The Sydney Feminists

The first time I ever heard Caitlin Moran’s ‘How to Be A Woman’ mentioned was in the postscript of Holly Bourne’s ‘Am I Normal Yet?’ – the book that was my gateway into feminism. It was funny and relatable to me as a young teenager, and managed to deal with the delicate topics of mental illness and misogyny in a way that kept me turning pages. Bourne says that Moran’s work ‘really did change [her] life’ in regards to feminism, so I was super excited to read it when I found it in a bookstore. Yet, it turned out to be different from what I was expecting.  Image of Caitlin Moran. She has long dark hair with a blonde area near the top of her head. She is wearing a red and blue button up flannel shirt. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/books/review/moranifesto-caitlin-moran.html  Being a woman who grew up in the 2000s, I found it difficult to relate to Moran’s 1980s childhood, and found more similarities in Bourne’s books which I loved. Moran argues that humour is necessary for de...

Last weekend, many of us watched in horror as Australia signed up for three more years under a Liberal Coalition government. The groups of people who will be negatively impacted by the continuation of this government's policies are numerous. They include refugees, people of colour, those who depend on a healthy environment (which would be most of us), and not least of all, women and other gender minorities. On a micro scale, Liberal governance is poor for women's representation. The past three years have seen women’s representation in parliament take a major backslide, particularly within the Liberal government itself. The Liberals have recently seen a wave of high-profile women abandoning the party for greener pastures. In a shock resignation, Kelly O’Dwyer stepped down just prior to the election, citing the workplace was not conducive to life as a mother. Former foreign minister Julie Bishop also stepped down, ostensibly after being passed over during the Liberal le...