The Women’s Human Rights Campaign – Australia/Asia (WHRC) will launch Vortex: The Crisis of Patriarchy in their next webinar . Author Susan Hawthorne will be in conversation with Helen Pringle, Senior Lecturer from the University of New South Wales and Anna Kerr, Principal Solicitor of Feminist Legal Clinic Inc.
Time: 7.00pm – 8.30pm AEDT
Date: Saturday 28th November
Source: Vortex: The Crisis of Patriarchy book launch — Spinifex Press
Former South Australia senator Natasha Stott Despoja will be the first Australian on the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women for almost three decades.
Ms Stott Despoja will be on the committee for four years and will be the only representative from Oceania.
Of course, there were the usual suspects. Those repeat offenders (cough *Mark Latham, Malcolm Roberts) who seem to relish being as noxious as possible at any given opportunity.
But there were also some new faces including top gong (Gold Ernie) going to Jayson Westbury, CEO of the Australian Federation of Travel Agents who sickeningly suggested that Tracey Grimshaw deserved a “firm uppercut or a slap across the face” for her reporting of a travel industry refund scandal.
The Political Silver Ernie went to the previously mentioned, Senator Malcolm Roberts for his commentary on the family law system (and apparent defence of perpetrators of domestic violence) when he said:“But when you’re a father, and you can’t get access to your kids, and you can’t get access to the legal system properly, what else is there to do other than check out or hurt the other person?”
There was a dead heat for the Celebrity/Clerical Silver Ernie going to the Council of the Order of Australia for awarding Bettina Arndt an AM for her “significant service to the community as a social commentator, and to gender equity through advocacy for men”.
Ironically, Bettina Arndt was awarded her own Ernie (AKA ‘The Elaine for remarks least helpful to the sisterhood) for her commentary on the devastating murder of Hannah Clarke and her children in which she congratulated “the Queensland police for keeping an open mind and awaiting proper evidence, including the possibility that Rowan Baxter might have been ‘driven too far’.”
Unsurprisingly, Pauline Hanson stepped up for joint acquisition of ‘The Elaine’ for her comments as Deputy chair of the Family Court Enquiry, in which she suggested that women were fabricating stories of domestic violence:“A lot of the women out there abuse the system by instigating false DVOs against their former partners or their husbands. They use that to further their needs… Domestic violence orders have got completely out of hand”, she claimed.
And, in case these recollections aren’t enough to have you tearing your hair out to the point of baldness, let’s not forget the wonderful Shore school boys who also scored a Silver Ernie for their recent ‘Triwizard Shorenament’.The ‘muck-up day’ challenge manual that included instructions for students to have sex with a woman over 80kgs; aged over 40; or who was deemed to be a ‘3/10 or lower’.
Source: No shortage of sexist moments in 2020, but here’s who takes the cake
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court has close ties to a charismatic Christian religious group that holds men are divinely ordained as the “head” of the family and faith. Former members of the group, called People of Praise, say it teaches that wives must submit to the will of their husbands.
Source: Barrett tied to faith group ex-members say subjugates women
In October 1982, Lindy was convicted of murdering her little girl by slitting her throat. Her husband, Michael, was found guilty of being an accessory after the fact.
Media interest in the case was enormous, and people paraded outside the court wearing t-shirts that read: “The dingo is innocent”.
She was sentenced to life in prison, but served three years before Azaria’s matinee jacket, the existence of which police had refuted, was found partially buried near a dingo lair at Uluru. Courtesy of the new evidence, Lindy was released on remission and later pardoned and awarded $1.3 million in compensation from the Northern Territory government.
But it did little to reclaim the public’s favour.
An assumption was made about what a grieving parent looks like, and through Lindy’s infamous interview and other media appearances, many decided she didn’t fit. How could a bereaved mother appear so cold? Where are the tears?
Source: Lindy Chamberlain’s infamous interview: The full story.
Nominations are open.
Source: The Ernies
The free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted. While we have come to expect this on the radical right, censoriousness is also spreading more widely in our culture: an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty. We uphold the value of robust and even caustic counter-speech from all quarters.
We need to preserve the possibility of good-faith disagreement without dire professional consequences. If we won’t defend the very thing on which our work depends, we shouldn’t expect the public or the state to defend it for us.
Source: A Letter on Justice and Open Debate | Harper’s Magazine
Artist and filmmaker Helen Grace reflects on her time documenting a radical women-only community.
In 1978 and 1980, the artist and filmmaker shot a series of never-seen-before photographs at Amazon Acres, a radical women-only community that unfolded on a remote Northern New South Wales mountain in the seventies and eighties.
Friendship as a Way of Life shows from May 8 to November 21
