One of my very favourite places in Melbourne is Sandridge Bridge, home to the Travellers sculptural installation. Enormous steel figures fan out along the bridge (they used to move out at sunrise and in at sunset) representing the indigenous people, and then nine successive waves of migrants. The bridge also hosts 128 panels for Melbourne residents’ […]
Pancakes are political Would you like to know your neighbours better? Do you like delicious food? Do you want to change the world, one small action of kindness at a time? Well, do I have the festival for you: Shrove Tuesday! When I was a little girl, our elderly neighbours had spare keys to our […]
Do you have a sewing machine hanging around unused at your house? Perhaps you know an elderly relative or friend who is no longer sewing and would like to see their beloved machine put to good use? Give an underused sewing machine a new life! In 2019, just with the power of the internet and […]
Do you know your refugee facts? I’m guessing you’re online right now, so I suggest you have a wee surf for any answers you don’t know. Let me know if you get stuck with any of them! 1. Name ten people in the Bible who are refugees at some point. 2. How many people are refugees outside […]
You might remember Jessica’s stunning speech on feminism, published here when she was nine years old. This year for her school’s speech competition, she introduced her classmates to the idea of activism – and won! Here’s her winning speech, written just before the election, with an introduction just for us: Hi, I’m Jessica Tuhua. I […]
No one is too young to make the world a better place! Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize when she was only seventeen. She began her public life as an activist for girls’ education in Pakistan when she was just eleven years old, blogging about life under the Taliban. She’s proof that ordinary young people can have genuine influence […]
During the United States primaries, I had to consciously limit my fascination with US politics and remind myself that it was getting daily updates on the campaign trail shenanigans wasn’t much different to reading about foreign celebrities in gossip magazines. I had better things to do with my time and attention. And then Trump got elected. […]
Kia ora koutou! Welcome to the Down Under Feminists’ Carnival, chock-full of blog posts and great writing from around Australia, Aotearoa and the Pacific. I’m Thalia, a New Zealand lawyer-turned-minister-turned-mother-turned-writer-turned-development-worker. You are very welcome at my place. This is my first time hosting, and heck, it has been a lot of fun. Of the nerdy, […]
I love a good list. Here are the top ten posts of 2015, in terms of how many times they’ve been read. There were some surprises, even for an avid stats-page-watcher like me. The oldest one is from three years ago, but eight of the ten are from this year. I like to think I’m […]
I remember when I first read a report of how women and girls were suffering under the Taliban in pre-9/11 Afghanistan. I think I was about sixteen. Widows were starving – literally dying of hunger – because they weren’t allowed to shop for food without a male guardian. Girls were kicked out of schools and […]