Category Gender

Maori Treasures

0 Comments read Gender, Indigenous, Travel
Reihana Parata Photo Credit: Neena Bhandari

By Neena Bhandari

Wellington, 03.12.2005 (The Australian): In the freezing cold, a mellifluous voice penetrates the stillness as we are treated to a traditional Powhiri or Maori welcome ceremony before being ushered into the Maori Treasures complex near Wellington.

Powhiri is the protocol for establishing a new relationship with all the five senses – sight, sound, smell, touch and taste. The ceremony is completed with a Hongi or pressing of noses, which acknowledges sharing the same air and touching foreheads, signifying sharing the same knowledge. After this, from a visitor one becomes tangata whenua (people of the land).

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Women in Australian film & Television

0 Comments read Arts, Entertainment & Lifestyle, Gender

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 10.08.2004 (WFS): For women in the film and television industry in Australia, it has been a long and arduous struggle to achieve gender equity on and off screen. Much of the changes in the portrayal of women on screen have come about with women filmmakers challenging patriarchal attitudes and making a mark not only in the field of script writing, direction and production, but also technical fields of cinematography, design, sound and editing.

Not long ago, a woman with a professional camera in public would be met with sighs and disbelief. The general notion was that women worked as production secretaries, negative cutters or in the editing, research, makeup and wardrobe sections.

One of the first woman cinematographers, Martha Ansara, recalls how she had cried on the steps of the Sydney Town Hall before shooting a demonstration.” You were made to feel as though you were from Mars. It wasn’t easy to be walking around with a camera on your shoulders”.

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Australia’s `Stifling blanket of silence’

0 Comments read Gender, Indigenous

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 15.09.2003 (Panos Features UK): Elaine Shaw was repeatedly raped and sexually abused from the age of four by her father and uncles. Her partner physically assaulted and psychologically tormented her, locking her in a room for three years to separate her from the children.

Aboriginal women like Shaw – her name is changed to protect her identity – are 45 times more likely to be victims of domestic violence than other Australians. And such violence is common in Australia: research shows 23% of all Australian women have been attacked by a partner or family member.

Says New South Wales magistrate Pat O’Shane, who is Aboriginal, “Women are subjected to violence daily, if not hourly, if not by the minute.”

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