Journal
Articles
On the rigs
The environment is unapologetically male. It is also isolated and basic: all everyone does is sleep-eat-work. I found it relatively easy to acclimatise given my studies and interests, but I underestimated the impact that being the only woman for most of my time, in a group of between twenty and sixty men, would have on me. I found it more challenging than I expected to navigate work/life nuances on the rigs. There are not many other places in the world where a woman is made more aware of her gender: where you must learn to find the balance as a woman in such an overwhelmingly male world.
The up and down nature of ladders
MARY AND I spend a long time tying the sign on the hood of her rusty station wagon. It...
Homeopathy
TRUTH IS AS truth believes. When the piano needed tuning and the blind piano tuner came to the house,...
In my father’s house
THERE WAS NO sign on the door of my parents' bedroom that said 'keep out', but I knew it...
Broken
Selected for The Best Australian Essays 2013 FOR NEARLY A decade, my art has been concerned with aspects of female...
Standing up to P
WAYS OF THINKING about women and men usually stall in a 'maze of false dichotomies', poet Adrienne Rich said...
Liars, witches and trolls
IT WAS SURPRISINGLY sunny the Sunday morning in October when we bumped into the PM. On a broken suburban...
Cracking the dress code
GERMAINE GREER HAD been responding to a questioner on the ABC's Q&A program (March 19, 2012), who asked what...
Solidarity and silence
I TYPE IN 'Aceh' and find a slew of photos depicting the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami. Buried among...
Fear of the Q-word
CONVERSATIONS ABOUT QUOTAS to increase the number of senior women in business seem unreal. It is as if instead...
Back to base
TINA IS BEAUTIFUL and hopeful, but she tells me she checked herself into hospital at the age of nine...
At that time in history
YVONNE DE CARLO was a Canadian-born, American movie actor. The famous beauty was at the height of her film...
