Grapeshot Magazine | 'Heroine'

ISSUE 7: HEROINE

CAMPUS NEWS & LIFE | ARTS & CULTURE | STYLE & SUSTAINABILITY | REVIEWS | & MORE

WATSON CALENDAR SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER MONDAY

TUESDAY

14

15

21

22

28

SESSION 2 RECESS

Our Father Who Art (Nearly) in Heaven DRAMAC play @ Seymour Centre 8:30pm.

Runs till 19th Sept.

WEDNESDAY

16

THURSDAY

17

CAVE Public Lecture: Gillian Triggs @ MQ Research Centre for Agency, Values & Ethics 5:30pm

23

24

29

30

1

5

6

7

12

13

14

UN Ideas Forum: Human Rights and the UN, 6:30pm Macquarie University

Russian National Ballet Theatre @ Seymour Centre Chippendale 7:30pm

Kara Makes You a Sandwich @ The Factory Theatre 7:15pm

8

Sons of the East @ Hotel Steyne Manly 9pm

15

FRIDAY

18 25

SATURDAY

19

Small World Festival @ Sydney Park BEAMS Arts Festival Chippendale 5pm

26

SUNDAY

20 27

Submission deadline for Grapeshot Issue 8: LEFTOVERS

TEDxMacquarie University 9am Oz Comic-Con @ Sydney Exhibition Centre 9am

Malaysia Festival Pyrmont Bay Park, Darling Harbour 12 - 9pm

2

3

4

9

10

Yours & Owls Festival Listen Out 2015 @ Weekender @ Stuart Centennial Park Park 4pm Bollywood Beneath the Stars @ Prince Alfred Park 5:30pm

Last Dinosaurs @ Enmore Theatre 8pm

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17

Rhye @ OAF 8pm Kisschasy @ Metro Theatre 7:30pm Heaps Gay @ The Oxford Hotel 9pm

11

GRAPHIC Festival @ Syndey Opera House 11am Stand Up for Refugees Rally 2pm

18

Do you have an upcoming event? Let us know and we’ll do our best to include it in our calendar. Email grapeshot@mq.edu.au

ISSUE 7: HEROINE

CONTENTS 6 NEWS

15 REGULARS

25 FEATURES

37 CREATIVE

7 NEWS FLASH

16 KIM KARDASHIAN: A

26 CLEMENTINE FORD

38 AFTER DARK

10 HILLARY CLINTON: A

MODERN DAY HEROINE?

AND CATHARINE LUMBY

40 THE VOICES

FEARLESS FEMINIST OR

18 INTERVIEW WITH LAST

TAKE A STAND AGAINST

42 OPEN EYES

PRAGMATIC POLITICIAN?

DINOSAURS

SEXISM

42 SOMETHING DEAR

12 TYLER THE CREATOR

20 STUDENT VOICE

28 DO YOU WANT TO BE MY

TOUR CANCELLED:

22 SMOKING PROBLEM

NEW MUM?

CALLING OUT RAP FOR

24 ADVICE FROM WONDER

30 VEGAN FEMINISM: WHAT

SEXISM OR EXPOSING

WOMAN

THE HELL IS IT ANYWAY?

DOUBLE STANDARDS?

32 IN CONVERSATION WITH

14 ATHLETIC HEROINES

SUPER LONELY MUTANT

SHINE ON THE FIELD AND

GIRL

SHAKE SEXISM IN SPORT

34 AN AFTERNOON AT THE PUB WITH MEN’S RIGHTS SYDNEY

43 REPEAT OFFENDERS 44 THE STEW 46 REVIEWS 50 HOROSCOPES

EDITOR’S LETTER SARAH BASFORD

A few uncomfortable situations arose during the last issue. Things we’d honestly rather brush over and not bring up. But, at Issue 7, I think it’s time to talk about it.

We need to address the issue of race and ethnicity. It has been suggested that our team comprises of only ‘white’ students and this makes people uncomfortable. To be fair, that notion makes me extremely uncomfortable as well.

As a white Latina, I have always been wary of people’s perceptions of my cultural identity and heritage.

I can understand how an assumption like this can be made.

Reading through the credits of one of our magazines, the names attributed to most of our positions can appear as ‘white’ or ‘Anglo’.

However, names aren’t really an indication of someone’s life or experiences.

My father is Anglo-Australian, I think that part of my name is obvious. My mother, in contrast, was born in South America and emigrated to Australia in the late seventies. Admittedly, she’s pretty ‘Aussie’ now (still not sure what that means though).

I, myself, appear white and have experienced the privilege of having my dad’s skin colour.

I don’t deny this, but I am from a linguistically and culturally diverse background.

And I’m not the only one.

Regardless of how it looks on paper, Grapeshot is made up of a diverse bunch of people that pride themselves on their identities. I can’t tell all their stories, because they’re not mine to tell, but they do exist.

Racial assumptions are an easy mistake. I sometimes find myself assuming aspects about other people, which is actually pretty hypocritical, but it’s something

I’m trying to work on.

This magazine encourages everyone’s voice and we welcome all kinds of submissions. If you feel like a voice has been left out, do something to fill that space and help us to make this a stronger voice for students. *** Well, moving on to our actual issue. We’ve got a sweet little number on offer for you. We wanted to dedicate this edition to issues that affect women and we’ve got a pretty diverse range of opinions and stories ranging from the recent Tyler, The Creator controversy (p. 12) to Hillary Clinton’s brand of gendered politics (p. 10).

We sent our brave and very attractive Deputy Editor to delve into the uncharted waters of Men’s Rights activism (p. 34), had a chat with the creator of Super Lonely Mutant Girl to hear her views on gender discrimination in the media (p. 32) while a writer, working in a Syrian refugee camp, writes of the harrowing experiences she was told (p. 28).

On a lighter note, we also had our old pal Wonder Woman put pen to paper and offer some advice to a single reader (p. 24) while we discuss whether Kim Kardashian West is a heroine or not (p. 16).

So brew yourself a cuppa, flick through these crispy pages and ‘joy the words that we’ve printed. x

EDITORIAL & CREATIVE PRODUCTION EDITOR IN CHIEF Sarah Basford DEPUTY EDITOR Regina Featherstone FEATURES EDITOR Jack Cameron Stanton NEWS EDITOR Anna Glen REGULARS EDITOR Vanessa Capito COPY EDITOR Rebecca McMartin WEB EDITOR Raelee Lancaster CREATIVE DIRECTOR Natasha Michels GRAPHIC DESIGNER Samuel Ip MARKETING MANAGER Joanna Marciniak OUR AWESOME CONTRIBUTORS Yehuda Aharon, Nixon Chua, Cameron Colwell, Carolin Gissibil, Rachael Greenup, Angela Heathcote, Phillip Leason, Max Mahood, Noelle Martin, Adrian Nguyen, Ben O’Donnell, Alicia Scott, Jessica Sheridan, Jazmin Skerton, Laura Smithers, Rowan Taylor, Alexis Worthing, Tony Zhang.

EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD STUDENT MEMBERS Emma Grimley, Jack Morgan, Jacob Rock, Kris Gilmour, Natalie Morton, Patrick Barkachi, Sarah Cameron, Yi Wong COORDINATOR Melroy Rodrigues PUBLISHER Craig Oliver Grapeshot would like to acknowledge the Darug people as the traditional custodians of the land on which we work, and pay our respects to their elders, past and present.

NEWS

NEWS FLASH WORDS || ANNA GLEN

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NEWS FLASH

MUPRA DISPUTE ENDS IN SETTLEMENT The dispute between university executives and the Macquarie University Postgraduate Representative Association (‘MUPRA’) has ended in an out of court settlement agreement. The Deputy ViceChancellor of Students and Registrar, Deidre Anderson, sent an email to all students on August 26 saying all grievances between the parties had been resolved. “The resolution resolves all issues in the proceedings, and to the extent the proceedings involved any concerns about the conduct of any current or former MUPRA officers, those concerns are withdrawn”, the email states.

Representatives of MUPRA and the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations, who assisted MUPRA in its proceedings, declined to comment as the details of the settlement remain confidential.

However The Australian reports that the $500 000 dollars at the heart of the dispute has been retained by MUPRA, but that $160 000 dollars of this will go to paying legal fees. As part of the settlement agreement, MUPRA will also be dissolved and replaced with a new organisation called ‘MUPSA’, or Macquarie University Postgraduate Student Association. This body will be established under the Student Advisory Board as a standing committee.

Kieren Ash, who currently sits on the University Council and Student Advisory Board, welcomes the development. In a statement to Grapeshot, Ash said “It’s good to see this difficult period in the university’s history come to an end with an agreement that is satisfactory for both parties. I look forward to a future of student representation at Macquarie that is inclusive, engaged and independent, and MUPSA will play a major role in shaping that”.

UPDATE: REDFERN TENT EMBASSY CLAIMS VICTORY AFTER STRIKING A DEAL FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF 62 AFFORDABLE HOMES AT ‘THE BLOCK’ In the July edition of Grapeshot, Michael Sturtridge reported on the battle between the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC), which served an eviction notice to residents of the Tent Embassy in February of this year.

Sturtridge spoke to Wiradjuri elder, Jenny Munro, who alleged that the CEO of the AHC, Michael Mundine, was not working in the interests of indigenous people.

“After forty years of Mundine being here, we know his level of competence – and it’s not very high’, Munro said.

On August 24, the Supreme Court handed down a decision in favour of the AHC to allow its proposed commercial developments to go ahead, leaving the Tent Embassy with imminent eviction.

However in a last minute turn of events, Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister, Nigel Scullion, offered five million dollars of funding for affordable indigenous housing in the area. Under the deal, the AHC is required to build 62 subsidised premises for indigenous families.

Lawyer for Jenny Munro, Lisa De Luca, told the ABC that “had it not been for the hard work of Jenny Munro and the supporters at the Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy, my opinion is that Nigel Scullion would never have come to the table with this offer”.

News || 7

NEWS FLASH

AUSTRALIA RANKS 44TH IN THE WORLD FOR THE NUMBER OF FEMALE PARLIAMENTARIANS, STATISTICS REVEAL

STATES SAY THE ‘TAMPON TAX’ IS HERE TO STAY The ‘tampon tax’, which refers to the 10% GST applied to women’s sanitary items, will remain in place despite Joe Hockey’s pronouncement on the television program QandA that the tax should be removed.

Other products such as condoms and lubricant are exempt from the tax and earlier this year.

90 000 people signed an online petition to have the tax removed. The expected cost of lifting the GST on sanitary products would be approximately 30 million dollars per year. Labor state premiers released a joint statement on August 14 supporting the removal of the tax and urged “the Treasurers of NSW, WA, Tasmania and the Northern Territory to support the proposal”.

However Mr Hockey later announced that the state and federal treasurers “failed to come to a unanimous agreement” to have the tax removed.

Recent figures released by the interParliamentary Union showing female representation in parliaments worldwide has placed Australia 44th on the list, with the United Kingdom ranking 38th, the US 75th, and Rwanda taking the top spot for the highest number of female representatives.

In Australia, seats held by female politicians account for almost forty six percent of the Senate and thirty percent of the House of Representatives. On a partyby-party basis, female representatives make up roughly forty three percent of Labor and twenty seven percent of the Liberal Party. Tony Abbott’s incumbent cabinet has just two women, and there are eight women in Labor’s shadow cabinet.

These numbers make Australia one of the worst in the industrialised world, according to a report published by the OECD this year.

In light of this poor representation, Labor has committed to fifty percent female representation by 2025. The Liberal party has set ‘targets’ but says it will not implement quotas, preferring to take a ‘merit-based’ approach. “It would be entirely reasonable for our party to have – not a quota – but a target to increase the number of women in the parliament,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott said. If the Liberal party’s merit-based argument is to be accepted, this means there are significantly less capable women joining the party. Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, took aim at this assumption, saying he had worked with a number of Liberal frontbenchers and they “certainly did not get there on merit.”

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NEWS FLASH

GENDER SELECTION ON THE CARDS FOR IVF CLINICS The National Health and Research Council is considering whether to allow IVF clinics to give parents the right to choose the sex of their child. At present, sex selection is banned and may only be permitted for medical reasons, such as in cases where there is a high likelihood of the transfer of a debilitating genetic condition.

The Chairman of the Australian Health Ethics Committee, Professor Ian Olver, is overseeing the review. He says a “number of Australians are going overseas to seek [sex selection] because it’s not available here and it’s certainly something that people are beginning to talk about for things like family balancing”.

Tereza Hendl, who completed her PhD at Macquarie University on

the non-medical reasons for gender selection, says the notion of ‘family balancing’ appears neutral but serves to reinforce harmful gender stereotypes.

“To the extent that family balancing is based on the selection of children to fulfil preconceived binary gender roles, it reinforces sexism. And, by reinforcing a gender binary, it denies rather than creates diversity within families”, Hendl says.

Sex-selected abortions are also taking place in many parts of the world. The United Nation estimates that more that 100 million girls are ‘missing’ because they have never been born. There is some evidence to suggest that sex selective abortions may be occurring in Australia within certain communities.

Data from the Bureau of Statistics shows that Chinese and Indian parents are having higher numbers of male children. Macquarie University demographer, Nick Parr, says that sexselected abortions are the most likely reason for the discrepancy, telling SBS News “there has to be some sort of prenatal sex selection taking place. In my opinion the most plausible explanation is that there is sex-selective abortion occurring”.

News || 9

HILLARY CLINTON A FEARLESS FEMINIST OR PRAGMATIC POLITICIAN? WORDS || TONY ZHANG In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s CNN interview in August of this year – one which gained notoriety because of inappropriate remarks he made about female Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly – Democratic Party frontrunner Hilary Clinton seized the opportunity to denounce not only Trump, but also other Republican candidates for advocating policies she believes to be harmful to women. She said Trump’s comments about Megyn Kelly were “outrageous” and in addition stated; “what the rest of the Republicans are saying about women is also outrageous.”

When considered alongside the content of her earlier speeches in which Clinton has equated greater social equality with the advancement of women’s rights, it is clear that she is seeking to distinguish herself from her Republican rivals by using women’s rights issues as a major point of contestation. But is Clinton a true champion for feminism?

Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign

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is part of a historic shift in US presidential politics regarding the level of exposure afforded to women’s rights issues such as equal pay, maternity leave, affordable child care, access to abortion and contraception among others and from both sides of politics. Dr Gorana Grgic from the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre believes that Clinton’s efforts in promoting gender equality are genuine, citing historic examples of her support for women’s rights.

“Hillary Clinton has been an active advocate of women’s issues in the past…one only has to remember her famous 1995 speech at the World Conference on Women where she proclaimed that women’s rights are human rights”, Grgic says.

It is worthwhile noting Clinton’s track record of her other accomplishments on this front. She has championed various

domestic initiatives during her time as First Lady such as helping create the Justice Department’s Violence Against Women’s Office and co-founded the Vital Voices Democracy Initiative, a series of conferences aimed at developing female leaders and promoting greater engagement in politics amongst women. Dr Grgic also notes that Clinton has in recent times demonstrated an understanding for intersectionality issues that exacerbate patterns of inequality among women from socially and ethnically disadvantaged backgrounds, as was recognised in her speech at the Women of the World Summit in April 2015. At the same time however, there has been criticism levelled at Clinton’s efforts to brand herself as a feminist, insofar as her election pitch is said to resonate more with white middle and upper class women.

Dr Grgic has acknowledges that there are clear electoral dividends to be had from adopting a campaign platform that is pro-women and pro-equality. Citing the return of the Democratic Party under Barrack Obama to its liberal roots as a party for social equality, she says that Clinton is being very pragmatic by running a very progressive campaign, unlike any before it.

“According to some polls (e.g. Quinnipiac from earlier this year) she is polling favourably among over half of the women from both parties, which is a very good base to start off with.”

“She has learnt from the 2008 campaign that she should embrace her gender and in that way build rapport with voters (for example #GrandmotherKnowsBest), as opposed to trying to emphasise that she can play the game like ‘one the boys,” Grgic says.

Colleague and fellow lecturer at the US Studies Centre Dr David Smith sees Clinton’s presidential campaign in a

different light. Instead of regarding Clinton’s advocacy as being representative of a genuine engagement with women’s rights and gender equality, he takes the pragmatism argument further and believes that there isn’t anything particularly or noteworthy about Clinton’s attempts to brand herself as a feminist.

“She has certainly been far more forthright about gender in this campaign than she was in 2008, identifying explicitly with women voters, with whom she’d expect to enjoy a big advantage over any Democratic or Republican opponent.”

“But to the extent that she’s talked about women’s issues she’s folded it in to a broader campaign around economic issues - raising the minimum wage, expanding overtime regulations – linking it to the issue of equal pay for equal work,” Smith says.

It ultimately remains to be seen whether Clinton’s presidential campaign will have a lasting impact on the way in which people perceive and talk about women’s rights in the context of US presidential politics.

Clinton has certainly demonstrated her feminist credentials in the past and her adoption of a pro-women’s rights campaign platform is undoubtedly helping her to connect more with female voters. Judging by the consistency of her words and deeds she does appear to be genuinely concerned with women’s rights issues. However, as is the case in politics generally, the true litmus test of Clinton’s commitment to gender equality will be whether she, in the event of becoming the first female President of the United States, can live up to the promises she’s made in her vision to create a more equal and tolerant America that’s more inclusive of women.

News || 11

TYLER, THE CREATOR TOUR CANCELLED CALLING OUT RAP FOR SEXISM OR EXPOSING DOUBLE STANDARDS? WORDS || ALICIA SCOTT Last month American rapper Tyler, The Creator, announced the cancellation of his September tour dates amidst controversy surrounding a campaign by feminist group Collective Shout. The campaign called on the Australian Immigration Minister, Peter Dutton, to revoke the rapper’s visa due to his violently misogynistic lyrics and history of inciting violence towards women.

Collective Shout, a nonprofit organisation against the objectification of girls in media and pop culture, strongly opposed not only Tyler’s sexually violent lyrics

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but also his abusive tirades towards women, particularly through his Twitter account.

A turning point of the campaign was when the rapper tweeted ‘congratulations’ to Director of Operations at Collective Shout, Coralie Alison, for her success, even though the Immigration Department had not yet decided the outcome. Tyler may not have asked for his fans to tweet abuse in his name, but he did nothing to stop the thousands of physical and sexual threats that were subsequently directed at Alison.

Moe Simmons, who is a fan of Tyler, The Creator, and also considers himself a feminist, says, “The biggest issue was less Tyler and more of his fan base harassing the women via Twitter. That is completely crossing the line and should not be accepted at all.”

Cameron Watts, an avid rap listener who became engaged in the controversy, discloses, “I’m worried that some people would deliberately listen to his music now as a ‘fuck you’ to Collective Shout, as a ‘fuck you’ to feminism.”

While fans of Tyler argue that the rapper is taking on certain characters in his lyrics as a form of art, satire or irony, it is worth noting that music that degrades women occurs in a male-dominated culture where two women being murdered a week by a former or current partner is an acceptable figure.

Cindy El Sayed, a Macquarie student and Muslim feminist who advocates for the rights of women of colour, highlights, “I think about rap as I think about anything else: a product of a patriarchal capitalist system as well as being part of a movement that is for and by black

artists for self-expression … there is this weird objectification of women in every single genre. We need to ask why do people look at rap as the only genre with [sexist] issues?”

Sexualised language towards women is prevalent across all genres of music, yet Cameron considers the social norms in which many rappers are raised to be a contributing factor to misogynistic lyrics. “It’s important to think about where this music comes from. It’s not always the case that it comes from well educated and well off people. Their rapping is curated by their experiences, their lives, and their surroundings. When hearing something offensive my reaction isn’t this shouldn’t be said, I wonder more why was this said.”

As a person of colour on student exchange from the States, Moe empathises with the women from Collective Shout, “Frankly if a genre was degrading black males constantly I would be upset too.

Rappers will continue to degrade women if they are financially rewarded from it … so something needs to be changed about the way rap is constructed and promoted to be more inclusive of women.”

News || 13

ATHLETIC HEROINES SHINE ON THE FIELD TO SHAKE SEXISM IN SPORT WORDS || KATHLEEN FREEMAN In men’s sport, women are over represented as sex objects to enhance desirability and audience viewing. In their own sport, they are overlooked and underappreciated despite their growing achievements.

Women’s sport accounts for just 9% of media coverage and even less for television coverage, where men’s coverage is 92% more popular than women’s sport. Many female sportsmen also earn less than the average Australian wage, and considerably less than the average men’s AFL player.

Past rowing Olympian, Margot Foster, is now a sports administrator who spends her time promoting women’s sport. Foster believes that there is an ongoing perception that women are not as tough, strong, or fast as men and generally this stereotype is why people don’t take any interest in them. Although this may be the public perception, sporting team results tell a different story.

The Australian basketball team, the Opals, are ranked 2nd in the world, which is 9 positions higher than the male team. The Australian female cricket team are two time world champions and there are outstanding female Olympians who achieve great results internationally for Australia.

Yet despite the ongoing success of women’s sport, opportunities for gaining sponsorship and broadcast deals is still limited. In 2012, the Daily Telegraph named the unbeatable mare, Black Caviar, as sports woman of the year alongside sportsman of the year, Michael Clarke. Basketball Australia flew their men’s team business class to international competition while the women’s team were left to fly economy. No effort was even made to disguise this occurrence because it is the norm.

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It has been suggested that if women teams had greater media coverage, then sponsors would be more eager to support these teams due to increased availability for marketing opportunities.

Reporter from ABC Grandstand, James Maasdorp, has started an interesting new theory arguing that women’s sport teams are becoming a more investible market for stakeholders due to their recent success.

This all began after Australia’s female soccer team, The Matilda’s, defeated the heavy Brazilian favourites in the 2015 FIFA world cup. The Matildas have been ranked 10th in the world by FIFA, ahead of soccer dominating countries Italy and Spain. By comparison, the Australian male team, the Socceroos, are only ranked 59th in the world but have received considerably more sponsorship and public support over their career. At least until the women made headlines.

Popularity is believed to be shifting and women’s sport will soon no longer be inferior to men. The overall aim would be to diminish the view that women are just sex objects and admire them for their athletic ability. After the achievement of The Matilda’s, the public has finally recognised there is a problem and have expressed the need for greater media coverage on women’s sporting teams. In a positive development and historic first, Channel Seven broadcast women’s AFL on August 16, which the network described as “a history-making AFL television first”. Rather than being a tokenistic gesture, hopefully this broadcast represents the first step in making the coverage of female sports the norm rather than the exception.

REGULARS

KIM KARDASHIAN A MODERN DAY HEROINE? WORDS || NOELLE MARTIN Kim Kardashian is a modern day heroine. There, I said it.

This may come as an affront to the work of eminent heroines such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Rosa Parks or Mother Theresa, all courageous women who have changed the course of history or dedicated their lives to helping the less fortunate, or who possess qualities that have influenced millions after them. How dare I say that a woman who reached celebrity status from a sex tape could be a modern day heroine?

In a TEDxVancouver talk, Elaine Lui, a “professional gossip” spoke on the sociology of gossip, and made some insightful comments about celebrity gossip and how it says more about our social culture than the celebrities

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themselves, and how the portrayal of celebrities in the media reflects “popular moral and ethics of that time.” In many ways, how we view Kim Kardashian says more about us than her, and whether we are ready to label Kim a modern day heroine.

A heroine is a woman admired for her courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities. If you are sceptical or quite frankly offended at the notion of Kim as Heroine, I’ll break it down for you.

THE SEX TAPE

Kim’s sex tape wasn’t the first nor will be the last celebrity sex tape. In interviews where Kim has directly been asked about the tape, she responds that we’ve all made mistakes and the sex tape was a mistake. If we accept the

tape was a mistake, then unless we’ve never made mistakes, who are we to judge. If the tape was leaked without her consent, she would be the victim of a grave breach of privacy. Maybe it was a publicity stunt, nevertheless, what we never see is a social condemnation of Ray J, the other party in the sex tape, it’s the woman who is slut shamed and condemned and the public are ruthless, especially on social media, cyberbullying is rampant. We overlook the strength of someone who can live through being called the most hated woman on the planet. It takes courage not to let the shame, embarrassment and humiliation adversely affect her entire life, but Kim turned it around for herself and now has a self-made multi-million dollar empire.

TALENTLESS KIM

In a 2011 interview with Barbara Walters, Barbara said to Kim, “You don’t really act; you don’t sing; you don’t dance. You don’t have any — forgive me — any talent!” To which, Kim responded by saying “I think it’s more of a challenge for you to go on a reality show, and get people to fall in love with you for being you.” In my opinion the “talentless claim” is complete nonsense, Kim is one of the most successful businesswomen in the world, with clothing, jewellery, perfume lines, a television show, an extremely successful app and many more. By modern standards, her accomplishments are heroic.

PROVOCATIVE IMAGE: WOMAN, WIFE AND MOTHER

Bum, boobs, and back. We’ve seen it all. From her nude photoshoots, to provocative attire. How dare I associate a heroine with someone who leaves nothing to the imagination, who doesn’t respect herself? We live in a society with so many expectations on how a woman should look, dress and behave in order to be taken seriously or be worthy of respect. These conservative

and superficial expectations for women are outdated. Women should have the choice to wear whatever they want, without it having anything to do with their self-respect. I mean, does the human anatomy really offend your delicate sensibilities?

Kim does not conform to society’s expectations of women, she does and wears whatever she wants. She sends the message that girls shouldn’t be ashamed of their bodies and should embrace and reclaim their bodily autonomy. Also, Kim is criticised for celebrating her sexuality because she is a mother and a married women. We hear “keep it for your husband’s eyes only,” or in the words of Naya Rivera, Glee actress who commented on Kim’s photo saying “I normally don’t.

But…you’re someone’s mother.” Kim, or any woman, shouldn’t have to hide their sexuality once they’re married or have children. Social commentators have called Kim the overlooked face of feminism and the women’s sexual liberation movement.

BAD ROLE MODEL FOR YOUNG GIRLS

Girls, don’t aspire to be a self-made successful businesswoman, a wife, a mum, with a smoking hot body (note the sarcasm). Kim’s work for charity is often overlooked. She is in fact is on speed-dial for the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles when funding is needed.

Upon receiving an award this year at Variety’s Power of Women New York she recited “Here’s to strong women, may we know them, may we be them, and may we raise them.”

Whether we admit it or not, Kim empowers women in more ways than we acknowledge, we have to admire her courage, accomplishments and her message. If you are still skeptical, maybe it says more about us than her.

Kim is a modern day heroine.

LAST DINOSAURS INTERVIEW WITH DAN KOYUMA

WORDS || VANESSA CAPITO

It’s been three years since you released In a Million Years, what have you guys been up to in the meantime? Have you just taken a break from recording or were you just working and fine tuning Wellness?

Well, it’s a mix of everything for why we took so long I guess. The first 18 months after that first album we did a lot of touring and tried to milk that album as much as we could. We did a bit of international touring so that was kind of our focus for the first year to 18 months I guess. Then we were writing probably for most of 2014 really.

We’re pretty slow when it comes to writing I think because were kind of like, we just like to make it 100%, rather just smash through songs. So obviously that kind of takes a lot of time doing that. So yeah, we’re all kind of pretty ready to get back into the swing of things.

What it’s like, having formed the band in 2007, seeing it progress to where it is now, almost eight years later?

It wasn’t really a serious thing till about 2008/2009, but still a pretty long time when I think about it. It’s just part of our general lives now. It’s good just having taken out time with everything because I think a lot of young bands can kind of rise up pretty quickly, and not have a strong core fan base which I think we’ve got which is good. It means we can take out time with things as well because if we were a hyped band, then took three years to release another album, no one would give a shit. So in that regard it’s pretty good. I mean, other bands have done really well in half the time we’re taken, so every band is different really. Some bands are just awesome within six months and some bands take 10 years to mature into gold.

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Well your last album got a really great reception anyway. People are still listening to it now.

I mean a lot of people say that they still listen to that album which is great but we’re fucking sick to death of it to be honest. We’re super excited to get the new one out.

You recorded Wellness with Horscroft as your producer, was it liking working with him he’s produced with some really Australian bands?

Scott what since iconic

Yeah, it was really good. He’s an interesting kind of producer in that he’s pretty hands off. Because he works in Sydney, he would basically go to Sydney during the day then come back to the studio, which is about an hour out of Sydney, do a bit of work during the night. So we’ll just be chilling during the day, doing a bit of recording, then doing all the hard yards at night. He spent a lot of long evenings in the studio. So it wasn’t like a full on, we’re all in a room together for three weeks kind thing. He was away for a lot of it actually but whenever he did rock up he just worked his magic and it was pretty good.

Wellness is a super cohesive collection of songs, what were your inspirations and thought for this album?

Sean does most of the crux of the song writing, and he’s a bit of a romantic character in many respects so a lot of the album is to do with his various romances.

Some of it’s quite explicit; some of it’s quite ambiguous. Musically I think we listened to a lot of different music in that three years since In A Million Years, I think you can probably hear that. Well I hope people can hear. I think the core sound in pretty similar

but there’s the little extra 10%. You know, you can hear a little more depth and layering in terms of the instrumentation especially.

We had more time to think about what exact parts we wanted, rather than the first album that was more like just a band recording, whereas this one was like, what can we add?

So there’s a lot of different layers in this one compared to the last one.

When you work on songs, do you tend to start with the lyrics or music first, or would you say it’s a mix of both?

Usually with us Sean writes a demo, so does the music at home. Sometimes he’s got the lyrics and sometimes he doesn’t.

Usually lyrics come later after we’ve fully finished the music. So he’d have 80% of the song done, send it to everyone, then we’d go into the rehearsal room and figure it out and fine tune our different parts, work on the structure of the band. Then sometimes we don’t even have lyrics until we’re recording.

So sean will spend a day off somewhere writing lyrics then puts them on right at the end. Sometimes the lyrics are done with the demo, like ‘Wellness’, for example, the title track. A few others had lyrics at the very start of the song’s life. But some are totally different. yt just depends on each song

What was the reasoning for choosing ‘Evie’ and ‘Apollo’ as the singles to be released? Were they the band favourites?

It’s actually pretty hard choosing singles because up to that point usually only you, the band the manager and your friends are the only people have actually heard the music.

So we just felt like they were just the most single worthy songs. I wouldn’t say they’re the strongest songs on the album.

What do you feel are the strongest songs on the album?

I would probably say ‘Wurl’ is my favourite song. I like the whole thing, but ‘Wurl’ is probably my favourite. And ‘Take Your Time’, the first track too. But yeah, I mean choosing singles is kind of a collective decision and you have to think about a few things. I mean obviously because we hadn’t released music in so long we didn’t want to put the best song out straight away, we just wanted to put out a feeler track which is ‘Evie’, and then put out ‘Apollo’ which is probably the most single-y sounding one on the album. And then I think we’ll put out one more, probably before we

go out on tour because that’s not till late September.

What was the concept behind the music video for ‘Apollo’? Did you guys have huge input in making the video?

Well we had a huge input for the actual idea because originally it was actually to make it about a tradie on a worksite. Same kind of concept but it was a tradie rather than security guard. We tried to find an appropriate place for it but it was really kind of impossible to get any kind of permission for filming on a worksite. Then we had the idea of getting a security guard, that was Michael Sloane’s idea, and to do it in a shopping centre. I think it actually worked really well because visually the hopping centre looks pretty nice on camera. I think it’s easily our best video. Music videos are pretty hard though. Usually we have no idea what we want to do but Lachlan came up with the idea pretty quickly and we all went for it. It felt like a natural video for the song.

We saw with your last tour for ‘Evie’ there was a distinctive Law & Order theme. Was there a deeper meaning for that, and can we expect something similar again with your shows later in the year?

Nah, absolutely no deeper meaning. It was just random. I don’t know why, because I actually made that logo like three years ago, never thinking we’d use it. But for some reason we needed new merch and everyone though it was funny and lets just use that.

Then we thought why don’t we project the logo for it on stage and play the theme song before we go on and silly things like that.

But yeah, apparently people think it’s funny.

We’ll have to come up with a different show to top it.

Now I have to ask, is there a story behind the band name?

Well it’s a pretty boring story, but when we started we had no idea what the band’s name was going to be and I was just going through my iTunes list and ‘Last Dinosaur’ is actually the name of a song by a Japanese band who is kind of popular in Japan, not so much internationally. But they’re called The Pillows and they have a song called ‘Last Dinosaur’ that I was listening to a lot at that time. I just put it on a list and everyone was like “oh that one’s pretty good” and we just stuck with it.

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STUDENT VOICE WORDS || VANESSA CAPITO PICTURES || SARAH BASFORD In line with this month’s theme, we hit campus to chat to you guys and see who your favourite fictional, and non fictional heroines were.

Nell, 23

Bachelor of Law and International Studies “Lara Croft”

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Guy, 23 Bachelor of Law “I’d say Beyoncé is my favourite heroine.”

Ama, 21

Patrick, 21

Bachelor of Law & Arts

Bachelor of Law & Arts

“Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables, and real life would be Dilma Rousseff.”

“Julia Gillard would be my real life heroine.”

Bec, 19 Bachelor of Marine Science “My favourite heroine would be Catwoman.”

Rebecca, 22 English Literature “I like Wonder Woman because she has a lasso of truth, and I think honest is very important.”

Regulars || 21

MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY’S

SMOKING PROBLEM WORDS || YEHUDA AHARON

Our university has a smoking problem and instead of admitting it, we have chosen to deny its existence. Macquarie University has been steadily restricting the presence of smokers to a few selected smoking areas. At this point in time, there are three, with the main smoking zone located just off Wally’s Walk.

Without a doubt these smoking areas are insufficient in number and placed to make smoking inconvenient, perhaps in an attempt to encourage smokers to quit. Even as a smoker, I would have to admit that this seems positive, however in my eyes, it does more harm than good.

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The only centrally located smoking zone is poorly designed and ill fitting to provide for the large body of smokers that use it. Officially speaking, it is the small area located around the tin-roofed shack that is marked as a smoking area. Unofficially, it is the entire grass area that surrounds it, stretching from the old library building up to the shrubbery that borders Wally’s Walk and down to the small stream that runs parallel to it. There are a couple issues here; Firstly, the grass is a poor choice of flooring for a smoking zone, making the clean up job much harder than it might be if it were over concrete or brick.

Secondly, its proximity, so close to a source of running water used by some of the university’s local (and cutest) wildlife, the ducks is also an issue. Lastly, with the insufficient number of bins and disposal units attached to the small structure, smokers are appropriately disposing of their butts, and an increase in bins would not go amiss, neither would an occasional clean up.

Before I continue with my rant against inadequate smoking areas, I just thought I’d take a moment to say how fucking angry it makes me that smokers almost never dispose of their butts properly. Why is it commonplace for smokers to drop their butts on the floor even with a bin in arm’s reach?

Perpetrators of this crime include academics, staff and students. For grown adults to continue littering without consideration for the people and animals that share the land with us is vacuous and selfish.

So if you, in a mindless moment of destruction, flick your butt wherever you fancy, you should consider that it will remain

there forever until somebody, or something picks it up or washes it into our water systems.

Okay, back to the sparsely placed smoking areas. This problem has resulted in people having a sneaky smoko in nonsanctioned areas. A regular place of smokers’ dissent is near the library, a building which should necessitate a nearby smoking zone, however, without one, it results in people smoking in shared public areas, posing a health risk with the dangers of passive smoking.

Now I know that it has become increasingly popular for institutions to ban smoking on their premises, but it is without doubt that people will continue to smoke. It is time that the university contends with this issue, allocating convenient and well-equipped spaces for smokers, where they should be discouraged from littering by signage and enforceable penalties.

Regulars || 23

ADVICE FROM

FAKE WONDER WOMAN WORDS || JESSICA SHERIDAN

Dear Wonder Woman, I’ve been single for a while now, and it has become a bit of a running joke with my friends. They all have partners and I feel a little excluded. Any advice on how I could find a nice guy to date?

Natalie.

Suffering Sappho, this one’s a doozy. But there’s no need to wonder, woman, for your super friend Diana is here to save the day!

Now if there is one thing I know, it’s how to catch a man. Well, not a man specifically, but how to catch a person, anyone really. If they are too slippery for your handy lasso then try using your words. Talking is one of the few superpowers humans have, so I suggest you start there. Try talking to people – all kinds of people – and see who you enjoy talking with. Don’t be afraid to just strike up conversations with people in class or at the gym. If you have common interests with someone and you make each other laugh, then you might wanna try that lasso again because you’re off to a good start.

Once you’ve found someone that makes you smile, try getting to know them. You have gotta make sure they are more hero, less villain, if you know what I mean. If you can nab them with your Golden Lasso – which really, should be your first step, I can’t emphasise that enough – then you can straight out ask them. If not, you may have to spend some time with them. Learn about them, and let them learn about you. Try not to worry

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too much about being silly or looking great all the time. Just be yourself.

Be accepting and open to others. It’s important to go into the dating game with a rough idea of what you do and do not want, but also be open to surprises. Not bad surprises, like having a crazy ex, or a drug problem, or he is planning world domination. But good surprises, like finding out he likes the same flavour milkshake you do, or he studies music, or he comes from the planet Krypton. Don’t imagine a super man in your head and ignore every person that doesn’t fit that exact mould.

But most importantly, whatever happens, don’t let a man tie you down. Else, by Aphrodite’s law, you’ll lose all your powers and be left weak and defenceless – and no woman wants that. Don’t forget to have some ‘me’ time, don’t abandon all the activities you loved when you were single, and never forget your tribe of Amazons who have been there for you longer than anyone.

Having said all that, are you sure you’re dating for the right reason? I may not know much about these things, but where I come from we women stand together without any men. No men anywhere. Not a single one. Not. One. And we do just fine – better than fine. We kick ass. And we do it all ourselves. We lift each other up, and we do our own thing. If your friends are making you feel bad for being single, then maybe it is time for some new friends, because there is nothing wrong with being a lone, Amazon woman. We are super all on our own.

FEATURES

FEMINISTS CLEMENTINE FORD AND MACQUARIE’S CATHARINE LUMBY

TAKE A STAND AGAINST SEXISM WORDS || ALICIA SCOTT

In Australia, victim blaming is one of the most common yet harmful forms of sexism facing women. Often occurring with regard to sexual assault, victim blaming is when a victim of a crime or mistreatment is deemed responsible for the perpetrator’s harmful actions, which legitimises the institutionalised oppression of women by men. And while it remains a pervasive issue in our society, feminists across all fields continue to challenge the cultural norms that foster victim blaming as acceptable behaviour.

Journalist Clementine Ford’s recent act of solidarity for victims of sexual harassment is a vital lesson into the importance of women speaking out against sexism. In June this year, Ford took a stand against Channel Seven’s Sunrise reportage of an American “revenge porn” website that published intimate photos of 400 women from South Australia. Sunrise initially posed the question, “What’s it going to take for women to get the message about taking and sending nude photos?”

sexualised threats with her Facebook community.

Ford told Sydney Morning Herald, “The reason why I’ve chosen to speak out and name and shame perpetrators is not because their messages personally upset me, it’s because I know we live in a culture where women feel scared to speak out about these things because of what will happen to them.”

Feminist scholar and Professor of Media at Macquarie University, Catharine Lumby, pinpoints how men often use sexualised language when insulting women to demean their sense of purpose.

“There is a licencing of the dehumanisation and objectification of women in our society. We know when women are loud and speak out they will be sexualised … it doesn’t matter what kind of body you have; there will always be sexual commentary on it. Clementine Ford did something brilliant – I totally applaud her – for being brave and saying, “this is my body, get over it.””

Ford ignited public debate by sharing a semitopless photo of herself on her Facebook page in protest of Sunrise’s degrading language. Rather than victim blaming, Ford challenged the view of some men that women are sexual objects that can be humiliated by sharing nude photos without consent.

Lumby emphasises how all feminists who speak out have had similar experiences to Ford: “For someone who has been a public commentator, journalist and thinker, every week I would get a series of emails from men that would say awful, revoltingly sexual things. Every woman I know in my position has the same stories,” Lumby stresses.

While Ford was inundated with praise from her 17,000 Facebook supporters (which has now grown to over 53,000), she also received a frightening amount of sexist messages from men, including requests for nude photos, and more serious threats of rape and violence. Subsequently, Ford shamed the perpetrators by sharing screenshots of the

Despite receiving unwavering support for outing the men who sent threats of physical and sexual violence, Clementine Ford was temporarily banned from Facebook for violating ‘community standards’. In a twisted turn of events, it seemed that Facebook’s own policies deem it perfectly okay for men to assault women online but not okay for

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women to call them out on it.

Ford’s experience makes us question how does Facebook really protect women, and users in general, from harassment and vitriol. In fact, the reason why Ford shared the perpetrators’ names was because she did not feel that Facebook has any appropriate mechanisms to deal with these kind of situations, and rightly so.

With over a billion active accounts worldwide, it is inevitable that Facebook’s ‘community standards’ will not represent everyone’s values equally, given the huge diversity of cultures, languages, and societal behaviour. Lumby, whose research interests including gender, social media and ethics, argues that there are helpful mechanisms available to users who are threatened on Facebook, but it is not all black and white.

“Facebook do have rigorous procedures, the question is how effective are those procedures. A lot of people don’t know how or where to complain due to a lack of promotion. In social media there are grey areas where we know online vitriol aimed at women is rife and sometimes it’ll be taken down and sometimes it is actually criminal behaviour but a lot of the time it is sexualised language.”

Lumby was commissioned by Google Australia to research a way forward for media regulation.

The feminist scholar noted that media convergence makes the current landscape increasingly democratic, which has a positive effect on how women are represented and treated online.

“In the past, media was regulated by governments so the only time you saw women’s breasts was in a sexually explicit context, like page three girls and Playboy. Now media users are also media producers, which allows Facebook to be a very democratic space … the new [online] era shows us that there needs to be community debate and Facebook is a forum for us to have those debates, which is really positive. An Internet filter will not work technologically.”

While Facebook and other social media websites are responsible for providing a safe and secure environment for users, it is important to acknowledge the hyper-sexualised western culture they are operating in. Rather than focusing on why Facebook does not ban men who threaten women

with physical and sexual violence, we should be focusing on what cultural norms make men feel entitled to threaten women in the first place.

Thus, creating social change will have a more lasting effect on how women are represented and treated rather than surveying people’s behaviour online. Notwithstanding the hardworking women who persistently challenge the status quo, Professor Lumby believes a shift in cultural norms towards a more equally gendered society will happen if feminists engage young men and boys in the discussion.

Lumby advocates, “I really believe we need to start young with conversations about ethical behaviour. We need to open our dialogue with young boys as well as young girls. A lot of the incredibly sexist frameworks that we live in have been so entrenched that unpicking them and undoing them takes a lot of time.”

It was later revealed that some of the abusive messages Clementine Ford received were from three fourteen-year-old boys at Adelaide High School, who were suspended for joking about violence against women. Yet Lumby suggests that effective education would be more beneficial for the teenagers than direct punishment.

“I don’t think suspension is helpful. Educational programs won’t work if you tell men or boys what to do. It’s about developing empathy by getting people to think through the impact of their actions.

Women can be sexual beings but they are also mothers and sisters. So it’s about dissociating the objectification of women and moving towards a more subjective attitude where men potentially see all women as the ones they already care about.”

Ford speaking out against women being victim blamed created an unprecedented groundswell of support and activism amongst men and women.

Heroine feminists like Ford and Lumby boost the morale of younger generations who strive for a more equal society.

Lumby reiterates, “It is really important that we keep holding hands across generations around change, because it wont happen overnight but hopefully it will happen eventually.”

Features || 27

‘DO YOU WANT TO BE MY NEW MUM?’ MY EXPERIENCES WORKING IN A SYRIAN REFUGEE CAMP WORDS || CAROLIN GISSIBIL

A young girl stands awkwardly by the refugee tents. Her small hands play with one of her two plaits. She toddles into the tent, and seems confused by the hustle and bustle inside.

The dusty tent is crammed with people. On her left, three brown plastic tables are set up.

Behind each table is a doctor sitting on a chair, examining the condition of the refugees. Her eyes follow the patients over to the right, where two pharmacists distribute medicine to those who have already been treated by the doctors.

Humedica, a German aid organisation, has orchestrated free medical care for the people living inside this Syrian refugee camp. To set up the tent, a Syrian family has given up their living space, which consists of roughly ten square meters of wooden poles and white plastic foils.

Dozens of refugees queue outside in bone dry heat. They are mostly mothers looking after five, six, sometimes up to fifteen children.

The young girl smiles my way and runs toward me. We already know each other from a game of football we played a few minutes ago with the other children. A German doctor and I decided to bring a ball into each of the refugee camps.

It’s the first toy we’ve seen anywhere so far. The ball probably won’t last very long, but at least the children are busy and enjoying themselves.

I crouch down to the little girl’s level. “What’s your name?” I ask in my broken Arabic. I look for her mother, who is probably waiting close by. The girl answers with a shy smile, which

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means she can’t understand me. A Humedica field officer, who is responsible for regulating the rush of the “doctors tent” and registering in patients, sees my efforts to communicate with the little girl. He kneels down and translates from the Arabic.

I take her hand and tell her my name is Carolin.

I ask her name and age. Her name is Elise and she is five years old. Then I enquire the whereabouts of her mother. She tells me her mother is dead. I watched how she died, she adds in a firm voice.

For a moment this knocks the breath from me. I am stunned; I hadn’t anticipated an answer like that one.

At the same time I am angry about my tactlessness for asking a war child about her parents. Elise continues talking, not missing a beat. Her fine voice touches me and I admire her strength and frankness as he tells me how men entered their house and tore away her mother, ignoring little Elise’s desperate pleas.

They dragged her mother to the door then shot her in the head.

The last thing she saw them doing was seizing her mother’s legs and dragging her across the tarmac. The field officer and I kneel in front of her, frozen still. What’s the best thing to do now? What can we say? Apparently children have a better feeling for these things. She takes my hand and puts it on her head. When she fell down playing football, I stroked her head. I

suppose this is a sign to continue. She smiles and asks: “Do you want to become my new mum?”

Because of the civil war in Syria, stories like Elise’s have become a sad everyday reality.

For many people the misery continues, as the ersatz construction of the camps can’t monitor or protect against sexual and violent assaults. Currently there are 1.2 million refugees registered in Lebanon, a country with 4.8 million residents. That’s not even factoring in 300,000 Palestinian refugees. The estimated number of unregistered Syrians is probably even higher than that figure. Half of the refugees are children.

In the refugee camps, the children are left to their own devices. Many rummage through rubbish and waste, looking for anything to divert their playful minds, if only for a moment.

That way they can forget about all the terrible memories: the cries of people pleading for their lives; others quivering with agony when they’re kicked; the time they were so hungry that they had to cook their cat. We had to listen to all these different accounts during the last days.

For the children, escaping from Syria means there isn’t a school to attend. The Lebanese Government, as well as international institutions throughout the country, struggle to provide school education to refugee children. Moreover, it’s hard overcoming the language barrier, since Syrian children have been taught Arabic while in Lebanon classes are given in English.

According to the children’s help association UNICEF, 7.5 million Syrian children depend on humanitarian aid. Followers of IS are aware of this situation, thus making the camps a prime target for infiltration.

Everyone lives in decentralised tent settlements not far from the Syrian border, where you can hear bombs and gunfire in the night. They live in a few square meters, separated by plastic foil. They sleep on the ground, cook

without a kitchen, and don’t have access to sanitary installations. They must pay landowners for a place in these makeshift accommodations.

Which means many people work in the fields daily – despite illness, war injuries, pregnancy, and so on. Too many field workers are children.

Everyone earns five US dollars a day, minus $2.50 for the placement officer and another dollar for the driver, who brings them to and from work.

When the transporter comes back to camp in the late afternoon, everyone jumps off the truck in droves, laughing and excited, and visit the on site doctors. Many go directly into the medical tent. Some suffer from backache caused by the arduous manual labour. I overhear a seventeen year old, eight months pregnant, asking for painkillers so that she can continue working. The doctor advises against this, of course, but they cannot control what happens. It’s a wearisome job.

The Humedica team treats 3,500 patients a month. A German coordinator is always on site and, from time to time, a specialist makes an appearance. Respiratory problems, skin rash, worm infections, and enuresis, were the main diagnoses today. The team must drive home before nightfall.

That night, from the comfort of my apartment, I gaze at the ‘Anti-Lebanon’, the mountain range separating Lebanon and Syria.

It’s incomprehensible to me that a war rages on, a mere 15 kilometres away.

When I go to sleep I hope that all the terrible moments will never catch up with Elise and the many other traumatised children. I hope they do not fearfully tremble when they sleep in their tents.

Features || 29

VEGAN FEMINISM WHAT THE HELL IS IT ANYWAY? WORDS || ANGELA HEATHCOTE

Feminism isn’t always seen as an inclusive social movement. For some, the movement seems to exclude men and all that is masculine. I’m sorry to disappoint the cynics, but in reality we don’t dance around bonfires, burning bras, dedicating zines to ex-boyfriends, all the while turning red over penis envy. Sometimes this view is used as an artifice to degrade the merits of genuine discussion around social equity. I assure you that not every feminist is white, middle-class, cisgender, hetereosexual, or able bodied. Today’s feminists have managed to diversify beyond issues of women to focus on broader aspects of social justice.

Feminism has a long history of concerning itself with global issues and planetary health. The correct term for the inclusion of other oppressed groups in the fight for gender equality is known as ‘Intersectionality’ or ‘Intersectional Feminism.’ So how far can this inclusion reach? Can we extend it to concern nonhuman animals and the environment?

Throughout the 1980s and 90s, a number of feminists argued that women had an inviolable link to the environment as earth mothers, which was known as

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‘Ecofeminism.’ So this isn’t the first time feminism has gone green.

I was able to gain insight into the connection between veganism and feminism by discussing these issues with Isabelle Hampson, a passionate vegan feminist of the Macquarie Women’s Collective. I asked Isabelle whether a ‘good feminist’ must also be vegan.

“If you stand up against oppressors,” said Isabelle, “whether it’s racial inequality, gender inequality, and religious rights – none of this has value if you are actively oppressing others.”

And this view can be mirrored in Muhatma Gandhi’s old adage, ‘the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated,’ which seems to have resonance in our society now more than ever. In the last decade, veganism has gained momentum and more awareness, with the rising interest in documentarians and sociologists exploring the ramifications of our rampant, corporatised commodification of the food industry. A Newspoll survey conducted in 2010 indicated that five per cent of Australians were vegetarian

while one per cent identified as vegan.

This survey also anticipated a slow growth in people identifying as vegan over the following years. And this prediction has manifested itself in trends such as the ‘Rise of the Part Time Vegan’. Basically, the part-time vegan is anyone who picks up a vegan diet for a period of time, often displayed as a ‘challenge’ or ‘pledge’. While this style of veganism is usually temporary, it indicates that people are thinking more deeply about their eating habits. Recently, however, TIME Magazine reported that people who go vegan for ethical reasons, instead of dietary, are more likely to stick it out.

In my attempts to understand Intersectionality and what it means in relation to feminism, I encountered the vegan feminist movement. Aspects of the movement had me confused. As a student of gender and women studies, I’m familiar with the issues of gendered harm. But I’d never meditated on how these values apply to nonhuman animals. When asked about how Intersectionality applied to the Nonhuman Animals Rights Movement, the Vegan Feminist network websites states: The Nonhuman Animal rights movement is rife with sexual objectification and sexual abuse. Without an intersectional approach, the actual cause of oppression is obscured, and social movements are weakened by their piecemeal, non-collaborative approach.’

“Being uneducated about this widespread abuse is not an option anymore,” Isabelle said. “To provide value and critique and to stand up to criticism, you need to exercise compassion and thoughtfulness in every area of your life.”

Within the agricultural industry, female animals are subjected to harmful practices, including forceful artificial insemination, physical abuse of her mammary glands, overuse of the udders, and forceful separation from their young, which causes trauma for the mother and child. The animal industry has bushed the boundaries between farming and methodical torture.

While veganism is clearly an ethical way of life, it can be exclusionary to different types of people, such as those whose culture involves eating meat or people of lower socio-economic backgrounds. We are bombarded with images of power couples like Beyoncé and Jay-Z, or Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi, taking the Vegan Pledge. But how realistic is the vegan lifestyle for everybody else?

Flic Wilson, another member of the Macquarie Women’s Collective, comes from a Hindu/Jain background, where veganism and vegetarianism is the norm.

“To be a vegan in a Western country or a cold country is often more expensive and therefore not always easy for everyone,” Flic said. But, she acknowledged that her Indian relatives who live in a Western country are all vegan or vegetarianism, despite their relatively ‘low’ incomes.

In light of this fact, it seems that being vegan for ethical reasons has more longevity. And besides, why shouldn’t we feel more compassion for animals?

Breaking a long-term habit of eating meat with every meal is a small but meaningful step. Even swapping that full-cream milk for soy or almond makes a small, yet salient, difference. A vegan lifestyle is something we can all work towards, unless your doctor says otherwise.

Features || 31

IN CONVERSATION WITH SUPER LONELY MUTANT GIRL

CHARLOTTE ROSE HAMLYN TALKS ABOUT GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN THE MEDIA AND WHY THINGS MADE FOR CHILDREN SHOULD NOT ALWAYS BE SO SAFE WORDS || YEHUDA AHARON

I

was going to meet Charlotte Rose Hamlyn, an all-round coolcat and creative master, in a Newtown café. By day, she is a scriptwriter for children’s TV programs and voice actor for Marcia the Mouse in the new Blinky Bill movie. In her own time, she is the creator of ‘Super Lonely Mutant Girl,’ a web-comic about a superhero babe who fights ‘feelings’ (which are reminiscent of Orc hordes) together with her disembodied broken heart. She roams her world, navigating through bad jokes and puns, saving male damsels who have no idea how to deal with the onslaught of feelings, but when things get too heavy she escapes to Dessertland.

But even there she isn’t safe.

Charlotte popped in to the café. She bears an uncanny resemblance to her artwork, except with bright orange hair that is somewhat hidden under a sparkly cap. She tells me that she started out with a degree in film, but even when she was fifteen she knew she wanted to make comics.

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Despite that, she still feels like she is reading the basics that any comic fan would have already covered. But, that doesn’t stop her from creating something of her own. She explains “I want to have my own style rather than spurting out other people’s ideas.”

Yet, when I ask if she has any favourite heroes or heroines, she hesitates. “I don’t think I do and that’s why I started writing Lonely Mutant Girl.”

She finds many comics these days bore her. “I used to read a lot of Wonder Women and Betty and Veronica, but these days I find a lot of them boring. Batman is really boring, the only good thing about Batman comics are the villains. I just wanted to make a superhero who is super, but in really basic, day-to-day ways.” She also notices this on children’s shows that are currently being made, with broadcasters who are too safe, concerned only with sales and funding. This is particularly true of shows with strong female characters: “We don’t even make them. Most

of our shows don’t even have females. Most of the shows I work on are about a boy, maybe two boys, and then they make it a buddy show. I would probably drop dead if they did one about a girl. I want somebody to prove me wrong on this, but in most shows, the supporting female character is either a cousin or love interest.”

Charlotte is also working on a photographic project ‘She’s F**king Fabulous’ with Jennifer Noorbergen from Kaleido magazine. If you are wondering what it’s about, Charlotte sums it up as profiling “women who we think are fucking fabulous.” It is an attempt to shine a new light on successful women, who are successful in ways the media would often ignore.

“Never a friend?” I butt in.

“Always a very ‘strong’ friend. And all supporting female characters are quirky with an affinity for animals.”

“These days,” she continues, “I am getting into show development and while in a meeting I will ask ‘why does that character have to be a guy?’ There is a standard response, ‘shows about boys sell, shows about girls don’t.’ Girls are more open to watching boy shows but not the other way around. I was told there is a study to prove it. Nobody knows anything about it but it is brought up at any suggestion of change. So I tracked it down and found it dates to a paper written in 1983 about gendered toys. Of course, the toys were bright pink Barbie dolls and fairy dresses compared with cars and trains.”

She has an extraordinary “knack for attracting strange characters into my life, like sometimes I feel like I’m a beacon for weirdos.”

Charlotte used to host children’s birthday parties and used to see forceful gendering process in action. “We had these two costumes; one was a pirate costume, the other a mermaid.

I never used to tell the kids which one to pick.

I’d let them choose themselves. The younger they were the more open they were with their choice. At three years old, kids were about 50/50 on pirate to mermaid ratio, because pirate hats were cool and pointy but everyone loved the mermaid’s sequined skirt. As the boys got older, the dads would intervene and tell the kid, ‘no you can’t have the mermaid, that’s for girls.’ I really hated that.”

“You can’t keep making boys so strong and capable. Boys need to be okay with doing things seen as more effeminate. You need boy characters that have an affinity with animals... that can deal with an issue without punching someone or being aggressive and forceful, especially in Australia.”

The focus on women will go beyond the page: the concept is created by women, collaborated with women, and uses female photographers, make-up artists, and designers. The women profiled will be from diverse backgrounds who contribute something special to society, “like some might run a really cool shop they built from bottom up.” The end product will be something of “a reference book of women who are cool role models for girls growing up.”

But her goals don’t stop there. Charlotte is also writing a graphic novel for kids, and while she tells me the contents are top secret, I can talk a little about it. It’s called ‘Opposite Land’ and is full of rule-bending reality, allowing children to explore a fantasy world where, amongst other things, gender constraints are not an issue. It really sound exciting, but if I told you any more I’d have to kill you.

So where does all this inspiration come from?

Well, in the case of Mutant Girl, it is from everyday life. “I had a number of experiences one after the other. They were tumultuous. Even at the time things would make me incredibly upset, my brain would split into two – one part of my brain would be like ‘arghh! I just want to die,’ but the other half would sit back like Woody Allen and tell me to write it all down.”

She also draws upon a life lived outside of reality, possessing a vivid imagination and strange superpower that helps her write. “Who knows where the real ends and the dream begins?” She has an extraordinary “knack for attracting strange characters into my life, like sometimes I feel like I’m a beacon for weirdos.”

It might just be a pheromone, she tells me, exuding the scent of acceptance through the air.

With such wonderfully zany stuff pouring out, how can any producer be disappointed?

Still, it is a shock that in order for that to happen, she and a new generation of creatives will need to lead the way and do it themselves. We are just lucky they are so fucking talented.

Feature || 33

AN AFTERNOON AT THE PUB WITH MEN’S RIGHTS SYDNEY WORDS || REGINA FEATHERSTONE

It occurs to me when I walk up the stairs of the Townie in Newtown that we hadn’t given any markers to identify each other. I didn’t even have a mental image of what a Men’s Rights Sydney supporter should look like. I think that’s because so many of our preconceptions and stereotypes are defined by trending social media and the news.

Portrayals of Men’s Rights activists in the media are few and far between.

Men’s Rights Sydney (MRS) is a small Newtownbased movement that aims to raise awareness in the community of the “largely ignored and unreported discrimination that exits against men and boys in our society”. Also, they insist that criticism of feminism does not equate to misogyny.

MRS strives for gender neutrality in society, where neither men nor women are put on a pedestal.

Ultimately, they want Sydney to become a society that “doesn’t discriminate on the basis of gender in any way”.

On their website is a sort of call to arms: “Come & join us or, like those opposing human rights for black people in 1960’s America, you may find yourself on the wrong side of history. In the

34 || Feature

immortal words of Martin Luther King: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice’. Not only are the facts on our side but we also hold the moral high ground.”

When I reach the top of the stairs I pan the room in somewhat of a fluster. Maybe it’s the unprecedented August warmth, but also I fear having to canvas each table in search of my niche social activist group. Then I spot a white t-shirt with a punctuation-less slogan that reads: ‘MENS RIGHTS SYDNEY’.

I’m sitting with Tom Voltz, 45, and Adrian Johnson, 27, who founded MRS two years ago after meeting on ‘A Voice For Men’ online. I excuse myself to get a drink. Tom quickly ushers me to sit down and goes to grab it for me.

Tom and Adrian feel as though there is a lack of representation of men’s issues in Australian society and decided to do something about it. Tom says that having children was the catalyst for his interest in gender issues. “I started thinking about my daughter and son and what sort of world they would grow up in. I didn’t like what I came up with.”

Adrian, however, got his first taste for gender inequality in High School. He felt disempowered standing up against female bullies. “I decided to treat them how I would treat a male bully, that was punch them in the face. That was a bad idea,” he confesses. “The men in school were traditionalists and the women basically feminists. But she was intimidating a guy in an electric wheelchair – what am I supposed to do? He couldn’t defend himself, and I couldn’t do nothing.” It was around this time in adolescence that Adrian decided to leave Jehovah’s Witnesses and pursue the personal beliefs he holds today.

MRS’ perfect society would be one where women are treated the same as men. I ask how this approach differs from feminism, because on paper it sounds quite similar. “Feminism is not about equality,” Tom replies. “They sat it is but it’s not . . . it completely ignores the issues that affect men.”

The two ideological problems that face MRS are gynocentricism and feminism. Gynocentricism is the dominant or exclusive focus on women in theory or practice.

Tom and Adrian acknowledge that feminism has been good in some areas, but also “a disruptive force” in others. MRS believes women are favoured and considered more precious than men in society. That statement confused me. I thought the current situation was closer to things like women’s suffrage, rape in wedlock, women still earning roughly eighty per cent of male wages, and one in five Australian women suffering domestic violence from their partners.

I wonder how women are exactly ‘favoured’ throughout history. Because to me, it seems like the history books call for the exact opposite.

“It’s natural for us to feel like men have more power,” Tom says, “because they tend to hold more high-up positions. But of course, that sort of power isn’t the only one you can have in the world.” MRS believes feminism has exploited gynocentricism to fulfil ideological aims. “It’s part of our evolutionary make-up. Women can only have one baby a year at most, but men can theoretically have many children. It makes sense for us to find men disposable. They do dangerous work and risk their lives to protect women because they are the

bottleneck in population growth.”

Adrian asks me to imagine a scenario. “A man and woman are applying for a CEO job. The guy will take the woman a little less seriously because of neoteny and the man looks a different way and so subconsciously he might think that the man is more competent than the woman for no other reason than biology.” Neoteny is the endurance of juvenile traits into adulthood, which usually effect facial features such as big eyes and small noses. Studies indicate that men are usually more attracted to a neotenous female face.

But putting biology aside, what else is preventing the MRS achieving their goal of gender neutrality?

“In terms of the feminist grip over society,” Tom says “. . . In the US, Canada and Scandinavia, ideologically feminist lobby groups have control of politics, the courts, a very tight grip on stuff. It’s partially to do with the culture.”

“What happens in America will be mirrored in Australia,” Adrian remarks.

“That’s why we’re fighting so hard.”

“We don’t want it to get that bad here in Australia.”

Adrian and Tom cut in over each other’s conversation and weave together the MRS mantra out of the clash. They are like two talking heads on the same body.

“In Sweden,” Tom says, “They tried to pass legislation to make it illegal to criticise feminism.

An Actual Crime.”

“That is just insane,” Adrian agrees. “No matter what side you are on, you are generally better if you can be criticised. I would still be a Jehovah’s Witness if I wasn’t criticised.”

With a Facebook page pulling in only 1700 likes, the Men’s Rights movement in Australia is yet to gain traction. The MRS’ monthly meeting average between four to ten people.

If the plight of MRS resonates with you, check out the full listings of their activism at www. mensrightssydney.com.

Feature || 35

GOT SOMETHING TO CONTRIBUTE? SEND IT OUR WAY AT grapeshot@mq.edu.au

Submissions for ISSUE 8: LEFTOVERS close 25 SEPTEMBER 2015

CREATIVE

Creative || 37

AFTER DARK

STORY || RACHAEL GREENUP

I concentrate on my breathing, taking shallow breaths. I’ve never felt so alive and drained at the same time. Shock riddles my body all over again as I glance at the emergency vehicles metres away.

“Alright girls, are we okay?” the police officer looks at me, he smiles a little in what I think is an attempt to comfort my tense composure.

“Um,” I mutter quietly.

“Yeah officer, we’re fine. We’re fine.” Sarah says. Chantelle smiles and nods at the officer.

He turns to walk away, “Oh! Except officer!”

Sarah calls quickly, unlocking her iPhone, “I just want a picture.”

I roll my eyes and offer to take it, since I’m in no mood or state to star in the image – and knowing Sarah this will get Instagrammed in seconds. My hair is knotty and matted.

I think some of it was pulled out, and my make up is tear-streaked down my face despite efforts to wipe it away.

After a quick snap the officer leaves to pack up his van. Holding aching ribs, I sit down on the sidewalk in front of the park, Bayside Park. One of my favourite places to come and hang out, kick around a ball, play a game of hoops, read, eat, draw, even study.

And now it’s ruined.

Chantelle sits beside me placing an arm around my shoulder. Behind us, Sarah clicks away on her phone, finding the perfect filter, no doubt.

“Are you okay? You seem pretty shaken up.”

Chantelle asks, a brown curl falling over her eyes.

“Yeah well, I’ve never exactly done that before…” I trail off.

Chantelle rubs my shoulder gently, “All these years of Tae Kwon Do and Karate classes came into use, hey? Imagine if you hadn’t been here? That poor little girl would

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have been taken Cleo. Do you have any idea what could have happened to her?” She pauses, letting this set in, “I heard the officer say he’s been convicted for charges before, child molestation charges. Don’t feel bad about the state you left him in.”

“I don’t feel bad…well I do, a little bit.” I sigh, “I’m just in shock.”

A silence rests between us. We watch as the officer waves the second ambulance off.

“How’s your eye feeling?” Sarah asks, strutting her way back to us. A post Instagram confidence growing with the amount of double taps to occur.

I raise my hand to feel the damage when Chantelle snatches my wrist back.

“You don’t…you don’t want to touch that.”

She says, eyebrows creasing with concern.

“Cleo! Cleo, oh my … are you okay?” my older brother Zig runs over to us clad in his butcher’s gear. The sight of his blood stained pants almost makes me dry reach.

“Your face, your eye…does it hurt? Are you…”

I start to stand when he reels me into a hug, “What happened?!”

“Ah Ribs!” I splutter when Sarah cuts me off, keen at any chance to talk to Zig. Her huge crush on him is slightly hilarious.

My brother and I are close, close enough for me to know he wouldn’t go for her. The equally worst and best part of it all is her notorious denial of the infatuation.

Sarah explains how we’d come to play a game of soccer, we’d been waiting around for our mate Bentley to come so we’d have even teams. It started to get dark when we heard muffled sounds and screaming, finally topped off with the ear piercing… ...

“HELP!”

“What was that?” Chantelle and I quipped at the exact same time, fear evident in our voices. “That wasn’t just a scream – she yelled help.” Concern riddled Chantelle’s face as she pulled out her phone and dialled triple zero, “We should call someone.”

“It doesn’t sound like we have time.

Quickly!” Sarah decided, dropping the soccer ball and running in the direction of distress.

We sprinted through the eerie trees a hundred metres or so from the park, twigs and branches scratching at our cheeks and clothing. The thick growth growing deeper and deeper as we neared the sound of struggle. Searching past tree trunks and moss we slowed as the heavy breathing and small screeches become closer, yet more quiet.

Suddenly Sarah stopped walking. A few metres in front of her was a young girl, no more than eight or nine pressed against the root of a tree stump. Her clothes were torn and her face dirty, a pink ball decorated with Cinderella dresses a few metres to the right.

As soon as she saw us a scream erupted, her great big eyes pools of desperation.

A middle aged man loomed over her and slammed his fist into her face, causing a large abrasion across her nose.

I swallowed fearfully, frozen in motion with the other two. Not knowing what to do or say, not knowing how to move or speak.

The man grabbed her by the arm and began dragging her through the trees, “OI LEAVE HER ALONE!” Sarah’s voice sliced through the air. There wasn’t an ounce of fear, but I could hear it shaking with rage.

The man stopped. He dropped the hair of the girl and turned slowly, the whites of his eyes the only visible section of his body. Time froze as his gaze tore into Sarah like a bullet. His hunchback gave him the appearance of a wild beast eyeing off its prey.

As suddenly as time had stopped, it accelerated as if trying to make up for what it had lost, the man leapt at Sarah. She screamed, grabbing my hand in fear as he neared her body. As he reached mere inches

away from us my legs kicked back in and I crash tackled him sideways, disorientating and knocking him to the ground. I punched his head thrice and he elbowed me in the eye, turning his body upwards. I flew off him, landing on the ground aside as he gained composure. He kicked my stomach in and then my side, an audible crack and a flash of pain blinding me.

I braced myself for impact when Sarah kicked him in the nuts. He keeled over, grasping his nether region and I used the opportunity to ignore the burning and jump back up. He flung his arm out to hit Sarah in the stomach, she dodged it but got a smack in the shoulder.

I took a deep breath. Years and years of training building, becoming second nature.

I took a good look at him. Stomach kick, change over, roundhouse to the head. He let out a loud grunt and lunged at me. Double punch to the nose, shoulder, deflect to the right, left-whack. He got me in the neck and I faltered backwards, kicking him in the face as a last resort. He staggered, looking as though he might fall but at the last second hoisting himself at me. I dodged, grabbing his arms and flinging him over my shoulder.

Unfortunately, years of martial arts training hadn’t given me the strength to lift a hundred kilo man whilst harbouring sore ribs. I aborted my take down mid action, leaving him to land on the ground with a great thud.

Dust rose from the ground as silence settled, tears rolled down my face as I looked in fear at what I had done.

The faint sound of a lady’s voice through a cell phone became more apparent, I turned to look as Sarah scrambled to pick up the cell, “Y-y-yes, please help!” she yelped.

I desperately searched for Chantelle, finding her over at the tree nursing something, someone. It was the small girl, blood smothering her features and clothes ripped down her body.

I felt the colour drain from my face and blood rush to my head, I swayed slightly before I collapsed into Sarah’s arms.

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THE VOICES WORDS || BEN O’DONNELL

The birds soared overhead, migrating south.

Well what can I say; it was that time of the month. He grasped his rucksack and followed, heading south as well. A cool sea breeze caressed his haggard face. He even tasted salt on his lips. A dry taste. He’d need to find water soon. Or else he was finished.

He’d been walking for 27 days now but, more importantly, hadn’t drunk for a week. His throat was beyond parched...it was close to death.

He’d lost his ability to speak 3 days ago and lord knows how he’d been able to stagger on since.

A miracle? He wasn’t inclined to believe as such. But in saying that, he wasn’t particularly secure in his beliefs anyway.

His mum had died 3 months ago – that was the reason for his journey. He’d been walking to work when he’d got the call. Since then, nothing had seemed real. It all had felt like a blur. One of the few things he’d remembered since that event was wandering around aimlessly in the city, feeling like a zombie with nothing left to live for. Then the voices had started.

First it was only 3 to 4 times a day, voices coming from some deep recess behind his ears calling out his name. Whispering. After a week the voices changed; sometimes male and sometimes female, ordering him to do

40 || Creative

things. Violent, terrible things. He’d resisted and ignored them at first but they grew louder, more demanding and more frequent. That had been 3 days before he’d taken his first life.

He’d followed her home from the office block, directed wholly by the voices. He’d been dressed in trousers and a black hoodie that obscured his ever stoic face. It didn’t hide his quivering arm that held the serrated knife. The voice told him to corner her in the alley by the lane. He did so. Then the voices had had their way with her.

Since then the voices had grown weaker; satiated, perhaps. Still, he couldn’t grapple with his emotions. It was like they were floating around his head and he had no way of getting a hold of them. He sensed guilt. Despair too. All of her dark friends as well.

It was totally fucked.

Colleagues and friends had called. He’d given them vague responses to their queries about his health. Undoubtedly, they were worried.

He’d been shitting himself too, pacing back and forth across his apartment unable to sleep.

Then the voices had started again. This time he’d decided to run; he wasn’t going to follow them like last time. So he’d fled south, down to where no one ever goes. There he’d have his battle with the voices. If he lived, he lived. If he died, atleast the voices would die with him.

Creative || 41

OPEN EYES WORDS || YEHUDA AHARON She sits quietly sketching Barry’s figure, overlooking his thick jacket, a heap of grey wool that bunches at his shoulders.

Open at the waist, his gut stretches out a pair of drawstring shorts, shorts indicative of better days, the days she is looking to uncover with her felt tip pen.

Barry is featuring in her art today. It is her art in more ways than one, dreams it and draws it but it is also the art of herself, figuratively speaking that is, pictures of her in better days. Days that never took place, but days that might have if superpowers were real.

She was a sassy and sexy girl once. One people saw, looked at and desired. Now she was little more than nuisance on the sidewalk, invisible until they kicked her leg or bothered them for a spare dollar.

Being invisible is no superpower, but it is very real. It is her fatal flaw and one day it will kill her, overpowering her very human power of making people see. Bringing angel-headed hipsters into the vision of the willingly blind.

SOMETHING DEAR. WORDS || YEHUDA AHARON Jenny’s hand hung by her side, a bundle of white in her clenched fist.

Tommy loved lace, she bought them for him.

She opened the cab door as she released her grip from her other hand. Like a snowflake it fell to the floor, leftovers from last night, last love, last year.

“Where to, miss?”

“To Pitt Street, please – and hurry I’m late for work.”

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REPEAT OFFENDERS

THE STEW

WORDS || VANESSA CAPITO

WORDS || VANESSA CAPITO Want to have your cake and eat it too? Don’t worry guys, we got you!

Every superhero needs their sugar hit, and this month we’ve found all the places to feel the rush.

KÜRTÖSH

110-112 Willoughby Rd, Crows Nest Mon-Fri: 7am-10pm, Sat-Sun: 8am-10pm The best part about this place is the samples.

They ALWAYS have sample cakes to try which is fab if you can’t make up your mind, or perhaps you’re too poor for cake and can only afford a coffee, but you still want some of that sweet-y goodness. Samples aside, the cakes here are really good. They’re simple, but they taste great and are always consistent. What’s interesting is that you essentially choose how big you want your piece of cake to be, and then you pay for it by weight which means you can try a few small pieces rather than having to commit to one big one. The service is great and the coffee is too.

The fact that it’s open till 10pm ensures that it’ll become your favourite late night coffee and cake go-to.

4/5

44 || Repeat Offenders

BLACK STAR PASTRY

277 Australia St, Newtown Mon-Fri: 8am-3pm, Sat-Sun: 8am-4pm Black Star has become quite a hot spot, which means lines; which sucks. Fortunately, you never have to wait too long, and it’s worth it anyway. Home to some of the best baked goods, including the infamous strawberry, rose and watermelon cake, Black Star is relatively small on the inside, with only a few seats. The rest of the bakery lovers have to line the windows outside, spilling to the shopfront next door. I prefer to buy my cake and coffee, walk up the road and sit where there are usually empty benches. Like I said, the watermelon cake is definitely a must-try, however, the dark chocolate tart with caramel popcorn is also a hit. The only downfall about this place is the service. Most of the wait staff seem to have a real attitude.

3.5/5

LORRAINE’S PATISSERIE

5/320 George St, CBD Mon-Fri: 8:30am-6:30pm, Sat: 9am-5pm This place looks great, smells great, and doesn’t taste half bad either. The only problem is that it’s super expensive, and sometimes not really worth it. I’m talking $4.50 for a chocolate cookie the size of the palm of your hand. You could go to Coles and get a dozen cookies for that much and it’d be more worth your while.

Don’t get me wrong, the food at Lorraine’s is good, but I can’t justify the price point, for me it’s enough to steer me away. However, if you’ve got the moolah to splurge, be my guest.

I always preferred the mascarpone cake with coconut sponge and strawberries, but at $8 a pop for a tiny piece, I’ll leave the decision up to you. The variety doesn’t change much here either, which is a shame.

2.5/5

Repeat Offenders || 45

IN REVIEW

FILMS

DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL

REVIEW || CAMERON COLWELL Earnest, subversive, and delightfully self-aware of its own place in the ‘quirky teenage girl has a crisis’ subgenre, Diary of a Teenage Girl operates as a kind of anti-Lolita, depicting the coming of age of Minnie, an aspiring cartoonist who begins an affair with her mother’s boyfriend, Monroe. While San Francisco circa 1970’s is shot with nostalgic flare, there’s a real, powerful soreness at the heart of this film, portrayed with startling maturity, the darker parts of the film thankfully buoyed by Minnie’s My Mad Fat Diary-style imaginings, the highlight of which is an LSD-induced vision of herself lifted by burning, golden wings.

Marielle Heller’s direction and writing surrounds its instantly-lovable protagonist with allusions both historical and fictional, up to and including a Catcher in the Rye reference cleverly buried in an English class and frequent references to the Patty Hearst case, using throwaway dialogue to anticipate audience reactions. Towards the end, Minnie’s bohemian mother remarks, “It’s not brainwashing, it’s love,” an example of the film’s persistent refusal to answer the question of how an audience is meant to react to the questionable subject matter the film portrays. Like Juno sans behavioral meds, this film is frank and honest about the agony of being a lonely teenage girl with a burning sex drive. Bel Powley’s glowing performance carries the film throughout its run with quirk, longing, and an irrepressible wit. Its only real problem is the pace, with detours into Minnie’s other sexual escapades making for sections of the story which feel dull and boring in an otherwise constantly scintillating film.

4.5/5

46 || Repeat Offenders

RICK AND THE FLASH

REVIEW || ADRIAN NGUYEN Ricki and the Flash stars Meryl Streep as Ricki, a once famous rock star, who is now playing with a band at a bar in San Fernando Valley. She reunites with her family who she’d once abandoned in order to chase her dream, aiming to redeem herself and earn their vindication. The film is helmed by Rachel’s Getting Married director Jonathan Demme and Young Adult screenwriter Diablo Cody; I mention those films because they’ve tackled family dynamics and redemption in a brutally honest fashion, all lead to charge by a deglamorised actress within a tipping point of their lives. Ricki and the Flash, by approach, does the opposite. The storytelling here is sanitized and economical with Streep’s portrayal of a frontwoman to be as glitzy as it could be. Every possible conflict is nicely established with scenes featuring tender intimacy between the family. But then, they are resolved so rapidly, as the film shifts to Ricki performing covers of every 80s power ballads that you could think of. Streep admittedly does have some lovely moments of passionate singing, but it’s all adds up to a shockingly forgettable film.

2/5

BOOKS

THE OPPOSITE OF LONELINESS MARIANA KEEGAN

LIGHT MY FIRE: MY LIFE WITH THE DOORS RAY MANZAREK

REVIEW || MAX ----Light My Fire: My Life with The Doors tells the story of that other 1960s psychedelic rock band (no, Sgt. Peppers, while a great album, doesn’t make The Beatles ‘psychedelic’ enough, in my opinion), The Doors. Written by the band’s keyboard player, Ray Manzarek, it charts the band’s formation at the UCLA film school in the mid 1960s. You might think that this book starts in 1965, on a Los Angeles beachbut this isn’t the case. The autobiography charts his early life growing up in Chicago, noting his artistic influences, such as sneaking in to a 1950s jazz club being a transformative moment. The novel then vividly describes the band’s early life- living in a small beach house right on Venice Beach and rehearsing in the sunroom in the California sunshine. The book goes on to detail the band’s meteoric rise to stardom, despite being rejected by major record labels as even besting The Beatles themselves with the eponymous track of their self-titled album from 1967. Another interesting feature of this book is that because it is Mr. Manzarek’s biography, it includes some intimate moments from his childhood, as well as downtime with Jim and the rest of the band. However, as interesting the book is on capturing the 1960s social and musical climate from someone who was at the centre of it, the book does have some issues. I feel as if the introductory section, detailing Ray’s life, while important, isn’t entirely necessary to the story of the band as a whole. And some members (namely John Densmore) are painted as being a little…whiny.

In any case, for anyone interested in musical history (or, like me, is a fan of The Doors), Light My Fire is an interesting read if you want to transport yourself to 1960s L.A. and immerse yourself…in film, music and art.

4/5

REVIEW || LAURA SMITHERS “We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say its what I want in life.” This is the opening statement of Mariana’s last essay for the Yale Daily News, one of her most well know pieces, and perfectly articulating her view on life. This book is a collection of stories and essays that are as incredible as the girl who wrote them. For a generation built on the idea of the importance of success, but with a focus on the journey of being a young adult and discovering the world, every piece of writing captures the struggles and triumphs that we face in life. Sometimes funny, sometimes poignant, every piece of work is widely different yet still thought provoking and inspiring. Well worth the read for all.

4.5/5

YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE LIKE THIS BENJAMIN MARKOVITS

REVIEW || VANESSA CAPITO Markovit’s seventh novel is a meditation on contemporary America, with the protagonist in this novel, Greg “Marny” Marnier, existing on the margin between cultures and communities. Set in the midst of the urban dysfunction that is Detroit, this is a somewhat moving and rewarding book as Markovit writes with precision about the way individuals relate to places and race, warming us that communities are delicate ecosystems. While there were certainly thought-provoking themes (racial tension, the dissatisfaction of middle America), I felt it never really got to the point that it was trying to make. I was also confused as to whether I was meant to like the narrator of the story, he came across as a bit too judgemental to engage with and relate to, - “..maybe because she’s not pretty enough. Her colouring was dark; you could see sweat on the hairs around her lips. But she seemed perfectly nice.” Honestly, there moments that held my interest but these were few and far between. Perhaps half the length, with some significant changes, and maybe it might have been there.

2/5

Repeat Offenders || 47

MUSIC

DR. DRE COMPTON: A SOUNDTRACK BY DR. DRE (ALBUM)

REVIEW || PHILLIP LEASON “I don’t give one fuck.” The opening line on Compton sums up the defeatism, the pained apathy, portrayed in the tapestries of the broken city. This is interspersed with Dre’s memoir musings from atop his ivory tower, and splintering facets in the tracks see them flow to form one gritty stream of urban consciousness. It’s cinematic and it’s moving, but there’s still enough bass wallop and gangsta lean to tilt your cap. A track or two less would’ve tightened the project up and it follows in too similar a vein to To Pimp a Butterfly to be truly groundbreaking. There’s also two cringey misogyny moments. Dre’s toned it down a lot, but some spine tingling points on the album are ruined by gender violence. Why somebody with a history of domestic abuse in the 90s would broach the matter escapes me entirely, even if it is for the sake of social commentary.

That said, Dre killed it on his swan song. The lyrics and production on Compton combine to form one of the most perceptible and affecting presentations of the ghetto struggle in recent years.

4/5

BEACH HOUSE

DEPRESSION CHERRY (ALBUM)

REVIEW || PHILLIP LEASON Beach House’s fifth album is robustly textural, and it sees the duo combining trademark elements from each of their previous releases to build an enormous new sound that’s still distinctly their own. Epics like ‘Sparks’ and ‘Days of Candy’ with enchant you with their pastoral verbosity, and sweep you away in a tide of velvety noise. In this, however, it becomes a real struggle to pay attention to the actual songwriting, and should you muster up the energy required to give your focus to their craft, you’ll notice their deficiency this time around. Even after several listens through you won’t find yourself able to hum any of the melodies on here, you’ll just remember the atmosphere. Beach House’s music has always had a tendency to wash over you, it is dream pop after all, but never quite this much. They’ve succeeded taking a new direction, and have created a beautifully lush sonic meadow for your ears to frolic in, but it’s simply not as memorable as anything they’ve done before. So, in response to Chastity from 10 Things I Hate About You, yes. Yes, you can just be ‘whelmed’. Give Depression Cherry a listen and you’ll see.

3/5

48 || Repeat Offenders

FKA TWIGS M3LL155X (EP)

REVIEW || PHILLIP LEASON FKA twigs’ combination of stunning, experimental sound design with pop sensibilities is more than a fresh sound, it’s a fresh sensory experience. Her entire aura radiates a surreal sensuality, and M3LL155X is her best work to date. A lot of this comes down to the EP’s pairing with a 16-minute video, equal parts gorgeous and terrifying. Phantasmic worlds are created around the tracks, and her cajoling lyricism and dance pulls us through the viscera. An alluring orb sways in the industrial clatter of ‘Figure 8’, and a weathered angler fish woman looms, writhing beneath the glow in pitch darkness. Heavily adorned in mystic jewellery, her skin ripples under the force of the song’s stuttering bass throb, and she swallows us and the light like her prey, spitting us out into ‘I’m Your Doll’. The doll metaphor may be a little overdone in music, but never has it been so disconcertingly perverse. Twigs emerges as an inflatable toy, fawning and pleading in breathy whispers as the track swells and shudders to a grating climax. It’s a wet skirmish of flesh and plastic, and the dichotomy of self-indulgent animalism and listless submission turns your stomach.

Drop to ‘In Time’ and she awakes to play the demure, pregnant spectacle of an imposing male onlooker, but she’s not eager to remain coy for long. She breaks from her gentle falsetto into a scouse drawl, spitting back through a glitch-y auto-tune and asserting her power over the guttural RnB beat, “You’ve got a god damn nerve!” ‘Mothercreep’ serves as a brief transitional segment here (it appears in full on the EP itself), as twigs births us, quite literally, into ‘Glass & Patron’. We’re amid a sea of meshed ribbon and bare bodies, craning to their limits in the mess of fabric. From a throne she languidly requests, “1, 2, 3, now hold that pose for me” of a parade of eager dancers. She pressing bass onto your chest like a heeled boot, crushing ribs, as sirens splutter through a dark forest and snap, the dream ends.

FKA twigs shows more aggression and authority here than ever before, and never has something so confronting been so irresistibly accessible. M3LL155X is a multimedia marvel.

GAMES

METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN FOR PC, PS3, PS4, XBOX 360, XBOX ONE REVIEW || SAMUEL IP Twenty-seven years have passed since the release of Metal Gear on MSX2, a game that kick-started the saga that spans from the Cold War all the way to the future. For nearly three decades, the Metal Gear series has shown us that games can tell intricate stories with cinematic cut scenes, while still maintaining creative gameplay mechanics. The latest, and most likely to be the final instalment of the series, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain follows the same formula that made the series so successful, while still managing to squeeze in an abundance of new features. For the first time, the game offers an extensive open world environment for players to explore freely. Players can choose story missions, complete side quests, or pick up collectables scattered across the huge map at their own pace. Missions can be completed through a multitude of approaches, and whether they choose to go in with all guns blazing or sneak around will affect the game world accordingly. The environment also changes corresponding to the passage of time and change of weather, so no two replays will be the same.

Plot-wise, MGSV:TPP brings us to the closure of the story of legendary soldier-turned-mercenary Big Boss, showing us the road of destruction he was forced to undertake as he took revenge for his fallen comrades. The story marks for a much darker and more gruesome tone than the previous instalments in the series, and many scenes in the game are definitely not for the faint-hearted.

While the original creator of the series and the director of the game, Hideo Kojima, is being forced out of the company due to internal politics with the publisher, his legacy will live on with this masterpiece, and he will be forever remembered as the revolutionary that pushed the boundaries of gaming time after time.

5/5

SUBMERGED

FOR PS4, XBOX ONE REVIEW || NIXON CHUA A post-apocalyptic world is a clichĂŠd concept that is used in recent games and movies. However, this

game adds a spin to the common concept, focusing more on the touching story that develops between a pair of siblings. The setting takes place in a disasterstruck city that was left behind due to an unstable foundation and massive flooding, hence the city became partially submerged. The protagonist of the game is a teenage girl that has undertaken the heaviest burden possible: supporting and caring for the life of an ailing brother. The primary objective in the game is simple, collect food or supplies to lengthen the life of the injured brother. The emotionally driven story and defining music will lull gamers of all types. The game only requires a few buttons to work, mainly, the directional buttons, but the point is to journey through the new vast world left by previous residents of a forsaken metropolis. Exploration, coupled with the beautiful music and poignant plot, will enthral everyone.

3.5/5

ONE PIECE: PIRATE WARRIORS 3

FOR PC, PS3, PS4, PSVITA, XBOX ONE REVIEW || NIXON CHUA Naturally, when the well-known, lovable Japanese manga One Piece was adapted into a game, distrust in quality is expected, with many adaptations becoming less than true or less thrilling than the books. But this game was phenomenal. Recreated scenes from the manga brought tears to my eyes from both the nostalgia and tear-jerking moments. The wide array of characters to choose from and to unlock throughout the game enables the player to select their favourite character from the manga and play as them in the conquest towards becoming pirate king. The game has immense re-playability as trophies and achievements require either specific characters to be played during the level or a re-visit as the level of the character is too low. One negative in the game would be the hours needed to constantly level up and the numerous revisitations in order to acquire perfection. This means that casual players can enjoy the game as a simple playthrough with little to no requirements. My only other gripe would be that after the first few hours the game has a template that can be easily recognised and it is constantly reused. The music gelled well with the fast-paced, goal-oriented nature of the game. The miasma of colours and the elaborate detail makes this game a must-have, if anything, for the nostalgic emotions.

4.5/5

Repeat Offenders || 49

HOROSCOPES

WORDS || ALEXIS WORTHING

VIRGO

Sweet and innocent, no one ever suspects you of anything. In fact, they often treat you as fragile.

Make sure you hitch up your skirts and show them otherwise.

LIBRA

You will strive to achieve a balance in your life.

Each side of you is weighted and you must even them up in order to create harmony.

SCORPIO

Your sting can be quite deadly, so make sure you be careful when addressing those you care about.

You don’t want to cause unwarranted damage.

SAGITTARIUS

Your aim is always on point, and you always hit your mark. No matter what you do, you manage to succeed. It is almost mythical.

CAPRICORN

No one really knows what you are, you are impossible to understand. One minute you are the sea, the next the land. Always a mystery.

AQUARIUS

You will begin to feel as though your work is slipping through your fingers. The struggle to carry it may get tough, but you will be able to bear it.

50 || Repeat Offenders

PISCES

Slippery and sneaky, you dart through life without a care in the world. You are fast moving and agile, able to glide your way through any situation that arises

ARIES

From some perspectives, you can be soft and sweet. From others, you can see your horns, and they aren’t something you want to mess with.

TAURUS

Ready to charge at the smallest sign of red, you can often be ferocious when provoked. Just make sure no one provokes you, and you’ll be fine.

GEMINI

You’ll feel as though there are two of you this month, the amount you’re managing to get done.

Make good use of your newfound productivity.

CANCER

You might find yourself being a little snappy lately, your pincer-like temper causing problems. Maybe try taking a more sideways approach when on edge.

LEO

Fierce is the only way to describe you. No matter the situation, you approach it with the utmost bravery. You are an inspiration to everyone.

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.

- Audre Lorde