Online Journals by Brigitte Lewis
The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence concludes with Brigitte Lewis’ examination of the... more The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence concludes with Brigitte Lewis’ examination of the roots and impact of feminist digital activism, both online and off.
While the internet is undoubtedly a cesspool of sexual harassment, it is also the site of digital activism. With the creation of digital activism, a feminist and female-led revolution, once pronounced dead – has been reignited. As Gil Scot-Heron famously said, “The Revolution Will Not be Televised” (1970); somewhere, on the internet, it will be streamed, photographed, tweeted and then turned into a meme.
Policymakers need to commit funding to studying online harassment of LGBTI people and how to resp... more Policymakers need to commit funding to studying online harassment of LGBTI people and how to respond to it, Brigitte Lewis writes.
The Internet was once considered the domain of the unreal, a kind of pseudo-utopia where anything goes and anything can be said or posted, at least for young, middle-class, white heterosexual men. Yet just as society at large is called to acknowledge the ways in which privilege operates to silence all those who are not born white, into upwardly-mobile families, gendered male and also heterosexual, so too must the online world be called to acknowledge the ways in which it operates as a breeding ground for inequity and abuse.
A recent study by La Trobe University’s Dr Bianca Fileborn found that street harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people is alarmingly high. We know homophobia lives on the streets, in our workplaces, and in our political debates over marriage equality. What we really don’t know is whether this kind of harassment extends to the online worlds many of us only leave to sleep.
The Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence has sparked an important national debate, but... more The Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence has sparked an important national debate, but that needs to be backed up by work that responds to violence in the community, and a strategy to stop it before it starts, Brigitte Lewis, Lisa Harris, and Georgina Heydon write.
After the Royal Commission into Family Violence released their findings in March this year, the Victorian Government committed $572 million towards implementing 65 of the 227 recommendations they came back with.
Innovative ideas and approaches to address family violence are urgently needed, and there are several new initiatives already doing important work.
Cast your mind across everything you know about lesbians in history. In particular, Australian hi... more Cast your mind across everything you know about lesbians in history. In particular, Australian history. You might be able to name one or two lesbians, bisexuals or queer women from the 1900s, if you’re in the know.
Otherwise, it’s a pretty bleak and sparse canvas, especially in reference to mainstream representations of lesbian desire. Add questions about our Indigenous lesbian history and the answers are even harder to come by (pun intended). The Gays and Lesbians Aboriginal Alliance call this the Empty Mirror.
Lesbians, and women who desired each other before the term lesbian even existed, have always been culturally invisible. They slip under the historical radar.
What we do know is that in Australia, according to the rule of law, lesbians were thought not to exist. Taking it on the clit has never been a crime. In fact, the laws against homosexuality only applied to anal sex. Why? Women were thought not to have desire like men do, let alone desire each other. Yet there are court records of female convicts in 1841 describing “nailing” each other, according to historian Eleanor Conlin Casella.
The lesbian in popular culture is usually mad, criminal or she’s really, actually, heterosexual. ... more The lesbian in popular culture is usually mad, criminal or she’s really, actually, heterosexual. Think Charlize Theron’s stunning portrayal of serial killer Aileen Wournos in Monster, the crims we all love to watch in Prisoner, Wentworth and Orange is the New Black, and the 'queer woman turned straight' in The Kids Are Alright and Chasing Amy.
Hear that, slut? That’s the sound of your desire being beaten into cultural shape. No matter your... more Hear that, slut? That’s the sound of your desire being beaten into cultural shape. No matter your current sexual identification – queer, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, slut-shaming is still thrown at women with the kind of gay abandon that would leave even the most hard-skinned woman bruised.
"Arguing that asking someone if they want to have sex with you lacks dignity is akin to arguing t... more "Arguing that asking someone if they want to have sex with you lacks dignity is akin to arguing that we are all entitled to each other’s bodies at all times."
https://overland.org.au/2015/09/creating-consent-culture/
Sex is an art. And one that lesbians in particular have apparently, according to myth, taken a fe... more Sex is an art. And one that lesbians in particular have apparently, according to myth, taken a few decades to get their heads and legs around. Let alone actually in their beds. Today however, lesbian women have more orgasms, better sex and sex that lasts longer than their heterosexual female counterparts. And they’ve also mastered what I've named, Lesbian Fuck Eye.
Issue 51: TRANSTASMAN (ed) Bonnie Cassidy
http://cordite.org.au/poetry/transtasman/easter-sunday/
Papers by Brigitte Lewis
Sites, Dec 2016
This essay is a critical reading of Nigel Rapport’s work on cosmopolitan theory in anthropology, ... more This essay is a critical reading of Nigel Rapport’s work on cosmopolitan theory in anthropology, specifically the book Anyone: The Cosmopolitan Subject of Anthropology (Rapport 2012). Reading Rapport’s work ‘against the grain’, I explore the androgynous quality of his notion of an anthropological cosmopolitanism. Although I do note that in person at the dinner for the Australian and New Zealand Anthropological Societies Annual Conference in 2015 Rapport explained to me that Anyone really could be anyone, any body, any gender, any sexuality and this was his vision. Buoyed by this assurance I went back to his book but found the female subject to be either side stepped or made invisible by the emphasis on the male identified Anyone called up in his work. Using this particular example, I move onto an exploration of why cosmopolitanism as an ideology is not a useful paradigm in which to base or explain what Niamh Reilly (2007, 180) calls ‘emancipatory political practice’. I will highlight why I think this is the case using the example of the global organisation known as Pick Up Artists (PUA) and in turn argue for a human rights based feminism as a much more productive framework from which to theorise and practice – a project that has the capacity to unify otherwise divergent subject positions that traverse national, racial, sexual and class distinctions.
Read more in: Vol 13, Issue 1, Special Issue: ‘Peripheral Cosmopolitanisms.’
The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 2014
New Zealand Sociology, Aug 2013
Feature Interviews by Brigitte Lewis
Speaking from her hometown in Adelaide while on tour for her new album, Sweet Rebecca, and on the... more Speaking from her hometown in Adelaide while on tour for her new album, Sweet Rebecca, and on the line with her fiancé, cabaret singer and song writer Libby O’Donovan, who was also on tour promoting her group show,The Lennon and McCartney Songbook in Melbourne, they spoke to Brigitte Lewis about walking like a dyke, music, human rights and touring together with an all female all lesbian band.
Conference Presentations by Brigitte Lewis
The value of autoethnography as a practice has been voiced by many scholars. Key among them being... more The value of autoethnography as a practice has been voiced by many scholars. Key among them being Carloyn Ellis and Arthur Bochner with their now classic article ‘Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity: Researcher as Subject’ (Ellis and Bochner 2000). They revealed that while much of academia was grappling with the crisis of representation they were dealing with the vulnerability inherent in undressing and then showcasing their unmediated selves, without the distance of traditional academic writing. Also in that collection is ‘The Seventh Moment’ (Lincoln and Denzin 2000) and the call to “illuminate the unity of the self” a recognition that we are all many selves that inhabit multiple worlds, the sacred included (Lincoln and Denzin 2000:1052).” My aim in is to highlight not just the value of doing autoethnography as a practice which has been espoused by many scholars (Atkinson, Coffey and Delamont 2003; Burnier 2006; Duncan 2004; Ellis 2006; Reed-Danahay 1997), and in particular Sarah Wall’s article ‘An Autoethnography on Learning about Autoethnography’ (Wall 2006). I want to show you how to do it and how I have done it. I follow in the footsteps of Tessa Muncey 2005; Johanna Uotinen 2001, the keynote Stacy Holman Jones and many others. My focus is identity creation in 21st Century Australia and the use of spoken-word poetry and phenomenology as a method of communicating my findings. Many scholars (Brady 2000; Maynard & Cahnmann-Taylor 2010; Renato Rosaldo 2013; Richardson 2000; Speedy 2015) also use poetry to communicate their research in novel ways and this work builds on that history. This is my story and the reckoning and revelling of a body steeped in the politics of gender, sexuality, whiteness, and the voices of the people that stand behind and beside me.
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Online Journals by Brigitte Lewis
While the internet is undoubtedly a cesspool of sexual harassment, it is also the site of digital activism. With the creation of digital activism, a feminist and female-led revolution, once pronounced dead – has been reignited. As Gil Scot-Heron famously said, “The Revolution Will Not be Televised” (1970); somewhere, on the internet, it will be streamed, photographed, tweeted and then turned into a meme.
The Internet was once considered the domain of the unreal, a kind of pseudo-utopia where anything goes and anything can be said or posted, at least for young, middle-class, white heterosexual men. Yet just as society at large is called to acknowledge the ways in which privilege operates to silence all those who are not born white, into upwardly-mobile families, gendered male and also heterosexual, so too must the online world be called to acknowledge the ways in which it operates as a breeding ground for inequity and abuse.
A recent study by La Trobe University’s Dr Bianca Fileborn found that street harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people is alarmingly high. We know homophobia lives on the streets, in our workplaces, and in our political debates over marriage equality. What we really don’t know is whether this kind of harassment extends to the online worlds many of us only leave to sleep.
After the Royal Commission into Family Violence released their findings in March this year, the Victorian Government committed $572 million towards implementing 65 of the 227 recommendations they came back with.
Innovative ideas and approaches to address family violence are urgently needed, and there are several new initiatives already doing important work.
Otherwise, it’s a pretty bleak and sparse canvas, especially in reference to mainstream representations of lesbian desire. Add questions about our Indigenous lesbian history and the answers are even harder to come by (pun intended). The Gays and Lesbians Aboriginal Alliance call this the Empty Mirror.
Lesbians, and women who desired each other before the term lesbian even existed, have always been culturally invisible. They slip under the historical radar.
What we do know is that in Australia, according to the rule of law, lesbians were thought not to exist. Taking it on the clit has never been a crime. In fact, the laws against homosexuality only applied to anal sex. Why? Women were thought not to have desire like men do, let alone desire each other. Yet there are court records of female convicts in 1841 describing “nailing” each other, according to historian Eleanor Conlin Casella.
https://overland.org.au/2015/09/creating-consent-culture/
Papers by Brigitte Lewis
Read more in: Vol 13, Issue 1, Special Issue: ‘Peripheral Cosmopolitanisms.’
Feature Interviews by Brigitte Lewis
Conference Presentations by Brigitte Lewis
While the internet is undoubtedly a cesspool of sexual harassment, it is also the site of digital activism. With the creation of digital activism, a feminist and female-led revolution, once pronounced dead – has been reignited. As Gil Scot-Heron famously said, “The Revolution Will Not be Televised” (1970); somewhere, on the internet, it will be streamed, photographed, tweeted and then turned into a meme.
The Internet was once considered the domain of the unreal, a kind of pseudo-utopia where anything goes and anything can be said or posted, at least for young, middle-class, white heterosexual men. Yet just as society at large is called to acknowledge the ways in which privilege operates to silence all those who are not born white, into upwardly-mobile families, gendered male and also heterosexual, so too must the online world be called to acknowledge the ways in which it operates as a breeding ground for inequity and abuse.
A recent study by La Trobe University’s Dr Bianca Fileborn found that street harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people is alarmingly high. We know homophobia lives on the streets, in our workplaces, and in our political debates over marriage equality. What we really don’t know is whether this kind of harassment extends to the online worlds many of us only leave to sleep.
After the Royal Commission into Family Violence released their findings in March this year, the Victorian Government committed $572 million towards implementing 65 of the 227 recommendations they came back with.
Innovative ideas and approaches to address family violence are urgently needed, and there are several new initiatives already doing important work.
Otherwise, it’s a pretty bleak and sparse canvas, especially in reference to mainstream representations of lesbian desire. Add questions about our Indigenous lesbian history and the answers are even harder to come by (pun intended). The Gays and Lesbians Aboriginal Alliance call this the Empty Mirror.
Lesbians, and women who desired each other before the term lesbian even existed, have always been culturally invisible. They slip under the historical radar.
What we do know is that in Australia, according to the rule of law, lesbians were thought not to exist. Taking it on the clit has never been a crime. In fact, the laws against homosexuality only applied to anal sex. Why? Women were thought not to have desire like men do, let alone desire each other. Yet there are court records of female convicts in 1841 describing “nailing” each other, according to historian Eleanor Conlin Casella.
https://overland.org.au/2015/09/creating-consent-culture/
Read more in: Vol 13, Issue 1, Special Issue: ‘Peripheral Cosmopolitanisms.’
ISBN: (paperback) 9781925283167 | ISBN: (ebook) 9781925283174
Publication date: December 2017
Contributors
JOEL CREASEY
JILL JONES
GUY JAMES WHITWORTH
GENINE HOOK
TINA HEALY
APRIL WHITE
JEAN TAYLOR
ASHLEY SIEVWRIGHT
MANDY HENNINGHAM
TIFFANY JONES
DENNIS ALTMAN
STEVE R. E. PEREIRA
RENEE BENNETT
SIMON COPLAND
MARY LOU RASMUSSEN
QUINN EADES
ERROL BRAY
BLAIR ARCHBOLD
NIKKI SULLIVAN
CRAIG MIDDLETON
DANIEL MARSHALL
NADIA BAILEY
DOUG POLLARD
SALLY CONNING
BRIGITTE LEWIS
DANIEL WITTHAUS
MIRA SCHLOSBERG
CHRISTOPHER BRYANT
MICHAEL BERNARD KELLY
JESS JONES
RODNEY CROOME
...available from today at real world book shops like Hares and Hyenas, or online via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the Book Depository.
A collection by staff and students of the University of Melbourne
ed. Kathryn-Ann Nordern
https://victoriangaylesbianrightslobby.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/sexually-other-sexless-and-aging-the-invisible-glbti-senior/
https://victoriangaylesbianrightslobby.wordpress.com/2013/05/25/celebrating-the-international-day-against-homophobia-biphobia-transphobia-and-the-long-road-ahead/
https://victoriangaylesbianrightslobby.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/the-australian-government-recognises-sex-and-gender-is-not-always-a-two-box-affair/
It says, welcome home, not go home.
To its credit, Swinburne does acknowledge that sexual assault is underreported and states this is why they chose in 2016, to participate in Universities Australia (UA) and the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) first comprehensive national survey to assess the extent of sexual assault and sexual harassment within universities. We are still waiting on results to be released but watch this space.
What we do know is that 8 out of 10 female victims of sexual assault by a male perpetrator did not report the most recent incident of assault to police. When they do, only about four per cent of the incidents reported to police received a full time prison sentence. Why? Because overwhelmingly we blame the victim. What was she wearing? What was she drinking? How many sexual partners has she had? Instead of why did someone rape? Why did they feel entitled to violate another person’s body? Why did they enjoy controlling someone? What is it about our society that focuses the blame on women rather than the perpetrators? Why aren’t women allowed to be sexual? Why does it matter how many drinks she’s had? Why must women be responsible for other people actions?
usually a mish-mash of pastel colours,
flying pillows and bouts of giggling,
so it’s really no wonder that enquiring
minds often ponder, or outright ask,
how lesbians have sex.
The myth that leads to this inappropriate – and,
frankly, offensive – question, is that lesbians don’t
actually have sex, like heterosexuals and gay men do.
But if research speaks the truth, lesbians today are
having more sex, and more orgasms, than their heterosexual
and bisexual counterparts. They’ve also mastered
the art of lesbian fuck-eye.
Lesbian fuck-eye describes the moment between
two women when they speak sex, lust and identity
without uttering a word. It’s an extension of what
cultural theorist Dr Cheryl Nicholas calls the ‘gaydar
gaze’ – a gut instinct that a person might be lesbian,
gay, bisexual, queer, or anything other than straight.
I like to think of the gaydar gaze as a honed
survival technique. It takes training to get it working,
but once it’s activated, it serves as a beacon to sex and
community. It’s your own internal app that vibrates
inside you, alerting you that your people are nearby.
But lesbian fuck-eye goes further than just the
recognition of identity – it’s also the mutual recognition
of desire. It says ‘I want you’. It can happen over coffee,
across streets, in bars and between workplace cubicles.
READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE IN ARCHER MAGAZINE #6 SHE/HERS
Lesbians, and women who desired each other before the term lesbian even existed, have always been culturally invisible. They slip under the historical radar.
-------------------
Let's talk about sex.
Theaterotica is a theatre company with the mission to produce quality theatre that is sex-positive and inclusive.
Directed by Steven Jianai Theaterotica's production 'Monorotica' features monologues written by local and international artists, performed by a professional cast.
The non-profit organisation manages nearly 100 leisure centres across the state, which include gyms, pools and group fitness facilities.
Victorian Gay and Lesbian Lobby member Brigitte Lewis started the campaign with a single tweet to the Moreland City Council in Melbourne's inner north, saying she was disappointed Brunswick Baths membership forms had no gender option for transgender or intersex people.
Dr Lewis' friends followed, making similar comments on the council's Facebook page.
Moreland Council responded soon after with a tweet saying it would review the forms and make changes in the new financial year.
The task of reviewing the forms has since fallen to the YMCA, which manages the Brunswick Baths, as well as the Coburg Leisure Centre, the Fawkner Leisure Centre, the Oak Park Aquatic Centre and the Pascoe Vale pool, on the council's behalf.
"YMCA Victoria is undertaking a review of its membership forms to better reflect and respond to gender diversity," a spokesman said.
"YMCA Victoria will work with its council partners to implement any changes."
The spokesman said any changes to the forms would be implemented "organisation-wide".
Dr Lewis said having a third gender option, or being able to opt out of a gender, would be more inclusive of transgender and intersex people.
"On its website, Moreland Council says it is committed to including members of the LGBTI [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex] community, and if that's so they should include a third option on their forms," she said.
"Gender and sexuality are now considered to be such a diverse category. A third option that isn't necessarily transgender per se, but is a bit more vague so it can encompass intersex and can encompass people who don't identify inside the binary of male or female, is really necessary."
Dr Lewis said any change could present the need for additional or unisex change rooms at YMCA facilities. But she said the Moreland gym already had "parent change rooms", which effectively served as a unisex change rooms.
Organisation Intersex International Australia supports having "non-binary" gender options on forms, including the letter X.
"People who are intersex may identify their gender as male, female or X," the organisation says on its website.
According to the organisaton, about 1.7 per cent of children are born intersex, although no birth is ever registered as intersex. An intersex person may have the biological attributes of both sexes, or lack some of the biological attributes considered necessary to be defined as one or the other sex. Intersex is always congenital and can originate from genetic, chromosomal or hormonal variations.
"Transgender" is an umbrella term used to describe people whose gender identity is different to their biological sex.
Sally Goldner, executive director of Transgender Victoria, encouraged the YMCA to include the gender options "other, please specify" and "prefer not to specify" on its new forms.
"People can feel really negated, or sort of invisible, if they start filling out a form only to find that there isn't the full range of gender," Ms Goldner said.
"The benefit for facilities and organisations that have these options is that they may get clients other businesses won't."
She said it would be preferable to have more individual cubicles rather than large communal change rooms at gyms and public pools.
"We do need a flexible approach," she said.
Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby member Brigitte Lewis started the campaign after she noticed there were only male and female options on the forms.
“Our lobby is an ally of transgender and intersex people and if we can say something in support of them we will,” Dr Lewis said.
“On its website, Moreland Council says it is committed to inclusiveness with the LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) community and if that’s so, they should have that third gender option on their forms.”
Just hours after Dr Lewis sent her tweets and friends of hers posted on the council’s Facebook page, the council responded that Active Moreland, which operates public leisure centres and swimming pools in the city, would review its forms with a view of including a third gender option in the new financial year.
Moreland mayor Meghan Hopper said the council would look at any options to make people feel included in the community.
“We are always looking at more ways we can be more inclusive, and it is great if someone comes to us with a way we can better cater to our diverse community and we respond to that,” she said.
Organisation Intersex International Australia president Morgan Carpenter said including the third option was a positive step.
“While most intersex people identify as male or female, this is very helpful for the people who don’t — that their identities are better recognised,” he said.
“Having a third gender option or being able to opt out of declaring a gender is starting to become more widespread and that’s a good thing.”
The journey saw her live in an Indian ashram, visit a Tantric healer and study psychotherapeutic acting.
Now the Coburg poet brings her research to life in spoken word performance Mouth to Mouth.
The collaboration with I t a l i a n p o e t N i c c o l o´ Palandri explores how family, relationship, sex and desire shape one’s identity, said Lewis.
‘‘People have this image of poetry being boring and dull and like their Year 11 English class they really didn’t want to go to. But we make it fun and sexy and engaging and passionate,’’ she said.
Lewis, who has won an award for her erotic lesbian verse novel Rubbing Mirrors draws on the PhD she wrote over a five- year period during a journey of self-discovery.
This involved scrutinising everything, from her experience of domestic violence to her identity as a lesbian. During this time she spent five months in an ashram (a religious retreat) in India, undertook a oneyear psychotherapeutic acting course, saw a tantric healer and had a love affair with a gay male.
Lewis described the process as ‘‘mind-blowing and heartbreaking all at once’’.
‘‘It’s a bit like Eat Pray Love, but much cooler,’’ she said.
Mouth to Mouth runs from January 24-26 at the Ra Room, Collins Quarter, 86A Collins St, Melbourne. Tickets: $15, $12 concession.
"They said they didn't know if she would live or die," Cherie Lewis said.
Brigitte weighed just 864g (or 1lb 14.5oz in the old measure) and spent 102 days in hospital.
"She was connected to every machine possible. Every day was a life-or-death struggle, and I was constantly advised not to get my hopes up," Cherie said.
Her mother was warned her early arrival might have an impact on Brigitte's intellectual development. "They said they couldn't tell me what the outcome would be," she said.
But Brigitte, who arrived home on Christmas Day, proved them all wrong.
The 28-year-old has recently completed her PhD in sociology on a scholarship to the University of Melbourne.
Brigitte, who is also a published poet, said she felt extremely fortunate.
"I feel lucky because my younger brother was born with an intellectual disability that makes learning hard for him. I really explore every opportunity because I feel so lucky that I can do these things relatively easily," she said.
The Mornington resident is looking for a job in policy development or research, and hopes to fulfil her passion for social justice.
Cherie said it had been a long and tough journey, but that it reinforced that premature babies could achieve at a very high level.
"I get emotional even talking about it, but I am very proud. The world is hers. It's up to her to make her stamp on it," she said.