2020 Features
On Activism
By Anna Spargo-Ryan CW: references to online abuse and hate. After Donald Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19, Twitter made a sweet but false announcement: they had always said they didn’t tolerate threats to someone’s life on the platform. In fact, even just wishing...
Indigenous Domestic and Family Violence: Setting the Scene
Written by Dr Kyllie Cripps as part of the FWF2020 ThinkIn, Our Culture of Violence. It is widely recognised in Australia that Indigenous people are over-represented as both victims and offenders of domestic and family violence (DFV). This situation arises as Cripps...
The Politics of Health
Written by Katarina Bryant as part of the FWF2020 ThinkIn, The Politics of Health. Last week, I saw a tweet praising Australia’s healthcare system. The person who had posted the tweet had gone into hospital for appendicitis, and had come out with both their appendix...
Gender and the Medical Cis-tem
Written by Asiel Adan Sanchez as part of the FWF2020 ThinkIn, The Politics of Health. There are two ways of entering the medical system: MaleFemale Medicine is not built for bodily and gender diversity. Despite decades of research telling us otherwise, medical...
Equity and Natural Justice Under the Law: All Genders at the Intersections
By Sally Goldner CW: sexual harassment, misuse of police power, queerphobia and other forms of discrimination. Are we equal before the law? Theoretically yes, practically of course — no. Sadly our laws, regulations and related processes are established and run in ways...
An Abstract Site
by Fernanda Dahlstrom 'The prison … functions ideologically as an abstract site into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues…'—Angela Davis When I was six, I spent a morning in the foyer of the old...
The real work of care: an author’s perspective
by Christie Nieman A span of six years is a long time between drinks in the publishing industry. Especially when your first novel does quite well, you really want to establish yourself by following it– bam! – with a second. In an ideal world, the first would have been...
Walking away, backwards; or woman-lite in women’s lit
by Jinghua Qian When I got asked to write something for Feminist Writers Festival, I started to say no. I typed up a new version of the response I’ve sent so many times that I should probably just save it as a template: Thanks for thinking of me! I really...
Fiercely interdependent
by Caitlin McGregor If the women I aspired to be when I was growing up had anything in common, it was that they were all ‘fiercely independent’. I use quotation marks because this is a quote, even if not by anyone in particular. It just gets said a lot – used to...
Laura Bates and the Manosphere: Men Who Hate Women
By Ginger Gorman If you’re wondering where you might’ve heard the name Laura Bates before, she’s the internationally known English feminist writer who started the powerful Everyday Sexism website in April 2012. As the project suggests, Bates was attempting to document...
White Feminists: What Are You Willing To Give Up?
If white women are genuinely dedicated to dismantling patriarchal structures; if they’re inclined to ask men to ‘stop taking up space’, will they shuffle over too?
FWF2020: Cultures of Violence
Written by Nicole Lee as part of the FWF2020 ThinkIn, Our Culture of Violence. Women with Disabilities Victoria states that over a third of women with disabilities experience some form of intimate partner violence. Disabled women experience multiple forms of violence...