Glass 2022 Annual Edition

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2022 Annual

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What is Glass?

I'm now obsessed with you

Glass Media is the QUT student newspaper and magazine, funded by the QUT Student Guild. Glass is a space to showcase the work of QUT students, graduates, and staff – including creative work,

You can get involved with Glass by checking out qutglass.com, and following our Instagram or Facebook @qutglass. You can also subscribe to our mailing list by following the prompts on our website. We can’t wait to hear from you!

DM Puzzle.........................................................................3 Wordsearch......................................................................3 Crossword........................................................................4 Glass Wrapped................................................................8 Coffee Map............................................................. 64-65 Where to Find Glass............................................ 66-67 Horoscope.......................................................................71

Memoir

Paloma (Stir, Stirring, Stirred)........................... 18-19

News FOLLOW US @QUTGLASS

QUTGLASS.COM

QUT Ranks 19th Nationally for Prevalence of Sexual Assault, 5th for Harassment................ 20-21

Dude aren't you like married lol

DM Puzzle

Contents

news, and reporting.

Fun

Yes but it's a bit complicated

Oh no! Adam Levine forgot which account he was DMing!!

Holy fuck

He needs your help! Can you help Adam match the age innapropriate woman who isn’t his pregnant wife with the right DMs???

Holy fucking fuck

I may need to see the booty

@mvrykv_

Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk

Hahah

@sumnerstroh

When life gives you bananas.............................26-29

Distract yourself by fucking with me!

Review

Word Search

Poetry

I'm Having A Love Affair With The Moon............ 36 Summers on the Floor................................................37

Acknowledgement of Country Glass Media and the QUT Student Guild acknowledge the Turrbal and Jagera peoples as the First Nations owners of the lands where QUT now stands. We pay respect to their Elders, past, present, and emerging, their lores, customs, and creation spirits. We recognise that these lands have always been places of teaching, research, learning, and storytelling.

Glass Media and the QUT Guild acknowledge the important role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples play within the Meanjin community.

Cultural Warning Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that the following magazine may contain references to deceased persons.

Disclaimer Glass Media informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this issue of Glass belong solely to the author, and do not necessarily express the views of Glass Media or the QUT Guild.

Opinion

In Defence of Sun Yang........................................43-45 Dear Women.......................................................... 48-49 Where Are All the Moonwomen?..................... 50-51 Your Favourite Movies Are Made by Bad People...............................................................52-53 The Internet v Amber Heard.............................54-57

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Millie and the Artichoke Hearts......................58-60 Hot Pink Blues........................................................ 61-62

Izzy Heaton.................................................................... 63 Sam Hope................................................................ 68-69

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Haha

Sincerely, Me Lacks Sincerity............................24-25 Drive My Car.......................................................... 29-30

Lawfully Unpaid.......................................................12-13 A Glassie's Guide to Tactical Halloween Costumes...................................................................14-17 Sex But Offline.........................................................31-32 Cheats of Wall Street............................................33-35 Roma, Not Gypsy...................................................38-39 A Straight Man's Guide to the Perfect Tinder Profile......................................................... 40-42 A Glassies Guide to Heartbreak.......................46-47

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or Sumner Stroh?

Feature

Non-Fiction

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That body of yours is absurd

Is it Mary Kay

The Crumbling Legitimacy of QLD's Consent Laws.............................................................9-11 QUT Staff Vote to Strike.....................................22-23

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WHO VISITS ON CHRISTMAS?

F O D S W W

FUN

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Crossword Puzzle

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THE GLASS EDITORS

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TOM LOUDON ELLA BRUMM CIARAN GREIG CELESTE MULLER KONSTANZ MULLER HERING BEN STEELE

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Editors’ Letter As the year draws to a close, the twin ideas of endings and

our online offerings so that you can experience the joy of

new beginnings inevitably occupy more and more real

holding Glass in your own hands and flip through its pages

estate in our minds.

while waiting for a coffee before class, or while browsing

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This is particularly true at Glass, as we reflect on the 17

Across 2. One year after being interviewed by Glass, this Name: person won the seat of Brisbane.

Created using the Crossword Maker on TheTeachersCorner.net Complete 4. 5% of people will endure this chronic illness, the crossword puzzle below which causes severe abdominal 1 b pain.

Down o r 2 i s j oDown h n s o n Across 5. This cocktail is prepared by mixing tequila, lime 1. This union's QUT members recently voted in juice, and a grapefruit-flavored soda n 2. One year after being interviewed by Glass, this of industrial 1. favour This union's QUTaction. members recently voted in 7. He apparently isn't retiring, but we wish he would.

2.favour As described by theaction.

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12. Watch This fungus could cause a global 6.the This friendlyvalue neighbourhood columnist wrote a causes severeout! abdominal pain. highest type of male. banana collapse! p financial explainer in Issue 13.

14.cocktail Their comedian got4 more than he President 5. This is prepared by mixing tequila, lime This student's country has been accused of neo-colonialism 3. 8.d QUT favourite cafe at Kelvin Grove. i r e l a n bargained for. in West Papua. juice and a grapefruit-flavoured soda.

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7w d o 16. A person who doesn't experience sexual 10. The editors' favourite cafe at Kelvin Grove.

11. This Australian politician was accused of This 8. 13. country hasstroke been of accused of attraction or desire.

The preferred Sun Yang, Emma e a m Transphobia in Issue 14.

17. Their debut art exhibit was promoted in Issue 14. neo-colonialismin West Papua.

McKeon, and Ian Thorpe.

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our website from home.

magazine’s fourth year in print. Goodbyes are upon us:

Without Glass, a core element of QUT student and alumni

to our wonderful outgoing Editor, Ella Brumm and first-

culture would be missing.

ever Editor in Chief, Tom Loudon. Introductions are also in order: we’ve welcomed three new peppy, intelligent Editors to the team – Celeste Muller, Ben Steele, and Konstanz Muller Hering.

Glass is part of a long, esteemed tradition of student journalism and newspapers across Australia, stretching back almost a hundred years. Partly due to the fact that QUT was only established in its current form in 1989, and

We are so proud of Glass and how it has grown over the

partly due to past use of various previous iterations of QUT

past four years, and we are proud of you – the students

student newspapers as effective advertising for the QUT

and alumni of the QUT community – for sharing with

Student Guild, QUT students have long gone without the

generosity and vulnerability the stories that have shaped

student newspaper tradition that other university students

your lives while you have been studying.

around the country have enjoyed.

We know what we do at Glass is special. There’s nothing

Students and alums of QUT, Glass is your magazine,

else like it on campus. Glass exists for you, the students

and your piece of this long tradition of campus culture

and alums of QUT. Glass is a publication where you can

newspapers. We are grateful for the support of the QUT

read about the zeitgeist through the lenses of your peers,

Student Guild who fund and publish Glass so that QUT

have your own voice heard, and have access to objective

students, too, have their own campus newspaper.

analysis of campus news.

We encourage you to keep reading Glass with fervour and

Glass is a special initiative of the QUT Student Guild and

continue submitting to the magazine with enthusiasm.

we do not operate to turn a profit. The measure of our

This 2022 edition of the Annual reflects the range of voices

success is you, our readers – whether you feel informed

and multitude of stories experienced by QUT students and

and entertained, with access to content tailored for the

alums over the year. We hope you savour it, and perhaps

uni experience. This year, the Glass website had 52,000

even see yourself reflected in its pages.

visitors (for reference, in 2021, QUT had about 53,000 enrolled students). We published work from over 67 contributors and expanded our print issues as well as

With love, The Glass Editors

Answers: Across (2. Stephen_Bates 4. Endometriosis 5. Paloma 7. Woody_Allen 11. Albanese 12. Tropical_Race_4 14. Ukraine 15. Bernard_ Foley 16. Asexual 17. yourpals) Below (1. NTEU 2. Sigma 3. Brewed Awakening 6. Cryptoman 8.Indonesia 9. Artichoke 10. Gather 13. Freestyle

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Created using the Crossword Maker on TheTeachersCorner.net

Across 1. Recently resigned as UK Prime Minister.

Down 2. West Papua has struggled for decades for

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through my writing and by curating the submissions to

Editors’ Farewell Letters

be featured in the magazine. As an editor, I have written articles I would want to read myself. I don’t believe in shying away from challenging topics. I think it’s essential to confront them head-on, to look the taboo straight in the eye. It’s been heartening to hear from so many Glassies about the comfort and feeling of solidarity these stories have brought to them. I have put some deeply personal things into words over these past two years, including an open letter to all men and an open letter to women. I am beyond grateful for the trust I have in the Glass community

Ella I’ve been a writer for as long as I can remember. I started working as an editor at Glass in my second year of university, which allowed me to turn a hobby into a job

Tom

– a rare thing in this capitalist society. I remember being excited to be a part of such a cornerstone of campus

that I not only felt safe to share these experiences but also comforted by each person who read them.

This won’t be my final foray into journalism – my time at Glass has inspired me to study journalism alongside my law degree. I’ll always be a Glassie at heart, and I know it will shape my writing for years to come.

When I started at Glass in 2021, I had just graduated with

In saying farewell to Glass, I’m excited to think that the

a Bachelor of Fine Arts (Creative Writing) and had the job

publication lives on – for as long as there are students at

prospects to match the degree. I'd quit my warehousing job

QUT, and for as long as they are reading. Good luck to

without a backup plan, because spending nights moving

the incoming team, Ciaran, Konstanz, Ben, and Celeste. I

Over the years, Glass and I have grown together, and

clothes had eroded my soul, and because the cement floors

challenge you to leave it in a better place than you found

I’ve found my voice as the magazine has, in turn, done

were destroying my back.

it. And to you, the Glass readers, thank you for giving

the same. I’m proud to see how Glass has grown into a

As I prepare to say goodbye to Glass, it feels like I’m saying

me an opportunity to work with passion, and to care so

polished, intelligent, publication for the QUT community.

goodbye to a beloved friend (as well as the actual friends

deeply about a project in your community.

It’s a real gift to all of us: students, alumni, and staff. I feel

I’m farewelling). Glass has been an integral part of my

honoured to have been a part of that over my two years

university experience and life thus far, and it’s been my

at Glass.

privilege to make it part of yours too.

As always, with love,

When I applied for the vacancy at Glass, I thought I could at least do something related to journalism while I was

culture and have a platform for my mind that was brimming

I want to thank everyone who was part of Glass and

with ideas.

supported Glass during my time as an editor – I feel so

studying it. I didn’t understand what student journalism

After nearly two years at Glass I now treasure student

was, didn’t have much to do with QUT, and certainly didn’t

journalism, and consider the culture at QUT to be vibrant

care about student politics.

and evolving, even if I still don’t care about student politics

One of the immense privileges of being an editor at Glass

and my back is still sore.

has been the permission to tell the stories of my peers

Two years on, student journalism has become my bread

I hope this Annual will serve as a time capsule of the

opportunity to learn in a classroom or a textbook, I have

brilliant work of QUT students in 2022, and from all of us

had the privilege to put into practice at Glass.

at Glass, I hope you enjoy it.

2022 has been a turbulent year for student journalism.

With love,

From the Semper Art of Shoplifting furor, to the On Dit editor dismissal by the Adelaide University Union Board, we have been reminded that what we do and what we write

Editor in Chief

Visit Glass online at qutglass.com

don’t get to wear training wheels.

to the National Student Safety Survey findings, QUT has been a busy place, and as ever, we students have been busy.

Glass has in the past year published more work, by more people, at a higher standard than ever before, and I am so grateful to be a part of this upward trend. To the staff and executives of the QUT Student Guild, to my fellow editors with whom I have shared an office and years of my life,

Ella

Tom Loudon

matters. Though we have “student” in our job titles, we

From QUT’s ongoing conflicts with students and staff,

publication for QUT students.

Follow us @qutglass Subscribe to our newsletter

If you’re a fan of Glass, or would like to see your work in these pages, get involved with the Glass community today!

Join the groups “Glassies” and “QUT Writers” on Facebook to be the first to see publication opportunities.

Get Involved

and butter and QUT my beat. Everything I’ve had the

grateful to have worked with you to make such a special

and to every submitter who trusted me with their work, thank you.

6

EDITORS LETTER

EDITORS' LETTER

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22

Glass 2022 Wrapped Glass Editors 666 days

675 days

Outgoing editor Tom has served 666 days at Glass

Outgoing editor Ella has served 675 days at Glass

Glass Website 130 articles

52,000 visitors

364 days

50 days

Editor Ciaran Greig Editors Celeste has served Muller, Ben Steele and Konstanz 364 days at Glass Muller Hering have each served 50 days at Glass

Glass Social Media 166 posts

3,300 likes Trigger warning: Sexual Assault

ELLA BRUMM

130 articles published online as of Oct 2022

qutglass.com had 52,000 visitors in the last year

Glass has made 166 posts on Instagram over the past year

Glass Publishing 67 contributors

4 3 issues

Over 3,300 people like Glass on Facebook

In June, Queensland’s Attorney General Shannon

Mistake of Fact is a defence used in sexual assault and

Fentiman announced that Queensland is likely to adopt

rape cases that suggests the defendant had an honest and

an affirmative consent model, but until then, Queensland

reasonable – but mistaken – belief that the complainant

remains one of the worst states in Australia for achieving

was consenting. This is easier for a defendant than

justice for victims.

disproving the incident occurred. To prove Mistake of

In Australia, to secure a conviction of rape, the prosecution must prove that the defendant engaged in sexual

4,450 3 issues copies

intercourse without the complainant’s consent. However,

Mistake of Fact emphasises how the law is constructed, interpreted, and applied by men to favour men and leads

with the cognitive capacity to do so’. Consent cannot be

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FUN

4,450 copies printed in the last year

to suggest that intercourse was, in fact, consensual.

allows perpetrators to use rape myths to walk free.

consent, which must be ‘freely and voluntarily given

4 issues published this year

what a victim was wearing, drinking, or where they were,

in Queensland, it isn’t that easy, and a century-old loophole

In Queensland, the definition of rape centres around

67 contributors published in the last year

Fact, a defendant will lean into popular rape myths, like

obtained falsely, including by threat, force, intimidation, or fraud.

to survivors facing more scrutiny than perpetrators of assault. While a person of any gender can commit sexual assault and rape, this article focuses on the maleperpetrator, female-victim paradigm, reflecting the gender disproportionality in these cases.

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The Freeze Response

‘The courts have said that if the defendant is intoxicated,

‘There are two important things to note [about this study].

‘This is not just an issue about changing the law, it’s also

then that might mean they would make a mistake that they

Firstly, you can’t use a study from the UK as evidence of

about changing social attitudes, and that’s probably

might not otherwise make [sober], and so in that respect,

what happens in QLD trials; there’s just no way you can

the most important objective. We... need to accompany

it can support the honesty of the mistake.’

draw that connection,’ Professor Crowe said.

legislative changes with public education. This is

circumstances of the victim, but the freeze response is

W hile intoxication cannot be used to determine

‘Secondly, other studies in Australia from different states

often misunderstood in terms of sexual assault.

reasonableness, Crowe doubts whether a jury would be

have shown that rape myths play a role in rape trials, and

able to distinguish this legal technicality.

the QLRC just ignored that in favour of this UK study’.

violence and determine their safest option is to freeze,

‘The problem I think is that because intoxication is relevant

‘The reason the QLRC had its inquiry in the first place was

assessing that fighting or fleeing would increase the risk

to honesty, the defence could [say] the defendant was so

because of substantive problems that have been pointed

of pain and suffering. In cases like these, the defence can

drunk that they made a mistake.’

out by [advocates] ... and so the QLRC’s reforms didn’t do

During an attack, a victim of sexual assault may respond in one of three ways: fight, f light, or freeze. Each response is entirely valid and depends on the individual

Some victims fear the threat of implicit or explicit physical

establish Mistake of Fact despite freezing not being an indicator of consent under the law.

Crowe highlights that this is not an issue in other states, as intoxication is deemed irrelevant and cannot be used to prove honesty for Mistake of Fact. However, the ability to

So how do we rectify this institutionalised nature of

rely on intoxication to prove the defendant’s mistake was

gaslighting survivors and ensure that the justice system

or verbally resisting the assault. The defence used her

honest remains an issue in Queensland, where this defence

upholds the rights of the complainant? According to

lack of resistance to raise Mistake of Fact as it meant

has succeeded in cases where the complainant ‘blacked

Professor Crowe, the answer is simple.

the defendant could have mistakenly believed she was

out’, legally meaning she was incapable of consenting.

consenting as she did not fight back.

During one trial it was noted that the defendant was

passively complied, allowing the defendant to benefit from Mistake of Fact. She repeatedly told her attacker to stop and attempted to push him off. The defendant then

complainant’s clothes. The defence insinuated that the complainant was mistaken in her account of being raped, as she herself was drunk.

removed her clothes and had intercourse with her. The

Intoxication is only legally permissible for determining a

complainant testified that her body froze because she was

victim’s capacity to consent, but in this case, it was used

scared that her resistance would be to no avail or lead to

to undermine and critique the complainant’s account,

greater harm. The defendant was able to prove Mistake of

thereby placing the victim on trial rather than the

Fact on the ground of her freezing.

defendant.

This has established a dangerous precedent in Queensland – a victim’s initial refusal is not enough to refute consent.

Any subsequent freezing retroactively validates the defendant’s belief that consent had been given.

Intoxication Lowers the Bar for Proving Mistake of Fact Intoxication, either by the defendant, the complainant, or both, allows the defendant to blame their lack of caution when gauging whether the complainant was consenting on intoxication.

To prove Mistake of Fact, the defendant must demonstrate that their belief was not only honest but also reasonable.

Intoxication cannot be used to prove that the defendant’s mistake was reasonable. However, it can be used to prove that it was honest. Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Research at Bond University, Jonathon Crowe, summarises this as determining if a mistake is a genuine mistake and not just something being made up.

The Recent Amendment Has Not Gone Far Enough The availability of the Mistake of Fact defence in

to do at some point because that’s the model that has been adopted in other states … the other option of removing the Mistake of Fact excuse from rape and sexual assault entirely should also be on the table.’

Essentially, this would mean that the defendant cannot rely upon intoxication to prove their mistake was honest or retort archaic rape myths. Additionally, the defendant must demonstrate that he took positive steps in ascertaining the complainant’s consent. In practice, this would mean that the Mistake of Fact defence would not be available for the defendant to use.

This would alleviate the injustice experienced by victims without infringing upon the defendant’s right to a fair trial

In June 2020, the Queensland Law Reform Commission

or presumption of innocence. The initiating party will

delivered a profoundly flawed review of the operation

be expected to take active steps to ensure their partner

and application of consent and Mistake of Fact. For the

consents to each new sexual act, as they cannot rely on

gravity of such an issue and the immense overhaul needed

this defence to excuse reckless behaviour.

were substantial.

Conservative opponents argue this will reverse the onus of proof. This is a flawed argument as the onus of proof remains with the prosecution to prove the defendant had

The review states that recent research does not strongly

carnal knowledge with the complainant without their

support the concern that jurors commonly harbour false

consent, remaining consistent with the rule of law and

prejudices or rape myths, or that any such preconceptions

due process.

affect jury deliberation or verdicts. This indicates a willing ignorance on the part of the QLRC concerning the mountain of studies that have been conducted in Australia regarding the influence rape myths have on jurors’ ability to remain impartial, and instead relied upon a heavily criticised study from the UK.

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be a big step forward, and that is what Queensland is likely

their best efforts to achieve justice will only be in vain.

QLRC delivered only five recommendations, none of which

This piece was originally published on qutglass.com

‘I think that limiting the application of the excuse would

Queensland screams to sexual assault survivors that

to amend these injustices for sexual assault victims, the

over time... address and rectify rape myths.’

change the law, they just codified it.’

entirely unconscious, rendering her incapable of physically

intoxicated making them ‘too drunk’ to have removed the

of sex education in schools. I think that is the only way to,

anything to address those problems because they didn’t

In R v Sax the complainant was extremely drunk but not

In R v Dunrobin the complainant initially resisted, then

something that should be sustained and should be part

‘It’s just false,’ Professor Crowe says. ‘That is wrong to say in law. Regardless of whether the Mistake of Fact excuse applies to rape or not, the prosecution would still have to prove the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.’

FEATURE

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A recent study by Associate Professor Rachel Wilson of

legal role, you can claim your work as your placement."

The University of Sydney found that of undergraduates

These options are not open to Education students.

who had entered a teaching qualification in 2012, only 51% managed to complete the program by 2018. In other words, half of the potential teachers dropped out or postponed their studies – and this is pre-pandemic. The report also found that although the number of students entering undergraduate programs per year has grown considerably, the number completing these programs has actually fallen. The report lists several possible reasons for these worrying trends but misses one glaring problem

effective way to end a persuasive essay is with a call to action or concluding statement. The obvious fit for this

These headlines have become a familiar part of our news

society.

the odds. The cost of living is rising daily, and there is

up months’ worth of wages, financial security, and even

less incentive than ever before to become a professional working in education. There is no one simple fix to these problems, but a good start might be allowing our potential teachers a living wage while learning how to shape our society’s future.

job security. After all, casual jobs are under no obligation to keep a staff member who needs to take a month or more of leave. With Centrelink payments for students still below the poverty line, daily living becomes a struggle.

Memorably, one of the speakers described her time on

– but if you asked your average Queensland education

placement as ‘a breakdown every day.’

month of unpaid placement. I know I would have.

our critical industries like they are valued by Australian

Education students feel like martyrs struggling against

graduates? These are both formidable, looming questions

struggling to pay my rent because I’m halfway through a

statement to be made here: we need to start treating

for a profession with such a high burnout rate.

Why are teachers leaving? And why aren’t there enough

priority – The Educator Australia

of a broader problem. There is a much more important

Teachers in this country feel disrespected and burnt out.

Long hours, emotional exhaustion, the reality of giving

month, they might have replied with Well, for starters I’m

for vocational placements.' However, this is one facet

question whether the sacrifice is worth it – particularly

of the realities we were to expect from the experience.

Australia's teacher shortage crisis must be an election

article would be 'we need to pay pre-service teachers

trade stories of financial hardship and stress, and many

lecture offered to potential teachers, informing them

student what their biggest obstacle to graduating was last

problem of unpaid placements.

graduate teachers.

Before our cohort’s first placement, we had an information

ABC

But rarely is a problem so obvious and solvable as the

Any English teacher worth their salt will tell you that an

to realise that this is far from the only problem. Students

Queensland teacher shortage reaching 'crisis point’ – The

salary progression, and staggering workload expectations.

obscures a big problem: unpaid placements mean fewer

all you have to do is listen to the classroom conversations

crisis – The University of Sydney

typical of neo-liberal trending governance in Australia.

as ‘lawfully unpaid’, an impressively innocuous term that

being experienced by students for the first time. However,

aren’t enough graduate teachers to fill the gaps.

stunning disrespect for a critical industry that’s become

classrooms, a lack of support for new teachers, meagre

can be partially attributed to the realities of the profession

Covid and schools: we're heading into a teacher shortage

lengthy, challenging placements. This indicates an utterly

potential teachers out of education. There are overstocked

time have re-assembled afterwards to fewer faces. This

are leaving the profession in droves, and there simply

force them to give up wages and job security to complete

teaching organisations across Australia.

My cohort and I have completed two placements, and each

here’s what you’d find:

dollars to perform this act of public service, but also

These placements are just one of the many barriers keeping

This experience is described by the Fair Work Act 2009

demand, and this supply problem is multifaceted. Teachers

decided it would not only charge tens of thousands of

placement, the months of unpaid labour mandated by

60 and 80 days of placement to finish their qualification.

If you were to Google “teacher crisis” at the time of writing,

a job, but a calling. Somewhere along the line, Australia

that education students deal with every year: vocational

Student teachers in Queensland must undertake between

HARRY GEORGE WALLACE

Teaching is a public service – often described as not just

Many industries that feed into private employment have options to work around unpaid placements. William Leach, a professional engineer, commented that his alma mater "has a requirement of three months of work experience,

cycle. University studies, think pieces, and newspaper

My peers and I are what universities optimistically refer

and it's paid. There are more hoops to jump through to get

headlines all agree on one thing: there aren’t enough

to as “pre-service” teachers – in other words, education

an unpaid position funnily enough." Alani Tenaglia faced

teachers, and the problem is worsening rapidly. In the

students. The optimism here springs from the assumption

a similar situation in her law degree: "To practice law, you

face of this, one might wonder why there aren’t enough

that those studying teaching will naturally become

need to undertake 75 days of placement, or 15 days and an

teachers. There appears to be a lack of supply and mounting

teachers. According to evidence, this assumption is wrong.

additional course. You’re not inherently paid to complete

This piece was originally published on qutglass.com

placement, but if you are working in a particular type of

12

OPINION

13

A Glassie's Guide to Tactical Halloween Costumes KONSTANZ MULLER HERING

1. The Nostalgic Costume

Welcome Glassies, to your guide to life. This series takes

Dive deep into the early ‘00s and grab anything you can

a deep dive into all your pressing need-to-knows (how to

get. (If you find childlike joy pass it around, would ya?

contact your local MP, how to make the perfect cocktail,

Asking for a friend).

and how to get over your ex, goddamnit) and offers comprehensive guides so that you can live your Best Glassie Life™.

This edition is A Glassie’s Guide to Tactical Halloween Costumes.

Glassies, it’s that time of year again. Dust off the pirate hats and get ready to rumble. This year, we’re dressing

If you choose the nostalgic costume: automatic 10/10. You seem like a good time.

I want to see Shego, I want to see Lizzy McGuire, I want to see Danny Phantom.

Easiest nostalgic outfits on short notice include: 1.

Kim Possible

2.

Jeremy Johnson (Phineas and Ferb)

3.

Abbey Wilson (The Replacements)

pump, based on your intentions for the night.

4.

Timmy Turner

There are some Halloween classics, some new costumes,

5.

Kuki Sanban (Codename: Kids Next Door)

6.

Jake Long (American Dragon)

7.

LaCienega Boulevardez (The Proud Family)

8.

Ed, Edd or Eddy

9.

Lewis McCartney ( H2O: Just Add Water)

with intent.

In this Guide, I’ve organised (and rated) quick and easy Halloween costumes for students on the go and under the

and some trends in need of dying out. Rest assured, something in this Guide is bound to help you out.

First up, you’ve got to pick your poison.

10. Billy or Mandy (The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy)

14

ILLUSTRATION BY BEN STEELE

NON-FICTION

15

2. The Couples Costume

4. The Accidental Solo Costume

7/10 if you’re recognisable. 9/10 if you choose foes. Give

You weren’t planning on flying solo, but you are.

me Perry the Platypus & Dr Doofenshmirtz, give me bin chicken and water spray bottle, but for God’s sake don’t give me clowns and mimes. No-one, and I mean NO-ONE, wants to see sweaty half-ruined clown makeup with a red

There’s no reason why you can’t still try out that couples or friend‘s’ costume you had planned. Just be audacious and hit the town in search of your people.

nose in a bathroom in the Valley while drunk past midnight

Go ahead and dress up as the sk8ter boi to someone’s Avril

on a Sundy.

Lavigne. Be the boombox to some group’s disco workout outfits.

Easy outfits include, but are not limited to: 1.

Wearing human-sized Cards Against Humanity card pairings.

2.

Peter Pan and Wendy, trying to change the ending.

3.

Baker and a sweet treat.

4.

Scarecrow and flowers.

5.

Most Disney couples.

6.

Dr W ho and companion (there are no wrong combinations, but there is a right one).

7.

Most anything that comes in pairs.

8.

Literally any couple from a notable TV show.

3. The Friends’ Costume 5/10 if you pushed for a group costume to happen.

7/10 if you were the friend that just got forced into it because someone else already had a hot outfit. I know you tried. Or maybe you didn’t. Either way, you deserve the recognition. I hear you, I see your pain. Stay strong out there.

Nothing screams easy quite like taking costume inspo from The Power Puff Girls, Winx, Men in Black, Scooby Doo,

Based on the sheer confidence you need to have for this one, I’m giving you a 10/10. *Be weary that your choice may signal certain sexual proclivities. Thing One or Thing Two? Talk about top/ bottom dynamic. The freedom of choice is not one to be taken lightly. Good luck.

5. The Sexy Something Costume The name is self-explanatory.

5/10 for the basics: sexy cat, sexy nurse, sexy vampire, sexy sports person…

9/10 for the unexpected: sexy bed sheet ghost, sexy stethoscope, sexy overdue tax return.

6. The Hook-Up Costume You have one thing on your mind, and it’s not cuddles.

Some final thoughts, Glassies:

Personally, I’m choosing characteristics this year. It’s a

As general housekeeping, if you’re questioning whether

little similar to the ‘sexy something costume’, except I’m

your chosen costume is appropriate, the answer is

dropping the pretext.

probably no.

This Halloween, you’ll find me in a short little red number,

Maybe don’t dress up as Jeffrey D. Maybe let’s not capitalise

I’d argue that any costume can be a hook-up costume

not trying to be anything other than hot. Because that’s

on trauma.

as long as you flirt hard enough, but here are five of the

what I think confidence looks like. (And the crystals aren’t

hottest things you can try if you want to go above and

working on their own so I’m upping my manifestation

beyond:

techniques. All evidence points to, If I fake it, I’ll make it.)

Don’t mention any existential dread during your attempt to snag a hook-up. It’s a buzzkill this close to Christmas.

Teletubbies, Pac-Man, Stranger Things, any hospital show,

Carry a sign that says “I’ll do your dishes/laundry/help you

the general cowboy aesthetic, the general pirate aesthetic,

with your APA referencing after I do you.” (Listen, I’m not

and, for some reason, the general American red-cup frat

condoning objectifying yourself in the name of a hook-up.

boy aesthetic.

But I am recommending you invest in what you want.)

Grab yourselves enough hats/wings/scrubs/ and you’ve

Smile. But not too much.

got yourself a crew/finagle/medical team.

7. The Characteristic–Over–Character Costume

Save your money, babe. You still need to pay rent.

If you’ve got the outfit but no party, The QUT Literary Salon and ScratchThat both have a Halloween-themed launch coming up.

Be comfy, have fun, and stay safe, Glassies!

Make sure you smell nice. A little perfume or body spray can go a long way.

Carry mints.

16

NON-FICTION

17

4.

Paloma (Stir, Stirring, Stirred)

2.

I never know if my tarot card pulls are accurate, or if I

3.

make them accurate. It’s easy enough to manipulate

early afternoon. The limestone buildings shade one

the meaning. Each morning I lay them all out face

literary salon. The supermarket is dead as I wander through, picking up things that I’ll be able to get

jacket next time. Someone is sound-checking their

through before we move. Sparkling water, a block of

guitar on the verandah-turned-stage. A small crowd

cheese, soup, bread rolls, oyster mushrooms. I put the

is sprawled across the backyard, and I sit next to

coffee beans back when I remember my housemate

her, we catch up over a few beers. She looks happy

has already taken their machine to their new house.

in the way I want to be sometime soon. She gives me

In a few weeks, everything will be different. I am

a few musician recommendations and they are what

excited and scared at the same time, mourning and

I needed to hear, whether she knew that or not. A

reviving over and over in the self-checkout line.

8.

A friend invites me over for dinner by her fire pit. The months of rain had long ended the fire ban, and I

My sister asks me if I am alright. I say that I will be. I am

bring over nice wine. We sit out on the grass. I’ve

sidewalk and illuminate another, and I cross the street

on the other side of the country when my landlords

known this home since I was little, it is a home in

down, I flip the same card over, week after week. The

each time to walk in the sun. A true Queenslander. I

call to say they are selling, and the sooner we’re out,

and of itself. I lived here once, when I was between

Hierophant. It’s a card about tradition, paths, and past

am alone this afternoon, making my own way through

the better (for them). I feel my sense of security in

houses. It is a soft place to land. I’m here, again, on

wisdom, about looking back to go forward. Chalking

the streets. I slip into a bar, order a Paloma, and sit at

Brisbane collapsing, my tether to this place eroding

the precipice, the bushland of outer Brisbane brings

it up to coincidence is easier than giving weight to it.

the high tops by the window. I feel like I breathe easier

in real-time. This breakaway gives space to a pull I

me a clarity I don’t know if I will be able to replicate

Each time I pull it from the deck I stare at it longer

here, whether that’s because it’s colder or because I

have felt for a long time, a pull that my cards have

in a new city. I leave in a few weeks and I know it is

than I need to, already knowing what it’s trying to say.

am wholly alone I don’t know. I couldn’t have had a

been telling me about for longer. There are things that

what I am stretching out for. A new path, following

drink alone a year ago, but my own company does not

keep me in this city, but I know there is not enough

what is now a tradition in my family, to move over

make me feel lonely anymore. I know what it means

to make me stay.

west in a time of great change. My friend talks for a

My stepfather is making paella in the kitchen, I am sitting at the bench top. We are in their new house, boxes strewn across the rooms. He, my mother, and my sister moved in not long before I arrived. I’ve

to be alone. Salt and grapefruit hum together as I sit, I have a fortnight left here.

5.

I do the grocery shopping while two wines in after a

a friend of a friend, making a mental note to bring a

start, and we settle in.

I am walking through the Fremantle city grid in the

7.

I’ve been in Brisbane. I’m sitting in the backyard of

cautionary strum tells us that the music is about to

EM READMAN

1.

I’ve spent more time with her over west than when

6.

Half-empty houses echo in a unique way. Sound travels further than you mean it to when it doesn’t hit

gotten to know him better since the hard border

couches, curtains, blankets, or tables along the way.

between their state and mine came down – a chance

The echo makes me think there are more people in

to make up for the lost time. We get onto talking

the house than just me, waiting for the end of a lease,

about his youth, and he tells me about him holding

the start of something else. The start of, hopefully,

the record for the fastest drive between two towns,

something better. I am packing my art pieces into

about motorbikes, about his family farm. He tells me

tube mailers late at night, and the empty walls make

about how he’s always been pulled between duty and

for a stark reminder of how I made this place home.

wanting. I ask how he brought himself to choose what

I cry, and the echo carries. I remind myself that it

he wanted, and he told me the choice is easy when

is alright to be sad after making the right decision.

long time about bravery, about choosing what you deserve, about how feeling half-doomed comes with a freedom that you cannot get ahold of any other way.

I feel my chin wobble, feel myself come apart at the seams, preparing to put myself back together. I feel myself starting to stir.

you’re willing to make it.

This piece was originally published on qutglass.com

18

MEMOIR

19

The QUT Student Guild said in a statement that the results of the survey were confronting.

QUT Ranks 19th Nationally for Prevalence of Sexual Assault, 5th for Harassment A round up of Glass reporting on the 2022 NSSS survey findings.

CW: This article discusses sexual harassment and sexual assault.

The NSSS survey also collected data on the prevalence of

universities revealed one in six students had been sexually

sexual assault in Australian higher education, with data

harassed since starting university.

suggesting one in 20 (4.5%) students have been sexually assaulted since starting university.

Survey (NSSS) between August 2019 and January 2022, and

At QUT the results are just as grim, with the university’s

its findings were released to universities prior to being

4.3% rate of sexual assault placing it 19th in the country.

‘It is clear that all universities have a long way to go in combatting harassment and assaults on campus.’

‘If you have been harassed or assaulted and are unsure where to go, there are a range of services available such as counselling and medical support at QUT. ‘The Harassment and Discrimination Advisers are a

In an email to students, QUT Registrar Leanne Harvey

Bond University and Australian National University were the worst offenders nation-wide, making up the top two highest instances of harassment and assault.

QUT Resources HARASSMENT AND DISCRIMINATION ADVISERS:

qut.to/had

One in six (16.1%) students responding reported having

said that everyone who attends university, ‘has the right to

been sexually harassed since beginning university, with

feel safe, and to believe they will be treated with respect,

07 3138 2019

one in 12 (8.1%) reporting having been sexually harassed

dignity and fairness.

discriminationadviser@qut.edu.au

‘Any incidence of sexual harassment or sexual assault is

STUDENT COUNSELLORS

in the last twelve months.

The report noted, ‘female students (62.9%), transgender students (62.8%) and students who were non-binary or identified as another gender (76.8%) were more likely to have experienced sexual harassment in their lifetime than male students (26.0%)'.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) National President Dr Alison Barnes said the results of the survey were shocking.

‘I feel heartbroken for the students who have been failed by universities and our Federal Government,’ Dr Barnes said.

unacceptable.’

The report also highlighted that student accommodation and university facilities and events were the most common places for assault and harassment to occur.

Gender and sexually diverse students are in some instances nearly three times as likely to be harassed and assaulted than their cisgender and heterosexual counterparts, and nearly one in three (29.1%) students with a disability have

MENTAL HEALTH NURSES

been sexually harassed in a university context.

The survey found incredibly low rates of reporting within

‘It is sadly unsurprising that student safety and knowledge

the university, with some case studies suggesting that

of formal complaint processes has become collateral

university mechanisms are completely ill-equipped to

damage in the war the Federal Government has waged

handle the task of dealing with campus assault.

against universities.’

‘Our results show that QUT must do further work to

Download the Safe Zone app to your

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) was among

increase knowledge of where students can go to make

the universities above the national average, with one in

a complaint or seek assistance following an incidence of

five (20.4%) of respondents reporting sexual harassment

sexual harassment or sexual assault,’ Harvey said.

the links on this page

‘58% of QUT students had little or no knowledge of where

QUT.TO/SAFEZONE

since beginning their studies, and one in ten (11.8%) being sexually harassed in the past 12 months.

20

the statement read.

sexual harassment, or discrimination.’

In March, the results of a survey of 40 major Australian

made public last Wednesday.

harassment and assault, [the results] are not surprising,’

support network to discuss options around sexual assault,

TOM LOUDON

43,819 students participated in the National Student Safety

‘To the many students who have been victims of sexual

to go to make a complaint about sexual harassment, about

This was the fifth highest prevalence of sexual harassment

55% had little or no knowledge of where to go to seek

in universities nationally.

support.’

smartphone or at iTunes or Google Play or via

For further resources, visit:

Call Security on 3138 5585 and for an emergency on 3138 8888.

NEWS

21

QUT Staff Vote To Strike

has launched a petition for QUT students to show their support for teaching staff.

bargaining between the NTEU and QUT, and paves the way for the first industrial action at the University since

• •

•

be no more than 36.25 hours per week

supervisors/manager/Dean?

was during COVID because that was a significantly rainy

between 8am-6pm Monday to Friday.

A ban on participation in Queensland University of

A ban on the submission of invoices?

•

Stoppages of the performance of work of between 5 minutes and 24 hours in duration?

Indefinite stoppages of work?

bet ween an employer and employees (or t heir

Member s vot ed over whelming ly in favour of

representatives) with the goal of reaching an enterprise

authorising all the above actions.

agreement established under the Fair Work Act.

The student to staff ratio at QUT has risen to 11.5:1,

day,’ he said.

University must actually measure academic work in a real way so staff

students.’

aren’t required to mark a 1,500-word

Oxford University Vice-Chancellor.

three days’ notice – so we won’t be moving to a full-day strike in the immediate future.’

‘The legal provisions to taking industrial action in Australia are a fucking disgrace.’

Voters were asked by the Fair Work Commission: ‘In support of reaching an Enterprise Agreement with Queensland University of Technology, do you authorise industrial action against your employer, separately, concurrently and/or consecutively, in the form of: •

A ban on the transmission of assessment results to the employer?

•

annually.

QUT NTEU Branch president, Associate Professor

the University, the National Tertiary Education Union

David Nielsen, says concessions around staff workload,

(NTEU) and individual bargaining representatives,’ they

work intensification, and job security are central to the

said.

‘We are still in negotiations and cannot comment on

•

Work from home rights for all staff, and appropriate protections and allowances for professional WFH staff.

•

17% employer superannuation contributions.

•

Lawful conditions and requirements on the outsourcing of work / use of

forefront of our planning to ensure we can address their

contractors that a staff member or

needs while still providing appropriate outcomes for

future staff member is capable of

our staff.’

performing.

‘There’s a lot of energy to take industrial action from our members – for an action to get up you need an absolute majority of members, so the result is overwhelming.’

‘Staff are not doing this out of greed, there is a very strong recognition amongst staff that the taking of industrial action will benefit of the entire QUT community.’

According to QUT’s 2021 Annual Report, employerrelated expenses decreased from $625.3 million to

Student complaints have become louder over the past

•

No individual to be subject to

few years, and recurring issues include: little to no

organisational change process for the

one-on-one time with teaching staff, marking delays,

duration of the enterprise agreement

poor facilities maintenance, reductions of classes due to

– the University can’t restructure staff

staffing issues, and recycled online materials.

out of jobs.

In a statement, the QUT Student Guild president Oscar

•

Davison said he supported the move to industrial action.

expenditure.

the NTEU,’ he said.

The University currently has $72 million in unallocated

‘W hile it is a shame that industrial action is now

funds, in addition to a surplus of over $138 million, which

necessary, I support QUT Staff in any action they take,

Nielsen calls ‘rainy day’ funds.

and call upon QUT students to support the staff who

A ban on working outside the span of hours?

as a result of organisational change.

important issues,’ Nielsen said.

are taking industrial action in communications

•

Protection against work intensification

various claims, however, student concerns are at the

‘The QUT Student Guild stands with our comrades at

A ban on working overtime?

•

‘There’s a lot of dissatisfaction around these very

$605.5 million last year, about 59% of their total

•

Protections against excessive or uncompensated overtime.

‘So far there have been ten bargaining meetings with

Making statements explaining why NTEU members with any person whilst working?

•

Altogether, QUT executives are paid about $5 million

still ongoing.

union’s claims.

working unpaid hours).

highest in the country and higher than the salary of the

productivity increase for academics that has not been

want to, we are required to provide management with

says doing the job properly means

$1.2 million in 2021 to $1.08 million, which is the 10th

McNally, said the results achieved were ‘outstanding.’

‘But we aren’t able to take industrial action whenever we

essay in 15 minutes (currently, the union

In 2022, QUT’s Vice-Chancellor’s salary was down from

A spokesperson for the University said negotiations are

said.

Caps on academic workloads – the

it can afford to provide good outcomes for staff and

which staff representatives say requires a significant reflected in their remuneration.

•

‘I believe QUT is a very healthy financial entity and that

Secretary of the NTEU Queensland Division, Michael

‘95% of those who voted support strike action,’ McNally

22

‘An ideal opportunity for that surplus to be deployed

•

•

Ordinary hours for professional staff to

Ban o n at ten din g wo rkpl a ce m eet in gs w ith

Technology events?

2019.

Enterprise bargaining is the process of negotiation

Salary rates and allowances for all increased by 12% by 31 December 2024.

Technology.

The September poll followed six months of enterprise

with QUT:

NTEU members employed by QUT to be

Union voted over whelmingly in favour of taking industrial action against the Queensland University of

The NTEU have logged the following claims

•

TOM LOUDON

The QUT branch of the National Tertiary Education

What are staff bargaining for?

The QUT Student Guild

facilitate their education, and stand with the NTEU.’

Retrenchment, including voluntary retrenchment, only to occur where the position is no longer required.

•

The right to conversion to permanent employment after three years of continuous service or two successive contracts.

•

Gender affirmation leave.

NEWS

23

Sincerely, Me lacks Sincerity: Review

by Jack Bell JACK BELL

I’ve always had an opinion that it’s no more fun watching someone be drunk in a movie than to watch someone be drunk in real life. Some people find cheerful drunkenness endearing – I find it obnoxious. This is why I’ve never really enjoyed movies like Arthur or Animal House as much as others seem to; but now, after reading Sincerely, Me by Julietta Henderson, I can add another

Anyway, the plot: Mulberry (who is possibly the most

To its credit, Sincerely, Me is not totally inauthentic. As

chipper and bushy-tailed chronic alcoholic in fiction

the story goes on and deepens, its plot turns feature –

since the supporting characters on Cheers) lives a

amongst other dramas – a suicide attempt, a runaway

content life as a jobless, couch-hopping, hanger-on

teenager, and desperate attempts at reconciliation

who drinks, raises hell, exploits his few remaining

to heal the lingering wounds of past trauma. The less

friendships in the process, rinses, and repeats. That is,

stony-hearted of its readers will surely shed a tear or

until, the inciting incident: during an arrest, his photo

two, and will end with a smile.

and a drunken faux-philosophical quote are printed in the newspaper. All of a sudden, like Howard Beale but without the insanity, he strikes a chord with the common man – letters flock to him from average people across the country, seeking answers to their varied personal problems from their new humdrum guru.

Drama is introduced: Danny’s headstrong teenage niece tracks him down and meets him for the first time, since his sister wants nothing to do with him. He and his best friend were in love with the same woman, who is now dead from cancer. He must come to terms with the effects of his mistakes on his friends and family, as well as on the traumas of his past, ect. The central dramatic thrust takes the form of a series of mundane cliff hangers: will Danny Mulberr y finally mature, learn to take responsibility, and mend the troubled relationships in his life?

thought on the matter as well: it’s not much fun reading

Sincerely, Me – the exceedingly positive tone of which

about someone being drunk, either.

reads curiously like a YA novel but with adult characters

With a protagonist that helpfully exposits on the very first page that he is ‘Danny Mulbury, Mr Could-DoBetter, permanent address your best mate’s garden shed’, we’re all but guaranteed a book that will be as suffused with cheerful drunkenness as Les Misérables is with digressions about the Parisian sewer system.

And yes, we do get pages and pages of our protagonist phonetically slurring dialogues of tiresome drunken wisdom, most of which I skimmed while thumbing the page corners to check how long the rest of the chapter was.

But for all its alcoholic consumption, let’s be clear that this is no shattering, emotionally-charged story of bottoming out on the level of a Million Little Pieces or a Dry. No, it would require too much backbone for that, or at least an expectation that it should make its audience feel just as uncomfortable as optimistic.

– is obviously written with the best of intentions and with its heart firmly on its sleeve, but ends up with the depth of a sitcom’s Very Special Episode. It’s the kind of book that would want to sit down and talk through your

But for all its impersonations of serious emotional depth, the book’s overall tone of sanitised idealism leaves it feeling more melodramatically calculated than genuinely affecting. The same way that The Sims series euphemises sex as "woohooing" for the purposes of parental discretion, I half-expected Sincerely, Me to do the same with any of its own uncouth elements.

But still, there’s nothing wrong with reading for diversion, after all. A lighthearted and morally optimistic lark can be just as worthwhile as something of more substance; depending, of course, on what you get out of it. Because this isn’t a novel that’s going for the Booker or the Pulitzer Prize, obviously – the nightstand of your cheerful aunt or that friend of yours who’s seen Bojack Horseman too many times will do just fine, thank you.

Sincerely, Me is available now from Penguin.

Glass Media pairs emerging QUT writers, readers, and critics up with new release titles to review and publish on our website. To find more information or to register your interest, head to our website.

emotional problems, but by telling you first that it’s an empath, which is why it understands you very deeply.

The kind that would take a Myers-Briggs test and be way too attached to its result. If it had no plot it would be in the self help section of the bookstore, which is where it feels like it wants to be anyway.

It’s not awful, but is a novel that feels as if it’s afraid of ever becoming too realistic, or too adult, for fear that a

This piece was originally published on qutglass.com

truly canny exploration of human redemption in all its genuine messiness would be too disagreeable. Instead it plays it safe, choosing to stay quirky, frothy, and kind of forgettable. It’s a simple, cheery book which tells its story with a smirk and requires no great patience from the reader (example: one not very long scene is divided into five whole chapters; many are in the form of letters from Danny’s answer-seekers), or emotional labour, either.

24

REVIEW

25

Originating in South East Asia and New Guinea, the banana

When Life Gives You Bananas

crop is a staple food across Asia and Africa. The crop’s high starch content and ease of tropical cultivation makes it a key foodstuff for some of the world’s most impoverished regions, providing accessible, reliable, and healthy food.

'In Uganda they cook raw bananas while they’re hard,' Dale says. 'The bananas are steamed for three-to-four hours, then mashed. The dish, "Matooke," is a staple of Uganda, and across East Africa, bananas are a massive crop in the region.'

When it comes to bananas, Dale knows what he’s talking about, and after 30 years working on the crop, the professor has become concerned.

Dale and his team have for the past decade focused their research on the emergence of a fungus called Tropical Race 4, and the development of genetically modified bananas able to resist the fungus. In a post-pandemic world, we think of deadly diseases as spreading rapidly through regions and communities, so the slow-moving fungus has at least left time on Dale’s side. But in agriculture, a little

Professor James Dale hopes to develop fungus resistant bananas.

Photograph: Joanne Simpkins.

fungus is a big deal.

'Once it gets in the soil, it’s impossible to remove,' Dale

banana tree grows from the base of an old one – a process

says.

known as budding – the new tree is an exact genetic replica

However, the severity of scale for a banana-plague isn’t comparable to COVID. Instead, Dale invokes the Potato Blight, a fungus that gripped the northern hemisphere in the mid-1800s. Due to the regressive British Government export and land-use policies of the time, the Blight became concentrated on Ireland, where over a million people starved to death in a single year. According to Dale, this

TOM LOUDON

could be microcosm of a world in a banana-plague.

At the Gardens Point campus of the Queensland University

Dale cuts a slight frame against his imposing, almost

of Technology, there is a room hidden atop an old brick

primeval office in one of the University’s oldest buildings.

building where scientists meet and conduct research

His desktop, however, is lined with keyboards and

unlike anywhere in the world. Their goal: to sure up the

computer screens, facing the desk of Joanne Simpkins,

fate of one of the world’s largest crops – bananas.

the QUT Bananas project manager with whom Dale shares

Professor James Dale AC is an agricultural scientist and

his office.

distinguished professor in the Faculty of Science School of

'This building is really flash,' Dale says, perhaps recognising

Biology & Environmental Science at QUT. He doesn’t teach,

the irony of a cutting-edge research facility in an old brick

but for the past 10 years he has led a team of world-leading

building.

scientific researchers. Their field of research – genetically modified banana crops – is gaining global importance in

But Dale’s research is anything but gimmicky.

the wake of a potentially devastating banana pandemic

'Bananas are one of the world’s top ten food crops,' Dale

threatening crops worldwide.

says. “Wheat, maze, rice, potato, Kasava, then bananas, soy beans, sweet potato, sorghum. Depends how you count sugar cane I suppose.'

'There is a very narrow genetic base of food crops that we eat,” Dale explains. “Industrial agriculture is based around monocultures, wherein a single cultivar is closely replicated or cloned to maximise output. That’s why the

of the old one.

All Cavendish bananas are clones.

These clones didn’t always make up such a large portion of the world’s bananas. Until the 1950s, the Gros Michel banana was favored by agriculturalists because its thicker peel made the crop resistant to bruising in transit. That was before Tropical Race 1, often referred to as Panama disease made its production unviable.

'They were clones, and they weren’t resistant to the fungus,' Dale says. 'Cavendish has taken over precisely because it is resistant to Tropical Race 1.'

Irish Blight eliminated a single potato crop across Ireland.

Tropical Race 4, now present in South America, Asia,

No diversity is bad for immunity.'

Australia, Sri Lanka, and Europe, is a blight for almost every

A nd when it comes to farming, bananas are a problematically un-diverse crop.

'There are about a thousand varieties,” Dale says of banana species. “But globally, the Cavendish banana makes up about 50% of all variety.'

species of banana, including the Cavendish. But in the wild, uncultivated, seeded banana plants of the world, some diversity remains.

Dale and his team identified a south-east Asian banana variant resistant to Tropical Race 4. After identifying the gene resistant to Tropical Race 4, they extracted the gene

Cavendish bananas and their variants are the bananas you

and inserted it into a Cavendish plant. The gene in question

get from the store. Unlike their wild counterparts, these

is already present in the Cavendish – the difference is, it

bananas don’t go to seed, which is great for consumers –

isn’t activated.

less seed, more banana. But this means that when a new

26

FEATURE

27

'In Australia, gene editing methods that do not introduce any new genetic material are de-regulated by the Office of the Gene Technology Regulator.'

'In many ways gene editing is the same as conventional breeding methods that create random changes to the DNA

Territory. The eventual goal; to provide an alternative to,

Film Review: Drive My Car

and potentially replace, Cavendish plantations in Uganda,

WRITTEN BY RORY HAWKINS

of a crop species by chemical mutagenesis, but they are more precise and targeted.'

This is essentially the technique developed by Dale to activate the resistant gene in the Cavendish, which has since been successfully tested at exposed sites in the Northern

across Africa, and the world.

And for Dale, this is only the beginning of the positive implications of this research.

Cross-section of a healthy banana tree (right), vs a tree infected with TR4 (left).

The team uses CRISPR gene editing to manipulate the DNA of banana plants.

'Trees have embryos too and we can make them in the

It is Valentine’s Day, and I am alone.

My Tinder first date was postponed to later in the week; we don’t want to set too romantic a precedent. Besides,

Drive My Car follows Yusuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), an ageing stage actor specialising in multi-lingual

'The Cavendish is high yielding … others are bigger, tougher,

today I want to see a movie, and we all should know by

tastier, disease resistant... we could potentially identify the

now that movies make awful first dates. It’s a stationary

relevant genes across these species and improve the output

road-trip, side by side, the sun beginning to rise – a bright

and quality of bananas around the world.

world ahead with shadows behind, with a total stranger.

'Similar opportunities exist too for other crops … citruses

A movie is an awful first date, especially when it’s the three-

follows. Like coarse Yusuke’s attitude to his new driver,

like oranges.'

hour long journey of a Japanese stage-actor grappling with

Misaki Watari (Toko Miura), it is a film that asks you to keep

the loss of his wife. But I’m not entirely alone. I invited a

both hands on the wheel and pay immediate attention. You

friend. Lachlan had nothing to do for Valentine’s too.

aren’t told a lot and are shown just enough, not a quality for

Until the day Dale’s bananas hit the shelves, there is one more major hurdle to clear.

lab,'Dale says. 'From modifying the embryo, we grow a

'They’re tiny,' Dale laughs. 'They get to about the size of your

plant that is a Cavendish in every way except that it is

pinky at the moment, but they’ll be at the store sometime

resistant to Tropical Race 4.'

soon, I hope.'

And I am desperate to see director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Drive My Car (2021), a film adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short story of the same name. It’s a real custom job, converting another of Murakami’s, Scheherazade, to

performances, but you aren’t told this in any convenient way. Similar to a short story, there’s no introductory scene to formally present himself as the protagonist or deliver his backstory as a speech. Simply, he moves, and the camera

everyone to enjoy. Add in subtitles for Japanese, Korean, and Japanese-Korean Sign Language, and even a quick reader like Lachlan needed the occasional 'remember, that’s a reference to when…'

But not everyone is completely sold on the prospect of

expand on character, plot and themes. Both stories have

But the film has a reputation for not being for everyone,

genetic modification, and so far, no gene edited crops have

been lifted from his 2017 (for English translation) short

which is obvious from the beginning.

been approved in Australia for sale. Synthetic Biologist

story collection, Men Without Women.

Dr Artem Anyshchenko warns public uptake of genetically

I look at Lachlan, at the vacant seats around me and him.

modified organisms is tentative.

Irony is never lost.

'There are plenty of socio-economic considerations that

Weird sex, that hallmark Murakami-ism.

Moreso, intimacy held askew with some instant feeling of imbalance or unease. Sunlight crowns the head, and darkly

And neither are these stories’ narrative idiosyncrasies –

masks the face of Yusuke’s wife, Oto (Reika Kirishima),

we’ll dub “Murakami-isms” – in transport to the screen,

as she props herself up in bed. This first shot holds her

even with all their additional mechanics. Still, as certifiably

silhouette close as she monologues, so close that she is

good as Drive My Car must be, taking home 2022’s

speaking to you, not her husband, of her dream last night,

considerations, GMOs are indispensable to the global food

Academy Award for International Film, how watchable is

the short story ‘Scheherazade.’

supply, not only in the future, but also today.'

it for a general audience? While it’s a scenic journey for

affect the acceptability of the product,' Dr Anyshchenko says.

'There are imbedded moral values too. Regardless of those

University of Queensland researcher Dr. James Hereward, who studies population genetics to understand agricultural pests, says there is an ongoing review process at Food Standards Australia and New Zealand to establish how to regulate gene edited crops relative to GMO foods.

Read the full article, here at qutglass.com

dedicated literary fans, is it for anyone else? So, with a nigh-empty theatre and three hours’ worth of awkward silences to explain to baffled Lachlan – and now you, in the backseat – we’ll pop the hood and see how it purrs.

Cinematographer Hidetoshi Shinomiya may have taken inspiration from Lee Chang-Dong’s Burning (2018), another Murakami adaptation, by contrasting these super close-ups with shots of generous negative space, both lingering past comfortable welcomes. Pops of colour, like

***

'Gene editing is a very powerful technology that can accelerate efforts to increase production and make crops more resilient to climate change,' Dr Hereward said.

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REVIEW

29

Yusuke’s brash cherry-red Saab 900 Turbo, are few and

Then a few minutes later we found out that Oto was

far between. Brightness comes only as the camera catches

cheating.

sunbeams, lens flares, blurs in motion, the forms light takes and portrays. Drive My Car’s beginning evokes Burning’s “sunset dance” scene – its voyeurism, only knowing characters through stories they tell, left wondering who else they could be. Even without plot elements, ethereal moments like these stand out as delicately crafted for anyone to see.

Using another short story to complete Oto Kafuku’s part, and prologue the whole narrative, was an excellent choice.

Though it takes half an hour before title cards even roll, it offsets Murakami’s habit of leaving female characters by the side of the road. Repurposing Scherezade gives more respect to Oto with a richer backstory, a tangible relationship, and even more weird sex. Like I said, there is a dry and ponderous plain to cross with reading Murakami, but with screenplay this switches gears to the hilariously awkward. My favourite example: A jazz record mumbles in the background of the couple’s apartment.

When Yusuke’s overseas trip is cancelled, he taxis home to surprise Oto. He takes a quiet step into their apartment.

He catches her in the hallway mirror, mounting a younger man on their sofa like that night not long before. And Yusuke leaves, and spends the next week in the airport hotel, Skyping Oto about how great the theatre scene in Finland is.

Sometimes you just have to laugh, and laugh we did. Just as well theatres are near-empty on Valentines. In all of three hours, I don’t remember any moment of deliberate levity in Drive My Car. Hamaguchi makes no attempt at comedy with this film. It’s a rare thing to appreciate. Jokes can fall short or muddy the tone but, in this case, they’d simply halt the viewer from paving their own sense of humour over any number of earnest but eccentric scenarios. This might be obvious already, but I believe it’s your own sense of irony that will always work best to make something funny.

Still, Drive My Car has a confident tone, never steering off its course. In the space after Oto’s sudden death, Yusuke

Oto traces a hand on Yusuke’s desk. ‘What are you up to,

moves through his grief and the aftermath of the complex

honey?’

relationship he had with his wife. No matter where he goes,

‘Nothing,’ he says.

He’s not doing nothing. He’s watching YouTube.

He’s watching YouTube videos about lamprey – a parasitic eel – because in orgasmic trance last night, straddled atop him on the sofa, on the anniversary of their daughter’s

time in his little red Saab ekes by: time driving in silent understanding with Misaki; time confronted by his wife’s last affair, Koji (Masaki Okada) over who really knew her; time stagnant with Oto through the tape recordings she once handmade for him. Of course, we catch only the most poignant lines of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya:

sex but offline

JACKSON MACHADO-NUNES

you’re typing 'am i asexual quiz' into the search bar but you’d rather just be playing your DS or something. something that doesn’t involve questioning the deepest parts of yourself like you feel like you’ve been doing for years. at this point you’re pretty sick of having an identity to discover at all, but if you’re not doing this you’ll just be worrying about something else anyway. you’re thinking about how society is a time-bomb, one that’s gone off about 10 times this decade already. you wouldn’t have to even think about being asexual if the world wasn’t so obsessed with making everything about

death, Oto told him the dream-story of a teenage schoolgirl

‘You understand that the world is not destroyed by villains

sex and intimacy. that’s an unfair statement, sex and

recounting, mid-masturbation herself, how in another life

and conflagrations,’ Oto recites, ‘but by hate and malice

intimacy should totally be up for exploration in the media,

she had been a lamprey.

and all these petty squabbles.’ Her voice travels across

#sexpositivity, but why are we all expected to love it?

years. She remains in their home, seated at the table.

you’d rather just register your disdain for being asked to

Sunlight crowns her head and darkly masks her face. ‘It's

put your penis into a person and move on, rather than

your duty to make peace, and not to growl at everything.’

thinking about all the pretty characters from Euphoria or

‘Actually, I-’ Yusuke frowns, closes his laptop. ‘I have to get going.’

I looked to Lachlan – and he to me.

‘Then help me first,’ recites Yusuke. ‘To make peace with myself.’

Sex Education that love having sex and wondering if you’re just trying too hard to be different. you feel every voice inside you begging for another perspective. something about all big discoveries about your identity needing to be encouraged by Buzzfeed or Harper’s Bazaar first, like the time you thought about switching over to almond milk.

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31

you haven’t clicked on the quiz yet, and you’re nervous to.

the tricky thing is…you kinda like the thought of it alone.

nervous because it will give you an answer, and nervous

you like the idea of it when you can be this perfect being

because whether it says yes or no you’ll just acquiesce

in your mind. sometimes for men that remind you of

to the opposite anyway. what you want to do is pick up

sitting alone every day watching the pretty people not

your phone to a notification from YouTube about a new

bring lunch to school, you can convince yourself that it

Smosh Pit video - omg, Shayne Topp came out as asexual?

feels good to do what they say. but then again, you also

I’m just like him! but no, it’s silence all around you except

kinda like that powerful feeling of not enjoying a second

everywhere that it’s so freaking loud. you hit the link from

of a guy’s time. like you have better things to do than get

ProProfs that claims: With this asexual test, you will get the

some guy off after a hard day of making short films about

answer to your question, am I asexual?

frustration and being so incredibly intelligent.

maybe you’re a robot. maybe if you bang your head hard

you go through the quiz and wind up not being asexual,

enough into the wall a troubleshooting guide will come

but, nice try. are you just trying to pick up labels like

out and show you how to reset your brain, or at least detail

Thanos and those infinity stones, or do you really think

the components of your model and tell you what’s going on

you could go the rest of your life without sex?

in there - like one of those Furbies with likes and dislikes, some like apple sauce, some do intermittent fasting.

well, maybe there’s a quiz for that too.

maybe you’re just procrastinating. again searching for online validation, like when you were in high-school on Omegle looking for 40-year-olds to want you more than they wanted their wives. you think about all the times you’ve enjoyed sex, sexting, things like that…and it’s just never been sex that you were looking for, not really. you wanted to be a pleaser, or to feel pretty, or sexy. it’s like everything just wants to dawn on you all at once or something. you’re asking yourself if anything you’ve ever really done has been for you. something tells you that you’re not just a sensitive person that needs to acclimate into sexual liberation. maybe you’re just defective. there’s something about sex that makes you feel not a part of it. like it’s a club and you’re not invited. like you’re always behind your own eyes, counting down the seconds until His breath catches and you’re suddenly not there for any reason at all. your first complaint about sex to your friends was that it feels like it just goes on forever. maybe that just means you’re bad at it, but you’re not sure.

This piece was originally published on qutglass.com

Cheats of Wall Street YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD CRYPTOMAN

When we hear the word ‘cheat’, we tend to think of infidelity, sports doping scandals, and elaborate schemes involving casino card games. But, in fact, the greatest examples of cheating in history involve the seemingly legitimate gains made on financial markets.

Take for example, Bernie Madoff, a man who at one time was chairman of the NASDAQ stock exchange. In 2009, Madoff was convicted for swindling clients out of approximately $64 billion USD through an elaborate Ponzi scheme, the largest convicted act of fraud on record. Fraud on this scale would not be possible in any other industry, as the complex nature and enormous scale of financial markets makes identifying such scams difficult.

The subjective and volatile returns involved with trading on financial markets leaves plenty of room for scepticism from competitors and leniency from regulatory bodies, making it the ideal playground for would-be grifters. In Madoff’s case, his fraud had been identified by many in the industry as early as 1999 – the Securities E xch a n ge C om m i s sion (SEC) was informed, but no action was taken for nearly a decade due to the high esteem in which many in the finance industry held Madoff.

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33

So, who are the biggest cheaters in finance history,

After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Wiggin saw his

Unexpectedly however, Erbitux was denied approval by

These frauds emphasise the ease at which these convoluted

what is the point of these highly elaborate, convoluted

opportunity to cash out as investors closed out their

the FDA, tanking ImClone’s stock value. But in a suspicious

markets can be manipulated and bring into question the

markets, and who is it that benefits the most?

positions in the market. He made over $4 million tax-free

turn of events, none of ImClone’s executives or their close

purpose they serve and for whom. A person who has

(equivalent to $65.2 million today) completely legally

connections saw any great losses. An investigation into

studied finance would say that they provide a means for

through these trades. In the aftermath of the crash, and

the matter found that prior to the FDA announcement, the

investment, liquidity, diversification, risk reduction, and

Wiggin’s coverage in the media, this form of insider trading

CEO of ImClone, Samuel Waksal, had instructed numerous

a plethora of other fancy words that are meaningless and

was outlawed by the SEC.

people to sell their shares in the company, including

inapplicable to most people. In reality, they supposedly

Stewart’s stockbroker. It is alleged that Waksal knew

drive our economies and financial markets. However,

ahead of time that the drug was not going to be approved

they also act as a playground for the uber rich fraudsters

(though how he knew this was unclear), and encouraged

while excluding marginalised people from even getting a

all his buddies to abandon ship and sell their shares while

foot in the door. It is the ultimate indicator of how rules

the price was just about at its peak. Stewart was informed

are unfairly applied to the poor and powerless – during

and made the decision to sell 4,000 of her shares, netting

booms, gains are hoarded but wages stagnate, and during

herself a tidy $250,000. She was later embroiled in the

recessions, losses are socialised, and jobs are lost.

Albert H. Wiggin From way back to 1929 comes the story of one of the OG financial fraudsters, although calling Albert H. Wiggin a fraud may be a bit unfair considering his actions were

Foster Winans

completely legal at the time.

Wiggin came from an affluent family and used his connections and knowledge to work his way up to the head of Chase National Bank. As an executive of the bank, Wiggin owned a considerable number of Chase Bank shares.

Shares are a foundational security in financial markets, representing a unit of equity (ownership) in a corporation, entitling a share owner to a portion of any leftover profits made by the company, called dividends.

Wiggin used his position to encourage Chase Bank to re-purchase its shares while simultaneously, short selling his personal shares to the bank through a Canadian shell Company he owned.

Short selling means selling a security that you do not own and re-purchasing and returning the security to its owner later, retaining any profits or losses from the change in price of the security over this period. Someone looking to make a profit will short a stock when they expect its price to decrease.

Winans, like myself, was a columnist, although unlike me he worked for the Wall Street Journal (cringe). Between 1982 and 1984, Winans wrote a column called Heard on the Street, in which he profiled certain stocks. Interestingly, the price of the stocks that Winans analysed would swing noticeably up or down based on his opinion.

Knowing this, Winans leaked the contents of his column early to a group of stockbrokers, who then purchased favourable positions in the stock before the article was published.

taxation.

game of chance at a casino.

Snoop Dogg.

connection allowed them to effortlessly take advantage of the financial markets that drive our economy. From

During his trial, Winans argued that his actions did not necessarily constitute insider trading as the definition

the outside, it seems they committed relatively victimless crimes, despite injuring a faceless corporation.

was broad. This argument did not appear to be effective

However, finance is a zero-sum game; there are always

as Winans was sentenced to 18 months in prison, serving

winners and losers. The reality for the individual people on

nine before his release.

the losing side of their trades could have resulted in the loss of someone’s life savings, prevented a small business from retaining staff, left a family with no deposit for a house or

Martha ‘M. Diddy’ Stewart You may have heard that the domestic goddess Martha Stewart served time in federal prison, where she selfreportedly received the nickname ‘M. Diddy’ by fellow convicted for insider trading. Stewart was invested in a

value plummeted.

pharmaceutical company called ImClone. ImClone had

directly influence and manipulate the direction of the

wealthy. To the average person they are no more than a

nickname saw her develop a close relationship with rapper

his contribution to the scheme.

him a vested interest in ensuring Chase Bank’s stock

plummet, but more the fact that he was in a position to

almost exclusively for large corporations and the ultra-

For each of these fraudsters, their inf luence and

inmates. But what is less commonly known is that she was

Well, it wasn’t so much that he knew it was going to

your first investment, keep in mind these markets exist

of her own company, but the ensuing clout and dope

backbone or skill to negotiate, receiving only $31,000 for

Wiggin shorted over 42,000 of his own shares, giving

You may ask – ‘how did he know it was going to plummet?’.

Whether you are an experienced trader or considering

M. Diddy eventually resigned from her position as CEO

skilled in stock analysis, Winans clearly lacked the

operations or considerable assets. Although not strictly business ownership and hide transactions or avoid

a $30,000 fine.

This resulted in total gains of over $700,000. Although

A shell company is a corporation without active business illegal, they are often used illegitimately to disguise

scandal, serving five months in prison and required to pay

a range of other devastating outcomes. But unsurprisingly, aside from Madoff, for each of these cheaters, the whiter they were and the more money they harnessed from their respective crimes, the less amount of time they spent in jail – highlighting the unfairness and disparities in justice that wealth and power can bring.

recently seen an increase in their stock price because of their announcement of a new cancer drug they had developed called Erbitux, which was awaiting FDA approval.

company by making sure it made poor investments and

Owning shares in a company entitles one to a portion of

bad business decisions to ensure the company’s stocks

residual profits, paid as dividends. The market value of

decreased in value and his shorts increased in value.

a share is commonly measured by the predicted value

The Wall Street Crash was purely coincidental, but it just

of future dividends and is tied closely to the expected

so happened that his bank was considerably exposed,

financial performance of the company. This basically

possibly intentionally.

translates to: good news = an increase in stock value, bad

READ ONLINE AT QUTGLASS.COM

news = a decrease in stock value.

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35

Summers on the Floor

I’m having a love affair with the moon

HANNAH JAMES

SHELBY LEE

On the sizzling cement pavement,

it was harmless at ten as i swung

In the company’s comfort,

my legs from the balcony

It's always following and chasing, This shadow.

at sunset, bewitched

And the sun sees to that,

eyes on a clam

But it's not natural like that.

dusk because a fool murmured,

She pried, and I couldn’t form an answer.

wish on cracked gold, but i’m not ten

Have you always been afraid?

anymore, the decaying wood reminds me, never letting me sit comfortably without a cushion

Online shopping for something that’s not in store.

of baby fat to protect my bones

Faceless friends forever/ kids bonding over loose ends.

Google searching just to speak into the void

i lap from a bottle and fumble

and have it speak back to you.

a call to the one love i have shown

Boredom fuelled summer of cruel fascination,

any commitment, to mumble about pataphysics

Crying on your mother’s carpet,

and how our wretched language mangles

As though you never learned to walk.

merdre, like my shikt habits exhibited in all the obvious places, like under

Afterlife obsession has a nihilistic impression.

my eyes and in dead

Haunted by an invincible blue light,

rodents on my pillowcases

So, there's always those bloodshot eyes.

They look like something broke your blood vessels.

yet my dear comes

The reaper’s hands squeezing around my neck,

without expectations

They look like mine.

without baggage without

I spent all my summers on the floor.

trust for which i’m most unfamiliar, they understand how some nights my eyes can’t bare perception but with the tide’s inevitability, will return their embrace until my bleached-coral flesh is only recognisable in their apathetic glow.

36

POETRY

37

Roma, Not Gypsy

Gypsy developed into the word gyp, which is a synonym

The word gypsy has transformed into a synonym for

for stealing, hence the phrase, ‘I’ve been Gypped.’ This

“free-spirited”, a fetishisation of nomadic lifestyle of

is a false and harmful stereotype that has followed our

the Roma. This was not a lifestyle that was chosen, but

community for hundreds of years and follows us to this

one that was forced via 1000 years of murder, genocide,

day.

torture, and slavery. This is not a word to be rebranded because you had a life-changing experience while back-

Bc we were talking about France and pick pocketing And she's like "yeah it's because of all them gypsies!"

Message I received from a friend when she was in France.

OSCAR DAVISON

packing. It is a word with a millennium of pain behind it.

There are thousands of ‘gypsy’ rings, earrings, books, and more being sold online, appropriating a word which has been used to persecute, for a quick profit due to the wanderlust of an ethnic minority.

My Relationship with the Word in Australia

This stereotype is harmful for a number of reasons,

I have a complicated relationship with this word gypsy

mainly that it is untrue – you have the same chance

in Australia. In the UK and Europe, it’s well known that

Hello, my name is Oscar, and I am the President of the

During World War Two, more than 500,000 Roma were

of being pickpocketed by anyone – and that it ignores

‘Roma’ is the correct term for us, so when people use

QUT Student Guild. I am also Roma, or what some of you

systematically exterminated in the Holocaust. This

the effect discrimination and persecution have on

terms like gypsy, or cigani (Eastern Europe), or zigani

may know as gypsy. Today, April 8, is International Roma

amounted to 80% of the Roma population. We call this

criminality. It minimises crime to a personal feature

(Germany), it’s quite evident that the word is intended as a

Day, and so I felt it important that I use this opportunity

the Porajmos, or ‘the Devouring’. A specific “Gypsy

of the Roma, rather than a situational response to

slur. Whereas in Australia, we face very little oppression.

to write about our wonderful people, and hopefully

Camp” (Zigeunerlager) was established at Auschwitz

discriminatory legislation that keeps Roma in poverty.

There are very few of us here, between 5,000 and 25,000.

educate some of you about our community, and some of

for the extermination of Roma. The Porajmos was not

the struggles we continue to face.

recognised as a genocide by Germany until 1981.

Roma – not gypsy.

Something I’ve always been quite outspoken about,

in Romania, which only ended in 1860.

Many European countries including Switzerland,

what to call us. The word “Roma” was adopted by our

Sweden, and the Czech Republic enacted policies of

community at the First World Roma Congress in 1971.

forced sterilisation of Roma men and women. Forced

The most important thing to get out of the way is, Roma

sterilisation of Roma women only ended in the Czech

and gypsy are not interchangeable. They do not mean

Republic in 2011.

Segregation is still common across Europe. Schools, churches, shops, and villages are segregated across

History of the word “gypsy” Roughly 1000 years ago, the Roma were forced out of

do often have no idea the word gypsy is considered a Media Representation

Roma were also victims of 500 years of chattel slavery

especially in recent years, is correcting people on

the same thing.

Many people do not know we’re here, and those who

Europe, including in Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Ukraine.

The media tends to portray Roma people in two key ways.

Either as a poor beggar and a pickpocket, or a hypersexualised temptress (the most common representation

slur by our community, or what the appropriate term is. Therefore, I struggle communicating my culture in Australia. The conversation usually goes something like: Them: So, what’s your background?

of the latter is Esmerelda from The Hunchback of Notre

Me: I’m Roma[ni].

Dame).

Them: What’s that?

‘Her complexion was dark… she danced, whirled, tur ned around… her large, black eyes f lashed lightning… with her smooth bodice of gold, her colourful dress that swelled with the rapidity of her motions, with her bare shoulders, her finely turned legs that her skirt now and then revealed, her black hair,

Me: *sigh* You would probably know us as gypsies.

After which I have to go through the motions of explaining the origin of the word, how it is rooted in 500 years of slavery and racism. It’s often easier to go ‘I’m a gypsy’, which sometimes feels like a betrayal of

northern India. Thus began 1000 years of migration,

And racism against Roma people is overt in Europe. Zsolt

her flaming eyes, she was a super natural creature… in

nomadism, and further persecution. Roma travelled

Bayer, co-founder of the currently elected Fidesz Party

truth,’ Thought Gringore, ‘she is a magical creature, a

through West Asia, the Middle East, and many of us

in Hungary has been quoted saying:

nymph, a goddess, a bacchanae of Mount Menelaeus!’

Roma is the Romani word for person/human. The word

At that last moment one of the magical creature’s

Roma is so liberating. After 500 years of persecution,

tresses came loose, and a piece of yellow brass that

genocide, and slavery, it was chosen that we would

had been fastened to it fell to the ground. ‘But no,’ he

simply call ourselves ‘human’. 500 years of being

said, ‘she is a gypsy!’ The illusion was shattered.”

dehumanised, and we choose to call ourselves ‘human’

found ourselves in Europe. Coming from Northern India, most Roma had dark skin, dark eyes, and dark hair. Many Europeans’ only interactions with people of darker complexion came from Turkey and North East Africa. The story goes that Eastern Europeans thought that Roma were Egyptian. Egypt -> Gyp -> Gypsy.

‘ The Roma are unfit for coexistence. They are not fit to live among people. These Roma are animals, and they behave like animals. When they meet with resistance, they commit murder. They are incapable of human communication. Inar ticulate sounds pour out of their beastly skulls. At the same time, these gypsies

The origins of the word itself is problematic, as we’re not

understand how to exploit the achievements of the

Egyptian, we’re Roma. However, it is easy to dismiss this

idiotic Western World. But one must retaliate, rather

as a mistake, which warrants discussion about the past

than tolerate. These animals shouldn’t be allowed to

and present treatment of Roma in society.

exist. In no way. That needs to be solved immediately

– Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Due to the way Roma women have been represented in these two lights, the word gypsy is incredibly dangerous

my community.

rather than a word which has become synonymous with thievery, poverty, hyper-sexualisation, and barbarism.

So, I’ll finish this article the way I started it.

to Roma women. Either a criminal to be persecuted, or a

Hi, I’m Oscar and I’m the President of the QUT Student

mystical sexual creature to be conquered.

Guild. I am Roma, not gypsy.

and regardless of the method.’

38

THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED AT QUTGLASS.COM ON THE 8TH OF APRIL

NON-FICTION

39

A Straight Man’s Guide to the Perfect Tinder Profile

ELLA BRUMM

Hint: you don’t reel in women by having a photo with a fish.

The tips in this guide should go without saying, however, almost every straight man on Tinder continues to ignore the unspoken criteria of what makes a decent human.

The Bio: 1.

If you feel the urge to write your height followed by ‘if that matters’ – please don’t. Some girls may prefer men who are taller than them but honestly, it’s not as big an issue as you may think. Just like the size of other things, most women are not overly fussed.

It’s truly just a dick-swinging contest between

4.

yourselves. Function over size always.

2.

Include your pronouns. It signifies respect of other 5.

or sexuality just from photos. HOWEVER, if you do this purely to enhance your chances and you’re not committed to doing the work of an ally for the LGBTQIA+ community, we’ll figure it out very quickly.

3.

And if you mention the phrase ‘bonus points’, I hope

yourself in a nonsexual way. Women don’t want to

you know that we are the ones judging you not the

hear jokes about your dick, especially ones you’ve

other way around.

copied from the internet.

people’s identities and queer women will feel more comfortable knowing you will not assume gender

Write something short and sweet, introducing

6.

It’s best to include as many talking points in your profile that Tinder will allow that are still quick

reference to it in your bio in a casual way.

and easy to read such as, your age, work/study, education, and interests. So maybe you’ll be able

You’re looking for a person, not your weekly groceries,

to text something other than ‘hey’ because as most

so please don’t put up a shopping list describing what

women are very aware, y’all are not a fan of that but

kind of woman you are looking for. The following is an

In the same realm, include and learn about the

example from a profile I was blessed with (I wonder

Indigenous land you are living on. Here is a link to

whether you can guess which way I swiped):

the map of Australia’s Traditional Custodians.

7.

If you are specifically looking for a relationship, make

‘Looking for someone to get along with, must be into fitness, be driven, fun, confident, and actually wants to meet up. Also, must be low to medium maintenance, I’ve dealt with enough psycho women

seem to expect a response back when you do it.

8.

Try to write a cute/funny line – even if it’s objectively not that funny, we’ll still appreciate the effort and the fact that you haven’t used the age-old one liners that are filled with sexual innuendos and immediately make us feel uncomfortable.

for one life *laugh emoji*’

40

NON-FICTION

41

The Photos: 1.

I hate that I have to say this but under ABSOLUTELY NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you include any photos of dead fish in your profile. It doesn’t show you’re adventurous, it's not cool, and there is no cute outfit to wear when fishing. Just please don’t.

2.

Same goes with photos of your car. You have a finite number of photos to upload, why are you including

In Defence of Sun Yang

one that is not you? Would you like to see a photo of my worm farms or high heel collection? No? Well, that’s how I feel about seeing a photo of your car.

All it says is “when we’re talking in person and I hear a car engine pass, I will immediately stop listening to what you’re saying and watch that car until I can no longer hear it anymore and not think that is rude in any way”. Also, it just screams that you never outgrew the little boy phase of wondering how wheels go round and are somehow still fascinated by that magic (can you tell my ex was into cars??)

3.

If all your photos are group photos, I don’t know who you are. I don’t want to do a puzzle. Your profile shouldn’t feel like I’m playing Where’s Wally?. Your first photo should be you (no sunglasses, hats, and I’m going to say it again, ABSOLUTELY NO FISH).

Also have at least two group photos to break it up in between.

4.

TOM LOUDON

On February 28th 2020, the Court of Arbitration for Sport

If you want a girl to instantly swipe on you, include

handed down a guilty verdict and eight-year ban to Chinese

a photo of your dog with the bonus of an instant

swimmer Sun Yang. This outcome was the result of nearly

talking point. Nothing is cuter than dogs (and guys

four months of hearings, deliberations, and tantrums in the

by proximity who happen to be in the photo).

Swiss town of Montreux, and formally designated Sun as a

To sum up, men please stop with the fish photos. And to the girls, gays, and theys I highly recommend moving over to Bumble or Hinge. Don’t get me wrong, there’s the

drug cheat. Two years on, the ripple-effect of this decision

Yang resists simplicity, and it’s time the culture of drug vilification in sports is properly examined. Because not only is it unhealthy – it’s deadly.

Though not widely known, FINA (the global body governing

in sport.

aquatic sports including swimming, diving, and water polo)

As the COVID-belated 2022 FINA World Championships

between.

begin in Budapest this weekend, the best swimmers in the world will either descend in competition or take a deserved break after last year’s Olympic Games – with one notable exception.

has until recently been one of the most successful sporting organisations in the field of doping prevention. In fact, the body has come under fire for the strictness of its rules, notably the 2017 twelve-month ban issued to Australian swimmer Thomas Fraser-Holmes, who missed three drug tests in a year – tests that are by their nature random and

Australian swimmer Mack Horton faced the wrath of the

unannounced, only allowing a single hour for an athlete

Chinese media during the 2016 Summer Olympics, when

to provide a sample.

he publicly labelled Sun Yang a drug cheat. Since then, the

42

is, by any definition, a drug cheat. But the case of Sun

carves a problematic precedent when it comes to drug use

occasional man with a fish, but they’re fewer and further

READ ONLINE AT QUTGLASS.COM

And on the surface, what’s wrong with that? Sun Yang

Australian media has collectively demonised the 30-year-

But from the get-go, FINA has been soft on Sun Yang.

old Chinese, freestyle swimmer out of public favour.

OPINION

43

Sun returned a positive test for the banned substance Trimetazidine in 2014, and was handed a back-dated three month ban by the Chinese Swimming Association (the Chinese FINA affiliate body) that didn’t restrict his entry to any international events. This is incredibly inconsistent when compared to Fraser-Holmes' twelve-month ban, received without a single positive test.

Pertinently however, the drug was prescribed to Sun by a doctor six years prior to treat heart palpitations. The drug had only been banned a few months before Sun’s

‘If [an athlete] suffer[s] from asthma, high blood pressure,

catastrophic harm.

not? Sun’s fans have abused several high-profile athletes

The eight-year ban handed down by the CAS may have

who commented on his case – including basketballer

seemed inevitable, but in context, the case of Sun Yang

Andrew Bogut and British swimmer Duncan Scott – and

resists simplicity. Sun is a helpful villain for a sports media

his abrasive personality hasn’t made him many friends in

industry concerned by the threat to western sporting

the sporting world. Sun’s shed became the butt of many

dominance posed by China. But when one considers his

jokes among pundits, as did his “fearsome Tiger mother”.

actual crimes, it's nearly impossible to justify an eight-year

‘For example, between 1985 and 1995, at least 121 US athletes collapsed and died directly after or during a training session or competition—most often because they had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or heart malformations.

exemption, as it is not considered by sporting authorities

Association to recommend that all athletes undergo

to be performance-enhancing when used outside of

cardiac screening before being allowed to train or

competition.

compete.’

be in the pool. He remains the World Record holder in the

him. When confronted, the DCA could not provide any

1500m Freestyle, but at 30-years-old, whether he will ever

publicly available to anyone in many countries are not

accreditation, even claiming to be a construction worker.

race professionally again remains to be seen.

available to athletes. Former NRL player Sandor Earl is

None of the DCAs had brought any accreditation at all.

one example of the double standard. After accessing experimental peptide treatment to recover from a

a practice session in Florida. The issue – To’s heart had not

specifically influencing his performance outside recovery

slowed down to a regular rhythm after exercising. After

and ASADA dropping their probe into Earl.

In this context, the hostility shown towards Sun by

In many ways, the quest for superhuman performance at any cost dehumanises athletes, and puts them in avoidable physical danger.

Why Sun?

swimmers like Horton and the Australian media looks

Sun Yang has become a particularly popular villain in

much less like courage, and more like aggression.

swimming – other positive drug tests haven’t seemed to

In any practical sense, most sports analysts and journalists tend to agree that the goal of cleaning up sport is not attainable. Widespread, unregulated use of performance

draw the same ire as Sun’s, and Mack Horton’s silence after

Games, and all returned negative results).

Speaking to Glass Media in 2021, Australian Olympic Silver Medalist Jack McLoughlin had little sympathy for Sun, and stressed that other swimmers felt the same way.

Sun’s confrontations with his competitors has been difficult to justify, even to his fans. When Duncan Scott refused to share a podium with Sun in 2019, Sun infamously berated Scott, calling him a ‘loser’.

I also find it difficult to detach Sun’s cantankerous personality from his swimming performances. At a

‘As someone who thinks what he did is despicable and as

swimming camp in 2015, my swim team stayed at the

someone who is racing him, I did find the 8-year ban to be

Runaway Bay complex where Sun used to train. It was, and

really harsh,’ McLoughlin said.

remains, the only time I have ever seen a swimmer, elite or

‘I think that was a big statement against what he did.’

otherwise, train completely alone. Sun was accompanied only by the five or six assistant coaches by the pool-side – the only time I’ve ever seen a squad in which the coaches outnumbered the swimmers.

behind to beat him in the 2016 200m Freestyle event.

doping is ongoing and complex, performance-enhancing

‘I was ahead by a long way with 50m to go in that race, but

drugs remain prohibited by the World Anti-Doping

Sun Yang came past me,’ le Clos said.

forms where you can report what you weren’t happy about.

If the panel thinks that it’s valid, they will scrap the test, no matter what happened. So, there was no real reason for him to do what he did.’

he should be banned for something like that.’

however, disputed this claim, noting le Clos wasted more

would violate this ‘spirit’, which includes pillars like

energy than his competitors on his poor final turn.

Attacked from many sides, paranoia brought about Sun’s eventual second doping ban – this time, without a positive

‘For many athletes, sport is not safe enough without drugs,’

test. After giving blood and urine samples to three anti-

Savulescu argues in his 2004 paper, Why we should allow

doping assistants (DCA) at his home on September 4th

it’s important to criticise him – but that doesn’t mean we

even if I see a speck of dirt in it, I request a new testing tube. Just flat out refusing is a no-no. We all agreed that

wonders how legal and freely available drugs in sport

career ending ban. It’s difficult to defend Sun Yang, and can’t try both.

… Sun passed me like I was standing still in the last 25m, which is unheard of.’ Swimming commentators at the time,

But an abrasive personality is not enough to justify a

‘We are meticulous with that stuff, when I look at a vial

‘He was the only man who did that, and that says it all really

But Australian academic and analyst Julian Savulescu

and teamwork.

weeks (These tests were conducted during the Asian

by all accounts difficult for other swimmers to be around.

out, with all of our tests we complete there’s areas in the

Sun of being ‘dirty’ when the Chinese swimmer came from

excellence in performance, community and solidarity,

conducted on the 4 September 2018, was his ninth in two

Sun has always carved a lonely figure at major meets, and is

was not lost on fans of the Chinese star.

South African swimmer Chad le Clos sensationally accused

spirit of sport’.

Australian coach, Dennis Cotterell, that the drug test

***

‘Even if he was concerned with how the test was carried

governing bodies for decades, and has not gone away.

Agency, which views doping violations as breeches of ‘the

More confounding still is the allegation from Sun’s

his Australian teammate Shayna Jack’s positive test in 2019,

enhancing drugs has been a concern for sporting

But while the discussion over the legalisation of sports

for his Olympic return in 2024.

In many instances, experimental or therapeutic drugs

for four years. This was despite his drug treatment not

athletes can die suddenly from a heart condition.

that Sun did not in fact bring a hammer with him to a

halved Sun’s ban from eight years to four, clearing the way

Meanwhile, at these June World Championships, Sun won’t

similar symptoms to Sun Yang. In 2019, To felt unwell after

medication, his death serves as a reminder that even elite

a doping test taking place in a shed is not protocol and

ban. In fact, last year, the Court of Arbitration for Sport

providing samples, Sun observed a DCA taking photos of

shoulder reconstruction, Earl was banned by the NRL

aged 26. While one can’t speculate about To’s access to

Few commentators managed, however, to observe that

to being a construction worker via written testimony.

test, as was often purported. Few still reported that after

Australian-Hong Kong swimmer Kenneth To suffered

being taken to hospital, To died of Sudden Cardiac Arrest

accreditation at the time of Sun’s drug test, also admitted

again, an easy villain for the Australian press. How could he

in young athletes has prompted the American Heart

playing field. Instead, it puts athletes at risk.

The unnamed DCA who had been unable to provide

unique stresses, which raises the likelihood of chronic or

To this day, Sun continues to use the drug with a medical

competition does not, in any material sense, level the

issues, which caused frustration among judges and lawyers.

shed and destroyed the samples.

Unsurprisingly, the already embattled swimmer became,

‘The relatively high incidence of sudden cardiac death

The prohibition of medically prescribed drugs from

2018, Sun sensationally took a hammer from his garden

or cardiac arrhythmia, sport places their bodies under

positive test; a fact Sun maintains he was not alerted to.

The Culture of Drug Prohibition in Sport

44

performance enhancing drugs in sport.

Sun’s Fate Sun’s farcical defence at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in 2019 and 2020 was easily lambastable in the

This piece was originally published on qutglass.com

international media, including his refusal to respond to questioning, to his attempted boycott of the court. But his initial hearing was also deeply marred by translation

OPINION

45

I even read out the list to my friends. It was cathartic on so many levels to talk candidly about the relationship and laugh about it with people who loved me.

Give Yourself a Little Grace Heartbreak hurts. It really does. Let yourself fall in a heap occasionally, if that’s what you need. Give yourself grace.

Maybe even share your heartbreak with someone – I can

Change Their Name on Your Phone During my most recent breakup earlier this year, my

almost guarantee you the person you share your story with will understand, and will likely have experienced that same thing.

friend Ash turned to me and said, ‘Ciaran, that man has the emotional maturity of a pair of kitchen scissors.’

I decided this would be a perfect moniker for the said man and promptly changed his name in my phone to ‘Kitchen Scissors’, complete with a scissor emoji. It worked exactly as intended – each time he texted me, or I went to text

A GL ASSIE'S GUIDE TO

him, I would be reminded of exactly why we weren’t right

My friend Nadia is doing well. She'll be living in London by the time this issue goes to print (!), is looking hot AF, and even managed to pick up a cute new guy at Maya Mexican a few weekends ago. She’ll be more than fine. I know it. And you will too, Glassies.

for each other.

I’ve also seen people on TikTok doing this in a different way – each time you end things with someone, you ‘add them to the graveyard’ in your contacts by changing their name to a solitary headstone emoji.

This tip works best if you primarily message someone through text messages. You could also do this through

CIARAN GREIG

Understand Why Heartbreak Hurts

‘That bastard!’

This is the sound of my mother, a few champagnes in at my

This first tip is my own. In the wake of my first breakup, I

cousin’s wedding, learning about my friend Nadia’s recent

watched a 12-minute TedTalk called How to Fix a Broken

breakup. I giggled as people around us turned to see what

Heart. It might sound cheesy, but it was methodical and

had happened to make my mother gasp. My mother was

logical and exactly what I needed to understand what I

outraged to hear about how Nadia’s ex had treated her in

was going through.

the dying days of their four-year relationship.

changed their name. Which could be a good thing or a bad thing. Up to you, Glassies.

Keep Busy, Biatch Keeping yourself occupied is important on so many levels.

This was one of Nadia’s key strategies in the wake of her

I was outraged too. But as a writer, every heartbreak

brain, being in love is like being on drugs. It activates

breakup. She mentioned how so much of the pain of a

strewn across my path is an opportunity. And this was

similar pathways and produces similar chemicals. So, a

breakup is manifested in a really sudden shift in routine

a juicy one.

breakup is a withdrawal from a drug, and reminiscing on

– you’re no longer texting that special someone when

happier days with your ex is just your brain trying to get

you wake up or before you go to bed. Your weekends look

its fix.

different, your bed might be colder.

he was not. Then, Nadia got one of those messages no-one

Something that helped both Nadia and me after our recent

Nadia used all of her extra time to read. She read and

wants to see ping into their inbox. Hey Nadia, I’m really

breakups was making a list of all the reasons our previous

read like she’d never done before. She spent time with

sorry to tell you this…

partners weren’t right for us. Mine included small things

the friends she’d neglected while in the relationship. She

like the fact that he slept with no doona cover (gross) and

daydreamed about her future.

about moving in together. She was more than ready for it,

The Bastard had been talking to someone else. The Bastard had been on a date with someone else.

It was over. Well and truly. And though Nadia knew that it was for the best, she couldn’t help but feel entirely broken and lost in the wake of the breakup.

46

messenger, but the person will be able to see that you’ve

In the talk, psychologist Guy Winch explains that to your

THE GOSS: Nadia’s long-term boyfriend had been coy

bigger things, like the fact that our moral compasses didn’t really align.

This piece was originally published on qutglass.com

I think the key here is to add things to your life (‘fill the void’, as Nadia said). Breakups can leave a gaping hole, but

Nadia made her list mentally. I wrote mine down, took

holes can be filled pretty darn easily with a bit of creativity

a picture of it, and carried it with me wherever I went.

and imagination.

Whenever I started to feel a bit sad and reminisce about

I caught up with Nadia earlier this week to chat

the sweet parts of the failed relationship, I would get out

heartbreak, healing, and how to put yourself back

the list and remind myself what it was really like to sleep

together in four steps.

with no doona cover night after night.

NON FICTION

47

Dear Women

Trigger warning: Sexual Assault

Dear Women, Subject: It’s time for us to take up the space we deserve In 2006, Tarana Burke used the phrase 'Me Too' to raise

For too long, women have had to shoulder the burden

awareness for women who have experienced sexual

of protecting their abuser’s reputation, not disrupting

violence. Eleven years later, this movement reached

the patriarchal standards of society, and suppressing

global recognition after American actress Alyssa Milano

years of sexual trauma because some things just 'aren’t

tweeted #MeToo, detailing her assault at the hands of

that big of a deal'.

I was raped in 2019. It was someone I knew before it

Just because this has happened to every woman I know

happened. I willingly followed him into a private room.

does not mean 'it’s just what happens' or that it should

I was intoxicated. I didn’t report it afterwards. If I tried

be dismissed as just a 'part of being a woman'. It means

to, there would have been a five per cent chance of him

this is a systemic issue that has been shoved under the

being convicted. With only a few bruises on my body

rug for too long. The discourse surrounding how those

We have been told – either over tly by men, or

and my word against his, I knew deep down there was

'minor' experiences are dealt with acts as a gateway to

We’re in 2022 now, and we have come a long way since

inadvertently by society – that most 'minor' experiences

no hope. So, I stuffed this traumatic experience into a

silencing women about rape ans sexual assault. Time is

this movement peaked in 2017 – Harvey Weinstein

don’t warrant an emotional reaction. These 'minor'

dark place deep in my brain and tried not to think about

well and truly up for rape and sexual assault to be dealt

has since been convicted on rape and sexual assault

experiences are when men catcall us while walking

it again.

with in this archaic way.

charges. While back in Australia, Queensland rape law

outside, grab our arse or boob while dancing in a

now recognises that rape can be committed in private by

club, tell us to smile more, make inappropriate sexual

It’s taken me three years to finally confront this memory,

It’s time for us to take up the space we deserve in society

someone known to the complainant, and consent cannot

comments, leer about what we’re wearing, and go beyond

recognise that it was, in fact, rape and slowly attempt to

and speak truthfully without shame about what we have

be automatically inferred based on what the complainant

our boundaries in sex. Society tells us that we should not

work through it properly in therapy. Each time I faced a

endured at the hands of men for far too long. It’s time

was wearing, whether they were intoxicated, if they

make a fuss about this because 'it’s just what happens'.

'minor' experience at the hands of men, I was told that

for us to allow ourselves to feel upset, angry, frustrated,

followed the offender to a private area, a lack of physical

These experiences are not minor. Most are deemed by

it is just a part of being a woman in this current climate.

distraught, and all the other emotions when we face

resistance, or their prior sexual history. These have been

law to be sexual harassment and assault, so why are

This translated in my brain to mean that I had no right

these 'minor' experiences. It’s time for us to make the

harrowing battles that we, the women of the world, have

they not perceived as such socially? I refuse to accept

to feel upset and must simply move on. If the narrative

men around us confront their privilege daily. Sexual

fought and won in the legal sector. However, despite this

this behaviour any longer, and I refuse to suppress any

around this issue is centred on women to just 'grin and

violence against women won’t end overnight, but we

being recognised by law, we still have much further to

of these experiences again.

bear it' or, even worse, to pre-empt being harassed or

can vow that we will make space to feel how we want to

assaulted and protect ourselves, how are we supposed

feel, and to say what we want to say — so we don’t have

to talk openly about rape when the onus is on how we

to carry this burden alone anymore.

Harvey Weinstein.

go within the social discourse around rape and sexual assault.

contributed to it?

Men, if you don’t believe me, ask a woman you know

The injustice sur vivors experience is stark when

today about her experiences with sexual violence

compared to almost any other traumatic event. For

and watch your worldview crumble before your eyes.

example, when someone’s house burns down, they are

Women, take time today to appreciate how much we

not immediately told that it’s a common occurrence

have overcome and understand that they are not 'minor'

and just the risk you must accept if you want to live in a

experiences – it is sexual assault and harassment, and

house. When someone experiences a car crash, they are

regardless of the circumstances, you are validated in

not invalidated by their experience if they can’t recall

how you feel.

specific elements of the event. When someone is robbed, the blame is not placed on them for having too many valuable possessions. But when it comes to the so-called

Sending love to you on this International Women’s Day, Ella

'minor' experiences of women, we are routinely told it is standard practice, that it’s just a part of being a woman, that it didn’t happen if we can’t remember the details, and we had it coming because we dressed provocatively or lead a man on.

48

OPINION

49

Where Are All The Moonwomen?

This piece was originally published on qutglass.com

ANNA HOLMES

Note: inspired and based on the research on the 74th edition of the Griffith Review.

When man first landed on the moon, the world watched.

her as a hoax, her life-changing journey a stunt – just as

Generations after can still recognise the first words Neil

Valentina Tereshkova was called when she became the

Armstrong spoke as he became a “moonwalker”.

first woman to leave Earth in 1963, six years before a man

‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.’

I wonder, what will it be like for the first female astronaut to step foot on the moon? I have some theories. I can imagine that the first footprint of a moonwoman will become a similarly celebrated icon as her male counterpart. I imagine the male crew will have been instructed to let her go first, a gesture to prove chivalry isn’t dead. I imagine her

When she returns, she’ll be a hero – a heroine – right?

And she’ll be a media sensation, famous enough to be invited to the Met Gala. When she returns, she’ll be the new it girl, the one Jimmy Falon and the likes of him will be

held back – where society deemed women unsuitable,

her male counterparts?

of some, and the misogynistic behaviour of many. For

resonate for generations into the future. Neil Armstrong

hair in?

or if she’ll have an advisory council behind the matter. I

Space is not the only context in which women have been

tampons for a 7-day space mission.

It may also have something to do with the blatant ignorance

Were there mirrors in the spacecraft for you to do your

would let our first female moonwalker choose her words

engineers literally offered astronaut Sally Ride 100

interviewing. Will she be asked different questions from

having to think carefully about her first words, as they will got to choose his ‘one small step’ spiel. I wonder if they

How do you balance work and family?

Who was looking after your children?

example, another excuse for the lack of moonwomen was the belief that the speed and movement of the spacecraft compromises fertility, or that a woman’s weak body cannot withstand G-forces. When we look deeper into this myth, we find that it’s not based on science or experience, but

our needs too complex. Our government, world leaders, sports and STEM industries reflect this. There are other truly inane examples of misogynistic myths that have held women back since the beginning of human existence.

Early trains were thought to make a woman's uterus fly out. Space is just another area where we see the need for change, just as the trains did.

just a myth. One that suggests high-volume exercise is

As our Earth crumbles around us, as glaciers melt, and

harmful to the female reproductive system, and fuelled

our country faces bush fires and floods, maybe it’s time

decisions such as that of the Olympic committee when

to start sending more people into space. As governments

they withheld women from ski jumping because jumping

promise to do nothing, space is looking more and more like

down from about two meters off the ground about a

an alternative living solution, actualising that Planet B that

I wonder in what ways she will be changed by the

thousand times a year seemed not to be appropriate for

all the environmental activists say we don’t have. Maybe

experience. Many cultures have believed that women have

ladies. From a medical point of view, of course. There has

our next generation will be the ones to colonise Mars, and

long been governed by the moon, our menstrual cycles

been no credited medical research to back this claim.

maybe they will watch our now home implode like a Death

The Apollo 11 astronauts had an audience of 600 million

linked to waxing and waning. If so, will she have her period

This was when the Summer Olympics had included female

-Star-esque spacecraft. But before we dream of starting

people. I wonder if this moonwoman will have an audience

the whole time she’s there, or will she turn into a werewolf?

wrestlers and weightlifters for decades. Yet even after

our new civilisation, which I assume concerns people of all

research into military women continuously disproving this

genders, we need to get a woman on the moon.

imagine her standing there, still for a few moments before she carefully steps onto the moon. The rest of the crew will

Why don’t you have any children?

be tasked with taking photographs of her. Social media will

We can imagine the responses. The feminist outrage on

repeat her words and circulate her image endlessly. There

the socials.

will be a camera rolling, sending a live transmission back to Earth for those of us who have waited for this moment for all too long, to watch and listen.

the same size. There are nearly four billion women on Earth – will they all watch? And for each of these women, they have a father, brother, partner, son, uncle, friends … will they all watch too? Or will her audience dismiss

50

went to the moon.

Now, I do not profess to know the full scientific context as to why there hasn’t been a woman on the moon. However, it may have something to do with how some of humanity's greatest minds not knowing how periods work – NASA

age-old belief, the effects of its hold on decision-making remains.

The US has proclaimed that it will send the first woman to the moon by 2024. All I have to say is…what the fuck took so long.

OPINION

51

This piece was originally published on qutglass.com

Will Smith, Roman Polanski, and the moral corrosion

because I see his actions as acceptable, but because I

that keeps Hollywood alive

thought the Academy would. The celebrity elite being

neighbourhood in one of the most expensive cities in the world. A 20-minute drive downtown and you find Skid Row, the permanent home of nearly 10,000 homeless people.

held accountable for flagrant abuse is devastatingly new, younger than most Gen-Zs. *** Not enough is written about the case of Roman Polanski,

behaviour to those outside their bubble. But, even in the changing landscape of film distribution, various paths to the top – and different definitions of what “the top” is – haven’t effectively challenged the cultural dominance of Hollywood in the

a convicted sex offender, the community rallied behind Polanski and enabled him to continue working and abusing in their industry. Eight women have accused Polanski of sexual misconduct in the years after his extradition.

American screenwriter and director (and alleged comedian) Woody Allen has also been nominated for three Oscars after it became known that he was engaged in a relationship with his underage, adopted daughter.

American actor Kevin Spacey, also an Oscar winner, has faced more than fifteen accusations of sexual harassment.

Unlike all these men, Will Smith has been banned from the Academy Award ceremony.

At one stage, it seemed likely that Polanski would be

So, in the bubble of Hollywood, what makes Will Smith’s

extradited to the United States to answer for his crimes,

crime so much worse? The fact it was at the ceremony?

both convicted and alleged. In 2009 Polanski, then aged 76,

Maybe the fact his actions were broadcast and impossible

was placed under house arrest in a Swiss chalet to await

to look away from? Will this sacrificial lamb hold the

extradition to the United States. The director had travelled

Academy in good stead with audiences in the future? It's

to Switzerland to accept a lifetime achievement award at

important to note that of all these people, Will Smith is

the Zurich Film Festival.

the only Black man, and the role of racism in Hollywood's selective policing should be an entire article itself.

the Polish-French Director who survived the Holocaust

Again, Polanski’s community rallied around him.

and went on to win an Oscar, two Golden Globes, two

Filmmakers, actors, and producers worldwide signed a

It’s never too late to do the right thing. Nothing is stopping

petition urging his immediate release, reading as follows;

the Academy from banning Roman Polanski.

It’s not surprising then that Hollywood celebrities BAFTAs, the Palme d’Or, and a Ceasar. often find themselves outside the realm of permissible

years since his conviction. Far from refusing to work with

The Polanski Petition

TOM LOUDON

synecdoche “Hollywood” is derived from a singular, elite

Festival.

incredible 12 nominations) have all come to Polanski in the

Your Favourite Movies are Made by Bad People

of the most insular communities in the world. Even the

the French Film Academy (Cesars) and the Cannes Film

three Golden Globe nominations (including a win), a BAFTA Award, a Palme d’Or, and nine Cesar awards (from an

CONTENT WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS REFERENCES TO SEXUAL ASSAULT AND MISCONDUCT.

For all its circumstance and glamour, Hollywood is one

Three of his Oscar nominations (including his sole win),

Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Macbeth (1971), and Chinatown

‘Filmmakers in France, in Europe, in the United States

The ‘Polanski Petition’ was signed by, among others:

(1974) were the films that secured Polanski’s cult status

and around the world are dismayed by [his arrest].

Woody Allen, Wes Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, Monica

as one of the greatest living filmmakers. But his wreath

It seems inadmissible to them that an international

Bellucci, Adrien Brody, Robert Cohen, Alfonso Cuaron,

of bourgeoise-Hollywood credibility isn’t the

cultural event, paying homage to one of the greatest

Guillermo del Toro, Terry Gilliam, Alejandro Gonzalez

part of Polanski’s life that is underreported.

contemporary filmmakers, is used by police to

Inarritu, Wong Kar Waï, John Landis, David Lynch, Michael

apprehend him.

Mann, Martin Scorsese, and Tilda Swinton.

film industry, a dominance personified

In 1977, Polanski was arrested for

by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts

the drugging, rape, and sodomy of a

‘His arrest follows an American arrest warrant dating

Polanski has been or continues to be, supported by:

and Sciences.

thirteen-year-old girl entrusted in his

from 1978 against the filmmaker, in a case of morals.

Johnny Depp, Whoopi Goldberg, Meryl Streep, Stellan

But their stranglehold has weakened.

All-time low rates of viewership of the Oscars have plagued the Academy in recent years, and cheesy jokes, presenters who are decades out of popularity, and general tone-deafness still tear at the credibility of the Oscars. Yet, Hollywood personalities still buy-in, redeeming the credibility of the 1% and further Hollywood from the real world.

care. So dire were the circumstances, even a 1970s court seemed likely to give Polanski serious time, resulting in a plea deal that he believed would secure his freedom. He pleaded guilty

expressed regret include: Asia Argento, Xavier Dolan,

certain States opposed this.

Natalie Portman, Quentin Tarantino, Emma Thompson, and Kate Winslet.

a minor and was convicted, but Polanski

where he assumed he could travel without hindrance,

Polanski’s films remain available in Australia to rent

fled the United States upon learning that

undermines this tradition: it opens the way for actions

or stream on: AMC+, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Crackle,

the judge presiding would not accept his

of which no one can know the effects.

The Criterion Channel, HBO, Hulu, Kanopy, Netflix,

plea deal. In the years that followed, multiple other women came forward alleging assault,

Academy banned Will

original complainant eventually secured a civil

Smith after his

settlement in the 1990s.

Rock. Not

Previous supporters of Polanski who have since publicly

filmmakers to present them freely and safely, even when

‘The arrest of Roman Polanski in a neutral country,

often as children, at the hands of Polanski. The

slap of Chris

Skarsgård, and Harvey Weinstein.

over have always permitted works to be shown and for

to the lesser charge of unlawful sex with

So, it is surprising that the

now-infamous

‘By their extraterritorial nature, film festivals the world

This should have been the end of Polanski, doomed only to wander around Poland, France, and Switzerland as he avoids U.S

‘Roman Polanski is a French citizen, a renown

Paramount+, SBS, Tubi, and Stan, among others.

and international artist now facing extradition.

This extradition, if it takes place, will be heavy in consequences and will take away his freedom.

‘Filmmakers, actors, producers and technicians — everyone involved in international filmmaking — want him to know that he has their support and friendship.’

extradition for the remainder of his life.

In true Hollywood style, the petition was signed by

But Polanski had already bought in, and

Polanski’s contemporaries; Woody Allen, Quentin

Hollywood had bought into him too.

Tarantino, David Lynch, Martin Scorsese, Tilda Swinton,

*A full list of people who signed the Polanski Petition* (www.altfg.com/film/petition-for-roman-polanski-signatories/ )

and Guillermo del Toro, among many more, as well as

52

OPINION

53

Heard was a liar, and that she was the sole abuser in

At the beginning of their relationship Depp was sober, but

the relationship. Among progressives and feminists the

as the relationship evolved, he began drinking again. In

thinking was only slightly different, many seeing the two

her testimony, Heard said that when he started drinking

as being as toxic as each other.

again, he would ‘disappear for days... and when he came

But the more I explored the case, and the more I parsed through the MRAs and Depp Stans, the more I realised how different the standards were for Depp and Heard.

And I began to wonder, why, when we usually try so hard

The Internet v Amber Heard

to believe women, have we decided not to believe Heard?

Well, by waiting for the trial to unfold and come to a conclusion before weighing in, we have allowed the media space to be filled by MRAs and Depp Stans who hijacked our social media feeds. Unfortunately, the misinformation surrounding this trial has spread so quickly across all ideological spectrums, it is now difficult to contain.

Everyone seems to be aware of every misstep and supposed ‘lie’ of Heard’s, but are blind to the incredible amount of evidence against Depp. We have become so entrenched in misinformation it is difficult to change the narrative.

ELLA BRUMM

Many seem to forget that this is not the first trial to take

Although the dust seems to have settled from the Heard

place regarding Heard and Depp’s relationship. In late

v Depp case, the effects of this mishandled defamation

2020, Depp sued The Sun over an article published in 2018

trial will be felt by victims of domestic and sexual abuse

that labelled him as a ‘wife beater’. The UK is an infamously

everywhere – begging the question, why do we still not

difficult jurisdiction for publications to secure a win in a

believe Amber Heard?

defamation trial. However, The Sun was able to prove that

On June 1st, the world watched as a Virginia jury found Amber Heard liable for defaming her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. While this was a defamation case, it quickly developed into a harrowing recount of domestic violence.

But when the U.S. trial hit its peak on social media about two months ago, the scale and tone surrounding the case became warped. Posts that first only vaguely questioned

The trial, despite taking everyone’s social media hostage

Heard’s credibility were now misogynistic rants, laced

for its duration, has not been covered with much nuance

with rape and death threats. The hashtags became

or sensitivity, a dignity it should've been afforded given

#AmberHeardIsAPsycho and #AmberHeardIsASociopath.

the gravity of this dispute. Instead, people began taking

I fell into the trap of clicking on suggested YouTube videos

sides and echoing their support for Johnny Depp on social

of the trial with titles like, Amber Heard is a Psychopath

media, cheering along like excited spectators.

– Psychological Expert Reveals Amber Heard’s Lies on

Like many other progressives, I flatly refused to be invested in this trial at the beginning. It felt sadistic to take sides in a domestic abuse dispute from which allegations initially appeared to spring from both sides of the relationship. Hashtags like #AmberHeardIsALiar and #AmberHeardIsAnAbuser have littered social media for years since the first reports of abuse in the relationship surfaced.

When my Facebook and Instagram algorithms inevitably shoved them into my feed, the comments under the posts were ugly. The excess of Men's Rights Activists jumping down the throats of anyone suggesting Depp also had a role to play in the abusive relationship was enough toxicity for me to steer clear of the whole conversation.

54

Depp was a wife-beater and therefore were within their

the Stand, (the video essentially claimed that Heard was caught lying because she moved one of her eyebrows in a certain way on the stand when talking about being assaulted). I began to realise that this time, the rhetoric around this case was no longer thinly veiled hate wrapped in right-wing dogma – it was blatant misogyny on display in mainstream media. It was obvious that these posts clung

right to describe him as such. In the judgement, Heard

her; they simply just didn’t like her.

‘whoring’ herself out at auditions and questioned why she was wearing revealing clothes. He would suggest to her that all she was were her clothes, and that's why she got the periphery roles she did. His mood would change drastically when she talked about work, so she actively tried to avoid the topic.

Eventually, verbal torments turned into throwing glasses across a room, flipping tables over, punching a wall inches from Heard's head, and trashing the apartment in a boozefueled rage. Each time Depp lost his temper, he would return after a few days and beg Heard for forgiveness, saying he would quit drinking. Then he returned to his sober self, as Heard described – a kind, interesting, funny, generous, and calm man.

The first time Depp hit her was over an innocuous comment. Depp was drunk, and possibly on cocaine when she asked what his tattoo said. Depp replied, 'Wino Forever'. Heard thought he was joking because to her, it didn't look like it said that, so she laughed, and then he slapped her across the face. In her testimony, Heard explained that after he slapped her, she hesitantly laughed again because she didn't understand what was going on.

alleged 14 incidents of abuse spanning over a period of

‘I was thinking that he was going to start laughing too, to

years. Of those 14 incidents, one was thrown out on a legal

tell me that it was a joke, but he didn't.’ Instead, he yelled,

technicality and three were considered ‘he said, she said’

‘you think you're funny bitch?’ and then he slapped her

meaning there was no other available evidence other than

again and again and again.

their testimonies to corroborate either of their version of events. The remaining ten incidents were substantiated by witnesses, forensic evidence, contemporaneous texts, emails, diary entries, physically visible evidence like

As Heard tried to leave, he fell to his knees crying and grabbed her arms, apologising, saying it would never happen again.

bruises on her body, and in one case someone nearby heard

‘I believed it’ Heard said. ‘I believed there was a line that he

Depp assaulting Heard. It is unheard of to have this amount

wouldn't cross again’.

of evidence for domestic violence cases, yet somehow, we were told that this case was murky, complicated, and reciprocal. In reality, when you strip away the skewed media coverage, all the evidence points to a very clear-cut case of a man with power and notoriety abusing his wife.

to minuscule discrepancies or irrelevant factors to smear Heard because they didn’t have any real evidence against

back, he was different’. Heard says Depp accused her of

But sure enough, his drinking, possessiveness, and anger crept back into their relationship. The cycle of domestic abuse continued. Heard described walking on eggshells around him, never knowing what may set him off. Depp would accuse her of cheating because of rumours he heard or photos of her standing too close to a male co-worker.

The Documented Abuse Against Heard Before dating Depp, Heard was relatively unknown. She

As I too was sucked into #JusticeForJohnny TikTok,

secured minor roles in films like Zombieland and Pineapple

I realised the immense scale of misinformation and

Express, and in 2008 she landed a role in The Rum Diary

miscomprehension surrounding domestic violence that

alongside Depp. She was 23, he was 46. They were both in

circled the case. Almost everyone I spoke to believed

relationships at the time, until they separated from their

Then Depp would explode. He would throw things at her, scream at her, pull her hair when she tried to walk away, and then he would hit her. One time he sexually assaulted her, which you can hear her described online if you can stomach it.

respective partners and began dating in 2011.

OPINION

55

In 2014, Depp and Heard flew from Boston to L.A. on a

‘I would try to stand up for myself,’ she said. ‘I would push

The claim that Heard is a gold-digger and solely after

private plane. Heard was shooting a film with James Franco,

back, I would push him off of me … I would yell at him and

Depp’s money is not only deplorable but baseless. Despite

an ongoing source of contention in their relationship

scream at him, I would call him ugly names.’

whether there was abuse or not, Heard was entitled

considering he made a pass at her on a previous film. Heard had already made a conscious effort to shield Depp from the script by telling her assistant to make sure he didn’t see it, as she knew he would blow up at her for the sex scene that was involved.

Depp arrived to their flight at minimum drunk, and possibly on cocaine. According to his texts to Paul Bettany, he acted like ‘an angry, aggro injun in a fuckin blackout, screaming obscenities and insulting any fuck who gets near.’

Depp began disappearing for even longer periods, returning with more paranoid accusations and violent outbursts toward her. Heard became increasingly brittle

We have sprung to the defence of many women in the past, so why not for Heard?

The right are desperate for a case that proves that #MeToo has gone too far. They have been clamouring to

withdraw the abuse allegations, sign an NDA and co-sign

substantiate this conspiracy theory for years, and to an

a vague, anodyne statement that the relationship had

extent, they succeeded. The difference with this case is

When Depp disappeared for over a week, only to return

been ‘volatile’ but ‘there was never an intent of physical

that centrists, centre-right, and even left-aligning people

drunk at Heard’s 30th birthday party, the marriage

or emotional harm’.

are not seeking out the evidence and are therefore believing

alcohol. She refused to accept his empty promises of sobriety and became resentful of his denials of addiction.

collapsed. Afterwards, he blew up, throwing his phone

followed her when she changed seats, slapped her, then

divorce and the following week, she took out a restraining

kicked her down when she got up to move again. He

order against him.

It seems unfathomable – and rather idiotic – for Heard to have spent years (before #MeToo even began) fabricating texts and photographs only to get a modest divorce settlement that she was already entitled to and then stay

In 2018, Heard wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post,

silent for years, only making oblique references to her

the information they come across on social media. Amber Heard is one of America’s most hated figures, she will likely never be cast in another major Hollywood film, and she has now filed for bankruptcy. Heard is ruined, while Depp is in preproduction for his next role.

in which she said, ‘I became a public figure representing

relationship as part of her domestic violence advocacy

One of Heard’s attorneys, Benjamin Rottenborn, detailed

What Heard describes is consistent with well-documented

domestic abuse’. Over this, Depp sued Heard for

work.

in his closing statement how the jury appears to give

patterns of domestic abuse. Depp’s behaviour was

defamation.

textbook abuser and Heard was a textbook abuse victim.

She tried to fix him, launching desperate attempts to help him stay sober. By 2014, Heard was the only person in his life confronting him with the reality of his anger issues and drug problems. His life was deliberately structured to ensure he would never have to face the consequences of his addictions. His chequebook covered the cost of

But Depp’s team asserted that Heard lied about donating

shoots, and his notoriety and celebrity status acted as a safeguard against him ever losing work.

Heard was likely talking about Depp, she didn’t mention

announced that she would donate half the sum to the

him by name and he was not a focus of the article. Heard’s

ACLU, and half to Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, but

restraining order against Depp was already public

it was revealed during the trial that neither place had

‘If you didn’t take pictures, it didn’t happen; if you did take

knowledge in 2016, and the idea that Heard defamed Depp

received the full donation. A small amount of digging,

pictures, they’re fake,’ he said.

in any real way is rejected by most legal experts.

however, shows that while she has not yet donated the full amount, Heard entered into an agreement with the ACLU

The Trial

from the beginning was to use the public forum to smear

has so far spent $6 million on her legal defence.

Heard and fuel the conspiracy theory that she had been

counsellor' who ruined all his fun and treated him like the

legal filings for the Virginia case, Depp said that Heard’s

addict and abuser he was. He grew increasingly resentful

allegations are ‘an elaborate hoax to generate positive

of Heard. As the trial revealed, his messages to her were

publicity for Ms Heard and advance her career.’

It is not uncommon for large charitable donations to be spread out over longer periods, and representatives from the ACLU testified that Heard was transparent with them about her financial circumstances and remains committed to completing her payments. The ‘proven lie’ here amounts

At the most basic level, this doesn’t make sense. When has

to an imprecise choice of words: she said ‘I donated’ when

publicly speaking out against a powerful, older man over

she should have said ‘I pledged.’

‘I’m out. I’m done,’ he messaged his sister during a period

abuse ever helped elevate a woman’s career? In fact, the

when Heard was giving him the silent treatment.

exact opposite tends to happen, and it should be noted that

‘Her actions have added more drama than necessary […]

the initial contribution, subsequent payments have been delayed pending her civil trials with Depp. Heard says she

concocting a hoax for years to destroy his career. In his

acerbic and spiteful.

in 2016 to donate the full $3.5 million over 10 years. After

Despite being a defamation trial, Depp’s legal strategy

Heard was, as Depp once put it the 'lesbian camp

apologetic and grateful, but to everyone else they were

Heard recently filed for bankruptcy.

Of course, she could have been more accurate, but a minor misstatement, or at worst a slight exaggeration of her generosity, hardly amounts to evidence that she was

that's what people call falling off the wagon ... It's happened

Depp’s legal strategy also doesn’t hold up when you

capable of the kind of bank-heist calculation necessary to

to a lot of my friends. ... Their wives don't stop calling them.’

consider the amount of people who testified in the case.

fake abuse claims for years.

Heard continued to try and fix him. She would take photos of Depp passed out in hotel rooms and at nightclubs to use as evidence the next morning to show him that he had a problem. Towards the end of their marriage, learned helplessness kicked in for Heard.

victim rather than the tangible proof of abuse itself. He

her $7 million divorce settlement to charity. Heard

yes-people who soothed his self-bruised ego, doctors readily administered medication to get him through film

more weight to the innocuous behaviour of the abuse

While people could put two and two together to realise

the trashed hotel rooms, he surrounded himself with

56

agreement. Instead, Heard dropped her claim for ongoing

progressive discourse regarding domestic abuse matters.

was entitled to. Part of the settlement required her to

at her, striking her cheek. The next day, Heard filed for

in the bathroom.

abuse to receive that because there was no pre-nuptial

I was baffled by how this case has deviated from consistent

support and ended up taking significantly less than she

and numb to Depp’s anger and reliance on drugs and

According to Heard, Depp accused her of cheating,

eventually started howling like an animal and passed out

to millions in the divorce. She didn’t have to claim any

The Aftermath for #MeToo

emphasised through a series of Catch-22s how it wouldn’t have mattered how Heard behaved on the stand.

‘If you didn’t tell your friends, you’re lying, and if you did tell your friends, they’re part of the hoax. If you didn’t seek medical treatment, you weren’t injured; if you did seek medical treatment, you’re crazy.’

He didn’t refer to some other common tactics used against abuse victims deployed by Depp’s team: if you surreptitiously record abusive behaviour, you are conniving and untrustworthy; if you don’t, it didn’t happen. If you ever try to laugh off your partner’s ghastly behaviour then it’s not abuse. If you talk back or fight back, then you are the real abuser.

This case has set the progressive movement to believe women back years. We already had so much further to go, but now other alleged abusers are already copying Depp’s legal strategy, and succeeding.

His defence implied that Heard had planned to destroy Depp’s career by convincing multiple friends, ex-friends, family, employees, neighbours, and professional contacts to lie numerous times under oath, all while leaving no trace of this nefarious communication in the form of emails or texts.

OPINION

57

Millie and the Artichoke Hearts CIARAN GREIG

Further Background

Methodology

8. I first heard Millie’s name on the lips of a man I very

17. The research methodology used in the production of

nearly fell in love with.

9. I realised later that through the thick lenses of Simon’s sensible glasses, he was superimposing her image onto everything I was:

a) my dark hair;

b) the particular wine my palate craved;

c) the way my thigh felt under his hand.

10. Millie, Simon told me, had recently extracted herself from his life.

11. She had made a habit leaving her lovers, he said. He took a hand to his face and rubbed at his cheek. He told

Context………………………………….. 58 Further Background………………. 59 Methodology………………………......59 Analysis………………………………..... 60

1. To Millie, those early breakups were like losing baby teeth: quick, relatively effortless, and often met with enthusiasm by her mother.

4. I would go as far as to say that we have become friends.

But I don’t like her one bit.

5. I really do understand her a great deal. Accordingly, I now find myself in a position where I can’t help but love her like she is my own sister.

6. Even though I don’t like her.

7. Not one little bit.

short and pretty and brunette. I knew her from the way she walked: barely lifting up her feet. Purposeful, unbothered. Millie.

22. Eventually, she slunk across the carpark carrying two heavy looking plastic bags, the weight of them straining the plastic. I imagined the burden of her purchases

down his neck, sliding delicately over each ridge of

drawing out stretch marks on the bag’s handles.

23. As I drove home, my car stopped in traffic right in front of where Millie was waiting for the bus. It was a hot

13. That night we met, that night he said her name to me

Saturday afternoon, and the bus shelter was hardly

for the first time, that night he held me in his arms by

effective in protecting her from the heat. She sat there,

the side of a busy road – that was the same night he

squinting into the sun. I rolled down my window and

leaned in and pressed his lips firmly against mine. The

asked if she wanted a lift.

blood and foam spread onto my own chin, the sides of

damn stain ever since.

Lang (24).

I knew her from the way Simon had described her –

rushed from somewhere deep in his mouth and wept

something that should really have been done under

investigation into the heart and mind of one Ms Millie

20. I knew her from the photo I had seen of her online.

12. Simon’s gums were bleeding profusely. The blood

pores, staining my skin. I’ve been trying to remove the

3. Over the past eight months, I have conducted an

exactly who she was.

supermarket.

extraction of a wisdom tooth: cavernous, aching, and

Context

hanging from the crook of her arm. But I did. I knew

grazing my neck, I waited for her to emerge from the

my face. Globules of red pigment seeped deep into my

Findings……………………………........60

day, skulking through the shops with an empty basket

a trail of men strewn over a darkened field. Millie in the

2. To the men she left behind, they were more like the

anaesthesia.

19. I was not supposed to recognise her when I saw her that

21. In my car, with the engine running and the aircon lazily

frothed softly with weakly concentrated crimson foam.

Executive Summary…………………58

18. It was an accident.

boyfriend before the boyfriend before him. I imagined

his Adam’s apple. As we talked, the sides of his mouth

Executive Summary

luck.

me about the boyfriend she had before him, and the

distance, upright and stalking away.

Table of contents

this report is grounded soundly in opportunity and

14. I looked her up later – Ms Millie Lang (24). And that was where it started. A tiny whisker of curiosity that took root and grew. A central inquiry that twisted, thorn like, around each microscopic synapse in my brain. Why, Millie? For what reason?

24. She didn’t hear me the first time. ‘Want a lift?’ I asked again. She frowned at me then, considering my beat-up Barina, and, somehow deciding that I was benign, nodded.

25. She told me that we were driving to Birdwood Terrace, mumbled a quiet thanks, and pulled out a jar of –artichoke hearts? – from her shopping bags. As we rolled up to a traffic light, I watched as she loosened the tight lid of the jar of artichoke hearts open with one

15. I had a picture of Millie in my mind already, painted by

deep, round pop. She dipped her bare hand into the jar

Simon’s words. She was callous and reckless. Confused

and brought an artichoke heart to her lips, swallowing it

but decisive. Naïve but cunning with the weaponisation

whole. As she wiped her fingers on her jeans, she caught

of her rosy cheeks. I didn’t understand her. I didn’t like

me looking.

her. I wanted to know more.

16. Millie and I were suddenly, haphazardly, unwittingly entwined.

‘You don’t mind, do you?’

I shook my head.

26. We drove in silence over and down the hills of Jubilee Terrace, through the roundabouts of Bardon, and past Government House. As we reached Frederick Street, with Toowong Cemetery sitting meekly across the way,

58

I cleared my throat.

FICTION

59

ARTWORK BY CLAUDIA PILBEAM

‘I know your friend Simon, actually.’

b) The grass is green.

She looked up for a moment before submerging her

c) Homebrand milk is always priced at a

hand back into her second jar of artichoke hearts. The first one was rolling around on the floor of my car, empty after she slurped it of its preservative oil.

‘Oh, he’s not really my friend,’ she said.

dollar-a-litre. d) Millie makes men fall in love with her and then she breaks their hearts and has no clue why.

32. ‘You’ve thought about it though?’

Analysis

Millie shrugged.

27. Millie told me that I should come in.

She said the last time she had been on a date she had

28. She lived in a dilapidated Queenslander rented from

taken care to observe herself.

a great aunt. She didn’t seem to mind that it smelled of

The way she smiled and made jokes and pushed her

rotting wood and gecko poo. We sat together on wooden

hair behind her ear and asked thoughtful questions and

chairs on her back deck, feet submerged in a kid-sized

touched the man lightly on the leg. She monitored the

paddling pool.

way he responded, at first cautious, then enthusiastic.

‘I know this is weird, but I just don’t understand you at all,’ I said.

Millie smiled for the first time. She looked me in the eyes kindly. She still said nothing.

‘I want to understand,’ I said.

She held my gaze. I felt a pain blooming somewhere in the back of my throat, as if I were about to cry. What was it about being so close to this woman whom I found so incredibly strange that made me want to weep?

Leaning back, returning touches, smiling before she reached the punch line of her jokes.

Millie said she marked the date as a success the moment he tried to kiss her.

‘So maybe that’s why,’ she said to me. ‘Because I can.’

33. I looked at Millie. Of course she could. She was a cis-woman, young, and on the surface, uncomplicated.

Millie was smart and kind and generous with her smiles. The men were attracted to her on a basic level, at a pheromonal, hormonal, physical level. All she

JAIME COLLEY

Lemon is pregnant, a soft litter of puppies, due in a few

I’m home helping Mum and Dad muster and mark lambs.

weeks. She nuzzles into my hand, forcing my love onto

Three hundred head. Mum is in the yards with the kelpies,

herself, so I give in and scratch her ears. She pants, her

pushing sheep up the race. I needle and drench while Dad

belly round and full. She wanders away from me and flops

brands and tags. It is a routine we mastered years ago when

down in the grass. The sun filters over her eyes, so she

I was a kid. We move accordingly, shift when sheep need

reshuffles, and then lets out a long sigh. I smile, as I realise

pushing up, step away so the dogs can get through. Some

how alike she is to a pregnant human.

families rotate around kitchen benches to prepare feasts;

Millie kicked her feet in the water. Her feet were more

had to do was dress herself, doll-like, and add a dash

I call Mum a few weeks later to see if she has birthed the

delicate than mine: long toes with delicately shaped

of enthusiasm.

puppies. Mum tells me Lemon forced a miscarriage. When

toenails painted red.

I waited.

34. Millie said that by the time she broke up with Simon, her friends had stopped calling and texting to ask if she was ok when they heard about yet another failed

Findings 29. Sometimes, Millie said, she wondered why she did it.

Over and over again.

30. She told me that her sister was getting married at Easter. Millie said she could have been married five times by now. She had even asked one of her boyfriends to marry her once, only to break off the engagement five months later. She had proposed to him on impulse, one rainy afternoon when the thought occurred to her.

She had thought she wanted it. She was wrong.

31. ‘I don’t really know why I do it,’ she said, looking at me with her eyes the colour of shiny cockroach bodies. She didn’t say this with any particular concern or worry. It was just an observation. A neutral statement of fact.

As in: a) The sky is blue.

60

Hot Pink Blues

I ask why she would do that, Mum explains that dogs can reabsorb the litter if something isn’t right.

‘Mothers always know,’ she says.

relationship. ‘And to be honest,’ she said, scrunching

***

up her nose, ‘I actually prefer it like that.’ She said there

we rotate around yards, sheep, and dogs. At some point, Mum struggles to push a mob of rams into the race. I jump back there with her, a black kelpie at my feet.

‘Push ‘em up,’ I say. The kelpie barks and sweeps across the yard. The rams shift, and they understand they must move forward. I tell the dog to sit, and she does. I look at Mum.‘I think I want to go to a protest.’

was something about her friends’ tenderness, the way

I wake before the world when I find out the news. At first, I

‘You can’t.’ That’s all she says. I refrain from saying that

they handled her so carefully in the wake of a

don’t absorb it. I’m scrolling through Instagram the same

I wasn’t asking for her permission. I climb back over the

relationship ending, that made her feel nauseous.

way someone functions before coffee, but slowly, I get my

fence and walk up the race. For the remainder of the

fix, and my mind is working. By the time I read the news,

afternoon, we are unbalanced, and sheep spill everywhere.

35. The summer she broke up with Simon was the same summer she started eating artichoke hearts, she said.

Jars and jars of them. ‘They taste like…nothing else.’

the sky is the colour of peaches, clouds like tissue paper.

Roe v. Wade is overturned in America. My brain is instantly

***

thinking, thank God I’m in Australia. However, this does not

I pull tarot cards every morning in July. A ritual, for myself.

dull the panic that’s smoking in my belly. It is an ignorant

Some of my friends think they’re a waste of time, but I

thought. Oceans do nothing to protect from sexism. If

find comfort in their meanings, like every vibration will

36. She held out an artichoke heart for me, her hand wet

anything, America has taught it to swim. I climb out of my

become a ripple, like this world is moving through us,

from fishing a leaf out of the plastic pool moments

bed and sit by the fireplace. It provides me no warmth, so

rather than with us. I pull the same card for a while: the Ace

before. I considered it for a second: the way it sat in her

I cry hot tears instead.

of Swords. It is a card of great force, and means to triumph

She considered the open jar sitting on the ground beside us.

palm like some fantastic, wretched creature pulled from the ocean floor.

37. I took it from her hand into my mouth. It tasted salty, tender, slippery. Complex.

***

or conquest, either in love or hatred. For a while, I can’t pair the meaning with my life. It isn’t until one frosty morning, do I consider that it is not talking of any of my triumphs.

It is after all, a card of great force.

FICTION

61

***

teenage girl hears me and knows this is okay.

I buy a pink dress to wear at a literary salon. I make peace with the colour. For years, we blued. I didn’t like its deliberate grandstanding, parading purported femininity.

For so long, I thought being feminine should’ve been a secret, like secrecy equalled elegance, and that’s what being a woman came down to. I am not elegant. I’m heavy, with chocolate cake thighs, and like a blister, I hold more anger than forgiveness.

I was taught where pink was soft, I was calloused. It wasn’t until I became older did I realise I could be both. Being a

*** My brother’s wedding is soft. It’s in a garden nursery, and I can smell early blooming wattle. Sun filters through poinciana trees, and everything glows at the edges. I pick at my acrylic nails. It’s not often I get dressed up like this, the heels and hair. I feel like a girl. Dad gives me a hug and tells me, ‘You look good, mate.’

This is his way of saying beautiful. I cling to the words and feel so warm.

My three nieces play with the hem of my dress. They’re

woman means I am both. ***

aging, which is such a sad verb to give to a child. But it’s the truth. They’re so little, and soon they won’t be. I recall

‘Bitch!’ Some guy hollers as they drive past while I finish my

being their age. I was a grotty and feral kid, with cake

afternoon walk. I didn’t even know he was trying to talk to

batter painting my face and warts on my knees. These girls

me out of his car window. Taylor Swift was blaring through

are gentle, with plaited hair and a fresh spray of freckles.

my earphones, and I turn her down for no one. He just

I would crash my Bratz scooter, and eat mulberries from

happened to scream as a song was finishing (Champagne

trees, and use curled hibiscus as lipstick. I genuinely had

Problems). There is no guilt. If I had heard him, I would have

so much to look forward to. I look down at these little girls,

ignored him, and I would still be a bitch.

and I sigh.

In ignorance, accident, or deliberation, I am the bitch. I

They don’t know yet what it means to be a woman. It will

think of Lemon, and her reabsorbed puppies, how

be the most exciting and terrifying time of their lives, but

her body understood it’s limitations. Maybe a bitch is

I hope they know that every female in every room stands

something to aspire to.

with them. *

The condom breaks. Of course it does. I take my pill in a religious fashion, a habit which was hard to enforce, so the worry doesn’t come right away. Any girl would say

And that I will be there too, to buy them morning-afterpills, to drive them to clinic appointments, to pick out their pink dresses. I will be there, ready to hold their hands, and show them how to move forward.

they’ve used less and have been fine. Hell, I genuinely have used less and have been fine. Still, there’s something in my stomach curling. God, how privileged of me to be like that, to throw caution to the wind, to not think ahead, to wait and see if I care if there’s blood between my legs in a month. I feel sick. My partner sees this and offers to drive me to the chemist in the morning.

I think of the conservatives I’ve seen on social media, likening abortions with careless, stupid teenage girls who couldn’t be bothered to use protection (because it’s only her responsibility, right?). I think of my pills, and the broken condom now wrapped in tissues in the bin. You can do everything, and it can still not be enough. I cry in the shower for those teenage girls. I see my sixteen-year-old face behind their eyes, and I feel the ache in their hearts as I wash myself clean.

When I go into the chemist the next morning, I ask for the morning-after-pill in a crisp and loud tone. I hope a

62

ARTWORK BY IZZY HEATON

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D

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Coffee Map

B Stalkerspace Choice

Glass polled over 500 QUT students to find the best coffee on campus. We have also included recommendations from the cafes on this list.

B

QUT ART MUSEUM

U

D

E

T

F

A H

G NORMAN WAY

J W

V

Q F

LAMINGTON DRIVE

S

XK

Lady Harriet’s

O

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Y U

MUSEUM

T

V LIBRARY F

G

LADY BOWEN LAWN

H

NORMAN WAY

QPOP Tea

Q

Humanity Coffee Container

J

C M W

R

O

QPOP Tea

Q

Chi Cafe

OLD GOV HOUSE

FQ KUNDU PARK

THE KINDLER THEATRE

CAMPUS VILLAGE

SHUTTLE CoCo CENTRE Danny Boys

X

Bagel Danny Boys Boys

Y K

Bagel Boys

Z3

X

Mean Beanz Miu Tea

The Boys House La Boite

Z2

Chi Cafe

EAST LAWN

GREY GUMS The PARK Pantry

Z3

S

The Pantry - Halloumi baguette

Z

S

C

The Bagel Boys - Bacon and egg and coffee deal

Q

Kelvin Grove THE KINDLER THEATRE

Z4

Z6 Z5

Z11 Z2

Z10 Z3

Z2 Z3

Z13

Z1

Z

Z4

U

Earth & Steam

La Boite Espresso Bar

Z9

CoCo

Z1

Earth & Steam

Z9 Z12 Z11

Z6

Z10

Z5 Z9

Z Z4

Z6 Z5

The

Brewed Awakening Bagel - FlatBoys white

O

Z12

U

P

La Boite Espresso Bar - Student deals: $4 Medium hot or iced drinks / $8 coffee and toastie

The Menagerie - Vegan hot choccy with real chocolate flakes on top, banana bread (vegan)

Miu Tea - Brulee milk tea with pearls, lychee mixed tea Chi Cafe - Vietnamese ice coffee, bacon and egg roll

Z

Gather Cafe & Bar - Southern fried chicken burger,

C

breakfast muffin Mean Beanz - Biscoff Latte (50c off coffee for students who show ID card, skip app available)

Sago - Beef Noodle Soup Danny Boys - Half Brick Sandwich, Beef Brisket Sandwich Sayless - Oat latte

Earth & Steam - Gluten-free chocolate brownie

Lady Harriet’s - Almond croissant and

for our fellow vegetarians

calamari salad

Coco Cozy - Cozy Breakfast

Humanity Coffee Container - Soy iced

Raw Press - Vegan dark choc chip cookie

The Boys House of Coffee - Cheesecake

QUT Depot/Bookshop Cafe - Peri peri chicken roll

Earth & Steam

La Boite Espresso Bar

QUT Depot/ Bookshop Cafe

Merlo Coffee - Breakfast panini / mushroom panini

caramel latte

VILLAGE CENTRE

Z

LAMINGTON DRIVE

LAMINGTON DRIVE

Z13

Miu CoCo Tea

Z1

Z13

Sayless Miu Tea

of Coffee Chi Cafe QBar Espresso

X

Sago

Z5

Sayless

Z9

Z6

KUNDU PARK

Sago

U The Garden’s Club CoCo

Z1

Z4

Z11

VILLAGE CENTRE

The Boys TheHouse of Coffee Menagerie

Z

Z12

Z10

KUNDU PARK

Z2

GREY GUMS PARK

LADY BOWEN LAWN

Humanity Coffee Container The

K

La Boite

Mean Espresso Bar Sayless Beanz

U

Z13

The Menagerie Earth & Steam

THE CUBE

Bagel Boys

M

Q

Lady Harriet’s

THE CUBE

P

Miu Tea SHUTTLE

Menagerie Awakening

F

QUT Depot/ Bookshop Cafe

LIBRARY

DBrewed The

of Coffee Awakening

C

EAST LAWN

V

CAMPUS

A

The Garden’s Club KIDNEY LAWN

The The Merlo Coffee Bagel BoysPantry

E

X

Sago

GUMS QUTGREY ART PARK

OLD GOV THE KINDLER THEATRE HOUSE

Merlo Coffee

Z

Gardens Point

KIDNEY LAWN

CAMPUS SHUTTLE

Chi Cafe Mean Beanz W

VILLAGE CENTRE

W

C House TheBrewed Boys

Danny Boys

QUT Depot/ Bagel Bookshop Boys Cafe

A

KUNDU PARK

Sayless

D

The Boys Cafe House Gather of&Coffee Bar

GREY GUMS PARK

KENNEDY WAY

H

NORMAN WAY

R

B P

A U

G

W

THE CUBE

QUT ART MUSEUM

E

TM

J

MAIN DRIVE

LADY BOWEN LAWN

Humanity Coffee Container

QPOP Tea

R

Raw The Press Pantry

KENNEDY WAY

D

Y

MAIN DRIVE

B

F The Garden’s Club C

B

T

XB

BrewedK Awakening Sago Bagel Boys

EAST LAWN

OLD GOV HOUSE

LIBRARY

Danny Boys

Gather TheCafe & Bar Menagerie

T

D

A

C

Lady Harriet’s

KIDNEY LAWN

KENNEDY WAY

Raw Merlo Press Coffee

F

Mean Beanz

W

MAIN DRIVE

A

Gather Cafe Brewed & Bar Awakening

T

Editors' Choice

X

Raw Press

CAMPUS SHUTTLE

Garden's Club Cafe - Toasties including vegan seasonal vegetable toastie QPOP Tea - Feast of Peach Fruit Tea Slush

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FUN

65

Where to find KELVIN GROVE CAMPUS

GARDENS POINT CAMPUS

HiQ QUT Parking

V BLOCK

Elevated Walkway on Main Campus Level 4

N

SO

N

PL

A

VI TE

R

R

A

C

E

th No r 0

30

60

120

Metres

0

1

Minutes Walk

Chau vel Plac e QUT Inter Campus Shu ttle

E

U

Q

MUSK

44 Mus k Avenue

AV E N

ST

Z2

GO

Z1

NA

Z13

Z12

Z11 PA

R

Z10

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Z9

Z3

SC RE

Creative Indus tries Preci nc t

UE

RO K R PA IA O

R

Magazine Stand

E

GE

2

Camera surveillance operates on campus and in acco rdance with the Information Privacy Act 2009 (Qld). Footage will be accessed by persons authorised to do Botanic Bar for community safety purposes so and may be provided to the Queensland Police Services for law enfo rcement purposes. Enquiries should be rected di to the QUT Central Monitoring Station by calling 31385585.

Merlo Coffee

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BI

E S TRE ET

Village C entre

AD

Elevated Walkway Art Gallery

Magazine Stand i Z BLOCK, LEVEL 4, ROOM 411

G

N

Pool

P BLOCK, LEVEL 3

Emergency Phone

BLOCK

Kundu Park

H

O

O

L

ST

R

EE

Z4

T

McCaskie Par k

ET

Z6 Z5 KE

L

N VI

G

V RO

E

RO

AD E L OWE R C L I F T ON T C

A

Shops

Stairs

U Lift

R

Food

QUT Guild Office Bicycle Parking Child Care Centre

Drop Off Area

T

Taxi

Foundry Gymnasium

D BLOCK, LEVEL 2, ROOM 206

NK

S

City Cat / FerryWomen's Wireless Zone Lounge

B BLOCK, LEVEL 1 + 2

TA E

Queer Lounge Bookshop

O

C

Child Care Centre

L’

Bus Stop

NE

Grey Gums Par k

CT

W AY

G OOD WI L L B R I D G E

E L B IK

QUT Gardens Point Ferry Terminal

LEGEND

A

LA

M A I D S T O NE S T R E E T

C H E L MS F OR D L ANE

T H E B I C E NT E NNI A

to S outh Bank

AD

E

to Ferry Terminal

RO

AC

R

Y

r Park

RK

RR

SSW A

H

O RT

PP

X

K

Kelvin Grove State College

i

PA

TE

T

C

IA

R

EE

S I DE E XP R E

U nder Fr ee way Ca

X BLOCK, LEVEL 2

R

UE

Z

D

R IVER

ST

EN

R OA

R A M S GAT

AV

NT

Kulgun Park

K

O Podium

C

S

AD

US

S P OI

O

RO

RK

M

AD

EN

CT

PA

Amphitheatre

F

RO

RD

VI

A RI

EY

O

L A MI NG T O N DR I VE

GA

R ocks Gates

M

W

OR

TE

A

N

to Herston Road

Y1

LA

C A I R NS L A N E

R

T VI C

ES

LL

G2 Y2

D

D OA

RY DA

M

HI

E2

Library

G3 G1

UN

Q

R

B

i

R

T

BO

W

E

AD

B

The Kindler Theatre

RO

Victoria Park Golf Cours e

AY S T R EET

Library

NO R MAN W AY

J

P

Sci enc e and Engineering Centre

G

W AY

C AR R AW

Lady Bowen Lawn

V

R S P OR T S L A N E

H

J

The Cube

IN

US RN B

CH

G

H

Wing B West

P

T HE

RO

F

L A DY B O W EN L A NE

T

i

NOR NNE R

S

O

East Lawn

I

The Ra infores t

Wing B East

Wing A

AD

E

William Robins on Gallery

Wing D

S P OR T S L A NE

RO

MU S G R AV E L ANE

K E N N E DY WAY

Old Government Hous e

to River S tage

Y

NG

D

Registrars Garden

Room Three S ixty

Kidney Lawn

QUT Kelv in Grov e Busw ay Stat ion

Wing C

to Herston Road purpose

RI

Parliament House

U

MAC G R E G OR L A NE

AL I C E S T R E E T

QUT Art Museum

B

A

Outdoor MultiCourts

MA IN DR I VE B L A C K A L L L ANE

M A I N D R I VE

GEORGE STREET

Child Care Centre

H

to City

Vic toria Park Golf Cours e

X

P AT

Gardens Theatre

MA IN

City B otanic Gardens

PIO NTR O RO G AGRADREDNESNS PO NI T AA DD

QUT Intercampus Shu ttle

C BLOCK, LEVEL 2

C BLOCK, LEVEL 4

T BLOCK

Queer Lounge

QUT Guild Reception

Gather Cafe

Women's Lounge

General Store

QUT Guild Office

Grove Bar

TE

RR

AC

E

Food

R BLOCK Lift

Z2 BLOCK, LEVEL 1 r

HiQ

rea

Z2 BLOCK, LEVEL 3

0

0

30

1 Minutes Walk

2

r Library do so and may be provided to the Queensland Police Services for law enfo rcement purposes. Enquiries should be directed to the QUT Central Monitoring Station by calling 31385585.

FUN

67

68

PHOTORAPHY BY SAM HOPE

69

HOROSCOPE S NY

T I C KE R S LS

UT

VI DIE

-C

VINYL STICKERS

21 MAR - 19 APR

20 APR - 20 MAY

21 MAY - 20 JUN

21 JUN - 22 JUL

Try not to beat yourself up over the little things; everyone else will beat you up anyway.

This is your invitation to invite some toxicity into your life. You’ve been doing your best for so long now, and where’s that got you? Here.

Time to get toxic.

You’re lucky this is the only glass you have in your face right now. Spend some time considering if your friends are really the best people to have around you.

The word ‘isolation’ comes from island. When you are feeling isolated remember to check, are you making yourself an island? Reach out when you need help.

23 JUL - 22 AUG

23 AUG - 22 SEP

23 SEP - 22 OCT

23 OCT - 21 NOV

They know what they did to you. They act like they don’t but, like, c’mon. They know.

Look at the moon and notice the stars. Look at the ground and notice the flowers.

Beauty is all around you, and you are not unique you narcissistic bitch.

You get others get away with so much, when you are so hard on yourself.

Turn those rose-coloured glasses inward and watch the growth.

Cancelled.

22 NOV - 21 DEC

21 DEC - 20 JAN

21 JAN - 18 FEB

19 FEB - 20 MAR

You suspect good fortune lies ahead of you and that which you seek is getting closer. Just remember what it took you to get here, and don’t forsake your laurels now.

All of your shit is still together. It feels like the world is spiraling out of control right now, but only one thing has changed.

You’ve worked hard to get your life together and everything is still right where you left it.

One more word out of you and I swear you won’t make it out of 2023 unscathed.

You always worry that people are talking about you behind your back, and they are. You are very intuitive and annoying.

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FUN

71

Editors

Non Fiction

Tom Loudon Ella Brumm

Stories

Ciaran Greig

Interviews

Celeste Muller

Reviews

Konstanz Muller Hering

Poetry

Ben Steele

Art

Illustrators

Photography

Ben Steele Claudia Pilbeam

Graphic Designer May Lyn Chew

Contributors Anna Holmes Ciaran Greig Ella Brumm Em Readman Hannah James Harry George Wallace Izzy Heaton Jack Bell Jackson Machado-Nunes Jaime Colley Konstanz Muller Hering Oscar Davison

Your work could be in the pages of Glass Magazine!

Rory Hawkins

We love celebrating and publishing the work of QUT

Sam Hope

Students and Alumni. Our online submissions are

Shelby Lee Tom Loudon

always open and our print edition submissions open as advertised. You can find information about the submission themes and how to submit to Glass on our website, qutglass.com/submit, or our Facebook page @glassmedia.

We accept writing of all genres. We take poetry, opinion pieces, essays, satire, fiction, recipes, reviews and more. We also take illustrations, collages, and photography. If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with the editorial team to discuss.

For more info on how to submit your work, visit qutglass.com/submit

72