The Sydney Feminists

Calling all feminist activists!! The NSW Law Reform Commission is reviewing the law surrounding consent in relation to sexual assault. They have released the Consultation Paper , which you can have a look at. To review the law, they are seeking feedback in the form of actual, formal submissions and from a survey they have created. You can remain anonymous. I urge you to respond to this review. T his is a way to get your voice heard, and we must collectively shout our displeasure with the current law. The current consent law has a blind spot, which I’ve written about before but to save your clicks, I’ll summarise: In NSW, when someone is on trial for sexual assault, the crown has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the complainant did not consent. Anthony Whealy QC, a former Justice of the Supreme Court of NSW, explained what effect this phrasing has within trials: “(this creates) the unfortunate consequence of focusing almost exclusively on the complainant ....

Electronic dance music (EDM) emerged out of the disco scene of the seventies, and was later influenced by techno culture of the eighties and rave culture in the nineties. Dance music culture today retains aspects of the alternative politics of its predecessors, and asserts itself as a welcoming and progressive space, particularly with respect to gendered identities and sexual orientations.  It has been claimed that EDM culture is a potential feminist, or post-feminist space as it provides freedom from gender discrimination. However, there are limits to the progressive potential of EDM cultures, and continued experiences of gender discrimination among female Disc Jockey’s (DJs), suggest alternative politics may be more imagined than real. EDM is a broad term, and encompasses many forms of electronic dance music. Generally speaking it can be defined as any form of electronically produced music that is intended to be danced to, and is often performed by DJs in clubs, at parti...

It's 7:30 on a Tuesday night, and I'm surrounded by other women, of all shapes, sizes and ages, wearing very little and having the time of their lives. The music is pumping, everyone is chatting animatedly, and waiting to go in for their classes. It's pole time and there's not a gym-bro in sight. I first found my way to pole three years ago, after I'd started getting involved in weight lifting. I was missing aspects of my performing days, and looking for something that blended the two - and I confess, I've always been a sucker for exercise that incorporates fun outfits and great music. Learning to appreciate my body for what it can do rather than what it looks like was a long journey, and one that regular exercising - especially weight-lifting - started. But I was still riddled with body issues - still worried about getting too big, still watching every bite that went into my mouth like a hawk, and still treating food, and my body, as something to wrestle w...

The table is ... categorised in waves. Caitlin Moran has said we’re "post wave" and Julie Bindel once said "there’s enough waves in the sea, we don’t need them in feminism," but it wouldn’t be feminism if everyone was happy. Bate has put this in the breakdown of how the book is laid out. I wanted to point this out first, because I love it. This idea is lost these days. Feminism isn’t a garden party; we don’t have to be agreeable. It’s society that tells us we are homogenous, it’s society that tells us we can’t argue. But feminism is a political movement, made up of (mostly) women with differing views. I see feminism as a tree: we sit on different branches, looking back at the trunk in slightly different ways, we all have our own perspective, and we’re all trying to figure out how best to make it grow stronger. Feminism is a ...political endeavour to make women’s lives better. That mission is the only constant - the method, the expression, the arrange...

It is no doubt a tumultuous time in our society today with politically contentious discourse emerging about women’s rights from #metoo to Dr Christine Blasey-Ford. Social media has lit up with relevant commentary either deriding or commending this movement to acknowledge and believe women’s accounts. Recently, three of the biggest modern female pop stars – Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga and Beyoncé – have lent their powerhouse voices to the debate through varying public statements. Taylor Swift, previously known for being publicly apolitical, made the unexpected move of posting on Instagram outlining the egregious ways that Republican candidate Marsha Blackburn has acted contrary to women’s and LGBT rights and encouraging Americans to register to vote. Taylor described her fans, predominantly young women and teenage girls, as “intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people” capable of becoming agents of change. According to Vanity Fair, 65 000 new US voters registered nationally in the nex...

When working through issues both political and social, it often seems we operate based on the way we wish things were rather than the way the world really is. You see this all across the political spectrum; anti-choice advocates operating off the idea that successfully banning abortion will be the magic wave of a wand that stops all abortions forever, when all available data suggests that, of course, this is not the case. This philosophy is also employed, to no great effect, in the War on Drugs (ban the drugs and no one will ever do them again!), immigration (stop the boats and refugees will stop coming!), and so much more.  Another socio-political technique in which this wishful thinking is evident is in "call-out" culture. For the unfamiliar, on paper, this is what it looks like: a respectful "calling out" of behaviour deemed problematic by peer advocates in order for equally respectful behavioural adjustments to be made and everyone to move forward in har...

Image Source: luxalptraum.com “… lies are strategic. Whether we are faking our orgasms or inventing boyfriends or concealing our pasts, women lie for specific reasons, ones that are often deeply connected to our very survival” (p. 224) Alptraum’s debut book Faking It is a provocative and progressive analysis of the restrictive stereotypes of female sexuality in our society. She writes in a passionate yet academic tone peppered with personal anecdotes and quotes from women from a variety of backgrounds. The central theme of Faking It revolves around the concept of women habitually lying as a means of protecting ourselves and attempting to embody impossible expectations. Alptraum’s arguments are thoroughly researched from a myriad of sources including historic scientific studies, TED Talks and legal statutes with pop culture references from When Harry Met Sally to South Park . The author demonstrates a breadth of knowledge of contemporary feminist theory with allusions to s...