This is the third Christmas where I have had to turn my mind to a present for my daughter’s day-care teachers. Each year as I wrap their little parcels and write on their cards I am struck by ho…
Old gender stereotypes perpetuate an old problem: gender inequality
The day after the recent COAG Tracking Equity Report was published there was some talk of experts being baffled about the results. How can it be that girls outperform boys at school but then drop off …
Where do the most productive meetings take place?
I can’t imagine I am in the minority having never combined a foot massage with a work meeting. Until last week I would have been quite disbelieving if you told me you had. Who does combine refle…
Why is a father looking after his daughter for a week so surprising?
Last year I was on maternity leave with an eight-week old baby when the summer shutdown rolled around. It meant we didn’t have to juggle a childcare centre close-down with annual leave and our r…
I don’t know how she did this: Allison Pearson on Nigella Lawson, drug use and domestic violence
Earlier this year I was one of the many, possibly millions, who couldn’t believe my eyes. Photos were published of the English chef and celebrated domestic goddess Nigella Lawson being clutched …
The terrifying reality of emotional abuse
There is never, ever, a good time for a person to kill their partner. It’s a fate no one should meet. Unfortunately it’s a fate that at least one Australian woman encounters every single w…
Spying, sorry and free speech: what they said on Q&A
It was the final Q&A of the year but the panel discussion last night could have continued well beyond the one-hour mark. Indonesia and the issue of spying dominated the conversation. On the …
Men’s magazine names model ‘woman of the year’. Really?
I have been deliberating over this one. Are my expectations unrealistic? Am I being pedantic? Or am I justified in feeling a tad dismayed that a men’s magazine would award a model as its woman o…
What’s happened to Kate? The magazine cover that shocked me
What’s happened to Kate Middleton? This is the question that is posed on the cover of a weekly magazine that is currently sitting on the newsstands. Two pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge acco…
How one outfit helped this woman break a cycle of despair
She stood up from her table at the Sofitel ballroom, strode onto the stage and with a single line the room, filled with hundreds of men and women, started clapping rapturously. She said “My name…
