‘There was no discussion of the pressure girls like Amanda experience to measure their worth through their sexual desirability’ By Meghan Murphy The tragic story of Amanda Todd has been covered widely by the media and has impacted people across the continent. Todd was only fifteen years old when she killed herself last Wednesday after […]
Whatever Happened to Melissa Harris-Perry? by GAIL DINES Last week, midway through a leisurely Saturday afternoon, I got an email from MSNBC asking me to be on the Melissa Harris Perry Show a week later (July 7th). I was delighted to accept, as MHP is not your usual American journalist. A professor of political science […]
More female flesh to sell products for men: send Stonemen back to the cave Underwear brand Stonemen has launched an interactive video featuring a woman masturbating to an image of the viewers in Stonemen jocks. Well, actually the viewer’s face superimposed on the body of another man in the jocks. (No, I won’t be linking […]
Big Porn Inc: Exposing the harms of the global porn industry (Spinifex Press, edited by Dr Abigail Bray and me) is now appearing on bookstore shelves in the UK and North America. Host and producer of The F Word radio show and the executive editor of feminisms.org, Meghan Murphy interviewed me recently. It was good […]
Just the latest example of the mainstreaming of pornography ‘The “Telstra Babes” content is just a few clicks away from the “Women at Telstra” recruitment website, which describes the company’s “inclusive working environment” for women and its culture that “celebrates the success of women at every level”’. This piece by James Frost in The Australian last […]
A young man taking the lead Now and then I stumble on a brave man passionate about the issues taken up here on the MTR blog. Recently I’ve made the acquaintance of Matthew Holloway. Only 26, Matthew’s written some compelling pieces in recent months on pornography, prostitution and rape-permission giving in men’s magazines. I thought […]
‘Shine your light by taking a stand, not by taking part. It’s not too late’ US supergroup Switchfoot will be performing and signing posters at City Beach Queen Street store in Brisbane this afternoon. While band members are at it with the pen and the posters, we’d like them to sign our Change.org petition calling […]
‘Encouraging teens to wait until they feel ready for sex is not to promote oppression. It is to promote empowerment’ By Dr Emma Rush Clueless, to say the least. Michelle Griffin’s claim (‘Why teens should read raunchy novels and straight-up smut’) that “teens should read more porn”, not to mention her implied claim that more […]
Do young people need to read porn themed novels? That was the argument put by Age social affairs writer Michelle Griffin in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald this week. “Steamy airport novels, raunchy teen lit and straight-up smut”, argued Griffin, would help take young people away from “commercialised banal porn”. In her praise of […]
I found this piece by Dr Helen Pringle, ‘Killjoys, Wowser and The P-rn Wars’ in New Matilda so inspiring. I hope my fellow women’s activists will draw strength and renew their commitment to our cause, after reading it. “Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas.” – Mary Richardson […]
By Renate Klein and Susan Hawthorne Since the publication of Rachael Hills’s article “Who’s Afraid of Melinda Tankard Reist” (and see her reflections two weeks later) at least ten on-line and print media articles have joined in a public dissection and commentary along the lines of, “she’s a conservative religious fundamentalist” and “she’s pro-life and […]
As I read Jennifer Wilson’s article, I couldn’t help thinking that the pro-porn crowd must be producing a list of talking points that they endlessly circulate among themselves. They trot out the same old arguments without a shred of empirical evidence to back them up, and then they suggest that it is the anti-porn feminists […]
