The Sydney Feminists

Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland are two of the most famous actresses of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Besides talent, they stand out from their contemporaries because they filed lawsuits against Warner Bros. Pictures. Both were contracted to the studio in the 1930s and were unhappy. Among many other actors of the time, Davis and Havilland were exploited by the studio but chose to take a stand in hopes of voiding their contracts. In a Hollywood contract, actors were expected to follow a strict set of rules – on a film set and in life – and had to make any movie they were given whether they wanted to or not. A studio essentially owned an actor. Bette Davis was born on April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts. Her father left when she was young and she, and her sister Barbara, were raised by their mother. Davis showed an interest in acting from an early age and starred in High School plays. She had a successful Broadway career before making the transition to Hollywood. In 1931, Da...

  Accessing an abortion in Australia is  a  complicated thing, a nd it shouldn't be.  Abortion is a medical procedure. Children by Choice state  an estimated 1 in 4 pregnancies ends in abortion.  1 in 4. Abortion is the most common medical procedure for Australian women. For something so commonplace, access to it is incredibly difficult, and varies wildly depending on where you live. In South Australia. for example, abortion is legal. As long as two doctors have agreed that the pregnancy would be harmful to the women's health or if the child is at risk, and you have the procedure performed in an approved medical facility. In South Australia, in an approved medical facility, surgical abortion is free. In New South Wales, like Queensland, abortion sits snug in our criminal code, accessible through a legal loophole for women. We have to prove the abortion is to protect our mental or physical health, or that we can't afford to have a baby. It the...

  Hollywood quickly adapted once it realised the power A-list stars held over box office revenue. Within the first two decades of American cinema, a well-oiled machine known as the Star System had been created. Producers and Hollywood Executives would find an actor and mould their personality and talent into a product that could be sold and marketed. If someone wanted to “make it big”, they needed to adhere to a strict set of rules and guidelines. The stress took its toll on many. Some turned to drugs, some turned to wild partying and others became self-destructive. Studios put up huge sums of money to pay off journalists and media outlets not to run stories that could be damaging to their star’s image, such as Rock Hudson’s coming out as a homosexual. Women had little control over their personal lives and their bodies were forever the subject of scrutiny. The Early Years The first silent films had no credits and the public didn’t know actors’ names. Audiences star...

Something was awry. And not just the fact that I was being hospitalised for my levels of emotional distress. This new psychiatrist was altogether too interested in me. He started stroking one hand with the other, a suggestive movement which recalled to me the letter I’d sent the mental health staff which included a reference to an orgasm-free masturbation session I’d had which had gotten me thinking about the deeper reasons behind me being hospitalised. No stranger to sexual predators, I offered him my complete silence, and a defiant stare. I let him know, nonverbally, that I knew what he was up to, and I was not going to fall for his trap. It worked. He was fuming by the time he ended the session with me. I relaxed a bit, but not much. For a mentally vulnerable 22 year old woman, the ward was a place full of menace. Some of that was from the patients (like the man who addressed all the females of the ward by the c word, volubly, and who made to harm one of the female nur...

A sexually submissive feminist activist sheds light on why being a sub doesn't conflict with being a bad ass feminista. (An abridged version of this piece was published in Cosmopolitan Magazine on Monday 4th of September, 2017.) Discliamer: The views in this piece reflect the opinion of the author. Feminism is diverse and there are many differing opinions on this subject. Q. There’s a common viewpoint that you can’t be a feminist and submissive as it goes against everything feminism is about. Can a person be a feminist and a submissive? Yes I've heard these comments on many occasions before, expressed by both men and women who when they learn of my sexual submissiveness in conversation after also knowing I'm a strong feminist activist, tell me things like "that's an oxymoron" or "you can't be a feminist and submissive. That's just being a hypocrite”, or even “how does that work?”  But you most certainly can be both an impassioned and ...

Over half the scripts written during Hollywood’s silent era were written by women. The women came from a variety of backgrounds when they entered the industry. Some were actors, some came from Broadway and others started off as journalists, to name a few professions. Largely unknown to a modern film audience, Frances Marion was one of the first well established and sought-after screenwriters in American cinema. During the 1910s to late 1930s, she penned many scripts for films that are now considered classics. She wrote across many genres and even received academy awards for The Big House (1930) and The Champ (1931). Born on the 18 th of November 1888, in San Francisco, her parents named her Marion Benson Owens. She would later be inspired and take her screen credit from famous American Civil War soldier Frances Marion. She started out as a journalist, model, career artist and World War I correspondent before eventually moving to Los Angeles. Marion’s Hollywood career...

It is my firm belief that everyone on the planet needs someone or something to inspire them.  Inspiration can come from many places; from the loved ones in your life, to an important and just cause, to the beauty of the world, to its profound sadness. It manifests itself in art, music, devotion and hard work. It is what drives us, gives us purpose and provides us with a comforting sense of something greater than ourselves. For the first 24 years of my life, my father was my inspiration. My father was a South African lawyer and anti-apartheid activist; he was an intellectual and a dreamer; he was a poet and a comedian; he was tender yet hard to reach; he was sensitive and quietly passionate; he was cynical and painfully hopeful.  He was my example, he was my guide.  I looked up to him like a flower does the sun, and when his light went out, so did mine. I was living in Australia when my father suddenly died. At the time I had just had a breakthrough with ...