2024: VertiPUNK (VOL. 2) by UTS Vertigo

acknowledgement

Vertigo acknowledges the rightful custodians of the land on which this magazine is created.

Our team works from the stolen land of the Gadigal and Darug peoples.

We pay our deepest respects to elders past, present and future, and to the children of today who are the elders of tomorrow.

We join Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Peoples in their calls for justice and acknowledge that sovereignty in Australia was never ceded.

We create on land with a rich history of storytelling. Dreamtime Stories have echoed through this land for tens of thousands of millennia, transcending generations until this day. Each a key to preserving culture, safety, education and knowledge.

We encourage any First Nations students to see Vertigo as a means for their own creation.

We would like to extend our thanks to the following mobs whose land has carried us through our lives.

Melody Kiptoo would like to acknowledge the Larrakia, Awabakal, Bundjalung and Gadigal peoples.

Tyberius Seeto would like to acknowledge the Wallumedegal peoples of the Darug Nation.

Isabel James would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people, the Yugambeh people of the Bundjalung Nation, the Arakwal people, the Minjungbal people and the Widjabul Wia-bal people of the Bundjalung Nation.

Bianca Drummond Costa would like to acknowledge the Darug and Guringai peoples of the Darug Nation.

Bianca Wong would like to acknowledge the Gadigal and the Guringai peoples.

Mia Rankin would like to acknowledge the Gadigal and the Cammeraygal peoples.

Amanda Patmore would like to acknowledge the Gadigal people and the Wallumedegal peoples.

Raphaella Katzen would like to acknowledge the Gadigal and Guringai peoples.

Thanh Tan(David) Tran would like to acknowledge the Dharug and Cabrogal peoples.

Phoebe Quinn would like to acknowledge the Gadigal peoples.

Emersyn Wood would like to acknowledge the Dharawal and Gadigal peoples.

Georgia Corona would like to acknowledge the Gadigal and Nyoongar peoples.

Always Was Always Will Be Aboriginal Land.

UTS Staff and Students Rally for Palestine

Tyberius Seeto he/him

“Take a stance, take action and do something to put the brakes on Israel and the horrific crimes that are playing out in front of our eyes, UTS must act!”

Staff and students from the University of Technology Sydney have called for the university to cut ties with Israel and weapons manufacturers at a rally on Alumni Green on Wednesday the 27th of March. Organised by grassroots collective UTS Staff for Palestine, rally-goers made their demands loud and clear as the death toll in Gaza neared 33,000.

A sizable contingent from the University of Sydney joined the UTS Staff for Palestine action in showing solidarity with Palestine. After the conclusion of a separate rally at F23 on Eastern Avenue, protestors marched down Broadway to the Alumni Green.

Speaking at the rally, Jumbunna Institute Senior Researcher and Unionist for Palestine member Dr Paddy Gibson called for UTS to end their stance of neutrality. “We are saying this university has to actually sanction Israel. It has to look at its connection that it has with Israeli institutions, look at the connections that it has with weapon companies that are arming this genocide, and break those ties.”

Gazan and UTS law student Raneen Emad also spoke to the crowd saying, “While UTS and the University of Sydney will support companies that will fund the murder and displacement of our families, its students and its staff will not stay silent…we are here to say ‘not on our watch.’”

Midhat Jafri from Students Against War at UNSW called out Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for his refusal to sanction Israel, “It’s been half a year into this genocide but it’s also been 76 years of bloodshed, of the humiliation, and destruction of Palestine. The Australian government - the ideal of liberal democracy, has supported this destruction every step of the way.”

The rally came one day after United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francessca Albanese announced to the UN Human Rights Council that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israel’s assault on Gaza met the threshold for genocide.

Jafri explained to the crowd how the Australian government enables companies to participate in the process of weapons manufacturing, “F35 fighter jet components [are] being developed in Bankstown, an area that has an abundance of Palestinian communities, of Arab communities, of Muslim communities. And now they have to live in a place where weapons parts are being made to bomb their homelands.”

She ended her speech by showing solidarity with protestors who were arrested at the Port Botany ZIM Picket on March 24th, where at least 19 protestors were arrested for their attempts to peacefully block the docking of the Israeli ZIM ship. Arrestees from that night included several union figures, such as the Maritime Union of Australia Sydney Branch Secretary Paul Keating.

UTS has held partnerships with several weapons manufacturers, including Thales and Boeing. The university also hosted the New South Wales Defence Innovation Network, during which researchers worked with the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG), the Australian Defence Force (ADF), the Office of National Intelligence, and the U.S. Department of Defense. The UTS website says that this event “enables collaboration between private sector tenants, academia and government”.

UTS is also home to the UTS Vault, a Department of Defence compliant facility that supports projects in cybersecurity and defence. The NSW government allocated $7.285 million to support the facility, which officially opened in October of last year. The ribbon-cutting ceremony was attended by several government and university officials, including UTS ViceChancellor Andrew Parfitt and NSW Premier Chris Minns.

An estimated 33,000+ Palestinians in Gaza have been killed by Israel since the Hamas attacks of October 7. In late December 2023, South Africa accused Israel of contravening the Genocide Convention in front of the International Court of Justice. As the scale of death and destruction in Gaza continues to grow, key players on the international stage are failing to take real action to prevent the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.

STUDENT NEWS

SOUNDCHECK-an interview with USYD POC REVUE'S DIRECTORS

Soundcheck is POC Revue in BOLD. It's edgy, it's angry, it's sexy, it's dark.

Few bands have profited off people of colour (POC) so blatantly that they get an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to it. However, Led Zeppelin has managed to carve an entire rock career out of it, and they’re not alone. Countless other highprofile artists have done the same, such as Elvis, Pat Boone and the Beach Boys just to name a few. These household names, made famous for shifting the music landscape by presenting the world with new sounds, have hosted entire shining, glamorous, successful careers, off the chords, lyrics, and even entire songs of POC, particularly Black people.

How many of you recognise the names Black Mama Thorton, Otis Blackwell, Little Richard, and Memphis Minnie? Unless you know your music, let’s face it, probably not many of you. These artists all had their work stolen by white creatives. Is this the world we want to live in? And what kind of message are we sending to young creatives when they grew up listening to these musical pioneers whose careers, unbeknownst to the public, relied on the work of POC?

It is important we talk about this, especially because most mainstream genres now dominated by white people were created and pioneered by Black people.

Rhythm and blues, which originated in the Deep South, was the genre that influenced the creation of rock ‘n’ roll. Country music stemmed from ‘Hillbilly music’, a combination of folk songs by African immigrants in the 18th and 9th centuries. In fact, Black people invented the banjo and fiddle. House music was popularised by Black DJs in the late 70s who remixed disco music (which in itself was a Black genre!). Techno beats were created by the Black community in Detroit. Jazz came from blues. The list goes on and on and on.

This year, USYD’s 2024 POC Revue theme is a response to decades of exploitation and mistreatment of POC creatives. Titled “Soundcheck”, their show will be centred around the rock, punk, and alternative music scenes – all genres that were created by people of colour, but which over time, have been appropriated and stolen by white artists.

Aditya (Adi) Rao and Victoria Georges, the codirectors of this year’s revue, have played and been surrounded by music their entire lives. Growing up in households filled with classic 80s bangers (like the best of us), was something they bonded over since the inception of their friendship. Given this, and the history of many of their favourite genres, it became clear that this theme was the loudest and the boldest option for them to choose.

“It’s a very ambitious show, but I think it speaks to a dichotomy of POC in performance/art, in that we’re often asked to be better than the best in order to prove ourselves… but also that’s sort of telling of our inherent talent and power, because WE CAN and ARE way more talented because of it,” Victoria asserts.

Bianca Drummond Costa she/her

Punk in the mainstream, especially in the 21st century, has a historically nasty habit of glorifying the aesthetic without speaking to the substance. As a culture, we have separated the aesthetic from the ideology. Piercings, eyeliner and leather jackets have been commodified as ‘edgy’, and no longer signify a person’s disjuncture with wider points of social, cultural and political concern. To minimise an entire subculture to an aesthetic ‘look’, is in turn reductive of everything that movement has, or used to, stand for.

“POC truly embody the essence of punk and grunge and all the alternative subcultures,” Victoria says.

Adi adds, “The core of so many of these subcultures is being working class, fighting oppressors, being anti-capitalist and anarchist. It’s so weird to separate the aesthetic from its roots.”

This year, Adi and Victoria are also super excited to expand and grow the community of artists within the USYD POC Revue by framing it as more of an autonomous collective, rather than just a revue society. Although the show is the main focus of the society, there are a myriad of opportunities to work in the space and “connect with people that will eventually become your family”, as Adi explains. As a fellow revue veteran (shoutout UTS CRAP), I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Revues have brought me and people who I now call some of my dearest friends together like no force has ever before. The energy of the creatives in the room is electric, and after spending up to 15 hours a week together (especially as show week creeps up on you), you spend an obscene amount of time bonding over how insufferable, hilarious and talented you all are. Most of all, you develop a deep sense of admiration and comradery for one another.

STUDENT NEWS

However, theatre in Australia is a predominantly white, male space. Finding opportunities in theatre to accurately represent the characters that we identify with, is hard as a person of colour, especially because there are not often many available in the first place. In the end, it results in the entire creative community going up against each other to play the same part – one that is all too often lacking dimension. In other words, the POC aspect of the character is their entire identity with no room for nuance.

Moreover, the professional creative world finds itself mirrored even within student-led spaces.

“Without singling societies out, I see a lot of university theatre just trying to ‘satisfy the quota’. They’re pushing this agenda of inclusivity and diversity without doing anything meaningful,” Adi says. “Even when we’re in these spaces, it never feels like it’s entirely our story, and we don’t have full creative control and autonomy.”

Identity-led revues like POC Revue give us opportunities to perform what we want, the way we want to, without the pressure of performing and being analysed by a white gaze. As Adi explains, “We’re allowed to have fun onstage and be political if we want to, but we don’t have to. We can joke about our experiences and at the same time make a statement and be radical”.

Adi’s point here is clear. At its core, POC Revue is by people of colour, for people of colour.

Victoria elaborates: “Revues are very silly, which is a great atmosphere to have when you’re dismantling the Eurocentricity and privileging of white people in theatre, because we essentially take something so revered like theatre and we turn it on its head – we decide what is funny, what is entertaining, what stories we want to tell and on top of all of that, we get to rub it in our oppressors faces by making fun of them!

“Also, I’m of the firm belief that trauma informs humour, and who has more trauma than the children of immigrants and ethnics?

#TheCinPoCStandsForComedy!”

Given the theme of this year’s revue, it “just made sense” to have a live band playing during the show this year. It’s a first for USYD POC Revue, too!

“They’re so metal, it’s just so cool,” gushes Adi. “It adds a whole new element to the live show experience. The musical numbers are really big, and the whole cast is working really hard. We’ve got a fabulous choreographer too”.

Alongside this change to the revue, they’ve begun to host events, such as trivia nights, music nights, and later this semester, an open mic night. Since they only host one show a year, their major project for semester two will be a zine in which POC artists will have the opportunity to showcase their creative works.

“We’re so keen to do all this, but it’s also honestly really scary. Ultimately, it’s awesome to keep pushing the barriers of what we can do.” says Adi.

There’s nothing more punk than ambition, especially when it comes to the ambitions of POC.

In terms of favourite (and arguably underrated) POC musicians, the pair have put together a sexy little playlist for everyone to enjoy. Relish in the gorgeous artistry of our creatives. –

The USYD POC Revue cast is set to take the stage at the Seymour Centre from the 8th-11th May. Keep an eye out on their Instagram @pocrevue for details to come, including tickets!

STUDENT NEWS

live in this hidden house. Set back and tucked away up a small staircase, it’s shrouded in shrubs and shadows. I’ve always thought of it as a Batcave of sorts. Grey and unassuming on the outside, masking the chaos within.

Whenyouhaulopenthedoor,acanvas poster smacks you right across the face. Although faded from its decades spent housed within our walls, you can still make out the lettering:

My Pap, the Punk

It’s never exactly read “family home”. I remember the first time my eyes grazed across it. I was six at the time, so I naturally lacked the comprehension skills necessary to decode what it meant. I remember somehow concluding that ‘bollocks’ was some fancy word for cow – à la bull, I suppose – and read ‘sex’ as ‘six’. So, here was this eccentric band, babbling on about six

oxens roaming around a paddock. That, I obviously didn’t understand. But there was one thing I did get. Thanks to my father, I knew the Pistols were a punk band. And because they were a punk band, they must be a band my father adored. Because ‘punk’ has always translated to one thing – him.

There’s this great photo of my dad that I tend to cite when I’m first explaining my lineage to people.

standing proud with his feet firmly planted on the ground. He’s staring straight through the lens, mouth half smiling, half not, the gap between his teeth just barely poking through. There’s a tuft of his curly hair atop his head. He’s clearly attempted to carve out a mohawk, but it’s off- centre and far too short, leaving it looking sorely misplaced.

But that’s not even the best part. The pièce de résistance – both of his arms, positioned before his body, held up by two white slings.

Mia Rakhit she/her

SOCIETY & CULTURE

As someone who’s never broken a bone, I find it pretty remarkable that he went two-for-two. I’ve only heard the oral history of this accident from my mum, who tells me he tipped over a balcony. Eight metres high and probably eight beers in. I love this photo, because I think it radiates what punk is all about: the simultaneous aversion to life and enjoyment of it.life, that punk is all about.

The record that indoctrinated my dad into that lifestyle, he says, was ‘Strange Town’ by The Jam. A single from 1978, that he plucked from the shelves at the formative age of eleven. On it, Paul Weller’s voice sings out a battle cry to the isolated, lost and disillusioned youth:

“Found myself in a strange town / Though I’ve only been here for three weeks now / I’ve got blisters on my feet / Trying to find a friend in Oxford Street.”

Before that single found its way into my father’s hands, he’d merely been the youngest child of a doctor and a nurse, living in Oldham, just north of Manchester. After, though, I can imagine things began to shift. Not instantly, or particularly dramatically, but a silent revelation that someone, somewhere, could articulate that pre-teen, small-town woe he was feeling. That there was something bigger out there he could make himself a part of.

Punk is this chicken-egg situation. It’s hard to tell whether the music or the attitude came first. My dad believes it’s the latter.

What that attitude exactly is, well, that’s yours to decide. To some, they use the subculture to justify a deep sense of nihilism.

“No future for you!” they resign themselves to thinking. But to others, my father included, it’s an attitude of swagger that’s punctuated by hope.

I think it’s easy to assume the passions of our parents extinguish when they age. Punk, in its heyday, was seen as a young person’s rebellion, a medicine to combat the tumult of being a teenager. So, naturally, when those kids reached middle age, the internal cacophony that defined their early years grew quieter and quieter, replaced with the monotonous drone of reality.

But my father has always been one for exceptions, not rules.

When the UK Government commenced its painfully stagnant Brexit negotiations, a day didn’t go by without me waking to the following scene:

Picture my dad, glued to the television, his head in his hands. He’s the Karditsa Thinker, sans the grandiosity. A dent is forming in the couch below from the hours he’s spent assuming that position, weighted down by the stress of what his homeland has become.

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Over those months, I think he managed to hurl every offensive epithet at the BBC’s coverage he had in his arsenal. The very face of Boris Johnson popping up on our screen triggered the same passionate hate that bubbles when you drop a name like Margaret Thatcher or Nigel Farage in front of him. I imagine it comes from that eleven-year-old kid within him, still playing The Jam on a loop. The ethos that there’s something, somewhere, bigger than this. Bigger than him. It lives on.

There’s material evidence of that fact in every corner of my household.

A faded Joe Strummer biography, a pile of unwashed Clash shirts, the middle name he plucked from a musician and gifted to me.

While his past still haunts our home, my dad looks a little different these days. His hair is gone, his gap is closed. His arms aren’t cast, but instead coated with sleeves of tattoos – on his left, there’s this meticulous artwork of a dragon.

I remember sitting in with him as he got that done. I found myself doing all the wincing as the needle dotted his skin. Meanwhile, he sat there with gritted teeth, still and sombre like a pillar of salt. I initially took that unfeeling as apathy. Lack of care or concern. That generational cliché we easily cling onto when we turn to the turmoil around us, and point fingers at those older than us to take all the blame. Often, when they look back at us, their faces are cold, unfeeling. The passion that defined their youth sucked out with time.

But I know better now. When I look at my dad’s face, it’s hardened, yes. But in a different way. It’s not closed off or unfeeling, but instead, it’s calloused from years of hoping and yearning for a better tomorrow, the kind of future punk had promised him as a kid. And though that hope has been burning for forty-six years now, I don’t think it’s ever extinguished.

That eleven-year-old lives on in the man who protests and who picks fights with those who fail to consider the lesser than. The man who sends me essays over text about the harms of the Murdoch media, and in an act of desperation in 2020, sent Rudy Giuliani a biting message of fury over Twitter DM.

Those actions are small ones, and ones that you could say go on in vain. But I’ve always taken pride in being able to point to that man and say he’s my father. It’s a comfort knowing that the snarl and swagger of punk lives on today.

I’ve been lucky enough to inherit his records. They’re my fondest family heirloom. There are about forty of them that have survived all these years. Each one is lightly covered in dust, and sounds like it too. A little buzzy, a little muffled. But when that needle hits them, they still manage to cut and boom with the ferocity of punk, as if it never ceased to be in style. It’s the ferocity my father rears in every rap, every protest. The ferocity that lives somewhere in me, and somewhere still, in him too.

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Adam Montefiore he/him

In high school, I found myself with an unquenchable thirst for skateboarding. I got my love of 80s punk from old skate videos we shared around on USBs. Dead Kennedys were my favourite. What is immediately clear in their music is their anti-establishment message. They hated cops, big banks, and everything about Reagan.

In retrospect, it was mostly their aesthetic that drew me in, but I got the political message, and today I am firmly on the hard left. The feeling of skating past people who are walking was and still is an awesome feeling. On a skateboard, everything that’s built for some kind of social utility starts looking like something you want to skate on – it’s both destructive and creative at once.

But this got me thinking about what being antiestablishment actually entails. In Dead Kennedys’ ‘Nazi Punks fuck off,’ Jello Biafra sings: “Punk means thinkin’ for yourself; You ain’t hardcore, cause you spike your hair.” Unfortunately, today it’s populist MAGA Americans who might do a little too much thinking for themselves. Strangely, this culminated in Johnny Rotten wearing a MAGA shirt and coming out in support of Trump. MAGA looks like the most enthusiastic antiestablishment movement Western culture has. However, ultimate scepticism of institutions leaves a gaping hole that which fills itself with brain rot if you have nothing else to offer. If this wasn’t obvious before 2016, it undoubtedly is now.

My friend from high school is now a school psychologist. From nine to five, she hears all the problems of subjective expression and so on from today’s youth. She was telling me about one of her colleagues who was going on about the plague of ‘woke culture’. It pissed her off. It pissed me off too. But what pisses me off about it most is that although there are legitimate problems with the way identity politics clashes with hard left values in modern philosophical thought, the monopoly of this criticism has mostly been handed off to right-wing idealogues, as we on the left have been unable to fully understand the issues in our own position.

I can’t remember the exact irritation her colleague had, but I do remember thinking it sounded like it was pulled straight from a Jordan Peterson speech. We watched his debate with Slavoj Žižek to get some ideas. After Peterson’s ramblings about his famous contradictory term ‘postmodern neo-Marxists’, Zizek had something interesting to say on the topic: “White left liberals love to denigrate their own culture and blame Eurocentrism for our evils. But it is instantly clear how this self-denigration brings a profit of its own. Through this renouncing of their

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

particular routes, multicultural liberals reserve for themselves the universal position, graciously soliciting others to assert their particular identity.”

The point here is that the profit is a monopoly on cultural critique. Those who humiliate themselves most are rewarded with the social privilege to arrange the state of the field from a now ostensibly objective view. Here they embody the contradiction in popular identity politics.

Rememberto

notforget

themostbeautiful part of punk culture, a subversive irony. weapon:

But this is not to say Žižek or others who buy this argument are to be some kind of opponents to dissidence. He dedicated the first issue of his zine to punk, saying “it’s only through [the] punk movement that we had real opposition. Before punk movement it was just some narrow literary circles.” But the key point here was that it was only through an amalgamation of different political streams that their controversial magazine of poetry and essays gained enough momentum to even hit the shelves. Žižek said, “It was clear to everybody that the moment we will have democracy we will again become mortal enemies.” This was amidst a highly volatile political climate in Tito’s Yugoslavia.

What is upsetting to see is that it seems this liberal idea has permeated the hard left ethos. While shaving one’s ones eyebrows may well symbolise something radical – a rejection of established beauty norms through selfhumiliation – it is also an aesthetic implementation that appears to relinquish social power when it in fact attains it. Here, another contradiction: the social commodity of attractive unattractiveness, where being unattractive is somehow now a popular object of desire.

However strong this case may be for power in popular progressive discourse, we know there are far greater contradictions in establishment neoliberalism. Remember not to forget the most beautiful part of punk culture, a subversive weapon: irony. Don’t forget the irony of a brand that hates brands, or establishing a counterculture that aims to tear down the establishment only to establish itself in the establishment’s stead.

Being punk means to express through yourself the damages of a broken economic system. It is not for aesthetic effect but for protest. But where subconsciously the aesthetic attraction necessarily emerges, then understand the irony in it and know that it is a mask just as is a suit and tie.

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Queer column: Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Legacy of the Lesbian Masterdoc

Emersyn Wood she/her

“Hey, you’re really pretty. Could I buy you a drink sometime?”

My heart began to race. Regardless of your sexuality, rejecting someone, especially a man, isn’t easy. Before I had come to terms with the fact that I don’t experience sexual or romantic attraction towards men, I may have said yes to this stranger on the street. He seemed like a nice guy, handsome enough. I knew I didn’t feel attraction to him, but I also felt that I was supposed to… that he might grow on me, even though no guy before ever had.

“Hey, I really appreciate that, but I’m actually a lesbian.”

Rejecting the sexual or romantic advances of a man is an empowering, albeit intimidating act for a woman. When you grow up in a landscape that normalises heterosexuality and alienwates homosexuality, centres men and objectifies the feminine, identifying as a lesbian is an irrefutably punk thing to do.

I observe the surprise on his face as he re-examines me, looking for signs that he might’ve missed. Confused and unsure how to respond, he asks “How did you know you were bisexual?”

Well, I’m not. Perhaps this man doesn’t know the difference. Or maybe he can’t accept that a woman wouldn’t be interested in him. But how am I supposed to explain the ongoing process of navigating the intricacies of my queer identity to a stranger who may or may not know the difference between bisexual and lesbian?

Most of the lesbians I know realised they liked women before figuring out they didn’t like men. This phenomenon is a symptom of compulsory heterosexuality (comphet), which is the patriarchal and heteronormative notion that opposite-gender attraction and relationships are non-optional. According to Tumblr user Anjeli Luz, creator of the community-acclaimed ‘Lesbian Masterdoc’,“‘Compulsory heterosexuality’ is exactly what it sounds like – being straight is something our culture tries to force on us.”

The world I grew up in taught me that, because I identify as a woman, winning the love and affection of a man should be my penultimate goal, second only to providing him with offspring. Princesses live happily ever after because they marry the prince. Pretty girls are popular at school because the boys like them. Men are violent and dangerous: you need a man to protect you from other men. If you’re nice and pretty enough, maybe you’ll find one.

The term ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ was popularised by queer intellectual Adrienne Rich, in her 1980 essay ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.’ Although compulsory heterosexuality is also a reality for men, it has mostly been studied as something that affects women. Misogyny dictates that female identities are often defined by their relation to men. Women are entitled to either Miss or Mrs (followed by the last name of their father or husband). When women become tethered to a man, their status changes accordingly. Men go by ‘Mr,’ regardless of marital status. Men are centred in mainstream understandings of sex, as sexual intercourse between two cisgender

Copy of Am I a Lesbian_Masterdoc.pdf Download

heterosexuals is not considered ‘complete’ without male penetration of the female. While many women enjoy penetrative sex, statistics tell us that 75% of women never reach orgasm from intercourse alone, while 95% of men do. Female pleasure is not prioritised, or even considered in a lot of heteronormative dynamics.

Patriarchal structures also fail to teach women sexual agency. We are taught that we are objects of male desire, vessels for male pleasure, and that our own desires and pleasure are unimportant and even shameful. Most people are perplexed at the concept of lesbian sex because it doesn’t involve a man. It is common for queer women and nonmen to be asked invasive questions about their sex lives by curious heterosexuals who struggle to imagine a sexual interaction that doesn’t centre on male pleasure and penetration. Even lesbian porn is made for the consumption and enjoyment of the male gaze.

There is a dire lack of accurate and positive representation of queer relationships between women in media. It makes sense then, that women who experience very little or no attraction to men still engage in romantic relationships with them – they see no other option. For many, the concept of ‘attraction’ has become so socially entangled with men, that any feelings they may have towards men are interpreted as attraction. Even if those feelings are just anxiety, confusion, or a desire to be desired.

A gay woman in the clutches of compulsory heterosexuality can present very much like a straight woman, and the straight woman’s frustrations toward men can be easily misconstrued as homosexual tendencies. Straight women will complain about men, agree that women are objectively better looking than men, kiss their girl friends on a night out, and complain that sex with men is not satisfying. These are experiences that are common to both straight and gay women, which makes it even more difficult for gay women to discern their sexuality. They must question whether what they are feeling is part of the general grievances and disappointments faced by women across the sexuality spectrum, or if it is rooted in their lack of attraction to men. Even when gay women are aware of their attraction to other women, they often lack clarity regarding their feelings toward men, and cling to the heterosexual fantasies they have been fed by society.

Personally, I had always wanted a boyfriend. I enjoyed the validation I got from men’s romantic attention and conflated that feeling with attraction. It is normal to crave the closeness and intimacy of a relationship, even without a subject of real desire. Often, queer people don’t have the resources or representation needed to recognise, understand and embrace their queerness.

The significance of the Lesbian Master Doc is that it is a comprehensive and accessible self-reflective tool for those who identify as women. It was written and published to social media by Tumblr user Anjeli Luz in 2018, while she was coming to terms with her own sexuality. The document is actually titled ‘Am I a Lesbian?,’ but as it gained traction amongst the community online, it became known as ‘The Lesbian Masterdoc.’ One does not need to identify as lesbian to find value in the document. In fact, it is likely to be of most value to those who are unsure of their romantic and/or sexual identities. Understanding compulsory heterosexuality is an important part of understanding queer experiences and identities, even for those who are not queer. The masterdoc makes this concept accessible to anyone: it’s easy to read, inclusive of trans and non-binary lesbians, and available to anyone with an uncensored internet connection.

Copy of Am I a Lesbian_Masterdoc.pdf Download

In 1977, as punk burst onto the streets of Britain, Marianne Elliot-Said released her first single “Oh Bondage, Up Yours. Amidst skinny white teenagers with drainpipe jeans and spiked hair, ElliotSaid, a Somali-English woman, stood out with her dental braces, gaudy Day-Glo clothes, and afro. She was only 20, but her determination was loud and clear in the song’s opening acapella cry:

“Some people think little girls should be seen and not heard. But I think, ‘OH BONDAGE, UP YOURS!’ ONE, TWO, THREE, FOUR!”

Drums crashed. Jagged guitar chords poured over the top. A saxophone wailed. But more piercing than anything else was Elliot-Said’s vocals:

“Oh bondage, up yours! Oh bondage, no more!”.

The single attracted huge media attention, not least from the BBC, who banned it from the airwaves. Elliot-Said’s band, X-Ray Spex, became a sensation, and Marianne Elliot-Said became Poly Styrene, one of the few Black faces at the forefront of British punk.

By the early 1980s, punk had died out almost as quickly as it’d been born. Its remnants could be heard in new wave and post-punk bands like Wire, Gang of Four and The Police. But that brief fervour of rebellious spirit and do-it-yourself attitude had by and large dissipated. X-Ray Spex broke up, and despite forging a solo career of her own, Poly Styrene faded into relative obscurity.

But some girls remembered her name. Fast forward to the early 90s, and cross over the Atlantic to fair Olympia, Washington, where we lay our scene. There you will find a group of women holding a meeting. They’re talking about the sexism they’ve been facing in their local music community: the derogatory language men spit at them, the hostile male environment in mosh pits, and how they’re still not being taken seriously.

(Some)

Riot of Whiteness The Front: to the Girls Grrrl

Mia Rankin they/she

ARTS AND LIFESTYLE

(Some) (Some) (Some) (Some) (Some) (Some) (Some) (Some) (Some)

Music seems like a career not worth pursuing — until you look at the women who knew all of this, and pursued it anyway. Poly Styrene. The Slits. Siouxsie Sioux. Kim Gordon. Joan Jett. The Raincoats.

The group of women decided to do something about it.

Riot grrrl, much like the original wave of punk, was born out of frustration. As a feminist movement designed to uplift women’s voices, riot grrrl was a vehicle for expressing feminine rage and frustration. This was reflected in stylising “girl” as “grrrl.” The three r’s symbolised a growl, an expression of deep-seated anger. The word ‘girl’ was chosen to reflect childhood, the period in a woman’s life when she has the strongest self-confidence. The use of ‘girl’ was also a reclamation of sorts – it had been tossed around by men who downplayed the struggles faced by women, shrugging off female hurt and pain as childish. Now, women were reclaiming a word that had been used to belittle them, and embracing the notion of being “too emotional”.

“Girls to the front” was a famous slogan of the “riot grrrl” movement. Gig audiences, especially at barricades, had often been a male-dominated space where women felt unsafe.

“Sometimes when shows have gotten really violent we had to ask boys to move to the side or the back because it was just too fucking scary for us, after several attacks and threats, to face another sea of hostile boy-faces right in the front,” explained Kathi Willcox, Bikini Kill bassist, in a fanzine interview.

Riot grrrl combined the resurgence of punk with a new wave of feminism to carve out a space for women. “Girls to the front”, the distribution of self-published fanzines, playing in each others’ bands and seeing each others’ gigs, all cemented the movement as a cornerstone of feminist history. However, how feminist was it, really?

ARTS AND LIFESTYLE

Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Sleater-Kinney, Heavens to Betsy, Huggy Bear: these bands are considered the most iconic riot grrrl names. But these women were all cisgender, middle-class, and white. There is one problem when you’re only hearing from one type of woman in the room: only one type of struggle gets recognised.

“I distinctly remember the white women within the punk scene were capable of being just as exclusionary and bigoted as the men were,” wrote Laina Dawes in Why I Was Never A Riot Grrrl “Among the white women I knew who identified as feminists, there was a strong sense that there was little to no concern as to how ethnicity made my experiences as a woman different than theirs.”

For Dawes, being in the audience at gigs was scary. But it was scary first and foremost because she was Black, not because she was a woman.

When Kathleen Hanna, frontwoman of Bikini Kill, drew the word “SLUT” across her stomach, it was viewed as a powerful reclamation. But nobody considered how it would alienate women of colour (WOC). We have historically been hypersexualised and fetishised by colonisers, but viewed as prostitutes or slaves within our own communities if we choose to date white men. A white woman writing “SLUT” on her stomach may be an empowering declaration of sexual agency, but for WOC, the hand of racism inscribed that word upon our bodies long ago.

that white women will never understand. The supposed ‘safe space’ of riot grrrl isn’t a comfort to WOC. Not only do we have to deal with awful white men in mosh pits, but we also have to explain ourselves to white girls who are supposed to be our “sisters”. If your feminist movement doesn’t consider the needs of women whose lives look different to your own, is it really feminism? Believe it or not, there were some WOC riot grrrls. Tamar-kali Brown founded Sista Grrrl Riots, a string of musical showcases by and for Black women. Countless zines created by WOC, including Evolution of a Race Riot by Mimi Thi Nguyen; Bamboo Girl, which looked at racism and sexism from the perspective of Asian-Americans; Chop Suey Specs; and GUNK by Ramdasha Bikceem. WOC punks are everywhere. That is, if you know where to look. Most of the time they’re hidden away, cast into the shadows by white voices whose loudness drowns others out.

There is one problem when you’re only hearing from one type of woman in the room: only one type of struggle gets recognised.

Riot grrrl may have encouraged sisterhood and “girls to the front,” but only ever for a very specific type of girl. If you weren’t white, it was very easy to feel excluded from this movement. Intersectionality has simply never been in the riot grrrl dictionary.

Ramdasha Bikceem, creator of GUNK zine, wrote in a journal at the time that “They had a [riot grrrl] workshop on racism and I heard it wasn’t too effective, but really how could it have been if it was filled up with mostly all white girls. One girl I spoke to after the meetings said the Asian girls were blaming all the white girls for racism and that she ‘just couldn’t handle that.’ Ever heard of the word Guilt??? [sic]”.

Being a WOC can be exhausting. From blatant racism and microaggressions to defending ourselves or trying to explain why something seemingly inoffensive affects us the way it does, there is simply a layer to our lives

On paper, riot grrrl should be appealing to all women. It pulses with a quivering anger that any female-identifying person recognises without question. But when white riot grrrls get up onstage and start singing about how they’ve felt ignored, belittled and pushed aside, the irony is not lost on WOC, who have to fight doubly hard for a place onstage in the first place. As a mixed-race black woman in Britain, Poly Styrene sang about breaking free of the societal ‘bondage’ that constrained her. Yet, the supposed faces of punk are Sid Vicious and Siouxsie Sioux – people who wore swastikas as part of their get-up to “shock” people.

Riot grrrl was a so-called revolutionary movement, yet women of colour, whose systematic oppression was twofold, are still ignored in favour of white punks who just need to look the part. Punk, and by extension, riot grrrl, conjures images of white people who don’t really have much to lose when they arm themselves with a guitar and a microphone. When WOC put themselves out there, they have twice as much to risk. Sexism is one thing, but the never-ending layers of racism make their battle two-fronted. If WOC are pushing against the system from all sides, why are they getting the cold shoulder from a movement whose very foundations are supposed to be built on liberation?

Riot grrrl’s white feminism cannot mask an underlying stench of hypocrisy: it’s not “girls to the front” until all girls are there, dancing and singing and shouting. It’s not sisterhood until white suburban girls with guitars finally let WOC take the lead instead. It’s not riot grrrl until WOC get to fight back, too.

ARTS AND LIFESTYLE

SHOWCASE

Breaking Traditions is a project that aims to find community through the exploration of cultural heritage, intersecting with counter-cultural movements. Set in Sydney's Chinatown, a melting pot of cultures, and inspired by the iconic Dr. Martens shoe as a staple in 'alternative' and 'punk' scenes. These images highlight the beauty, diversity, and stylistic expression that these communities continue to nurture.

MODELS: Gabi Carlsen, Annabelle Zhou, Justin Huynh, Jasmine Kwok

a picnic with grandma

Leo Larmer he/him

As a generation that has grown up alongside digital media, it’s become common to attach ourselves to the products and creators that fill our screens, despite that connection often being passive and one-sided. My film is an immersive, interactive 360° video experience that evolves from a scene of nature and familial bonds into a chaotic landscape of capitalist iconography. This experimental project explores the way that commercialism and digital media impose themselves into our memories and disturb the natural order of human connection.

Watch the film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grN6TUWvZaQ

Smartphones not reccomended for optimal interactive viewing experience.

SHOWCASE

SHOWCASE

SHOWCASE

SHOWCASE

President’s Report – March 2024

March has been a busy month for me – here are some of the things I have been working on this past month, and some updates from last month’s report:

Opal Concession Campaign Momentum

The concession campaign petition reached 20,000 signatures and has been scheduled for debate in parliament on May 9th. I tabled a paper in the VCSJI Committee to recommend that the Vice-Chancellor supported this campaign in the NSWVCC, which was approved. I received from Kylie a copy of the letter that was sent to the Transport Minister from Alex Zelinsky, VC at Newcastle Uni on behalf of all NSW VCs (NSWVCC is NSW Vice Chancellors’ Committee). Raghav and I had a meeting with Kylie (DVCES) and Ellen Goh to discuss forward plans for this campaign, which will include us having meetings with various government MPs and ministers alongside SUPRA.

Ethical Partnerships

I tabled my ethical partnerships paper at the Student/Council Liaison Group, and it was quite successfully received. Kurt and Peter might have more to add to this in regards to what UTS is now doing in this space, but hopefully I will get a response from the VP (Advancements) to share with you as soon as possible.

Renewal of Student Partnership Agreement

The previous two-year agreement made between Activate, the SA and management expires this year in July. This means that we need to start working on the policy we’d like to put forward into the new agreement basically now. We will also need to review the current SPA to determine which policies were followed through with and which require more work.

Accessibility Training

Following from the approval of the Vertigo budget, I spoke to Kylie about finding training within the university for accessible design and production of printed and digital work. She forwarded me on to Katy Duncan, who works in Inclusive Practices at UTS. Katy is happy to run a session for the UTSSA and Vertigo in this area so please let me know if you’d like to come along.

General Governance

I am working with Bridie, Adam and Mariah to create further policy to help new Office Bearers and Execs to jump into their roles more quickly. If anyone wants to share feedback as to what would be useful for these policies to address, please reach out to me!

General secretary Report

This month as general secretary I have been prioritising:

1# Drafting the vertigo working group agenda and procedures, as well as electing UTSSA nominations, which occurred during the most recent exec meeting. The first vertigo working group will be convened tomorrow 26th of March

2# Working with Mia and Mariah on helping improve standardise and simplify meeting minutes and handover documents for (particularly new) collective Office Bearers

Assistant General Secretary Report – March:

Over the past month, I have been working on the following projects:

1. Get to know your Students Association – social media series:

- Last month I touched on the initial stages of this social media campaign.

- Since then, we have posted 3 introductions and have received a great response from social media users and students.

- Such regular use of Instagram has increased our metrics and overall viewership.

2. Concession opal card campaign:

- UPDATE: On Thursday, 29 February 2024 the goal of obtaining 20,000 signatures for the Fair Fares campaign was reached! This demonstrates hugecommunity support for travel concessions for all students, including international & part-time students.

- WHATS NEXT: The petition will be announced and debated by the Legislative Assembly of the NSW Parliament. This means the NSW Government will need to consider extending travel concessions to all students in NSW.

- Watch this space.

3. Communications Policy:

- I’m currently drafting a new communications policy that’s to be contained in the new policy document.

- This is to consolidate all the random social media documents into one, concise document that can be consulted throughout the year, particularly upon joining the organisation i.e. email etiquette, outside of hours contact etc.

- Watch this space.

4. Student feedback campaign:

- Due to low engagement in various collectives, the UTSSA is currently lacking student feedback about what key issues facing students at UTS are, and weare increasingly reliant on our own personal experiences.

- This campaign will look like having posters in bathroom stalls and various other high-traffic places on campus with a QR code that leads students to fill out a feedback/complaints/issues form.

- We hope this form provides the UTSSA with greater direction about the issues we should focus on.

Women’s Collective March OB Report

Past Events/ Initiatives Summary:

Throughout the month of March four significant events and initiatives were undertaken:

1. Meetings with the organisation Respect Now Always (RNA), to initiate more collaboration between RNA and woco on future events and campaigns. One of these future events being an upcoming feminist movie night.

2. Finalising the women in media panel that is to be run on the 27 th of March with UTSoC and Jsoc.

3. Hosting our internationals women’s day cupcake stall on the 8 th of March that gained significant engagement and enabled woco to increase our social media presence to over 700 followers.

4. Conducting two different raffles for woco members one that was sponsored by Dendy cinema Newtown.

5. Discussions surrounding the upcoming period product survey that will be released in order to keep supplying UTS students in free period products in the bathroom.

Upcoming Events and Initiatives:

1. Another raffle with Dendy Newtown.

2.A feminist movie night in collaboration with RNA.

4. Our second collective meeting.

5.The period product survey.

Goals Still to Be Achieved:

- An official women’s safe space opening to be held when the woco space is redecorated

- Get the woco book club up and running

- Ongoing efforts to enhance the women's space are in progress.

- More promotion of our initiatives and achievements on social media platforms.

Ethnocultural Collective OB Report – March

Past Progress Summary:

Throughout March, The collective has made some progress: We have finally received access to our space and are going through the motions of building a safe space, although it’s been pretty slow because of the state the room was left in, as well as not being allowed to touch most of the items in there. We’ve discussed with Mia the approach to extending university-wide holiday wishes to different ethnic groups. We sent an email to the activate team and honestly haven’t back, mia has also reached out on our behalf. We’ve planned an event on the 12th of April for the celebration of Eid for our muslim student population to encourage signups and just generate some awareness.

Goals Still to Be Achieved:

- Continuation of efforts to increase membership and participation within the collective. We didn’t realize how long the room process would have taken and have been running at a slower pace than we would like but with no access to the social media accounts either its been harder for us to generate awareness besides word of mouth. The lack of a handover as well has been pretty challenging to navigate through, we are moving forward as a collective slowly but surely.

- More promotion of our initiatives and achievements on social media platforms once we receive access from the past Ethnocultural Officer, Suzy Monzer.

- The setting up of the safe space is our top priority.

Disability collective report- March

After discussing with the collective, we have scheduled May 1st—a Paint and Tea session as our first event. As this is specifically for collective members, I will keep details on this to a minimum. Additionally, we’re planning an educational screening of a documentary film, “Defiant Lives”. This event will be open to non-collective members, hoping to broaden our reach and promote awareness. However, the date for this screening is yet to be confirmed, likely towards the end of the semester to accommodate schedules. Moving on to administrative matters, we’re addressing concerns regarding lectures not being uploaded within a subject in FASS. It is essential that we ensure equitable access to educational materials, and that remains a priority, and we’re actively working to resolve any barriers. Furthermore, we’re exploring potential collaboration with the RNA to address issues surrounding sexual harm against disabled students. It’s an important conversation that requires our attention and action. Even if that doesn’t go ahead, the topic is something the collective is passionate about and wants to campaign going forward.

Indigenous Officer report

In my second month serving as the Indigenous Students Officer, I’ve taken the initiative to plan upcoming events for the indigenous cohort this year, collaborating closely with fellow community members. Additionally, I’ve engaged with indigenous employment agencies to bolster indigenous employment opportunities within the university.

Teaming up with the First Nations Society, we’ve successfully coordinated a fundraiser for the Indigenous Nationals team at UTS, slated to compete in Wollongong this June. Generously supported by the Rabbitohs NRL team, the fundraiser features an enticing prize: a game day experience for two, including a behind-the-scenes tour of the sheds, witnessingwarm-ups and the game from a private viewing room, and much more.

Membership and Engagement Initiatives & Challenges:

Collaborating with organizations like the Jumbunna Institute and First Nations Society has enabled me to enhance awareness and backing for the Students Association. Achievement Goals and Planned Events: My aim remains to host community gatherings that unite people for good causes. Examples include organizing additional fundraisers and fostering more community events.

International Collective March 2024 OB Report

1. Support for OPAL Concession:

One of the key focuses this month has been advocating for OPAL concession for all

international students in New South Wales (NSW). Collaborating closely with SUPRA (Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association), we have actively campaigned for the inclusion of international students in the OPAL concession scheme. This initiative aims to alleviate transportation costs and enhance accessibility for international students across NSW.

2. Meeting with Kiely and Support from UTS:

A significant milestone was achieved through a constructive meeting with Kiely regarding the OPAL concessions. During the meeting, discussions centered on how UTS can actively contribute to this cause. I'm pleased to report that we received a positive response from Kiely and further support from the Vice-Chancellor's Committee NSW. Additionally, a letter was dispatched to the Transport Minister advocating for the support of concessions for international students, highlighting the collective endorsement from the academic community.

3. Monthly Meeting Revival:

On 11th March 2024, we successfully reconvened our monthly meetings, marking a pivotal moment in reinstating the operational efficiency of the collective. Following a hiatus of two years, this meeting served as a platform for addressing general business matters and providing assistance to international students with their queries and concerns. The renewed engagement underscores our commitment to fostering a supportive and inclusive environment for all international students at UTS.

In conclusion, March 2024 has been characterised by proactive advocacy, collaborative efforts, and the ability of collective engagement. Moving forward, we remain steadfast in our dedication to advancing the welfare and interests of international students at UTS.

Environment Collective Office Bearer’s Report

Past events summary:

1. 18/03 Enviro Meeting

a. The collective held its first meeting, but time of day could be improved upon. Due to limited turn out, intention to hold election for convenor and any other roles were not established. This meeting was useful for reestablishing membership engagement strategies.

2. 19/03 Green Week Market Day

a. The trading hours for the market were relatively short but were useful for meeting new members, talking to people about what they want to see on campus and establishing goals for the year ahead.

3. 22/03 Jackson Mills | Head of Growth at Mateship

a. This was a zoom meeting to discuss integration of Mateship at UTS. Mateship collates online orders of people sharing the same building to reduce carbon emissions and shipping costs. Marketing campaign yet to be established, progress ongoing. The collective has received marketing material.

Upcoming events and activities:

1. 03/04 12pm Collective Meeting

a. The collective will meet at 12 pm to boost attendance and to elect a convenor. Discussion over shared responsibility of the social media accounts.

Projects ongoing

1. BorrowCup

a. BorrowCup is a start-up from Monash university where reusable cups are given out at cafes and then deposited in collection bins after use, return rate of 95%. This project we seek to integrate into the UTS coffee scene to hopefully greater success since UTS is a smaller, denser campus with better infrastructure.

Membership

Membership now stands at a strong 78.

CaLL OUT:

Want to be part of our next printed edition of Vertigo, or have your article posted on our website?

Vertigo relies on the submissions sent to us by our readers, and we take your submissions all year round. We love reading whatever it is you’re willing to share, whether it be your article, your creative writing piece, your design, your fashion, your art… whatever it is, we want to see it!

Vertigo knows no limits.

The different sections of our magazine include: Student News Politics + Law

Arts + Lifestyle Society + Culture Showcase pieces (photography, fashion + more)

COnTaCT US:

Our submissions email is submissions@ utsvertigo.com.au and one of our editors will be in touch with you.

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We are constantly publishing articles for you guys. Head to our Instagram (@utsvertigo) and our website utsvertigo.com.au for daily updates and new articles each week.

Contributors

Abbey Barnes

Adam Montifiore

Arkie Thomas

Brady Jones

Daisy Buttress

Declan Boger

Eddy Alcock

Hayden Wong

Imani Jurd

Leo Larmer

Luke Friend

Maryam Othman

Mia Rakhit

Mia Davies

Patrick Baker

Zara Hatton

Editors

Amanda Patmore

Bianca Drummond Costa

Bianca Wong

Emersyn Wood

George Corona

Isabel James

Melody Kiptoo

Mia Rankin

Phoebe Quinn

Raphaella Katzen

Thanh Tan (David) Tran

Tyberius Seeto

Cover Art by Tom Houston

2024: VertiPUNK (VOL. 2)

acknowledgement

Contents:

UTS Staff and Students Rally for Palestine

SOUNDCHECK-an interview with USYD POC REVUE'S DIRECTORS

My Pap, the Punk

Rememberto

notforget

themostbeautiful part of punk culture, a subversive irony. weapon:

Queer column: Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Legacy of the Lesbian Masterdoc

Riot of Whiteness The Front: to the Girls Grrrl

(Some) (Some) (Some) (Some) (Some) (Some) (Some) (Some) (Some)

a picnic with grandma

General secretary Report

CaLL OUT:

COnTaCT US:

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Contributors

Editors

Articles inside

2024: VertiPUNK (VOL. 2)