The Sydney Feminists

A year ago, in May 2017, the Abortion Law Reform bill–spearheaded by Greens’ MP Dr Mehreen Faruqi–was sadly defeated in the upper house. The bill was attempt to provide safe access zones and ensure removal of abortion from the NSW crimes act, allowing women (and of course non-binary and trans men, all affected by our patriarchal laws) to access necessary medical care without judgement or harassment. Though community opinion polling revealed the people of NSW overwhelmingly behind the removal of abortion offences from the NSW crimes act, a majority male parliament voted against the bill. Credit: Twitter Dr Faruqi said at the time : “I am disappointed that the NSW Legislative Council has voted to keep abortion a Crime in NSW, a position that is completely out of step with modern medical practice, community expectation and laws in almost all other states…  But the genie is out of the bottle now, more people than ever are awakened to this injustice and I am confident that u...

There are some jobs in life that require you to stand up to attacks, some of them for a sustained period of time, and master both defensive and offensive strategies to survive.  The military comes to mind, as does the police, security forces and government.  If you are in one of these positions, you need to brace yourself for attacks either on your person or against your character. Feminists also have to be prepared, all day and every day, for attacks, both physical and emotional.  The difference is that people doing the aforementioned jobs get paid and respected, whereas feminists don’t get paid and are rarely valued or respected.  They also don’t get taken seriously.  For example, a military General’s knowledge of battle strategies is considered superior to the layperson’s knowledge of this subject, but when a feminist states a learned fact, every Tom, Dick and (sometimes) Mary has a more “valid” opinion on the topic (frequently based on a tabloid article ...

You probably heard that Luke Lazarus was found not guilty of sexual assault this week. What you might not have heard is that he was found not guilty despite a jury and two judges determining that the complainant, Saxon Mullins, had NOT consented to sex with him. Upon finding that piece of information out, most people are confused. If someone doesn’t consent, isn’t that rape? Well, the answer to that question might depend on where you live. Saxon Mullins’ identity has been protected for five years because she is a sexual assault complainant. Five years ago, Saxon Mullins was eighteen and had the first sexual encounter in her life. I don’t want to detail that encounter here. It’s Mullins’ story. If you aren’t familiar with this case, here are Mullins’ own words , but if you can’t read them, for brevity I will point out that the sex happened within four minutes of the pair meeting and it was anal. Mullins calls the encounter rape. Lazarus states it was a misunderstanding. Laza...

When people hear of conditions like Fibromyalgia, ME/CFS, Endometriosis and Lupus, they are often only vaguely aware of what they are and almost always ignorant of how they affect individual sufferers. There are so many different illnesses out there and no one person can know of all of them.   But the above mentioned are in fact quite common, and I bet you know of someone who has at least one of these syndromes/diseases. You might assume that, given their prevalence, a great deal of research and funding has gone into these illnesses, but the opposite is true . These conditions primarily affect women, and medicine was and still is a largely male-dominated field, from almost all-male animal studies to majority male human studies . The gatekeepers to the profession are also mostly men, meaning they are less likely to study illnesses that especially affect women. Indeed, non-life threatening illnesses dominated by female patients often lack funding and research and are poorly...

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...

Following the Toronto attack, where Alek Minassian drove a van into a crowd of people, killing 10, many people have been questioning exactly this. Because before Minassian turned a van into a weapon, he called for an Incel Rebellion. People are questioning this because they aren’t quite sure what to do with Minassian. What he did seems like a terrorist attack, but mainstream media is struggling to come up with  how  it is. What was his goal? I see narratives shifting towards Minassian as mentally disturbed. I’m sure he was. But he was also a terrorist. His goal was to terrorise women and “normies” under the banner of male supremacy and entitlement. Because Minassian felt he was entitled to female bodies, and he felt he was being denied, he decided to enact violence. Incel means involuntary celibate – and the people in the community take this title on themselves. It means they feel they are forced to be celibate, because society is unfair. When people make a scrape at...