Five TV shows and books to inspire, enrage and engage this International Women’s Day.
The Double X Economy
The Double X Economy: The Epic Potential of Women’s Empowerment, Linda Scott
“Historic structures have placed women into an almost entirely separate and restricted economic sphere, and this arrangement tangibly limits growth, widens inequality and fosters instability.”
In The Double X Economy scholar and activist Linda Scott argues that women’s systematic exclusion from economic participation has created an alternate system that she calls “the Double X Economy”. By having suffered severe and worldwide economic exclusions throughout history, women have been shaped into an entirely different economic practice. Yet while the women’s economy, taken as a whole, is restricted and constantly under threat, when empowered it is more careful, cooperative, and focused on long-term outcomes than the economic order under which the world lives now.
The Hate Race
The Hate Race is Maxine Beneba Clarke’s account of growing up black in white middle-class Australia that is by turns amusing and deeply disturbing.
White Tears, Brown Scars
White Tears, Brown Scars is Ruby Hamad’s examination of what it means for women of colour when white women respond to accusations of racism or oppression by playing the victim. Her challenge to Western feminism is to acknowledge racial and colonial oppression.
Invisible Women
Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men is an astonishing new book by writer and campaigner Caroline Criado Perez. Not to make you feel bad about your sex, but the reality is that so much of what women interact with in their lives has been consciously, or unconsciously, based on the male as the standard.
Criado Perez features on Julia Gillard’s new project, A Podcast of One’s Own, where she discusses her feminist awakening, her campaign in 2016 to get the first woman on a UK bank note and this book and her startling research into the gender data gap.
“From government policy and medical research, to technology, workplaces, urban planning and the media, Invisible Women reveals the biased data that excludes women.”
Why Women Kill
A sharp dramedy about three married women (played by Ginnifer Goodwin, Lucy Liu and Kirby Howell-Baptiste) inhabiting the same house across three different eras, the 60s, mid 80s and late 2010s, Why Women Kill is a dark and sometimes sombre examination of the dynamics of marriage, infidelity and acceptance. In this series (SBS), from the creator of Desperate Housewives, murder means never having to say you’re sorry, but marriage means saying sorry and still winding up in trouble. The Broad loved this series for the way it explores the changing freedoms and dynamics in marriage for women and men with a huge amount of heart and humour.
If you’re still looking for TV inspiration for IWD, here are some round-up of shows.
Bustle has this round-up of 16 TV shows and films.
This is The Guardian’s 2020 round-up.
Be A Lady They Said
Once you’ve watched it, for the tenth time, give a fist pump towards finding ways to dislodge the restrictive ‘damned if you do’ and ‘damned if you don’t’ bind that acts to police women’s bodies, makes them always at fault and ensures there’s always a rule, and then another contradictory rule, prescribing how they should behave.
The Stella Prize Longlist
The 2021 Stella Prize longlist was announced this week and celebrates ‘risk and vivacity in writing’ with bold new voices and expanded perspectives
This judging panel said this year’s books explore aspects of human nature and the natural world. They make space for untold histories and stories; systemic flaws within the Australian justice system; tales of retribution, grief and loss, self-expression and interrogation; Yuwaalaraay language and culture, experiences unique to women and queer women; the concept of ‘borders,’ both real and imagined; as well as the role of family, community and inheritance. Find the list of books here.
If you’re still looking for more…
Take a look at this post on women war correspondents.
In books and films, women are dishing on the joys and challenges of the middle-age hot flush life.
Have you seen The Nightingale? Here’s the Broad’s post on The Nightingale – Feminine exploration of Australia’s violent Colonial past
In praise of slacker chicks on screen.
How women are making progress in writing, directing and creatings films and TV.
Main image by ALBERTO H. FABREGAS from Pixabay
