The Sydney Feminists

In this piece, I will test the first of the  two premises   that underpin the wave of restrictive abortion legislative currently proliferating conservative America.   The first premise is that a fetus is a person, which leads to the second premise that killing a person is wrong.  If legislation is built on premise one, it relies on the following being true: that fertilistion is the point at which a ‘person’ comes into being (in a legal sense), and this is the only morally relevant consideration across all possible circumstances that a person could seek an abortion.  So, all cases of abortion are murder and the rights of a mass of cells trump those of the person who keeps them viable, even in cases of rape or incest. Good health and social policy should first do no harm and then preserve the freedoms of those the policy affects. Where restriction of freedoms is deemed necessary, a pragmatic  approach is always best where freedoms are limited o...

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...

Try Googling women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). You will find articles upon articles about how and why women are underrepresented in STEM. You might also find some articles on female role models, statistics of women in various STEM fields and the rate at which they drop out of higher education, discrimination in the workplace, and so on. The next chapter of this discussion would logically be a conversation about encouraging little girls to pursue STEM fields. Some people continue to argue that girls just aren’t interested in science and maths. This is a myth scientists have busted repeatedly. Statistics from various journal articles prove that girls and boys show equal interest in science and maths in elementary/primary school. Research also shows that girls’ performance in such subjects matches boys up until biases take over.   Similar numbers dismiss the myth that girls are “bad at maths”. The most heartbreaking part of this myth pertains to the fac...

Dorothy Hill. Image Source:  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-04/dorothy-hill/9015194 Scientist Dorothy Hill was was hugely influential in Australian geology. She was a crucial part in the first major studies of the Great Barrier Reef and was the first woman to become a professor at an Australian university. A lot of her work took place at the University of Queensland (UQ). The Engineering and Science Library there was named in her honour. Hill was born on September 10 th , 1907, to Robert Sampson Hill and Sarah Jane Kington. She was the third oldest of seven children and grew up near Brisbane. Hill excelled in school and had ambitions of becoming a medical researcher when she was older. Teachers noted her natural intelligence and drive. Brisbane Girls’ Grammar School, Hill was awarded the Phyllis Hobbs Memorial Prize for English and History. As high school came to an end, Hill contemplated what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. The only medical de...

Before anyone assumes I’m a man-loathing, unromantic based on what I thought was a mildly amusing title, I would like to preface this piece by stating I do hope to be married someday. One day, I want to look at someone and think “gee, I could wake up next to you forever”. It’s not even a question. I’m a hopeless romantic at heart, and I look forward to finding the man or woman I get to make happy (and sometimes miserable) for the rest of my life. This article has nothing to do with hating marriage, and everything to do with recognising divorce as an important component of women’s liberation. Image Description: Photo of a marriage certificate being cut in half by a pair of orange scissors. There is also an orange rose laid out on the marriage certificate, which is cut in half as well. The head of the rose is on the right half and the stem is on the left. A loose leaf is also on the right, while a loose petal is on the left. The certificate is set against a plain white table....