Pelican Edition 7 Volume 84 by UWA Student Guild

PELICAN

Girls Ed. 7 Vol. 84

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Picture by Ashleigh Gould

CONTENTS

REGULARS

GIRLS

SECTIONS

contributors

10 know yr femme!

23 politics

editorials

12 pms

26 film

whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s up

14 rape

31 arts

advice corner

16 pap smear

36 music

misc

17 dr. no way

39 culture

18 gay 4 pay

43 books

46 tits

19 transmisogyny 20 funny girls

CONTRIBUTORS EDITORS Marnie Allen Alex Griffin ADVERTISING Alex Pond DESIGN Kate Hoolahan SECTION EDITORS Books- Zoe Kilbourn Culture- Simon Donnes Politics- Richard Ferguson Music- Connor Weightman Arts- Kat Gillespie Film- Wade McCagh SUBEDITORS Simon Donnes Richard Ferguson Kat Gillespie Kate Prendergast Wade McCagh CONTRIBUTORS (* words ^ images) Marnie Allen*^ Lucy Ballantyne* Caz Bank* Kevin Chiat* William Dixon* Lidia Dokuchaeva* Simon Donnes* Richard Ferguson* Ayeesha Fredericksen*^ Kat Gillespie* Alex Griffin*^ Brad Griffin*

VOTE FOR KONY

Parveen Gupta* Zoe Kilbourn* Akima Lateef^ Paul Lindsay* Wade McCagh* Greta McEwan* Cameron Moyses* James Munt* Charlotte Newton* Eunice Ong* Kate Prendergast*^ Jordan Rossiter* Jacob Rutherford* Anna Saxon* Melissa Scott* Elisa Thompson* Natalie Thompson^ Camden Dyfrig Watts^ Kenneth Woo* Connor Weightman* Daniel Werndly* Lauren Wiszniewski*^ Natasha Woodcock* Afira Zulkifli*

Comments? Thoughts? Criticism? Handjobs? Send them all to pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au, or visit our office on the first floor of the guild building on campus. We are no longer infected!

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed within are not the views of the UWA Student Guild of the Pelican editorial staff. Have you ever had sex with a pharaoh?

For advertising enquiries, contact alex.pond@guild.uwa.edu.au

COVER ART Alex Griffin

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PREZITORIAL Hey everyone

So I believe the theme of this Pelican is ‘girls’… The first thing which comes to mind when I think of girls is how lucky I am to have such a supportive girlfriend. Despite my terrible lack of work life balance she is always incredibly supportive and I love her a lot. So if you’re reading this Kelly, thanks for making me both a happier and better person. In keeping with my lack of work-life balance I can’t really help raise an important issue. In 2013, any inequality or discrimination on the basis of gender is completely unacceptable. However, the average pay gap between male and female university graduates more than doubled last year from $2000 to $5000. A report from the ACTU shows that men who have a university degree and children can expect to earn around $3.3m in their life, while women in the same circumstance can expect to earn only $1.8. This is one of the many reasons why the Guild Women’s Department is an incredibly important part of what we do at the Guild. 2013 Women’s Officer Sophie Liley’s “Axe the Tampon Tax” campaign is a great example of student activism raising issues on a national level. With Bec Doyle already announced as next year’s Women’s Officer, I am confident that you will see a run of great initiatives coming out of the Women’s Office. Please don’t ever hesitate to contact the Guild Women’s Department at womens@guild.uwa.edu.au Cheers, Cam

MARNITORIAL From the minute I was born, my being a girl was celebrated. There were four boys before me and it was like my family had some kind of pink frustration that needed to be unleashed upon me. Not that I complained. I freaking LOVED that pink shit. Barbies, tutus, polly pockets, glitter. Omg. But after a little while I started to resent my role as beacon of all that is feminine. My brothers were outside having water balloon fights or playing british bulldogs (more like Yoho Diablo and Magic the Gathering, am I right guys?) and because I was the fairer, weaker sex (also prone to cray-cray tantrums) I was often left out of the ‘roughhousing’. There were so many times to follow that I wished I were born a boy. And that’s what I think remains the biggest issue with gender. Anyone who isn’t a white heterosexual male is likely to, at some point in their lives, wish they were. It doesn’t mean that they are not proud of their culture, sexual orientation, ethnicity or gender. It’s simply about inequality. We are undeniably a lucky country, but we have just elected a Prime Minister who has consistently demonstrated a prejudice towards women and homosexuals among others. Feminism is not over. Gender issues are of prime importance in this political, social and cultural climate. I have never been prouder of a group of people as the Pelican contributors in their bold, critical and witty discussions of gender and all its surrounding issues in this edition. Love your work. Ps Hi Mum! MARNOSSS

GRIFFITORIAL

In an absolutely bangin’ essay, Virginia Woolf wrote that a woman needs two things to write: money, so that she need not be beholden to anyone else, and a room of one’s own in which to write, secluded from a world that is quick to judge and quicker to squash a woman seeking to carve out a world through thought. She was right about those two things, but there’s a lot more to the picture. What really helps is a world that is ready to give a damn about women, unequivocally, forever. It’s dispiriting to think about girls today who might be discouraged in any way by a Prime Minister who urged people to vote on him based on the appearance of his daughters; heck, if he deemed them ugly, would he have encouraged us to vote the other way? There are positive examples out there (Time has a female editor, the entire Miles Franklin shortlist for 2013 is female, and women are all over the Pulitzer finalists), and while it can feel pretty token to just rattle off awards and positions as a sign of improvement, but when you look at the absence of women in other, more popular culture-centric fields (every triple j list ever, the bloody Stereosonic lineup), it shows how much distance there’s yet to be covered. It’s not worth just raging about, though, because the only way to change stuff is to do your groove thang and do it loudly and weirdly and just be a human slingshot, cos basically no matter who y’all are, or whatever it is you think, the rewards of sitting down and writing or singing or acting or jumping what your thoughts are will always be exponentially rewarding; when it comes to figuring out who and what you are, there’s not much to top it, and there’s nothing to beat it when it comes to showing the world what you can do. There’s always someone who wants to know about it. Hell yeah everybody, Griff

WHAT’S UP ON CAMPUS UWA PHOTOGRAPHY CLUB: ANNUAL PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION The UWA Photography Club is having a photography competition this semester. The two briefs will be “phonecamera” photos and an open brief with the theme of “emotion”. The prizes are a $100 voucher for Camera Electronics, a $140 canvas print from University Cameras, and a viewer’s choice prize. You will be given the chance to have your photos displayed on the exhibition/ awards night. The closing date for entries will be Friday 11th of October and the exhibition night will be at 5PM on the Thursday the 17th of October. MORE INFO: https://www.facebook.com/ events/177362429110741/ CONTACT: uwaphotoclub@gmail.com

UWA LINGUIST SOCIETY How do children acquire language? Do men and women speak differently? What’s global English? How does Siri work? If you’re curious about language, the UWA Linguistics Society is for you. After years of hibernation the club has woken up with a bang! You can look forward to a screening of The Linguists and keep yourself posted on news and events at our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ uwalinguisticssociety Join us on Tuesdays at 1pm as we explore the science of speech, marvel at the wonders of language and unleash our creativity through language-based projects around campus! We’d love to speak to other language-lovers AUST

AMNESTY UWA Are you interested in the protection of human rights and want to get involved in the cause? Amnesty International is a global movement of over three million people who work on a wide range of issues, from the rights of refugees to those of women in Afghanistan. We meet at Reid Lawn (Reid Café if raining or lawn wet) from 1-2pm on the second Tuesday of every month during semester, so come along to a meeting or keep your eyes peeled for our letter writing and film screening events this semester! Email amnesty.uwa@gmail.com or find us athttps://www.facebook.com/ groups/137432046437202 ENGINEERS WITHOUT BORDERS Engineers Without Borders is accepting new members now! All members are welcome regardless of the degree they’re studying. Go to www.ewb.org.au/uwa to find out more!

Why not go on a volunteer exchange overseas? Be the change in your world, step out of your comfort zone and volunteer abroad! Create an impact, travel, experience new countries, new cultures and of course taste new foods! AIESEC is present in over 100 different countries, come down to one of our Information sessions on: Tuesday 24th September 1PM in Soc Sciences G207 or Tuesday 8th October 1PM in Soc Sciences G207 to find out more!! You can apply now at: http://tinyurl.com/goglobalwithaiesec or visit our Website/Facebook page for more information: www.aiesecuwa.org // www. facebook.com/aiesecuwa

SAVE THE CHILDREN

EMAS UWA TO ALL PUMPERS OF FISTS: The Electronic Music Appreciation Society is holding a rather large foam party on Oak Lawn on Friday the 20th of September. A thousand partiers, a festival setup, a mainstage and silent disco, foam party dancefloor, student priced drinks. Be responsible n shit. Type EMAS pres. Ibiza 2013 into your facebook search bar for more details, or search EMAS UWA. See you in Ibiza!

AIESEC

Students interested in Australia’s growing economic, political and cultural relationship with China: the Australia-China Youth Association is Australia’s premiere organisation for young people interested in AustraliaChina relations, and we have a thriving community of members here at UWA. A great way to meet some of the people in the organisation is to attend our weekly Tea and Talk on Wednesdays at 4pm in G201 in Social Sciences- come along to practice your Mandarin or English, learn a bit more about a foreign country, and hopefully make some new mates. Our members are very chilled people with very interesting things to say. Hope to see you there!” VANITY FAIR BREAST CANCER CARE WA EVENT Desire the wardrobe of a fashionista but have the budget of uni student? Look no further than Hackett Hall on Sunday November 3 when Breast Cancer Care WA bring their annual Vanity Fair event to its’ new home at UWA. The new and pre-loved designer clothing and accessory sale kicks off at 9am and has something for every style and budget. Pop-up boutique featuring some of WA’s best designers, stylists to help you turn drab to fab, great prizes and fantastic women’s and men’s clothing and accessories. Best of all, 100% of proceeds go to Breast Cancer Care WA. Guilt free shopping? See you there! Entry: $4, 9am-4pm

Save the Children UWA Branch started off from humble beginnings when a young aspiring fresher by the name of Michelle Bui (Now our Vice President!), asked her friends if they would be keen to start up a university club based on the well-known charity Save the Children back in 2011. Just two years on, our club has been growing steadily and now supports the highly successful book sale held yearly in Winthrop hall. Our committee thrives on the smiles and friendly faces that we are involved with each meeting and aims to gain more exposure towards the future! SHELL CLEAN ENERGY ESSAY PRIZE Shell is challenging students to help find future energy solutions. Submit a 1,000 word essay answering the question: “Where should the world get its future energy from?” Winners will be invited to present their paper and participate in a debate at Shell’s Global Energy Forum and receive a $1500 gift card. Entries open 9 September. Learn more: www. shell.com.au/globalenergyforum

PELICAN ADVICE CORNER

Dear Emily, My boyfriend plays footy for Nedlands on the weekend and I’m really worried that he’ll get his pretty faced ruined out there. It’s bad enough that his team has to play against Morley, but now Acacia Prison have a team in his league. Am I worrying too much? Gareth, Peppermint Grove Those that take upon the fieldto Play at Run and ThrowDo take the Hearts of those who watchFor Sport is Knowing’s FoePray – yes Pray! – for Safety full And Bone and Flesh as trueMen live in thoughtless ecstasyThe Debt is left to youIf the hand of Danger now Might hesitate for thee Morn will Shine - as if RegretWere just a Memory But Those who Toil Brawn aloneAre Firmament to FinDull - Flat of Interest! Lest he Knows to Stick it InDear Emily, So, I crashed my Mum’s boat when I was joyriding it. She gets back from Canberra next week. There are lawyers calling me. The police keep visiting. What do I do? Emilio, Applecross Upon that GlimmerObject and AbsoluteTo go a Sail- the Beauty! You Prick- you Stupid PrickGin-Headed FoolJustGod! Dear Emily, How do I know I’m in love? He fingerbanged

me at Varsity but he hasn’t called yet! I am pretty sure I gave him my number. Confused, University Hall To To To To To To To To

Know- A Flicker mid-DistanceSee- a quiver of BlueKeep- a Manacle Dangl-edTouch- a hand RenewedLike- a Deep InhaleShare- a Fortune MetHave- a Heavy BucketLove- Alack! I Forget-

Well. Three! The Flowers of the Earth- Hurrah! Seemly waving at the Breeze- Hurrah! As Corn grows- and we’ve Eagerly Our share of SeedsHurrah- for Trinity! Join, like Me-

Hey Em, What’s with all the people obsessing over the nineties and stuff from their childhood? If I see one more Pokemon backpack I’m gonna burn it. It’s so pretentious.

But- a Finger- Heavensent! The Rest is But a Breath-

Ben 2013

Dear Emily, I think I’m spending too much on Facebook, but I’m worried people will forget about me if I go offline. Should I give the thing up?

Have you- Ever Felt Like thisWhen these Things Happen- that you Are Going Round the Twist-

Jess, twitter.com/jess92gurl From my window I viewInfinite AsphodelA Sight so Clear and PureHorror- Digital Pixel! Captive to our Intrigues And our Devices- Fain Is said the mind that Can Discern such Connecting as VainOur time is but a BellThat once is only rungMay your doubting move you Before that note is sungDear Emily, My girlfriend really wants us to have a threesome with her best guy friend and I am not really keen on it. I didn’t think it would be such a big thing to say no to because I’m not into it, but I’m starting to worry she’ll think I’m lame and dump me if I don’t get in on the whole free love thing. What should I do? Sanjeev, Not-into-that-kind-of-thing

Hey Em, I have a girlfriend, and I really think she’s great and everything, but she doesn’t want to go to bed until we’re married. I am gnawing my foot off. Nothing makes sense to me anymore. Job I was Plucked up from Birth-Broomswept!Into the Arms of GodHe let me walk behind HimHe pushed me e’er forwardIf you’d not- AverseTo the Ring- You’d Ought put and Glide It on the ThingTrue’d! Put a Ring on It. And may the Church Watch- as your Love Assumes her Kneeling For her lord Above-

Picture by Marnie Allen

Answering the questions of Pelican readers this time around is Emily Dickinson, the renowned 19th century poet and hermit. In her own words, she’s “small, like the wren, and my hair is bold, like the chestnut burr, and my eyes like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.” Sure! Take it away, Emily.

Three-cornered, his Hat as He Rose to Meet. Parchingly, my Forehead Came to Rest! Weary, which is it? He had me Fluttered. I baked his Bread! Would I’ve instead, I! And she who Mended! I’d, shall I? I’d! Fluttered, I’m. PositivelyMy rhyme, it Slips- My!

ARE YOU BENEFIT ZONED? by Melissa Scott Can you tell the difference between friends, benefits and a relationship? Obviously you can’t so fill in the quiz below and find out what your predicament is. WARNING: may reveal an unwanted reality 1. What do you call each other? A) Our names – duh B) Sugarbun, sex god, babydoll, sweetcheeks, babe C) Gorgeous, love, snowflake 2. When you look at this guy, what do you think first? A) He should seriously get a haircut B) Damn he looks fine; my panties are hittin’ the floor tonight! C) You don’t think, you’re thoughts are lost in his ocean blue eyes 3. When a hot girl walks past he: A) Checks that fine piece of ass out, wolf whistles and tells you to get a rack like dat B) Stares into your eyes - if he looks hard enough he’ll see her in the reflection of your eyeball

C) He doesn’t even flinch as he gazes at you; you are checking her out more than he is 4. What do you think he would do, if you were arrested? A) Say sorry - He is the reason you were both arrested B) Tell you to stop over re-acting when you call him up crying C) Bail you out and stroke your hair like a kitten 5. Do you take extra care to look good around him? A) No – I rock up in my flanno, stained underwear and un-brushed teeth B) Yes – all out. Fake eyelashes, spray tan, waxed legs, lips, eyebrows, manicure, lipstick C) I try but he insists I look better all-nat-u-ral 6. How do you feel when you are apart from him? A) Who, sorry? B) Horny C) Lonely and incompetent 7. After sex: A) We haven’t even made it past first base…

B) Attempt awkward cuddles and then get the fuck out of there C) You cuddle and don’t fall asleep because ALAS! Reality is finally better than your dreams – naww Mostly A’s - I think it’s safe to say you guys make for comfortable feral friendship, one consisting of sharing everything from what you ate for breakfast to what colour your pee was three hours later. Keep your relationship with him as just friends or things could get pretty weird fast. Mostly B’s - I hate to break it to you but you have been benefit zoned. If you think you want more from this guy then think again because your relationship is clearly based on lust. Lesbehonest you have already filled his void of loneliness with sex and he ain’t filling your void with anything but his penis. Mostly C’s - You may just in fact be the lucky 2% of the female population to have found a worthwhile guy. Hold on to him, sweetheart; girls will kill for that kind of companionship. Literally.

A GIRL’S GUIDE TO GUYS YOU SHOULD AVOID EYE CONTACT WITH by Charlotte Newton Having accumulated an entire lifetime’s worth of collective knowledge about those humans with the dangly things between their legs within the short time span of nineteen years, I can happily proclaim that certain types of guys should be avoided when searching for a life-long soul-mate guy to bang. • •

• • •

•

guys who already have girlfriends deeply religious guys; I think the whole anti-wanking stance would make them hyperfertile and me consequently superpregnant Christchurch guys – any and all Christchurch guys are just fucking weird guys who smoke durries (they taste gross) guys with mullets, rat tails, or dreadlocks; not attracted to guys who have hair that is dirty and/or longer than mine any guy whose kissing technique on a crowded sweaty club dance floor is as follows: kissing, 10 seconds of more kissing, FINGER BANG

•

• •

•

• •

any guy you will ever see again in your natural born life cos you just know there’ll be cringe-worthy awkward stories abounding if he survives the process and who needs that ladsy guys who describe themselves as a ‘ladsy guy’ (they almost certainly have small dicks) any guy you met on any website that is on the internet guys who were abandoned by their dads as children- who’s got time to deal with other people’s emotional baggage? Make like a Pay Pass bank card; tap and go ;) guys who have worked as a prostitute, drug dealer or lawyer, because what would you tell your parents? (if your parents are the first people you call when you finally manage to get laid) blonde South African guys. Accent is totally babin’ but they’re all incredibly sexist guys who genuinely believe that social status and expensive material possessions have an aphrodisiac effect (I know that BMW you brag about driving is your mum’s hand-me-down. And it’s from the eighties too, dipshit)

• •

• • •

any guy who is less than a 6 and a quarter on the Objective Physical Attractiveness Scale those guys who really seem to enjoy dressing in drag/women’s clothing at dress-up parties just a *little* too much any player for the NRL or AFL (gangbang warning) guys who are related to you by blood and finally: certain 5’11”, gorgeously blue-eyed professional soccer players who are here in Perth to play from Britain. Seriously, fuck you

Guys you should have sex with: • any guy you met at a festival who drunkenly declares he ‘would let you sit on [his] face for hours’ (at least there’s no lockjaw-inducing twenty minute blowjobs that you have to perform! • guys who are considerate, thoughtful and genuinely listen to your opinion (ha gay!) • guys who won’t attempt to kiss you when you are having a three-hour long conversation on a balmy Australia Day evening • my friend Danny: he’s tall, tanned, lifts and has his own car

FEMINISMS by Lucy Ballantyne

Liberal Feminism Liberal in the liberalism/political/institutional sense, liberal feminism is ‘traditional’ feminism, practiced by first and second wave feminists. It encompasses the idea that the roots of women’s oppression are in the customary and institutional constraints placed against them to prevent their entry into the public sphere. Equally, that women’s subordination can be undone merely by removing these constraints (how novel). Think old school issues of female suffrage, and contemporary debates around equal pay and women in the academy/ boardroom/literally anywhere. Key thinkers: Mary Wollstonecraft, Betty Freidan and the whole women’s suffrage movement. To my sister suffragettes, I do sing in grateful chorus. I really, really do. Radical Feminism After the second wave, a good deal of feminist scholarship emerged in reaction to traditional liberal feminism. Radical feminists acknowledged the limitations of earlier conceptions of women’s subordination as merely institutional. Rather than understanding

their role in women’s liberation as reformist, radical feminists saw themselves as revolutionaries. It was within the bounds of radical feminism that women first became ‘sisters’, the personal became the political, and women’s liberation became about not only dismantling patriarchal institutions, but also men’s control over immaterial things that belonged to women: their self-respect, selfworth and self-esteem. And this was forty years ago! I hope to never see another fucking Dove commercial in my life. Key thinkers: Adrienne Rich, Kate Millett, and if you’re still feeling it after that, Mary Daly, champion of the lesbian separatist movement. Not for the faint of heart, or humour.

another fucking Dove commercial Marxist/Socialist Feminism Classical Marxist feminism tries to use class analysis rather than gender analysis to explain women’s oppression. As the theory evolved and Communist societies came and went without changing women’s work situations, socialist feminism emerged with attempts to see how capitalism and patriarchy were allied. The word ‘Marxism’ seems enough to make the average UWA student recoil in horror, but Marxist and socialist feminisms have been crucial to feminist thinking across history. Key thinkers: Alison Jaggar is probably the most famous, but it was reading Iris Marion Young’s thesis on men as the ‘primary’ and women as the ‘secondary’ workforce that warranted squeals in the middle of the Reid Library.

for two different accounts on what a feminine ‘ethics of care’ might mean in relation to morality, then Sara Ruddick and Virginia Held for what care-focused feminism means for maternity. Ecofeminism Ecofeminists acknowledge an intrinsic link between the oppression of women and ‘oppression’ of the environment. Ecofeminism emerged out of ideas of social ecology, only to be co-opted by a minority of ‘spiritual ecofeminists’ who used it as a framework for ‘earth-based spirituality’ and talking a lot about ‘interconnection’ and their wombs, or something. As a result, ecofeminism kind of ended up becoming the butt of feminist jokes. This breaks my heart. Ecofeminism has so much to offer feminist thought, particularly in debunking the logic of domination that justifies subordination of both women and the environment. Consider the gendered way in which we talk about the planet (e.g. Mother Earth) and it is not so hard to conceptualise a connection between the subordination of women and the systematic destruction of our environment. Key thinkers: Starhawk, full-time spiritual ecofeminist and part-time Wiccan priestess, is completely ridiculous but good for a laugh. If you want to get serious, consider Simone de Beauvoir’s commentary on the women/nature connection, and then Val Plumwood’s rejection of it.

Care-Focused Feminism Care-focused feminism is interested in exploring why women and the feminine are typically associated with emotion, nature and the body and men/the masculine with reason, intellect and the mind. Care-focused feminists consider women’s capacity for ‘care’ as their strength, rather than their weakness. As Simone de Beauvoir famously said, ‘patience is one of those “feminine” qualities which have their origins in our oppression but which should be preserved after our liberation’. Care-focused feminists are interested in establishing a feminine ‘ethics of care’ to operate alongside, or perhaps even replace traditional ethics of justice. Key thinkers: Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings

While the regular trawl of “Feminism is over already” and “What about *Other Social Issues totally unrelated to the discussion*, the best myth going around the Internet is that “Feminism is Un-Asian”.

Picture by Marnie Allen

It is my personal belief that any person who feels the need to preface a statement with ‘I’m not a feminist, but…’ is exponentially more likely to possess decidedly feminist traits and values than any person not in complete denial. In December of 2012 at the Billboard Women in Music Event, after being named ‘Woman of the Year’, Katy Perry ruffled feminist feathers when she declared ‘I’m not a feminist, but I believe in the power of women’. Guess what K Pez? Probs a big, fat feminist then. Sorry. I know feminists are a drag. Loudly and constantly fighting for the equality of all peoples; downright refusing to be complicit in the regime that oppresses them; Madonna’s arms. Feminists are some crazy bitches, right? I am not so sure. Being a feminist is not all crazed lesbian bra-burning feminazis like THE MAN would have you believe. Opening your mind to feminist thought reveals a world of scholarship that encompasses about a million different ideas about what feminism is, what its goals are, whom it concerns, and the list goes on. Feminism is about a multiplicity of traditions, ideas and theories offering diverse explanations for the subordination of women throughout history and to this day. Each strand of feminist thought has both its illuminations and its limitations, but the point is that you can make it work for you. Even that girl-kissing, teenage dreaming, closeted misogynist Ms Perry could find something she liked. Sorry Katy.

THE FATTY WEIGHS THE OPTIONS by Parveen Gupta Alright; let me start off by saying, where I come from (Singapore, for anyone wondering), I had always been considered fat. I know because friends told me to my face (what great friends). I stand at 155cm, and while that doesn’t exactly liken me to Goliath, I do not actually suffer from dwarfism. At my heaviest, I weighed in at 62 kilograms. I’m currently at about 53 kilos after working out and trying to eat sort of clean, with a healthy mindset (Ed- yeah! Positivity!). Yet, the fact that I’ve been worrying so much about this shows how society can be pretty screwed when it comes to beauty expectations and labels that are placed on people, and it’s not just women suffering; I choose not to overlook the fact that even males are subject to some ridiculous standard such as the ‘V’. According to the National Eating Disorders Collaboration, eating disorders affect approximately 9% of the Australian population. To add to that, one in every five females may have undiagnosed eating disorders. As someone who has been through seven years of yo-yo dieting and every other stupid weight loss fad before finally appreciating and learning to unconditionally love myself, it worries me when social networking sites act as a platform for the advertisement of unhealthy attitudes. Therefore, here are my two cents worth on an image that has recently surfaced, and much like Kim Kardashian, gained both fame, and infamy. The image has a caption that reads “Don’t give up on perfection”, with four images with their very own sub-captions. Do you want hipbones or a pizza? The first image displays a female’s protruding hip bones and lacy black underwear with the sub-caption “Do you want hipbones or a pizza”? Sista’, you best believe I’d choose pizza over hipbones, especially on cheap Tuesdays! Fact: missing out on one pizza isn’t actually going to magically give you hipbones. Similarly, one pizza is not going to turn you into fat Hulk (the Hulk with fat instead of muscles). Besides, have you even tasted pizza? The melted mozzarella, amazing chunks of chicken (or whatever else) and mmm, all that greasy greatness! Yeah, pizza over hipbones any day, because we’ve all already got hipbones, some of ours are just better at hide-and-seek than others’.

Second image: Thigh gap or cake? Pfffftttttt, the ridiculously trivial thigh gap has recently gained even more attention than Amanda Bynes would like for herself, with thigh gap tips and images surfacing all over Tumblr and Facebook. Firstly, it actually is physically impossible for some women to ever attain thigh gaps regardless of the amount of time spent dieting or exercising due to the simple fact that thigh gaps are dependent on an individual’s skeletal structure rather than body fat percentage. Secondly, THIGH GAPS SHOULD NOT EVER BE A MEASURE OF BEAUTY OR SELF WORTH. Beyonce takes the cake for being one of the sexiest women in the world, and she ain’t got no thigh gap, so what are you on about having to have a thigh gap to be beautiful?! Seriously though, you can have your cake and eat it too, or you can choose not to if it suits you, but girls, there is no need to deprive yourselves of a little piece of heaven over a little space between your legs

You is smart

when there are other things that you could be worrying about- like what flavour of cake to actually have. Third and fourth images: Collarbones or sweets? A flat stomach or soda? Okay, I’d be a hypocrite if I said I’d pick sweets or soda because I’ve recently stopped drinking soda, and sweets were never really my thing- I’m more of a pastry and chocolate person. This was more of a health related choice rather than a choice that I made in order to secure a flat stomach. However, that is not to say that I’d pick collarbones

or a flat stomach over sweets or soda. For me, neither win here. That being said, as with every other food, sweets and soda will not kill if consumed in moderation, unless poisoned. Most of us already know this, like, oh my God, can this girl stop stating the obvious? BUT, some impressionable young ones may just need one person to reassure them that no food is actually dangerous (again, unless they’re poisonous mushrooms or berries or whatever), and I would like to be that person. Dear girls AND boys, let me tell you something: Your worth is not and should not be measured based on your physical appearance. Forget the ‘V’, the hip bones, the thigh gap, the collarbones and the flat stomach. Just take a second to appreciate the fact that you are alive, and that you are living in this crazy, curious world. As said in The Help, “You is smart, you is kind, you is important.” You are all beautiful regardless of the number on the scale, so do whatever the hell makes you happy. You go ahead and eat as many pizzas as you can afford on a student budget if you like as you allow society’s unrealistic standards to crumble within your mind, whether newly freed or not.

Approximately 15% of women experience an eating disorder at some point during their life. The average duration of anorexia is 7 years, and those who do manage to recover are unlikely to return to normal health. If you’re struggling with positive self image, call the Eating Disorder Helpline on 1300 550 236.

WOMEN’S EMOTIONS by Afira Zulkifli

“Wait, you don’t know what PMS is?” I’d be shocked if you hadn’t heard of it. A lot of men and women complain about it (just check Twitter), but I wonder if they know what it really is. Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) refers to a range of physical and psychological symptoms that are associated with phases of the menstrual cycle. PMS has 20 to over a hundred symptoms depending on where you check, which include mood swings, headaches, fatigue and other fun stuff. Despite being recognised in the medical community, there’s no scientific consensus about what the definition, causes or treatments are. Sounds pretty suss to me. Thankfully, there’s been a lot of scientific research done into this enigmatic condition. For those who will tell me that science backs up this whole PMS and irrationality myth, I’d like to raise you some science of my own. A recent review of 47 scientific articles concerning PMS has found that there lacked clear evidence supporting the existence of a specific premenstrual negative mood syndrome. Another study found symptoms for PMS often overlap with physical sensations associated with stress. And yet another study found that society’s attitudes towards PMS exaggerated and contributed to the cultural stereotype of the premenstrual woman. Well then. “Women are irrational once a month. It’s just biology.” This isn’t to say that hormones don’t influence mood or that some women don’t experience mood swings during their menstrual cycle. That’s fair enough. The problem is when you start to believe that because women experience emotions (le gasp!), they are somehow incapable of being rational human beings; that women are both defined by their hormonally-induced emotions thanks to their possession of a uterus, but can’t

be in control of them. The conclusion follows that if they’re not thinking clearly, why should we listen to them? “That’s just the hormones talking,” or “must be that time of the month.” How many times have I heard that? It’s shutting down a woman’s thoughts by saying she’s not in control of herself, her uterus is. And that’s just the very overt version of it. Often, this kind of dismissal is much more subtle and insidious. For example, last year in USA, Rachel Maddow was having a public debate with a man who denied the existence of a pay gap for women and told her, “I wish you are as right about what you’re saying as you are passionate about it.” And her response just about kicked ass: “My passion on this issue is actually me making a factual argument.” (Ed.- zing) “She has this history of being crazy for Coco Pops…” Just to be clear, I’m not talking about the idea that women get insatiably hungry during their periods. Rather, I’m talking about the historical use of medicine to silence women. What’s the best way to shut someone up? By telling people they’re crazy. Everything that comes out of their mouth from there on is dubious because of their fragile mental state. This often happened to women who spoke out, women who expressed emotion, women who questioned the system – essentially any woman who wasn’t society’s quintessential ‘woman.’

say. But I bet when you hear “emotional,” you think of crying and more importantly, women. Emotional outbursts typically associated with men (shouting or openly expressing anger) are a show of strength whereas emotional outbursts associated with women (getting upset) make you weak. Even when women shout, people generally react with, “Don’t need to get all emotional. Talk to me when you stop PMS-ing.” You don’t often hear stuff like “he can’t help himself. It’s just his hormones”, but switch the gender pronoun and suddenly it sounds much more familiar. How annoying is that? Someone implying that you don’t have any control over yourself? That you’re just a slave to your emotions? Because let’s face it, anger is an emotion. Violence is an expression of emotion. But somehow that’s not what you would call being “emotional”? In fact, I’d classify road rage as being emotional and irrational behaviour – one that is most commonly perpetrated by men. Women are allowed to be angry or “oversensitive” – women can actually have reasons to be angry or sad – and when they do, it’s real and deserves a real response. Dismissing it as just an aspect of their uncontrollable biology is just another way of saying “shut up”, and frankly, it’s rude as hell. As Jezebel puts it, “The idea that my moods, which arise from my incredibly complex, stressful, dynamic life, can be reduced to some hormonal flux at the whim of my reproductive system is deeply insulting.”

This association between negative mood and the menstrual cycle isn’t a new thing. Hysteria was derived from the Greek word hystera, meaning ‘uterus’. There was even the wandering womb, a belief in the teachings of Hippocrates that the uterus could float within the body and cause women to go cray cray. And that the cure to these symptoms was to have intercourse. (Sound familiar? Maybe because it’s the historical equivalent of a Magical Healing Cock.) “Well, men don’t get emotional!” All humans have emotions. “Well, that’s obvious,” you might

In an 1894 study carried out in France, of eighty women arrested for “Resistance to public officials” 71 were supposedly menstruating at the time of the crime.

Picture by Akima Lateef

There’s a long-standing tendency to label women’s behaviour as overly emotional, and to blame these female ‘moods’ on the menstrual cycle. Entire industries have been built around the idea that women get moody and irrational leading up to, or during their periods. A common stereotype portrays women as essentially becoming raging monsters, prone to rapid mood swings, crying spells and chocolate cravings, and likely to become violent at any moment. There’s even a wikiHow article titled ‘How to Stay Calm During Your Menstrual Cycle’, saying “it may be hard to control yourself around others when you are having your period.” Add this to the term PMS being thrown around, and there’s an entire culture around the idea that women go uncontrollably crazy once a month.

MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRLS by Simon Donnes text changes, lights don’t work, and the girl has no personality outside of the quirky exterior that solely defines her.

It’s hardly a terrible thing in itself; we pigeonhole people as part of a wider evolutionary trait to sort through tons of junk data filtered by preconceptions and desired results. This The concept took off in the cultural works well while you’re up consciousness, and why not? For the in your head, but when you disenfranchised, post-ironic 20 something without go so far as to interact with spark in his coffee, the perfect solution would one of these people you be an adorable, twee screwball to sweep him off are silently judging leads his feet and inject 200ccs of fun. As most silver to a massive incongruence: screen stereotypes, we’ve seen their mimetic other people have feelings. eruption into the real world, or have we? It’s a simple statement that clashes horrifically with the This is where it gets weird; the Manic Pixie Dream confirmation bias inherent Girl does not exist. Even as a construct in midwhen fitting women into late naughties alt-romcom Hollywood the term a preconceived notion of has been an ill fitting stereotype forced onto the quirky, slightly-unhinged individual performances of characters that, while nymphomaniacs. No matter supposedly defining convention, subvert it. Far how well the real girl fits the beyond the clutches of Hollywood, the everyday mould, deviations invariably Woman was to bear the brunt of this witch hunt: occur from the norm, men began searching for her in the real world. and there is an internal conflict within the psyche The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a Rorschach test, of the perpetuator, usually and is an idealised construction in the viewer’s fixed by growing quickly mind, who is playing their own protagonist of the uninterested with said girl “narrative” of their life. A strictly pomo crisis, the and discarding her as soon self-aware, genre savvy and culturally well-read as possible. The viewer/protagonist needs spice delivered back to cycle continues. his life vicariously. Not one to be an agent of his own change, the viewer/protagonist amalgamates While, ironically, this a sense of wonder, childlike glee and untapped may be somewhat of an sexual energy into a slight frame, and like the oversimplification of a token oriental of generations gone by, the result series of similar but not identical circumstances, is a sightseeing tour of wonder from a culturally it’s important to understand that overcoming approximated by-the-numbers ideal. the issues the Manic Pixie Dream Girl represents When something is perfect, it is unreal, a dream, imagined in the mind. Thus, that which is imagined in the mind is perfect; this is the inherent problem with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. The protagonist, searching for his very own dream girl, finds only real girls, frighteningly three-dimensional people with their own hopes, dreams and fears, and they too looking for their own culturally appointed ‘ideal mate’. The ideal is far better, it is said; life is simpler in ones mind. The problem remains however, what does one do when their elusive Dream Girl takes centre stage? As with all dreams, fine detail is lacking;

Frighteningly three-dimensional must be those of effort. There is a difference between the interior and the exterior, between the real and the projected individual, but we have enough trouble connecting with the “real” other person through their own projection of character without confounding the whole exercise with another layer of expectation. There’s “finding the

Picture by Camden Watts

They’re on buses. They’re on campus. They’re walking through St. Georges Terrace with a curious mix of awe and disinterest; they are perfect, delicate vessels of humanity that we know as Manic Pixie Dream Girls. The term, originally levelled at Kirsten Dunst’s performance in Elizabethtown is a curious stereotype of the lingering ‘Hipster’ zeitgeist. Bubbly, oddball and dressed in the cutest damn blouse you’ve ever seen, the MPDG is a supporting character that brings a sense of wonder and magic to the world of the everyman protagonist.

right one” and then there’s “I’m in love with a personified ideal of infatuation which does not exist.” I look up from the cafe I’m typing this in and a girl walks past the window, down the street. She’s got flowing curls of mahogany hair washing over the pale marble of her skin, the rest tucked into a little hat. Her button nose supports the small reading glasses perched on her face, framing the world for her to see. She walks with a slightly timid gait, as if picking each step carefully. Maybe she’s avoiding the cracks in the pavement. She looks up from the ground and our eyes meet. In another moment, she’s gone, and I turn back to my computer.

A similar character trope is the Perky Goth, about which Neil Hannon wrote a song. It contains references to Hoth and Doctor Martens boots within two lines, and isn’t really worth bothering with.

COPING WITH RAPE by Elisa Thompson I’ve always been a lightweight. Maybe it’s because I’m half Japanese, or maybe it’s just my general constitution, but even at 22 I get significantly tipsy after two or three drinks. Imagine what I was like at 15. This was the age that I really began to test the boundaries that my parents had set, and alcohol was my first port of call. I was an awkward, selfconcious teenager and alcohol made me feel warm, happy and most of all, confident. I was invulnerable. The party was medium sized, and I made a bee-line for a couch and the man who was sitting there. He was alone, like me. I don’t remember the conversation, but I remember later sitting on the swings of a nearby park and waiting for him while he went to buy cigarettes. These days, I will often walk in the middle of the road at night time to avoid passing through the shadows, but at this time I felt so inexplicably safe. “It’s not far,” he told me, “I’ll be right back”. And I believed him.

Picture by Marnie Allen

His house was made of red recycled brick, but he led me inside and to a couch before I had a chance to notice much else. As I looked around the room I started to feel strange. It was so cluttered. There were old magazines stacked on the coffee table, and there was a flower pot that someone had knocked over but hadn’t bothered to put right. It just lay there spilling it’s contents onto the wooden

surface. Even though light filtered in through a window with open blinds I began to feel claustrophobic. He sat next to me. But not just next to me – he was too close to me. I suddenly realised I didn’t want to be there but when I shifted in my seat his hand shot out to grab my arm. My pulse jumped as I tried to move away and he captured my wrist in his other hand. He pushed me backwards and even though I began to struggle my back hit the couch behind me. I’d

never thought of myself as weak before, and I was shocked by how utterly powerless I felt. His body ran the length of mine and then some, pinning me down. I struggled, and I began to cry, and I could barely breathe because my chest was being crushed beneath his own. His hands moved too quickly and he was so much bigger and so much stronger than I was. Sometimes when I look back I think that maybe it happened like they say in movies. “It happened so fast I can barely remember”. But it didn’t. Minutes dragged on and I recall every excruciating second. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to explain to other people. Because you cannot possibly know without having felt the way that he pushed his body against mine and the arm of the couch on the back of my neck and his knee on my leg and his elbow in my ribs and his tongue in my mouth. You cannot possibly understand the shame and confusion that I felt when he moved away and I heard his voice come from somewhere within the house asking me if I wanted a drink. I can’t tell you how I got home. Nor can I explain the panic I felt as I put my clothes in the washing machine, showered, washed my hair and brushed my teeth until my gums bled. In bed I squeezed my eyes shut but I don’t think I slept. I know I didn’t cry. I told my two best friends via email, and I wasn’t aware that anyone else knew until the police showed up on my doorstep. I’ll never forget the shock on my mother’s face as they told her what had happened, or the way that the two officers spoke to me – the way that they interrogated me. I stumbled over details and they narrowed their eyes in disbelief. They asked me question after question and as I became confused they called me out on small details I’d given them earlier. I didn’t know what was happening. As I gave them the clothes I’d been wearing that night I remember wishing that I had something more sexy to hand over. Like the fact that I’d been wearing jeans and a jumper would make it much less believable that I’d been raped. I think they sounded reluctant

According to 2003 Australian statistics, Only 1 in 7 women (14%) who experienced violence from an intimate partner, and just over 1 in 6 women who experienced violence from someone else (non-partner), indicated that they had reported the most recent incident to police (16%).

as they referred me to the Sexual Assault Resource Centre (SARC). The next couple of weeks felt anti-climatic. I went to SARC on one occasion. My family and friends didn’t speak about it, maybe because I didn’t volunteer any more information. I only had one session with the school psychologist who made her disdain at my story no secret. I was stupid, she told me, for putting myself in such a dangerous situation. I didn’t disagree with her, but I also didn’t want to be reminded of it. I didn’t start to have nightmares until a few months later. I didn’t tell anyone new until a few years later. And I didn’t begin to see a counselor or really talk about it until June this year. I’ve told people, but I have never felt as if I should place the burden of detail on others. It’s too heavy. Who am I to force my problems on other people, I think, and apparently this is not an uncommon mindset. The way that I have thought and acted in the past might be attributed to what is described as rape culture. The phrase is used in academia and popular discourse alike to describe a number of different things but, as I understand it, broadly refers to the trivialisation of rape, as well as the sexual objectification and blaming of victims as perpetuated by cultural norms. Rape is perceived as inevitable; it’s just something that happens and cannot be eradicated. And perhaps in our current social climate this is true. I can’t remember being specifically educated about the issue as a teenager, but I still have a number of half-baked perceptions that I feel are concurrent with the environment I grew up in, and which are shared by most of the people around me. On the surface is the idea that rape is never the fault of the victim. Girls have a right to live without the fear of being assaulted, but should be prepared to defend themselves if they need to or know how to avoid dangerous situations. This is somewhat true, but is also somewhat counter-intuitive and misleadingly basic. When we talk about rape, the onus always seems to be on females. Aside from the fact that men can and have also been victims of rape (with other men and women being the offenders), we also focus on educating potential victims, rather than discouraging

potential perpetrators. In fact, we arguably trivialise the experience as a whole in common discourse – something which I am embarrassed to say I am guilty of too. As such, saying, “I was raped by that exam” is not something that many people in my generation would think twice about. Rape as a conceptual joke is easy to talk about. Rape as an issue – as a problem that is far from uncommon within our society – is much more difficult. And so we avoid it. Our society’s blasé attitude to rape may further be responsible for feelings of guilt after the fact. Even though victims are told that they are not to blame, understanding rape in such a way makes it feel as if we should know how to prevent it. We feel as if we can reduce the likelihood of rape by acting or dressing a certain way. My story might be characterised as typical of a rape scenario – I was young and drunk, I did not take any particular precautions to ensure my safety, and I was attacked by a stranger who I never saw again – but of course it’s not. Our conceptual understanding of rape is often so far from the reality. We give very little thought, for example, to the fact that the majority of sexual assaults are committed by people who are known to the victim. The perpetuation of this may potentially de-legitimise the feelings of those who experience it, and even cause them to call in to question their own memory or understanding of the event, as I did. At SARC I can distinctly remember telling the psychologist and doctor who I spoke to that I wasn’t sure what had happened. “The police said I couldn’t have caught the bus at that time. Maybe I dreamed it?” I remember saying to them. I was almost hopeful – what a relief it would be to dismiss my experience as a vivid nightmare. During my physical examination I even asked the doctor if there was some way of knowing for sure what had happened to me. I was met with reassurance. “You know what happened,” she told me, “Trust your memory”. Easier said than done. My encounters with the opposite sex since then have been coloured by these experiences. This is not to say that I blame my personal sexual promiscuity as a 19 and 20 year old on them. I made my own decisions, and for the most part I knew what I was doing. However I am acutely aware of feeling obligated to perform in a certain way towards the boys

that I dated during this time. Once I slept with someone I felt as if I had set up a certain precedent with them, and that I had to adhere to it. I never said ‘no’ to any of my sexual partners, but I am aware that I often didn’t mean it when I said ‘yes’ either. Perhaps this may be interpreted as a weakness in me – and certainly, it is one which I feel I have largely now quashed – but it may also be a reflection of cultural norms. Often it seems as if girls are expected to be sexually willing, particular with someone they already have an established relationship with, simply because they are always physically able to. Marital rape is perhaps the best example of this, as in Australia it was only made illegal as recently as between 1981 and 1992. Predominant attitudes towards rape make it incredibly hard for those who experience sexual assault to make sense of what has happened to them. Furthermore, it is not difficult for victims to internalise their negative feelings when they are so central to our general understanding of rape. We don’t, and maybe can’t, understand or rationalise what drives people to commit such an act of violence, and as such find it is easier to blame ourselves. For my own part, I feel guilty that I sometimes become irrationally sad and angry, that I do things that defy what is logical even in my own mind, and that I rely so heavily on other people to lean on when my mood is low. And it’s very hard to admit that at least some of this might not be my fault – that one man’s exertion of power and control over me still resonates in my life, seven years later. I have not recovered yet, but as time passes I feel better. I still don’t fully understand what has happened to me, and I don’t always know how I feel. But at least I can talk about it. I can unashamedly write an article that will potentially be read by thousands of people in the hopes that rape will not be perpetually normalised; that someone will read this and understand, consider, discuss and empathise; and that one day I, and anyone else who has experienced something similar, will be able to move on. For more information about SARC please visit their website at www.kemh.health.wa.gov.au/ services/sarc/ or call their 24 hour emergency line on 9340 1828.

Since the age of 15, 32.5% of women have experienced inappropriate comments about their body or sex life, compared to 11.7% of men. 25.1% of women experienced unwanted sexual touching copared to 9.9% of men.

MYSTERIOUS VAGINA CLUB: MY FIRST PAP SMEAR by Laura Williams

The test is named after its founder, Dr Papanicolaou, who discovered that cells in this cervix change before they become cancerous. This is what the test is for; a sample of cells is collected from the cervix and tested for anything unusual. If anything abnormal is found, further tests are done to see if/what treatment is needed. It screens for any early warning signs of potential cancerous cells. Unfortunately, this is all it tests for; so if you gather the courage to book a pap smear and leave feeling like you’ve done your vaginal duty for another two years, you are mistaken. If you think you have an STI or any other type of infection or problem, you need to tell your doctor this so they can carry out the appropriate tests. I knew that I finally had to face the music and book this stupid thing, but I didn’t. I ignored it for a few months until one day I heard my mum booking her own pap smear over the phone. I asked her to book me one too, and she did. A weird mother-daughter bonding session, I know, but it really helped having her there. If you can take your mum, or sister, or friend along with you (at least for your first test), I recommend you do. It’s nice having someone familiar there to hold your hand. I would also recommend having a female doctor if the thought of having a male doctor perform the examination makes you uncomfortable. The test goes much smoother if you’re relaxed, and luckily I had a lovely and gentle woman perform it for me. She made me feel very at ease, and when it came time for the physical examination, I was glad her fingers were so small. My mum had her examination first, and stayed in the room for my exam. The doctor started by asking me general questions about

my sexual health and period history. I then stripped from the waist down behind a little screen and lay on a bed with a towel over me and a huge lamp shining directly on my vagina. The test involves a speculum being inserted into your vagina and holding your cervix open so the cells can be taken; I deliberately did not look as she got the speculum ready, as I think seeing the size of it would have freaked me out and my poor vagina would have clenched hard enough to crush steel. The actual insertion of the speculum was not the terrible pain I had expected; yes, it was uncomfortable, but comparable to my first time having sex. It just felt a bit weird, and there was a little pressure, but as long as I focused on my breathing, it didn’t hurt. I think I had expected her to produce a giant wooden pike with a huge sword on the end and shove it up me, so the actual procedure was a pleasant surprise. It took around ten minutes, and that’s only because the speculum fell out halfway through. Yep, fell out. Well actually, it was more of a pop; the doctor turned to get some cell swabby thing, and the speculum was pushed out by my superior pelvic floor muscles. The doctor and my mum laughed as I nervously giggled, thinking only of the insertion that would have to happen again. The doctor made a joke about strong young muscles, and that it usually falls right in her older patients. This is why you do your daily Kegel’s, ladies.

That was it! Not the torturous shitshow I had imagined. There was no bleeding, no sharp pains, no fainting, and no creepy comments about my vagina. Just nice ladies doing their lady things. And now, unless the receptionist asks me to book an appointment when I call for my results, I am all pap smeared out for another two years (even if you are asked to book another appointment with the doctor, she told me that it’s usually minor issues like thrush, and not a YOU HAVE CANCER warning, so don’t worry). So if you’re twenty or over and haven’t had your first pap smear, call your doctor today and book one. It’s actually really important, and not just another trial that women have to face for no reason, like I thought. It’s not as horrible as I thought it would be, and when I turn 22 and it’s time to have another one, I won’t dread it. It actually is a little bit like being in a mysterious vagina club. I’d like for it to be just a healthy vagina club, though, so if this demystified the process for you, please join the club. We can have badges and everything.

After the cell samples had been taken, she removed the giant wooden pike and started probing around with her fingers, which was not as horrible as I expected (probably thanks to her tiny lady fingers). After that, she left me to dress myself again, gave me a piece of paper to hand to the receptionist, and told me to call back in a week for my results.

Having sex the night before a pap smear isn’t recommended; doing so could cause tiny abrasions on the cervix, which might affect the quality of the cell sample and the lab technicians ability to interpret it.

Picture by Marnie Allen

I turned twenty this year, which meant two terrifying things; I’m no longer a teenager, and I had to get my first pap smear. My only knowledge of pap smears came from the posters on the back of toilet doors in shopping centres, and even that only told me that I was supposed to get them every two years. Now it was suddenly time for me to join this mysterious club where I would have to endure some horrible gynaecological test and be able to complain about it with my mum and sister. I had no idea what to expect. So naturally, this was a daunting challenge.

CHLAMYDIA’S FINE- AS LONG AS YOU’RE NOT GAY by Caz Bank When you’re ‘learning about your body’ and you’re thinking you’re never going to ask anyone a question about your hairy bits ever, there’s a kind of comfort in knowing that there are trained professionals that know more about every lump, bump and sore than you ever will, and are there to make sure nothing ever seriously goes wrong. However, a lot of people, especially women, are afraid to go to their doctor and ask what that burning sensation might just mean. Where has this come from? Is it our view of ourselves that stops us going to a doctor and getting a check up ever 2 years? Are we in denial about being ‘sexually active’, or are we worried about ‘fessing up to a doctor about what we have or have not been doing.

Picture by Natalie Thompson

After a brief survey of women between the ages of 16 and 28, most of the women asked do not regularly get gynaecological check-ups, or never have, and have even lied to their doctors about their sexual activity – all of them admitting they had been too

embarrassed or too ashamed to. These women also admitted that they would only see a healthcare professional if there were signs of a problem. However, most STDs present with mild and infrequent symptoms or do not present symptoms at all – which leads to many women contracting STDs that are damaging to themselves and spreading them on to harm others.

Archaic thinking

So why do we all not just get checked regularly? Aren’t doctors and healthcare professionals supposed to be unbiased and un-judgemental? The resounding answer has been no. There are growing reports of doctors’ judgement and personal bias leading to great physical and psychological damage of many patients. Rough treatment, dismissive attitudes and a lack of gentleness when speaking to patients (combined with often outdated ideas of sexual promiscuity, gender and sexual orientation) lead to many women walking away from doctors’ appointments ashamed of their sexual activity, and reluctant to return if another problem arises. Often, they pass this experience along, creating more fear in other people - most people are pretty nervous about getting checked up on already, and hearing negative feedback from family and friends leads more and more young women to ignore potential problems and go unchecked. When I was in third year my pill prescription had run out, so I went to the doctor to get it refilled. My doctor was a woman, so I felt pretty comfortable about talking to her. I told her what I wanted, we chatted about my situation and life, and then she asked for my medical history. This was when it went nasty. First, she began to criticize the age I had my first sexual experience. Admittedly it was young, but as I explained to her at the time wasn’t entirely consensual and took me a long time to heal from. She then rounded on my choice of partners, many of which in my life have been female,

and older, prompting the comment ‘at least it first was a man’ that had taken my virginity and that she was glad I was back on the heterosexual bandwagon. She asked me if I’d been tested already for STDs, which I hadn’t. She then did prescribe me three months worth of a basic contraceptive pill, which was not the one I was previously on, and warned me that I would not receive any more until I had been tested. I couldn’t speak and left, shaking and petrified. I look back and I try to tell myself she was being prudent, and cared about my health and my wellbeing. Or even that she was having a bad day – any excuse I can muster to make the whole experience less terrifying. But I just, can’t. What she did to me was rude, and invasive, judgemental and completely homophobic, and not to mention quite vividly slut-shaming. This was followed up by an incredibly painful pap smear, and needless to say I changed doctors. A doctor should be a person you can go to and ask questions, without feeling judged or afraid. It turned out that I did have an STD (a rather minor one) and I had to go back for more tests. If I hadn’t feared for my longterm health and that of my partner, I would have not gone back at all. It is a regrettable fact that many doctors are not equipped to understand the modern woman – she might like ladies, or men, or have multiple sexual partners. This archaic thinking leads to more women internalizing those beliefs and turning themselves away from the healthcare they need. There needs to be a greater understanding amongst women that we need to stick up for ourselves, even to institutions that might know more than we do about our bodies – a doctor is not above criticism. You can and should shop around until you find the right doctor whom you are comfortable being honest with. They have seen it all, but that doesn’t mean you’re not worth looking at too. However, if you feel personally that the doctor has taken a step too far, you can lodge a formal complaint, or if you’re brave enough – call them out on it. If they make you feel ashamed of yourself, you’re not going to want to go back again, and you might ignore something that could be incredibly damaging to your fertility or your life; and from there, it could happen to someone else too.

Catering to those who wanted a bit more junk in their trunks, a Florida woman posing as a plastic surgeon doctor injected the buttocks of her patients with cement, mineral oil and flat-tyre sealant for $700 a pop. She’s now in prison.

GOING GAY FOR PAY by Kenneth Woo A couple of days ago when my friends asked me what kind of article was I writing for the Pelican, I hesitated, knowing full well that merely saying the topic was inviting scrutiny and judgment from my peers. I quickly mumbled, “gay for pay” and prepared myself for the onslaught of judgments. I could feel the awkwardness of the room converging on me. Yet, the way I found myself responding had me thinking more about whether was there any gender bias in a topic like this. There seems to be some amount of judgment thrown at men who go gay for pay (a man is plowing another man? He must definitely be gay, no way he is straight because no straight guy would do that) but if a woman does it, she isn’t instantly classified as a lesbian. Most just say that it really must just be harmless experimentation, “super hot because its two girls going at it”, or that she’s just doing it for the cash. The idea of a straight person playing a gay character is nothing new of course, almost to a cynical extent; if a male actor wants an Oscar nomination, he would dramatically increase his chances of getting one simply by starring in some artsy movie playing a gay character and faking a gay sex scene (Brokeback Mountain and Milk) No one cares if some Hollywood actor plays it gay in some movie but for some odd reason, it isn’t the case for straight actors playing gay roles in pornography. A question I asked myself was why would straight guys go for gay porn roles? It seems to boil down solely to money, as roles in gay porn seem to pay more money (at least according to Google), which would be incredibly appealing to some cash strapped college kid who is willing to do anything to pay the bills. For example, a college student in the United States made 80,000 USD from starring in sixteen gay porn movies while still identifying as straight. This idea of gay for pay carries some very unsettling implications, especially in pornography, as it implies that there is no such thing as bisexuality in human nature, there is only gay or straight.

ends up making up our minds whether are we gay or not. For example, it seems that females in society have more implicit permission to explore their sexuality and intimacy, they are allowed by society to be open, loving and affectionate with their female friends as well as moving from various romantic and sexual relationships between men and women, without the fear of being stuck with the lesbian label. Yet for men, they are restricted in a narrower field; if a guy was to explore one’s sexuality, they are immediately labeled gay. Since men are rarely conditioned to show much emotional range, anything that is seen as less than straight, is immediately labeled gay. Females also go gay for pay, faking lesbian kisses and sex scenes for the titillation (I find this word so funny for some reason) of men everywhere. Society sees sexuality to be something almost exclusively male orientated, but lesbianism is something that has evolved from being a life choice for women to becoming something that is hyper-sexualized by males. Lesbians are often viewed by males as sexual objects, arguably even more than straight women. I would love to give you guys statistics to back this up about how many “girl-on-girl” scenes there are in pornography but every time I try to Google anything that has the word lesbian in it, I get overwhelmed by the number of links to porn sites offering “girl-on-girl” action. Quite telling... Television shows and movies would somehow slot in a lesbian kiss or fake sex scene (especially between two hot, young and desirable young actresses) to boost rating, especially amongst young men. Hollywood is far more interested in providing a lesbian kiss/sex

scene for its male viewership than depicting a genuine lesbian relationship. The sexualization of lesbianism is becoming somewhat of a cultural phenomenon in society; I would argue that it is because of society’s glorification of the masculine presence in sex that cause men to imagine/marvel/fantasize about what two women could possibly do in the bedroom. While you could just think it is only harmless fantasy and fuel for porn scenes, the hyper-sexualization of lesbians by gay for pay women in a male dominated society has real dangers for lesbians. They are often in real physical danger for being who they are while dealing with a society that portrays overtly sexual and unrealistic images of their relationship everywhere. A disturbing outcome stemming from this almost obsessive love for lesbians is corrective rape, the idea that a lesbian just needs a “real man” to help turn her straight, that individuals are raped in an attempt to strip them of their sexual orientation. I started out this article exploring what is gay for pay, screwing up my internet search history to learn that girls and guys can both go gay for money, but it struck me how lesbians in society are put up to some idealized, hyper-sexualized image of them everywhere and the danger of it. Our male dominated society seems to only see lesbians as something sexual and nothing to do with relationships. Pornography has helped to shape us into seeing sexuality as black and white and gay or straight, with nothing in between, leaving us with the double standard whereby males cannot explore their sexuality without being labelled gay while females are implicitly encouraged to do so.

This of course raises several interesting and provocative questions for us, principally, how do we define sexuality? Can mere labels such as gay, straight and bi-sexual really help define human sexuality? I would argue that the black and white label given to us in pornography

If you want to see Hugh Grant go gay-for-pay, watch Maurice. Besides, anything would be better than having to watch Love, Actually again. It s u c k s.

LOOKING IN ON THE GENDER BINARY by Greta McEwan

Whether or not they feel a woman should be anything, when conceptualizing a woman people commonly picture a female. These terms are even used interchangeably, rather incorrectly. People can be described by gender or sex. Sex is commonly divided into male and female, a set of biological features with/related to reproductive functions eg. childbearing hips, hairy balls. Gender is commonly divided into man and woman. These words carry all the sociocultural expectations including but not limited to certain personality traits, preferences, roles, responsibilities, and presentation (what clothes they wear, what they do with their hair). So when one pictures a female as they hear the word “woman” what has occurred is a more pernicious form of misogyny, exclusive but perceived culturally as natural and right. To understand why this view of women is limited one must consider the following. When a person is born, they are naked. Their genitals, when seen by enculturated adults, incite interpretation of this person as a gendered being. Tiny penis = boy, tiny vulva = girl. Sometimes (the conservative estimate is 1% of the time), it’s not clear when looking at these genitals if the baby is male or female. Humans, therefore, don’t just come in boy shape or girl shape. Humans can be female, male, or intersex. It isn’t always visible, screening a person’s chromosomes can indicate intersex status more clearly and show if they are XXX, XXY, XYY or other combinations that aren’t your usual XX/XY.

In the same way nature and chance work together to create a chromosomal oddity that is an intersex person, trans*people are created. This is the often overlooked T in the acronym LGBTIQ+. You can think of it as nature playing a game of genital/brain mix ‘n’ match. Most of the time nature matches man brains to penises, and woman brains to vulvas, but it isn’t always the case. Introducing the intersex element to the game means that now there are a multitude of combinations you can make, there is sex and gender diversity. If sex isn’t binary, then why should gender be binary? Given that nature produces all these combinations, why are only two (male men and female women) being acknowledged all of the time? The Western cultural construction of the gender binary is built on the assumption that there are two sexes. Since this is not true, the rigid construct then dissolves into a spectrum. Femininity and masculinity stop opposing one another and blend together to create a person. Indigenous North Americans incorporate this view into their gender construct and come in 3 flavours: men, women and Two Spirit people. A Two Spirit person’s body is believed to contain the essence of both men and women, presenting aspects of both, acknowledging the diversity that nature produces. So you see, a person need not be limited by the gender ascribed to their sex by the society around them. They certainly shouldn’t be forced to, being in a male body and treated as though you’re a man when you know you’re a woman (dysphoria) is hard enough to deal with as it is. Women can have penises, vulvas, or bits of both sexes. They can have beards, D-cup breasts, and testicles. Men can have vaginas and paint their nails. Women, men and the rest are free to do as they please (given it isn’t hurting anybody) when the gender binary isn’t used against them. It doesn’t work for all of us.

Media outlets presenting standards as ideal affects women negatively because it restricts them to a set of personality traits, behaviours, presentations and even body types, hardly giving a voice to the group of people who call themselves women, as diverse as they may come. Transwomen especially are sufferers of much discrimination and violence. They don’t have much of a media presence and the general population’s unfamiliarity with them breeds hostility and fear. When transmisogyny occurs, a transwoman’s identity isn’t just limited but stripped. Even if she presents the behaviour and personality traits that are idealized in the mainstream, her body isn’t accepted and filed under “a woman should not be.” This creates barriers between her and her community, including its services eg. psychiatrists, counselors. As someone of atypical gender presentation and identity, I don’t think this is good enough. As someone who has been gendered their entire life, I feel the pressure. We are not given a choice, and when we seek the freedom to create ourselves we are confronted by the walls of a construct not created with real data in mind. Misogyny and the gender binary are inextricable from Western society at this point. Oppression such as this, linked to limiting a person’s expression or happiness by imposing a belief and rejecting naturally-occurring divergence, is a phenomenon which debases our entire species.

Picture by Natalie Thompson

The heart of misogyny lies in how we conceptualise how or what a woman should be. When we use the word should as in “A woman should be submissive,” we are effectively limiting the woman’s freedom of choice, personality, ability, ambition and happiness. Tony Abbott gives us an example of this mentality when he says that “it would be folly to expect that women would ever approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, their abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.” Nope, to impose a preconceived notion of what a person should be like based on the sex organs they have is the folly, Tony.

FUNNY GIRLS by Marnie Allen Christopher Hitchens suggested in his 2007 Vanity Fair article ‘Why Women aren’t funny’ that the reason a sense of humour is more important and advanced in men is because women expect them to be funny and value a sense of humour when choosing a partner. Men, on the other hand, are less interested in seeking a woman with a sense of humour. If she does have one, it’s a bonus. If we assume this is true, we can then look at it in two ways. One, men don’t prioritize a sense of humour in a partner because they are more concerned with other qualities, or two, men believe that women aren’t funny and so they do not seek a female companion for joking and laughing with. There’s so much that’s wrong with this view that I feel the need to abandon all academic integrity and protocol and just embark on an expletive fuelled rant. The core of the argument connects the development or appreciation of a sense of humour with heterosexuality. A sense of humour is, to a woman, nothing more than a quality she looks for in a man. A sense of humour is, to a man, something that he develops to attract attention from women. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. The problem with excluding everyone but heterosexual males from the category of ‘funny’ people is that people who do so are very difficult to challenge because they find excuses for anything that threatens their perception. For example, a funny woman is an exception to the rule; either she has grown up around men, she’s a big dykey lesbian with penis envy, or she is unattractive and has to be funny in order to get the D. Like most things, it all comes back to penis. I think to try and turn something as pure as comedy into a gender specific evolutionary tactic is a waste of time and intelligent discussion. As long as there are funny women and funny men and funny homosexuals and transgender people and children then there’s really nothing to argue about. The problem is, this perception is a widely accepted and particularly ridiculous strand of sexism that affects women who want to have careers in comedy.

entrenched lack of respect for women, let alone women’s ability to have a sense of humour. The recent Judd Apatow-actor-gang apocalyptic film This is the End had two minor scenes featuring women. One, in which Rihanna is serenaded about her body’s sexual appeal; she then slaps a drunk Michael Cera after he spanks her bum as though to distract from the inappropriateness of the song’s lyrics. And the second appearance is when Emma Watson, who appears to have been written into the script for the sole purpose of setting up the line ‘Hermione Granger stole our food’ (nice one guys, love your work), is the subject of an awkward exchange between the men about how they can reassure her that they aren’t planning to rape her. HAHAHAHA! Get it?

It all comes back to penis These fleeting, token scenes demonstrate the rule in buddy comedy: that women are there to either set up jokes, or be the butt of them. While Bridesmaids was an important film in order to demonstrate the success of a female ensemble cast leading a feature length comedy, its achievements were undermined by the assumption that it is a ‘female version’ of Judd Apatow’s ensemble films and is therefore a weaker copy of a male creation rather than a successful comedy in its own league. In television, we see similar things in popular sitcoms like Two and a Half Men or The Big Bang Theory. While there are plenty of people who avoid these shows and are supportive of

female comedians and their independence from men, the wider commercial entertainment world indicates an ignorant acceptance of the idea that men do comedy better than women, end of story. That’s not to say that there are not mainstream and successful programs that follow this ignorant mindset. Seinfeld is an interesting example of how a female lead in an otherwise male cast does not take on the role of setting up male jokes or appearing as the token female. Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Elaine has as many memorable jokes and scenes as the other characters, and her absence from the show would remove more than just political correctness; she is an essential, individual and extremely funny element of the series. Furthermore, what Louis-Dreyfus demonstrates is that comedy isn’t about gender balance; it’s about good writing, good acting and good direction, that it doesn’t matter how many women are cast against how many men, or whether the characters are attractive, or what their sexual preferences are. The great characters of comedy have demonstrated every possible side of humanity and they do so without their gender being the central factor. While Hitchens’ argument acknowledges many great female comedians, he fails to recognize that a person’s sense of humour should not be analysed and accounted for by sexual politics, gender or intellect. The ability to make people laugh deserves to be treated with consideration of the many complicated factors that contribute to this ability, of which gender is not an important one.

But Bridesmaids had women in it! And Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have their own TV shows! Not good enough. There are still films being made that adopt the ‘buddy comedy’ model in which the exclusion and degradation of women is central to the plot, which demonstrates an

“I don’t like any female comedians…a woman doing comedy doesn’t offend me but sets me back a bit. I, as a viewer, have trouble with it. I think of her as a producing machine that brings babies in the world.” The very modern Jerry Lewis, 1998

MISCELLANEOUS FOR SALE

HEADBANDS WANTED

Six thousand DVD copies of Two Fists, One Heart. 3.5 stars from The West Australian. Widely acclaimed as “a locally made film… about boxing”. $1 ea or $1000 the lot. Balcatta

A tattoo of a steampunk woodlands scene. Bambi is reclining on a lounge chair, sipping on a boutique cider while a hunter roasts on a spit (impaled on his own gun if possible). Bambi’s mother is smiling down from heaven. Will trade for meat.

Bob Katter effigy. Good for emergencies. Comes with a copy of the Wild Rivers legislation. Will trade for a Dennis Jensen effigy. Seems a bit more relevant now. Sarah, Willetton. Complete collection of Ringo Starr’s solo discography; all formats (tape, LP, CD), includes Japanese pressings, test pressings, includes singles, bootlegs, live albums (solo and all incarnations of the All-Starr Band), EPs and compilations. I have had a lot of important realizations recently and I feel this is the first step on the path of the rest of my life. This could be the next step on yours. $70. Bring a van. Pat, Fremantle

Gothic nude model for photoshoot for new Gothic energy drink “Doomthirst”. Must have shaved armpits, Sisters of Mercy tattoos preferable. Call Nightshade 0453536939 Drummer for Tame Impala cover band ‘Same Impala’. Must provide own headbands, women. Hamish, Fremantle 0454323426

and Womack? Did you set off the smoke alarm? Can I have my bank card back? Emilio BIRTHS BIG OL’ TESTICLES SWINGING IN THE BREEZE I am looking for someone to help me with my primal therapy. I want to re-enact my traumatic experiences at my primary school camp. Must be able to play “Sloop John B” through a malfunctioning tape player and scream cha-cha instructions at me. It’ll be fun Griff pelican@guild.uwa.edu.au THIS IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW WITHOUT YOU

MISSED CONNECTIONS You were wearing handcuffs, aviators and a Such is Life tattoo on your torso. You looked lost. I felt found. Basil Z. 0465758489

NEW experimental art exhibition out the front of the Dolphin Theatre, round the clock; people with athletic gear pass on the way to the gym and back from it. They have a better physique than you. That’s the joke

You were at the Pelican Prom, wearing a purple pair of running shoes. Teardrops by Womack

CIGARETTES AND FEMINISM by Tom Rossiter

A long time ago in the distant land that is America, there were two main problems with society; Women smokers were looked down upon, and cigarette companies weren’t making enough money. Luckily for the orphans, a solution was at hand, courtesy Sigmund Freud’s nephew. Edward Bernays was hired to open up the tobacco market, specifically to attract women smokers. This would be a challenge, since in 1929 women smokers were thought of in the same way that people who cut in lines are thought of today; trashy, and often mistaken for prostitutes. But there was a new wind blowing, as the ideals of feminism had taken root in the population. The world was poised for upheaval. Bernays and advertisers like him saw an opportunity to exploit these new ideas and make piles of money. A huge fan of his uncle’s theories, Bernays was pretty sure penis envy would inspire women to buy cigarettes, if only he could only link smoking

to the concept of power. He had to make smoking a political statement, and to do this, Bernays engineered a major publicity stunt. Going to the 1929 Easter Sunday march, Bernays rounded up as many photogenic women as he could, and paid them to smoke. He then organised mass media coverage for the march, telling them to watch for the suffragettes, lighting up their ‘Torches of Freedom’ to protest gender inequality. The stunt made a huge sensationalist story for the newspapers and piles of money for Lucky Strike. But Bernays wasn’t finished. Soon after being hired he’d quickly noted that the Lucky Strike packaging was horrendous - a hideous shade of green so bad it might as well have been covered in crudely drawn penises – to the extent that women would hate it. But it was too expensive to change, so, using his Don Draper-esque finesse, Bernays convinced high society to adopt dark green as the colour of the season. He threw fashionable ‘Green parties’ wherever he could, and made

sure all the best celebrities were invited and photographed smoking. Somewhat depressingly, these campaigns were all hugely successful. Although it probably didn’t hurt that they were marketing a way for feminists to set fire to symbolic penises. Other cigarette companies were quick to jump on this new market, and once they thought they’d exhausted the feminism angle, advertisers moved onto the other thing they were sure women loved; weight loss. Lucky Strike advertised with slogans like “Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.” Advertisers would use these same techniques to advertise to women for the next century. This campaign was more than a fad: it had broken down barriers. Admittedly, they were barriers to lung cancer and richer Lucky Strike executives, but these are barriers all the same. And it was thanks to the efforts of these brave advertisers, that men and women would have an equal opportunity to smoke themselves to death. Visionaries, one and all.

IT’S A LITTLE BIT ROCK ‘N’ ROLL: The Legacy of Pauline Pantsdown by Zoe Kilbourn

The song can be sourced online, and it’s worth it. Nineties house is paired with choral samples from the 1910s standard “Poor Pauline”, a ghoulishly cheery song about the strangling, dangling, and mangling of the eponymous heroine. Pauline Pantsdown is a back door man (and not the kind the Doors and Howling Wolf were talking about). She tells us this in sound bites sourced from Pauline Hanson, with the same air of confident resignation to the Good Fight of Faith. “Back here, this is a circular driveway,” she says. “Please explain me.” Musicologist John Stratton described Pauline Pantsdown as a “queer analogue” to her demagogic Hanson doppelgänger, and the description was apt. Her rhetoric is only as messianic as the Real Pauline’s, and her vision for a united Australia is every bit as extremist as One Nation’s. Every conservative fear about homosexuality - its seductiveness, its spread, its self-centred amorality - is exposed as truth in a breathtakingly camp declaration of war. “I was hit on the head one day! I’m not human, I’m not natural! What I’ve called for is a homosexual government! Join us, be one of us!” That’s the beauty of the Pantsdown persona: she’s an embodiment, not a rebuttal, of the myths that propel the radical right. The gag operates on two levels of the ridiculous. First, the pure absurdity of a fascist fairy future, of a hyper feminine fish-wife

Anything except Neil Diamond outing herself as a homosexual man; second, the fact that people genuinely felt threatened by the ruse. Triple J listeners instinctively understood the joke (and its boundaries - the original version of the song included a reference to paedophilia which was omitted after four days’ airplay). One Nation did not. Hanson apparatchiks and the hetero-normative media issued a bewildered

response to Pantsdown’s gender identity. “I was variously described as a drag queen, transvestite, transsexual, female impersonator, political satirist, ‘fringe dweller’ (by David Oldfield) and ‘disgusting little pervert’ (One Nation’s website),” Hunt wrote in 1998. Although arguably less musically coherent than “Back Door Man” - there’s something jarring about the pitch of Spyro the Dragon synths and Seinfeld bass - production on the follow-up “I Don’t Like It” was arduous. Hunt says it took him three months of six-day weeks, cutting Hansonsprache into 3000 individual sound bites, some as small as halfsyllables. It’s also watertight against accusations of libel. The joke is that Hanson doesn’t like it when you turn her voice about, or when day becomes night - or, in fact, anything except Neil Diamond. Her “racist rubbish, racist hate” is part of her broader dislike of everything - a whiny petitbourgeois dissatisfaction with every benefit her white privilege gives her. “I Don’t Like It” clawed with lacquered nails up to no. 12 on the Australian charts. Hunt’s next character, Little Johnny Howard, wasn’t nearly as popular as Pantsdown. It’s not difficult to see why. For one thing, the wider urban sphere Hunt addressed was just as likely to vote Liberal/ National as Labor. No matter what they say about the lefty ABC, a huge slice of Triple J listeners are safely nestled in a right-wing economic camp. There’s a deeper, more troubling reason for the lack of LJH appeal, though - as troubling as actually being a Howard supporter is. Pauline Hanson and the countless incompetent, angry, hate-filled pseudo-pollies who have followed in her wake are an expression of a legitimate voicelessness and home-grown changes that many people feel powerless to control.

equivalents, Bob Katter, yokes homophobia to oldschool Labor values. Both Hanson and Katter reject “spin” in favour of a conservative independent “Truth”. There’s an elitist void in the modern Labor party that extremists have rushed to fill. Australia has a long history of hatred, discrimination, and fear of cultural diversity, but it’s easier to laugh at people who are marginalised than to recognise the racism and elitism riddling popular discourse. Most of the furore surrounding Pauline’s “Please explain?” was not related to her lack of self-reflection, but her limited vocabulary (which excluded the, frankly, then obscure word “xenophobic”). While Hanson was ranting about Indigenous people being “higher than us now”, Howard was implementing a Ten Point Plan to undermine the Wik decision. Little Johnny Howard issued an unqualified apology to every member of the Stolen Generations; the real Howard was unfazed, and continued to sell spin about asylum seekers. One Nation is vicious, ignorant, actively harmful, and oppressive, even when out of power. It’s also part of a larger network of discrimination, disempowerment, and racist discourse. Maybe it’s time satirists stopped asking Hanson to “Please explain” and started asking mainstream government to “Please account for”.

Heart-on-sleeve Hansonism has an uncomfortably close-to-home source - the gentrification of both major central parties, mainstream media discourse, and the alienation of the people these platforms claim to represent. As with the horrifically hostile nationalism that swept Britain in the wake of Thatcher, “rednecks” (as identified by the apparently anti-establishment Midnight Oil in 1998) experience an inarticulate fear that manifests as homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, hate. Often, right-wingers don’t even know what they want, as was clear from Stephanie Barker’s disastrous identification of Islam as a country, halal food as terrorism, and Jews as followers of Christ. It’s notable that Hanson came to power through the supposedly safe Labor seat of Oxley. One of Hanson’s contemporary

In 1997, Pauline Hanson responded to death threats by secretly filming a video to be screened to One Nation supporters in the event of her assassination. She implored her allies “for the sake of our children and our children’s children, you must fight on. Do not let my passing distract you for one moment.”

Picture by Natalie Thompson

In 1998, the ABC signed an out-of-court settlement with One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, following an injunction still pending from 1997. To this day, the ABC is unable to broadcast “Back Door Man”, the work of two-hit-wonder and sound design lecturer Simon Hunt. Whether it indefensibly qualifies as libel or political communication is still unsettled but it whacked a dent into an already mismanaged campaign still resonant in Australian discourse.

FRAU MERKEL: A FORGOTTEN WONDER WOMAN by Richard Ferguson her country’s official language at all public events means she cannot cross into the public consciousness of the likes of Clinton’s Beijing speech, who was able to get her message across most major news outlets because of her language.

Merkel simply doesn’t get the credit she deserves for her role as a shining example of womens’ progress in politics, from either the mainstream media or the global public in general. Whenever paragons of feminism today are named by global political pundits, they always discuss the likes of Hillary Clinton, and while you cannot doubt that Clinton deserves much praise for her achievements in office, her achievements don’t stack up in terms of political relevance or legislative impact compared to Merkel. In fact, Merkel is a leader who has managed to wield great power without her gender becoming an issue in most instances, and it’s hard not to wonder why a woman leader who has achieved so much in the way she has isn’t more celebrated. The answer lies in a media culture that fails to understand Merkel and her unique brand of girl power.

Thatcher. She was not only the first Western head of government to be a woman, but she was also a revolutionary figure, completely altering her country’s economy and inspiring a worldwide shift towards monetarism. Merkel is more concerned with stability than change. That she’s been forced to lead the EU in the middle of its biggest economic crisis underlines the notion that she plays a more masculine role of stabilising and maintaining old institutions and structures. If you want to be a celebrity woman leader, you are expected to tear down the men and their systems in society, whether you’re liberal or conservative in nature. Merkel does not play into our well-crafted ideas about what a woman leader should be and therefore, we merely see her gender as a side-note to her steady political practice of righting the ship.

The most obvious problem for Merkel in the celebrity stakes has been that In an everincreasingly Anglo-centric media landscape, extraordinary leaders who do not speak English won’t get the same coverage by English-speaking media outlets. The fiery speeches of feminist paragons have long been hailed as moments in history by political commentators and historians, most famously Clinton’s “women’s rights are human rights” speech in her state visit to Beijing in 1995. This speech was noted as Clinton’s blossoming from a mere political wife to a global superstar. In comparison, Merkel’s own famous speeches, most notably on Germany’s role in the Holocaust and her views on multiculturalism, are hardly roaming around the eternal halls of YouTube, despite the great impact they had at home and abroad. Merkel’s perfectly respectable decision to speak

Moreover, Angela Merkel is a political anchor, keeping a volatile world from drifting into the abyss, and as such she differs from many female political trailblazers due to their positions as “the first”. Take Merkel’s predecessor as European Woman Leader in Chief, Margaret

English-speaking proles

The crucial factor why Merkel is not viewed on the same pedestal as her female contemporaries probably lies in her own stated goal to avoid cultivating any sort of overtly feminist image. The German Chancellor is not as vehemently opposed to the discussion of women’s issues as Thatcher was, but neither does she run towards such discussions. Compare her to Clinton (who has made her living promoting women’s’ rights across the globe) and her feminist credentials seem wanting. Merkel, in a Q&A session held by German women’s magazine Brigette commented on herself as being “perhaps an interesting case of a woman in power, but no feminist. Real feminists would be offended if I described myself as one.” Like Thatcher before her, she sees herself above such issues but the latter part of the comment is telling. Merkel is someone who strives never to offend in her comments, and here she seems to keep feminists on side

by not pretending to be superior to them in her ideological outlook, while making a point of arguing for women’s equality, if only quietly. Merkel cannot really be seen as a feminist warrior in the way of Clinton, but this attempt to rise above leads to an interesting debate about whether women should strive to be “women politicians” or just aim to assimilate into the already established culture. Merkel plays politics like most the men in her county, shirking the charismatic leadership styles of her international contemporaries. This may make her less an attractive case study for tabloid journalists and rabid political bloggers, but she instils the values that all women should be able to perform their job without their gender being applied to their work. Merkel may not get an biographical HBO mini- series anytime soon, but she will be remembered in the long run as a excellent example of what women can achieve in government.

Picture by Natalie Thompson

Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, is a motherfucking boss. Since 2005, Merkel has led her nation and the European Union through one of the most turbulent times in the region’s history. Whilst other nations have collapsed around her, Merkel has kept Germany on top throughout the Global Financial Crisis while holding the very fabric of Europe together through nothing more than sheer cunning. On security issues, Merkel makes news, whether she’s sticking the finger to the Americans over the NSA spying on Europeans or challenging Putin over Russia holding European oil supplies to ransom. The Chancellor has been so influential that she has been named by Forbes Magazine as the second most powerful person in the world. Therefore, she is the most powerful woman in recent history. Yet, not that many people talk about the “powerful woman” bit.

Merkel is the first chancellor from East Germany since reunification in 1991. When her fellow East Germans were marching towards the Berlin Wall in November 1989, Merkel said she was enjoying herself in a sauna.

WOMEN’S DIVISION: A Guide to WA’s Female Politicians by Richard Ferguson Julie Bishop- MP for Curtin (Liberal) As Foreign Minister, Ms Bishop is the most powerful woman in the new Abbott Government. She will visit her home state less as she jets across the world as Foreign Minister, stopping boats and winning hearts overseas. However, Bishop is adored by the WA Liberals. There was a brief second where she was due to be installed as Liberal Leader in WA during the post Richard Court wilderness years. Watch out for her death stare at UN Security Council meetings. And definitely watch out for her name to pop up in leadership speculation as Abbott grows old and weary. Alannah MacTiernan- MP for Perth (Labor)

Melissa Parke- MP for Fremantle (Labor) Melissa Parke is one of WA Labor’s brightest recruits and a key figure in the future of the national party, post Rudd/Gillard. Ms Parke spent most of her career as a lawyer for the United Nations, serving in hotspots like Kosovo, Lebanon and Gaza. She was elected to the seat of Fremantle in 2007and survived a tough battle for this seat this year, which swung Liberal after redistricting and general dissatisfaction with Labor in WA. Watch out for Parke to continue climbing up the ranks and perhaps becoming a future Foreign Minister in a Labor Government. Michaela Cash – Senator for WA (Liberal) Michaela Cash is a rising star of the WA Liberals. She is perhaps most well known for her elaborate rant criticising Penny Wong for “betraying the sisterhood” when the latter supported Rudd over Gillard in the

last leadership spill. Whilst that moment gained her some ridicule, she is considered by many to be a future cabinet minister and has a bright future in the Liberal Right, particularly vocal on taking a tough stance on asylum policy. Watch out for her inevitable rise up the Senate ranks and perhaps a spot as Immigration Minister in any future Coalition reshuffle. Rachel Siewert- Senator for WA (Greens) The lone cross-bencher of the bunch, Siewert is WA Green’s senior figure and a powerful voice in the Australian Senate. Siewert began her career at the West Australian Department of Agriculture before climbing her way up the WA Conservation Council, finally being elected to the Senate in 2004. Siewert currently serves as Federal Parliamentary Whip, acting as Christine Milne’s enforcer-in-chief in a party known for members with big mouths. Watch out for Siewert to be embroiled in fights between ultra-socialist Lee Rhiannon and the more moderate Milne as the Greens progress towards their dream of replacing the Labour Party.

Picture by Ayeesha Frederickson

Though a federal fresher, Ms MacTiernan is a living legend in this state already. A accomplished lawyer and founding editor of the Guardian Express, MacTiernan was most famously the mother of the Mandurah Railway Line during her time as WA’s Infrastructure and Transport Minister. The obvious star of the Gallop/Carpenter Governments, MacTiernan is well-known for her outspokenness on everything from

marriage equality to Labor’s internal affairs. Whilst this has won her no fans with Labor powerbrokers, the people have taken her into their hearts. Watch out for her eating little Coalition MPs for breakfast in opposition.

Since 2009, the most common country of origin for people entering Australia with the intention of settling has been New Zealand and they want your jobs

FILM REVIEWS Elysium Directed by: Neil Blonkamp Starring: Matt Damon, Sharlto Kopley, Jodie Foster In 2154, the Earth is an over-crowded, poverty stricken and crime infested wasteland where the poor toil away to scratch out an existence, while the rich have all moved to a gated community in space, where they possess machines that not only can heal any injury and illness, but also prevent aging. The poor are kept in line by robotic droid thugs and those that risk their lives attempting to enter this off-world paradise called Elysium via ‘illegally’ arriving by ship are routinely blown out of the sky by a coldly-hawkish government defence official. There’s nothing subtle about the comparison to the current immigration debate in the United States and indeed, our own country in this film. Director Neil Blomkamp isn’t interested in subtle political messages, and the blatant obviousness of the comparison took me by surprise – everyone left behind on Earth is Hispanic (except of course the protagonist Matt Damon) and Spanish is spoken as much as English. Political messages aside, Elysium is a very well constructed action sci-fi with expertly choreographed sequences, editing and cinematography. The script has some issues in plausibility and pacing, but most of that is utterly negated by the sheer enjoyment of watching the standout psychopath of the year in Sharlto Copley’s Kruger, a violent mercenary with the best Afrikaans accent in cinema. If you enjoyed District 9, you will enjoy this film. This is not as smart or sophisticated as that film, but it essentially the same foundation with a Hollywood budget and some solid A-list actors. Neil Blomkamp is quickly establishing himself as a heavyweight director and will definitely be one to watch in the future. Wade McCagh

Red Obsession Director: David Roach Narrated by Russell Crowe The Bordeaux Region of France has a reputation for making the best wines in the world, and has done so for hundreds of years. Despite political, social and economic changes over the ages, the wines have endured. This documentary catalogues the region’s importance in the 21st century, the growing Chinese market and the economic bubble that forms when fine wines are traded as commodities. Red Obsession is equal parts vineyard and architecture porn. Sweeping, glorious vistas of incredible chateaus and high tech neon skylines dominate and provide a wonderful sense of scope. Interviews with key “Big Five” Chateau (the crème de la crème) owners, directors and key players are balanced well with journalists, businessmen and Chinese entrepreneurs. While usually sharp, there are rough edges: Some of the editing is choppy, time lapses are abused and too long perhaps is spent on establishing the Chinese economic boom and more too on their cultural differences. As a piece of persuasive cinema, Red Obsession does an excellent job, and it does well to intertwine various separate and dense concepts into neat narrative formation. Simon Donnes

Stoker

We’re The Millers Directed by: Rawson Marshall Thurber Starring: Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts

Directed by: Park Chan-wook Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Nicole Kidman, Matthew Goode Full disclosure: I’m a major fan of Park Chanwook. The intensely detailed worlds and characters he creates, combined with the use of brutal violence and exquisite cinematography, are used to explore the depths of the human psyche with a sophistication and purpose that few other filmmakers in the modern era possess. Whatever you do, do not watch Spike Lee’s remake of Oldboy. Watch Oldboy. It’s a masterpiece. When her father dies in a mysterious accident, India Stoker is left alone with her mother in their large isolated house in the American South. Enter the mysterious Uncle Charlie, who turns up at the funeral and quickly sets about charming the two. But then strange things start to happen and India begins to question the motivations and presence of her recently discovered uncle. Stoker is the first English language film that Park has made, and the project is immensely fascinating. With a script by Wentworth Miller (of Prison Break fame) and a cast of largely Australian actors, Park completed the film on an accelerated schedule and with the use of an interpreter. The result is a dark Gothic thriller that evokes the best Hitchcock works; an intensely atmospheric, erotic mystery filled with suspense and seduction. Mia Wasikowska delivers what is probably a career best performance so far as the young India, and is quickly establishing herself as the next major international Australian actress, while Nicole Kidman’s performance as her icy yet vulnerable mother is a brilliant performance that heralds a return to form. While not for everyone’s taste and not quite at the peak of his previous work, this is an enjoyably dark and captivating thriller and worth seeing. Wade McCagh

If you’re in the mood for a movie where the supposedly likable main character pressures an 18 year-old kid to suck the dick of a corrupt Mexican cop, all for the sake of comedy, then We’re the Millers is the probably movie for you. The pitch is imaginative enough; in order to pay off his debt to his killer whale-owning drug lord, Jason Sudeikis recruits a lovable band of misfit outcasts to pose as his family in order to get a shit-ton of weed across the Mexican border. The approach to plot actually resembles their RV full to the brim with dope, as it bumbles through the countryside of the southern States. It slowly chugs along and stalls in place for a few scenes, maybe rushing through others, all before coming to a scramble to a hasty conclusion that wraps everything up a bit too neatly. The comedy itself has its moments, especially at the beginning, but any small niceties are quickly overshadowed by an upcoming ‘dick’ joke, or a ‘gay’ joke, or a ‘tarantula biting someones balls, causing them to become enlarged’ joke. Still, despite the low-brow humor, I did enjoy my time here. The actors are all talented enough- it’s just a shame the script doesn’t give them more to work with. As such, We’re the Millers then just sits in ‘good enough’ territory. Not a great comedy, but hey, at least it isn’t Grown Ups 2. Cameron Moyses

satirising the worst elements of geek masculinity. Replacing Vaughn in the director’s chair is Jeff Wadlow, who is best known for his MMA exploitation flick Never Back Down. However Wadlow’s film (he’s also the only credited screenwriter), is missing the humour, emotion and genuine sense of transgressiveness which made the original so entertaining.

Kick-Ass 2 Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Chloë Grace Moretz, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Jim Carrey Director: Jeff Wadlow Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr’s comic Kick-Ass was considerably better than the comic deserved. The Kick-Ass comic is garbage where Millar can’t seem to make up his mind as to whether he’s celebrating or

BE KIND REWIND: Heathers (1988) Director: Michael Lehmann Starring: Winona Ryder, Christian Slater

Forget Regina George and her army of skanks, or Blair Waldorf and those upper east preppy harlots. The original aggressive but charismatic mega-bitches were the three Heathers; the scrunchie and blazer adorned croquet playing high school girls who were so dang evil that they became murder targets.

Kick-Ass 2 really has two protagonists, Dave (Aaron TaylorJohnston) the title character and Mindy (Chloë Grace Moretz) AKA Hit-Girl. Of the two, Hit-Girl is the far more compelling character. Her subplot focussed on the murderous vigilante trying to fit into high school is the highlight of the film. TaylorJohnston is fine in the film, but he has much less to do than he did in the original.

is also completely lacking in subtlety. All the subtext is clunkily laid out in voiceover. Jim Carrey’s much ballyhooed turn demonstrates that he put a lot of thought and work into creating an original character, but in practise he’s just not that funny. Thankfully Wadlow omits the infamous gratuitous rape scene from the Kick-Ass 2 comic. Though the film kind of goes right up to that point, and then tries to undercut it with a joke which still comes off creepy as fuck. What works? The MMA influenced action scenes are generally well put-together, though the film’s budgetary limitations are often in the spotlight. Moretz is the star of the show, like she was in the first film. But ultimately Kick-Ass 2 is a big step down from the original. Cameron Moyses

A big issue with the film is that for a comedy, its joke hit-rate is really poor. A lot of the jokes just fall flat or are embarrassingly sophomoric. Wadlow’s script

Michael Lehmann’s 1988 black comedy, starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, shows what happens when someone has the, er, audacity to carry out those violent fantasies teenagers have against their oppressive peers. What begins as an innocent prank for Winona Ryder’s character Veronica, a recruit of the Heathers who is growing tired of their social politics, ends in the murder of the Heather’s ringleader, successfully framed as suicide. The resulting chain of events includes copycat suicide attempts, a double murder and an attempt to explode an entire school while passing it off as a mass suicide. What works about the film is the way it represents the romanticism of teenage angst; simply placing props like Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar next to a female murder victim, or a bottle of San Pellegrino next to two naked male victims, demonstrates the romantic and tragic assumptions we make about young people’s problems. When Martha ‘Dumptruck’, a very overweight classmate of the Heathers, attempts to commit suicide by walking into oncoming traffic with a suicide

note pinned to her chest, she is chastised for attempting to ‘copy’ the cool kids. Because the most popular girl in school and two of the school’s star footballers are deemed to have killed themselves, another young girl’s real attempt to end her life is dismissed as trying to be cool. Her lack of beauty or social status removes the romanticism of her actions; suicide is treated as a fantastical and spontaneous combustion of angst, rather than a way to end a sad, lonely existence. Highlights of the film include the funeral of the ‘gay’ footballers in which a grieving father of one of the murder victims bursts into tears at the altar and cries out ‘I LOVE MY BIG GAY SON’. Also, Winona Ryder’s monocle, and a young cherub faced Shannon Doherty stepping up to the plate as the replacement bitch overlord (symbolically wearing Heather #1’s big red scrunchie). Christian Slater does a good job of being hella creepy and weird, and Ryder gives a strong performance as the lead character who just wants her boyfriend to stop murdering people. Heathers has an excellent mixture of satire, aesthetics and drama and is an endless source of sartorial inspiration. Shoulder pads and tartan come at me.

Marnie Allen

WHY WE NEED MORE EVIL WOMEN by Kate Prendergast

For villains— if they are to be worthy opponents of our heroes— are always suppositories— oops, I meant repositories—of great power. Terrible. Yes! But great. As spoke the wand-maker Ollivander of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. And, as it was for Ollivander, the terror that many villains evoke in us of a kind quite separate from hate. Instead what fizzles up in our blood is the bastard brother of fascination; a kind of greedy, thrilling awe. Their wickedness galvanises our imagination and their deviousness thrills— such to the extent that some of our beasts become downright sexy. (Bite me).

In need of a Strepsil

Especially when we’re looking at genres like horror or fantasy which tend to ground themselves in absolute value systems, villains are often far more visceral and dramatically cutting than their moral-centred quashers. It’s Anton Chigurh who comes silently padding round the doors of memory when someone mentions No Country for Old Men. The Batman looks like a flying rodent-beetle in need of a Strepsil next to the shrieking genius of The Joker. And when we think of Silence of the Lambs, we hear the slurping sputter of Hannibal’s wet cannibal lips gobbling up an imaginary liver— not the crime-fighting grit of one of the more convincing heroines in movie history, or even the tasteless wardrobe of pseudo-transgender ‘Buffalo Bill’. As spectators, we are hopeless sado-masochists— just, hey, plot-spinner, make sure our primary identifier shucks off his self-doubt, upgrades his weaponry and pulls his thumb out of his arse before end credits roll. From this perspective, the lack of female villainy in adult film seems to deny that females have

the necessary power to intimidate or inspire fear. Notably, those that have made some dark imprint on film are usually matched off against other women rather than men, are less inclined to engage in direct violence, and are overall more likely to incite loathing or resentment in the viewer rather than the acid fibrillations of genuine terror. That’s not to say that there haven’t been a few downright terrifying dames. Most of them, however, we meet in childhood; confronting them in the uncanny backwoods, the crystal palaces, the deepwater chasms and on the dank cellar steps of fairy tale. For psychoanalysts, it makes a lot of sense that it should be women characters that made us quiver in our jellysandal years. They note how many tend to fall under the “schizophrenic mother” trope; a characterization which plays upon the confusion the young feel towards their primary nurturer who also happens to be their primary punisher. Whether explicitly (as in a death of the true mother at the beginning of Cinderella) or symbolically, we see the role of the good and gentle maternal figure without warning usurped by a monster. The potency of this kind of villainess is hence that they “purify” our infant mother-concept. Through giving her “scary” side a shape and a name in the suitably distant and dream-like realm of myth, this side of her also becomes contained and externalized. Such stories thus “defend” our Significant Other from her “evil double”, the Shouty Other. Whilst this kind of trope leverages our subconscious, the “jealous mother-in-law” is a characterization rooted in the anguished bones of history, and more horrible because of it. As figured in Ursula and Snow White’s stepmother, through this archetype we see the older woman consumed by an insane jealousy for the fresh young thing flouncing along the castle parapets, trying to introduce Fairyland Idol to all the larks/fish, and bouncing her perky tits under the older woman’s warting nose. Even making her grub about on unwashed floors just brings a healthy glow to her cheeks. Bitch. Traditional tales thus motivated by female spite are thought to have emerged from the way families were composed, back in the ye old days— where young, apple-cheeked wives and husbands’ mothers occupied the same household. In a society which saw little use for women past their child-bearing and rearing years, these mothers-in-law would often vent their rage towards the beautiful fool who was

guileless herald and harbinger of their death. New brides were subsequently often victims of a life-time of psychological abuse; which would be re-avenged a generation later, on the next hussy to step across the threshold. So the cycle continued. The ‘evil stepmother’ was also quite a literal figure. Back when science was in its swaddlinggear, the risk of women dying in childbirth was terribly high. When widowed husbands remarried, distributing resources across the two competing broods could be difficult, and new matriarchs would invariably favour their own children. This was not only to increase their bare prospects of survival, but to ensure it was her line which would get the best drippings of the inheritance pie. The stepmother/ daughter relationship was particularly fraught; especially if the latter bore a strong resemblance to the husband’s late wife. It’s with grim irony one understands that under patriarchy, misogyny can be just as common between women themselves. Can we get beyond our bitches and witches? That’s the question confronting us now. What we’ve got to envision, I guess, is a point where more women are convincingly portrayed as powerful and dark, without this darkness bubbling up from the lived experiences of gender inequity, and without this power tapping into the fear of the naughty child.

Pictures by Kate Prendergast

The league of female villains in adult cinema is pretty spare, relatively speaking. “Well, brilliant” may be your response. Non-sarcastically brilliant. Finally, something feminism doesn’t have to grimace at and make pains to overhaul! For at first superficial squint, the thin spread of XY meanies seems heartening. It implies that there are less female anathemas in masscirculation to goad, rationalize or act as a measure for misogyny. It’s a fair point, but one which fails to get with the picture when it comes to recognizing the virtues of being evil.

Rosemary’s Baby was directed by Roman Polanski, whose pregnant wife actress Sharon Tate was murdered in 1969 by Charles Manson and his followers, who titled their death spree “Helter Skelter” after the 1968 song by The Beatles, one of whose members, John Lennon, would one day live (and in 1980 be murdered) in the apartment building where Rosemary’s Baby had been filmed.

While most of our villainesses are drawn by animators rather than played by actors, there are a few notables in real-life adult film. Here are five.

half a lifetime, she’d been little more than ash stacked and organized to resemble a living individual anyway. 3. Mrs Lovett, Sweeney Todd

1. Minnie Castevet, Rosemary’s Baby Satanist, baby-snatcher and busybody neighbour, it may well be the last description which makes Minnie so dizzyingly vile. Gobbling non-stop like a scrawny, poke-necked, Southern-scratching turkey, she thrusts and snouts and burrows her interfering way into the increasingly-emaciated Rosemary’s life. After enlisting her husband to their cabalistic plot, Minnie has her body filled with the devil’s seed during an underworld rape ritual, and then gloatingly nourishes the swelling obscenity to which Rosemary is unwitting host. Although unbearable and suffocating when occupying screen space, Minnie’s absence is even worse— you feel her odiousness pressing against the walls of Rosemary’s lonely apartment like sentient yellow fog, creeping like a pool of steaming rancid butter under the chinks in doorways and smothering every erstwhile place of sanctuary and peace. I want to frenziedly stamp on her like one would a scuttling roach. 2. Miss Havisham, Great Expectations Miss Havisham is another skin-crawling hag who exists only to stir with long, cracked fingernail the affairs of the young and naive. Deserted on the morning of her wedding by a swindling rake, she casts off all faith in love and joy, and thenceforth decides to become a white-bodied, spindle-legged spider for the rest of her days. As cobwebs slowly swaddle her in the gauze of Time like a corpse-blessed bridal veil, she viciously festers in a consumptive poison of intractable spite. And then, one fateful morning, young Pip stumbles into her dustground. Looking upon the shrunken bride, the rough-hewn lad sees a ‘waxwork and skeleton that seemed to have dark eyes that moved and looked at me’. Seizing at the opportunity to exact revenge for her suffering at the hands of men, Havisham first drains her adopted niece Estelle of human feeling, and then deploys the now soulless, beautiful robot to break the young boy’s heart (meanwhile transforming him into an uppity git). Havisham does repent eventually; but by then it’s all too late for Estelle, and Dickens is obliged to punish her selfishness by prodding her with his God-pen into the mansion fireplace. Her parched yellow frame combusts like 100-year kindling. It’s a fitting end—for

Mrs Lovett is one of my favourite villainess to disgrace adult film. She’s a little like Bellatrix really; Bonham-Carter’s good at the devoted madwoman act. While the Fleet Street barber plays butcher, the entrepreneurial Lovett gives her abutting pie-shop a much-needed lift by mincing the cadavers, swaddling them in pastry and popping them in the oven. And keep in mind it was Lovett, not Todd who puts this mutually macabre business relationship on the table. ‘Eminently practical and yet appropriate as always!’ exclaims Todd, at which Mrs Lovett blooms like a stink-flower. Almost everyone’s a villain in this grimmest of musicals, but Lovett is repulsively divine. 4. Serleena, MIB II Whilst I wouldn’t pick Serleena as top villainess, she’s one of the only ones to be found in blockbuster film that both holds the title of arch villain, and who routinely uses violence as a favourite problem-solving strategy. From the film’s outset, Serleena’s position is clear: this girl’s a man-eater. Whilst her first victim more than got what was coming to him—we see him drag her lingeried form into the bushes with intent to rape— it soon becomes clear that our villainess will ingest anybody that even mildly irritates her. Or lick out their brains. Through their ear-holes. Perhaps it should be troubling, that the transformation from (extreme) women’s rights champion to all-devouring dominatrix happens within minutes, and with the ease of a shape-shifter—which she is, incidentally (her true alien form is an angry flailing plant). Lara Flynn Boyle earned a Razzie nomination for her role here, and it seems it hasn’t done her a whole lot for her career since. Earlier this year, she reprised the female cannibal trope, appearing in a horror-comedy film called ‘Hansel and Gretel Get Baked’. The screenplay has Boyle as a vain and aging witch, who replaces the ‘tempt kiddies with candy’ ruse with a ‘draw stoners through home- hydroponics’ one. Once the young potheads get riding the magic dragon, they get the munchies something terrible, and can’t help themselves pigging out on the witch’s gingerbread house cake. At this point she saws them open and eats them to absorb their youth sap.

5. Grendel’s Mother, Beowulf Although the original Old English manuscript gives us little more than a fragmented vision of Grendel’s mother— her appearance going virtually unmarked, and she’s absent of even a name— the 2007 Beowulf drapes her in erotic power, and puts her at the heart of the legendary tragedy. While she may be a huge and scabby-scaled dragon underneath, Jolie lends her luscious form to Grendel’s ma as she appears before men (and audiences). It’s therefore with great ease that she lures a line of vainglorious, dick-swinging kings into her mere, where they are randy and stupid enough to get it on with a glam demon reptile. Whilst we can think of her as the ultimate seductress for this reason, Grendel’s Mother is fundamentally, well, a mother; and it is a mother’s fury which is the source of her murderous rage and vendetta against man-kind. She curses the arrogant manwhores with the ‘Sins of the Father!!!’ who are doomed thereafter to live in misery until their bastard sons come to visit with a ‘hello daddy’ hailed in blood.

HOLLYWOOD BOYS’ CLUB by James Munt You might be forgiven for thinking that we’re seeing a new age for women filmmakers, and that the ol’ ‘boys’ club’ of Hollywood’s heyday has passed; over the past few years, we’ve seen Kathryn Bigelow become the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director (The Hurt Locker, in 2008), as well as films like Miranda July’s Me and You and Everyone We Know, Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, Jane Campion’s Bright Star, Lynne Ramsay’s We Need To Talk About Kevin and Sarah Polley’s Take This Waltz. Even Lena Dunham was largely wellreceived with Tiny Furniture. However, whilst Academy Award recognition was an important step forward for equality in film, Bigelow was only the fourth woman nominated in the category in 86 years, so it would be erroneous to view this as signifying a transition to an era where the director’s chair is as comfortable and welcoming to a female presence as it is to the unquestioned archetype of the assertive, masculine auteur. It’s no surprise that women in independent cinema are doing better than those in Hollywood (compare Bigelow’s 2008 Oscar to Campion’s Palme d’Or in 1992). Whilst the number of the 250 highest-grossing films directed by women in the US last year did feature a 4% jump from 2011, it’s still only at 9%, whilst Sundance this year had 22.2% narrative films and 41.1% of documentaries made by women.

are professionals; a man churning out generic rom-coms does not necessarily like the films he is making, but neither does he necessarily do a terrible job or fail to turn a profit. Why doesn’t it work the other way? And don’t tell me that J.J. Abrams can perfectly relate to a male Jedi action hero. It’s clear that there’s ingrained sexism in the way executive decisions are made. Campion said of it, “The studio system is kind of an old boys’ system and it’s difficult for them to trust women to be capable”. Men have always been in charge, and if that works, why change it? It’s not hard to find stories of women being outright refused because “female directors don’t sell”. Combine that with stories of sexual harassment (such as a drunken executive tearing off Wayne’s World-creator Penelope Spheeris’ clothes at a meeting, and saying, “Did you want to make this music video or not?”) and it’s not hard to see how many young filmmakers opt out of the uphill battle. Moreover, innovative, influential and completely underappreciated female filmmakers have existed since the birth of cinema, from Agnès Varda to Lona Scherfig and Vera Chytilová to Isabel Coixet and Liv Ulmann. With a female industry share that’s actually dropped from 9 to 5% between 1998 and 2012 (according to some studies),

one might claim that something like an initial absence of any female directors from Spike Lee’s essential films list is to be expected. However, it’s precisely this comparative rarity of women’s voices in the industry that makes it all that more vital that important works of their creation are recognised and celebrated, lest they be forgotten. Ida Lupino was the first woman to produce, direct and write her own films, many of which were about women’s issues including a 1950 film about rape. We need only look at the vastly underappreciated Alice Guy-Blaché to see the huge influence female directors have had on the artform, despite their incredibly disproportionate representation. Guy-Blaché was not only the first female filmmaker but is also generally acknowledged to be the first ever filmmaker to create narrative-based films. From 1896, she made over 400 films; her 24 year directing career being the longest of any of the film pioneers, and all this in a time when women were denied the vote. As a lover of film, I desperately want to be able to say that many of my favourite filmmakers are women. Girls who aspire to get into the film industry should not want for female role models, and they certainly shouldn’t be the only women on set or have a harder time getting to that male-crowded set. It’s long, long past time we were exposed to an industry composed of just 7% female perspectives.

But hold on a minute, where’s the cause for complaint if women just don’t want to go into film? This whole argument must just be raised by feminists, surely. Yet, graduates for film schools have largely been 50-50 recently, so the problem has to lie with the industry, not a lack of women passionate about filmmaking. If I were to tell you that Twilight (grossing $392,616,625) was both written by a female screenwriter and directed by a female director, you might not be surprised. However, in 2013 it doesn’t get easier finding films directed at women directed by women (none of the subsequent Twilight films were). Teenage boys are still the most enthusiastic movie-goers, and so most films still target them (yet another issue). Hollywood directors

Picture by Akima Lateef

Don’t tell me that J.J. Abrams can

Michael Bay famously had Megan Fox wash his car for her audition for the first Transformers movie, while Miramax co-founder and Hollywood powerbroker referred to Roman Polanski’s admitted sodomy of a 13-year old as a “so-called crime”. Daaaang

EXPLOITING THE PIXIE by Katherine Gillespie

The manic pixie easily predates film or television. Even nineteenth century Norwegian theatre provides a near perfect example of the trope. Ibsen’s 1879 play A Doll’s House introduces the spirited Nora, a young woman who purposefully exaggerates her own fanciful idiosyncrasies for the amusement of her husband Torvald. In her desperate desire to please him, she becomes increasingly cut off from her own needs. Torvald is infatuated with the entirely artificial image his wife feels forced to project, and remains either unwilling or incapable of understanding her or communicating with her. Ibsen’s play emphasises the complete unworkability of their fantasy world relationship. His concerns were echoed in last year’s Ruby Sparks, a similarly disturbing portrayal of a woman growing frustrated as she is forced to provide increasingly ridiculous spectacles of entertainment to appease an unappeasable lover. A darker side to the kooky man-pleasing heroine can be witnessed in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. Blanche DuBois, certainly both eccentric and beautiful, ticks many of the manic pixie dream girl boxes. However, as her whimsicality gives way to actual delusion, she reaches a point where she is no longer capable of embodying the fantasies of the men around her. She is instead only capable of frightening them - mental illness isn’t cute, not even when it comes with a Southern

accent. Blanche is spurned by her prospective love interest for being, essentially, the less glamorous kind of crazy. She falls victim to the catch-22 of the manic pixie dream girl trope: be quirky, be spontaneous, but don’t start scaring anybody.

plaything, an aesthetically pleasing amusement given nothing in return for the creativity she inspires. The entire concept of the muse seems to suggest that while they can inspire it, women can never create art themselves.

Theatre’s impossible manic pixie standard has been clung to since The Taming of the Shrew, where Viola’s overplayed manic pixie tendencies are perceived by Petruchio as a little too headstrong. Luckily, her husband is able to smooth over some of her pesky feminist leanings and she is literally tamed into compliance. Allowed to keep a few of her more harmless and charming idiosyncrasies, she is transformed into the perfect manic pixie wife. This storyline is copied out over and over again. Even The Sound of Music, the archetypal narrative of a young whimsy-prone girl warming the cockles of a jaded older man’s heart, spends a lot of time condemning its protagonist for being a bit too free spirited.

Male artists have long been bewitched by young manic pixie muses. Although the art such women inspire will have power and influence, they themselves will not. Figures such as Andy Warhol’s Edie Sedgwick and Picasso’s Marie-Therese Walter were as carelessly chewed up as they were spat out by the art world. Walters, her life dedicated entirely to Picasso’s art, committed suicide at his death. Sedgwick’s fate was just as unfortunate – after falling out of favour with Warhol she died young, immortalised as a shallow party girl.

The manic pixie has existed on canvas even longer than she has on stage or screen. In fact, she can be viewed simply as a modern take on the archetypal muse, the beautiful but silent provider of inspiration and affirmation for the troubled and sensitive male artist. The artistmuse relationship is inevitably a destructive one. Although often talented herself, the muse is allowed only to act as a subservient

To artistically depict a woman is often to literally put her on a pedestal and project a fantasy upon her. For some reason, we refuse to outgrow our tendency to do this. The average polka dot clad Zooey Deschanel style heroine, when subject to the gaze of an over-medicated and trenchant young hero, becomes a blank canvas onto which he projects his own escape. They both become participants in a centuries old tradition, and we as an audience do so with them.

Picture by Kate Prendergast

You’re familiar enough with the manic pixie dream girl by now. Existing in a near constant state of good hair and whimsy, she appeases and emotionally fulfils the downtrodden and cynical male protagonists of early 2000s films such as Garden State. Yet although feminist blogs only started identifying the manic pixie in the wake of Zach Braff’s motorcycling exploits, there is a limit to how much credit we can give him and Natalie Portman’s oversized, Shins-blaring headphones for the phenomenon. The cute quirky woman trope is not one exclusive to the big screen career vehicles of ex sitcom stars. It has been ubiquitous in the arts and literature for hundreds of years, and it is ridiculous that things have been allowed to continue for this long.

NOT SO MODERN SELFIE by Lauren Wiszniewski

What’s wrong with a little duckface?

In the current age of technology it has never been easier to create a gallery of profile pictures via cell phone, laptop or camera held at arm’s length. Prior to this, self-portraits were for the privileged few who had the talent to create a somewhat realistic, abstract or aesthetically pleasing rendition of the self. When we offer ourselves up for public consumption, the metaphysical question of ‘are we consuming or are we being consumed’ is asked. Throughout his life Rembrandt painted himself over 90 times, during various stages and ages. Not every self-portrait was about presenting himself in the best way, nor a construction of self, but a form of autobiography. By marking and identifying different points in his life, Rembrandt could identify and examine himself through his art. Often painting himself with a sort of frown on his face, Rembrandt rendered a form of self-scrutiny that is rarely seen when another paints or photographs us.

Regarding his last set of self-portraits, Rembrandt commented, “…and I came, it may be, to look for myself, and recognise myself. What have I found?” Often, the only one who truly knows who you are is yourself, and thus only you can capture your true essence. This sentiment is echoed in the works of Frida Kahlo. Perhaps most famous for her monobrow, Kahlo was an immensely talented artist whose pain and triumphs can be best understood through her self-portraits. Despite leading a frankly depressing life (her legs were crippled from polio, she suffered permanent injuries from a bus accident, and underwent abortions), she found art a therapeutic expression of self, stating, “I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.” Whilst those of us who have taken a selfie may not have undergone as extreme hardships as Kahlo’s, we do suffer through the tensions modern life places us under, and documentation via self-portrait can act as a form of self- empowerment, offering some form of control over our image in a world where even a tagged picture on Facebook can have immense repercussions. Vincent Van Gogh similarly used self-portraits to find his own answers, capturing a range of battered emotions and feelings in his work. Interestingly, Van Gogh never stares directly at the viewer; seemingly lost yet self aware, he grapples for some form of self-identification. In an 1888 self-portrait, he stares off into the distance in a pose adopted by millions in Instagram and Facebook news feeds around the world. While criticised and unappreciated in his time, Van Gogh is now praised as an artist, leading one to wonder whether Rihanna’s Instagram or a picture of Miley’s new haircut will be similarly praised in the near future.

who I am.” Far from being a sign of “not having any friends” and adolescent angst, selfies are an art form that allow us not only to identify and examine ourselves but also present ourselves in a way that we see fit. Whether this is idealized, abstract or autobiographical, they create the possibility to see and be seen. Van Gogh, Henri Matisse and even Adolf Hilter all followed the golden selfie rules; heads turned slightly to the side, staring into the distance, and the use of toaster/ rise and earlybird filters. A photograph is not that different from a painting, with a picture supposedly speaking a thousand words; so what’s wrong with a little duckface?

In On Photography, Susan Sontag describes the act of the photograph as a dichotomy between the photographer’s disengagement (taking the photo) and his or her engagement (creating the image). Self-portraits and selfies promote this disengagement from the self, as much as they promote the message, “this is me, this is

Just in case you want to know where you are on the vanity scale, here’s this: 37% of Instagram users never upload a photo; 5% have uploaded more than fifty.

Picture by Lauren Wiszniewski

‘Selfie’ has become a dirty word in the modern vocabulary. Commonly linked to the image of an attention seeking teenage girl, selfies are discarded as cheap and tacky by the bulk of the population. Seen as a piece of commodified angst, they’re viewed as a cry for validation at best and a rise in narcissism at worst. Urban dictionary (the be all and end all of understanding today’s vernacular) defines the selfie as “a picture taken of yourself that is planned to be uploaded to Facebook, Myspace or any other sort of social networking website. You can usually see the person’s arm holding out the camera in which case you can clearly tell that this person does not have any friends to take pictures of them so they resort to Myspace to find Internet friends and post pictures of themselves.” However, what many fail or refuse to recognise is the fact that selfies are a modern art form, the self-portraits of our time. While we cannot say for certain that artists like Rembrandt and Van Gogh would have indulged in the humble selfie phenomenon, they sure did like to paint pictures of themselves.

THE LITTLE MERMAID The Blue Room, 20th August by Dan Werndly The Blue Room Theatre’s modernisation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Little Mermaid strove to create contemporary agents for classical characters. Set in Australian suburbia, the three man show featured Ben Gill as James, King of the arcade, Jacinta Larcombe as Grace the waterbaby, and Georgia King as Nina, Grace’s young mother who never got to grow up. The resulting piece was a fusion of dance and drama that told a poignant and relatable tale. The pre-show performance was both startling and engaging, leaving the majority of the audience enamoured with the body of the almost naked woman dancing on stage. This scene summarised the performance that was to follow, the story of a young person struggling against the binds of

family, history and the unknown. The scenography presented an image of tired Australian suburbia, with rusted corrugated iron used as the only backdrop. Coupled with the lighting this really gave a sense of immutability and decay, also reflected in Nina and Grace’s almost silent relationship. This was effectively juxtaposed with director Ian Sinclair’s innovative use of scattered soundscapes and images depicting themes of change: an arcade game, the seaside at midnight, a chance meeting with Prince Charming, a girl’s first kiss. One of the only set pieces, an electric fan, was used imaginatively, creating the effect of flowing water, becoming both a record player and a manhole. The intermittent physical and colloquial Australian humour was very much a strong point of the performance, illustrating the

cast’s desire to push the original tale’s boundaries, and make the themes of desperation and stagnation ring through to the audience. However, this focus on theme detracted from the story, which was only really brought into focus by the occasional monologue by Grace. The fifty minute show only had a development and rehearsal phase of six weeks, and considering this the output was quite phenomenal. It also appeared that the show would continue to adapt and grow as performances continued. The intimacy of the story was strengthened by the performance venue, which only had a maximum capacity of around 60 people. The Little Mermaid drew on different elements of lighting, dance, drama, sound and scenography and ultimately pulled them all together to make a cohesive and satisfying piece of art.

ART’S BEST VAGINAS by Kat Gillespie Rene Magritte ‘Le viol’ 1934 Transposing the naked female torso onto a face, Magritte replaces a woman’s eyes with breasts and her mouth with a vagina. One of the artist’s most confronting pieces, Le Viol is surrealism’s answer to the ‘my eyes are up here’ t-shirt. Georgia O’Keefe ‘Black Iris III’ 1926 O’Keefe denied suggestions of erotic imagery in her work, but it is difficult to tackle her floral paintings from any other perspective. The centre of an iris flower here bears a close resemblance to a lady’s, er, delicate parts. O’Keefe’s earlier work ‘Grey Line with Black, Blue and Yellow’ is similarly evocative. Basically any of Egon Schiele’s female nudes 1910-1918 Egon Schiele’s rather frank portraits of reclining women in unashamedly spread

legged poses got him into trouble with the conservative Austrian public. Nonetheless his erotic depictions of both male and female genitalia are exquisite in their linear detail. Gustave Courbet ‘L’Origine du monde’ 1866 Adopting the now well-known ‘2007 Britney Spears paparazzi shot’ perspective, this close up view of a vagina feels a little obtrusive. Courbet doesn’t bother to include his anonymous female subject’s face or other body parts in the work, leaving the viewer with nearly uninterrupted views of her genitals. Richard Larter ‘Lying Nude’ 1964 Australian artist Richard Larter is known for his erotic images of the female body, but this portrait of a woman almost viciously bearing her bits to the viewer is

by far his most up close and personal work. Tracey Emin ‘I’ve Got It All’ 2000 Emin’s characteristically blunt portrait of her own success, ‘I’ve Got It All’ sees the artist shoving money into her own private piggy bank. Notes and coins. It is difficult to know whether the work is intended as a provocative social statement or is just something regularly Emin does for fun. Jamie McCartney ‘Great Wall of Vagina’ 2008 Critical of the porn industry’s heavy regulation of vaginal aesthetic standards, Jamie McCartney’s quest to prove that every set of female genitalia is beautiful and unique saw him create 400 plaster casts of vaginas over four years. These casts were placed on wall panels, and the imposing result is clear proof that no two labia are the same.

The physical appearance of Ariel in Disney’s The Little Mermaid was Alyssa Milano, who was a child star at the time.

PELICAN NEEDS AN EDITOR, YO! Have a passion for media? Want to make a positive difference on campus? Apply to edit Pelican! Pelican editors are appointed by the Guild and put out eight editions over the course of the academic year. Candidates must have been a Guild member for the last two years (or as long as theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been at UWA) and not have run in Guild Elections over the same period of time. Pelican can be edited solo or as a duo; if applying as the latter, demonstrate how youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll divide up the workload and handle differences. Important things to consider are: - getting students to pick up, enjoy and relate to the magazine - actively representing, showcasing and developing the talents of the student body - the tradition of the Pelican, dating back to 1929 - maintaining a politically unbiased approach to issues on and off campus - creating an intelligent, positive magazine that demonstrates the best of what UWA can be. An application should demonstrate: - a strong vision for the design, content and feel of the magazine - ways to keep contributors motivated and inspired - how different viewpoints would be sought and represented - how to get students to pick up and get involved with the magazine - creating a final product that best reflects the talent at UWA - a stance on how the Pelican - time management and deadline planning - creative flair and a desire to innovate - experience in writing, editing, co-ordinating and art direction. Your application must consist of: - A CV (due on the 21st of October by 5pm), and; - A physical application outlining in detail your vision for the magazine for 2013, as well as physical design mockups (due on the 25th of October by 5pm). These are to be submitted to Alex Pond at the Memberships and Communication office (next to the Pelican office!). For more information or any queries, contact Alex Pond at alex.pond@guild.uwa.edu.au or in person at the Memberships and Communications Office.

ON THE SEXUAL HISTORY OF A SONG by Alex Griffin “[If music can’t be explained it’s because] there are infinite and interminable things to be said of it” – Vladimir Jankelevitch “You cant beat women anyhow and that if you are wise or dislike trouble and uproar you dont even try to.” – Thomas Sutpen in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom

Alright; talking about music is hard, and talking about musicians is harder, since there aren’t many other mediums of art where the discussions tend to be so compressed, public and vitriolic. Visual art debates unfold in journals (unless the matter of it is quoteunquote-shocking enough to get picked up by mainstream media, in which case it’ll get roundly misunderstood then disappear- hey Bill Henson), while ideas in cinema tends to revolve around the opinions of deferred to experts and informed bloggers (what are we going to do when David Stratton dies anyway-). By dint of its brevity, commercialization and unavoidability, music is the medium where we construct the most direct connections narrative-wise between the performer, their art and their public profile outside their body of work. Yet, it’s one thing to learn about the biography of an artist to get a deeper understanding of their work, but it’s a whole other thing to ascribe their abilities to whoever they’ve been sleeping with. For Joni Mitchell, it was something she was forced to forbear for decades, and somehow thirty years later, we’re seeing the same thing happen to Taylor Swift. Aside from being blonde, prolific and young singer songwriters, the biggest similarity between Mitchell and Swift is their dedication to putting themselves entirely into their music; it’s all real-talk, confessional and honest stuff. There’s not that much distance between Mitchell talking about telling her lover to get out his cane so they can go out walking in ‘Carey’ and Swift talking about dressing like a hipster in ‘22’, since it’s real – they mean it – and it all feels right coming out of their mouths. They are artists who put their life experience into their art, alternately universalizing and personalizing those feelings while marrying them to (at the very least) eminently hummable tunes. Of course, their biographies are worth considering when talking about their music, but the conversations that have swirled around the relationship between their songs and their private lives verge on the nonsensical, if not the downright sexist.

By the time she was famous, Joni Mitchell had lived a thousand lives. Born in a small town in Canada, she travelled over the border into New York in the mid 60s as folk music started making waves. By twenty-two, Mitchell had given up a baby who she wouldn’t meet until 1997, while living in the freezing attic of a house so dilapidated they chopped up the stairway banisters for firewood. Soon enough, though, her talent was recognized in the folk cafes of Greenwich Village, and by the end of the decade she was in the same breath as Dylan and Young. Songs like ‘Both Sides, Now’, ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ and ‘River’ speak for themselves. Her level of melodic innovation and lyrical depth ran rings around most of her male contemporaries, tet, on a 1972 chart published in Rolling Stone that demonstrated all the musical connections between the musicians of Laurel Canyon in California where she had recently relocated, Mitchell was represented by a lipstick mark and only connected to her fellow artists and collaborators by her previous sexual relationships. This wasn’t an outlier. Mitchell’s own label called her “90% Virgin” in advertising copy. For years following her brief dalliance with Leonard Cohen in 1967, Mitchell was hounded by interviewers seeking to ascribe her entire poetical existence to meeting him, and having her work excavated for references to departed lovers has been the main feature of writing on her for decades; even as recently as Michelle Mercer’s 2009 biography, Mitchell has been charged with being “defensive” about admitting “the influence of (the men in her life)… as it would’ve been relinquishing any creative input in her own work”. If Mitchell is defensive when it comes to being credited with her own accomplishments, it’s no wonder, considering how she’s been stacked up against other songwriters/ex-lovers like David Crosby and Jackson Browne for much longer than she was with them. Moreover, questions about the influence of Cohen in particular seem to at best miss the point. The real story about her and Cohen is similar to most brief relationships; she found in him things she did like, and things she couldn’t identify with, and they split. That’s what happened. He didn’t create Joni. In an interview with Cameron Crowe, she said that “the only thing I can believe is what has happened to me firsthand, what I see and feel with my own eyes”. Cohen’s “boudoir poetry” never interested her once she got to the root of it, once she saw how heavily it lent on Camus, Sartre and the I

Ching, how he was less a songwriter than a sensual interpreter. Her stance has always been anti-poetry, anti-Beat, anti-mystic, wildly moving away from the folk tradition she started off with towards a more ragged kind of individual expression, founded purely on her own perceptions. No one has ever accused Cohen of lifting his ideas from the women he’s been with, and there are thousands of people there to pick from. In this way, she’s not regarded as an artist the same way her menfolk have been, as if she somehow lacked the autonomy to beat out her own path without first being guided and shown the way by men who knew better. Dylan’s always been lauded for not looking back, yet Mitchell – definitely the only one of her contemporaries to be making a jazz record in 1979 – has long been dismissed as merely absorbing the men around her and merely filtering their talents through her impressions, experiences and heartbreaks from them. And, heck, if Joni Mitchell still doesn’t have a chance of being respected on her own terms, what chance does Taylor Swift have? And so it’s played out; since she first shot to prominence, Swift’s songs have been pretty much attributed equally to her and whatever man who has supposedly inspired it. To take a very brief tour of the social media wreckage, the Huffington Post has a slideshow detailing her romantic history in which every former flame has at least one song attributed to them, the video for “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” is routinely scoured for evidence of Jake Gyllenhall, and even her Wikipedia page details whom apparently inspired what. Underneath all of these men, Swift herself disappears in the critical view. She isn’t taken seriously, because there are men involved. Of course, it’s not enough for her to not get the credit for her own work; Swift has been thoroughly slut-shamed for her trouble. Ultimately, in American culture, nothing is truly an issue until the Westboro Baptist Church start spraypainting signs about it, and August this year saw the Church make good on a long-standing threat to picket one of her concerts, having previously labeled her a “proud whore” who indulged in “serial fornication”. Even cultural bellwether Nick Lachey has chimed in, warning One Direction

When asked the fact that were no women among five conductors chosen to lead Norwegian orchestras, Russian composer Vasily Petrenko said that men “often have less sexual energy and can focus more on the music. A sweet girl on the podium can make one’s thoughts drift towards something else.”

There’s a level of biographical determinism at play with both women – that art comes and only comes as a direct and reflective result of specific experiences, not personal ability or ideology – which has never come to pass when it comes to writing about Dylan or Cohen. Female musicians don’t seem to be allowed to access that same rock n’ roll mythology that divides corporeal existence from the kind of intangible experience and ineffable imagination attributed to stuff like ‘Like A Rolling Stone’. Dylan is permitted to shapeshift at will, Cohen is allowed to call himself a “thin gypsy priest” and get away with anything, Young can “head to the ditch” whenever the middle of the road gets boring, but Mitchell has been tethered to her body and whoever had their hands on it at the time. Like, everyone knows Leonard Cohen wrote “Chelsea Hotel #2” about Janis Joplin (since he told us) but despite being a song that casts himself as a flighty Casanova, his catalogue is never dissected with the same unnerving gaze as Mitchell’s. It’s almost as if women must rely on a male force to determine and cause what they are capable of, as opposed to men who are divinely inspired by muse-females to produce what they already had buried inside them. The double standard is bad enough, but ultimately it points to one thing; that female creativity can’t be the unmoved mover that male songwriting is. All of that aside, the no-brainer when it comes to both women is that there is so much to talk about when it comes to their music; whoever has in been in their bed is the least interesting thing of all. Mitchell was hands down the most innovative, free-wheeling and affecting songwriter to come out of the 60s, mixing alternate tunings, a frankly completely unmatched ear for melody and an avowed refusal to retrace her own footsteps from year to year in songs that are agelessly superb and incredibly diverse. Heck, ‘The Jungle Line’ prefigures (and betters most of) Graceland by more than a decade, and that’s just one song. Listening to records like Blue,

Hejira or The Hissing of Summer Lawns is to experience some of the fullest ways in which a person can come to life through song, to feel someone’s wisdom, uncertainty and intelligence as strongly as if they were standing behind you. She released about seven or eight records in a row that are all that good, so take your pick, hey. When it comes to Swift, the scary thing is that she seems capable of much, much more than she’s done, being presented (kinda condescendingly) as she is as a kind of positive-role-model-type alternative to the likes of Perry and Cyrus. It’s a shame; she seems stuck between the major-keycountry Nashville sounds that obsessed her as a teen, and the pressure of maintaining the ridiculous level of commercial success she’s had so far (you don’t ask Max Martin to co-write with you for nothing). As such, her songwriting feels locked into formula and aiming for the bleachers, when it feels obvious that she’s got the personality and verve to carry something far more ambitious. Making comparisons to Mitchell is unfair on anyone, but Swift has a way with words that can sting and hooks that can punch, so where she takes them is (hopefully, what with major label contracts and everything) up to her, ‘cos if you can’t get into understanding what a song like ‘22’ is all about with your head and your hips at the same time, you’re missing something. She may not have Mitchell’s gift for detail, but she inhabits all the different shades of herself, be it forthright, chatty, headshaking, positive and snarky. If more of the critical attention was based on what her art actually is, she might get pushed into exploring new ground.

The discussions we have about art are all important, and good writing on music is like good writing about any other topic: it’s writing about how you see life as a whole, filtered through whatever topic you’re focusing on. It’s impossible to get around that, and as such, honing in on someone’s sexual behavior or their body under the pretext of discussing their art – or anything else about them – is ultimately going to say a whole mountain more about the writer than the subject. Art’s not a gift from a person, but the person putting themselves forward as a gift; for better, for worse, here is what I do as what I am. If all you’re going to do is sniff at it and wonder who’s been rolling around with them first, then you don’t really deserve to hear what they have to tell you.

Insanely amazing blues singer Bessie Smith died after being refused treatment at a Mississippi hospital. Suffering horrible injuries after a car accident, doctors turned her away because of the colour of her skin.

Picture by Lauren Wiszniewski

to steer clear. Just as pernicious has been the extent to which her songwriting has been criticized for being boy-centric, as, after all, she’s writing what she knows. That’s why it works, and that’s why it sells, and to criticize her for that is to say that her body is not only something she possesses and explores through her music, but a site to be argued over, and a channel through which men cause her to write songs about them. If it all didn’t sound so much like Plato’s theories on women, it would be funny.

ALBUM REVIEWS The Polyphonic Spree Yes, It’s True Create/Control 7/10 Rooted in the familiar, Yes, It’s True is the Sunday afternoon of albums. Reading like the journal of a sentimental twenty-something, “it’s easy to forget what you came for when you get old,” it harks back to themes of brightness, hope and redemption. Funded by a Kickstarter project, the album is a display of the sense of nostalgia that surrounds this thirteen-year-old band and its revolving orchestra of talented musicians and vocalists. The band seems to be nostalgic for a past partly forgotten, with the song “Carefully Try”, cutting to a DJ exclaiming, “Ah Yes! The sounds of the ‘70s from The Polyphonic Spree.” Timeless and motivational, the band conjures a positive world without complicated trivialities such as Facebook and Instagram. However by rooting itself in a supposed world of peace and harmony, Yes It’s True ultimately lacks depth. While a joy to listen to, one must be careful not to harbour nostalgia for a fake past. It’s better to be here in the now, nursing your weekly Sunday hangover, and that’s something that The Polyphonic Spree don’t here seem willing to recognise. Lauren Wiszniewski The 1975 The 1975 Polydor minus infinity/10 “We’re pursuing excellence in music… I’ve always seen our position in history.” So Matt Healey, lead singer of The 1975, audaciously opens with in an interview with English paper the Observer. Healey comes over as verbose and arrogant: he describes his band as being like The Lost Boys, suggests that their fame was inevitable, and that they’re a band that defines this current nonlinear music-listening habits of a generation who could be listening to Kendrick Lamar one minute and Carole King the next. It’s an interview that makes you laugh out loud as much as it makes your stomach turn, and it sets up the predictable failure that follows. On their eponymous debut, The 1975 provide us with 1980s derivative trash (and what band doesn’t these days?) on an album that stagnates like a sofa in a British canal. It opens with tracks

that sound like Lily Allen meets The Streets by way of a faux-cockney accent, which Healey, unlike Mike Skinner (who is actually a Birmingham native), fails at so badly. When he does sing over the top of his bands’ boorish and banal sound, it comes out like a petulant, nasally whine as he delivers lyrics about marijuana, and who-cares-what-else while throwing in the occasional swear (of course he does, he’s a “generation defining rock star”). The single Sex is barely, just barely, listenable, but hey: 1 out of 16 isn’t bad. The late John Peel’s great catchcry was, “I just want to hear something that I haven’t heard before!” The 1975 don’t even begin to satisfy Peel’s plea - they are no Sonic Youth, Sex Pistols, Joy Division, Jesus and Mary Chain, no Kraftwerk. They are just some boring middle of the road synth clone out of Manchester, and they are generation-defining only in that they will be so easily forgotten by those Healey believes they are going to define. The 1975 need to take their instruments and hit each other with them for being so stupidly foolish, and then go and do something productive with their lives. Hastily avoid. Paul Lindsay London Grammar If You Wait Metal & Dust Recordings 9/10 It’s apparently taken London Grammar 18 months of endless work to get their debut album If You Wait right for listeners, but after listening to the 12 track album I can safely declare it time well spent. Hannah Reid’s voice is hauntingly angelic and the most beautiful sound I have heard this year. She gives Florence Welch a run for her vocals and I guarantee her voice will not bore you after one track (unlike with Florence) but give you tingling shivers throughout the entirety of the album. Greatness can be found in all of the 12 tracks, but one of the real standouts is “Wasting My Young Years”. It’s a masterful display of temperament as piano, hushed guitar and Reid’s voice all strengthen together and builds into an immense crescendo. I could write a review of all the tracks featured in the album, but alas I am limited to word count and page space, so for my last remaining words I will say this: whether you listen to the entire

album or just hear a few select tracks, make sure you listen to London Grammar. Natasha Woodcock Okkerville River The Silver Gymnasium Spunk 4/10 Will Sheff, I love you. I am nostalgic too. Tell me a story like you always do. Will Sheff, I am so happy to be hearing you! I would love to hear about your childhood too. The year you turned ten, is this all true? Oh no, Will Sheff, I cannot remember anything you are saying. Will Sheff, I just don’t like the eightees that much. Will Sheff, your childhood is boring me. Tooroo! Connor Weightman Franz Ferdinand Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action Domino 8/10 Sometimes dance-rock really hits the spot to the extent that somehow, inexplicably, you find yourself dancing to guitars like some kind of baby boomer freak. That ‘sometimes’ occurs whenever Franz Ferdinand releases an album. Their fourth offering, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action is no different. The title suggests conciseness and correctness, and it’s fitting – this album just feels right. From the first track, ‘Right Action’, you get a taste of what’s to come – confident, organized indie rock. Tracks like ‘Love Illumination’ and ‘Stand on the Horizon’ are boppy and disco-ish with the latter reminiscent of The Killer’s style on their record Day & Age (listen to ‘Joy Ride’ from that one). The middle section of the record maintains the tempo, before the Franz slow down, hit the brakes and slide out with the closing (and slightly ominously titled) ‘Goodbye Lovers and Friends’. While there is nothing here that can quite compete with classics like ‘Take Me Out’ and ‘Walk Away’, what this album offers is consistency. Kapranos’ final sweetly serenaded lyrics on the last track are “but this really is the end”if they can keep up this level of quality, I really hope it isn’t. Brad Griffin

PRINCESS OF PORN by Anna Saxon I was 12 when my dad caught me watching porn on the family computer. I’d googled a bunch of terms from a particularly titillating Dolly Doctor Sealed Section - the best sexual education available at my primary school- and stumbled across some truly terrible amateur site. It was fairly tame in retrospect, but my father still threw me in the car and floored it up the nearest highway. After an excruciatingly long drive, he pulled over on the side of the road and explained to me just how bad watching pornography was. And turns out it was bad. Like really bad. Like making Baby-Jesus cry bad. Convinced I was going to be left in the middle of nowhere unless I repented, I promised I’d never do such a terrible thing again. Appeased, my dad drove me home and as I scrambled out of the car he left me with these parting words - ‘Look honey, when you watch Pride and Prejudice (the BBC version, talk about sexual awakening) you shouldn’t want to know what goes on during the honeymoon”. Oh man, was that the wrong thing to say. You pick a film where Colin Firth’s penis is clearly visible in most scenes to turn me off sex? My poor well-meaning father’s intervention backfired pretty spectacularly, because one P and P porn parody later, I was on xHamster and YouPorn whenever I could managed it. I wanted to know everything there was to know about sex, and porn was the answer. I found out about sex toys, consent, domination and submission, fanfiction, orgasms, even contraception through porn. Discovering masturbation was just a nice bonus at that point. All the information that adults were hiding from me was readily available in these extremely instructional videos. And yet people are still so shocked to hear that girls - and women - not only watch but enjoy pornography on a regular basis.

brow, shameful, that it objectifies and degrades women, and that any woman who enjoys porn is either a horny slut or a betrayer of the gender. Somehow watching sex is seedier than actually

Colin Firth’s penis having sex, and women are just supposed to tease their brothers/boyfriends/husbands about it and then leave them to it. Yet a recent study shows that over a third of regular porn watchers in Australia are female - myself included. In 2006 a survey by the Internet Filter Review found that 17% of women describe themselves as “addicted” to online pornography. Clearly, women aren’t just watching porn as a Hens night joke. So why aren’t ladies satisfied with reading steamy chicklit anymore? Turns out we 21st century women really can have it all. It’s totally ok to read NC-17 fanfic before watching James Deen’s latest video on loop. What makes most erotic literature sexy is the fact that, because they are written for female audiences, they fulfill the tropes that many women find universally attractive - well built men, a smattering of romance, and orgasms. Lots and lots of orgasms. Visual porn sometimes struggles to meet that last requirement. Women generally prefer a good Mills and Boon because at least in them everybody gets off. But recently porn

seems to have taken a stand for the clitoris. Erotic films created, marketed and directed by women for women are gaining popularity; there’s the ex-liberal democrat candidate for Gravesham Anna Arrowsmith, the aptly named Erika Lust, even the infamous Sasha Grey tried her hand at directing; mixed results. There is a market for female pleasure and women are enthusiastically responding. I’m a huge porn advocate, in fact, porn is a pretty regular part of my bedtime routine. Why? Well, it’s super hot for one. It assists in masturbation, makes me more aware of my body and as a result I am a much happier and relaxed individual. It’s taught me about other peoples desires and drives and I’ve learnt some sweet moves. But most importantly of all, its put me in control of my own sexuality. I learn things from porn about myself that I can then apply in the real world - like what I enjoy, what my limits are and what I should expect from a partner. I’m not entirely responsible for my own pleasure but thanks to porn I’m in charge of it. For women, porn is educational, it’s liberating, and it’s hot as hell. So I think we should be telling girls that if porn is ok for the boys, its ok for them too. I think that when we find our daughters on the computer watching shaky handycam footage after randomly typing in Dolly Doctor quotes, we should clap them on the back and congratulate them. Welcome to womanhood! You’ve got a lot to look forward to...

There’s this super shitty double standard when it comes to women and watching pornography. And it’s got a lot to do with the fact that girls just aren’t supposed to think about sex as much as boys. As a regular attendee of teenaged sleepovers I can honestly say that young girls are just as big horn-dogs as boys - the only difference being that guys are explicitly encouraged to embrace their sexuality very early in adolescence. Enter porn; sex education, positive affirmation of masculinity and a handy dandy masturbation aid all rolled into one. Meanwhile for a woman to admit to watching sex means having to overcome generations of females being told that porn is disgusting, low

Number 1 on Cosmopolitan’s ‘Seven Things you didn’t know about Porn’ is that women get turned on by Bonobo monkey sex.

CULTURE REVIEWS Broadchurch BBC Roadshow

Payday 2 Overkill Software PC/PS3/360

Unfortunately, it’s half done. Riddled with minor bugs, shipping with half the promised number of heists and built around a very unevenly front-loaded experience and unlock system, the game draws flat after a dozen hours playing with faceless others online. Designed as a co-operative game first and foremost, the game is at its best when spending ages planning the perfect, co-ordinated stealth heist, and yelling at your moron friend when he doesn’t crowd-control the hostages properly and one of them sounds the alarm. For the $30 price tag, however, it’s well worth it, and the developer is updating several times a week, adding more heists all the time.

Broadchurch is really about the small coastal town of (you guessed it) Broadchurch. This is what separates it from becoming another, stock-standard crime drama. The series follows the reaction of the townsfolk in the wake of the murder of a small child. What was once a happy, tight-knit community slowly transitions into each turning against each, as their true identities and past secrets bubble to the surface. It’s quite a gripping ‘whodunnit’, and leaves you guessing as to what everyone’s real motivations are, and who amongst them the killer is. The narrative revolves around DI Alec Hardy, played amazingly by everyone’s favourite ex-time-travelling, alien detective. As per usual, David Tennant is an absolute blast to watch, and remains wonderful despite being the unlikable, uncompassionate, but ‘just-doing-his-job’ DI Alec Hardy. He’s a mysterious figure, and like all the other members of Broadchurch, his identity only comes in little snippets during the course of each episode. As previously mentioned this show is about the townsfolk themselves, and each individual actor is fantastic; even the kids. Also, the stunning vistas of the rural town against the backdrop of the ocean are beautiful and pop-up frequently, which boasts how well the transfer to DVD was. This was done with care, and it looks gorgeous. Broadchurch is very good, and another very fine series from the BBC. What also marks it as another great success from them is that the American station Fox has already signed on to create an ‘American version’. Don’t bother with that; watch this. It’s fantastic.

Simon Donnes

Cameron Moyses

Bank robberies and (more generally) heists of any description define what it is to be cool. There’s a slick precision in a perfectly executed robbery, and a unique thrill to relieving establishments of their cash, gold and other precious valuables. A first person shooter with RPG elements, Payday 2 is a compelling and slick 4 player co-op game about pulling off heists all across Washington DC. There’s the potential to do most missions totally stealthily, preventing a police response, but should you slip up from a carefully self-made plan, prepare to shoot your way out.

Skullgirls Lab Zero Games PC As a big fan of fighting games, I was very excited to see a small, independent development team’s project funded and moved into production last year, and with the game finally released on PC, I think we should take a minute to talk about it. The first thing you’ll notice about Skullgirls is its gorgeous art, but the creative character designs, and a blend of cartoonish flash animation and sprite-like simplicity are also big ticks; Lab Zero have packed Skullgirls full of personality. The visuals are paired with a jazzy, showtune soundtrack, punchy sound design and sparse (but fitting) voice acting, and the announcer really adds to the experience. Mechanically, Skullgirls is easy to jump into, yet satisfyingly challenging to master. With long combos and super “showstopper” attacks being the meat of the matches. It’s not uncommon to see 60+ hit strings going back and forth as the match progresses. This sounds intimidating at first, but with each character’s unique moveset and playstyle, it’s very easy to find someone fitting your preferences. Skullgirls is well rounded, cheap ($15!) and a lot of fun. Whether you’re a fighting game veteran, or a newcomer, I’d recommend giving it a go. Jacob Rutherford

Callan ABC Roadshow Callan is a British spy show from the 60s that was quite popular both in the UK and in Australia. The show ran for four seasons, totalling 44 episodes between 1967 – 1972, but many of the early episodes have been lost to time, a problem exacerbated by the show’s numerous production companies. It follows David Callan, a top assassin for the British Security Service who is disillusioned with the grimy underbelly of espionage and covert operations, but forced to comply and carry out missions for the government. It was relatively groundbreaking at the time for its realistic portrayal of the dark and gritty world of government espionage – more like a John le Carre novel than the stylish Bond films of the time or the lighter contemporary spy shows such as The Man From U.N.C.L.E. The show helped launch the screen career of Edward Woodward, who went on to star in the cult-classic The Wicker Man and the Australian biopic Breaker Morant. It’s an interesting series that captures some of the cultural zeitgeist of the 1960s Cold War mentality, and indeed, while not every aspect of the show holds up today, its easy to see how influential the show was in its style and tone on later works featuring spies and espionage. The DVD release in Australia has all 22 of the colour episodes that made up Season 3 and 4, many of which haven’t been seen in over 20 years, and it’s certainly worth a look for those with an interest in the genre. Wade McCagh

FEMINISM, FASCISM, AND OTHER F-WORDS by Lidia Dokuchaeva

Nietzsche once wrote that “If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.” Now, he may not have had the internet in mind, but I like to think that if he ever saw a YouTube comment section, wretched hive of scum and villainy that it is, he would shed one single perfect tear. If you’re new to the exciting world of Internet bickering, here are a couple of tips: 1) If your opponent makes a typo at any point, this is your chance to strike a killer blow. Nothing proves your intellectual superiority like a misplaced apostrophe. 2) Don’t be the jerk who invokes Godwin’s Law. Godwin’s law, written by a world-weary forumdweller in ye yonder days of the nineties, states that as the length of a discussion goes on, the probability of someone mentioning Hitler or the Nazis approaches one. A later corollary was added – in an argument, whoever mentions Hitler first automatically loses. That’s because it’s ridiculous; a forum moderator isn’t a Nazi because he asked you to stop spamming. Your mother isn’t a Nazi because she told you to clean up after yourself. The person you’re arguing with isn’t Hitler even if they claim that you’re wrong about something, unless of course it’s regarding genocide. Now, this is common courtesy; calling your postman Hitler is frowned upon in most places, else he’d never finish the mail run on time. Still, there’s one way that even Internet-savvy folks, with wide-eyed sincerity, break this rule time and again: the word ‘feminazi’. ‘Feminazi’ was born in some nondescript internet backalley of dubious pedigree and has since lingered like a malignant tumour or a particularly bad smell. A portmanteau of Feminist and – you guessed it – Nazi, it equates the two as two very friendly parts of a pie chart. Strangely enough, not a trace of irony is evident from those who compare people who believe in equality of the genders to a fascist, genocidal regime. It’s the go-to word for those poor noble

souls fighting against the oppressive regime of – women, apparently. When people feel that comparing feminists to Hitler just isn’t strong enough, they resort to plain insults. “There is no inequality now and you’re just being a whiny hysterical overemotional woman!”, they might say, or “You’re fat and ugly”, completely and masterfully invalidating whatever point it is they disagree with using this well-thought out argument. “What a total bitch cow that will never get laid, am I right?”

cookies from the cookie jar And if the feminist in question happens to be conventionally attractive, they switch tracks immediately into “wow, she’s such a slut – and a hypocrite to boot.” It’s a sign of a particular train of thought – when most people think of feminist, they don’t think of your everyday person who wants equality. They think manhating bra-burning woman who doesn’t shave and would castrate any man who says hello to them. In fact, when a feminist reveals herself, they’re almost disappointed – why isn’t her hair shaved off? Why would she wear make-up? Why isn’t she a butch lesbian?

terrified that some YouTuber they enjoy will actually, god forbid, apologize. It’s telling that even discussions about things like closing the wage gap or getting equal representation in media and politics is enough for some people to start crying censorship and oppression and misandry and yes, fascism. Feminists don’t want men to be oppressed. Well, okay, some feminists do – but that’s because feminists aren’t a homogenous group where everyone shares one opinion. Feminism shouldn’t be a dirty word. We don’t want to take all the cookies from the cookie jar – we want to share them. We want everyone to have an equal portion. And if your first response is calling us Nazis for our cookie-sharing policies, well, maybe the problem’s with you. Besides, according to Godwin’s law? Just by using the word, you already lose.

It’s a sad state of affairs in our society when people would go “I’m not a feminist or anything (ew!), but I think women should be equal to men.” In fact, there are people in the world who vehemently deny being a feminist – they don’t hate men! They don’t want women to be the superior gender, they want equality! So they’re not a feminist. Somehow, the word ‘feminism’ has been relegated to those on the radical fringe, and somehow, the word ‘feminist’ became a dirty one. At its core, men who use the word ‘feminazi’ are scared. They think that feminists are taking something away from them. Maybe it’s their jobs, the right to tell ‘make me a sandwich’ jokes, the right to enjoy media that favours them. If someone is offended at a rape joke in a comedy video, they cry ‘feminazi’ because they’re apparently

In 2012, American shock jock Rush Limbaugh (credited with popularizing the term) blamed “feminazis” as the cause of a decades-long trend of penis shrinking found in an Italian study which credited weight gain, smoking, stress and environmental pollutants as factors for a 10% decrease in average penis size. “Next the feminists will be blaming Bush!” Limbaugh said on his radio show.

Picture by Camden Watts

There are few things in life more relaxing than grabbing a drink, powering on your computer and spending a few hours trawling the Internet. Whether your preferred modus operandi is finding videos of cute kittens, spending ten minutes staring at an amusing GIF or endlessly scrolling your newsfeed, there’s one activity universally enjoyed by all the denizens of the net – fighting.

THUNDERDOME: Xena, Warrior Princess versus Sabrina, The Teenage Witch by Brad Griffin

dying pathetically, because he’s pathetic.

The two combatants faced each other from either side of the Thunderdome; Sabrina Spellman on the left, flanked by her coaches and moral support, aunts Zelda and Hilda, the tyrannical cat Salem and her pathetic boyfriend Harvey, and on the right Xena, with friend* Gabrielle and mythic hero Hercules in tow, staring each other down as the crowd began to chant: “Two girls enter, one girl leaves!”

“Now you’ve done it!” Sabrina screeches. “Hocus pocus I’m a witch, lightning now strike down this bitch!”

“We can end this now, girl!” Xena roars, her voice booming across the room. “Let me be the idol to all of these young women. I alone can show them how to be successful and confident!” “Never, Xena! Only I can relate the difficulty and awkwardness of being a teenage girl in the late 90s and early 2000s!” Sabrina retorts, her softer voice nearly drowned out by the intense noise of the crowd. “Then let us do battle!” Xena yells, “Alalalalalalae!” she screamed, charging toward her foe, covering great distances with her long, powerful strides.

An instant bolt of lightning descends from the heavens, piercing the Thunderdome, charring the spectators on top, striking Xena dead-on. She seizes for a moment and falls to one knee. As she tries to recover, Sabrina lands on her, kicking and slapping as only an enraged teenage girl knows how. Quick like Salem’s wit, Xena turns the tables and trips Sabrina up, who lands hard on the ground, the wind knocked out of her. Xena, hair standing on end and skin blackened from electrocution, draws her sword. “And now, to end this” She says, through gritted teeth. “Oh no you don’t!” Sabrina yells, using her magic to fling the chakram that impaled Harvey toward Xena. Fresh with Harvey’s pathetic blood, Xena deflects the weapon with her sword, giving Sabrina enough time to roll away and stand up. The two adversaries face each other for a moment, sizing each other up.

“Oh, rats!” Sabrina exclaimed. “Looks like I’m in a bit of trouble, swallow Xena in a puddle!” Suddenly, Xena was halted just short of Sabrina as the dusty floor of the Thunderdome’s battlefield in front of Sabrina melted away into a deep bog, engulfing Xena.

Xena twitches, electricity still coursing through her, Sabrina breathes heavily tears for her pathetic deceased boyfriend drying on her cheeks.

“What is this sorcery!”, Xena yells, struggling to maintain her head above water.

“Give me a sword and the skill to use it, and I’ll… slay this bitch” Sabrina says. A sword materializes in her hands and she instantly takes a warrior stance.

“I guess you’re really more of a swamp princess than a warrior princess, huh Xena?” Sabrina teases, breaking into a slightly awkward dance.

“That didn’t even rhyme!” Xena protests. “Isn’t that your thing?”

casually replies. However before Sabrina can take his advice, her head above the nose is cleaved clean off, her brains decorating the floor of the Thunderdome. The crowd erupts in delight, praising their new champion. Tina Turner breaks out into “We Don’t Need Another Hero” and Mel Gibson begins to weep in delight. “Thanks Salem” Xena says, kneeling down next to her vanquished foe, and pats Salem’s head. “I kept my end of the deal. Now you keep yours.” Salem says triumphantly. Xena exhales deeply, remembering the extent of the bargain. “We’ll go where nobody is around. Come back to my hotel room. I got put up in the Ritz for the weekend, it’s pretty nice.” “Oh goody!” Salem says, gleefully following his new owner out of the Thunderdome. Zelda and Hilda stand at their end of the ‘dome, their faces plastered with expressions of horror and pathetic Harvey’s dried blood, as the pathetic corpse of the pathetic Harvey oozing blood beside them. The crowd continues to celebrate and some braver spectators pick up bits of Sabrina’s brains and skull as mementos. *** Xena chills in her hotel room, lamenting her victory. “Damn girl put up a fight.” She reflected, scratching the back of her head. A scratching feeling lower drew her attention. “Are you alright there, Salem?” “Just getting reacquainted with my own kind”

“I’m not done yet, girl!” Xena yells, pulling herself free of the bog with her powerful legs, and double-back flipping in the air to land on the other side of it across from Sabrina. “That’s my girl!” Gabrielle yells from the sideline, throwing Xena a cheeky wink. “Taste metal!” Xena yells, flinging her razoredged chakram across the swamp. Sabrina ducks to dodge it, turning to see one of them impale her boyfriend in the face, his blood spattering on Zelda, Hilda and Salem. “Ow man, this hurts” Harvey mumbles pathetically as he crumples over pathetically,

“It never has to! I’m quirky and awkward, THAT is my thing! Now die!” Sabrina yells, raising her sword above her head and charging. Xena does the same and they meet halfway with a terrible clash of steel on steel. They snarl at each other and break off, their swords coming apart and meeting repeatedly. Sabrina’s stab is parried by Xena, who counters with a slash at Sabrina’s head, which is avoided. The two continue to engage in a vicious play of steel, neither one conceding any ground, until Salem, Sabrina’s witty, ex-tyrant black cat appears next to her. “Heyyyy Sabriiina!” He says in his suave tone. “Salem I’m a little busy right now!” Sabrina hurriedly replies. “What is it?!” “Ooooh better watch out for that sword.” Salem

Nate Richert (the actor who played Harvey) has gone AWOL since Sabrina; IMDb page says he was involved in a video game called Game Box 1.0 and his most recent work is a short from 2006 called H-e-n-r-y. Pathetic!

Picture by Camden Watts

*totally banging “Yeah! Go Sabrina!” Harvey calls from the side. “I’m totally fucking her” He whispers to Salem, who for once doesn’t reply with a witty remark.

WRITING FICTION WITH YOUR MOUTH Eunice Ong interviews Journalists always seem to feel obligated to make comparisons between new authors and established authors in the field, no matter how original their content. This is particularly prevalent when it comes to articles about female authors, as if they are all the same breed. Samantha Shannon, author of The Bone Season, is not immune to such comparisons. Before her novel was even published, she was touted as ‘the next J. K. Rowling’, for being an English, female author with a seven book deal which also happens to be published by Bloomsbury – a title referencing the similarities of the book deal that has since been extrapolated and blown out of proportion. This has resulted in unrealistic expectations from readers regarding the content of TBS, and puts Shannon in an awkward position – she greatly admires J. K. Rowling and is a long-time fan of the Harry Potter novels, but as she aptly phrases it, ‘We don’t need a new J. K. Rowling; there’s nothing wrong with the original one. I’d rather be the first Samantha Shannon.’ To add ‘insult’ to injury (because being compared to Rowling can hardly be considered an insult), some articles have also compared The Bone Season to Fifty Shades of Shit Grey, merely because it contains a relationship dynamic that happens to have undertones of dominance and submission – in this instance, one that is clearly intended to make the reader feel squeamish and uncomfortable, thus reflecting the dystopia of the Society. ‘Oh god. The Bone(r) Season,’ Shannon quips. Shannon has always been a big reader, and wrote plenty of short stories from a young age, writing her first novel at the age of 15. Her favourite novels include The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, and Vilette by Charlotte Brontë; she says that TBS was mildly influenced by The Handmaid’s Tale and Orwell’s 1984, and perhaps subconsciously by V for Vendetta. Her inspiration for TBS occurred while she was doing an internship in the Common Gardens near Seven Dials, when she espied a shop selling crystal balls and tarot cards. This triggered the idea of a character much like herself, aside from the fact that she is clairvoyant. Her main protagonist, Paige, is Irish (but not a redhead, which Shannon admits was a deliberate strategy to stray from the stereotype), and TBS touches on the longstanding conflict between England and Ireland. Shannon admits to living vicariously through

Paige, whom Shannon describes as ‘braver, much more athletic and hot-headed’ version of herself. As for the novel, Shannon, 22 [just let that sink in for a moment as you seethe with admiration and mild jealousy at how she’s got her life sorted and also a movie deal with Gollum for TBS], says readers may be surprised to find out that the protagonist of The Bone Season is 19. TBS transcends genres – sitting on the fence between young adult and adult, in some ways it is sci-fi or dystopian, perhaps with a dash of steampunk. Many assume TBS is a young adult novel, but in reality, it is an adult novel with an intended readership of 16 or older – ‘younger readers would “read up”’. Shannon was roughly the same age as Paige when she wrote the first novel; she says Paige’s voice will mature with the novels, as Shannon grows with her character, who will remain the narrator for all seven books. Paige is not merely ‘strong’ for the sake of being a ‘strong female character’. Samantha Shannon openly dislikes that term. Paige is strong-willed and has been taught self-defence. She is not without flaw, however. She is clever, resourceful, complex, snarky, independent, wily, but she is definitely not a Strong Female Character. The other main character in TBS is the enigmatic Warden, a persona that has been living in Shannon’s head for over six years. He is part of

the Rephaim race – however, despite reading the book, I had difficulties visualising him from the descriptions provided. To me, the Rephaim sounded like a Deluxe Human with lizard-like qualities. I had no choice but to ask Samantha for more detail about the elusive Rephaim, which she told me she based on humans before the Fall of Men: statuesque, golden, and slightly inhuman. She also revealed that her descriptions of the Rephaim were deliberately vague, to allow readers leeway in how they wished to imagine this race of creatures. TBS has visual, poetic descriptions of food, almost to the point of sensuality and being G. R. R. Martinesque. When asked whether there was a reason for this, Shannon responded, ‘It wasn’t deliberate; I think I just like food.’ [LET ME LOVE YOU!] She also mentioned that the protagonist is hungry a lot of the time, so good food is an experience for her, hence the vivid detail used to convey Paige’s hunger to the reader. Elaborate world-building; a quasi-romance that, for once, didn’t feel clichéd; an independent, multi-faceted female protagonist; complex, layered characters; and a story that stayed with me long after I turned the final page – I’m not gonna tell you how to live your life, but if you’re in need of a bit of escapism, you should read this book.

Arthur Rimbaud was writing essays at the age of nine, a published poet by sixteen, shot by his lover and fellow poet Paul Verlaine at eighteen, wrote his masterpiece “A Season in Hell” at nineteen, and was completely done with writing by twenty.

SCIFIC CHICKS by William Dixon In science fiction, books written by women can be hard to find. There’s a lot out there, but you don’t see them as much as their male-authored counterparts. If you’re much of a reader you may well be familiar with Mary Shelley, Margaret Atwood and Ursula Le Guin, but if you’re like me, before it was brought to my attention that might be about it. And yes, I’m assuming that it’s an issue related to history and stigma rather than some kind of natural preference, but that’s a whole other article. Equality aside, what this means is that because they’re less visible, you’re less likely to come across and read those of high quality among them. The apparent absence of female authors in SF is slowly on its way out but the perception that it’s a boys club is

common. The cause is both past authors own decisions to remain hidden behind pseudonyms, and a historical tendency to pass over women’s work in favor of men’s, the former being an escape from the latter. Today, the still-popular idea that the genre is for boys is undoubtedly a self-fulfilling prophecy. Using initials, male pseudonyms and using gender-ambiguous names has been popular in this genre to increase marketability. The practice seems to have persisted longer than it did in literature in general; authors like Alice Bradley Sheldon (James Tiptree, Jr.) concealed their gender until the mid 70s, in the footsteps of Mary Shelley’s publishing Frankenstein anonymously in 1818 for the same reason. Unquestionably some still do today. Think I’m J.K.? On

the other hand, now women have a huge presence in fantasy and dominate the young adult and paranormal romance sub-genres. Anyway, if you’re interested in reading some quality SF authors you may have missed out on up till now, depending on what you’re into I’d recommend giving Connie Willis, Elizabeth Moon, Suzy Charnas and Nicola Griffith a go to name a few. If you’re feeling brave, try some more explicitly feminist SF by Joanna Russ or Octavia Butler. In the end, though, this may be one of the few problems where you can be a social justice warrior just by reading more books and convincing your friends to give the good ones a shot - pretty much my ideal cause right there.

COMPLEX FEMALE PROTAGONISTS by Eunice Ong It’s almost patronising when readers are promised a Strong Female Character, since the trope assumes that a normal woman is weak, helpless and in need of rescue; in other words, boring. Nothing grates more than the phrase ‘not your typical damsel in distress’, as if damsels in distress are what females default to. The worst offenders have to be Strong Female Characters who insult men by calling them ‘girls’ or ‘pussies’ – it makes my eyes roll so far back in my head I can see my brain cells die. You don’t have to be aggressive to be strong. What we ought to have are egalitarian relationships based on mutual respect.

a pleasant surprise. When Joss Whedon was asked why he wrote strong female characters, he replied, “Because you’re still asking me that question.” Even if you translate ‘strong’ in ‘SFC’ to mean more than just physical strength (i.e. ‘complex’ characters), doesn’t it make it all the more distressing when good characterisation of half the world’s population is treated as an unnecessary bonus? When an interviewer asked George R. R. Martin, “There’s one thing that’s interesting about your books. I noticed that you write women really well and really different. Where does that come from?”, GRRM replied, “I’ve always considered women to be people.”

No one ever asks if a male character is ‘strong’ or ‘kickass’, because he is assumed to be ‘strong’ by default, or he is more than a cookie-cutter Strong Character. Male characters that neatly fit into the Strong Male mould are usually the most boring. We need to step away from the fixation that sexism in fiction can be tackled by depicting a single personality type.

Even after an author has created a complex, multi-faceted female main-character, s/he now has to jump through the hurdles of editors trying to convince him/her to change the character to a male (perhaps to increase their readership because “boys don’t like to read books from a girl’s point of view,” as Cassandra Clare has said). The same applies to films, with a ratio of 3 males to every 1 female role (don’t get me started on the appalling lack of female scriptwriters.) We also have female authors feeling the pressure to write under a male or gender-neutral pseudonym so as to not limit their readership

What we require are many more lead female characters that are strong in a variety of ways and to keep it up to the point that when readers encounter one, she’s no longer merely

– Samantha Shannon herself revealed that she almost published The Bone Season under a nom-de-plume because of people’s impression that sci-fi is a male-author-centric genre, but eventually decided against it, giving thanks to authors such as Suzanne Collins who have helped break this particular glass ceiling. I’ve had plenty of encounters at work where mothers refrain from purchasing a novel I’ve recommended for their son because the author is a woman and she knows her son will refuse to touch it. You’d think being in the twenty-first century, we’d be past this sexism bias by now. Every author should, of course, be free to write the characters she or he wants to, but literature needs fictional voices of all sorts. After all, what makes a hero is a sense of purpose beyond the everyday, courage and determination, and independence of spirit. Boys, whether big or little, have no monopoly on these. The goal here is a wealth of complex female protagonists who can be either strong or weak or both or neither, because they are more than just the sum of their strengths and weaknesses. I want female protagonists to be strong in a way that isn’t merely about physical dominance or power. I want her to be strong without being regarded as a ‘special snowflake’.

BOOK REVIEWS Paris, Edward Rutherfurd Edward Rutherfurd’s most recent foray into the genre of “epic history” tackles head on the city of love, the city of art and the city of culture. Not-so-secretly the pen-name of the Englishman Francis Edward Wintle, Paris is the eighth of it’s kind: a huge tome covering hundreds of years, hundreds of characters and puts six interconnected bloodlines in contact with some of the most important scenes in the setting’s history. It should be of no surprise then that Paris itself is the most prominent, engaging and well-rounded character.

would run off down a bitter and self-pitying path. However, Hoge never wavers from his humble and courageous attitude throughout the book and his life, and an undercurrent of ‘ordinariness’ and optimism runs through his life story (and his instagram feed). In addition, the Australiana riddling the book like bindi weed on a cricket pitch, although sometimes overwhelming and cliché, makes Hoge more homely and familiar. Hoge gives a more relatable and approachable voice to an issue some of us have never been exposed to.

continue the series. That said, I welcome her next book eagerly.

Best Bit: Finding someone overjoyed to play lawn bowls before they retire

Kenneth Woo sometimes goes all fangirlish when he gets to talk about books he just read. He does not apologise for it.

Worst bit: Reliving childhood nick-names

Best Bit: The interactions between Warden and Paige Worst Bit: The bits about combat could be reworked. Read it with: Another friend who is also reading it the same time as you so that both of you can call each other and go “OMG” and complain about how long you have to wait for the next book.

Read it with: VB and no apologies You know exactly what you’re getting with this; a 700 page make out session with a glorious old city, and boy does it use tongue. The prose is usually functional and mostly a vehicle for more plot twists and turns but occasionally a side alley of canoodling with the old ‘gal sweeps you off your feet. Best bit: “I’m going to go kick Hitler in the balls.” “Have a brandy with me first.” Worst bit: Don’t put this thing down for two months and try to come back from the middle unless you’ve made some graphs, maps and spread sheets. Read it with: Baguette under arm, espresso IV drip and a pouch of rolling tobacco. Simon Donnes spends most of his time walking briskly away from sirens looking guilty as all hell despite having done nothing. Ugly Robert Hoge Robert Hoge’s Ugly is anything but an ‘ugly’ story. It is the memoir of a man born with a severe facial deformity and two disabled legs and how he endeavoured to live his life as ‘Australian’ as possible. It covers his life from birth and immediate cranio-facial reconstruction to his youth in and out of hospital, while trying to keep a ‘normal’ school life and trying to play any sport possible, to eventually how he started a family of his own. It deals with issues like exclusion and acceptance, as well as perseverance and optimism. When the book began with a definition of the ‘ugly club’ and an in-depth anecdote about his mother refusing to bring him home from the hospital when he was born, I was worried it

Caz Stafford was teased mercilessly in primary school, and enjoyed lawn bowls too. The Bone Season Samantha Shannon I approached this book with quite a few reservations. I admit I hadn’t heard a single thing about the writer nor anything about this book. The author’s youth made me cautious that this book might turn out to be a twilight-esque fan fiction with poorly written sentence structure. Thank God I was wrong. The Bone Season is about Paige, who possesses powers that are deemed unnatural by the government. She is eventually interred at a training camp and forced to train and become a weapon for her new masters. The world Samantha Shannon crafts feels incredibly easy to enter, unlike many dystopian novels with complex worlds that take the reader ages to decipher. Shannon gives us a strong female protagonist combined with a supporting male character (when I read the book I was constantly reminded of the same dynamic in V For Vendetta). I also got a somewhat Hunger Games feel from the book. There are two things I had reservations about with this book. Firstly, I cannot picture in my head how combat works in the book - this novel inhabits a weird place in-between a dystopian future and weird spirit-casting magic. There are descriptions of combat between people who can command spirits but there are distinctions about who can see and who cannot see the spirits. Secondly, the book ends really well. That is in itself no fault, but when you have 7 books to write, you wonder how is she going to

Neptune’s Brood Charles Stross Second in a loosely connected series of which you don’t have to read the first book at all, Neptune’s Brood follows in the footsteps of Stross’s earlier novel, Saturn’s Children’s, with a robotic/posthuman female protagonist. This book however follows a forensic accountant/historian chasing an immense intersolar bitcoin fraud, rather than a prostitute android created after the extinction of the human race. One is never sure how female characters by male authors are going to turn out especially when the book concentrates primarily on weaving a plot with the interplay of developing technologies. While I didn’t feel that the characters had particularly rich inner lives, neither did I find them unbelievable; in the end, though, characterization takes a bit of a back seat to a fast-paced hard sci-fi/thriller/adventure story. The backdrop of the story is a cosmology that’s recently becoming more popular in hard science fiction; very little physical travel between stars (it takes hundreds of years), instead - immensely expensive seed colonies are occasionally sent out, then all further travel occurs by transmission of uploaded minds. Stross then writes in a grim intergalactic economy he imagined after reading Graber’s Debt: The First 5000 years, and splicing it with bitcoins as the medium. William Dixon

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Ever wanted to be in an art exhibition at a major gallery? Well, now you can! Duck into the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at UWA for your FREE Duck Postcard Art Book. Make your own art on the ten postcards and drop one off at the Gallery or Guild to be included in our upcoming Duck Postcard exhibition. See the website for more info - lwgallery.uwa.edu.au The Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery and the UWA Student Guild celebrate the University of Western Australia Centenary in 2013.