strutted the streets in my black leather boots. Once I placed myself outside of our community, connected with other women of colour, and began receiving compliments from people who noticed the confidence I carried myself with, I started to realise how far I had come. There are still times when I am self-conscious about my skin, but unlike before I now no longer wish to be fair.

I know when you and other women in my life make these comments you have the best intentions in mind. I try not to take it personally as I know these words are a product of growing up in a society that has idealised white skin and are not aimed at tearing me down.

Fair-skin privilege is very real and problematic, but I refuse to let it define who I am.

Just as I have grown to love the colour of my skin, I hope one day you do too.

But things began to get better. After finishing high school and moving out of home I began experimenting with my look and becoming more comfort-

Love,

Maggots are devouring my brain, I hastily brush them aside, disgusted by their presence, But the flesh-eating fiends always return and multiply, tunnelling further and further, fattening themselves on my reeking flesh, No doctor can cure my diseased mind, No doctor can pluck from my memories of rooted sorrow, and raze out the troubles that be

been etched into my brain, No medicine can cleanse my swollen bosom filled with that pernicious load which weighs upon my heart and torments my mind, Nothing can dispatch the maggots that inhabit my mind and chase away peaceful slumber, The maggots are everlasting, Not even God can save me now.

Pooja

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Emma Markovic

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Numbly Scrolling in The Age of Technology Lydia J Kim Host: And welcome to another episode of In the Age of Technology, where we invite guests to talk about the social issues revolving around modern-day technology! Today we have with us researcher and psychologist Doctor Roselle White, Professor of philosophy Christopher Munn and Masters student in anthropology Olivia Thorne.

Doctor Roselle White (RW): Thank you for having us! (*The others echo her sentiments.*) Host: Before we begin, we’ve just been notified that dozens of Syrian civilians have been killed and wounded by Russian airstrikes on a village and camp for displaced people in Al-Raqqa. Moving on, today we’re talking about desensitisation – specifically, the way we have become desensitised towards media violence on our social media feeds.

Even if you’ve simply liked a couple of news pages on Facebook or Twitter, you’d be familiar with seeing tragedy after tragedy on your newsfeeds.

These posts are undoubtedly a great opportunity to raise awareness but many would also agree that we’ve been overexposed to this sort of content to the point where all this violence seems almost normal.

What do our guests think? Does social media encourage more awareness than impassivity around the tragedies that occur in our world?

Roselle, if you could start us off in conversation.

RW: Of course – such an important issue to be talking about.

I’d say that generally we’re becoming increasingly numb towards the prompts broadcasting companies throw our way. The 24-hour news cycle shows us image after image, video after video, suggesting that the world is coming to an end. We also live in the age of technology where there’s just more news coverage in general and,

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to add to this, journalists are forced to employ graphic visuals in attempt to maintain their ever-dwindling audience. But shock-value only decreases by the post. We’ve just become a bit too used to it all. So, to answer your original question: I’d say social media makes us more impassive than aware.

Olivia Thorne (OT): Plus, I’d say that the real issue here is that we’re no longer given a chance to reflect on whatever stimuli we’ve been exposed to. It’s hard to understand the true repercussions of the violence we see without being able to spend a few moments digesting it. It’s like food.

You take a bite, you chew, you digest.

If you eat too much and too quickly not only is it difficult for you to fully taste what just went in your mouth, but you also end up throwing up – ‘rejecting’ – all the food you’ve eaten.

Host: What a good analogy. Sorry to interrupt – we’ve had reports come in of a coalition bombing on Raqqa that has killed more than 30 civilians. Anyway, please, Olivia, continue.

OT: I’m overwhelmed and demoralised when I see endless posts about terrorist attacks, war, famine … especially because I feel as though I can’t do anything about it. My brain would rather watch videos of cute puppies and, because when I’m online I always have that option, my mind automatically shuts off the moment it even catches a glimpse of videos of people shooting and killing each other … You know what I mean?

Christopher Munn (CM): Yes, I completely agree with you.

Host: Christopher, would you mind answering me this: Roselle and Olivia have both acknowledged the desensitisation we experience, but would you say that it’s necessarily a bad thing?

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CM: That’s an interesting one. I personally think that all this media violence has just helped uncover what was always there but not necessarily incite increased violence. You could look at it like this: media violence has helped us come to terms with an innate aspect of humanity: violence. There’s no use in pretending it doesn’t exist. It needs to be acknowledged.

RW: I’m not sure if I agree – CW: Have you heard of the German term weltschmerz? It refers to the pain and sadness that one experiences once they realise that the world isn’t exactly all fairies and rainbows. Empathy isn’t a remedy to all the hurt in this world.

It’s a by-product of having to comprehend all of this violence and a burden on our mental health – especially when left unresolved.

RW: I understand the value in accepting reality, but frequency should not render any type of event less important. It’s so easy for us today to dismiss another attack as ‘just another one’ when we’re inundated with all this information without considering the individual lives that have been affected.

The Wound Lucy Bei

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OT: And to address your point on empathy, professor. Empathy is crucial in inciting much-needed social change.

Take Vietnam for example. The media played a huge role in sparking the anti-war movement in the US. To be precise, media coverage made us empathise, and empathy made us believe in a cause and fight for it. If you’re looking for something more recent, just look at the Black Lives Matter – Host: Again, my apologies for interrupting, but we’ve had reports of airstrikes targeting several hospitals in Idlib, Syria. The number of dead and injured remains unconfirmed. Please, go on.

OT: There was something extreme like 29 million tweets made surrounding four cases of police brutality. We need technology to shed light on the recurring social issues that are constantly swept under the rug. This empathy is what encourages the collective action needed to get petitions and fundraisers going and incites the support that organisations like the World Health Organisation and the Red Cross need to be able to continue operating. It’s what’s enabled us to even get this far.

Host: We’re running out of time, but briefly – we’ve all come to a consensus that desensitisation is a thing. Whether we think it’s bad or not, are there any possible ways to prevent this from happening? Or is it inevitable?

CM: I guess you could restrict the number of violent posts present on a newsfeed at one time, but there are just too many inefficiencies associated. Who would decide which posts are worthier of exposure than others? How much exposure would each post get? It’s all too complicated.

RW: I know what you mean. What we can do, though, is just be more aware in general. Being aware of our media consumption, refraining from mindlessly scrolling through our feeds, taking a few minutes to reflect on the true meaning behind some of these violent posts… and considering what we can do as individuals to make a change.

Host: Alright, that’s all for today. A massive thank you to our guests, and I hope that all our listeners have enjoyed this episode of In the Age of Technology.

They say that Time-Heals-All-Wounds, But they never told me about the scar that came afterwards.

The scar that could not escape the claws of Memory, as it Heaved and weaved its way into the inner valleys of my mind, Searching for the next chasm to hide and reside in before Seeping into torrents of blood red waters.

Fleeting, it drags from one abyss to another, Like a never-ending game of hide and seek.

Can shatter, and pierce, even the surest of designs.

Steel on the outside, fragile on the inside, All concealed within a polished encasement.

Wound up and again, just to run down once more.

The inner mind is like the intricacies of clockwork.

Interdependent are the wheels of time that turn and churn.

In whole, a magnificent design, yet The absence of a wheel, the presence of a wound,

Timeless, is the torture, of a wound.

A fractured machine, just a hollow shell, Just shattered shards of gears gone cold, Just ghostly valleys and polluted streams, Broken pieces, and infected dreams.

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Mansplaining: Sexism in Miniature Al Azmi

“Mansplaining” is one of those topics that will be responded to very differently depending on whose company you are in.

When you’re around women, femmes* and people who are af-

fected by sexism and misogyny, the discussion becomes a thing of solidarity and mutual understanding. A chat about mansplaining can very easily become an outlet for venting, sharing experiences and offering tips to overcome it, as well as considering the consequences of sexism in general.

Talking about mansplaining in a privileged, macho environment of ‘egalitarian’ bros – who are totally not sexist, yo, cause you know that everyone gets things explained to them by less-qualified people so why you gotta bring gender into it?

– on the other hand, just makes you want to bang y o u r head

against the wall.

But let’s back up a second and look at where I’m

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coming from in approaching this topic. I am a non-binary person (come talk to me about gender sometime, it’s fun and will inevitably involve flailing hands); I was assigned female at birth (AFAB) but primarily present as what people perceive as masculine. However, the way I’m read and what gender I’m assumed to be is very much tied to the context of the situation. When I’m with women friends and we are greeted, the “Hello, ladies” being inclusive of me is both unsurprising and tiring; when I’m alone, the chances of me being read as a man are much higher.

Both situations are unsettling, as I don’t particularly want to be perceived as one or the other.

Unfortunately, living in a decidedly binary world where masculine is the “default” – hey, if I’m not interested in being seen as a woman, that must mean that I’m a man, right? – means people often make assumptions a n y w a y.

Intere s t in g ly though, as someone who is located in the undefined, amorphous, outer-regions of gender, I have a unique perspective on mansplaining because of the very different experiences I have had with it while presenting as either feminine or masculine.

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My femme presentation tends to be indelibly linked to my culture and religion, because for a long time the only ‘marker’ for me being treated as a woman was my hijab.

Otherwise, my fashion sense – or lack thereof, to be perfectly honest – has stayed the same, which is why the sexism I encounter is both gender-related and intrinsically racialised. That is why the huge contrast in the way I have experienced mansplaining when doing gender differently is so disconcerting. At the end of the day, I think of myself as me. Yet, now I have a concrete lived-experience which proves that such a simple thing as the way I choose to dress and present myself on a day-today basis changes so much about how people relate to me and, in turn, how I relate to them.

It would take months to list every example of mansplaining I have ever experienced! One particular example, however, has been rattling around in my brain for quite a while. About a year ago, a male student tried to explain the basic foundations of gender studies to me, when it is quite literally the subject I have been immersed in for three years, and was also drawing on my own personal experience with. That, in and of itself, is not too surprising, and I am sure thousands of women and femmes are experiencing the exact same thing at this very second. The thing that struck me the most, however, was that he, by his own admission, knew nothing about the subject – except for some articles he had read, “biology and [his] own common sense”.

I was flabbergasted, of course, but I also remember thinking man, I wish I had his confidence, especially on a topic even he professed to have no knowledge of.

This brings me to the recently-popularised adage: “Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man?” It is not only a witty and succinct way of expressing everyday frustrations at the compounding effect of sexist micro-aggressions, but is practical advice as well. People perceived as women are socialised to defer to others

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– hence the tendency for me and many women and femmes that I know to hedge our assertions with statements like “I believe” and “if I recall correctly”. Meanwhile, the people who mansplain are used to being treated as the authority on a subject – even ones where they are demonstrably not – and going unchallenged. This is what leads to the frequent demands for “debate” and “rational discourse”, especially in online forums. But to demand such is to command unpaid, unacknowledged emotional labour from people who are already expected to educate others and rationalise themselves just by existing in the world. Not only that, but it is also an opportunity that many capitalise on to dismiss another person’s argument by painting them as emotional** and “easily offended”, when men have been trained to view their own emotional responses as ‘logic’. Case in point: how many men have written ginormous tirades online ranting about “special snowflakes” and “political correctness”, but have still had the gall to claim to be the pinnacle of stoicism and rational thought?

My experience of regularly being mansplained to and talked over feeds directly into the way I form and express my opinions today.

The way I have learnt to speak up has always been connected to the way I often find myself to be the only dissenting voice in the room, whether that is because of my brownness, my queerness, or my not-being-a-man-ness. That is why it is so disquieting to realise how easy it is for me be on the other side of the issue. As soon as I started to be perceived as more masculine, I realised how differently I was being treated in everyday situations, such as classroom discussions. I am less likely to be interrupted or talked over and my opinions seem to be given more weight, even when they are exactly the same as they have ever been. Some of that is probably an effect of me gaining more confidence with the lessening of my dysphoria, but a lot of it is undoubtedly tied to the power dynamics that my current relatively-masculine presentation affords me. Being conscious of this makes

it easier for me to identify these instances as they happen, and makes me careful to try to avoid actions that will perpetuate the cycle, by inadvertently mansplaining to or talking over other people.

The most insidious thing about having privilege is how ingrained it is and how normal it can feel when you are not the one affected by its absence. It takes real effort to identify its daily occurrences and unlearn our knee-jerk responses when someone points it out. If I had not experienced mansplaining for the first two decades of my life, I don’t think that I would have been able to comprehend how pervasive it is. Mansplaining, on the whole, acts as a microcosm of a far larger problem within a society that centres on the experiences and practices of men, to the detriment of everyone else. If you are a man or experience masculine privilege, please do be mindful of the way you interact with and respond to others, especially when trying to explain things to them. However well-intentioned you are, power dynamics underlie every interaction you have, and being aware of this can save you from frequent missteps.

And to everyone else, I wish upon you the confidence of a mediocre white man. *I am very aware that the concept of feminine and masculine are complex and fraught, especially as to how they translate within cultures, but as I do have a finite amount of words and this is not a gender studies class, I will use the terms femme and masc to signify the socially-accepted classifications regarding gender presentations. **There is nothing wrong with being emotional while talking about a subject. When it is your life and your rights being debated, you don’t owe it to anyone to be stoic and unaffected. Utilising the term “rationality” is often a way to tone police marginalised people who are speaking their minds.

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X’s and O’s Anonymous

CW: discusses enthusiastic consent, orgasms and power struggles in relationships I have never had an orgasm.

This is not – believe me – for lack of trying.

People have different theories on why this is so: my psychologist believes it is childhood trauma, my friends tell me I’m too in my head, and my GP tells me it is likely due to my dyspraxia. It does not really bother me; you can’t miss what you never had. The problem arises when I try to explain it to my sexual partners.

Theoretically, it seems like it should be an easy enough conversation. However, each time I have broached the issue in the past, there has been a perverted joy awakened in my partner. “You’ve never had an orgasm?” they exclaim; already I can see their minds racing to the challenge ahead. They are prepar-

ing to ‘save’ me from my previous sexual innocence. They see my condition as a test of their masculinity. Egos surge as they tell themselves that they will be my first. Forget that even I, with my intimate knowledge and patience with my body, have not managed to achieve the task. They, obviously, know me better. One of my partners even got angry at me after a while, accusing me of withholding my orgasm on purpose to “prove a point”.

So I learned to fake it.

It was easier, quicker, and certainly didn’t rob me of my enjoyment.

The problem with faking it, however, comes up much later in the relationship; the toll of constantly faking it can be exhausting.

With all this (valuable) discourse around ‘enthusiastic consent’ in our generation, certain discussions are inevitable. The questions from generous lovers are tricky …

“What are your fantasies?”

“What would you like?”

“Did you enjoy that?”

I gingerly whispered to him, “Do you want me?”

He laughed, and looked away. He told me to stop asking stupid questions And continued to stare blankly at the walls as tiny ghosts escaped the confines of his mouth His words cut me, and his eyes held what I perceived to be spite, or annoyance, or exasperation, or even humour, but whenever I was with him, I felt like I was being appraised by an intelligence superior to my own Oh, and how I loved to be with him! How I loved him!

I was in thrall to him I would do anything for him And so, I let him let his fantasies unwind On me Inside me On me Inside me

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In a world full of selfish males, encouraging selflessness in the bedroom is important. So how can you tell a perfectly nice boy that there is no need to focus on pleasuring you? That he should focus on himself? That your pleasure is derived from proximity, and his desire to bring you to orgasm – while appreciated – is pointless?

Not to mention the fact that, after months of regularly faking orgasms, it is slightly bizarre when you first mention you are aorgasmic. But when is the appropriate time to bring it up? The first time you have sex, when the hormones make most serious conversations impossible? The third time? The 12th?

I don’t have any answers.

On the one hand, it is a very good problem to have: that your partners’ desire for your pleasure is more than you can satisfy. Still, I cannot help but think that it is partly ego-driven, that these men do not desire my orgasm so much as they wish to be its cause.

At least the channels of communication around sex are now open, allowing this topic to be verbalised, even if only anonymously.

Ingénue Prisca Ochan

Again, and again, and again We explored together Built a tabernacle for the fucked up A shrine for the crazed He taught me how the deranged make love How there doesn’t even have to be love, to make love He taught me how to experience a pleasure so intense it rushes up and down your spine, and vibrates inside your brain I thought that we had reached the final tier of whatever the fuck this was But he didn’t appreciate how much it took for my lips to meet his He didn’t understand how much I cared Or how much it hurt me And he knew nothing of my face But how low my head could bend

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Bi The Way ...

Recent research confirms Kinsey’s continuum argument regarding flexible sexuality, as well as finding that such an argument is more applicable to women than men. Female bisexuality also appears to often be discounted as a “phase”, despite 92 per cent of bisexual adolescent women continuing to identify as bisexual. Three Bossy contributors offer their diverse and deeply personal experiences as bisexual women.

Alex Williams Where I’m from, we don’t talk about sexuality much. The subject is usually reserved for the odd church sermon, or hushed whispers about the neighbour’s son over hefty slices of Victoria sponge.

Even before we came to terms with our sexuality, young (queer) people in my community knew to keep themselves closeted until we inevitably left in search of bigger and brighter futures.

Until the age of sixteen or so, I had never considered being anything other than straight. When I look back now, it seems so obvious. There were signs.

Heaps of them, in fact. But back then, the idea of finding girls attractive wasn’t just confronting, it was also dangerous.

I’d seen lives ruined by a single rumour.

I’d seen firsthand how silent, judgemental stares could prove crueller than a physical blow ever could. I’d seen how badly the mere act of existing had taken its toll upon LGBTQIA youth.

Even now, as I practice the speech that I will inevitably present to my parents when I come out to them, I still brush over the fact that I like girls. I tell myself that it’s better this way. That since I lie somewhere on the bisexuality spectrum, I could pass for straight if I wanted to. I could have the loving husband, the 2 - 3 children and a house in the suburbs.

I tell myself that things will be okay so long as I manipulate my sexuality to suit everyone else.

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So long as I hide my relationships, avoid dangerous conversations and keep my head down, maybe I’ll make it out unscathed.

Where I’m from, we don’t talk about sexuality much. But fuck me, I wish we did.

Issy Ingram On Sunday 10 September, I chose to post a photo on Instagram with the caption: “What if one day I chose to marry the love of my life, and they were a woman? Please consider voting yes Australia, enough is enough, just let love be.” Followed by a series of love heart, rainbow and sparkle emojis, of course. The following morning I received messages from a close Christian friend of mine, who said: “I just hope you can really go back to the word of God.” Initially, I was appreciative for their concern, but then they said: “The love that you support isn’t the right love that God portrays, stop making excuses.” I was hurt by the accusation that I was a less-than-faithful servant of God because of my stance on marriage equality. Moreover, I couldn’t help but wonder if my friend knew of the personal reason behind my stance on marriage equality? Did they know I am bisexual?

My experience of coming out this year – even though it has been a slowly journey – has been intensely healing. I was only 14 when I realised my attraction to other women. I was a student at an Anglican high school, and an active member in my Anglican church.

I never felt that coming out was an option. Now, at university, I have built the confidence to finally see myself as God has known me all along: I am bisexual, capable of loving both men and women, and I am also a faithful servant of God. In Ephesians 2:10 (NIV) it says: “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” I am and all I do is God’s handiwork.

Polly Sayers My first bisexual experience was a textbook example of a teenager exploring their sexuality: at a party, tipsy, and quickly losing inhibitions and dignity. However, unlike others, these intimate moments were not my own.

My feelings were soon drowned out by onlookers murmuring “that’s hot”, “I’ll save that for later”, and “let me get a photo.” I felt like I had no control over the situation. My sexuality had been reduced to a spectacle for others to gawk at, and possibly even masturbate to later.

Admittedly, I have been guilty of dismissing my own feelings as attention-seeking behaviour that merely caters to the male gaze. Having only been in heterosexual relationships, it initially felt wrong to label myself as something without having experienced it fully. Further, ‘passing’ as a heterosexual woman affords me many privileges that other LGBTQI+ people do not have, which also heightened my reluctance to involve myself in the community.

Thankfully, I have come to understand that I am the only person who can truly dictate my sexuality. I no longer regard my experiences as eye-candy for drunken partygoers, but instead, as an exploration of my feelings. The path to self-acceptance is not an easy one; the transition from girlhood to womanhood is a tumultuous period of exploration and guilt, of liberation and shame, and of curiosity and sexualisation. Since emerging out the other side, however, I have decided to have a voice in my own narrative. Being complicit in the silencing of women, particularly bisexual women, simply helps to breed stereotypes and perpetuate fetishisation.

I have realised that the most powerful thing I can do is reclaim my feelings, and to proudly take ownership of a label I identify with.

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Love Is Not ‘The Cure’ Shae Maree Nicholson

It’s time to talk about Lady Gaga’s song ‘The Cure’. Despite being ridiculously catchy, and the ultimate shower anthem, it is also part of a larger issue. It perpetuates the misconception that loving, and being loved, makes everything better. This is not an uncommon ideal – it draws on the classic prince coming to save the damsel in distress, and kissing all of her problems away. It sounds nice, but it’s far less realistic than the world makes it seem.

For those of you not familiar with the song, here is the main chorus: “If I can’t find the cure, I’ll I’ll fix you with my love No matter what you know, I’ll I’ll fix you with my love And if you say you’re okay I’m gonna heal you anyway Promise I’ll always be there Promise I’ll be the cure.”

The lyrics cement the ‘love fixes all’ ideal. Lady Gaga herself has recently become a poster girl for mental health awareness – she has been quite open with her experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder, and recently has begun to open up about her experiences with chronic pain. Her involvement with the Disability community makes this song, and its meaning, just that much harder to hear. It feels almost like a betrayal. I’m here to tell you the truth: love is not ‘the cure’, and thinking that it is can be damaging.

No one would question me if I said: “Loving someone cannot cure their cancer”. The same agreement would not follow if I instead said: “Loving someone cannot cure their depression.” Many of us believe that if you love someone enough, they will get better or, alternatively, that if someone loved you then you would, or should,

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feel better. If that doesn’t happen both parties can be left feeling guilty, which for those with mental illness can, in fact, exasperate their condition.

The fact that love doesn’t cure all might not be initially obvious, and this in itself can be devastating. The beginning of relationships can elicit responses that make it seem as though the person with a mental illness is recovering, but as the honeymoon phase dies down, the symptoms of the illness may return.

The feelings of excitement and joy from a relationship in its early stages can make even the person with the illness feel like they are ‘better’, because, on many levels, their symptoms lessen.

When that changes with time though, it tends to cause the individuals involved to question the relationship and its validity.

Those in the relationship may begin to feel that they haven’t tried hard enough and that’s why the other doesn’t love them, because if they did, then they would be happy. Further, for the individual/s with mental illness, they could begin to feel guilty for not being happy enough, and they may even interpret their lack of happiness as a lack of satisfaction in the relationship or a lack of love for the other/s involved.

To relate this back to personal experiences, I have borderline personality disorder, depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder, as well as chronic pain and a few other issues.

I, like many people, grew up thinking that if someone loved me and I could equally love them, then I would be happy. I thought that being loved should and would make me happy.

In a lot of ways, being in my last relationship did make me happy, but it didn’t cure my depression – I was still

mentally ill, but more than that, I felt guilty. I felt bad that I couldn’t be happy enough, even though I had everything I was supposed to have, and the same could have been said for my partner.

I worked hard to try and prove myself because I felt that if I could show them just how much I loved them, then we both could be happy. Proving myself came in many forms, one of them was by taking on more than I could reasonably handle to prove that I loved my partner. I couldn’t understand why we weren’t happy, why being in love didn’t make things better. We eventually separated, and nearly two years later I’m way healthier. Because, long story short, I wasn’t in the position to start improving because I just expected I should improve.

That’s why Lady Gaga’s song hit home for me; I felt betrayed because she’s become a bit of a hero for me recently, as we share some similar diagnoses. I can understand that the song comes from a place of well-meaning and love, but I worry that it will perpetuate this idea of love being ‘The Cure’. It not only places pressure on those with mental illness to recover, but on those who love them to be the cause of that recovery. It’s not fair, and it’s also just not realistic.

If Lady Gaga could just release a song on all the number of ways you can care and support your partner during ill-health that would be great, but since I doubt that would be catchy, I’m going to finish up with a few tips for those who may have partners who suffer with mental illness: Don’t take it personally. If your partner has mental health issues, it’s important to acknowledge what is and isn’t within your control. Their depressive episode is not your fault, but how you respond to it is. It’s also important to remember

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that your partner (or friend) may not be in the position to show you that they care for you when things aren’t going well for them, but do try to offer support where you can.

Look after yourself. Being in a caring role can be very difficult and it’s important to make sure your needs are being met. Consider talking to a counsellor when you feel like you may need it.

Let your partner know you’re there for them – it can be as little as just asking them about their day and showing that you’re willing to listen.

Encourage them to seek help – it’s hard to speak to a counsellor/GP/Psychologist. Your partner may want help, and be willing to receive help, but not have the energy to seek it. Having someone encourage you to make appointments and take you to them can be a major help, so I definitely encourage partners to check in with their loved one, encourage them to seek help, and ask them how best you can help them get it.

Check in. When things are improving it’s easy to just let things go as normal, but it’s important to ask how they’re doing, even if everything seems okay.

Keeping this line of communication open is so important.

Do little things. Leave short notes around, telling your partner to have a good day; send those “Goodnight” texts; buy them the occasional doughnut; and ask some practical questions, the classic “have you had lunch today?” can be super helpful. No, love can’t cure mental illness, but showing someone that you care can improve their day.

If they (or you) need more practical support, seek it where you can, below are some handy resources to tap in to: ANU Counselling: 6125 2442 Kids helpline: 1800 55 1800 Beyond blue: 1300 22 4635 www.beyondblue.org.au eHeadspace www.eheadspace.org.au Lifeline: 13 11 14

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Untitled Artwork Mahalia Crawshaw

If I was a painting I would be a white canvas Stretched Too, too tight across a too small frame I would be a twirling mess of colour Of bright and light and Everything I would be sharp lines But soft focus My brush strokes would be intense Passionate Full of heart But uncertain And some people would linger Stare Too deep Into my emptiness While others would pass me by “She was trying too hard”

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97. Between a Rock and a Feminist Space – Gene Pinter 98. My Friend the PhD Grad and Trans Escort – Sophie Pezzutto 100. 13 DIY Fashion Staples for the Radical Feminist – Functional and Fabulous! – Rosalind Moran 101. God: The Fiercest Feminist of All – Janine Wan 102. Misinterpreted – Chanel Irvine 110. The Modern Day Witch – Laura Burfitt 111. Her. – Marni Mount 112. “Butch Informal Adjective” – Jess Townrow 113. A Letter to My Period – Melissa Bottega 114. Student Guide to Self-Care – Sasha Murray 115. Featured: Katie Chauvel 116. A Busy Bee’s Guide to Friend-Keeping – Sumithri Venketasubramanian 118. A View to a Skill – Elle Rose, Marnie van Loon, Chanel Irvine, Alex Costello and Zoe Halstead 122. Modern Chivalry: From Sleeping Beauty to Woke Beauty – Elizabeth Harris 123. AMMA – Kasthury Paramiswaran 124. A Drink With Moaning Lisa – Jayne Hoschke, Steph David and Tay Vakeeswaran 126. Becoming Abreast of the Female Chest Issue – Anonymous 127. Featured: Gabriel Wren Filpi 128. Finding Feminism – Dulanjee Chaika Seneviratne

IV

Bloom Enriched by a recognition and respect of intersections within identities. Empowered by the empowering. Reassured because we still here, still standing, still fighting.

“I raise up myv voice – not so I can shout, but so that those without a voice can be heard. We cannot succeed when half of us are held back.”

Malala Yousafzai bossy2017mag.indd 96

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Between a Rock and a Feminist Space Gene Pinter

Way back in 1837, a French socialist called Charles Fourier coined a little term called ‘feminism’ to describe the radical idea that women should have rights. “The extension of women’s rights is a basic principle of all social progress”, he said, being a pretty upstart guy for the 19th century. Nowadays that kettle of fish is as commonly accepted as heliocentrism (although you will find people who disagree, mainly on Twitter) – and it’s because of its popularity that fissures have appeared. The fact is that Fourier was describing a very specific plight, and with the advent of the digital age we know the struggle he saw isn’t universal. It’s a bit broader than that. So what happens to feminism – an ideology that, at its core, concerns women – when you’re not even talking about women?

I should clarify that I’m not removing women from feminism altogether, because then it would cease meaning anything. What I am asking more precisely is: if you’re not a woman, but do identify with the unique pressures and struggles that women fact, where do you fit in feminism?

Good question. Tough answer.

I’m non-binary, which means I don’t identify as male or female. Before I was born my parents wanted to find out my sex, but at the exact moment the obstetrician waved the ultrasound wand in my direction I crossed my legs in the womb and turned away from the monitor. I like to think this was my first “screw you” to the inherent gendering of society. Of course, it didn’t quite work out the way my foetus-self wanted: I was born, I was

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called a girl, and so it goes. To skip a short and highly-convoluted life story, I realised I was non-binary at 15 and actively began going by they/ them pronouns and my current name at 16. It was at this point that I ran into a rather prominent and glaring issue among many, many others – and it involved my favourite shirt …

“I hope you like feminist rants”, it proclaims in bold lettering across my chest, “because that’s kind of my thing”.

Was it true? Hell yeah, I love a good feminist rant. Did it raise a whole lot of questions about how I now fitted into the feminist paradigm with an identity that, strictly speaking, isn’t at its focus?

Oh boy, did it.

I relate to the experiences of some women because other people perceive me as a woman, which is to say that they see my physical features and a tiny Venus symbol pops into their heads. Because of this, I am at risk of things women are often recipients of: misogyny, assault, and targeted discrimination. This is too big a part of my life to ignore; feminism is the only way to combat it. I don’t plan on having gender reassignment surgery or taking hormone treatments, so for the rest of my life I’ll be read as a woman. The thing is, if I corrected every person who called me a woman or used the wrong pronouns when referring to me, I wouldn’t have the time or energy to actually exist as the person I would be explaining to them I was. To some, this sounds like defeat; to me, it’s integrity.

Accordingly, this is how I frame myself when I approach any space that describes itself as feminist.

tIn these spaces I’m aware that when someone talks about “women’s problems”, they’re simultaneously talking and not talking about me. I’m floating in a liminal space: too trans to identify completely with women, but too woman-aligned to seek support anywhere else. That’s not to say feminist groups are without inclusivity; ANU has surprised me with its efforts to make women’s spaces less cisnormative in recent years. Every autonomous event Facebook notifies me of comes with the caveat that it’s for women* – emphasis on the asterix – meaning for anyone who falls under the umbrella of women-related concerns. This kind of thoughtfulness is still in its infancy, of course, and I’ve found that whenever I do enter feminist spaces on campus I’m one of the very few gender diverse, non-cisgender people there. What’s truly revealing, however, is the fact that people don’t blink when I include my pronouns with my name when introducing myself. Slowly but surely details like these are being picked up on, dusted off and considered with as much gravitas as the myriad of other struggles feminists confront – and that’s what makes all the difference.

Before university, I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to combine my non-binary and feminist identities.

Three years later and I know it’s not a matter of forcing these two aspects together, but of letting them co-exist as a yet-understood paradox. Good old Walt Whitman put it best: “I contradict myself; I am large; I contain multitudes.”

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My Friend the PhD Grad and Trans Escort Sophie Pezzutto

My research with transgender sex workers recently took an unexpected turn when a trans friend of mine and fellow PhD researcher rang me up out of the blue and said: “Hey do you want to join me in Sydney? I will be spending a week there escorting.”

I was very hesitant.

As an upper-middle class child with two doctors as parents, I had always thought of sex workers as exploited, often addicted to drugs, and facing violence on a regular basis. Sex work was something one resorted to with no other options left, not something one freely chose to do – especially as a PhD grad.

I was also hesitant as a feminist.

Money symbolises and facilitates the many problematic power relations in our society, and the fact that it was almost always women being paid by men to fulfil their sexual fantasies struck me as inherently problematic.

Indeed, feminism has a long history of opposition to sex work and the structural inequalities that it makes manifest.

Lastly, I found it profoundly concerning that one of my closest friends would become yet another manifestation of the very phenomenon I was researching:

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a transgender woman, sought by cisgender, mostly heterosexual men as a specific object of desire – some would say fetish – which centered around the fact that she had a penis.

My research confirmed what my friend had heard from other trans escorts: there is a huge sexual demand for transgender women. Indeed, trans pornography is one of the most soughtafter types of porn on the internet; on youporn.com you will find almost as many videos in the ‘trans porn’ category as in ‘lesbian’. Yet, trans people continue to be one of the most marginalised groups in society – they are nearly 11 times more likely to commit suicide in Australia than a member of the general population (35 per cent versus 3.2 per cent to be exact). What’s more, in the last decade, more than one trans or genderqueer person per month has been murdered in the United States alone for their gender expression.

Not surprisingly, I tried to talk my friend out of it, but to no avail. Like many postgraduate students, her graduate scholarship had run out way before she was able to finish her PhD and she needed to find a job to make ends meet. Like many trans people, she also needed money in order to pay for her SRS (sex reassignment surgery), which

can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000. There was a lot of money to be made from trans escorting, so she made the informed decision to undertake sex work for a few months in order to pay her bills.

And this is how, a few days later, I found myself in a somewhat mediocre hotel room in Sydney’s Kings Cross reading my gender theory books while my friend was busy on her phone arranging appointments. I sat in on the many phone conversations she had on loudspeaker with potential customers and would listen to their various inquiries – could she kindly wear glasses, no perfume, and high heels; what shape and size was her penis; and did she have time between a client’s two business meetings in the morning?

What I learnt from these conversations was that there was no one customer.

Yes, they all sought her out because she was transgender, and yes, they were all men, but that was where the similarities ended. Some only wanted blow jobs, some wanted to penetrate her and displayed zero interest in her genitalia, and some displayed great interest in her genitalia and wanted to give her a blow job or for her to penetrate them. Some wanted to bring their wives or partners along, others wanted to cross-dress, and some only wanted to give her a massage.

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“Hi honey, come over already, I’m waiting for you … Nawww thanks darling I can’t wait to see you too …”, she said in a barbie-like voice, which I had never known she was capable of. My friend would often roll her eyes or point the middle finger at the phone whilst saying the sweetest things to customers when convincing them to come over. She also regularly rejected guys, because they would ask for sexual practices she did not do, or because they were creepy, or simply cheapskates. A lot of escorts are in this Whatsapp group where they share numbers and photos of dodgy customers, working together to make sure certain people are avoided. As soon as she hung up, she would look over to me and I would peek over the edge of my book – then our eyes would cross and we would laugh out loud in unison at how outrageous some of interactions were.

It was here for the first time that I began to think about her as empowered in a way that is not often reflected in narratives. It almost seems as if we have been limited to the male narrative, where the agency of the woman goes untold and is unseen because we are not in the room with the sex worker, but rather, on the other end of the phone call where it sounds like a cute barbie begging her customer to come over and grace her with his presence and dick.

Whenever she had a customer ring through the intercom I would take my book and wait in the lobby. As I walked down the stairs I would walk past the customer on his way up; I found my image of the typical customer – just like my image of the typical – was wildly inaccurate. sex worker ­ When they tell you about ‘Johns’, you always picture some sort of violent and muscular mob boss covered in tattoos.

What they don’t tell you is that most of the guys that seek escorts at 10pm on weeknights actually look much more like your uncle John away from home on a conference.

“Weekends, school holidays and public holidays are bad for business because they have to spend time with the family.

Tuesdays are bad too, because they got over the Monday blues … Straight after work, as well as late evenings during the week are the best …”, my friend told me.

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On their way out, most of her customers didn’t even look up as they hushed through the hotel lobby and out onto the streets. It reminded me of the seemingly tough trouble-making boys in high school as they stepped out of the headmaster’s office, full of shame after receiving their detentions.

I would frequently wait no more than 15 minutes downstairs, even though customers usually paid by the hour, because they almost always orgasmed in less than 10 minutes. There sure was a lot of sexual frustration bottled up in this city, waiting for a quick release.

Those few that stayed for the full hour usually just spent the remaining 45 minutes talking to my friend about their worries, which usually revolved around marriage and work. She would easily make between $1,000 - $2,000 a day – in cash of course.

stand on my feet all day, and be yelled at non-stop for less than minimum wage, but instead, I am making the conscious, rational, economic decision to do sex work.”

It made me stop and think – I used to work as an accountant, participating in the nine-to-five rat race for $29 per hour, and here was my friend who made more in an hour than what I used to make in a day.

Anthropology teaches us to pay attention to the lived experiences of those whom we write about. When it comes to sex work, many feminist theoreticians have unfortunately neglected the individual stories of sex workers, whose lived experiences did not fit their argument and grand narrative. Many jobs come with risks – whether you work on an oil rig or as a paramedic – and sex work is no different in this respect. Nobody is going to sugar-coat that. However, while we must act to prevent and address exploitation and abuse with sensible and de-stigmatising policy, we also need to acknowledge that a great deal of sex workers – especially in a rich country like Australia – are like you and I. Sex work often involves your uncle John and your suburban housewife Morgana.

Suddenly I felt like I was the exploited one.

I began to regard the work my friend did as more and more empowering. While I had endured years of being bossed around and spoken down to by sexually frustrated, middle-aged, cisgender men in cramped offices, she would easily extract $300 from the very same guys by whispering into their ears whatever they wanted to hear and making them orgasm in less than 10 minutes. She decided when she wanted to work, how much she wanted to work, what she wanted to charge, and which sexual acts she was willing to perform.

Apparently, she even enjoyed sex with some particularly hot customers. And then there was me, who had whispered into my bosses’ ears whatever they wanted to hear for almost half a decade and got $29 an hour for it.

I seek to tell sex workers’ stories as part of a long feminist tradition of retelling women’s individual stories and acknowledging their views and feelings as legitimate experiences on their own.

After getting a glimpse at my friend’s lived experience, I not only understand her choice now, but I also deeply respect it. I respect her boldness to say: “Yes, I know I could work in hospitality,

I respect it, because unlike myself, my friend does not have the privilege of her parents as a financial safety net once the graduate scholarship runs out. Trans people in particular are all too often left without any family support, having to deal with a variety of intersectional disadvantages – from no Medicare funding for hormone therapy and crucial surgeries, to not being able to find a partner willing to look at our bodies. I respect my friend in particular, because as a trans sex worker she is making money with the one thing that holds trans people back in so many other situations: our bodies.

Having spent time with my friend I can only reiterate and support what many intersectional, contemporary, sexpositive feminists have already pointed out about sex work: being against sex work is profoundly anti-feminist. After all, feminism is about enabling women to take full control of our own bodies and to use them in whichever way we desire. Victimising a diverse group of people shows us more about our own prejudices and privileges than it does about lived experiences. As for my friend, she is now back to working on her thesis, without the constant financial woes and with enough money to pay for her SRS.

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13 DIY Fashion Staples for the Radical Feminist – Functional and Fabulous!

Rosalind Moran

Collage by Bronte McHenry 1. Thermal underwear You never know when or where you may suddenly need to leave your third marriage – so pull on your thermals and take him to a place colder than your heart to share the news! Indeed, as the devout among us know, “[…] she who maketh it home alone, inheriteth the mansion” (Lorde 6:66).

2. A cute purse Ha – not really. You know what possesses identical storage capacity to a purse, and cannot be ripped from your shoulder? Real pockets, that’s what.

3. Pockets On the subject of pockets … lean in ladies, and dream big. We’re not talking jeans with pockets.

Not even a skirt with pockets. What you need is a garment for your lower body made entirely of deep, ambitious, empowering pockets, both filled and fulfilled, just so you can stick it to the man, or alternatively have plenty of places to put your rocks when you decide to drown yourself and die a martyr in the fight against the patriarchy.

Don’t let anyone say you can’t have it all.

4. A Venus Fly Trap garter This one’s tricky but well worth the effort. Step one: Retrieve a garter from your latest culturallysignificant faux wedding. Step two: Attach Venus Fly Traps to it. Make sure the heads are facing outwards. Step three: Wear it under a skirt, around your mid-thigh. Next time you’re groped you won’t be the only person in deep discomfort.

5. The perfect manicure To be honest, the only perfect cure for my mani would be claws like Wolverine’s; until real world technology catches up, however, we shall just have to make do with false nails. But they will be steel tipped, and their raking capacity will be high.

6. A wig made of dead snakes – strong vintage aesthetic You know what a gorgon really is? The first record of a radical feminist, darling. The original gorgon was simply a young woman who learnt of her man chatting up a cute lyrist in a Crete bathhouse and had exactly zero patience for his midsummer shenanigans. Unlike him, she didn’t frolic around and was consequently quick to put an end to his activities – and to him. History has defamed her and her true name is lost to us; however, owing

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to her common speech interjection of “men do suck!” she eventually acquired the moniker ‘Medusa’, which survives to this day.

7. A hat Black and pointy is traditional, and therefore a classic. Make sure the tip is nice and sharp: it is specifically designed for gouging out the eyes of catcallers and perverts. Wear it in a rakish, forward-facing fashion for a better trajectory into the faces of your enemies. Channel your inner unicorn.

8. A ball and chain Contrary to popular belief, radical feminists do have a sense of humour. Take the ball and chain: many of us happily accessorise with an object MRAs claim represents a woman in a heterosexual relationship, because we wear it ironically. We’re even putting the iron in irony – get it? I said, DO YOU GET IT? Don’t make me fetch my flail.

9. A long red scarf Fabulously swishy and long enough to gag an entire philosophy tutorial of mansplainers. Dip it in the remains of your enemies for an authentic blood red.

10. A moustache (fake or otherwise) Challenge gender stereotypes and traditional definitions of beauty by cultivating life on your upper lip. A bonus is that the macho male is a delicate creature with an outdated understanding of gender, and is deathly afraid of displaying anything interpretable as homosexual attraction.

He is, therefore, likely to avoid any lady with a stache – particularly if it’s bigger than his own.

This makes a lip fringe one of this season’s hottest trends. So work it. Grow free.

11. The quintessential fashion staple You want a fashion staple? Easy. Any staple punched through the pale tree flesh of a feminist manifesto warm from the printer’s womb, is a fashion staple. You are welcome.

12. A small and easily transportable feline Did you know fur allergies are becoming increasingly common? Lady Fate smiles once more. Next time anyone comments on your pussy, throw a cat at them.

13. A leather coat Find a man – bigots are best for size. Flay him.

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God: The Fiercest Feminist of All Janine Wan

I grew up in a Christian family and went to Christian schools for most of life.

Both of my parents teach Bible study.

Every Sunday, I’d be woken up early to go to church, sing Christian songs and hear the word of God spoken from the mouths of pastors who supposedly knew more or better than we did.

I hated it.

While growing up I was unable to reconcile the beliefs I had inside with what was preached to me. Nobody could explain to me that creation, as depicted in the Bible, was not the scientific explanation and that they were not incongruent. Women did not have access to leadership positions within the church I went to, and in my head this translated to them – us – being treated as second-class citizens.

The church I attended, and still do attend when I go home, is extremely queerphobic. It also has a mission focus, with members raising money to fund their voluntourism trips overseas, where they would spread the Word and seek out social media photo opportunities.

It was only when I moved away from home at the age of 15 and, for the first time, could examine my faith in newfound independence, that I truly choose to be a Christian.

On campus, I am known as a proud feminist, one who stands for equality strongly and proudly. I am queer, I am an activist, and I pride myself on being analytical, logical and rational.

When people become aware that I am a Christian, however, they are often surprised. But I do not see these two aspects of my identity as separate or incompatible at all. In fact, it is because of God that I am a feminist.

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From the teachings of the Bible, it is clear that Jesus was a feminist.

Throughout His life, as detailed in Scripture, He empowered women and those without privileged backgrounds; He worked towards the equal treatment of all, which was something completely against the culture of the time. He fed the hungry, valued those with disabilities, and condemned the treasuring of earthly belongings and those who protected their wealth instead of helping of others.

Furthermore, contrary to the beliefs of many, women are not considered lesser than men in the Bible. Some Christians interpret Eve being called a “helper suitable for” Adam in Genesis 2:18 (NIV) as an instruction that women should be considered lesser to men, and as subservient to them. But the word helper – “ezer” in Hebrew – is used far more frequently to describe God. It has no implication of servitude, but rather, implies valuable and vital strength.

Another common misconception is that God is a divine being with the characteristics of a man, which is the result of God often being referred to with the pronouns ‘He/Him/His. Personally, I conform and refer to the Holy Trinity as “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit”.

This is because I have not come across any alternatives that seem organic in their use, and it also enables me to easily engages with Christians I am not familiar with. Despite this, I see the interpretation of God being gendered as a man as incredibly patriarchal. The very idea that we could fit the Lord, God Almighty, into boxes of earthly characteristics and social constructs such as gender is, in my opinion, plainly demeaning. He transcends

our understanding and the limitations of human gender and sexuality.

Interestingly, while “He” in Hebrew as used in the Bible has grammatical gender, which is not an indicator of God having an actual gender, the Holy Spirit, or “Ruach Elohim”, is actually a feminine noun in Hebrew.

The actions of and the messages conveyed by the Church are incompatible with what I know of Christ, from my journey and study of the Bible. In so many ways the Church has failed miserably in being the essence of Christianity and upholding the teachings of God, with the Scripture so often being used to justify the mistreatment of others. I still try and attend church as I believe fellowship is important, but I do think it is vital that Christians do their own devotions to never stay stagnant in their faith, and continually question and grow in their knowledge of God instead of merely following what the doctrine their church teaches.

I believe in God because He has touched every experience I have had in this world. He has been there through my struggles with my mental and physical illnesses, in questioning and coming to terms with my romantic orientation, through family and personal crises, and in the moments of joy and success I have had in my life – only God has been through it all with me.

Being a feminist, for me, isn’t a political statement. It’s about basic human decency. And although the Church sometimes seems to forget it, Christianity is a feminist religion – and without it I would be nothing. Do not let the failings of humanity, and the Church, steer you away from God and the Christian religion. For God, I would argue, is the fiercest feminist of all.

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MISINTERPRETED Chanel Irvine

We know what labels are; we know what it feels like to be the subjects of them – to be conveniently packed into tiny stereotypical boxes. Only we know precisely how belittling, hurtful and blatantly mistaken they are.

So frequently we are rendered voiceless to the judgement of others.So frequently we are denied the opportunity to explain to people who can’t even be bothered to ask us: “Why?”So frequently people would rather use labels to firmly put us in our place, preferring to more easily ‘deal’ with us than hear us, and the stories and experiences that make us precisely who we are.

We shouldn’t need to justify out existence. We shouldn’t need to explain ourselves. But the internal frustration of feeling so utterly and helplessly misinterpreted persists.

But how often do we get to talk back? To explain our choices, actions and desires? Sometimes it feels easier to just ‘let them think what they think’.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could actually step out of the box you’ve been placed in, and loudly and proudly reveal the person that was undeservedly trapped there, with no fear of ever having to return, or feeling obliged to explain?

Misinterpreted: a photo series that allows womenidentifying and non-binary people to stand up and shout to the world: “No, actually, I am just ...”

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“I’m a positive person – someone who likes to see the best in everyone and the good in every bad situation. Often, I feel like I’m labelled as fake; people who view me at a surface level and don’t try to see past the outside. I guess I just wish that people would realise, that we’re all human, we’re all struggling, and that it is possible to help each other.”

– Lescinska Fernandez

“I’m not cold, I’m just really tired of getting screwed over. I get scared to let my guard down because of the fear of being hurt again.”

– Phoenix Tian

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“My experience of coming out this year – as slowly as I have been – has been intensely healing. I am bisexual, capable of loving both men and women.”

– Issy Ingram

“Your labels don’t define me. Just because I don’t feel the same sexual and romantic desires as you, does not mean I feel nothing at all. Yes, I’m aromantic, but I’m still human.”

– Ffion Olearczyk

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“I grew up in the predominantly-white-Christian south of Sydney, and a few days after the 2005 Cronulla Riots, I was called a ‘terrorist’ by a classmate for the first time. I have a lot of pride regarding my Iranian/Muslin heritage, and as a result, over the last 10 years, I have been called an ‘Arab bitch’ and ‘a bomb-maker’ and a ‘terrorist’ on multiple occasions – but I’ve learnt to deal with it. Racism says more about racists than it does about me.”

– Mina Khoshnevisan

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“For me, ‘crazy’ is a term that has been used, by others and admittedly myself, to trivialise my mental illness. Sometimes it’s used to soften the harsh realities of my illness, but other times it has been utilised by those closest to me as a way of distancing themselves from those parts of me thrown into the ‘too hard basket’. This label has only made me feel more ashamed and burdensome. By compartmentalising certain behaviours as ‘crazy’ we only perpetuate the stigma of mental illness, making it harder to vulnerably speak out next time the going gets tough.”

–Ella McNiece

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“For most of my schooling years, I was the kid who flew under the radar, and because of this, I often felt like I was pushed around by other ‘stronger’ people. Sometimes the feeling of being perceived as weak, quiet or invisible still haunts, and finding the energy to fight back against that is hard. But I have since learned to believe in myself and say: ‘I am worthy, I am important and I am strong too – regardless of what others see’” – Caitlin Hughes

“When I was first coming to terms with my gender, I stopped wearing a lot of the things I liked because I felt I wasn’t allowed to. Now I’m more comfortable dressing how I want, but a lot of people assume things about me based on my clothes. I don’t want to be labelled for once.”

–Kaj Brown

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“Radical, idealistic, naive, militant, non-cooperative – I see these labels clouding the perception of people challenged by my strong feminist advocacy. But I am also tolerant, compassionate, deliberate, strategic, collaborative, and aim to understand. Don’t doubt your ability to make change without compromising your values. Sometimes people will say they have a problem with the way you work, but they just don’t want to work with you (as a woman) and the outcomes you want to achieve.”

– Holly Zhang

“I have a range of mental health issues, primarily borderline personality disorder; planning is my way of functioning, I can’t just ‘go with the flow’. Not knowing all the details means there is more room for error and the idea of messing up makes me so anxious I struggle to function. So, yes, those extra details are really important to me.”

–Shae Nicholson

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“I have been called bossy so many times. Admittedly, I am often in leadership positions that require me to train and lead large groups of people and set a vision and goals, so I am often telling people what to do. I think telling people what to do and being assertive as a woman automatically makes you bossy, which is just so unfair. If I was a man I would be called charismatic, quick-thinking, driven and high-achieving, but instead my sex and gender-identity mean I am bossy. Ironically, I have been called charismatic, quick-thinking, driven and high-achieving by people, but they are always women-identifying and nonbinary people. It is men who call me bossy, and most often, it is the men who are just below me in a professional capacity. It used to bother me – especially when it was implied in a resignation letter gone viral – but now I just embrace it. Yeah, I am a bossy; I get shit done. You want to be on a winning team? Be on the team where the boss is a bossy gal.”

–Bronte McHenry

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The Modern Day Witch Laura Burfitt

Collage by Bronte McHenry

This morning I woke, as usual, to the irritatingly cheerful, generic alarm tone pulsing from my mobile phone.

After turning it off with a oneeyed squint and slamming it against my bedside table for good measure, I began the Gen-Y ritual of aimlessly scrolling through my Facebook feed to see if anything particularly mind-blowing had occurred in the six hours I’d been unconscious. Had it? In short, yes it had. A post from a distant relative I’d never met revealed that I’m descended from an 18th century Irish … witch. My immediate reaction: “Wicked.”

While pontificating to the hordes about my new-found identity, I noticed the variation in people’s reactions: from keen interest, to quizzical looks, to getting off the elevator two floors early.

It seems that my somewhat exultant declaration of my family history and new identity raised the question: why would you want to associate with or identify as a witch?

Growing up with the wonderful world of Disney, we learnt that witches are old, jealous, ugly, and above all, evil.

We all watched in horror as the jealous queen transformed into an evil witch in Snow White (or we cowered behind the couch cradling our teddy). We cheered when Dorothy melted the bitch in The Wizard of Oz. “Take that you ungodly cretin”, we shouted joyously. Life was gloriously black and white; witches were evil women who deserved to be put to death. What a wholesome upbringing we had. But then, as the late 1990s set in, the sexy “white” witchcraft

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spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.” Both of these very uplifting excerpts are thought to have been written by a male, Jewish priest – male being the operative word here.

It is my belief, as well as the belief of many before me, that the reason why the term ‘witch’ came to depict an evil woman who should be put to death at the earliest convenience, is because men in all their precious masculinity, felt threatened.

trope began to take hold, and perhaps, some of us started to question: what does it mean to be a witch?

Alyssa Milano in Charmed and Alyson Hannigan in Buffy the Vampire Slayer were a far cry from the age-old depictions of a haggard old woman in a black cloak on a broomstick. So what does the term ‘witch’ mean to us in 2017? Indeed, what did it mean 2000 years ago?

The term ‘witch’ is a loaded concept with many different interpretations.

Though the notion and practice of witchcraft may date back to the ancient world, the earliest record of ‘witches’, at least in European history, is in two Old Testaments, Exodus and Leviticus, written in 560 BC. Exodus 22:18 reads: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”, while Leviticus 20:27 contends: “A man also or woman that hath a familiar

In her recent lecture Women in Power, Mary Beard, professor of classics at the University of Cambridge, explores the cultural underpinnings of women’s disempowerment. The denial of women’s power, Beard argues, is perpetuated by a longstanding cultural template dating back to the ancient world. Beard uses the story of Medusa, arguably one of history’s most iconic witches, to demonstrate the culturally entrenched opposition to powerful women. Though the story of Medusa has many variations, at its core it tells the story of a witch with supreme power who was beheaded by the ‘hero’ Perseus. With phallic snakes emerging from her head, Medusa was the epitome of (unwarranted) female power, and her beheading remains a cultural symbol of the rejection of said power. Theresa May, Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher have all been compared to the legendary Medusa and each have been depicted with their heads cut off. Indeed, within three days of Margaret Thatcher’s death, Ding

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Dong! The Witch is Dead sky rocketed to number four on Britain’s official singles chart.

After Pope Innocent VIII (no that’s not tongue-in-cheek) ordered the publication of Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) in 1494, judges and prosecutors were equipped with an official guide of what may constitute witchcraft. Conveniently, the amount of land a woman may have owned or inherited did not appear in the publication, because of course that wasn’t a humungous factor in the accusations (extreme sarcasm). The exact number of witches that were executed during the infamous witch trials in Europe between the 15th and 16th centuries remains a contentious issue among historians – some estimates place the number between 50,000 - 80 000, others say it’s much higher.

Though western countries may have put witch trials in the history books and now use the term ‘witch’ only as a political weapon, it is important to note that for many women in the world, the accusation of witchcraft is still a very real threat. Around 500 ‘witches’ are put to death each year in Tanzania and approximately 2100 women were executed in India between 2000 - 2012 on the charge of ‘witchcraft’. We cannot forget these women and their children as we forge a new path in the discourse of witches and witchcraft.

In her new book Witches, Sluts, Feminists: Conjuring the Sex Positive, Kristin J Sollee explores the concept of the witch, emphasising the link between witches and political radicalisation.

Sollee commends the witch identity as a parallel to feminism: “In this new age of sexist turmoil, it’s fitting she [the witch] be resurrected once more to teach us, inspire us, and remind us how far we’ve come – and how much further we have to go.”

Not unlike the way homosexual people have reclaimed the once offensive term ‘queer’, women are now taking back the label ‘witch’ as a sign of empowerment and solidarity. Let us be feminists, witches and nasty women. In 2017, when a pussy-grabbing, toupeewearing, brainless warthog can become the president of the United States and the purported leader of the free world, we need feminism, empowerment and solidarity more than ever. To arms witches! Or more accurately, to broomsticks!

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Her.

Marni Mount she was herself complete every man’s mystery and no man’s muse unpaintable untouchable intangible self sure and shining, shadowed only by a sun shy sadness strangers saw so little of she hid behind no hinges, handles, no locks blocked some true being from those who turned keys passed thresholds looked beyond frames not knowing they were the trespassers and she, the dosor her figure flashed, a firefly in my periphery her hours played long past ours her nights at full volume where my sometime sisters sipped summer through straws in well manicured hands she soaked in it drank the days every last drop with haste we could not understand and eyes that saw more than we imagined she ran without ever touching the ground tripping towards the horizon

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“Butch Informal Adjective” Jess Townrow I.

III.

I was acutely afraid of masculinity as a teenager. I had just turned 18, and was sitting in my therapist’s office when I brought up how much I struggled with wanting to cut my hair – and the way my freshly-shaved head made me feel. She didn’t understand and I felt stranded. I realise now we weren’t a good fit.

I dress for the job interview in my cleanest, most-muted, button-up shirt, faded jeans and brown boots with the stitching unravelled from daily wear. I change my septum ring to one that can be worn flipped and concealed inside my nose – the same jewellery I wear when visiting my grandparents. I joke to my friends that this is my “clean, respectable, young-homosexual look.”

I wonder if I would be better off wearing something more femme, or if that would open me up to a new layer of ridicule while sitting in the office of the camping gear store, ready to plead my case.

II. I look queer. People have a great habit of reminding me. It’s not that I want to forget I look queer, but I couldn’t even if I tried. I am reminded in the sustained eye contact of strangers as they pass me; in fleeting glances on sweaty dance floors; by knowing nods in my direction. I am reminded when I catch women’s eyes on my chest in public bathrooms, assessing whether I’m in the right place, and when slurs are thrown at me from moving cars.

There is no right way to look queer or do queerness correctly, so it’s difficult to describe why I am so visibly queer without getting into a brain-pickle.

A history of oppression and secrecy reveal that we queers can be a sneaky bunch though. When words weren’t safe to use other language was used: a green carnation or a lavender sprig in the lapel; a handkerchief folded a certain way; an earring worn on the left instead of the right; an angled nod of the head; a daring sparkle in the eyes.

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IV. I couldn’t think of anything more exhilarating than unbuttoning the men’s shirt they were wearing … bottom button already undone to make way for their hips.

V. I wake up, hungover from my housemates 21st birthday party. I can feel the wine I drank from the bottle making my limbs heavy.

Reconciling my new-found complete body confidence with periodic and intense chest dysphoria that leaves me feeling alien and physically unwell has so far proven a difficult task. Yesterday, 13 of us drove to Kambah Pool to swim, laugh, drink and enjoy the sun (which

has resurfaced after the coldest winter I’ve ever experienced). I took my shirt and pants off to change into bathers, watching my new friends diving and splashing in a game of casual cricket.

Shimmying my bather top over my compressing sports bra, I threw eyes over the boys laughing and plucking the tennis ball out of the air over and over, splashing and disappearing under the murky, cool water.

VI. I slept in this morning. I plan what today’s outfit will be while brushing my teeth in the shower. As a genderqueer person, a lot of the language I once used to describe myself – my identity – feels clumsy now. I Google the word “butch” to see if it’s still mine … if I’m still allowed to be that.

Butch informal adjective 1. Having an appearance or other qualities of a type traditionally seen as masculine. Synonyms: (aggressively) masculine, manly, all man, virile … noun 2. A lesbian whose appearance and behaviour are seen as traditionally masculine.

I’m still not sure.

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A Letter to My Period Melissa Bottega

We first met when I was 13.

My mother told me that you’d be coming to visit, but it was still startling to see you for the first time.

I know that our relationship is quite rare. You come and go in my life as often as you do in the lives of everyone else, and yet I still feel a special connection to you.

Since our first meeting, you have arrived unexpectedly, you have brought me pain that sometimes lasted for days, and you have been responsible for some of my most embarrassing moments.

Like with all important relationships, it took me time to understand you and now I couldn’t be happier to have you around. I welcome your monthly visits because they have become a core part of how I experience life in my body. As I express these feelings, I also need to acknowledge that not all women share this experience and not everyone who does share this experience is a woman. I think it’s also important for me to point out that you have a painful relationship with many people which makes it near impossible for them to appreciate you.

I know I am one of the lucky ones who can welcome the small, pink

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spots on my face, the tender breasts and the unexplainable emotions that warn me of your arrival. I now am excited to see that first spot of red and to remove my cup from its soft, silk bag for the first time in 28 days.

I am lucky enough that I can celebrate your presence. You make me feel more connected with my body, the earth and the moon. Through you, I feel a stronger connection with those who bleed like me. The magic of how myself and those closest to me begin to bleed at the same time intrigues me. I’m amazed by how our bodies can find rhythm with each other simply because of the spaces we share.

When I realised that my body is not here to be consumed by others but rather for me to embrace and enjoy, it became something to worship rather than something to hate.

Through seeing my body through this perspective, I began to understand the importance of my connection with you.

secret and because of this, we have been restricted from embracing the bodies we’ve been gifted.

I embrace these parts of myself, those that we have been taught to see as negative aspects of our bodies. I embrace them because it is so hard to learn to love ourselves, so when we do, we discover this power we never knew that we could have. We gain strength from loving the parts of ourselves that we have been taught to hate; this is how we take power from those who taught us to be ashamed of who we are.

I love you, my period, because having a healthy relationship with you challenges this culture that tells me, tells us, there is something inherently wrong with being a woman.

As women, as people, it’s apparent that what we know about our bodies has been taught to us by a culture that fears what they can’t control. We were led to misunderstand a process that we should celebrate, not shame.

We have been told that these parts of ourselves are dirty, shameful and

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Student Guide to Self-Care Sasha Murray Self-care is such an important part of caring for ourselves, and sometimes it’s a basic need. It’s about identifying what you need and giving it to yourself; it’s about taking time to nurture and love yourself. Self-care, however, means different things to different individuals, and sometimes it’s hard to find selfcare methods just right for you. Just remember that self-care does not mean you’re choosing between looking after yourself and others. Self-care does not make you selfish. What self-care does is make you more energetic and mentally healthy. So, to help all those struggling with self-care, or simply forgetting to, here is a list of self-care ideas.

• Have you brushed your teeth today?

Showered? Moisturised? If not, then do so, and try to create a routine with all of these incorporated to maintain good personal hygiene.

• Get enough sleep. This may seem really basic, but your brain really needs it. Try getting into a routine where you go to bed and wake up at the same time each day.

• Take a break. You’re allowed to do this. Engage your brain in something completely unrelated to your studies.

• Have a spa night. Take a long, hot shower. Take time to massage shampoo into your hair and wash yourself thoroughly. Moisturise your body, put on a face mask, and paint your nails while watching your favourite movie in your dressing gown.

• Watch funny YouTube videos. Seeing people falling over always cheers me up.

• If you’re feeling self-conscious about your body then remember that you do not exist to please others, and that you are worth so much more than what is on the outside.

Unfollow all unrealistic models on Instagram and stop comparing yourself to photo-shopped standards. When I feel like this I find pampering myself gives me back some confidence. If I feel am feeling especially self-conscious I find going for a long walk, run or cycle, or just stretching, helps me overcome these feelings.

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• Have you eaten in the last five hours? If not, please do so. Try to avoid pushing back meals, but also try to avoid thinking of food as a reward. You can always eat; your body needs food to function. Be kind to yourself.

• Do you always leave your blinds shut in your bedroom? Open them up and let in the sunshine to boost your mood and stop you from feeling sleepy. Having the blinds open will also help you wake up naturally and keep your sleep schedule on track.

• Make lists. If you’re not artistic enough to keep a bullet journal or not organised enough to maintain a personal diary, simply make a list for each day or week. Organising your thoughts into a simple list helps you keep track of what is due and can remind you to perform some selfcare.

• Drink water. This is so important!

H20 is vital for your body, and being hydrated helps you focus.

• Have a good long cry. This might sound like a funny self-care tip, but sometimes all you need is a good cry. If you need some stimulus then try watching a sad romance movie or a YouTube video about a cat finding its lost babies.

• Breathe. In through your nose and out through your mouth. Count to 10.

• Make a cup of tea or hot chocolate and cuddle up on the couch.

• Have you gone outside today?

No? Even if it’s just outside of your building, step into the sunshine for five minutes and take a deep, long breath.

• Re-read one of your favourite books. And do it while wearing your comfiest pyjamas.

• Do a little cleaning. Whether it’s cleaning to procrastinate or to get your thoughts in order, your external environment will feel fresh and organised in the end and that is a good thing.

• Work out. I personally think working out sucks, but thanks to endorphins you will feel better afterwards, even if you only do it once a week.

• Sing. Put on your favourite playlist

or Disney songs and just belt out the lyrics, dance around your room and enjoy yourself.

• Buy some incense or candles.

Aromatherapy is amazing and just surrounding yourself with the light of candles and the smell of incense can be ritualistic and relaxing.

• Go for a walk. Even if it’s just around the block or around campus. Put in some earphones, take in the scenery and enjoy the fresh air.

• Treat yo’self! Do some online shopping. Buy that video game or high-end makeup you’ve been thinking about.

• Trying to keep a ‘happiness journal’.

Buy a notebook and spend 10 minutes at the end of your day writing about all the good things that happened that day, and any acts of kindness you did.

• Meditate. Concentrate on your breathing, try to relax your body and mind, and focus yourself.

• Have a bath. Surround yourself with candles and use bath salts too.

• Write out a list of the reasons why everything is going to be okay to calm your anxiety.

• Write a list of all the things you like about yourself.

• Call your friends and family. Tell them you need some positive vibes sent your way.

• Colour in. They make adult colouring-in books. This can feel very therapeutic and finishing a design is very satisfying.

• Educate yourself on what you are going through, what you’re feeling, and how you can support yourself.

Remember, if your feelings are too much, seek out expert help from a spiritual leader, therapist, physiologist or psychiatrist. Never be afraid to ask for help.

Finally, know that you are important, and that taking the time to care for your physical, emotional and mental health is crucial. Remember that you are stronger than you think, and with every breath you take, you help plants and flowers live!

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Katie Chauvel Tell us about yourself.

Hi, I’m Katie! I like to do ink and brush drawings that mainly focus on the female figure. I normally keep the drawings pretty minimal with simple lines, but I’m starting to mix it up a bit with this and that. I like to draw the figure because all curves – whether they’re exaggerated or sometimes not as prominent – are beautiful. They’re almost addictive to draw. I have an Instagram @grapes.on.toast and a section on artieartists.com that I use to share drawings, mainly with other students from ANU. Have you always been a creative?

I’ve always enjoyed drawing but I think it was when I started publicly sharing my work with others that I realised it was something I really want to do with my time.

Has being women-identifying informed your practice? If so, how?

Being a female has definitely influenced what I have chosen to draw. I want show a certain femininity in the drawings. The lines are so simple but can celebrate the shapes and curves in the female figure.

Name three women-identifying artists who inspire you.

Alexa Coe, Eliana Esquivel and Prue Stent are by far my top three.

Where do you see your artistic practice evolving?

I think lino printing is pretty cool – I’d love to get some carving tools and give it a go, and maybe even try something a bit more abstract.

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A Busy Bee’s Guide to Friend-Keeping Sumithri Venketasubramanian Photography by Chanel Irvine

Last night I shared incredible Malaysian food with a dear friend. It reminded me of home, and the leftovers I had for breakfast today were just what I needed to get me out of bed. Our conversation turned to friendships: “How do you do it? How do you keep in touch with people? How do you maintain those connections?” It’s these questions that this piece hopes to answer – it is sadly not an account of every dirty detail about that delicious dinner, but it is just as wholesome!

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For my whole teenage and adult life, some of my closest friendships have been with people outside of my immediate social circles. Some friends are long-distance – cue Simple Plan’s ‘Jet Lag’ ft. Natasha Bedingfield – and some just never had the same classes as I did in school. This meant that I had to build and maintain these relationships through conscious effort, actively taking the time to chat and catch up, rather than relying on the fact that I would see them next week at choir

practice. And today, these are some of the strongest, healthiest and most secure relationships I’ve ever had.

I’m really busy (some might even say overcommitted), so free time is a rarity for me. This is a choice I’ve made for myself, in trying to make the absolute most of my precious time at university.

There are so many resources available, people to know and projects to pursue that many of us may never get to experience once we settle into the working

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world. Balancing sleep, studies, jobs, extra-curriculars, physical and mental health and our relationships seems like a pretty huge task, and bailing on plans with friends may be the first port of call when things get hectic.

alive. During busy times so many of my Messenger chats with friends are just back-and-forths of “I miss you”, “I want to see you”, “remember to drink enough water” and “how are you?” And during these hectic times, this is enough.

It’s so important to remember that taking time out to spend with others isn’t ‘unproductive’. Having strong relationships enriches so many other aspects of our lives, and is especially helpful to our mental wellbeing. Relationships are effort, whether they’re platonic, romantic, or even just plain unpleasant. Time and energy go into keeping in touch and, when our lives are so constantly changing, the thought of maintaining our connections through everything can be terrifying. But the people we love bring so much comfort, perspective and love into our worlds, and us busy ones needn’t be left out of that experience. From debriefing about bad days to seeking company after being on our own for days on end, social connections are definitely something that we should consciously try to maintain, especially when things get busier.

Make concrete plans

*** Love generously and communicate Life’s too short to subscribe to the whole ‘playing hard to get’ shindig. While there are definitely valid barriers to not feeling comfortable with being super forward with our feelings and affections – read: social anxiety is real – one thing we don’t need is social norms that encourage us to hide it all just for the sake of it. If you really enjoy someone, even if you’ve just met them, tell them! Express what you liked – for example: “It was a break I really needed, and I had a lot of fun spending time with you”, or “I learn so much I didn’t know about the world whenever we hang out” – and tell them you miss them.

Do little things in the time you spend apart too. Drop them a message or a 10-minute call when you’re on the bus home from work. Tag them in memes.

Tell them you found their Snapchat story hilarious. Ask them how their project they told you about is going. These sorts of things show that you’re interested in their life and, even if you don’t talk for very long, they keep the flame

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When you do arrange to see them again, make concrete plans. “We should hang out” is a great expression of interest, but what really works is setting a time, place and activity. Heard about a movie you think a friend would love?

Excited for a festival coming up? Having a very specific food craving? Get in touch with your friends and say: “Hey there’s [this thing] I really want to check out on [this date]. If you’re free, let’s go together?” Giving a concrete date and time to work with means that there’s a starting point to go from. If the plan given doesn’t fit into their busy life, it’ll be easier to figure out alternatives. And speaking of planning …

Schedule, schedule, schedule Everyone schedules differently. Some people like calendar apps, others prefer diaries. I have little notes on my phone, one per week, with my days all listed within them. On any given week I’d usually have the rough skeleton of my schedule for the next two weeks noted down, which gives me a clear idea of how packed the near future is. This involves classes, meetings, assignments and any other major commitments. This also allows me to take a look at any free days I have and get in touch with friends. Personally, I don’t get much done past dinnertime, so scheduling in time to spend with others to do cute things, like face masks or video-call movie nights, works well for me. Figure out what’s on in your life in advance, and fit in wholesome fun times with others accordingly.

periences in the time you are together.

Every time you see someone you haven’t in awhile, there’s a “catching up” phase at the start of each interaction: what you’ve been up to, any big exciting news, etc. The shorter the meet-up, the greater the proportion that is taken up by this phase. But once you’re all caught up, that’s where the gold of the relationships lies: experiencing the world with these people.

This is where you make new memories, and get to know them better through just spending time together. Not all meet-ups have to be over food – although street food festivals are a definite favourite of mine! Picking a really specific activity to do (I love day trips to national parks) allows you to learn about each other in contexts you may not have encountered otherwise. Intentionally doing really cheesy or adventurous things with friends can come across as constructing memories (read: ‘fake’), but in my experience it always ends up being a great time, and when we’re so busy being busy, that may be just what we need to do. *** Having hectic lives doesn’t mean we shouldn’t get to experience wholesome things with beautiful people. Growing friendships while keeping up with our other commitments is definitely effort, but oh so worth it. On that note, I’m off to plan a full-day trip out with a friend three weeks from now.

Go long, go hard Set time apart for people. And not just coffee between classes, or seeing them at an event you’re both hoping to attend. Actually keep half- or full-days free to hang out with them. Naturally, these sorts of days don’t happen very often, but the infrequency is worth the amount of growth your relationship ex-

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A View to a Skill Ever discovered, months into knowing someone, that they have an incredible and oddly-specific interest? Ever wished you were that elusive and impressive person, but struggled to know where to start? This is the place for you!

As children, we’re expected to pick up new interests all the time – but those opportunities can feel more and more elusive as we get older. Time becomes scarcer, we lose that blind courage for trying new things and the array of possible interests can become paralysing.

To help you overcome this a few of those oh-so-impressive women have shared their interests and tips for you could get started. Diving into one (or a few) would make the perfect summer project – or take these as inspiration and find a hobby all of your own.

Hula Hooping 101 Ella Rose What is it?

Hula hooping involves the use of a circle and the body to do tricks – such as waist hooping, zirkles, isolations, isopops, throws, cyclones, mandalas and so much more. I am a self-taught hula hooper and absolutely love it – in fact, I’m now sharing the love through teaching and performing. Benefits of hula hooping include happiness, coordination, creativity, fun, balance, strength and confidence.

What do I need?

When beginning hula hooping it’s best to acquire a larger hula hoop, 80cm - 100cm in diameter, in a colour that you like. You can buy them online from Threeworlds, Moodhoops, Hula Hoops Australia or other sites for $30 - $60.

Who could inspire me?

My favourite hula hooping YouTubers are Deanne Love, Babz Robinson and Hoopsmiles. They are happy and energetic with great moves and informative tutorials. You can also check out hula hoop journeys on YouTube for inspiration.

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How do I get started?

I actually run classes here at ANU – which, if I do say myself, would be a great place to start! The class is fun, easy and designed for people of all levels. This semester they took place every Wednesday afternoon in the Dojo room and cost $15 per class.

Follow me on Facebook @ElleRoseCircus to find out about class information for next year. If you’d prefer to learn in the comfort of your own home or backyard, check out YouTube for video tutorials. Two good ones to start with are Hoopsmiles’ ‘How to Hula Hoop Rap Song’ and Deanne Love’s ‘How to Hula Hoop for Total Beginners’.

Crochet 101 Marnie van Loon What is it?

Crocheting is the process of tying knots in wool to form squares – it is similar to knitting but uses a hook instead of needles. I initially picked up crochet when I was 10, after my grandma told me that she had always wanted to but had never learnt how. My neighbour taught me how to make squares and I started going to a sewing/knitting/crochet class after school. Nowadays, whenever I’m stressed or when I want to keep my hands busy while binge watching a TV show or listening to an audio book, I’ve taken to making giant multi-colour crochet squares that essentially become blankets. This skill comes very useful in the Canberra winter (and, as an added bonus, it’s made my room a little more rainbow- and pride-filled).

Crochet is a great hobby because it’s easy to learn, very mindful and super productive – it literally produces a thing. So, it’s a relatively guilt free form of procrastination … although maybe that’s not a good thing?

What do I need?

You really just need wool and a crochet needle. You can buy both of these things at Spotlight, Big W or some two-dollar shops. You may also want a pattern book – but these days there are

so many free tutorials and patterns on YouTube or for sale online that it’s not as necessary.

Who could inspire me?

Have a look at @crochetspecs on Instagram, who documents amazing 3D projects such as a Frida Kahlo doll; @ kimskreativeands on Instagram and Etsy, who makes lots of great crochet wearables including a mermaid tail blanket; and Yolanda Oliver’s page on ravelry.com, where she sells amazing dragon-scale fingerless gloves (which I am in love with).

How do I get started?

Some great places to start are: crochetaustralia.com.au, which contains a great beginners guide; thespruce. com, which provides another good beginner’s guide with easy-to-follow pictures; and @happyberrycrochet on YouTube, who shares very clear tutorials.

Canberra also has plenty of groups you could get involved with if you want to make crochet a social activity! Handmade Canberra holds crochet workshops, SWEATS ANU holds a range of events and has plenty of crafty members, and 5000 poppies hold pop-up workshops which are advertised on their (brilliant) website. It’s also a fun thing to learn from or with friends, so ask around – you never what exciting skills people might be hiding!

Photography 101 Chanel Irvine What is it?

Photography is an increasingly accessible hobby, although it can be far more meaningful than just a way to pass the time or gain ‘bulk likes’ on Instagram. Photography allows you to capture special and often seemingly insignificant moments and observations in a lasting format, to be revisited and marvelled at whenever you most need to. I have been taking photos since I was in primary school, where I tried to capture the naïve silliness

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119 of morning tea and lunch breaks with my friends. Photography has become far more than a hobby for me; it has allowed me find beauty, joy and inspiration in the most unexpected of places, and even during the most difficult of times. I think it can be a similarly powerful tool for anyone, and as Katie Thurmes described, photos are a “return ticket to a moment otherwise gone.”

What do I need?

A camera: you don’t need a DSLR (which are brilliant but expensive) because film cameras and phones do exactly the same ‘trick’. If you did want to buy a DSLR camera, Ted’s Cameras is great; if you want to buy a film camera I would recommend looking on eBay as it is much more affordable. Carla Coulson is one of my favourite photographers, and if you sign up to her newsletter (through her website) she frequently sends a variety of tips and sources of inspiration for newcomers to the photography world.

Who could inspire me?

Carla Coulson is one of my favourite photographers; after a bad week in Sydney 15 years ago she simply decided to leave her “wrong” life and its limiting expectations behind, jump on a plane to Italy and study photography. This choice has filled her life with awe-instilling adventure and passion ever since.

How do I get started?

Photography is something that can be enjoyed anywhere, at anytime, with anyone. You can very easily start alone, though it can be wonderful to go on photo adventures with friends. The ANU Photography Club is a good way to meet other aspiring photographers, if you prefer doing things with a group.

Candle-Making 101 Alex Costello What is it?

Candle-making has always been special to me because it’s the first hobby that I taught myself. One summer, with little to do, a newfound sense of empowerment and my existing love of burning candles, I decided to try my hand at making them myself. Soon my bedroom became filled with an eclectic mix of scents (not all of them complementary) and an accompanying air of achievement. I suppose it’s a constant reminder, without sounding too corny, that even during the darkest times you

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can always find a light to guide the way – even if you have to mould that light for yourself.

What do I need?

I buy all of my supplies from candle supply shops online! They sell amazing starter kits for someone just beginning, as well as individual supplies for once you’re ready to branch out on your own. For beginners, the most important tools are candle wax, candlewicks, a scent of your choosing, a pot of boiling water, a thermometer, an extra pot (for melting the wax in) and pegs (for ensuring the wicks are centered). Eroma and Aussie Candle Making Supplies are particularly great places to look.

How do I get started?

I think the best thing with candle making is that, aside from the equipment, it really is a craft that you can practice and perfect all on your own. There a number of amazing blogs and resources you can access through Google for tips and tricks – I’d especially recommend candletech.com and candlemaking.com.au.

Podcasts 101 Zoe Halstead What is it?

A podcast is a radio show that you can listen to whenever you like, wherever you are! Some podcasts are simply live radio shows, which have been recorded and made available online, but many podcasts are pre-recorded and edited until they’re perfect – and that’s why I love this kind of podcast in particular. To me, podcasts are like normal radio with all the boring bits edited out – something akin to an audio documentary (although podcasts don’t have to be super serious or informative).

What do I need?

Not much! All you need is a phone or other electronic device that can download apps. There are A LOT of ways to listen to podcasts, the easiest being through the iPhone Podcasts app, which is the purple app that comes pre-downloaded, or Spotify, which allows you to search for podcasts the way you would usually search for a song. That being said, I prefer Overcast for iPhone because the Podcasts app tends to crash if you’re subscribed to a large number of podcasts (which I am).

Stitcher is another great option if you don’t have Spotify or an iPhone.

How do I get started?

It all depends on what you want to listen to. If you’ve never heard a podcast before I’d recommend starting with S-Town, Serial or This American Life. If you’ve already tried those, or are looking for something specific, below is a list of categories to get you inspired and to give you a sense of just how many interests podcasts cover!

Liked This American Life?

Try Israel Story.

Liked Serial?

Try Trace (A) or Bowraville (A).

Want to learn about economics?

Try Planet Money or Freakonomics Radio.

Don’t get memes and the internet?

Try Reply All. Like investigative journalism?

Try Reveal.

Interested in media?

Try On the Media or You’ve Gotta Start Somewhere (A).

Looking for inspirational women?

Try Call Your Girlfriend or Chat 10 Looks 3 with Annabelle Crabbe and Leigh Sales (A).

Interested in international relations?

Try FP’s The Editor’s Roundtable.

Looking for a queer perspective?

Try Not By Accident (A).

Wanna have a laugh?

Try The Guilty Feminist or Make Out With Him. Want to learn about science?

Try Science Vs. Interested in business?

Try StartUp Podcast.

Love Orange is the New Black?

Try Earhustle.

Trying to find your feet?

Try Millennial.

Keen for some non-fiction?

Try Homecoming.

Keen for some local student content?

Check out my show Caught in the ACT (A) about Canberra youth affairs and Let’s Talk About It Podwalk* (A).

Interested in hip hop?

Try Mogul. * Let’s Talk About It Podwalk is a geolocated podcast about mental health exclusive to ANU, which means yvvou listen to specific sections in specific locations at ANU (think of it as Pokemon Go for podcasting). If you want to experience the Podwalk you’ll need to download the app of the same name.

(A) Australian podcast

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SPONSORED

Interview: Dionysus Dionysus – pronounced differently by different people – is the Greek god of parties and festivals. Fittingly, Dionysus is also the name of the cultural development agency in NewActon which has been contracted by ANU to activate the Pop-Up Village. For the past four months, the Dionysus team have worked with the university, staff, students and Canberrans to make the Pop-Up what it is. I sat down to have a chat with Lavanna, the place manager, to talk about absolutely everything we could fit into our allocated hour.

Tell me about what Dionysus does in Canberra.

Dionysus is a cultural development agency. We facilitate interesting and

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fun experiences in Canberra by encouraging people to use space in different ways. Art not Apart, for example, is a huge part of our calendar.

A lot of the research and theory behind cultural development has grown from our director, David Caffery’s, background in philosophy. My take is that cultural development is the glue that brings artists, creatives, entrepreneurs and individuals together.

In five - 10 years, what kind of big changes do you hope to see in Canberra?

I want to see Canberra keep growing in this really interesting way it already is.

People are engaged in Canberra. They want to get out on the weekends and enjoy the city. I don’t think there is the same level of apathy here as there is in bigger cities. Canberrans make it their purpose to find things. They are curious. They don’t want to be told – they want to explore and find things out for themselves. They want to stumble across events and culture naturally.

What I want to see is more creativity. I also want to see the encouragement of creativity by governments and businesses because something special about Canberra is that nobody does anything in isolation, everyone collaborates.

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What were your objectives when you got involved with the Pop-Up? Do you think these have been successful?

The whole idea of the Pop-Up is a taste of what is to come. We wanted to create a sense of culture and community that everyone can enjoy together.

We are working with students, staff, the university and greater Canberra, to create a dynamic space that everyone wants to be a part of.

I don’t know heaps about Union Court but apparently everything would shut down by 4pm and it was cold and grey. The Pop-Up, on the other hand, is a community space and a safe space.

Everyone hangs out here until 8pm, and that will only get later as it starts to get warmer. When the redevelopment is completed the idea is that the culture, ethos and values, the sense of connection to the place and space, will just be carried down the hill.

There is this thing we call “third place”. You have your home, which is your first place, and your work, which is your second place, and then there is the third place where you spend your other time. We want people to see the Pop-Up as their third place. We want them to come get a coffee and study here. We want visitors to enjoy the natural light and the beautiful trees, and really feel the connection to the natural environment.

Tell me a little bit about what you do at the Pop-Up.

My role is just so dynamic. I feel as if I am never doing the same thing.

I suppose my key role is a facilitator for anyone and everyone who wants to live, work or construct in the Pop-Up. Helping clubs, societies and students is therefore a huge part of what I do. People come to me with ideas, and I do my very best to make them happen and say yes. My job is to encourage interesting experimentation.

To encourage students to do interesting things and not feel constrained by what it might look like – but to think outside the box.

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I am also the liaison between the tenants and the university. I advocate on behalf of both. A little bit like piggy in the middle. *Laughs* I am actually the liaison for everyone. I really like people though, which means that I really enjoy my job because I just get to chat with people all day.

Tell me about the physical accessibility of the Pop-Up. No matter what angle you come at the structure from it is very accessible.

There are ramps everywhere, but they are not token gestures – they are not off to the side or hard to navigate, but actually built into the Pop-Up itself.

Everyone needs to be able to feel like this is their third place, and I believe the design facilitates this.

Tell me about the financial accessibility of the Pop-Up. There has been a lot of conversation about pricing, which is to be expected. But I just want to ask: “Who actually buys their lunch every day?” Nobody. And in reality, there is a wide variety of low-, middle- and high-end options available.

Again, I’ll ask: In what universe is it normal to go out for lunch and expect to pay less than $6? We have options here that cost that price, or less. And then we have options for when people want to splurge. Typically though, the more expensive things are huge!

It is also important to remember how fresh everything is. All of our food trucks and stores are owner-operated, and I cannot think of a vendor who doesn’t make everything from scratch – salads, sandwiches, yogurt, everything!

We have also had techno parties. The School of Music do a performance every Tuesday. We have had classical pianists and late-night karaoke.

And then there are all the other events we have had: film nights, protests, afternoon drinks for various groups and schools on campus. Plus, our weekly Thursday market, with books, vintage clothing, bric-a-brac and vinyl.

Tell me more about PROMPT Gallery.

the

The idea of the PROMPT space is to encourage connections. The space and the works inside it should showcase and explore the identity of the ANU community and beyond.

Anyone can put in an application to utilise the space. It is free, and we have grants available for those who need financial assistance to make their exhibitions a reality.

What other events do you have coming up?

In the non-teaching period we are going to have a food, film and music festival. We will encourage people to come for dinner and stay for whatever we have on once the sun goes down.

This place really should be utilised by everyone.

O-week will also be huge! With such limited space now available on campus I think the Pop-Up will be a really big part of O-week. What we will have to be mindful of is making sure we have a balance of events on offer.

So far there has just been this really organic mix of events.

The lines tell you how good the food is.

People want to be engaged. People want to come for one thing and stay for another. That is why the balance is important.

Tell me more about the array of music and gigs you organise.

Will Dionysus be continuing on to the new Union Court (or whatever it will be called)?

One of the things that I really love is that the very first live band we had play here was Glitoris. They are a local all-female punk-rock band, and they were dressed in glitter from head to toe.

I don’t know actually. What I do know is that whether we are involved or not the space will be fun and vibrant and exciting.

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Modern Chivalry: From Sleeping Beauty to Woke Beauty Elizabeth Harris Once upon a time, there was an intelligent, well-educated princess with high self-esteem and a strong sense of self.

She lived in a lovely apartment with chic interior design, and she paid the rent with her own gems and treasure that she had independently secured while on a quest to a dragon’s den. On the wall of her chamber hung a beautifully-illuminated parchment reading “Bachelor of Arts, Australian National University.”

The princess would often hear jokes from her third-wave-feminism-approved counterparts in the Disney universe about the “kind of feminist who still likes to have drinks bought for her.” Would they just let it go already!

Indeed, she was that kind of feminist.

But what was so wrong with that if she was willing to buy Prince Charming a drink afterwards? What was so wrong if, every so often, Prince Charming had to scale a tall tower to save her, if she was equally capable of saving him from his evil stepmother when the occasion arose?

This, she thought, was the main problem in her not-so-fair kingdom: chivalry had become synonymous with chauvinism. Really, the two concepts had about as much in common as a poison apple and a spinning wheel!

The princess was attempting to get a perspective not propagated by bitter princesses who, despite being forced to sleep for a hundred years, seemed as irritable as a student in exam season. So, she asked a confident hunter she knew what he thought of chivalry, and he responded (albeit jokingly): “Chivalry is dead … actually, I’ve never thought about it.” Yet, perhaps this was

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the issue at hand: what in the past may have been considered good manners or politeness had become a symbol of oppression.

Chivalry is, if anything, perhaps something we should think about less. The princess’s compatriots were focussing on who pulled out their wallet first, rather than the real issues: (mentally) small men singing “hi, hoe” rather than “heigh-ho” in disturbing acts of slut-shaming, and telling women “I’ll make a man out of you” rather than recognising the awesomeness that is girl power (cliché, but accurate).

The real problem occurs when a man has a problem with a woman paying for dinner, opening the door, or driving him home. It’s lovely when a man hands a woman her glass slipper (or perhaps helps her limp home without it after a night at Moose), so long as he recognises she’s capable of putting it on herself, or that she may simply not want his assistance.

Moreover, we aren’t bound by the scripts of Disney movies. Just because a helpful knight does something nice, it doesn’t mean you are locked into an endless cycle of subordination through perception as being weaker, or needing male support. Real chivalry isn’t a ‘masculine’ attribute; modern day chivalry is – or should be – about people doing compassionate things for each other to show that they care. It’s about mutual respect, not entering a contract.

So, what is the real monster we modern-day princesses should band together to slay, our protagonist enquired? It’s the linguistic obsession with the word “chivalry” itself. Many opponents of

the term, labouring under the illusion that they are doing women’s rights some good, argue that the meaning of chivalry is coalescent with “defending the weak”. Yet this illusion is more akin to a curse cast on them by a malefactress who was insulted by a lack of an invitation to a party. Knights in shining armour gleam less when it seems they are only doing the ‘noble thing’ because women are helpless or infantilised. However, words are just words, and in terms of protagonists, fairy godmothers were often more active than princes, who seemed carried away by plotline. Indeed, few question the empathetic, caring acts of fairy godmothers. They prefer only to query the motives of princes.

Who is afraid of the big bad Woolf? Not this princess! There is nothing to fear in the statement: “The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages” – so long as we recognise its veracity.

The opening of a door is only an insult when we consider it through the eyes of someone who sees a helping hand as a slap in the face. The more we reject the perceptions of others, and the fairy tale dungeons they lock us in, the more we can control what it means to buy someone – anyone – a drink.

For every simpering, passive princess who is liable to be whisked away by a dark knight, there is an Eleanor of Aquitaine, a Boudicca, or a Theodora.

A princess who fucks, but doesn’t give a fuck about who opens the door. It’s alright if Theodora wants Justinian to buy her a whiskey sour. She’ll buy the next round.

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AMMA

Kasthury Paramiswaran The lady and their arms of ammo, Stand ready to attack thivanai that disturb theirs truly.

Their arms in disguise, with the weaponry of brains, skills, and character.

In a world waiting to trample them down, the lady uses their ammo to thrive.

Amma.

The Black lady in Red, Of innocuous beauty, Has Blue vein-motifs across their skin, Each line, a phrase of its own in their pallus hidden a lifetime’s story Like a tree’s roots, carrying healing secrets, A comforting energy rushes outward in the red of their vibrant blood.

Amma.

The Tiger rider, bears the stripes down their stomach and sumptuous thighs, From birthing offspring, their black skin shines their orange stripes as medallions of honor she gallants around looking for shelter, Life for them, preying on the preys in coats living lackluster lives, sacrificing herself in the process.

Amma.

The lady who lived in a Lotus, Exudes tranquility, Singing their chants and meditations, As songs serve neurons, The lotus blooms perfectly, Preserving its beauty and sagacity, Never phased by the troubles of the pond, The lady of the Lotus, shone light.

Amma.

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Based on @roovaalijuan‘s, “Navadurgas of 2016 Navarathiri Series” by Roova Lijuan Dedicated to my Ma, Mrs. Wanida Lourdesamy; Happy Birthday!

Blue Queen Sometimes volatile, sometimes dangerous, With a flash of their gaze, turns intents.

Swimming with the tumultuous turn of shades, They delve into the depths of the abyss, Dismantling the athma’s durva dushtam.

They emulate an unbelievable warmth, That turns scorching to darkness.

Amma.

The lady clad in White Pearls and Pleats, Stares into the blue, all three eyes a screen of its own, A cinematic sight, only shone to them.

Their crisp pleats enveloped experiences, As their plush pearls glistened of lessons.

Together, they sheen wisdom.

As the three children look back, Ever so distractedly.

Amma.

The lady, snuggled in their green skin Lovingly longs for perfection, Their world revolves around them, you see.

If they stumble and fumble, the world crumbles beneath them.

They etched every moment, With the greatest intricacy.

Even the imperfection of it all, Boasts a beauty of its own.

When the lady crawls out of the green, Only to fetch more into their arms carved of affection.

Amma.

Long black mane, Three Sharp Eyes Is all they need for their own comfort, As her mane wraps them in tender, Their three sharp eyes sense the world around her.

Keeping them busy with thoughts and questions from what they see, Their days escape them As quickly as they come.

Amma.

The Faceless Womyn with A Visage of Many, A piece that may be mystifying, but an ode To those life forces of their own.

Defying norms and building their stance, Ammas play the role of many, yet remain faceless and hidden.

No longer defined by procreation only, Amma.

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A Drink With Moaning Lisa Jayne Hoschke, Steph David and Tay Vakeeswaran Fearless and unique, Moaning Lisa are breaking industry barriers and setting the stage for a shift in how women navigate the music scene.

Canberra-based musicians Charlie Versegi, Ellen Chan, Hayley Manwaring and Hayden Fritzlaff make up the bold punk rock foursome that is making waves nationally with their powerful sound. They have just come home from their most recent Australiawide tour, lighting up stages such as Sydney’s Oxford Art Factory and The Tote in Melbourne. Heavily influenced

by Wolf Alice, Pixies and The Breeders, the group has mastered creating a live atmosphere that has venues packed out.

Amongst the numerous accolades they have accumulated – including dominating local and national competitions and having their debut single, Comfortable, attain the title of “Song of the Year” by BMA Magazine – Moaning Lisa have received extensive Australian airplay. Their unique sound features a grungy and colourful cocktail of alternative, psychedelic rock, shoegaze, and indie rock.

Both lyrically and as performers, Moaning Lisa advocate for women and the queer* community by sharing their experiences of gender expectations in the grunge scene. This group does not shy away from challenging prescribed industry expectations, speaking out against intimidating and obnoxious behaviour at gigs, and inspiring fans to rethink how they act, understand and support local acts.

We caught up with Moaning Lisa under the warm lighting of Tilley’s, with its film noir vibes and jazzy background tunes, where the family of musos sat eating dinner. By the time we’d grabbed a beer and reminisced over the bar’s history of female inclusion and lesbian acceptance, all formalities were set aside.

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You’ve been gigging around Canberra for over a year now, and have gained a hugely-loyal following, but what’s it like playing gigs in different cities and states where you’re not as well-known as Canberra?

Charlie: I think it really depends on who else is on the line up – like whether they have similar music to you, or whether they’re a bigger band or a small gig. But I find audiences in other cities aren’t nearly as enthusiastic on the outside when they’re in the crowd. It’s really interesting because they’re the kind of people who’ll come up to you after the performance and say: “Oh, I really enjoyed that” or “that was sick!” But when you see them in the crowd they’re straight-faced, and not really moving around. We did play an all-ages gig once at the Oxford Art Factory though, and that was amazing.

What is different it about an allages gig?

Hayden: I mean, the music I listened to when I was 16 was ripped from YouTube or torrented. It was all terrible quality, but you don’t care because you’re a child, and it’s all new to you.

That’s why all-ages shows are good because it’s all new to them.

Charlie: That’s how the Beatles got big: the screaming teenage girls.

Do you find yourselves with a lot of them?

Charlie: Well, I’d like to think so. *We all laugh.* A lot of musos feel like they have to go to a big city like Sydney or Melbourne to ‘make it’. How do you feel about that?

Charlie: If you’re okay with having a band but also doing something else to sustain a living, then Canberra is a beautiful place to do it. If you want making music to be your main source of income, it’s not impossible to do it in Canberra, but it’s much harder. It’s centrally located, so for touring it’s great, and we probably have three venues that are decent to play a lot – but there are very few booking agents and next to no managers. We

also don’t get many bigger national or international bands that play here that we can open for. And the fewer bands that come to Canberra, the less people from Canberra think that they can be like bands like that. For those reasons, it’s hard to sustain a living here.

Hayden: In Canberra you pretty much have to do it all by yourself. If you want a single released you have to do it yourself. If you want to be managed well you have to learn how to be a good manager. I think there’s also a lot of discrimination against people from Canberra because of this stigma that Canberra is uncool, people don’t go to gigs and don’t buy tickets.

But, you can look at bands like Safia and Citizen Kay and see there are definitely bands that do very well. The bottom line is: if you have good music you can be from anywhere and ‘make it’.

In your newest EP The Sweetest the idea that women are made to be palatable comes up again and again. Do you tend to feel constricted by that?

Charlie: Definitely. Not even just in the industry, but in everyday life. As a woman, whenever you want to say something you just have to edit edit edit before you say it. Like most industries, the music industry is very male dominated, so a lot of the people higher up that you have to deal with are men. It becomes this balancing act of wanting to be taken seriously but not coming across too strong or intimidating – which I just struggle with as a person. I think I have small-dog syndrome.

With The Sweetest we’re really trying to poke holes in that idea of palatability.

The single ‘New Age Boy’ is a sarcastic song about a queer* woman dating a straight girl who essentially wants you to be a man but in a softer way. They’re trying to mould you into something else – to be this arm candy, this alternative that’s almost like a manic pixie dream girl character. So, it’s as if “plant me on your arm and I’ll be the sweetest” is poking fun at that. That’s where we got

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the name for it, and it applies to so many things whether it’s being arm candy, or being a token female band on a line-up, or a token queer* band on a line-up.

Hayley: Yeah, it crosses my mind sometimes if we’re being asked to play because they want us there or if it’s tokenistic, but on the other hand, they’re not diverse to begin with.

At the end of the day it’s about being treated differently because of being a predominantly-female band, right?

Charlie: Exactly. I think the solution is just to have fewer men. *We all laugh.* Hayden: No, it’s true. I think the public has started catching up with that.

People stop putting up with line-ups that are all dudes. It’s such an easy fix, so people just have to take that hard line.

The punk rock and shoegaze genres are particularly maledominated, so how do you tackle that?

Hayley: Honestly, it’s easy to forget because we surround ourselves with predominantly female bands anyway.

It’s almost like a different genre. Bands like Cable Ties and Wet Lips wouldn’t sound the same if they were all dudes.

It’s not a genre, but a particular style, and we fit in really well.

Charlie: I think we’re getting better and better at finding out where we fit in.

The earlier days were harder because we didn’t know many people and people didn’t know us.

Do you think a part of the male dominance within the music industry is due to the toxic masculinity present in crowd behaviour?

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Charlie: Yeah definitely. The most grassroots entry to music is going to a show, and if you’re met with aggression and the physical intimidation of being in a mosh pit with a lot of dudes, that’s immediately going to discourage you from going to more gigs.

Hayley: Historically these spaces – these small, alcohol-filled spaces – have been very male dominated. There was a time where women couldn’t go into pubs and bars. I mean, that shows how long it takes to change a culture. It makes me very proud to be doing what we’re doing to change that culture.

Do you have any advice for women-identifying and nonbinary people wanting to get into the music industry?

Hayley: While it seems like men take up a lot of space you have just as much right to be there, and there is space for you.

Charlie: Focus on the band first and worry about the other stuff afterwards.

The other stuff is very important but it should come afterwards.

Ellen: I’d love to include people of colour as well into that question. For a while I was worried about being perceived as too good or not good enough. I mean you see this five-yearold Japanese girl on YouTube and she’s amazing at what she’s doing and there’s this stereotype associated with that. People associate a certain race with being good at a certain thing and I feared that for a little while. It only comes up from time to time. I don’t let it affect me on a daily basis, but it is a thing.

Anything else you wanted to add?

Charlie: Self-esteem is the main problem for anyone that’s not a man – just not feeling good enough. I think it’s that self-doubt that makes us work so hard so that when we do get to a point where we do feel good enough we’re up here. *She raises her hand to demonstrate.* Bands with not-men are so good, and I’m always wondering why that is. And it’s because when you’re not a man you have to be so sure that it’s great to get to a point where you’re comfortable making music that it ends up being phenomenal.

I’m just waiting for that lovely non-men scene to become to mainstream.

Charlie: It’s happening! It’s definitely happening. I want to open up my own venue and make it non-men only. *We all laugh.* We finished our beers, talked about Moaning Lisa’s favourite tour car games, and waved goodbye to our heroes who were even more impressive than we could’ve imagined.

Check out Moaning Lisa’s upcoming gigs: Sad Grrrls Fest 4/11 The Brightside, BRISBANE 11/11 Reverence Hotel, MELBOURNE 18/11 Red Rattler Theatre, SYDNEY 19/11 North Wollongong Hotel, WOLLONGONG 20/11 Phoenix, CANBERRA 25/11 Transit Bar, CANBERRA w/ Paper Thin + Oslow 26/11 Rad, WOLLONGONG w/ Paper Thin + Oslow 30/11 Transit Bar, CANBERRA w/ Dear Seattle

Charlie: How do you not let it affect you?

Ellen: I think you just have to concentrate on the music, because at the end of the day you’re in a band to make music, not because of other things.

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Becoming Abreast of the Female Chest Debate Anonymous Disclaimer: this article is cis-centric, and focuses on the debate around the breasts of those who have been assigned female at birth. I acknowledge that not all those who have breasts identify as women, and not all who identify as women have breasts.

When I was five, I remember playing outside with my older brother and our neighbour. They had their shirts off, so I decided to take mine off too. They stopped, scrunched up their noses, and my brother quickly said: “Girls can’t take their shirts off – only boys!” Me, being a little ball of fire, stomped my feet and demanded that I be allowed to do whatever the boys were doing.

The sad fact of the matter is that boobs play a crucial role in how society perceives women. In the past, larger breasts have been viewed as more attractive. They are regarded as ‘womanly’ and help achieve the sought-after hourglass figure.

According to the Herald Sun, the number of women undertaking breast implant surgery per year has risen since 2005 from approximately 4,000 to over 40,000.

I remember being told by friends to “show off the girls more”. And I won’t even bother getting into the ‘creative’ lines eager 16-year-old boys would yell at me.

Fifteen years later and I’m still stomping my feet.

You’d think something so highly in demand, talked about and ‘desirable’ wouldn’t be shunned and scrutinised. Yet, for every time I was encouraged to show off my knockers, there were equal amounts of times that I was told I looked “slutty”.

It’s safe to say that I view my boobs as a curse. No matter how many “love yourself” campaigns filter through my newsfeed, I still don’t feel comfortable with what are essentially my large sacks of fat. However, when you look at my past experiences with them, and how society views breasts, it’s understandable as to why.

In more professional, formal locations – like the classroom or the workplace – an accidental pop of the top button would often cause a cleavage slip and some awkward looks from peers or co-workers.

This has happened too many times, likely as a result of mainstream clothing brands’ failure to cater for those with larger busts.

In adolescence I realised I was not blessed by my genetic pool, and did not inheriting my mother’s slim figure. Instead, I took after the Greeks and obtained a bit too much baby fat and a flat chest. From 12 to 14, petite and perky bodies surrounded me everywhere – from in the media to in the change room. The message was clear: I was different and should be ashamed.

Significantly, however, women have also reported using their cleavage to help them deal with tough work situations. In 2016, Wonderbra UK surveyed women, asking them how they use their breasts to their own benefit; one in seven reported that their boobs have helped them excel in their workplace. Even British journalist Liz Jones once admitted: “There was a time when I owed my career to my cleavage ... I made terrible mistakes, and got away with them, because I had a giant cleavage.”

Then something strange happened: I became an E cup. To me, my boobs were just fat. To other people, they signalled femininity and attractiveness. Men started looking at me, my fellow peers told me how lucky I was, and every Tom, Dick and Harry thought that I needed reminding about how big my boobs were. As if I hadn’t already noticed that I had an extra six kilos of fat on my chest!

As I now find myself reflecting on my last five years with my tatas, the only thing that I am certain about is that you can’t rely on society to tell you what to do with your breasts. If you did, you’d be as confused as I have been the last five years.

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This then begs the question, is it ever okay to use your bongos to get ahead?

In work environments that are still male dominated and dictated by unequal pay and mansplaining, are women justified in using this feature of their bodies to make their way to the front of the pack?

Interestingly, one entire industry which uses boobs to get ahead – in this case for monetary gain – is the media. They are medium to large in size, perky and plastered all over the place to help create a sultry image and grab the attention of consumers.

We see so many breasts.

What we don’t see though, are areolas or nipples.

Although exposing nipples is considered by many to be indecent exposure, the law actually doesn’t state anything against this.

Section 5 of the Summary Offences Act 1998 (NSW), which discusses “obscene exposure”, states that “a person shall not, in or within view from a public place or a school, willfully and obscenely expose his or her person.”

Essentially, “his or her person” is based on what constitutes society’s standards at that time, and although it is rare to go to jail for being topless, you can still be fined and would most likely be asked to cover up.

So, while our ‘fruits of independence’ (an actual name for boobs I found online) are in, areolas or nipples are out. This may explain why public breastfeeding is often rejected, which is one of the more perplexing issues surrounding these body parts.

The ability to feed our young from our breasts is something that humans share with other mammals. Even the Church regarded it as sacred, with Medieval and Renaissance era portraits of the Virgin Mary depict her breastfeeding baby Jesus Christ.

These are referred to as Virgo Lactans, or the Nursing Madonna.

However, women who breastfeed in public today still encounter their fair share of criticism. Just this year at the National Gallery of Australia, a mother was asked to move to the parents’ room to continue breastfeeding – the irony was that, in the same room, was a sculpture of a mother breastfeeding her child.

For too many people, breasts are purely objects of sexual desire. Boobs on TV (without nipples of course) are okay, but breastfeeding is not. So, while society continues to pick and choose how they perceive our boobs/samosas/shoulder boulders/funbags/jugs/whatever you want to call them, I’m going to keep doing what five-year-old me did: take my shirt off and stomp my feet!

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Wren Gabriel Filpi

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Finding Feminism

Dulanjee Chaika Seneviratne Truth be told, prior to attending ANU, I had but a vague awareness of feminism as a concept. It was nothing more than an elusive notion skirting around the edges of my daily consciousness and looking back now, I am ashamed of my ignorance, and of my disinterest.

You see, I had neither the privilege of exemption nor the luxury of immunity to excuse my obliviousness. I do recall oftentimes feeling a sense of discontentedness at the outlooks to which I was expected to conform, and an uncertain resentment at the feeling of being limited, but these were norms of the society I saw and the only way of life I knew. I am enraged now when I think of my docile persuasion and my easy sufferance.

In the island nation of Sri Lanka where I’m from, people take pride in patriarchy, their conservative morality and their double standards, and the sexual prudery that they impose on women in the name of culture. This, albeit very briefly, sums up the extent of gender imbalance in the country’s social sphere. Economically, women make a highly visible and crucial contribution across varying sectors, and by some accounts, have even won equal pay. However, even where equal pay is won, the struggle still continues for adequate remuneration, better working conditions and acknowledgement. There is also a clear lack of government support and welfare to working women who are additionally held responsible for childcare and managing a household.

Since its independence as a colony, Sri Lanka has exhibited a surprisingly political progressive viewpoint in electing the first female prime minister in the world, as well as a female president. However, the level of political participation by women in male-dominated central and local governments tends to be low. Where

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education and schooling is concerned, retention rates tend to lower for women because men are expected to function as breadwinners and the prospects of women are typically associated to the domestic sphere.

Inequality also plagues Sri Lanka in the form of gender-based violence, which includes sexual assault and torture. Statistics compiled by a branch of the UN last year reported that at least 60 per cent of women in Sri Lanka experience domestic violence. Now, while the necessary legislation to protect women from such acts of violence do exist, the acts themselves are hardly ever reported or discussed – instead they are silently borne or fervently denied.

It is also commonplace for women in Sri Lanka to be routinely subject to physical and verbal harassment on the streets and on public transport – I doubt there is a single woman in the country who hasn’t experienced this. These experiences are exacerbated by the fact that women are never encouraged to confront or report these occurrences, but instead condescendingly advised “to keep safe” and “not go places unaccompanied”.

This culture of silence is responsible for the country’s present-day statistics on sexual assault. It was recently reported by the police department that a woman is raped once every four hours – and reading this headline left me shaking. However, rape in Sri Lanka is widely underreported owing to a fear of inaction and being ostracised from a society that has long-perpetuated a culture of victim blaming and male-impunity.

I cannot claim, at any point, to have been entirely unaware of these facts, only foolishly acquiescent. I was, however, unaware of the urgency

and the vigor of the collective global outcry for gender equality, and totally unprepared for how much it resonated with me. My interest in the movement began in my very first semester at ANU, and today I am a proud feminist.

Feminism forms a fundamental part of my sense of self, the principles and beliefs I stand for and, I hope, will be a part of the impact I have on the world in time yet to come. It has also been a point of solidarity within many of the friendships that I have formed since coming to Australia, and I am constantly inspired by the strength of support and sisterhood.

Being at ANU and seeing the feminist movement within the university has encouraged me to also look outward at the world, past and present, and (excuse the cliché) broaden my horizons. This wakefulness and this curiosity have not only enriched my education and my experiences at ANU in a way I could never have expected, but it’s also equipped me with a sense of resolve and purpose that I found echoed Rupi Kaur’s ‘legacy’. i stand on the sacrifices of a million women before me thinking what can i do to make this mountain taller so the women after me can see farther Note: while I credit my personal awakening and feminism to my time at ANU, this is not to say that feminism does not exist in Sri Lanka. In fact, the movement is active in calling for improved women’s rights – despite my lack of contact with it. However, its influence has a sadly-limited reach, it is notably absent from mainstream issues of interest, and it faces a disturbing sense of apathy and disinterest from the general populace.

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Shout out to the team of passionate humans who made 2017 such a success for Bossy. Thank you for your hard-work and enthusiasm; this magazine was only possible because of you.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Bronte McHenry CONTENT EDITORS Mia Jessurun Tay Vakeeswaran LAYOUT & DESIGN EDITOR Joanne Leong ART EDITOR Elaine Zhang WEBSITE & SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR Jess Owen CONTENT SUB-EDITORS Eleanor Armstrong Hannah W Isabella Keith Julia Beard Prisca Ochan Reza Mazumder Vee Naidoo CREATIVE SUB-EDITORS Alex Williams Kate Wilson PHOTOGRAPHERS Chanel Irvine Julia Faragher front cover Sally Middleton section icons Sophie Bear

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