The Sydney Feminists

Image description: Photo of a man against a blurred background of water. He is sitting with his elbows propped up on his knees and his hands clasped over his head. He is looking at the ground in a dejected manner. He is wearing dark wash blue jeans, a blue and brown plaid button-up and a black watch, as well as a wedding ring.  Feminism and women’s rights are just as much a priority for Australian women today as they have ever been. Recently, the media has bombarded us with statistics about domestic violence being the most common cause of injury and death of Australian women under the age of 45. At the time of writing this article, 39 women have been confirmed killed by domestic violence in 2019. ABS statistics from 2016 state one in four women will experience violence by an intimate partner compared to one in 13 men.  In comparison, men are more likely to suffer violence at the hands of another man and more than one in four men suffer violence at the hands of a stranger...

Image Credit:  https://www.amazon.com/RAZOR-BLADES-HEART-SHAVING-BUCKLES/dp/B00WOSITX6 I not only believe there is a place in the gender equality minefield for men’s liberation, but that, in such a politically charged society, this movement is sorely needed. I know this is an odd statement to make in a space that by and large houses Feminist thought and action. But I’m certain that encouraging such a movement is the only way to preserve the integrity of Feminist spaces. I’m absolutely not suggesting we contact our local MRA’s and ask them out to lunch. I’m not of the mind that the bridge trolls that comprise such a movement are capable of any action that would complement, or even run remotely parallel to, the outcomes Feminism works to achieve. What I have in mind is more of a safe space for men seeking to combat the toxic masculinity so pervasive in our culture. The fact of the matter is, toxic masculinity is not and should not be a Feminist issue. But ...

Andrew Nolch is the man arrested for defacing Eurydice Dixon’s memorial. This caused a lot of pain, and a lot of anger. And Nolch has told The Age  that he defaced the memorial as a sort of protest, in his words: “I was upset, and I want to make this clear, this was not a personal attack at all...this was purely an attack on feminism, on mainstream media for hijacking a vaccine-causing issue and turning it into a men are bad, women’s rights issue” As the autism vaccine “theory” has been debunked so many times it’s been turned into a meme, I’m just going to focus on Notch’s anti-feminist angle, and the idea that he was angry about how men are being portrayed in the media. His statement made me wonder which type of feminism Nolch was attacking. Was it liberal feminism? Eco-feminism? Radical feminism? I mean, these can have differing aims, sometimes at odds with one another (see: the feminist discourse around porn) so I wonder which he was protesting?  Ok, I know I’...