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Tonight! Cherchez la Femme: Feminism and the Arts

Image: Judith Leyster Self Portrait, c. 1630 How does being a feminist affect your art? Why do women basically staff the entire arts sector and yet very few are in positions of real power? And which creative industries are the most sexist?

Explore these topics and more at tonight’s extra special Fringe instalment of the monthly digest of popular culture and current affairs from a feminist perspective, Cherchez la femme. ... read more

Written by Editorial team on 5-10-2010, 2 user comments

Remarkable fiction

Overland 200 contains some rather remarkable fiction – about whales and art criticism and ebay addicts – from writers Karen Hitchcock, Janette Turner Hospital and Christos Tsiolkas. They can now be read online. Here’s a tantalising paragraph or two to whet your appetite:

‘Forging friendships’ – Karen Hitchcock

Hannah replied to my Facebook request for friendship by email. Hey Keira, she’d said in the email, what’s it been, one year, two? She was no longer with Thomas, she’d moved interstate and she’d prefer – she wrote – not to use Facebook to maintain contact. She was thinking of closing her account anyway, it had the potential to become a nightmare, she knew way too many people. (The italics were hers). And she hoped I didn’t mind. She hoped she’d see me round the traps. We could catch up. Someplace, sometime. Which to my mind was all just a fancy way of saying: I’ve moved on, now fuck off.

So I wrote back to Hannah: I totally understand, Hannah, thanks so much for finding the time to write back to me, because I do appreciate how precious your time is. I know that you really should have a PA to handle all this Facebook rejecting for you; how horrible it must be to tear yourself away from your food-co-op-agitating and vegan-shoe-buying and film-shit activities just to compose nasty little Facebook rejections designed to make everyone else feel like a piece of crap. I mean, HOW TAXING for you, Hannah.

... read more

Written by Editorial team on 5-10-2010, 2 user comments

Meanland: On ‘anonymous’ sources

‘[W]hat bothers me,’ wrote Christian Kerr in last week’s Australian in regards to the outing of Grog’s Gamut author, Greg Jericho, ‘is that someone seriously expected they could stay anonymous online in this day and age.’

Clearly, Kerr reads a different internet to the average reader. Or there’s a mysterious social order he’s aware of that bloggers, public servants and citizen journalists are not permitted entry to, because there’s a profusion of anonymity in today’s journalism, both online and in print.

Despite the heated exchanges occurring between readers and journalists divided by the uncovering, the anonymity argument, as applied to the Jericho situation, is a misdirection – and thoroughly irrelevant. It does, however, throw up questions surrounding journalism, ethics and the protection of sources. The thing about anonymity in today’s online world is that some people deserve it, and other people – PR companies, the military, government departments – routinely get it. This is the crux of the argument about anonymity and why it matters. ... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 5-10-2010, 1 user comment

Left behind: the faded labour narrative

Melbourne eight hour day march 1900

In August 1855, members of the Sydney Stonemakers’ Society working on the building site of the Holy Trinity church laid down their tools and called for the introduction of an eight-hour working day. The workers celebrated their victory at a dinner on 1 October, now known as Labour Day and recognised by a public holiday. The Stonemason’s victory pre-empted the call for an eight-hour day at the International Labour Congress in Paris in 1888, the outcome of which was May Day. The establishment of the eight hour day in 1855 was followed in other Australian states which now celebrate Labour Day at various times of the year. This weekend, the Labour Day public holiday is upon (some of) us and the people of NSW are out and about trying to make the best of their time off, if they have it, as the rain sweeps through Sydney, dampening barbecues and confining us to the great indoors. I doubt many are reflecting on the history of the labour movement. ... read more

Written by Boris Kelly on 4-10-2010, 16 user comments

The language of war

On 26 February 2009, novelist and journalist Nick McDowell began his embed with the United States Army’s 1st Cavalry Division in Mosul, northern Iraq. He was to spend two weeks researching a report for Time magazine and his book The End of Major Combat Operations. Most of that time was spent accompanying the units he was assigned to on counterinsurgency missions and grappling with a language he had no understanding of – military slang. A common experience among journalists new to the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq is their shock at how difficult it is to understand not what the locals are saying, but the coalition forces. ... read more

Written by Chris Flynn on 1-10-2010, 3 user comments

Andrew Bolt is not happy

Andrew Bolt is not happy with what I wrote in response to the suicide of Josefa Rauluni. He says I’m either a ‘liar’ or ‘simply ignorant’.

I wrote that our politicians and corporate media peddled hatred and fear against asylum seekers, which created the conditions that caused Rauluni’s death. I made up a megaphone speech, which was plainly not literal, but could be considered implicit in what at least some of these people say and write. For example, if Tony Abbott promises to stop the boats, what does that say to people who arrived here by boat? It seems, to me, the obvious corollary is that they are not welcome, and Abbott would prefer they hadn’t come here in the first place. ... read more

Written by Michael Brull on 1-10-2010, 3 user comments

Post from Tanzania: The soft bodies of strangers

I’ve caught a handful of dalla dallas in the last few weeks (the cheap, local minibuses that buzz around n between the towns of Tanzania). They’re crowded. Very crowded. And I’m quite sure they’re not safe.

Dalla Dallas in Zanzibar

I’m not sure what it is about them that makes me leap to such a conclusion. In Australia, everything is so highly regulated that a blocked nose is considered unsafe. But I think I’d prefer too much regulation to too little. Even if I hadn’t heard about the accidents that regularly occur or been told the tales of inebriated drivers, or seen the dalla dallas that constantly litter the sides of the road (either with a mechanic underneath, or a crane hoisting them from a ditch), I’d have no trouble choosing which I’d rather. ... read more

Written by Louise Pine on 1-10-2010, 10 user comments