Following the rape and murder of Eurydice Dixon, the initial response by Victoria Police included warning women to exercise “personal responsibility” and “situational awareness” at night, among other unhelpful suggestions. Unsurprisingly, this victim blaming sparked a backlash on social media.
feminism
Women’s and LGBTI rights activists presented Venezuela’s National Constituent Assembly (ANC) with a series of proposals to legalise abortion and expand sexual and reproductive rights on June 20. This comes in the wake of the vote in Argentina’s Congress to legalise abortion, and at a time when the issue of abortion has gained added importance given the impact Venezuela’s economic crisis has had on women.
“La Manada” (The Wolf Pack) is the name of a WhatsApp group chosen by five men to organise a trip to los sanfermines — the running of the bulls — in Pamplona, Navarra. During the festival, in the early hours of July 7, 2016, they gang raped an 18-year-old woman in a small room under the stairwell of a block of flats.
Three hours later, one of them shared a video of the attack in another male-only WhatsApp group with 28 members, called “Danger”. One of the five was an off-duty National Guard officer, another a soldier. During the trial, evidence of another attack committed by four of the five several months earlier was uncovered.
Despite this, although the trial found the men guilty of sexual abuse, it cleared them of rape.
Almost six months after it began, the #MeToo campaign is still having an impact and generating debate — and not just against the right wing, notes Elizabeth Shultz.
Of all the International Women’s Day (IWD) demonstrations held in an unprecedented 177 countries on March 8, the Spanish state stood out as the site of the largest mobilisation for women’s equality. In fact, it was the greatest mobilisation for women’s right in history, with almost 6 million people — overwhelmingly women — striking and demonstrating in about 120 cities and towns.
Communist and feminist Zelda D’Aprano became the symbol of the fight for equal pay when, in October 1969, she chained herself to the Commonwealth Offices in Melbourne, after becoming frustrated at the lack of pay equity for women.
D’Aprano was employed by the meatworkers union, which was involved in a test case on the gender pay gap in the meat industry before the Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Commission. At the time, women’s participation in the workforce was 38% and they were paid 75% of men’s wages for doing the same work.
Last year was the year of women’s truth-telling about sexual and domestic violence. It was also the year that 49 Australian women met violent deaths.
In the second month of this year, there has been no respite from the unceasing onslaught of violence against women and the resulting murders.
To study these deaths is to uncover a blunt, chilling fact: the most dangerous place in Australia for a woman to be — and the most dangerous company for her to be in — is at home with her male intimate partner on a Saturday night.
March 4, 5pm. Old Library, Katoomba St, Katoomba.
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry reflects on the multi-layered strands of feminism in the US from the late 1960s through the mid 1970s.
It includes interviews with feminists from those times, and includes original footage of the battles that were waged.
In these times when women's rights are even more under attack from neoliberal governments here (and in the US) this film is a reminder of what the second wave of the women's movement achieved.
Unit 3, 29 Macquarie Street, Parramatta (5 minutes walk from the station).
Friday, March 15, 6:30pm (meal from 6pm). Celebrate International (Working) Women's Day and pay tribute to the second wave feminist activists. Filmmaker Mary Dore chronicles the events, the movers and the shakers of the feminist movement from 1966 to 1971. Screening followed by short discussion. $10/$5. Resistance Centre, Level 5, 407 Swanston St, City (opposite RMIT). Hosted by Green Left Weekly.
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