The Sydney Feminists

Ah, 1996, a time when the concept of Girl Power (!) on a mainstream front was still relatively novel. To a generation of young girls, the Spice Girls represented a fundamental embracing of everything it meant to be a girl growing up at the end of the 20th century: a celebration of femininity, sexiness, and sisterhood in five unique caricatures. For many, it was the start of accepting that it was okay to be an out-and-proud, female, sexual being, to demand respect, and to be unapologetically loud about it all. It felt, in short, revolutionary. Image Description: Photo of someone's calves and ankles from the back. They are wearing black pants, rolled up, and long white socks with "Girls Rule" written on them in black, block letters. The person is also wearing maroon heels.  Except that … It really wasn't. In fact, the term "Girl Power" was coined by US punk band Bikini Kill. According to lead singer Kathleen Hanna, it was inspired by the "...

If you've ever seen The Princess Diaries, you’ll be familiar with the scene where Mia transforms into the Princess of Genovia. She straightens her hair and takes off her glasses, and suddenly she’s beautiful and popular. You might not think it’s a big deal, but these tropes were and are damaging to a lot of children, particularly those like me, who look more like the first version of Mia.  Image Description:  two freeze frames from The Princess Diaries (2001). The left shows Mia before her makeover, with frizzy hair, glasses and an unattractive facial expression. The right shows Mia after her makeover with straight hair, no glasses and a straight-teethed smile. When I first started school, I was the only non-white child. All of my classmates asked me why I was brown and made up their own derogatory racial slurs for me. I don’t believe these children were inherently racist. Prejudice isn’t part of human nature. The cruel comments were simply because they had n...

In its growing prominence as a threat to the world as we know it, climate change has inevitably proven to be one of the most complex challenges of our time. Left unchecked, this accelerated rate of ecological degradation will leave devastating impacts on our environment, society and economy. Yet, these adverse effects are already being felt by many across the globe, particularly by the marginalized and disadvantaged communities in developing regions. However, many environmental issues that have occurred have been due to the unsustainable lifestyles of the most affluent populations within developed countries (Kaijser & Kronsell, 2014). Moreover, it is the voices of the marginalized and the disenfranchised that continue to lack representation on all levels of discussion and decision making about climate issues. From this position, the climate crisis entails more than just an understanding of the inherent relationship between consumption patterns and carbon emissions, but necessitate...

A subject very close to my heart is how to use privilege to build, not destroy.   Feminism has improved the collective status of women globally – but that is only true by aggregating the monumentally larger improvement to some women’s lives to hide the fact that thus far feminism has not shared its victories equitably. In fact, when the first feminist movement's victories were achieved, and some women began to enjoy the opportunities this afforded, this glow obscured the experiences of women who remained excluded. There were women whose life circumstances didn't allow them to enjoy those freedoms. The victories of the first two waves of feminism were monumental if we consider women as an amorphous homogeneous group.  The right to vote, participate economically, liberation of contraception and abortion, and laws enshrined to support women with children who wanted to work were staggeringly hard-fought achievements that benefit me – that benefit all women (to varying ...