The death of 20-year-old Ruqia Haidari in Perth in January this year, allegedly murdered by her husband whom she wed only two months earlier, and the recent arrests of three of her family members,...
Category: News
73,600,000 reasons to worry
With the dark cloud of the US presidential elections almost over, there are signs that things are slowly improving. We are not only cracking the gender ceiling with Kamala Harris as vice-president...
Lady justice is blindfolded in Afghanistan report
The Government’s response to Justice Brereton’s report for the Inspector General of the Australian Defence Force into misconduct by Australia’s Special Forces in Afghanistan has been swift and sure....
Small steps lead to big strides for Afghan women
Time and again Afghanistan has been named as one of the worst places on earth for women. With a history of invasions, domestic and civil unrest, having had one of the strictest Islamic regimes on...
Taking advisory boards on board
Early last month, a report was quietly slipped onto the website of the Office for Women. There were, it appears, no news reports. It attracted little social media attention: the single Tweet from...
Reclaiming the ordinary as an act of feminist resistance
I was recently invited to give a keynote address on unleashing the power of women. My horror, when I agreed, was almost instant. Not because of my trusty old friend Crippling Imposter Syndrome but...
Alexa and Siri? Why not Alan and Sam?
In the The Jetsons, the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon series set in the future, Rosie the robot did the chores that nobody else cared to do – cleaning and cooking, scratching George Jetson on the...
Are women missing from the Constitution?
The Australian Constitution is notoriously hard to change. Since 1901, when it came into being, there have been 19 referendums, proposing 44 changes, but only eight have been agreed to. Among the...
The politics of a scandal
Is this a sex scandal? Or a scandal about sexist culture? Monday’s 4 Corners story is about many things. For the details you’ll have to watch the story, as I won’t discuss them here. But let’s first...