Julia Baird
Margaret Harris reviews 'Victoria: The woman who made the modern world' by Julia Baird
The Empire over which Queen Victoria ruled for more than sixty years no longer paints the globe red. Yet Victoria is still ubiquitous. She is memorialised in the Commonwealth of Australia – formally proclaimed just three weeks before she died on 22 January 1901 – in the names of two states and innumerable other places, along with material objects like statues an ...
Rachel Buchanan Reviews ‘Media Tarts: How the Australian press frames female politicians’ By Julia Baird and ‘Chika: The autobiography of Kerry Chikarovski’ By Kerry Chikarovski and Luis M. Garcia
Bring back Carmen. Bring back Cheryl. Bring back Natasha. I would even have accepted a bit of Bronwyn as a relief from the relentless maleness of this year’s federal election campaign. The female politicians who were household names less than a decade ago – Carmen Lawrence, Cheryl Kemot, Natasha Stott Despoja, Bronwyn Bishop and Pauline Hanson – have been disgraced, marginalised or relegated to the backbenches. Replacements do not appear to be imminent, in part because the still-pitiful number of female parliamentarians are rarely allowed to shine. In the campaign, for instance, talented female politicians such as Julia Gillard were kept tucked away, despite the fact that what might be called women’s issues – especially childbearing and rearing – were central to the platforms of both major parties.
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