Articles by: Julie Stephens

Author Biography:

Julie Stephens is an academic and author who practises psychoanalysis in Melbourne.

Sex Up Against Culture

The simple and seemingly commonsensical conversation around consent makes it difficult to turn a critical eye to the concept.

Mother Hate, by Julie Stephens

Countering the anti-maternal fantasies of the alt-Right

Informit: Mother hate

The masculinity-in-crisis narrative is now familiar terrain for sociologists and cultural commentators. It is also a mobilising point for a type of nationalist politics associated with the alt-Right. The narrative is not new. It seems to resurface in periods of war or economic crisis where there is income insecurity, labour-market instability and a cultural fear of symbols of the 'foreign', variously located in immigration, race or gender. In uncertain and precarious times, it should not…

Informit: Downfall

Notes towards a different reading of George Pell The death of Bruno Ganz in February 2019 brought to mind a scene from his memorable performance in Downfall in which he portrayed Hitler's trembling hands, carefully hidden behind his back as he greeted members of the Hitler Youth. This depiction came to mind when media cameras caught something of George Pell's frailty as he was being escorted to and from his recent trial. A semblance of…

Informit: Inside motherhood [Book Review]

Review(s) of: Mothers: An Essay on Love and Cruelty, by Jacqueline Rose, (Faber and Faber, 2018).

Informit: Social movements: Shadow structures of a new social order

Like Arena, the sociology of social movements is fifty years old. As in social movement theory, the nature, structure, contexts, theoretical conflicts and consequences of social movement activity have been debated continuously in and by Arena. It would be difficult to do justice to the scope and intensity of Arena's intellectual engagement with social movements and the questions provoked by both new and old forms of collective action. Any investigation, by definition, would be partial…

Cryopreservation for the Corporation! by Julie Stephens

Corporations reshaping motherhood through subsidised egg freezing

Informit: Coffee and commodity: Fetishism Anderson and Connolly’s Black Harvest

Review(s) of: Black Harvest, directed by Robin Anderson and Bob Connolly.

Informit: Cultural Memory, Feminism and Motherhood

An examination of how the realities of motherhood have influenced feminist thought is presented. There has been an active forgetting of the nurturing mother in feminist recall, which is a profound cultural significance and this is due to the complex political stakes and meanings bound up with what a culture remembers and forgets.

Informit: Cryopreservation for the corporation!

Corporate imperatives and choicefeminism reshaping motherhood. 'Freeze your eggs and free your career', the April 2014 cover of 'Bloomberg Businessweek' proclaims. A young female executive in a defiant stance is pictured above the statement that there is a new fertility procedure giving women 'more choices in the quest to have it all'. Apple and Facebook are said to be leading the way in offering financial support for their employees to access fertility services as part…

Informit: Commemorating the SIEV X: [Memorial activism: a people’s project.]

Informit: Eyes wide shut in the child-care debate