It’s been an extraordinary fortnight for any Australian passionate about questions of gender and equality.
The Alan Jones affair. The Brunswick peace march for Jill Meagher. Margie Abbott and the Downton Abbey Defence. Peter Slipper’s texts and Julia Gillard’s speech.
Debates over sexism and misogyny are flaring all over the country – and suddenly, everyone’s a feminist.
So the Wheeler Centre and Overland are holding an old-fashioned community forum, to try to unpick the significance of this singular cultural moment.
Because if there’s a new feminism emerging, what does it stand for and who does it represent? Where should campaigners for gender justice focus next? And how might the sexism-related fury and energy of recent days – both righteous and politically expedient – be harnessed meaningfully?
Overland’s Jacinda Woodhead chairs this special pop-up forum, featuring writers and activists Stephanie Convery and Karen Pickering (organiser of SlutWalk), and Crikey editor Jason Whittaker, looking at the feminist struggles of the past, present and future.
Download a recording of this event here: mp3
Featuring
Karen Pickering
Karen Pickering is a feminist writer and organiser. Her previous work includes running the events Cherchez La Femme and Girls On Film Festival, writing the books About Bloody Time and Doing It, and her next book on motherhood ...
Jacinda Woodhead
Jacinda Woodhead is Overland’s deputy editor.
She is also a PhD candidate working on a narrative non-fiction project about the politics of abortion. Her essay ‘Sexiness and Sexism: Neoliberalism and Feminism’ was recently published in Left Turn: Political Essays for the New Left.
Stephanie Convery
Stephanie Convery is a Melbourne-based writer and the deputy editor of Overland magazine. Her work has appeared in the Guardian, Meanjin, The Lifted Brow, ABC’s The Drum, the Big Issue, and other local and international publications.
Jason Whittaker
Jason Whittaker is a journalist and has been the editor of Crikey, the pioneering independent news and current affairs website, since May.
Previously he acted as Crikey’s deputy editor, and reported for and edited business publications in Brisbane for six years after graduating from the Queensland University of Technology. He doesn’t drink coffee, lives on the wrong side of the river and tweets uninterestingly via @thetowncrier.