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Paper Giants and Women’s Magazines

‘Paper Giants, the birth of Cleo’, which screened on ABC Sunday and Monday nights, told the story of how, against a background of emergent feminism, the victory of the Whitlam government, and the Packers’ shedding part of their media empire, the talented Ita Buttrose was made editor of a new and controversial magazine. Against great […]

Children’s Beauty Pageants: The Ugly Truth

This is my column that appeared in the Courier Mail on Wednesday the 30th March. It had an overwhelming response. Please feel free to add your comments and pass on the message. THE US children’s beauty contest, the Universal Royalty Beauty Pageant, is coming to Melbourne in July and, according to reports, some mothers are […]

Disaster Porn

As the world reels from yet another natural catastrophe, where lives are both lost and forever changed, the reporting of these tragedies and our consumption of them appears to be changing. Instead of simply reading, watching and listening to what’s happening in order to be informed, in touch and aware, there’s a sense in which […]

Big Brother, Responsibility and Lady GaGa

OK. Confession time. I haven’t been writing blogs lately because I have been working to a very tight deadline – namely, the submission of Book 2 of Curse of the Bond Riders: Votive. My days are spent lost in the Tallow’s world – which is really rather nice at times and I will blog about […]

Lara Bingle Bungle

Lara Bingle, Michael Clarke, nude photos, feminism, women’s magazines

Killing Innocence

The news that a 13 year old boy fatally stabbed a 12 year old boy, Elliott Fletcher, in the toilet blocks of St Patrick’s, Shorncliffe, has shocked not just the families and community, but the entire nation. As the news broke and, later, the story was pieced together and assumptions made about the reasons for […]

I’m Too Sexy For a Squirt

The news that a gorgeous little seven-year-old girl, Julia Lira, is to lead the Viradouro samba parade in Rio de Janeiro seems to have tipped the scales of public opinion. Known for its sexually charged atmosphere, the Carnival is really no place for a child. Yet the father defends his right to give his daughter […]

Tony the Abbott and ‘his’ women

Today I did something I haven’t done in a long, long time – I bought the Women’s Weekly – the issue with the gorgeous Lisa Wilkinson on the front and the one with the infamous Tony Abbott interview. I wanted to give myself a context for understanding all the brouhaha that erupted last week when […]

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