Perhaps it is the circles in which I travel, but of late it seemed to me every person who thinks deeply about life had one thing to say about the USA: How is it, in a country of 336 million people, that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the only candidates for president? * (There’s also a Kennedy offspring, whose name escapes me, who plans to run. Ed) This rhetorical question became academic after President…
Despite being ranked equal first for educational attainment, Australia came in at 44th overall in the Global Gender Gap Index 2020 rankings, slipping five places from the previous year. But things are better than the discrimination evident in the 1960s and 1970s*. By Laurel Wilson In 1965, Merle Thornton and her friend Rosalie Bogner walked into the Regatta Hotel in Brisbane and chained themselves to the Public Bar as a protest about the discrimination which…
Last week, Friday the 13th, I intended to write about International Left Handers’ Day. Apparently it’s been a thing since 1976 – a clever way of making people aware of this difference, at least once a year. Clearly the organisers of International Left Handers’ Day do not suffer from Triskaidekaphobia, a fear of Friday the 13th. Phobias are an irrational fear of one or more of hundreds of strange things that induce panic attacks in…
The changing language of disability: I briefly met the deputy editor of The Conversation, Charis Palmer, in December, at the launch of the Yearbook. I handed her my card and told her my weekly blog had been running for three and a half years. I said I often quoted articles from The Conversation as I considered it an accurate and balanced source. “Well don’t forget you can re-publish any of our articles, anytime,” she said…