The Sydney Feminists

“You’ll understand when you have children.” “What will the class call you when you change your name?”   I’m twenty-six, in a long-term relationship, engaged to get married next year, childless, in a profession centred on children and in constant contact with mothers. Needless to say, I hear the above very frequently. And every time I hear it, I get the same unpleasant feeling. For years I’ve not quite known why. They’re innocent enough queries, simple enough statements, made without snark or nastiness. Following a familiar conversation last week that I walked away from feeling familiarly annoyed and twisted, I finally put my finger on the exact word that causes this reaction in me every time: when . In German, when and if are the same word ( wenn ) and are easily mixed up without context, but in meaning we can all agree that they are worlds apart. We use when for something that is going to happen . We use if for something that is undecided. Being a woma...

When Fifty Shades of Grey began flying off bookshelves across the world, it was popularly championed as a leap forward in popular culture for erotic content marketed to women. Thousands of articles critiqued its merits and its problems. Now the franchise has come back in the form of a film marketed as a guilty pleasure for women to indulge in and has made millions and millions at the box office. With that being said, let us look at some of the frightening implications that such a narrative has on our society. On the surface, Christian Grey is portrayed to be in possession of the largest amount of social capital possible. He is self made, rich, successful, handsome, charismatic, independent and strong. Which is why it is such a shock that he would choose a woman as plain as Ana. In the shadow of this wealth however, it is of course  made fairly clear that Christian Grey is emotionally detached and has a desire to punish women who look like his mother due to unresolved issues...