‘I finished This is Pleasure at about 4am on a Sunday. I hadn’t been able to sleep – I’d had an uncomfortable interaction with a powerful person, and it was keeping me awake …’. Pip Adam on a book that challenged and changed her. From where I’m typing this, I can see a copy of … Read more
Good morning, and welcome to The Bulletin. In today’s edition: Andrew Little indicates justice system changes after reports, Auckland buses back on the road, and National release health proposals. Two significant reports for the justice sector were released yesterday. The first was Turuki! Turuki! Transforming our Criminal Justice System from the Chester Borrows-led Safe and Effective Justice Advisory Group. … Read more
Alex Casey, Leonie Hayden and Michèle A’Court tackle the past month in women, with thanks to our friends at The Women’s Bookshop. Boo! We witches are back for a scary Halloween podcast, after a month where Freddy Krueger (Harvey Weinstein) showed his face in public and was courageously confronted by two women in Los Angeles. … Read more
Michele A’Court grapples with an uncomfortable truth about the Rose McGowan memoir – it’s a diatribe that tells us how to think. It is a tricky thing to review a memoir, particularly one as dark as this. What you want to do is talk about the book – the writing, the storytelling, the structure and … Read more
Listen to Alex Casey, Leonie Hayden and Michele A’Court tackle the past month in women, news and popular culture. It’s a whole new year and the On the Rag team are back in the sweaty boardroom of dreams to blast the fans at full noise and dissect the first month of 2018. How incredible was … Read more
We’ll be here from 12 pm to cover the highs and lows of the 2018 Golden Globe awards, for all of those who are stuck in the office pretending to work. This television content is brought to you by Lightbox, home of Golden Globe-nominated shows such as The Handmaid’s Tale, Outlander, Mr Robot and Better … Read more
All week this Christmas week we countdown the six best books of 2017. Number six: Naomi Alderman’s feminist sci-fi novel The Power, described by Andra Jenkin as a metaphor for the #MeToo movement. Naomi Alderman’s novel The Power has a fantastic premise: women are suddenly able to inflict pain and death at will. They can shoot … Read more
Zoë Brock is one of six women who have launched legal action against Harvey Weinstein, arguing that the sexual misconduct by the mogul – who has repeatedly denied any illegality – is akin to organised crime. The New Zealander now speaks for the first time since the class-action lawsuit was filed last week: about her … Read more
New verse by New Plymouth writer Elizabeth Smither. The man who wanted to stroke my hair The St Kilda tram. Bright summer air. Breeze through the window gap, stirring all manner of motes, tendrils of hair lifting their traces on my neck. Fine hairs of a different sort, underneath. Antennae not needed for … Read more
The #metoo campaign to publicise the extent of sexual assault and harassment has taken social media by storm. But it’s not anything new, writes Lucy Kelly. For most girls, sharing stories of sexual abuse is part of growing up. So what are the stories that boys tell themselves? Content warning: this article contains discussion of … Read more
They’re not lurking in bushes. We date them, we love them, we coddle them. The Spinoff columnist Felix Desmarais explores why, in a country that doesn’t teach consent, rape culture thrives. Some names have been changed. Content warning: This post discusses sexual violence and harassment. It may be upsetting to survivors. Please take care. I started … Read more