The Sydney Feminists

The following poems are taken from a larger collection I composed as a creative expansion to my "academic" work on the Old English text  Wonders of the East. This text is a part of the more famous Beowulf manuscript, which you can read more about here:  https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/beowulf . However, you don't need to be an expert on Old English/ early medieval literature to read these poems. Wonders of the East was only one of many inspirations for these pieces. They are, above almost anything else, deeply influenced by my personal feminist roots. They are stories about the people who inhabit the margins of texts, the peripheries of lands, the outer edges of imagination. I draw strength from these people's resilience and survival. My deepest gratitude to them and all those who have fought the good fight before us.  Image Source:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonders_of_the_East The saintly and savage Cynocephali [1] Call me what you will: Op...

The ‘Rosie the Riveter’ poster is a cultural and historical feminist icon. The image first emerged during World War II as propaganda to promote women’s involvement in the workforce while men were at war. Controversies such as women’s wage, celebrity involvement and ‘Rosie’ as a white feminist symbol are covered in this article. Although the image was not initially intended as a symbol for the women’s liberation, the political dissemination of the image and powerful social reception are worth looking into. This article will use Doerr & Milman’s (2014) method of visual analysis. This involves a content and iconographic analysis of the image as well as a contextual analysis of its emergence. This article will additionally explore how the image is still used and responded to in contemporary society. Content Analysis and Iconography ‘Rosie the Riveter’ is an image of a white woman wearing working man’s uniform with rolled up sleeves staring directly into the camera under t...

Note: review tickets provided by Transmission Films. Review contains mild spoilers. I have to start this review by saying I am not religious. I may have missed the meaning of some scenes/themes as I know very little about religious stories and figures, but I was interested in how they would reimagine such an old story, e.g. Jesus’s crucifixion, in what’s being lauded as a feminist version. Basically,  Mary Magdalene  is a fictional story set around the time Jesus is rocking about performing miracles and being crucified, mainly from the perspective of Mary Magdalene. Before researching for this review, I thought Mary was a repentant sex worker, but this is apparently false, and the movie goes to lengths to tell us that this rumour was started and perpetuated by the church. That a woman, or woman figure, was slandered (at least in the eyes of those at the time) and revisionist history minimised her role and relegated her to the sidelines does not exactly surprise me b...