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CONTENTS THINGS WE WISH WE KNEW EARLIER ....................................................................................................................................... 02 EDITORIALS ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 04 CONTRIBUTORS ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 05 THE 8 KINDS OF MEN YOU’LL MEET IN ONLINE DATING AS A QUEER KINKY W.O.C .................................. 06 WHY YOUR OPINION ON MARRIAGE EQUALITY DOESN’T MATTER (AND WHY MINE DOES)* ............ 07 FEMINIST ORGANISING AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM.......................................................................................................... 08 STORIES OF EMPOWERMENT: ECOFEMINISM....................................................................................................................... 09 DAMSEL DRAWS ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 10 THE F-WORD*............................................................................................................................................................................................... 11 DAMSEL FICTION KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS ............................................................................................................................ 12 HOW TO DEAL WITH A PROBLEMATIC FAVE ........................................................................................................................ 14 YELLOW FEVER ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 15 SHOES ............................................................................................................................................................................................................. 16 A WOMAN IN ENGINEERING? .......................................................................................................................................................... 17 AN OPEN LETTER TO CIS FEMINISTS .......................................................................................................................................... 18 NOT A PRETTY GIRL ARE YOU? ...................................................................................................................................................... 19 DAMSEL DRAWS / POETRY ................................................................................................................................................................ 20 SITA VS. DURGA* ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 22 VANILLA ......................................................................................................................................................................................................... 24 THE HUMAN COST OF SEX TRAFFICKING .............................................................................................................................. 25 AN ODE OF GRATITUDE TO MY SAVIOUR: A TRUE STORY WRITTEN IN VERSE .............................................. 26 SEXISM ON CAMPUS AND ONLINE: NO THANK YOU ....................................................................................................... 27 DEALING WITH #WHITEFEMINISM ONLINE, A SELF-CARE GUIDE FOR WOMEN OF COLOUR ............ 28 ONE-BOWL CHOC CHIP BISCUITS ............................................................................................................................................... 29 BODY HAIR MAP ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 30 DAMSEL BANGERS + ARTWORK....................................................................................................................................................... 31 DAMSEL DRAWS......................................................................................................................................................................................... 32 ARE YOU GAY OR STRAIGHT? NO. ............................................................................................................................................... 33 A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN*................................................................................................................................................................ 34 BOOK REVIEW: EVERY DAY WE NEED LESS GENDER LABELS.................................................................................... 36 SEX, POLITICS, CULTURE, WITCHCRAFT: BROADLY REVIEW...................................................................................... 36 LESBIREAL .................................................................................................................................................................................................... 37 IMPORTANT RESOURCES..................................................................................................................................................................... 38 BAD COMPLIMENTS ............................................................................................................................................................................... 39 “Articles on pages 7, 11, 22, 34 contain content warnings (CW) The University of Western Australia acknowledges that its campus is situated on Noongar land, and that Noongar people remain the spiritual and cultural custodians of their land, and continue to practise their values, languages, beliefs and knowledge. Cover Artwork by Back Cover Artwork by Clara Seigla
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EDITORS If I told you I wasn’t shitting myself when I saw last year’s Damsel magazine and realised I would have to attempt and follow it this year, I would be lying. Now, looking back on the past few months of hard work, I can scarcely believe we managed to pull it all together. This year I’ve dealt with a lot of crap as the Women’s Officer, from keyboard warrior MRAs attacking feminism to the University cutting Gender Studies, but making this magazine has reaffirmed my faith in humanity. Seeing the amazing, diverse work that has been produced by women from UWA for this publication has been amazing and I extend my warmest thanks to every contributor for making this happen.
EMMA BOOGAERDT
Damsel wouldn’t have been possible without the passion, skillz, and Google Drive magic of the four amazing Editors; Georgia, Melody, Chloe, and Megan - without you girls this magazine wouldn’t exist and I will always be thankful for your hard work and friendship. To Kate, the queen at Guild Design: thank you for your tireless work in making this edition absolutely gorgeous. Finally, to Bec and Lizzy: thank you for being my guiding feminist lights, mentors, and close friends over your time at UWA - without you two I would never have been Women’s Officer and certainly wouldn’t be writing this editorial right now. Now, grab a cup of tea and/or glass of wine and enjoy Damsel! xo Emma
Working with Damsel this year has been a series of constant revelations about the depth of talent, creativity and intelligence that exists among the women of UWA. Of course, I’ve always known it was there, but to experience it in such concentrated doses – both at our creative sessions and now, here, in this magazine that you hold in your hands – was a joy and a privilege. Our job as editors was merely to bottle the fizzing, effervescent spirit of Damsel that is constantly flying around campus and wrestle it into print. Set it free! xxx Georgia GEORGIA OMAN
When I applied to be an editor for Damsel, Emma asked me who my feminist/lady hero was. I choose one, but as I looked through our final proof I realised that I’ve changed my mind. Women don’t come much better than our Damsel contributors- diverse, open, perfectly messy and self-assured. This publication belongs to all the members of this ultimate girl gang and every gal who has that kinda magic in her eyes. You’re my lady heroes and I can’t wait until you’re all out there ruling the world. P.S. it’s my job as Art Editor to say, all the articles are amazing but also IT’S JUST SO BEAUTIFUL. Xoxo Gossip Girl
Editing for Damsel has given me an invaluable opportunity to expose myself to a range of opinions and experiences I would have never otherwise encountered. And if you know me, you’ll know that I really like to expose myself. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to work with the diverse and spirited cadre of contributors to create this publication. Thank you for those whose contributions made it through, thank you for your patience and talent. Thank you to Emma and the other editors for the hard work you did and the support you provided. Lastly, however, thank you to me. CHLOE DURAND
MELODY TABA
Being a newbie to student publication, I was overwhelmed by the quantity and quality of submissions (cue celebratory dance with every contributor email received)! I was under the impression that being an editor for Damsel meant slogging away at raw submissions, brandishing an aggressive red pen, correcting primary school level grammatical errors. Instead I ended up engrossed in loads of flawless submissions at each of the editor brunch sessions! I’m overjoyed to be part of Damsel magazine this year, and am so #blessed to have worked with such a talented bunch of stunning women. Enjoy, Melody
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CONTRIBUTORS
ASHLEIGH ANGUS
CAILIN MOLINARI
CHARLOTTE NEWTON
CLARA SEIGLA
DARCY NIDD
ELLEN COHEN
ELYSIA GELAVIS
HANNAH MATTHEWS
HELEN HENDERSON
KATE GRAY
KATE PRENDERGAST
KATERINA VEGA
KATHERINE SWANN
LARA HAFT
LAURA MWIRAGUA
LAURA WELLS
LIBBY WEEDA
MARIAH LUMLEY
NATALIA VERNE
PIA-MAREE FUCILE
RAE TWISS
RAHANA BELL
TAMARA SINDHUNAKORN
SAMANTHA GOERLING
THANUSHAR SRIDARAN
SIVAROOBINI KALAIMANI
YELIZ KAYAALP
Damsel thanks Miriam Crandall, Elise Hiatt, Michaela Pilossof and Georgia Smith for helping making Damsel beautiful with their photographs, doodles, and collage material, as well as everyone who came along to our Creative Nights or shared their bad compliments and life lessons with us. You made this publication possible and we love you all for it. Big big thankyou to Kate Hoolahan for your amazing work making Damsel beautiful - you are amazing and none of this would have happened without you.
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THE 8 KINDS OF MEN YOU’LL MEET IN ONLINE DATING AS A QUEER KINKY W.O.C. BY CHLOE DURAND
The “I’m Kinky”: Okay, but I don’t care and that word could mean literally anything, so I’m also not impressed? Never messages back. Time wasted: 1 minute Discomfort level: Low
The Hit-n-Run Complimenter: The most benign of the men who message you. They’ll drop an innocuous compliment in your inbox and be on their way. Depending on the day they maybe get a “Thanks”. They aren’t frequent or persistent enough to be annoying. Time wasted on them: 15 seconds Discomfort level: Negligible-Low
The Lord Sir Domly Master Tru Top Sadist Daddy Dom Kinky Man: Oh he’s read your profile. He knows you “think” you’re mainly looking for women and non binary people, and he knows you haven’t specified your kinks, but he’s simply so Truly Dominant and being a woman you loved to be Truly Dominated. He will give you many examples of his kinks. He’ll drop badly written erotica in your inbox. Upon the third rejection there is a 1 in 4 chance he will suddenly become a True Sissy Sub Slave who needs you to set him straight. Yes he might be a switch, but most importantly he’s definitely a rude, persistent pest. Time wasted on them: 5-10 minutes plus the 5 minutes to screenshot his hackneyed seduction attempts and post to social media. Discomfort level: Medium-High.
The didn’t read your profile (sub species: acceptus rejectionus): There’ll be a rather drawn out process of back and forth before the inevitable “So, what are you looking for?”. Once directed to the nifty chunk of words under your profile photo describing just that, they take it on the chin and back off. You might get an overfamiliar and self pitying compliment on the way out, which isn’t great form on their part. Time wasted on them: 3-10 minutes Discomfort level: Low-Medium The didn’t read your profile (sub species: cannot acceptus rejectionus): The malignant relative of the previous category. Upon reading your profile, they will wax lyrical about how if you give them a chance they will “change your mind about men/ them specifically ;)”. They’ll throw in a vague reference to how all their exes loved when they “did BDSM”. They’ll never specify what their kinks are but they are definitely (not) the same as yours. They can usually only be vanquished with some moderate verbal abuse, and a reminder that begging a stranger for sex is pathetic. May neg, insult, or condescend on the way out. Time wasted on them: 5-15 minutes. Discomfort level: Medium-High; Two Glasses on the wine scale.
The Neg-atron: Your profile isn’t to his taste and he will damn sure let you know about it. Whether you’re too angry, wordy, sexy, picky, or unfriendly (I’m all five on a regular basis) he’s just trying to help you. In reality, he is attempting to bolster his fragile self esteem by putting you down. His negs may be drawn out, specific, personal attacks, unhelpful suggestions, and victim blaming mixed with his own self aggrandisement. Burn him and block him. Remember, you’re not leading men on by existing, and being upfront about your anger and sexuality. Time wasted on them: 5 minutes plus 10-90 minutes of emotional-anger fall out. Discomfort level: High; 10mg of diazepam and a nap on the anxiety scale.
The ‘But where are you REALLY from?’, aka The Columbus: Self explanatory category. This man has to get your heritage down pat with rude, voyeuristic questions like “What are you?”. They will often resort to a peculiar form of self affirmation by remarking that “They thought you had some <ethnicity> in you” and then attempt to keep the conversation rolling. They may try to ham-fistedly gauge the waters for race play. Time wasted on them: 15 minutes Discomfort level: Medium but long lasting.
The Inexplicably messaging you from the USA: Just, why? I don’t have kik, mate. Is obviously messaging about a dozen women globally at once, won’t usually sweat it if you tell him you’re not interested. Time wasted on them: Less than 5 minutes Discomfort level: Why have you woken me up at 4AM with the love heart eyes emoji, Gym_Guy25 from Massachusetts?
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CW: MENTIONS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST LGBT+ INDIVIDUALS AND USE OF HOMOPHOBIC SLURS
WHY YOUR OPINION ON MARRIAGE EQUALITY DOESN’T MATTER (AND WHY MINE DOES) BY ELLEN COHEN In case you haven’t heard, marrying someone of the same gender is illegal. In Australia, two consenting adults of the same gender cannot marry one another – and that bothers me quite a bit. And now I’m going to tell you why.
Now I know what you’re thinking – you don’t think “the gays” are lesser than you, you just don’t want them to get married, right? Wrong. Unfortunately, despite our nation’s intent, that’s not the message it sends. Let’s think back to that 14 year old gay kid living in a small town. Well, that kid was me. I remember the day I found out that only men and women could marry one another – I was heartbroken. I realized that according to my fellow Australians I was not worthy of marriage and that any love I would experience for my future partner was not legitimate, palatable, or valued in Australian society. I also found out that it wasn’t people like me who made that decision - it was heterosexual people. This revelation made me angry - with my government and every heterosexual couple I saw holding hands or kissing in public without fear or prejudice. But what I really felt was jealousy. Everywhere I looked heterosexuality was pushed upon me. I was told that my haircut looked ‘too gay’ and that calling a celebrity beautiful made me ‘seem like a lesbian’. My high school sex-ed class didn’t mention any form of intercourse that wasn’t heterosexual. Society didn’t represent, understand or value me. That’s when I realized that like everything else in my life marriage was something society had deemed beyond me.
The great thing about being gay is that most of the time the only people who can tell you’re “it” are other gay people. However, one thing that this young gay teenager has in common with every other kid is that their secret is hard to keep – but they know that if they share it they could be bullied, beaten, suspended from school, kicked out of home – or worse, they could die. Now that I think about it, I haven’t heard of anyone being killed for any of those other issues – have you?
So next time you feel like voicing an opinion on marriage equality, ask yourself this: do you know what it’s like to be told that your love is unacceptable? Or to fear for your life every time you hold your partner’s hand in public? Can you recall the ice-like feeling in your chest when someone screams ‘dyke’ or ‘fag’ at you? Do you know what it’s like to have someone completely unaffected by your relationship in the slightest inform you that they never, ever want to see you marry? I don’t think so.
According to a survey conducted by ‘Out of the Blue’ in Sydney in 1994, lesbians were 6 times more likely than other women living in Sydney to have been physically assaulted in the 12 months before the survey took place, while gay men were 4 times more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to have this happen to them. Now, let’s take a jump back to 1918, where the long-term tradition of marriage discrimination first began in Australia. In this year under Commonwealth law it was decided that marriages between Indigenous Australian women and non-Indigenous men were illegal – allegedly for the ‘protection’ of both parties, but I think we all know it was just a bit of good old fashioned racism, right?
And that is why your opinion does not matter. And why mine does. Because your love is legal – and mine is not.
Flash forward a few decades and the Australian Parliament creates the Marriage Act of 1961 – without a formal definition of marriage. It was only in 2004 that we as a country decided that ruining one group of people’s lives in history wasn’t enough, and the Howard government amended the Australian Marriage Act to include “the union of a man and a woman”. Once more, a supposed right was denied to a group of Australians that our government deemed undeserving or ‘lesser’.
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ARTWORK BY KATERINA VEGA
Picture this: you’re 14 years old, you’ve got braces, a little bit of puppy fat still clings to you no matter how much sport you play, and you have some lovely friends. You’re exactly like every other small town kid, and life is great. But there’s something odd about you, and it sets you apart from your peers. You have a secret and you know that you can’t tell anyone. This secret could be anything – you could have a crush on your Maths tutor, you could have a pet rat that you keep in your locker called Paul, you could have kissed your best friend’s sister, or have foot fungus, or grey hairs – or, you could be gay.
FEMINIST ORGANISING AND POLITICAL ACTIVISM BY NATALIA VERNE
Feminism can be a tricky venture for someone to begin organising events around – especially if they don’t have a particularly strong collective or group of people to run events and delegate tasks. As an organizer of the NOWSA [Network of Women Students Australia] Conference 2014, there were many hurdles that we as a group, and I personally, had to overcome. It can be quite difficult to work in a group, especially with so many diverse views and opinions, but it is extremely rewarding to do so – personally, and also for your activism.
nearly all spaces through ableist behaviour and language, make them. By making these people think about these issues (especially in relation to point 2), you are making a more equitable space. Then you can begin to make women of colour only spaces, trans women spaces, disabled women spaces and create more opportunities for these more marginalized groups. This type of activism is really empowering – especially if there is a woman of colour, a trans woman, or a disabled woman heading all this up.
Making sure everyone is equally represented in a group can be really difficult – especially as the group gets larger and larger. In formal group settings, the implementation of an affirmative action policy regarding speaking lists can really help. Such a policy would outline that speaking lists can be modified in order to bump up people/groups of people who haven’t yet spoken on the issue, or people whom the issue affects more explicitly than others. Minority groups (people of colour, culturally and linguistically diverse people, queer people, trans people, disabled people etc.) should also be prioritised under such a policy.
2. Educate yourself and consult others. This works incredibly well in tandem with the last point, and even as a standalone is really good at ensuring your political activism and feminism is as inclusive as possible. If you are a member of a privileged group, it is your duty to educate yourself about marginalised groups, and to educate other privileged people about these groups. Members of marginalised groups have no duty to answer questions or educate privileged people. Personally [and this is only me speaking for me], I don’t mind answering some questions about trans issues, but only if the other person has done some prior research on the issue. If someone tries to ask me something with no research at all, 101 information, or anything personal/inflammatory/ offensive – I just flat out refuse at this point. It’s too annoying and too much of an effort for me to be everyone’s open encyclopaedia at any time. There are plenty of resources available online for people to read and learn through rather than using people’s time.
If I were to pick a couple of central tenets, as it were, of feminist organising, I’d probably say: if it doesn’t exist; make it, educate yourself and always consult others, and that both big and small is good. I’ll go into detail a bit more about that just below but I also want to attach a little disclaimer – this is just my personal opinion, and from my own experiences. Other people might have completely different tenets or ideas about their feminism – so it’s good to read a lot of different opinions!
3. Both big and small is good. I think for someone to be successful in reaching and educating people about feminism, you have to treasure the small victories. Small events, get togethers, bake sales and such are still effective, good events. Doing small things as opposed to big rallies and protests doesn’t make you a “worse” feminist – you are doing the best with what you can. Although, in saying that, if you have a massive collective, running a mixture of smaller and larger events is probably going to be better than just running large events.
1. If it doesn’t exist; make it. This is what I personally believe really strongly in, just from my experiences in many different feminist spaces. Often, feminists focus on a very broad, general type of feminism that seems to almost exclusively talk about cishet, white, able-bodied, neurotypical women’s rights, as more disenfranchised women are often denied these rights based on their other marginalisations. If your women’s group doesn’t talk about how black women are systematically pushed into prison and suffer more negative consequences due to the intersection of race and gender, make them. If they don’t talk about how trans women have astronomical rates of murder, suicide and rape, make them. If they don’t talk about disabled women’s exclusion from
If I had to sum up my experiences and advice to people regarding feminist and political advocacy, it would probably be something like “be proud of what you do, and always strive to improve”. Nobody is perfect, and you aren’t going to get everything right – but you can be proud of what you do manage to get right. Be proud of that, and make it better for the future.
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STORIES OF EMPOWERMENT: ECOFEMINISM BY LIBBY WEEDA
to combat deforestation and, in the process, empower women. The trees have allowed Kenyan women to generate incomes, protect their environment, and boost ecotourism. Since its inception, the movement has planted over 51 million trees and trained over 30 000 women in areas such as forestry and bee-keeping. As Maathai says, “When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and hope.” In 2004, Maathai was the first African woman and environmentalist to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Women’s Pentagon Actions During the Cold War, there was a conference called “Women and Life on Earth: Ecofeminism in the 1980s” in Massachusetts, USA (if I had a time machine…). From this conference, a group of women formed an alliance and started to work together to campaign for the protection of the natural environment, particularly against the use of nuclear weapons. Additionally, they fought for women’s economic, social and reproductive rights. In November of 1980 (and again in 1981), the women physically surrounded the Pentagon to present their campaign!
Chipko Movement This movement is set in the Garwal Himalayas, in India, where in the years of pre-colonialism, tribal communities lived sustainably. Fastforward to the early 1900s and we see the entrance of commercial logging companies and the destruction of these communities’ livelihoods and valued, sacred forests. In response to the emerging capitalist appropriation of the forests, women in these communities banded together and protested non-violently – by going into the forests and literally hugging the trees. “Chipko” means “to hug” in Hindi, and that’s how this movement got its name. The movement halted the destruction of forests and eventually led to the Indian Government banning the felling of trees in the Himalayas until the forest was fully restored.
Ecofeminism shares goals with many other movements, calling for fair, peaceful and sustainable systems. Its long history of seriously effective, awesome female groups is inspiring.
The Green Belt Movement Started by Wangari Maathai in Nairobi in the 1970s, the Green Belt Movement united women to plant trees in their backyards in order
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ARTWORK BY HANNAH MATTHEWS
The term “Ecofeminism” is thought to have first been coined in 1974 by French writer Francoise d’Eaubonne in her work, “Le Féminisme ou la Mort” (literally, “Feminism or Death” – can I get an amen??) and links the oppression and exploitation of women to cultural domination of the natural environment. As a global movement, it has a strong heritage of grassroots activism and intersectionality. Ecofeminism is committed to transparency, open communication, diversity, opposition of all domination and violence – and its history is filled to the brim with legendary feminist groups. These are three examples of how ecofeminism has united and empowered women.
DAMSEL DRAWS
Maybelline dream liquid mousse foundation in light 2 Urban decay naked skin foundation in 0.5 Maybelline fit me foundation in 110 Missha perfect cover bb cream in no.13 Stila perfecting concealer in shade a Australis creme colour in flirtatious pink Nyx cream blush in tea rose Elf eyebrow kit in medium Maybelline hyper diamond eye shadow pallet in bu-1 Face of Australia high definition liquid eyeliner in black Applied with make-up brushes and artist’s fingers
ARTWORK BY RAE TWISS, COMPLETED WITH MAKE-UP PRODUCTS
‘GARDEN GROOMING’ BY LAURA WELLS
CW: DISCUSSIONS OF RAPE
THE F-WORD BY RAHANA BELL
The other argument I often come across is, “I’m not criticising you, only the extremists.” Okay. Cool. So why is the blanket banner of ‘feminist’ still there? Why do I then get criticised if I say I’m not comfortable with this? It’s not okay to stereotype and typify a whole group on the actions and beliefs of some. Any right-minded (non-islamophobic) would agree that it’s not okay to stereotype all Muslims. It seems even less practised to stereotype all Christians on the model of the Westboro Baptist church or KKK. So why feminists? Why is it that whenever you propose an even vaguely feminist argument, you get stereotyped, typified, and vilified, and have to feel that that you shouldn’t open your mouth in the first place in anticipation of the crap you know you are going to receive?
I’m one of those girls that once said years ago, “I’m not a feminist, but…”. I knew very little about feminism, but had certainly heard all the jokes about it, and gained the idea that it was a bit of a fallen angel. I had also instinctively picked up that to openly “be a feminist” was to be derided. As I got older I started experiencing issues that feminism talks about. Still, I didn’t see myself as feminist. I saw issues that were happening that I regarded as examples of inequality and I thought that, as a society, we should work to solve them for everybody. I didn’t start truly identifying with feminism until I saw how viciously people attacked those who expressed similar concerns as being “feminazis”, and feminist ideas as being illegitimate unless proven otherwise. But, as I found out, it’s very hard to reason with someone when they are accusing you of being an ideological harpy, hysterical about nothing, or telling you to ‘calm the fuck down, no one is getting raped here.’
Sure, feminism has never had universal support. It struggled for well over two centuries with women fighting for their rights before it finally gained traction in the 1960s. There were both men and women who were historically against the movement. Yet this modern online derision seems to be a different kind of beast. It snowballs into stereotypes and mild hysterics over the destruction of masculinity by chain whipping women who are destroying the human rights of men (I have seen whole websites dedicated to that particular topic). It has the effect of de-legitimising the whole movement and those who support it to the point where people automatically turn away from feminism by its very association.
Every time I check out a comments section vaguely related to feminism, I see the same stereotypes being dumped on ‘feminists’ in a one-sizefits-all manner, and the same anti-feminist trolls. Even on topics not directly related to feminism, people will drop it in as a nasty reason for human stupidity. In an example, I recently saw a post discussing Caitlyn Jenner and whether or not people thought she was courageous. Then all of the sudden, out of the blue, this guy commented one word: ‘feminists’. He gave no explanation for it, and it wasn’t even really in context, but the message was clear: ‘stupid feminists with useless arguments.’ It was a dirty adjective used to de-legitimise the whole conversation.
There are still many people who say “I’m not a feminist, but…”. However, I think more people are feminists then they realise. What it comes down to is, do you believe in equality and respect for all? Perhaps people rail against it because it is an uncomfortable thought to think that there is still inequality in society today. There is also a cultural habit of denying feminism and deriding its modern day form. Perhaps what has happened is that people, particularly those born into modern women’s rights, have forgotten that someone once had to fight really hard for them. Like feminism, those rights are just taken for granted. I’m not going to say that there aren’t problems with some feminist thoughts and thinkers. But you get the same problems with any ideology or movement- you can’t reduce it down to one argument. And ultimately, if we have a difference in opinion on something then that’s fine!
The overwhelming argument from online debaters is that it’s all just a joke! My god women, do you even have a sense of humour, have you heard of free speech? Well if it’s not funny, I don’t have to laugh. I love a good joke, I think it’s important to go through life with a good sense of humour. But there is a difference between a joke done in good faith, and laughing at things/people by misrepresenting them and making them look bad. You jokingly tell me “bitch, get back in the kitchen where you belong!” Now, would it be as okay to make racist jokes towards a person of colour on the basis of a debate you were having? If this was a face to face interaction, I think you could fairly expect to get punched in the face!
Just don’t stereotype me as a feminazi for that fact.
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DAMSEL FICTION: KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS BY CHARLOTTE NEWTON
‘Keep it in your pants,’ a bland man heckles my partner Ofa and I, as he stumbles across the road away from us. We’re sitting at an outside table in front of Jus Burgers along the café strip in Fremantle, opposite the Sail and Anchor pub in which this man has clearly been imbibing.
‘Does it look like I care, honey?’ She’s done it on purpose to make me laugh. I do and deliver a crushing one liner.
My insides freeze. I’ve always thought I’d lucked out with a catch like Ofa and the usual insecurities rise to the surface. Her cleverness, cheekiness, and total confidence in her curvy Fijian figure drive me crazy with lust. I’ve noticed the way men follow the swing of her hips. And I’m always fearful I’ll lose her.
‘I guess it’s just one of the perils of dating a black woman.’ With a cheeky grin I had dashed out of the room with her cursing and hot on my heels. I ducked through a doorway and slipped quickly to the side, against the wall of our apartment hall and waited for her to run through. As she emerged I had slipped an arm around her waist, using her momentum swung her body in a semi-circle right up close to mine, whispered,
‘You’re so black,’ ensuring she hears the jest in my voice. Her dark eyes flash and with her gorgeous deep olive skin, this isn’t, strictly speaking, true. She once subjected me to a rant about the ‘signifying’ of her skin colour to her by other races and how mad it makes her. I had listened attentively, noting her balled fists and rising, shrill tone; all hallmarks of her anger. I had nodded sagely and sighed.
She rolls her kohl-rimmed eyes, her smooth Islander skin appearing more exotic (and paradoxically more familiar) as her deep brown eyes almost disappear. She flips him off and, using the same hand, gently takes my left one that is sitting on the top of the bench outside Jus Burgers.
‘Another peril is I’ve fallen ridiculously in love with one.’ She’d sealed my sudden, unexpected profession with a kiss or three. ‘Babe, I listened to everything you said and I want to understand and I’m trying to empathise. It’s just different for me. You know, being born into a society that privileges some people over others and I do try my best to see other viewpoints too.’
‘What is it about mixed race couples?’ she innocently asks, with an exaggerated bat of her huge eyes and a soft squeeze. The gesture relaxes the shoulders I hadn’t even realised I had hunched and I laugh harder than her joke deserves, the relief making me light-headed.
‘Well now, I have no clue what I should do with all this angry energy,’ she had muttered, a sly grin on her face. She leaned in for another kiss. My mind drifts off in a very sexy tangent of that afternoon’s activities when she brought my attention back to the lunch date at hand.
‘I think it’s a bit more than that babe,’ I suggest as we chuckle back into seriousness. She begins an elaborate pantomime: Ofa pouts and frowns at the same time, raising her hand to face-height and clicks her fingers twice, in a fake-attempt at sassiness. She emphasises the finger clicks and drawls in a pathetic Southern accent.
‘You can’t get no whiter than a ranga,” she countered, emphasising the last word. I laughed again.
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‘Nah mate,’ a deliberate overdone Ocker accent in place, I defended my hair. ‘This is what you call strawberry blonde.’
Ofa had studiously ignored my little pronouncement, playing with the straw and ice in her drink. Only as I am awaiting her response, she makes eye contact with her lips still wrapped around the straw and takes a highly suggestive sip.
‘Speaking of orange, I wouldn’t mind another Fanta babe,” Ofa is making doe eyes and squirming coquettishly on her stool. I genuinely laugh long and loud, the heckler forgotten, and wander to the counter. The minimum wager behind the counter stares for a second longer than is strictly necessary. I idly wonder if he is checking me out before I berate myself,
‘You better be amazing that night,’ I roll my eyes, ‘and I want to borrow your blue dress.’ ‘What? Why? No! That dress looks amazing on my bum. No bitch, take the red one with one shoulder,’ she is mildly mad, but trying to wheedle her way as always.
umm WTF? I am here with a chick, dude. Remembering Ofa’s insistence that ‘I swear I enjoy the drink more!’ I also grab her a straw. ‘I don’t understand guys,’ I pronounce, producing her drink and straw with a flourish.
‘Ofa,’ I take her hand softly, a patronising expression on my face, ‘you know I can’t wear that red dress. It looks awful with my hair and skin colour. I will take the blue dress because you wrecked my white one with bloody red wine last weekend. And I am doing smokey eye makeup, so you best wear lipstick.’ I smile indulgently as she tries to figure out how her outfit will look that night.
Ofa delivers a classic, ‘I don’t either. I just know they buy me what I want,’ and she giggles to herself.
‘I am not wearing red lipstick and a red dress, eww! Do you want me get asked how much I charge for a night?!’ she is sulking and takes a chip from our food that has arrived. The same cashier brings our food out, and this time I swear I catch him trying to sneak a peek down my shirt.
Ofa had tried to justify her princess antics one argument with the idea that her family had raised her as the youngest and only girl with six older brothers. I wasn’t standing for it; I had made it clear that she needed to act like an adult when it mattered. I can’t fiscally provide for her every time, I won’t raise my fists in anger to another human being to ‘defend her honour’ or such. I will be stable and constant and she shouldn’t take me for granted. She had noticed my voice catch in my throat with the “raising fists in anger” part. She knew my private family history and had hugged me. After years of therapy, her holding me while I had sobbed had surprised me. I didn’t think I had any tears left.
‘Mmm I didn’t think of that, why don’t you do smokey eye and I will do bold eyeliner then. I lost my one flattering red lipstick. Aaah, fuck my ranga genetics,’ I moan, also tucking into our lunch. ‘At least you finally admit it,’ Ofa grins triumphantly across the table.
‘Hmm so I’m expected to cover drinks for Anna’s twenty-first this Saturday night then? Wonder how you’re going to make it up to me,’ I raised a sarcastic eyebrow in her general direction.
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HOW TO DEAL WITH A PROBLEMATIC FAVE BY CHLOE DURAND
We all have our favourite women artists who we see as a symbol, leader, advocate, or even a hero. It’s easy to get emotionally attached to them because we feel guided by their work. I’m no exception, and I’m as much of a fangirl as the next person. But most of our idols and leaders mess up at some point, don’t they? I mean, we all mess up. We all say things. But what do we do when our fave steps in it big time? How do we deal with a public call out of someone close to our hearts? It can be hard. It can be disorienting. But it can be done.
promoted it. And unless we call it out, people might continue to accept it which puts our very existence in danger. 4. No one is immune to a call out No one, not even your fave. No amount of inspiring work and political activism is a counterweight to direct oppression. Avoid chiming in to remind people about all of their good points. We know, and so does everyone else. It will sound like tone policing and apologism. Your fave is human, humans mess up, and it’s not up to you to apologise for them or to make it better.
1. Find out why they were called out What did your fave do? Read some articles and find out what it is that they did or said. Expose yourself, full frontal, to their mess up. With eyes or ears wide open, make yourself watch or read that moment. It is crucial to understanding why others are angry. Speaking of anger…
5. Collect your fave You’ve made it this far, champ. Don’t quit now! Encourage accountability from your fave. If they’ve made a mistake, encourage them to come forward with a frank and full apology and retraction. Even if they don’t get the message, those people affected by their mistake will. This is important because we need to know that no matter how rich, privileged, and popular someone is, that they remain accountable for the pain they cause.
2. Do not tone police Now that you’ve seen the immediate damage, you may notice some people are angry at your fave. There are call outs flying around, people are not happy. Instead of quashing and condemning anger, ask why these people are angry. Was your fave racist and the anger is coming from POC? Did your fave make a joke about rape or abuse, and abuse survivors are expressing their rage? Did your fave say something transphobic which is making trans people uncomfortable and angry? Did your fave do all three? Yikes. These people are all very angry at your fave because their existence and marginalised identities have been directly attacked. Anger is a natural reaction to oppressive actions. Avoid tone policing out of loyalty, it’s not helpful.
6. Cults of personality are not cool Accept that your fave may remain unapologetic and problematic. Yes you can still watch their show/ listen to their music/ read their books. Almost all the media we take in is problematic in some way, and that’s out of our control unfortunately. It may be useful to reflect more deeply on their creations and how they were influenced by privilege, but this call out isn’t a critique of you and your tastes. Avoid binding your fave to their work so tightly that you interpret their call out as an attack on you and your media consumption.
3. Understand whence cometh the anger Okay. You’ve avoided tone policing, you’re doing well. Now take a second to put yourself in the place of the people making the call out and supporting it. Do you consider yourself an ally to marginalised people? I should hope so. Do you understand what it’s like having your identity threatened and erased constantly? Maybe you know, and you know it’s not easy. This call out is a form of survival, it is a way of protesting a constant stream of attack from every corner of our lives. The Patriarchy isn’t the only thing people have to worry about. We have to worry about White Supremacy. Homophobia and Queerphobia. Ableism. Some people have even more on their plates than I do. They have Transphobia, severe Classism, and Anti-Black Racism to deal with all at once! That’s why we’re angry. Not because your fave and their fans (or you) created or are solely to blame for the above paradigms, but because their joke/ comment/ song/ action
7. Open your mind to new faves If your fave has done something drastic and abusive with no reparations, it may be time to find a new fave. Ask around for artists who work in similar styles and mediums to broaden your perspective and fill your life with more positive inclusive material. At worst, you’ve experienced something new. At best, your new fave is unproblematic and guilt free. For now.
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ARTWORK BY TAMARA SINDHUNAKORN
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SHOES BY LAURA MWIRAGUA
“Is it because I’m taller than you, Harvey?”
ARTWORK
Jessica Pearson, perched in patent black stilettos, smiles cheekily down at Harvey Specter in her 50-something storey office of the top tier New York law firm of which she is a name partner. The American legal drama Suits sparked a personal crisis centred on my non-conformity to the narrow construct of a professional woman. Will I be coerced into a “professional” uniform of high heels and block coloured, slim fitting garments in synthetic, elasticised fibres upon entering the lawyering world? Dreadlocks, melanin, non AngloSaxon surname and facial piercing aside, how will I fare in the workforce as a woman averse to high heels? Jessica, and all the female characters at the firm always wear high heels around the office. Suits reflects the mentality that to command respect and authority in the workplace, women must vertically dominate. Women must literally elevate themselves to be on par professionally with male colleagues. This feeds into the larger construct of the professional woman as infallible, statuesque, and a little bit hard edged. Jessica Pearson’s wardrobe consists of amazing structured garments in a range of colours (I think she would be the Lee Lin Chin-esque fashion icon of the New York legal scene). However, her asymmetrical peplum tops are always fitted, no garment is billowy or loose fitting. This is true of all female characters at the firm; the staple pencil skirt is snug and smooth. The logistical challenge of a 16 hour lawyering day is compounded by the possibility of both shapewear and stilettos. There is no way I could proof briefs with throbbing feet and compacted lower intestine.
dancefloors, grass, cobblestones, and me. Podiatrists warn of weakened ankles and shortened Achilles, but not of mincing across a sticky club floor or blisters that no amount of bandaids can protect. I have sincere admiration for anyone who braves vertiginous footwear, be it for a day at the office or night on the town. In my books, the platform sandal trend is one of the best things to have ever happened. Earlier this year I was desperately scrambling for professional footwear before a conference. No heeled boots were designed with my foot girth in mind, while all the flats were too dainty or minimal for my liking.
Heels and I have never clicked. I have large, flat feet and a full figure. In year 9 swimming I self-deprecatingly joked about the advantageous surface area of my feet, and the nickname “flippers” stuck for the term.
I settled on some Doc Marten brogues. It has been noted that they look like a 13 year old boy’s church shoes, but I stand comfortably by them - or rather, in them. The stiff leather foot prisons still gave me minor blisters, but I wasn’t massaging my feet in the lobby at lunch time.
Throughout high school I dabbled in heels and wedges, as most of my peers did. My closet is still littered with the relics of these forays; mushroom coloured wedged boots sharply recall bruised soles after the year 10 dinner dance, my quads seize at the sight of towering black peep toe wedges that slip at the heel.
To those who know me or have seen me around campus, it would be evident that comfort is a major consideration in my personal styling. You’ll catch me pairing my gathered, colourfully patterned cotton (and weekly worn) skirt with Teva sandals in summer and Docs in the cooler months. Quirky, lovable pottery teacher is my fashion goal.
At the obligatory Kings Park photographs before year 12 ball I already knew that my low, thick heeled footwear would not be staying on for the night. In my experience, heels are incompatible with slippery
If I do navigate university and eventually find myself in a professional sphere, I’ve been told that orthopaedic heels “can actually be cute”. Despite this sterling recommendation, these flippers will not be tamed.
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A WOMAN IN ENGINEERING? BY SAMANTHA GOERLING
Most people will be able to tell you one thing about engineering; that women in the industry are few and far between. Jan Flynn, who originally completed her Master of Science in Physical Oceanography, is a woman who has made it in the industry. Having achieved a great deal over her career, she is now the Lead Australian Metocean Engineer with a major oil and gas company. Work in this position is highly diverse with some days spent collaborating on new project design, some “working on analysis of large model datasets of wind, waves and currents,” and others on “supporting operational planning, emergency response preparedness and dealing with measurement systems offshore.”
Other hurdles to the career progression of women in engineering often stem from career breaks for family commitments. Even the assumption of bosses or potential employers that woman of a certain age will soon be wanting to have children has been known to present a barrier for woman trying to advance their career. This is reflected in the reduced retention rates for women in comparison to men. It is also seen in the smaller proportion of full time employment for women within the industry. As a factor leading to less women attaining senior positions, it has also contributed to the astounding gender pay gap which exists in Australia. In Jan’s eyes, for women who choose to take a family-related career break “the largest hurdle is maintaining a network of contacts within the organisation.” In relation to this, there is still a long way to go as a nation when it comes to unequal cultural expectations in terms of family commitment-related career breaks. However, Jan has seen a shift in attitudes throughout her career. “When my children were young, it was expected that the father would take a few days off around the time of the birth and that involvement after that would be limited. I now see male colleagues taking extended paternity leave or working more flexibly to accommodate their partner returning to work.” It’s heartening to see positive signs emerging, both statistically and culturally, trending towards greater gender equality in the prevailing male dominance of the engineering profession. Although intimidating to be in the minority, Jan has some invaluable words for those women entering the sector.
Within engineering, measures have already been taken to reduce the disjunction in gender representation and embrace workplace diversity. At the major oil and gas company where Jan Flynn works, “all supervisors undergo diversity and inclusiveness training and our recruiters are given specific training to make them aware of any unconscious biases in their assessment of candidates.”
Firstly, “have faith in your capabilities and don’t be shy to demonstrate them. Actions speak louder than words.”
Both these initiatives and the gradually increasing presence of women in the workplace appear to be reshaping perceptions within the industry. Over the course of her career Jan has observed the growing recognition of women’s capabilities in technical science and engineering positions - even leadership positions. “When I started there were very few women working in the offshore industry and certainly none in leadership positions.” What’s reassuring about this is that change is being felt on the ground - it’s not just an adjusting of statistics.
Secondly, “don’t be afraid to make mistakes, but take the time to learn from them. Reflection is a powerful tool for self-development.” And finally, when gender disparity is pronounced, “be yourself and embrace your differences, you don’t have to behave like a man in order to be successful.”
Having said that, as an industry emerging from a past of complete male dominance, many of its workforce may have never previously worked with a woman. A lingering implication of this, as Jan notes, is that “women in positions of authority over men may still encounter some resistance.” However Jan‘s commendable approach to leadership shares a common thread with leaders of note. “I have always followed the rule that I have to earn their respect, rather than expecting it on account of my position.”
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ARTWORK BY DARCY NIDD
Excitingly, within the industry itself, change is on a steady march towards reducing the gender imbalance. Although staggeringly lopsided, the proportion of women employed in engineering professions has risen from 10.3% in 2006 to 11.5% in 2011. However, this reflects the gender distribution in the supply of engineers, indicating that for this disparity to be combatted change is also needed in broader Australian society. One factor restricting the supply of woman to engineering is evident in secondary schools, where the ratio of females to males studying physics and high level maths is already skewed. For both Year 12 subjects only one in four students is female. Yet this begs the question; why is the subject selection so uneven?
AN OPEN LETTER TO CIS FEMINISTS BY NATALIA VERNE
DISCLAIMER: First things first – I don’t speak for all trans women and definitely don’t speak for trans women of colour [because I’m white]. This is just based on my own personal experiences with cis feminists and the common stumbling blocks about trans stuff. I’ve been involved in feminist circles and spaces for a little over a year now, and there are a couple of things I have noticed as a trans woman about how feminists interact with and approach me about certain issues. It demonstrates to me that there is a certain level of misinformation out there about trans issues – which I want to clear up in this article. Trans isn’t a gender. A lot of people seem to think being trans is an alternate state of gender – but that isn’t the case. Trans [or, in full, transgender] is a descriptor of someone’s gender identity. It is an adjective, not a noun or a verb. Someone who is transgender identifies as a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth. Being trans has nothing to do with gender roles or behaviours and stereotypes. It is to do with gender identity – which is each person’s individual decision. There are butch trans women, and femme trans men. The reason that you do not see these people very often is that cis doctors – gatekeepers – like to deny access to hormones and other medical transition procedures to trans people who do not conform to gender roles. Cis women are privileged for being cis, not for being women. We know that women are oppressed in society – as trans women, we also experience that. But, we experience another layer of oppression on top of that by being transgender, which cis [cisgender] people do not experience. Cis women won’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on getting a body that doesn’t make them depressed – nor will they be sterilized for doing so. Of course, trans women don’t experience issues with abortion access and those reproductive rights issues – but trans men do.
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It’s transgender, not “transgendered” – cisgender, not “cisgendered”. Again, trans/transgender is an adjective. It describes something – it’s not an action that happens to someone, nor is it a noun. Nobody is cisgendered, or transgendered, or bisexualed or anything similar – and to infer that that is the case implies some past event caused someone to be this way. That logic is problematic as it assumes that you can then “fix” someone – when trans people aren’t broken to begin with. If you really screw up a lot, just stick to cis and trans. “Womyn-born-womyn” is an unacceptable term. Referring to cis women as womyn-born-womyn creates a divide between cis women and trans women – doing so treats trans women as some sort of “other” kind of woman that is not as “legitimate” as cis women. Cis women means the exact same thing as “womyn-born-womyn”, but is free of all of the oppressive stereotypes and opinions that are associated with that terminology. Similarly, don’t say “women and trans women”. This also creates the impression that trans women are some kind of secondary “other” or not “legitimate” women. Also, it is trans women, not transwomen. When referring to issues of reproductive rights [e.g. abortion access] and similar, don’t say “biological women”. “Biological women” invalidates people’s gender identities and forces them into a rigid sex binary – a system which obviously perpetrates intersex erasure and transphobia. You should instead say AFAB [assigned female at birth] people, or people with vaginas. Both of these terms are so much better – AFAB makes it clear that the assignation of gender was in the past – but not all AFAB people can reproduce anyway, and using people with vaginas isn’t as good because it can reduce people to genitalia – but using either of these terms is better than “biological women”.
ARTWORK BY HELEN HENDERSON
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ARTWORK BY HANNAH MATTHEWS POETRY BY LARA HAFT
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CW: DISCUSSIONS OF RAPE
ARTWORK BY HANNAH MATTHEWS
SITA VS. DURGA BY SIVAROOBINI KALAIMANI
Some years ago I had a strange dream. In the dream, someone my father owed a favour to had an unmarried, lesbian daughter about my age. And so our marriage was arranged. I remember being led into the wedding hall and seeing her being led into it as well by her family, dressed like a proper Indian bride in her deep red silk sari and glittering gold jewellery, with hennaed hands. I was dressed similarly. I hadn’t seen her before - and I didn’t know her in real life, either - but she was pretty. We were seated before the pooja fire as the priest recited the rites. Then there was a sort of timeskip, and I was being led into the bridal chamber. I remember seeing the wedding bed hung with flowers before I woke up. The strangest thing about this dream to me was being matchmade, and without my consent at that. It’s still fairly common among Indians, but my parents married for love – something rare for their generation – and so I’ve always been aware that all the silly drama in older Tamil movies, where a girl was forced into a match her parents approved of, would never happen to me. Besides, these days, consenting to your marriage is a little more important. Also, I didn’t think the gay community would ever be so accepted by Indians that traditional arranged marriages would expand to include them. But the idea that someday that might happen made me smile. Indian homophobia baffles me. Unlike Christianity, as far as I know Hinduism doesn’t have much to say on the subject. (Though there are several orgies depicted on certain temple walls.) Mostly it’s frowned on as unnatural, and a lot of it is due to Western influence when India was colonised.
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Something that Hinduism and Indian culture do have a lot to say about, and which was also made worse by Victorian values, is the idea of female chastity. Chastity is a common concern in Indian culture, literature and movies. In the Ramayana, the protagonist Rama’s wife Sita is kidnapped by the lustful Ravana. Because of backstory, Ravana can’t just rape her or he’ll explode. Instead, he imprisons her in Lanka and tries to persuade her to forget Rama and marry him. Sita steadfastly refuses. Rama isn’t idle either; after some sidequests and an epic war, Ravana is dead and Rama rescues Sita. Instead of having a touching reunion with his beloved wife, this dickhead says, “You’ve stayed with another man for so long. How can I be sure that you remained chaste and faithful to me?” A huge fire is built up and Sita passes through it unscathed, which apparently proves her virtue, and then Rama takes her back. It gets worse. Rama becomes the king of Ayodhya and starts walking through his city at night in disguise to eavesdrop on his people, for some reason. One night he overhears a husband berating his unfaithful wife, saying that he is not Rama to take her back unquestioningly after she has lived with another man. Rama, being the dickbag that he is, banishes the now pregnant Sita to the forest rather than have his subjects question him. Sita lives in the forest and gives birth to twins. Years pass and Rama decides that he has treated her unfairly and wants her back, so she is summoned for another chastity test. In the palace Sita prays to her mother, the Earth goddess, to take her back if she has been chaste and faithful to her husband. The earth opens up right there, and her divine mother rides out of the chasm and takes Sita back into the earth with her. Rama is left as a single dad. And Sita is held up as the ideal wife, chaste and submissive.
This obsession with chastity and obedience in women is, oddly, commonplace in the same culture which has fierce warrior goddesses like Kali and Durga; but even they are ultimately second to their husband (in the singular, because both are the warlike aspects of Parvati, wife of Siva). And so as I grew up I had the idea that a woman must be modest, chaste and obedient drummed into me. My mother, who is a bit funny even by modern Indian standards, is a master of tying saris so that no skin between her collarbone and her ankles is exposed, and genuinely thinks that the modest women of Jane Austen’s novels are good role models for women today. When I was a child she told me that girls who dressed sexily and went out drinking with men and behaving in a “loose manner” were “asking for it”. She told me to hold books in front of my chest when I went to school so nobody could look at or brush against my developing breasts, to never get into a lift with a man, to not hug my more distant male relatives, etc. In short, I was a good little Indian girl. I also distinctly remember her telling my elder brother that a girl would sleep with him and then cry rape, so he should bring along a video camera for proof. When I was thirteen and beginning to realise I liked girls too, I tearfully talked to my mother about it, and she hugged me and told me that I was NOT bisexual, I was simply confused by all those loose American girls on TV.
friends. Don’t shame the family. We’ll accept the fact that you have a boyfriend, but don’t talk about him. Premarital sex is okay for the Westerners but still taboo here. Stop getting offended by everything, you have no sense of humour.
I accepted my mother’s teachings unquestioningly as a child. As I entered my teens and read more and thought more critically about things, I became confused. “Good” girls did not flirt with men or dress sexily or have premarital sex. Good Indian girls, that is; premarital sex was okay for Westerners, who were all morally depraved and sexcrazy according to Mum. Fair enough. But it was okay for guys to have random sex with other girls? Oh, that was fine because guys didn’t have to worry about chastity and those weren’t good girls. Okay. But surely those ‘loose’ girls had parents too, who wouldn’t want their daughters to sleep around. This didn’t make sense. And the craziness of Tamil cinema didn’t help. I can’t even begin to describe the rampant slut-shaming, victim-blaming, rape jokes and so on, which nobody else seemed to object to.
I do not want to reject all of my culture and heritage because I strongly disagree with some aspects of it. I like to think that eventually we Indians will progress, even if most of the straight cis Indian men calling the shots would like to go backwards. Then we can keep the better aspects of our culture while rejecting the more arse-backwards bits like the caste system, dowry, chastity, rape culture, honour killings, gender roles, and so on. In short, I want many of the same things that white feminists want, but it’s more of an uphill battle for Indian feminists because of the aforementioned Indian men with their heads up their arses. Because these same men are fine with getting their jollies from skimpily dressed actresses dancing in the rain, but think that a girl walking on the street wearing a short skirt deserves to get raped, that a married woman cannot be raped by her husband, that daughters are inferior to sons, that caste-based discrimination is okay.
All of this is made worse by the fact that I genuinely care about and respect my culture. I love being Tamil and Hindu. I love knowing that the traditions and religious rituals I take part in have been handed down for thousands of years, and so when I take part in them by setting out offerings to the sun god at dawn on Pongal (the harvest festival) or attending Navaratri prayers at the temple, I feel the weight of that continuity and antiquity behind me. I love the warrior goddesses. I love most of the literature. I love knowing that my mother tongue, Tamil, is one of the oldest living languages in the world, and I love its grammatical quirks. I love the huge and colourful celebrations. I enjoy the crazy movies and the songs. The achievements of my ancestors are pretty ingenious. The clothes are gorgeous. And Indian food is fucking amazing. (As a well-brought-up Indian girl, I’m not supposed to swear or I’ll be thought of as “low” with loose morals and will have brought dishonour upon my family and my cow. I say fuck that.)
Having become a card-carrying angry feminist in the past few years, coming home to Singapore and watching such Tamil movies with my family, or even having discussions, is newly painful. We were watching a movie that has always been one of my favourites, but there was one scene where after losing everything the elderly father dramatically throws away his cane and places a hand on his son’s shoulder for support, declaring that his son is now his support and all his wealth. I exclaimed, “Hello, your daughter is standing right there! Does she mean nothing to you?” My father angrily snapped in response, “Oh please, it’s still different! Indian culture is different! Don’t bring your Western ideas into it!”
I cannot leave my beliefs at the door when I come back to my family. I am proud of being a feminist, and I am proud of being an Indian woman. And I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive.
I’ve been getting that a lot since I came back. Leave all those Western ideas you picked up in Australia behind. You’re back in Singapore now. Be a good Indian girl. Dress modestly. Don’t hug your male
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VANILLA BY
“If people were rain, I was drizzle, and she was a hurricane” John Green, Looking for Alaska
was kind to me. I don’t know about you, but I have never heard a boy express such a sentiment. “I just feel so guilty for not being interested in spending more time with this girl because she seems like a nice person!”. Lol. No.
Lately these words that prepubescent me so adored came back as I spontaneously muttered, “if people were rain, these boys were drizzle and I was a hurricane”.
Turns out my subconscious is a far worse feminist than I thought. I’m relatively cool with that; I know I am a bad feminist at times. I don’t mean to be, but I figure getting really down on myself for it instead of hearing it and learning from it is exactly what the patriarchy wants. I just picture Tony Abbott standing on his mahogany desk waving one of those outrageously oversized Australian flags and dancing every time a feminist gets annoyed at themselves. I find that makes it easier to forgive myself and try to apologise and learn quickly.
ARTWORK BY
It sprang out of the messy vortex of my mind as I drove away from the most recent of a series of dates with nice guys. This one was the third date with a REALLY nice guy. An ‘I came here early to get our movie tickets and popcorn and do you want anything else?’ nice guy. The thought came to me with such uncharacteristic clarity that I let out a very tiny involuntary scream over the old-school Taylor Swift blasting from my shitty Corolla speakers. The next thing that came to mind was “MEGAN YOU ARROGANT BITCH”. You must be thinking the same thing, but just hear me out. I decided that any thought that manages to make it out of my shitstorm of a head with that kind of lucidity probably deserved a minute.
Having had a few people close to me break up with their average significant other recently, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering; why do we all know so many people who are dating losers? And more unnervingly, why have I nearly exclusively dated losers? I’m not talking about abuse; my heart goes out to people who have felt that, I’m just talking about mildly shitty people. Scumbags if you will, even just people who are ‘fine’. Fine doesn’t set anyone’s world on fire, adding warmth or light. Fine is a satisfactory filler in vacant space. Bluntly, ‘fine’ will never really add to all the things I’m doing for myself, by myself. I always knew that we didn’t need anyone else but I guess I thought I’d at least enjoy the company more.
I looked back on the date realising that I had paused before making conversation a few times to see if he had anything to say. I realised he hadn’t disagreed with me all night. I realised I had only laughed at my own jokes all night (it’s an affliction but I do laugh at other people’s jokes too as a general rule). It was fine, I had a nice time, he was really nice. But you know what else is nice? Vanilla ice cream.
I am not fine with ‘fine’ for any of my friends. As such, I should not be fine with ‘fine’ for myself. When I got home I sent him a text, I wished him well, I felt bad but he’ll find someone who loves vanilla. I’ve decided there’s probably someone out there who enjoys putting four scoops of lollies over their one scoop of blueberry flavoured Tutti Frutti as much as I do. Or maybe not. Maybe there’s something much better than that.
Who orders vanilla? I’m more of a one scoop of peanut butter salted caramel fudge and one scoop of mint chop chip kind of girl – and I’m lactose intolerant. I mean vanilla is great, and ‘nice’ is great too. But that’s not how I want to describe someone I’m dating. Frankly, it’s not how I’d want someone to describe me either. I think I am pretty ‘nice’ but that’s not all I am.
Maybe I was being too critical, but I’ve decided it’s okay to realise that maybe if people are rain, as light and refreshing as drizzle is, you don’t find it in a hurricane.
I contain multitudes. As big and loud as they are, I think I could be a hurricane. My anger at myself for thinking such a conceited thought surprised me a little. I felt really guilty for not being interested in this kind of guy. I caught myself policing the idea that I might deserve better than ‘nice’. As if I had no right to not be interested in someone who
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THE HUMAN COST OF SEX TRAFFICKING BY KATE GRAY Criminal organisations are involved, as exploiting sex slaves in richer countries is economically far more lucrative because the services demanded of the trafficked person have a higher monetary value. Reports of victims of sexual exploitation in the Philippines have claimed that they were forced to serve clients for around US$10-20. In Japan, the “price” of a trafficked woman is approximately US$20,000. In Argentina, the price is assessed to be closer to US$400. The price is determined by numerous factors, including profit potential, perceived risk, and demand.
The 2014 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2 covers the data collected from 128 countries around the world over the period 2010-2012. It is important to note that the UNODC only has information provided by states, and therefore these statistics are the minimum potential actual global statistics. In other words, only traffickers who have been caught are counted; the actual figures are likely much higher.
Criminal offences relating to sexual servitude and slavery were only introduced in Australia in 1999, with the Criminal Code Amendment (Slavery and Sexual Servitude) Act 1999, and the Criminal Code Amendment (Trafficking in Persons Offences) Act 1999. Lack of reliable data in Australia on the true nature of this business has posed a major obstacle to generating public attention to engender law reform.3 In 2010, the main offender in trafficking 11 South East Asian women to Australia for the purposes of forced sex work received a sentence of two years and three months. At a minimum, their traffickers profited to the tune of about AUD$80,000 over 2 years. Last year, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) investigated 87 alleged cases of human trafficking, which is up from the previous year’s 46, yet no convictions were recorded. Judicial officials dismissed the trials of 3 alleged trafficking cases, and one charge was dropped.4
The UNODC has identified at least 510 trafficking routes all around the world. Generally, victims are trafficked from developing countries to more affluent ones, relative to the origin country. These trans-regional flows are largely detected in wealthy countries in the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America. The victims often originate from the ‘global south’, including East and South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, however, victims detected were from 154 different nationalities, and were detected among all 124 countries surveyed.
The federally funded Support for Trafficked People Program requires victims to put themselves and their families at risk of harm by assisting police in building a case against their traffickers to access medical aid, psychological support, accommodation, and a living allowance. Those who are not “willing or able” are left without aid.
East Asia, South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South America are over represented in the origin region statistics. Armed conflicts and other disasters have a demonstrable impact upon trafficking rates. To traffic persons across continents, significant organisation is required. Passports and visas are required to gain entry to the destination country. On top of this, transportation, lodging, supervision in transit of the victim, and means to control the victim upon arrival at the destination must also be organised. It may be possible for an individual trafficker working alone to traffic a small number of victims, however in most cases trafficking of this kind is conducted by criminal organisations, which have the capital and skills to carry out such operations. A wellorganised and financed criminal organisation is able to traffic more victims towards the more profitable destinations around the world.
Sex trafficking is a global problem that causes incredible harm to those victimised by it. It is necessary to recognise that it is undertaken here in Australia as well as abroad, and that greater vigilance, persecution, and support for victims is needed.
Jakobsson, Niklas; Kotsadam, Andreas, 2013, “The law and economics of international sex slavery: prostitution laws and trafficking for sexual exploitation. (Report)”, European Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 35, No. 1, pp. 87-108 UNODC, Global Report on Trafficking in Persons 2014, https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/GLOTIP_2014_full_report.pdf Schloenhardt, Andreas; Beirne, Genevieve; Corsbie, Toby, 2009, “Human trafficking and sexual servitude in Australia”, University of New South Wales Law Journal, Vol. 32, No.1, pp. 27-49 4 Uibu, Katri, 2015, “Human Trafficking: Sex slavery victims risking brutal reprisals to access government support, campaigners say”, ABC News, August 26, http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-26/sex-slavery-victims-lives-endangered-bylaws/6688224 1 2 3
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ARTWORK BY KATE PRENDERGAST
Human trafficking is a crime against humanity in the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC, Article 7.2). In 2006, it was estimated that 87% of human trafficking was for sexual exploitation. The US State Department estimates the total figure to be at least 800,000 worldwide. It is closely linked to organized crime, and accounts for the second most profitable source of income for international criminal organizations. 1 The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which supplemented the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, was introduced in December 2003.
AN ODE OF GRATITUDE TO MY SAVIOUR: A TRUE STORY WRITTEN IN VERSE BY MARIAH LUMLEY
I’m looking at my plane ticket The aisle number I scan As I see resting upon my seat A humble neckbeard man.
ARTWORK BY
It seems he has confused our seats With a smile but a little reserve Thank you kindly for rescuing me From sitting in a place I didn’t deserve. I try not to judge (it’s very hard) Because he is shy and averts his face Too bad that he’s not too shy To manspread into the middle space. The empty seat in the middle The question was: for whom? Thank you kindly for rescuing me From having too much room. I am content in the aisle seat Since there is no-one in the middle But suddenly he looks at his backpack As though puzzling some kind of riddle. When all at once the fedora has sprung He has placed it on the empty chair Thank you kindly from rescuing me From possibly putting anything there. So I say thank you to my white knight Within these verses few (But maybe, just maybe, you think feminism Isn’t good enough for you.)
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SEXISM ON CAMPUS AND ONLINE: NO THANK YOU BY EMMA BOOGAERDT
What many people fail to comprehend is the effect that comments like this actually have on people. From your parents’ basement, surrounded by empty Doritos packets, the woman on the receiving end might seem miles away, but in reality comments made online can have a real impact on the receiver. The most ridiculous part of it all is that our society is so fucked that those who call out bigotry get thrown under the bus just as much as the bigots. We live in a society that excuses sexism and misogyny in young men as just a passing joke, but brands any women who criticises them as a bitch. Why is it that even when some man does or says something sexist publicly, we still trust them and promote them, without expecting an apology as evidence that their views have changed? The fact is, even if a sexist comment is intended as a joke between friends, those jokes do get out and they do affect the way that women interact with you and, on a broader level, entrench sexist attitudes even further.
I’m sitting here on a Sunday night, glass of wine in hand, Kelly Clarkson playing in the background, hitting ‘refresh’ time and time again on my Safari browser. There are plenty of things I would rather be doing: my essay, watching the latest House of Cards episode, sleeping, to name a few. And yet I am stuck here like some kind of silent internet vigilante, eyes peeled and mouse hovering for any sign of a new comment. Such is the life of a campus Women’s Officer. Arriving at UWA as a bright-eyed 17-year-old, I didn’t expect to really come into direct contact with sexism. This was perhaps naïve of me, considering the many barriers women still face in society, but I thought a place filled with some of the smartest students in the state would embody the value of equality, which I hold very dear. And yet here I am, wasting my night trying to protect my Facebook event from comments by Men’s Rights Activists (MRAs). Of course I never thought that every person on campus would be completely on board with the feminist movement, but I never thought it would come to this. There are plenty of things I don’t like -Nickelback, for instance, but I have never thought it appropriate to post in their concert event on Facebook expressing my hatred. I wouldn’t go up to them in person and yell in their face, so why do the same thing online?
When leaders of some of the biggest student societies on campus post in an event criticising feminism, or create a Facebook group for men to whinge about the Women’s Department, it means that women who see or hear about it won’t want to come to you with issues they are facing, be it related to gender or not. When male student leaders laugh at the barriers that women still face in society, and decide to actively hinder those who try and make real change, it undermines everything else you try and do for the betterment of students, and makes a joke out of you and your organisation.
I don’t understand why the dudebros from UWA who always post and comment on Women’s Department things have failed to ever initiate a genuine, adult conversation about feminism with me faceto-face, but never fail to attack our work online. That’s not to say that people aren’t welcome to their #freedom #liberty #18C #patriot opinion, but it will forever baffle me as to why so many straight white men think their opinion is the be-all and end-all on every issue, even those they have no direct experience with. I would never comment on a post about physics to argue about the validity of someone’s thesis, or tell a Muslim women that I know more about the Qu’ran than her, but for some reason this logic doesn’t follow for MRAs. Their comments range from the passing, “but where is the Men’s Officer?” to idiotic suggestions that women aren’t oppressed because they live longer on average, to the truly heinous cyber-bullying I have seen occur. When did society get to a point where we stand by and let men leave disgusting, threatening comments on pictures of women online? At what point did our society fail so badly to deal with the issue of violence and harassment towards women?
It’s probably about time for me to wrap up this article, partially because if I go on any longer my fellow Damsel Editors will be mad, and partially because if I drink anymore wine my thinly veiled references to people might not be so vague. I just have two pieces of advice to give: to men - don’t be arseholes, and realise when it’s time to listen and learn. To women - if your competition for jobs, grades, and positions are people like those mentioned above, then there is no reason for you to ever ever think you aren’t good enough.
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DEALING WITH #WHITEFEMINISM ONLINE, A SELF-CARE GUIDE FOR WOMEN OF COLOUR
ARTWORK BY MEGAN ANSELL
BY THANUSHAR SRIDARAN If you are a woman of colour involved in social justice circles online, it is likely you have encountered the #whitefeminist. The #whitefeminist prioritises the goals of able-bodied, cishet white women at the expense of other marginalised groups within the movement. They often engage in various intellectual gymnastics to excuse the racist, transphobic, ableist, classist behaviour of other #whitefeminists like Taylor Swift and Lena Dunham.
Think about this carefully. Is there something else you should be doing right now - like a household chore, that assignment - or is this your ‘chill-out’ time? We value our time differently, so I am not here to give you an arbitrary time limit. But if you have been engaging with this conversation on and off for the past day, it’s been too long. Put your phone away. Turn the internet off, turn your phone off if you have to. Make yourself a cup of tea.
To be clear, this article isn’t written for #whitefeminists, this isn’t a lesson in how to be more intersectional - there are a several Everyday Feminism articles for that. This article is for other women of colour, on how we can take care of ourselves when we encounter #whitefeminism in what we thought were ‘safe spaces’. Because I understand how betrayed you feel when women who are meant to stand in solidarity with you minimise the impact of racism. I understand how angry it can make you as for us racism is not an intellectual exercise; these are issues that affect our day to day lives. I understand how triggering and exhausting it can be, having to justify to these ‘feminists’ that white privilege affects women of colour as significantly as male privilege affects white women. There is also a distinct lack of discussion on women of colour and our mental health.
Watch some Orange is the New Black. Read a book. Actually get started on that assignment. Cuddle up with your furry friend. The key is to distract yourself. I know you think the conversation will linger in the back of your mind, and it will. It is hard, but every time your thoughts drift to it, remind yourself that you are doing something else for the moment. Giving yourself space from the conversation will help. You can return to it later. For next time, consider if you should give yourself a time limit before you start taking these steps. 3. How do you feel? No really, how do you feel? It is important to monitor our anxious and negative feelings before they spiral.
I am still learning how to care for myself in these interactions. But hopefully the next time you find yourself getting anxious interacting with a #whitefeminist, the following questions may help aid your health and wellbeing. 1. Have you talked to anyone? Seek out a fellow woman of colour or considerate ally to vent to. I found talking about my experience with someone who could relate made me feel validated and heard. It also made me feel more hopeful and can prevent the spiral into negativity. If you can’t find anyone to talk to at the moment, writing your feelings down can also be cathartic. 2. Have you been engaging in this conversation for so long it is affecting your daily life?
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Even if you have engaged with this #whitefeminist for five minutes but can feel yourself getting very anxious, you have been engaging for too long. Consider stepping away from the conversation.
are large and often diverse groups. I have learnt a lot from trans and queer people, disabled women, sex workers and women from low socioeconomic backgrounds sharing their experiences in these groups.
Remember, you are not obligated to relive your daily experiences of racism to educate anyone. No one’s education should come at the expense of your mental health.
I decided to take a break from a group I had been in for a long time. And it was one of the best decisions I made for my mental health. I felt lighter, calmer. I continued to follow various social justice blogs, twitter accounts and Facebook pages. I found I could still access marginalised voices if I sought them out. And I could do so without having to explain for the fifth time that week why Lena Dunham hasn’t done anything for me as a brown woman.
4. Now that you have had some space, think about this honestly; is continuing to engage with this person going to be productive? Sometimes the person we are talking to online is receptive and continuing the conversation will be educational. However, and I find this is difficult for us to admit at times, there may be times where the person cannot see past their privilege. Calling them out on their racism may have led to defensive feelings. Consider the benefits of continuing the conversation relative to the emotional toll it will take on you. Know when to disengage.
6. Have you sought safer spaces, online or otherwise, for women of colour? THEY EXIST. It is so liberating to be able to vent about your experiences of racism without having to explain it. It feels so easy being among a group of people who just get it.
Do not feel like the discussion was an exercise in futility. Even if the person has learned nothing (which is unlikely), there are others who may have witnessed the conversation and learnt something about racism.
I have also found these groups have allowed me to interact with a more diverse range of voices often excluded from larger ‘mainstream’ feminist groups, like trans people of colour and disabled women of colour. Like you, there are others seeking safer spaces and we are creating them for ourselves.
If you decide to continue engaging the person, consider if continuing the conversation in another method would be useful. I’ve found switching from comments on a post in a group to personal messages can make the interaction more meaningful.
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RECIPE BY DARCY NIDD
Lastly, you are not alone - there are so many women that stand with you. We care about you. You are valued. You are strong. To be effective activists, we must first take care of ourselves. Loving ourselves as women of colour in a society that tells us we are insignificant is a radical act in itself.
5. If this is a daily occurrence, are you benefitting from continuing to stay in this space? I’ve found myself staying in unsafe spaces longer that I should have, continuing to engage in discussions with #whitefeminists about racism at the expense of my mental health. Often I have stayed because these
BODY HAIR MAP BY CAILIN MOLINARI
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ARTWORK BY KATHERINE SWANN
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ARTWORK BY ASHLEIGH ANGUS
DAMSEL DRAWS
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CW: DISCUSSIONS OF BIPHOBIA AND ABUSE
ARE YOU GAY OR STRAIGHT? NO. BY CHLOE DURAND Bisexuality needs a new marketing team, because the current one is throwing bisexual (also those who identify as pansexual, or both) women under the bus. Bisexuality has bad press everywhere, and this fact is regularly codified by the media we consume. Bisexuality is seen as a form of dishonesty, of duplicity, of self-centred aggrandisement. Look no further than Orange Is The New Black, the ‘groundbreaking’ female dominated show of our day. Ostracised and hyper-sexualised by both our straight peers and erased, boxed in, and villainised as interlopers by our fellow queer so-called allies, is it any wonder that the term “biphobia” is gaining more and more traction in feminist and queer activist spaces?
sentiment is similar, but when the dialogue about oppression starts, people often take an almost numerical approach to phobia. If straightness is privilege and gayness is oppression and we are mistaken as halfway between the two, aren’t we only half as oppressed as gay people? No. Empirical studies of bisexual experiences in terms of mental and physical health, rates of abuse, homelessness, and life satisfaction all show that bisexual people may actually be faring worse than our monosexual gay and lesbian counterparts. However, all of these experiences are summarily swept under the rug in a culture that sees bisexuality as a phase, as attention seeking, as promiscuity, as voluntary. This means that not only do we suffer oppression, but we have less access to safe spaces. This is biphobia.
Bisexual activists are attempting to fight back but the fundamental misconceptions over what bisexuality actually is and its place in activist discourse seems to be blocking us at every turn. So let Aunty Chloe clear a few things up for you, because apparently no one else will.
Bisexuality is not a choice, and yes we can have preferences. Bisexual people do not have “straight passing privilege” if we are in relationships with the opposite sex. This is like implying that gay and lesbian people wouldn’t experience homophobia if they didn’t come out, if they didn’t hold hands with their partner in public. Being in these circumstances doesn’t erase the context of oppression. ‘Flying under the radar’ might help with today, but it doesn’t erase the yesterdays of queerphobic slurs from my parents, it doesn’t erase the tomorrows of mental health complications and constant self doubt. There is no such thing as straight passing privilege, just erasure and heteronormative assumptions nonconsensually applied to bisexual people.
Bisexuality is a term meaning that you are attracted to two or more genders. Yes, ‘bi’ seemingly implies two or binary, but words certainly undergo evolution and development. Just as asexual people don’t actually reproduce through asexual means, but rather just experience no/ very little sexual attraction. Just as pansexual people aren’t attracted specifically to either cookware or the the pagan god Pan. Bisexual people can potentially be attracted to men, women, non binary people, agender people, and a whole host of other genders. We are neither inherently binaristic or transphobic. We are not “half straight” or “half gay”. This is a nasty assumption that seeks to control who bisexual people, especially women, can assert their attraction towards. That being said, cis people: you do not get to claim allyship points towards trans people simply because you can experience attraction towards people who are trans. Cis people all benefit from cissexism, and dating someone who is trans doesn’t make you less culpable in systemic oppression. In fact, can we bin the idea that dating someone is a form of allyship altogether? Let’s be serious folk, most misogynists have girlfriends and wives.
Article after article on LGBTQIA+ issue seems really like LG and screw all the rest. In feminist spaces I hear about lesbophobia and how discussions on how to discuss allyship with your male partner, navigate birth control, and reproductive rights decenter from queer women. I am a queer woman and these topics are vital to my survival. As a bisexual woman of colour, I have to discuss allyship with male partners or risk elevated chances of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. As a queer woman, I need to learn about birth control and reproductive rights because my partners may be assigned male at birth, making pregnancy a risk, irrespective of their gender. Gay and straight are not your only options. Inclusion of lesbian and gay people is important, yes. But bisexual people are not sexual half ’n’halfs. We’re here. We’re queer as the day is long. We’re an important part of the conversation. Get used to it.
Bisexual people experience biphobia. Biphobia is as real and inescapable as homophobia, but with much less publicity and understanding. We often subsume ourselves into anti-homophobia campaigns because the
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CW: DISCUSSIONS OF RAPE
A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN BY GEORGIA OMAN
There was ninety seconds on the clock in the final term, and the Western Bulldogs were trailing the Melbourne Demons by four points. In front of a crowded Etihad Stadium, the Bulldogs full-forward was hoping for one last kick to take them over the line.
experiences of my life. Being a water girl, unbeknownst to me, turned out to entail lingering around the sidelines until a break in play allowed me to dash up to the players and offer them a well-earned drink from a water bottle with a fancy squirt nozzle. If it sounds easy, perhaps I need to emphasise exactly how fast moving and physical a game of footy actually is. ‘A break in play’ consisted of any miniscule window in which the ball was not in the general vicinity, however briefly, and therefore didn’t tend to last long. Each week, I endured four quarters of anxiety, living in mortal fear that I wasn’t going to get out of the way fast enough. A variety of scenarios swirled through my head as I wandered restlessly around the back pocket. In one, I got tangled up in a crucial game-winning play, causing the team to lose; in the other, I deserted my post and was responsible for the mass dehydration and death of the whole Piranhas side.
Then the siren sounded, a minute and a half early. Shattered, Moana Hope had no choice but to clear the field with her teammates. The women’s “exhibition game” had run over time, and the men’s teams were waiting to run on. The Demons had scraped over the line, and the question of women in the AFL had been forced into the spotlight once more.
Beyond revealing my own neuroses, the dangerous life of a water girl is indicative of the strength and skill that women AFL players bring to the game – the injuries list after the Melbourne/Bulldogs game included a concussion. Every week, 18 teams of 22 men are paid handsomely to run out into a packed stadium and put their bodies on the line. On the Monday after her team’s win, in which she herself was awarded Most Valuable Player, Melbourne women’s captain Daisy Pearce returned to work as a midwife at Box Hill Hospital in Melbourne, where her teammate Tiarna Ernst also works as an obstetrician. The average wage of an AFL player in 2015 is around $300,000 a season, a healthy figure that nonetheless doesn’t come close to the astronomical sums commanded by stars of the game like Gary Ablett Jr. and Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin, who in 2013 signed a nine-year contract with the Sydney Swans worth $10 million. At 26 years old, he was within the AFL’s ‘peak age’ range for players, which spans from 25-29. To make it on to a list, however, most players are drafted straight out of high school. As Anna Krien wrote in The Monthly in 2013, ‘although on the verge of adulthood, these footballers are about to enter a state of prolonged adolescence.’ Every November, a fleet of teenage boys are scrutinised, picked over and traded by clubs, with the lucky ones signed to contracts that pay them
The second exhibition match featuring women players in 2015, and the first to be broadcast live on network television, was hailed as an unqualified success by the AFL. Football journalists and online commentators crowed about the match out-rating that weekend’s clash between Adelaide and Essendon, and Chief Executive Gillon McLachlan stated the league’s belief in ‘an appetite for a national women’s competition’, hinting at the possibility of fielding six teams by 2017. ‘This is important because it’s the right thing to do,’ he said. ‘Women have always been involved in every aspect of football’. A deeper look into the nature and extent of this involvement, however, reveals a much more problematic relationship between women and Australia’s favourite game, as well as pointing to deeper disparities between the state of men’s and women’s sport in this country. When I was in high school, I fulfilled part of my community service requirement by volunteering as a water girl for a local women’s AFL club, the Claremont Piranhas. What I thought would be a relatively easy way to rack up service hours turned out to be one of the most terrifying
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far more than any of their friends are making, and which are dependent upon their staying injury-free and match-fit. At the Gold Coast Suns, the average player age is just 22 years old. Earlier this year, former midfielder Karmichael Hunt implicated twelve other teammates in illicit drug use, after himself being convicted on cocaine possession charges.
with high-profile rape and sexual assault cases, raises doubts about its efficacy. Over the same period, the Brownlow Medal has transformed from a low-key ceremony awarding the year’s Best and Fairest winner into an elaborate red-carpet bonanza at the Crown Casino. In an hourlong televised prelude to the medal count, D-list celebrities dissect the sartorial choices of the players’ wives and girlfriends (the dreaded acronym shall remain unsaid) before a critical audience at home, while best-and worst-dressed lists flood the blogosphere and hashtags trend on twitter. At the 2011 ceremony, attendees were even invited to take a spin on a 360-degree ‘fashion pod’ to make sure that not an angle of their ensemble would go unexamined, inviting unsettling comparisons to both an auction and a rotisserie. It seems we are only comfortable with women’s involvement in the AFL when it is contained within the length of the Brownlow Red Carpet; we are comfortable with headlines about women and AFL players when they are urging us to ‘Check out all the frocks and shocks from football’s night of nights’. The glare of TV lights, like those of the MCG, allows us to view our heroes as we see them in our minds, basking in the glow of adoration. Nobody wants to know what goes on in the dark.
Concerns about the questionable ‘culture’ of AFL clubs have become hackneyed through overuse, from Ben Cousins’ tailspin into drug and alcohol abuse at the Eagles to the latest drama at the Suns. In their disturbing regularity, the numerous incidents involving women have also lost their ability to shock a public curiously resigned to bad behaviour on the part of the athletes they idolise. Krien’s 2013 book Night Games follows the court case of a young footballer accused of rape in the aftermath of Collingwood’s 2010 Grand Final win, while last year rape charges were withdrawn against St Kilda’s Stephen Milne after a protracted legal battle stemming from an incident ten years earlier. He eventually pleaded guilty to a single charge of indecent assault and was ordered to pay a $15,000 fine. With incidents like this, it is easy to place the blame on an individual. While for some this responsibility lies with the player, corrupted by the heady lifestyle of professional sport, it is often, and far more alarmingly, the victim. All too frequently in these stories it is the women who are turned into predators, portrayed as trophy-hunting groupies on the prowl. After the 2010 rape allegations came to light, morning television host Kerri-Anne Kennerley spoke of players putting themselves in harm’s way by ‘picking up strays’. But when the issue stretches beyond the players – to Sam Newman and his numerous misogynistic gaffes on The Footy Show, or to player-agent Ricky Nixon and his involvement with the seventeen year-old ‘St Kilda Schoolgirl’ – the culture of the AFL as a whole must shoulder its share of the blame.
Initiatives like the Respect and Responsibility policy and the two women’s exhibition matches that have taken place this year are steps in the right direction on a very long road. Moana Hope, when interviewed by The Age, brushed off any disappointment about the early end to the game. ‘We go out there to win but we were so thankful the game was live on network television,’ she said, ‘so I can’t give any negative feedback on the game - it was an amazing experience.’ Despite Hope’s optimism, those missing ninety seconds hint at the distance that still needs to be traversed in the years to come. If the siren hadn’t sounded early, and the Bulldogs had snatched victory with a late goal, would they have linked arms in the locker room and sung the Western Bulldogs club song?
Since 2005, the AFL has had a ‘Respect and Responsibility’ policy in place, representing their ‘commitment to addressing violence against women and to work towards creating safe, supportive and inclusive environments for women and girls across the football industry as well as the broader community.’ Part of this involves player education, increasing understanding of how sexual assault, violence, and harassment can impact women’s lives, and providing practical information to help players understand ‘the meaning of consent’ and identify situations that have ‘the potential to go wrong’. While such initiatives are admirable, the fact that it has been in place for the last decade, a period studded
Sons of the West Red, white and blue We come out snarling Bulldogs through and through Bulldogs bite and bulldogs roar We give our very best But you can’t beat the boys.
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BOOK REVIEW: EVERY DAY WE NEED LESS GENDER LABELS BY PIA-MAREE FUCILE Oh no, here it is… Yet another book review that is going to scream at you about gender labelling!! Quick, turn the page now before your leg hair starts growing at three times the normal rate! So, not-so-recently I read David Levithan’s book “Every Day”, and it changed my perspective on life completely. A basic synopsis: “Every Day” is a love story about A, a teenager who wakes up every morning in a different body, living a different life, with no warning as to who or where it will be. On the whole, it is an extremely unique concept that is executed so well. The thing that I found most fascinating, however, is that A remains genderless throughout the whole novel. A is quite simply, a soul. And even with having a protagonist that is essentially indistinguishable by common norms, we are still able to connect with A on such a deep level.
ARTWORK BY EYLSIA GELAVIS
The main focus of this novel is love, the cornerstone being that people should fall in love solely with the inside of a person. It’s true, everyone
wants to believe that what’s on the outside doesn’t actually matter that much, but David Levithan handles this concept entirely realistically through A’s love interest, Rhiannon. Rhiannon is straight, and she gets to know A in several different bodies. However, when A is in the body of a girl, it affects how they interact. Never does the novel make Rhiannon out to be shallow, as it just accepts that that’s the way it would be. However, this anti-label novel can only do so much. Even as it opens us up to this entirely new perspective, subconsciously, the words “genderless, sexless, pansexual, nameless” are being thrown around inside our heads – we are labeling the lack of labels. Yet I don’t believe this is all doom and gloom. Slowly, through the perseverance of young, innovative minds, we can eradicate this obsession, not just with gender labels, but labels as a whole. The first step being you simply giving this magnificent book a read for yourself !
SEX, POLITICS, CULTURE, WITCHCRAFT: A REVIEW OF WOMEN’S INTEREST PLATFORM, BROADLY BY MELODY TABA and Kate Nash. All of the content I have come across so far is nothing but relevant and well-created, encompassing VICE’s tone on issues they never covered.
Quickest way to feel edgy? Read a VICE article. In the last few years, VICE media’s success has been astronomical, the male-driven company currently boasting a long list of spin-off channels of (almost) every area imaginable. A female-focused platform from the company has been long overdue and desperately necessary to offset a lot of VICE’s bro-culture. The answer? Broadly! Launched in August, this website and digital video channel is devoted to representing the multiplicity of women’s experiences. Broadly lives up to its name in all ways possible. The platform has a wide scope, and an especially wide scope of the issues of “broads” (defined by Urban Dictionary as a “word for a woman. Less respectable than lady but much more respectable than bitch.”) Unilever, who partake in their fair share of controversy and world domination, provide most of the funding for the channel headed by ex-Jezebel editor Tracie Egan Morrissey.
It is important to note that you cannot comment on any of the Broadly articles on their website. Whilst many media platforms allow and encourage comments to be made on their pieces, the Broadly website itself doesn’t have that feature, so comments on their work is restricted to Facebook/Twitter/YouTube. Is this because of the tirade of abuse and MRAs who troll the comment section of pretty much every femalecentric platform online? A quick check of the YouTube hate comments on Broadly’s one minute trailer confirms this. Few take aim at the content itself, as an overwhelming majority target the idea of women needing their own platform to distribute their stories (cue “where’s the men’s VICE channel?” comments). Broadly has the potential to become as ubiquitous as VICE media’s main platform, giving a voice to unique female content creators in a space that is (somewhat) safe from trolls and haters.
Broadly still retains much of VICE’s unfiltered reporting, prominent stoner culture, and idgaf attitude. The written side of the platform kicks off with the article “Why Satanists Are Fighting America’s Restrictive Abortion Laws”, a read as enticing as it sounds. The YouTube channel, whilst less developed at this stage, still maintains a diverse range of mini documentaries about reproductive rights and conversational interviews with celebs like Rose McGowan
Rating: 4.20/5 The Broadly YouTube description reads, “For women who know their place. Sex, politics, culture, witchcraft. Women’s news you thought would exist by now.” Check them out on: http://broadly.vice.com/
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LESBIREAL BY YELIZ KAYAALP
Let me preface this by saying patriarchal sentiments continue to linger in my mind. For example, I still find myself dressing for the male gaze (while at the same time insisting it is “for myself ”... where to draw the line, I don’t know). Because of these patriarchal sentiments and internalised heteronormativity, I am still, at times, uncomfortable labelling myself as a lesbian. Because the patriarchy, informed by cisnormativity, tells you, at the very least, these three things: • you ain’t worth shit without a dick in ya • had a dick in ya before???? well you’re obviously not gay • never had a dick in ya? well don’t knock it til ya try it!!!! So lesbians can’t win and our experiences and feelings are constantly being invalidated. But I digress. I will state this loudly and proudly every day until it is no longer uncomfortable for me. I love women exclusively (one woman specifically but I’ll try to refrain from writing an article about how awesome my girlfriend is), and I am a lesbian. This is my account of the sometimes amazing, and sometimes excruciating, but always necessary experience of being a lesbian within feminist circles....
discussion… but when it’s consistently revolving around these topics, it’s not fun. And to be honest, I don’t think it’s right. Catering towards dudes Instead of trying to make feminism palatable to cis men, instead of pointing out how wonderful your fabulous feminist boyfriend is, how about we make feminist spaces 100% supportive and inclusive of lesbians? We are women. Within feminist discourse, our voices should take priority over the voices of dudes. The importance of female friendships I LOVE female friendships. Most of my friends are female and the importance of female friendships cannot be overstated. HOWEVER, this importance is so often affirmed as the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER by straight feminists, and they never seem to acknowledge that romantic relationships between women exist and they’re fucking important. They’re straight up rejecting any notion that men have any power over us.
Certain throwaway comments… There are a few throwaway comments I often see straight feminists make, and it’s funny to see the parallel between those comments and the behaviour of sexist men. We can agree that “no homo” is a ridiculous sentiment, conjured up by straight cis men in order to protect their fragile masculinity. What I find perplexing is the similarity of straight girls referring to their “girl crushes”. Because it’s not a REAL crush if it’s on a girl. I cannot put enough emphasis on how invalidating these passing comments are to lesbians.
I don’t think I need to add a disclaimer to this – you know, that I have SOOO many straight feminist friends who are WONDERFUL and UNPROBLEMATIC (disclaimer to my not-disclaimer: I am not being disingenuous when I say that, it’s true). But this alienation, lesbophobia and sapphobia within feminist circles does exist, and it needs to be addressed. Mostly, I want Straight Feminists™ to acknowledge that sexuality based privilege exists and intersectionality is one of the key aspects of feminism. Claiming that “women’s oppression” is a singular thing ignores the issues that non-white, non-cis, non-hetero women face – it prioritises heterosexual women. Please, please don’t silence lesbian voices, and please don’t alienate them by constantly placing your hetero issues at the centre of the discourse. This movement is about respecting all women, and the differences in our experiences with oppression. If you’re silencing lesbians (e.g. through those four points I’ve talked about above), you’re not doing feminism right.
Discourse centred on the lives of straight feminists Look. Hetero sex, hetero relationships… I mean, these topics are all pretty central to feminism. But it is SO, SO alienating to constantly be surrounded by this… hetero-centrism. So much of feminist discourse is catered towards straight feminists and their relationships with men. Too often, the Straight Feminist™ makes the centre of their activism their sex life. They say there’s no ~right way~ to have a feminist
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IMPORTANT RESOURCES UWA Student Guild Student Assist Student Assist Officers provide information and assistance on a wide range of issues relating to students’ academic, welfare and financial needs, including: academic appeals, special consideration, sexual harassment, counselling, and Centerlink help. Email: assist@guild.uwa.edu.au Website: uwastiudentguild.com/support
UWA Medical Centre The centre provides a full range of GP services, most of which can be bulk billed, including: consultations, contraceptive advice, vaccinations, STI and blood tests. Phone: (08) 6488 2118 Website: student.uwa.edu.au/life/health/medical-centre UWA Counselling and Psychological Services UWA offers Counselling and Psychological Services free of charge to students, including: individual counselling, resources, and self-help modules. Phone: (08) 6488 2423 Website: student.uwa.edu.au/life/health/counselling
UWA Student Guild Women’s Department The UWA Women’s Department works to minimise women’s disadvantage at University, and promote a safer and more inclusive campus for women. The department runs social, creative and informative events and coordinates campaigns on issues that affect women. Email: womens@guild.uwa.edu.au Facebook: fb.com/UWAGuildWomens
Headspace Free youth health service for counselling and issues covering mental health, physical health, work and study support and alcohol and other drug services. Website: headspace.org.au Locations: Albany, Armadale, Broome, Bunbury, Fremantle, Joondalup
UWA Women’s Room The room is a safe space for women-identifying students only and is always open. It’s stocked with tea, coffee, magazines, contraception, information pamphlets, and a microwave. Come in to nap, study or paint on the chalkboard wall! Location: 2nd Floor, Guild Hall (Entry via lift in Guild Village or stairs in Ref Courtyard)
Freedom Centre Freedom Centre helps young people support each other and their communities to be informed, happy and healthy about their sexuality, sex and gender. Our drop-in centre is a safe space to hang out, have fun, and meet other LGBTIQ+ young people Phone: (08) 9482 0000 Website: freedom.org.au
UWA Student Guild Queer Department QD provides support, advice, and fun for LGBTIQ+ students at UWA, runs regular social activities, and aims to promote the visibility of LGBTIQ+ students. Email: queer@guild.uwa.edu.au Facebook: fb.com/UWAStudentGuildQD Location: 2nd Floor, Guild Hall
Lifeline Free 24-hour crisis support and suicide prevention helpline, via phone and online chat service. Phone: 13 11 14 Website: lifeline.org.au
UWA Childcare Services UWA provides an Early Learning Centre that offers part-time and fulltime care to children aged six weeks to five years, and an Out of School Care Centre that provides after school care and vacation care for under 13-year-olds. Website: childcare.uwa.edu.au
Women’s Council for Domestic and Family Violence Services Advocates on domestic and family violence issues and provides information on available services. Phone: (08) 9420 7264 Website: womenscouncil.com.au
UWA Security UWA Security provides an after-hours escort to car parks, colleges and accommodation adjacent to the University. Non-Emergency Phone: (08) 6488 3020 Emergency Phone: (08) 6488 2222 The Guild also created the ‘UWA at Night’ map to assist students with feeling safe on campus at night through an interactive map. Website: uwastudentguild.com/uwa-at-night
Quarry Health Centre Specialised sexual health service for young people under 25 years, offering clinical, counselling, and education services. Phone: (08) 9227 1444 Website: quaryhealthcentre.org.au
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THIS IS AN ANNUAL PUBLICATION OF THE UWA STUDENT GUILD WOMEN’S DEPARTMENT