Author Archives: shellwright3000

Shelley Wright* More than thirty years ago Hilary Charlesworth, Christine Chinkin and I were law lecturers in Australia interested in applying feminist perspectives to our field of interest – Public International Law. After three years of discussions, conversations, draft papers, and conferences we were successful in publishing “Feminist Approaches to International Law”. It changed ourContinue reading ““An Atlas of Human Suffering”: Feminist Approaches to the Future”

How do we begin? Once upon a time, in a galaxy far far away, in a wide green land – there was a small and as yet insignificant person who lived in a hole in the ground. His name was not Ishmael, nor was he a White Rabbit, but he and his fellow heroes ofContinue reading “The Man Who Would Not Be King: Prologue”

“What should I do with your strong, manly, spirited sketches, full of variety and glow? How could I possibly join them on to the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work with so fine a brush, as produces little effect after much labour?” Jane Austen, Jane Austen’s Letters. If Jane Austen were aliveContinue reading “There Are No Dragons in This Story”

Words matter. They’ve always mattered. But right now, in a world dominated by big existential issues, the use and misuse of language on social media, the internet, and all media platforms globally has never been so important. What we say to each other, what words we use to say it, and who else we sayContinue reading “The Great Rising ~ From “Me Too” to “No Means No” ~ Again. Part 1.”

This is by Mariam Irene Tazi-Preve, from her essay, “The Perversion of Maternal Gift Giving: Initiating the Matrilinear Motherhood NOW Movement,” published in The Maternal Roots of the Gift Economy, edited by Genevieve Vaughan, 2019. At the beginning of my research on motherhood—then a young mother in my twenties myself—I realized that there is somethingContinue reading “Maternal Gift Giving and the Construction of Patriarchal Motherhood”

“The category of sex belongs to a system of compulsory heterosexuality that clearly operates through a system of compulsory reproduction. . . . ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ exist only within the heterosexual matrix; indeed, they are the naturalized terms that keep that matrix concealed, and, hence, protected from a radical critique.” (Judith Butler, Gender Trouble, p.150).Continue reading “The Trouble with “Gender Trouble””

Here is a recent interview in the Guardian with Judith Butler, the doyenne of queer theory, “performative” gender theory, and liberal feminism – a label she would reject. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/sep/07/judith-butler-interview-gender?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other Butler is immensely frustrating. She gets some things right and other things so horribly wrong. If you don’t want to read the whole thing, here isContinue reading “The Trouble with Judith Butler.”

A meme I discovered on Facebook, and reposted, resonated with a number of commentators. The author of the meme is indicated only as “Business Jump”, whoever that might be. It encapsulates something I’ve been thinking about for a long time in relation to a lot of seemingly unrelated issues. What do we mean by “women’sContinue reading “Epiphanies Happen in Strange Places”

“The term ‘non-binary’ is used by people who don’t identify as either male ♂️ or female ♀️, and don’t want to be restricted by traditional binary notions of gender.” From #Openly on Twitter 🌈 Ok. I get it. I myself, and many many people, especially girls and women, do not “want to be restricted byContinue reading “The Problem with “Non-Binary””

In any attempt to understand Indigenous approaches to environmental issues, it is necessary to explore a very different world view from that of most environmentalists, including myself. It means letting go, for awhile at least, of one’s preconceptions about land, air, water, energy, technology, and civilization, and instead put one’s self into a world inContinue reading “The Last Well: Indigenous and Feminist Approaches to Environmental and Climate Change Issues (Part III)”