fourth floor feminism | sociable speculation

Inspired by the discovery of Normal Moments in Art History With No Murder and with paintings provided by Ariel , I have created a little tribute to some of the Murderous Ladies of Western Art History. Best moment: Representing my School at Debating Future Plans: Winning more Debates what is for dinner? did you buy the shampoo I like? how could you leave the house in that? Your mum’s kinda quiet … Now just get that back to the bench and I’ll get everything else. Start prepping it for the stock, but pluck all the hair. Gary hates hair in stock and I want to win this challenge. I tried one bell, then three bells, but she just kept bringing them back. She loves playing with them, I guess. It’s in her nature. And she does keep them out of the house as well, so that's good. He told me I was spending too much time on Pinterest. He told me he wanted me to spend more time with him. I split the diff. he was crying and begging mine too! anyway, he was crying and I felt the tears ...

Are you feeling a little confused about Australian Politics right now? Do you keep on trying to reconcile what the Government says with what the Government does?

 Perhaps the part of you that prides itself in common sense and “telling it like it is” seems to be reacting quite strongly to what the Government does, but the part of you that tries to apply some of the ideas you had to learn throughout your life is reacting very strongly to what the Government says? Perhaps your reptile brain keeps tapping your education on the shoulder and muttering "something is going on mate, they are not doing what they say they are doing!" The 1% are not stupid, they just want you to think they are Those who currently run our Government do believe in the climate science and they know the water and energy conflicts are rolling across the world and are heading for Australia. They didn’t get to their position without intelligence, a survival instinct and an eye for future conditions that ...

One thing I like very much about being a historian who has treated her own writing as a historical record, is that I can assess just how well I process the world as I pass through it. I used to think that the careful archiving of my diaries, journals, blogs and emails was an affectation, a wish to leave a historical record of my thoughts to future historians. It turns out that the use of that archive was going to be more personal, and the application of its lessons more contemporary, than I ever anticipated. My history degree was supposed to stay history, but it didn’t. Today I completed another step in this journey of history into reality by finally getting around to watching Zeitgeist . The thing I find most interesting about Zeitgeist was the familiarity of the material; my historical and political studies sit exactly parallel to the thrust of the arguments in Zeitgeist , so I was comfortable with the broad ideas and the conclusions from them. All of the conclusions can b...

Trust me, they know the climate science Let’s imagine for a moment that the 1% of Australia, with their university degrees, access to the best climate science and neoliberal think tank papers and their dominance in politics, were acting in rational self-interest. They know that the water and energy wars are coming and they have a country with unique assets: No land borders Renewable energy resources Space and minerals Industries that specialise in extracting minerals Industries that can be turned to R&D and manufacturing An education system to get citizens to the point of carrying out necessary R&D And a politically apathetic population that believes whatever the politicians tell them through monopolised and crippled information outlets. To be honest, if I were a conservative politician in Australia (and the way I was brought up, I may as well be), this is what I would do to ensure my political and social survival: I would claim the government didn’t believe i...

I was tagged by Kristen , a real writer, who wants me to play with other blogs! It's been a long time since I've stepped into the blogosphere to be sociable, but it's nice to be back. 1. What am I working on now? I don’t ‘work’ on pieces of writing, they work on me! My writing comes to me in moments of extreme emotion, although lately I have been trying out a few new concepts that I keep hearing are fashionable with ‘serious’ writers like: Writing daily
 Writing to deadlines
 Writing to word limits
 Writing in a theme My writing is not something that can be tamed, alas. So I resign myself to deadlines that make a whooshing sound as they pass (I love you Douglas) and irresponsibly late nights finishing two thousand words that won’t let me sleep otherwise

! I write idealist political commentary, self-consciously literary travelogues and outraged feminist tracts here on my blog I write comedic Fringe plays that need to be translated from my rather overworked j...

I would like to write about the intellectual, political and social dishonesty of the national conversation that the current Australian Government insists on imposing on the Australian public.

 To do this, I would like to start with exploring the basic philosophical problems with our current discussion about the various actions the current Australian Government has implemented relating to section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. Now, I take the view that the current Australian Government decided to manufacture a scuffle around 18C in order to distract the Australian public from more important matters that they do not want scrutinised. The current Australian Government makes announcements that destabilise the news cycle, and these announcements come in two forms: 1. An outrageous suggestion designed to let opponents react with scorn and satire, but neither suggestion nor satire achieves anything but noise, and a false sense of protest for those who did not vote for this cur...

This is a beautiful collection of correspondence surrounding the article my Nan wrote in 1963 for the Journal of Agriculture's Farm and Home section, which you can read below. I feel the letters speak for themselves! THE LITTLE ONES AT HOME by Johanna Bowen Journal of Agriculture, Farm and Home Many adults look upon the play of the tiny child as merely a way of passing the time and of keeping him out of the way between meals and bed. To the little one, however, playing is living. It is all-important and very, very real. Above all it is the beginning of the child’s education. Correspondence between Alwyn and Johanna All thanks to my fabulous Aunt Felicity for her discovery of the correspondence to do with the article, and transcribing all the letters. COPY of handwritten letter “ASHBY” Gingin Sept, 30th [1963] Dear Mrs Bowen, Thank you for your letter (of last October!) to the “Journal of Agriculture” with ideas for the “Farm and Home” section. As you say, there are...

This article, written by my Nan, was published by Department of Agriculture WA’s Journal of Agriculture in July 1964 for the “Farm and Home” series. My Nan trained as a Kindergarten Teacher in the very early days of Kindergarten in WA and at the age of 23 she was in charge of a cutting-edge Kindergarten in North Perth. In an interesting side note, she was also a Voice Actor for the radio plays on the ABC during that time; my Nan is way cool, and a person who always brings out imagination and stories from the people she meets. As with her writing on Women’s Liberation , I find this article fascinating for its practical love and respect for children and their play, and the respect for the incredibly important educational role of parents in the home with young children. As is consistent with the way I was brought up, this educational role is about the parent being the educator and guide, not simply the provider of education from other people and sources. My Mum and her mother...