It’s 6.30pm. The kids are in their high chairs and you’re trying to coax them to eat while keeping an eye on the stove. Your partner comes home, dumps his bag on the floor, pats the baby on the head, and tells you about his day. “That’s great,” you reply, “can you feed the cats?” Two minutes later, “that’s great, can you put this stuff back into the fridge?” “That’s great, can you give the baby something to eat?” “Awesome, can you set the table?”
The ‘mental load’ burning women out
How to become a professional reality TV star
(Favorite quote alert: “You don’t have to be nice – people like complete arseholes more than the fakes.”)
Remember the good old days when any old shmo could rock up to a reality TV audition and we related to their awkwardness, if not their desire to sing like Beyoncé?
Is status anxiety ruining kiddie parties?
Two weeks ago I was at a ‘cake smashing party’ – for one-year-olds. Ten babies were lined up in front of ten cakes as ten excited sets of parents hovered with their iPhones.
Unfortunately, one-year-olds are not terribly advanced. Most prefer grabbing at other babies or singing and clapping with people they know over orchestrated photo-opportunities. Instead of cutely gobbling cake as he was meant to, the birthday baby immediately started howling and begging to be picked up. As did the baby next to him. Within seconds all ten babies were crying and crawling away from the cakes while their parents pleaded with them to ‘just smile and smash the cake once, please darling, then I’ll pick you up, ok?”
Is the gender pay gap a myth?
Ever wondered what to say to that friend / relative / co-worker who tells you repeatedly that the earnings gap between men and women is BS because ‘they’ve never seen it’? All the rebuttals at your fingertips. Happy International Women’s Day, everyone!
I know it’s International Women’s Day because there was a free morning tea at work. By the time I got there the ladies had already scoffed the best muffins, with no thought to me or their waistlines. I left when they started banging on about the Pay Gap …
Don’t you mean the ‘so-called’ pay gap?
Yes! It’s a myth just like the three-breasted woman.
Workplace sexism: Australian women do it tougher
In Australia the ideal female worker is white, good looking, shrugs off sexism and loves being part of the boys club.
It was the first evening of product manager Katrina’s company conference and the CEO had just started the audio visual presentation.
“It began with a woman’s naked silhouette and went downhill from there,” she said. “The company had paid an actress and filmed her sucking on a lollipop and talking about having sex with a piece of equipment our company distributed.”
Things I’d do if I wasn’t afraid of appearing masculine
Reddit recently asked men what they would do if they weren’t afraid of appearing ‘feminine’. ‘I’d knit so hard, bro,’ was one response. ‘Drape myself in velvet’ was another. ‘Wax my butt crack’ was unexpected, but it did get me wondering what I’d do if the question was reversed.
So here are the things I’d do if I wasn’t afraid of appearing masculine. (Ladies and transgender ladies, add yours in the comments!)
Does brain training really work?
(I first published this one in Australian Women’s Health. Loved you in Dead Calm, Our Nic)
On the outside, I am calm and ordered. I’m a massive fan of lists. I keep three jobs on track – uni tutor, writer, yoga instructor. I rapidly switch between tasks without missing any major deadlines. But on the inside … inside my brain there is a pack of wild brumbies, careening out of control.
Teachers: how to de-stress while still in the classroom
I started my yoga teacher training six months before I began teaching at university, and thank God for that! By incorporating simple yoga philosophies and practices into my teaching, I saved myself a whole lot of extracurricular stress. Now, I enjoy teaching so much more. While classes can still be energetically taxing, they’re also extremely enjoyable. I know. I’m one of those people.
What the Kardashians can teach us about Christmas spirit
Don’t say I don’t write about the important things. We’re very sad that this is the first year the Kardashians MAY NOT continue their spectacle/tradition of dressing up as the credits on Friends for their annual Christmas card. But dry those tears – let’s take a fond look back at their Kards of Yore (and Merry, Merry Christmas to YOU dear reader)
When I was eight, my best friend’s aunt converted to Mormonism and ran off to Utah, and after ten long years of silence she finally sent them a Christmas card of her new family. My friend showed it to me, and we gawped at this family with their, all seven of them in matching white t-shirts tucked into high-waisted jeans, each person was holding a gun.
Are we offended yet?
I try and be fearless in my writing, yet I’m often afraid to say fairly basic things in columns, lest it be ‘wrong’ – inadvertently construed as somehow offensive.
Over the weekend The Australian did a follow up to an opinion piece I wrote for the Age newspaper, on how in being so quick to call out racism and sexism we miss addressing the real problems (in this case, school resources and helping schools cater to two vastly different learning levels) and therefore finding real solutions.
Predictably, many were offended. And it made me sad. Because we live at a time when being offended is the fastest way to shut down a discussion.