I don’t support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I’m a Conservative. This statement by British Prime Minister David Cameron was heralded by many as a major win for gay and lesbian people. Lesbian and gay rights had now, it seemed, moved away from being a narrow concern of […]
11 Jun
Comments Off on Australia’s racial state, Indigenous Recognition & the Left
This article was first published at New Matilda. For those who think that Indigenous rights issues generally split people along Left/Right political lines, the stoush within the conservative camp between influential Herald-Sun columnist and blogger Andrew Bolt and The Australian over “Recognition” must be confusing. Yet for months now Bolt and the Murdoch-owned broadsheet have […]
01 Jun
How are capitalism and women’s oppression connected? In my last blog post we discussed the rise of the nuclear family and the connection between the class system and the shift in roles between men and women. This week we’re going to explore how modern capitalism has perpetuated the oppression of women. *** Let’s start a […]
15 May
Comments Off on Sex and society (2): The rise of the nuclear family
Simon Copland is a freelance writer specialising in sex, culture and the environment. This is the second post in a six-part series examining the history of sex and the family. The first post can be found here. These posts and other work from Simon are available on his blog: http://simoncopland.com/blog. How did nuclear families become the […]
12 May
Comments Off on HM Australasia 2015: Reading Capital, Class & Gender Today
University of Sydney, 17-18 July 2015 Call for Papers The year 2015 marks a series of conspicuous anniversaries. Three books in particular celebrate significant milestones this year. Raewyn Connell and Terry Irving’s seminal Class Structure in Australian History was published thirty-five years ago, Louis Althusser and his students published Reading Capital fifty years ago, and Silvia […]
08 May
The sudden departure of Christine Milne as Greens leader — apparently kept so secret that even many of her staff didn’t know she was plotting a transition with Richard Di Natale, Scott Ludlam and Larissa Waters — is a logical outcome of the party’s impasse since its electoral high point in 2010. Perhaps most significant is […]
07 May
Simon Copland is a freelance writer specialising in sex, culture and the environment. He previously wrote for Left Flank on the Left and Tony Abbott’s “inevitable downfall”. This is the first post in a six-part series examining the history of sex and the family. These posts and other work from Simon are available on his […]
18 Apr
It’s been less than 12 months since the last federal Budget, yet it seems like an eternity since Clive Palmer managed to break through the Right-Left partisanship that usually accompanies post-Budget discussion. This was the apex of Palmer’s influence on politics, a world away from the report in today’s Fairfax newspapers that then PUP senator […]
13 Apr
Two hostile intersecting axes are forming against the Syriza-led government in Athens. Together they comprise an increasingly cohered effort to destabilise and defeat the government, to usurp the democratically expressed hope of the Greek people to break from the iron cage of austerity. The first axis, from without, has been evident since before the 20 […]
12 Apr
Comments Off on China: The purge, detained feminists & the new normal
The Purge While on a visit in China, I have learned the habit of regularly checking the news for announcements of yet another corruption investigation by the government. Until recently, corruption involving Party or government officials had been treated as a politically explosive scandal, which the government preferred the public not to see. But now […]
19 Jun
Comments Off on Sex and society (4): Capitalism & gay oppression