Amy Winehouse and the tragedy of myths
Winehouse’s struggles will have been compounded by the world she found herself in. Her death should stimulate reflection on how myths surrounding mental illness have a cruel hold over real lives.
Of “normal families” and the gender card
Cross-posted at The Drumroll By far the least edifying aspect of Julia Gillard’s appearance on Q&A last night was a series of risible questions about her life choices, her lack of religious beliefs, and her hairstyle. As if that wasn’t [...]
Media/Libs gender campaign against Gillard is filthy
Bob Brown was quite right to describe the questions in the media about Julia Gillard’s personal choices as “disgusting”. Ever since Tony Abbott’s dog whistling at the Debate about how he’s a family man, with a wife, kiddies and a [...]
Gender gap disappearing: polls
Essential Research finds that there were no “substantial gender differences” in Tony Abbott’s approval ratings, and men were slightly more likely to approve of Julia Gillard’s performance and prefer her as PM. Yesterday, Newspoll found that Labor’s primary vote among [...]
Gillard’s attack on Abbott’s great big new tax, and his gender fail
Bernard Keane picked something interesting out of last night’s debate (yes, it is possible – see previous LP discussion here and here): Watch for Labor to ramp up its attack on the Liberals’ paid parental leave tax. Gillard’s most effective [...]
The view from Channel Nine IV
Continuing an irregular series commenting on how the election looks to commercial tv viewers: commercial free to air is the biggest single source of information for voters. For the first time since I’ve been watching it, tonight’s Brisbane coverage actually [...]
Julia Gillard, feminism and gender politics
There is no doubt that the ascension of Julia Gillard to the Labor leadership, and therefore her becoming Australia’s first female Prime Minister, is a significant moment and raises a number of issues for discussion. Some have posed the question [...]
Newspoll and climate change opinion II; partisan affiliation, gender and age
As a supplement to Paul’s post, I thought it was worthwhile posting derived tables of the breakdown by partisan affiliation, gender and age, courtesy of Possum. As he says, “Those results are pretty interesting in and of themselves!”… particularly the [...]
On Movember, Tim Soutphommasane and civics
A while back I wrote – in rather skeptical vein – about Tim Soutphommasane’s claim that progressives should be reclaiming patriotism. Guy Rundle has now reviewed Soutphommasane’s book, Reclaiming Patriotism: nation building for Australian progressives, for Crikey (of which more [...]
Women in/and political blogging Redux
The Crikey inspired revival of that hardy perennial – pace Jonathan Green – “where are teh wimminz?” – was discussed by Anna Winter in a post here at LP. It also sparked wide discussion all over the tubes. Notable is [...]
JJJ Hottest 100: Women free edition
As observed here: Only 10 songs on the hottest 100 list were made by a band who had any women in it, ever (if we include Massive Attack, who, technically, only ever had female guest vocalists); the highest of these [...]
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