Cirrus@Austlit

'The house husbands or SNAGS, a new phenomenon, did not see this as a permanent role and most, sooner or later, tired of a lack of life in the public sphere; despite a brief fashion for the male population's public job being private Home Duties, many men longed to re-enter the usual world; one in which important or sometimes stimulating things went on. The Australian Institute of Family Studies (in the government Department of Social Services) has regularly researched attitudes to gender roles within households in relation to things such as divided domestic work and has found, in its surveys, considerable support for shared housework. Other factors are in play in many countries, especially the incidence of child marriage (650 million girls) and of Female Genital Mutilation (imposed upon 200 million girls), the latter increasingly administered by actual health services rather than the stereotypical old, female relative with a razor blade and a sewing basket. The witches and midwives of centuries ago were one thing (documented, for example, in Barbara Ehrenreich's 1973 Witches, Midwives and Nurses) but more recently, in COVID-19 times, women are much in demand in their jobs/professions as health workers, and have been given enthusiastic encouragement to lead their working life in close contact with often viralent infections, as "essential workers"-a category that seems to have benefits for the bourgeoisie who belong to it, but not many for nurses working long and demanding shifts, wearing often-uncomfortable Personal Protective Equipment, in hospitals and infection-testing clinics.' (Carole Ferrier, Editorial introduction) 

An introduction to this volume of papers from the Excess, Desire and Twentieth- to Twenty-First-Century Women’s Writing. A Hecate and Contemporary Women’s Writing Association conference held at the School of Communication and Arts, The University of Queensland, 8–10 February 2017.

'This paper offers a look back over the rise of the visibility, and the rise as a category, of Asian Australian fiction from the beginning of the 1990s, and especially in the twenty-first century, and some of the main questions that have been asked of it by its producers, and its readers, critics, commentators and the awarders of prizes. It focuses upon women writers. The trope of “border crossings”—both actual and in the mind, was central in the late-twentieth century to much feminist, Marxist, postcolonial and race-cognisant cultural commentary and critique, and the concepts of hybridity, diaspora, whiteness, the exotic, postcolonising and (gendered) cultural identities were examined and deployed. In the “paranoid nation” of the twenty-first century, there is a new orientation on the part of governments towards ideas of—if not quite an imminent Yellow Peril—a “fortress Australia,” that turns back to where they came from all boats that are not cruise liners, containerships or warships (of allies). In the sphere of cultural critique, notions of a post-multiculturality that smugly declares that anything resembling identity politics is “so twentieth-century,” are challenged by a rising creative output in Australia of diverse literary representations of and by people with Asian connections and backgrounds. The paper discusses aspects of some works by many of the most prominent of these writers. In its mediation, through similar-but-different travelling women’s eyes, of the past and present histories of different national contexts, Asian Australian fictional writing is a significant and challenging component of the “national” culture, and is continuing to extend its audiences within, and beyond Australia.' (Publication abstract)

Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox’s painting, on this cover of the AWBR, from her “Dronescapes” series, encourages meditation upon the application of technological advances, specifically within the history of warfare. It depicts militarised drones— machines that deliver weapons. Their deployment for targeted attacks in remotely controlled strikes has developed and increased over time since the second Gulf War. During the presidency of Barack Obama, counter-insurgency airborne drone measures in undeclared battlefields purported to minimise civilian casualties. However, these strikes have given rise to urgent questions about the identification of terrorists, since any male close to a target can fall into the category of “terrorist,” whereas a female or a child in the vicinity is less likely to be categorised in this way. Other justifications for this style of drone warfare are that they can prevent planned attacks on local populations, and save the lives of American warfighters or others from the “free world” who may have their “boots on the ground” near the target or “kill zone.” The remote nature of drone operation also removes pilots from possible harm or death, thus minimising American citizenry concerns about sending troops to fight and die in distant wars.' (Introduction)

'It has been suggested by Susan Friedman that we might understand 'the geopolitical rhetoric of feminism' as operating 'according to a transnational grammar with a number of specific figural formations'; in particular, five tropic patterns: 'the metaphorics of nation, borders, migration, 'location' and conjuncture.' These tropes recur and can be recognized in Devanny's fiction, and also in the story of her life.' (p187)