On June 6th this year, I uploaded a post to a feminist Facebook page. It was a response to a shooting in Darwin the night before, in which a gunman had killed four people. The post highlighted a press…
Hiding the ‘likes’ count on Instagram is one small step but not enough
My kids are still a few more years off from using Instagram and social media more broadly, and I really hope that’s enough time for humanity to either move on from it (yes, unlikely), or for tho…
Vanity Fair’s takedown of Byron Bay’s ‘Instagram Influencer Mamas’
Carina Chocano’s Vanity Fair feature on Courtney Adamo, Amelia Fullarton and other ‘Instagram Influencer Mamas’ in Byron Bay is beautifully written and thought-provoking. It is also savage and scathin…
Pink Buns: The photos Facebook doesn’t want you to see
Earlier this week the Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA) launched its annual Pink Bun campaign with ‘breast friends’ Bakers Delight. As part of this year’s campaign they released a series of…
Why I’m ditching the super parent fantasy in 2019
January brings relaxing times and quieter days for some but not all. For parents of young kids and babies, the family tempo may have reduced marginally from manic sprint to marathon jog. But it’s unli…
Mariam Veiszadeh on arriving in Australia at age 7 & not ‘belonging’ anywhere
Mariam Veiszadeh was seven when she arrived in Australia in 1991 and she didn’t speak a word of English. Three years earlier, in 1988, when Mariam was just four, her family had fled Afghanistan, their…
‘I don’t have a laptop’: How Jack Dorsey runs Twitter from his phone
“I don’t have a laptop. I only use my phone.” That was the answer that drew gasps and incredulous laughter at Twitter Australia’s HQ in Sydney on Friday morning. Jack Dorsey, t…
Selfies, self-esteem & social media: How to help your teenagers survive.
The subject of social media is entirely unavoidable for parents. It is ubiquitous, and its use is peculiar to the current generation of tweens and teens. Any parent over the age of 20 simply didn̵…
The magazine cover women surgeons around the world are recreating.
In early April the New Yorker magazine published its Health, Medicine & Body Issue with a striking illustration of four female surgeons looking down at a patient. French artist Malika Favre drew o…
Sexism, Twitter and what a hashtag can do: The #1reasonwhy phenomenon
Within moments of Labor backbencher Steve Gibbons calling Julie Bishop a “bimbo” on Twitter yesterday morning, he was called to account. Within minutes he’d apologised. And when form…
