Memoir | Essays | Media
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Gardening at the End of the World
I pulled up the tomato plants before they had finished fruiting. The sickly haze of the megafire had lifted only days earlier and now, able to spend time removing weeds and rot for the first time in weeks…
Meanjin Quarterly (2023) Memoir
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You Got this Mama
I am waiting on the bed under the bright lights of the surgical room, following an excruciating period fully dilated with no access to gas or drugs while my spinal tap for an emergency c-section was prepared…
Sydney Review of Books (2023) Essay
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For Queer People, Hair Is Subversive — But It’s Also About Identity & Belonging
Though beauty ideals change with trends and seasons, they’re often concerned with conforming to traditional ideas about gender and sexuality — how “men” and “women” ought to look, or how to make us more desirable to the “opposite sex”…
Refinery 29 (2023) Article
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Our Sensory Experience of the Pandemic
Co-authored with William Tullett
While the COVID-19 pandemic has been full of disruptions – from homeschooling to cancelled events and vacated office buildings – simultaneously it has reshaped our sensory landscapes. As the world that we have had to navigate has changed, so too have our experiences and understandings of touch, smell, taste, sight and sound…
Pursuit (2021) Article
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Academic Study Highlights the Power of Hairdressing
Co-authored with Stacey Mary Page
The hairdresser-client relationship fosters a unique support system, whereby clients often feel comfortable discussing intimate details about their lives with their hairdresser. This includes topics they may not disclose to others, partly due to various social and psychological barriers in seeking formal help…
StyleIcons and INSTYLE Magazine (2021) Article
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Emotional styling: How can hairdressers help?
Co-authored with Stacey Mary Page
The emotional aspects of salon work encompass many factors that can be understood as emotional labour. Not only do hair and beauty workers require technical skills, but research also suggests that they can often play an informal caregiving role and provide social support for clients…
Histories of Emotions (2021) Blog post
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Hairdressers are uniquely placed to respond to family violence, but is it ethical to ask them to?
A number of programs have emerged in Australia in recent years that aim to train salon workers to act as informal helpers around family violence and abuse. For example, in Victoria the Eastern Domestic Violence Service’s HaiR-3Rs program has been designed to train hair and other salon workers to recognise, respond to, and refer clients who disclose experiences of family violence…
ABC Religion and Ethics (2021) Article
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JK Rowling, her new book and toxic femininity
We hear a lot about toxic masculinity, but is there a flipside – toxic femininity? As someone working in the academic field of critical femininity studies, this is a question I have been looking into. Toxic masculinity refers to traits that reinforce men’s dominance over women.…
Broad Agenda (2020) Blog post
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Coronavirus shutdowns: what makes hairdressing ‘essential’? Even the hairdressers want to close
As part of sweeping social-distancing measures, on March 24 Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced nail salons, tanning, waxing and most other beauty services would be closed – but hair salons could remain open with a 30-minute per client time restriction.…
The Conversation (2020) Article
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More than skin deep, beauty salons are places of sharing and caring
What happens when people visit beauty and hair salons? Are trips to the salon simply about shaping how one looks on the outside, or can these spaces involve something deeper? Research shows that beyond “beauty”, salons can be spaces for clients to have intimate conversations with salon workers.…
The Conversation (2020) Article
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Look Good, Feel Good: Labour in Beauty Salons
Salons advertise all kinds of treatments, from the mundane – Feeling sad? Get a mood-lifting manicure! – to the outlandish – Dull skin? Try our revitalising facial made from nightingale poo! These treatments are sold as the latest scientific miracles guaranteed to make you feel younger, sexier and more confident. But there is much more to salons than the newest age-defying goo or the freshest hairstyles…
Overland (2019) Essay
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Victorian changes to gender on birth certificate will not increase sexual violence. Here’s why
Co-authored with Bianca Fileborn, Matthew Mitchell and Priya Kunjan
The Victorian government is considering changes to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996. The changes will mean transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people can change the sex recorded on their birth certificate without having to undergo medical or surgical intervention.…
The Conversation (2019) Article
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Gender Troubles
Co-authored with Lucy Nicholas
In November 2017 a group of protesters in São Paulo burnt an effigy of acclaimed gender theorist Judith Butler outside an academic conference she was attending, while waving crucifixes and national flags and shouting “burn the witch!” One sign read, “Judith Butler’s dream is to destroy your children’s sexual identity” …
Inside Story (2019) Article
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Long Live the Gender Whisperers
Co-authored with Geraldine Fela and Archie Thomas
In 1976, Greg Weir was told by the Queensland government he couldn’t teach in Queensland schools. He was a qualified teacher, but also the spokesperson for his local Homosexual and Lesbian Group. As Val Bird, then Queensland’s Minister for Education, explained in parliament, ‘student teachers who participate in homosexual and lesbian groups should not assume they would be employed by the Education Department on graduation’…
Overland (2018) Article
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Marriage Equality: Yes It’s About Gender
Co-authored with Archie Thomas
When the ‘no’ campaign for the marriage equality postal survey launched its first television advertisement, the strategy was clear – it aimed to deliberately associate the ‘yes’ campaign with gender diversity, queer families, and the Safe Schools program.…
The Conversation (2020) Article
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Why More Australians Are Supporting Gay Rights
The 2017 Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey shows that, since 2005, attitudes toward marriage and children have become more progressive. One of the biggest changes concerns attitudes toward the rights of homosexual couples.…
Pursuit (2017) Article
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Can We Escape Fast Fashion?
Growing up in a low-income, single-parent family, I became accustomed to op-shopping. One of my favourite op-shop finds was a pair of oversized neon yellow overalls, which I’d wear with a bright pink t-shirt and black accessories as my ‘licorice allsorts’ look. I considered myself a fashionista.…
The Wheeler Centre (2017) Essay
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The ‘mommy porn’ myth: who are the Fifty Shades of Grey fans?
With the release of Fifty Shades of Grey in cinemas this week, serious questions have been raised about whether the film depicts abuse – including on The Conversation. Some feminist groups have staged protests at screenings and a campaign has been launched…
The Conversation (2015) Article
