Lot's Wife Edition 3 2016

LOT’S WIFE
— EDITION THREE —

Illustration by Natalie Ng

CONTENTS
Lot’s Wife is entirely
written, illustrated, edited and
distributed by students,
just like yourself!
If you would like to be
involved, we are always always
always looking for new
contributors and volunteers.
Say hi anytime:
Lot’s Wife Office
1st Floor, Campus Centre,
turn right at the MSA desk.
Or drop us a line at
lotswife2016@gmail.com
STUDENT
07 Long wait for the bathrooms
08 Interview with Alexei Procyshyn
10 Cantankerous calculators
11 Coming up at MUST
12 Sliding scales of success
15 What we’re wearing
16 Office bearer reports
SOCIETY
19 Keeping safe schools safe
21 Mini-beasts and microparties
22 Left behind: is Labor still
progressive?
24 Drawing vulvas on The Herald Sun
26 Every child needs a family
28 Wot’s Life With Jon Snow
Advertising inquiries:
E: msa-lotswife@monash.edu
P: 03 9905 8174
About the cover artist
Mimi Petrakis is an emerging
artist, painting and breathing
in Melbourne. Focusing on
historical and heroic women
of the past, she explores
such issues as contemporary
feminism, representation and
mental illness. By drawing on
iconographic tropes of the
Renaissance and Baroque
periods and re-purposing
them in her work, she is
able to offer a challenge to
understood notions of history
and mythology and how
these stories shape ideas and
attitudes of the present.
Instagram: @mimipetrakis
Website: mimipetrakis.com
SCIENCE
CREATIVE
CULTURE
35 Being a hero: antibiotic
resistance
45 Bury your gays
37 Interview with John Bowman 46 Zootopia & racism
39 Invisible illnesses: mental health 48 Meet Zwarte Piet
41 Impossible worlds
49 Matilda The Musical: a review
42 Polycorns
51 Book reviews
43
53
54
56
57
58
Puzzle: Science Crossword
Apocalypso: The Waves
Absence: a photo essay
Ordinary Demons
The Deep
Amphitrite
BONUS
30
59
Centrefold: Pull-out
calendar and poster
Cut-out: Photo collage
Pattern by Samantha J Ireland
Lot’s Wife | 3

EDITORS
DESIGN
Timothy Newport
Carina Florea
Lisa Healy
Natalie Ng
SUB-EDITORS
STUDENT
SOCIETY
Tricia Ong
Jermaine Doh
Rajat Lal
Matthew Edwards
Ishana Srivastava-Khan
Maddy Luke
LISA HEALY
SCIENCE
CULTURE
CREATIVE
Lot’s Wife Edition Three
May 2016
Kinto Behr
Kathy Zhang
Mevani Amarasinghe
Lachlan Liesfield
Layla Homewood
Melissa Fernando
Amber Davis
Audrey El-Osta
Sarah Kay
The time has arrived again for our dreaded highly anticipated
editorials. You can now mark this day off your calendars. We
were once again struggling on what to write for our monthly
write-up and needed some sort of direction. Alas, when in
doubt, one should always turn to fortune cookies. Each of us
cracked one open; some of us ate ours, some thought they
looked like plastic, and we all took it upon ourselves to analyse
the fortuitous message the stars have (allegedly) aligned for us.
According to my fortune cookie:
You will be happy by receipt of good news
…………………………………………………………………………………
Um, no shit, Sherlock. That was a waste of wheat, paper and
energy. I’ll finish this editorial with an image that accurately
depicts my life at the current moment/every moment.
© Lot’s Wife Magazine
Level 1, Campus Centre
Monash University
Clayton, Victoria 3800
Published by Mary Giblin, Printgraphics, Mount Waverley
As you read this paper you are on Aboriginal land. We at Lot’s
Wife recognise the Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung peoples of
the Kulin Nations as the historical and rightful owners and custodians
of the lands and waters on which this newspaper is produced.
The land was stolen and sovereignty was never ceded.
Lot’s Wife condemns and will not publish any material that
is racist, sexist, queerphobic, ableist or discriminatory in any
nature. The views expressed herein are those of the attributed
writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors
or the MSA. All writing and artwork remains the property of the
producers and must not be reproduced without their written
consent.
4 | Lot’s Wife
Try guess which one I feel like. It’s really not that hard. Y’all be so
silly if you really think I’m the horse.
(….I’m actually the trolley.)
P.S. Thank you Mimi for being the absolute goddess that you are.
Bow down to Mimi.
Also, thank you Audrey, Elyse and Nat. Angels.

TIMOTHY NEWPORT
CARINA FLOREA
He who hurries can not walk with dignity.
Whoever wrote this fortune cookie clearly never went to
university. One of the first skills I learned here was how to
enter a lecture looking like you’ve just strolled off a yacht, when
you’ve actually just sprinted from HAL to South 1 like the
goddamn Flash.
But we also have to balance dignity and expediency in other
ways: getting assignments in on time, whilst making sure they
don’t suck too much; catching up with friends regularly without
letting on that you’re drowning in work; and answering phone
calls with parents without revealing how much Macca’s you had
for dinner this week.
So as we stumble towards the pointy end of semester, let’s
make our own fortunes:
People do not plan to fail, they fail to plan
I’m not sure how I feel about my fortune cookie fortune.
One of the things I’ve learnt during my time at Lot’s Wife
is that sometimes you simply can’t plan everything from
the beginning. When I entered the role, I didn’t expect that
somewhere down the line I would be requesting illustrations
of vuvlas on Herald Sun photos. But hey, there is a time and a
place for everything, and right now Lot’s Wife is the place to
see Pete Evans with a cartoon vulva.
Enjoy.
1. She who sleeps least, finishes first.
2. Studying is anything you do while a textbook is open.
3. A what is good for the body is bad for the wallet.
And the Zeroth fortune:
One who gets the P, gets the degree.
Lot’s Wife | 5

STUDENT

Long wait for
the bathrooms
by Amber Francis
Illustration by Christina Dodds
T
he
discussion about introducing all gender bathrooms
at Monash has been going on for years. Indeed, it’s a
STUDENT
conversation that’s been happening everywhere.
We’re finally getting somewhere.
For trans, intersex, and gender diverse people (TIGD),
the everyday act of going to the bathroom can be way more
stressful than it needs to be. It isn’t as simple as just using
the bathroom with your gender on the door. Those whose
genders are misread are at risk of weird looks at best, or
outright violence at worst. Trans men may need access to
facilities where they can change their pads or tampons, and
be may afraid of making rustling noises where cis men can
hear. A further segment of the population simply never sees
their gender written on a bathroom door, because they are of
a non-binary gender, and thus don’t fit into the traditionally
enforced dichotomy of male and female at all. This issue is
immensely personal and immensely urgent to many students,
myself included; I am not going to pretend otherwise. I’ve been
asked if I was in the right bathroom or change room numerous
times. Once, someone screamed. Sometimes it’s hard to say
which is worse – the dread of upsetting people, or knowing that
if they’re not upset, it’s because they think I’m something I’m
not.
One solution is to make bathrooms that simply don’t restrict
access based on gender. Cubicles provide enough privacy that
it ultimately shouldn’t matter, bathrooms ought to be clean
and safe regardless of who uses them, and there is no real
need to ever assume the gender of a stranger. Requests for
such facilities have been made many times to Monash over the
years, but despite numerous recent and ongoing renovations
of the campus centre, including the toilets directly beside the
queer lounge, there are still no specifically designated all gender
facilities. When there are gender neutral bathrooms, it’s usually
because they’re the one or two accessible bathrooms in the
building, and it seems wrong for an able-bodied person to use
a bathroom which is not meant for them, even if it is the only
one they can comfortably use.
So what’s happening about it?
It’s finally looking good. The Monash Ally Network is
working on it. When contacted for a statement, they said they
“are committed to providing safe and inclusive bathrooms
for our staff and students, including those who are trans and
gender diverse”; that short term goals include identifying
facilities which are or could easily be all gender bathrooms,
and that in the long term they are looking at ways to “best
incorporate these facilities into our built environment in a
way that is best-practice”. Excellent, but also vague. How short
is short term? How long is long term? Are the pre-existing
all gender bathrooms just the unisex accessible ones, which
able-bodied people really don’t have much right to be using?
Or does this goal include relabelling some gendered bathrooms
to make them inclusive, and if so, which? Which of these
never-ending renovations is finally going to improve inclusivity
and accessibility? How long do we have to keep waiting?
Nevertheless, despite anxiety about the remaining wait, it is
absolutely certain that the Ally Network is working well. I had
concerns that even if some plans were in motion, there’d be
risk of it being put into place without adequate consultation of
relevant groups and would somehow fail to address our needs.
But the Ally Network is currently “consulting with student
organisations, Buildings and Property Division and other
stakeholders such as Transgender Victoria and will work with
MSA Queer Department (MQD), et al through the process”. The
Queer Officers have assured me that the Ally Network is being
very communicative, doing their best to find out what the
Monash Trans, Intersex and Gender Diverse Caucus wants on
this front, and that while at this stage the MQD doesn’t have
much of a role in the process, it’s because the Ally Network is
doing all the work, and keeping well in touch about it.
It’s looking good. My hopes are high.
Last semester, I did an exchange at the University of East
Anglia in Norwich, England, which happened to show me
exactly how easy and wonderful gender neutral bathrooms
could be. In addition to having an easy to find list of every
other gender neutral bathroom on campus on the union
website, their equivalent of the campus centre had recently
been renovated, and the bathrooms had been converted into
one large gender neutral bathroom for all students to use.
It was beautiful. You entered a double-sided doorway to
see a few accessible cubicles in the centre, with more cubicles
extending to either side. Every second cubicle had a sanitary
bin in it, and there were stickers saying which had them on the
door. There was plenty of mirror and sink space. People came
and went without drama or hassle. It was clean. It was spacious.
I have never felt so comfortable in a public bathroom.
Wandering around campus, to my amusement I would
overhear random bystanders expressing their surprisingly
immense satisfaction with these toilets. One person said, “I
was pretty doubtful of the gender neutral bathrooms, I’ll admit;
I just thought everyone would have sex in them. But they’ve
turned out to be pretty great! Yeah, I’m surprised, I really like
them.” (I assume they were cisgender, but honestly there’s no
way to tell.)
That’s not to say everyone was immediately comfortable
with the arrangement. Nobody is going to automatically
be comfortable with everything they’ve been taught to
fear and/or shame, and issues such as cissexism, stigma
around menstruation, and gendered violence are not going
to disappear overnight. But you know what? Neither will
gendered bathrooms. Pretty much every other building in
the university still had gendered bathrooms. There are still
ample opportunities for using facilities designed for restricted
genders if that’s what makes you more comfortable, and in the
meantime, people get used to the idea of sharing a bathroom
with all genders, and (hopefully) not demanding knowledge
of a stranger’s genitals. Most people seemed to get pretty
comfortable pretty quickly.
I would never have expected this to be such a highlight, but
when I remembered I would have to come back to Monash and
‘misgender’ myself every time I needed to use a basic facility, I
was filled with dread. Surely something so simple can’t be that
hard? Why couldn’t we have such facilities? Why couldn’t we
have nice maps and lists of where to find them?
Now, it looks like we can. At long last, the end is in sight.
Perhaps we’ll all be able to use the bathrooms in peace and
comfort soon.
We’ve waited long enough.
Lot’s Wife | 7

INTERVIEW
Of monkeys and lizards:
In conversation with Alexei Procyshyn
Meet Alexei Procyshyn: a young philosopher hailing
from Quebec, Canada. Nominated by my undergraduate
peers as one of Monash’s most beloved lecturers, Ruby
Kammora sat down with Alexei to talk life and learning six
floors high within the Menzies building.
What’s it like being an academic?
One of the really interesting things people forget to tell you
about being an academic is that you get to travel. It’s either a
perk or a curse. The funny thing about being an academic is
that you want to be at home with your books, you want to sort
of… sit. But given the way the job market works these days,
conferences even, you always end up travelling. I haven’t lived
in Canada for any length of time since 2005/2006. I did my
PHD in New York. I spent 2006 to around 2012-ish in New
York, and then did a post-doctorate in Macau, China. And then
from Macau to here.
Illustration by Ruby Kammoora
generally. I’m definitely more conversant or at home with
German philosophy than French. There is a bad joke by
an American philosopher that I think captures something
interesting:
So from the American perspective, there are philosophical
lizards and philosophical monkeys. The lizards are the
Germans; the monkeys are the French. What does a lizard do?
It sits in the sun and gathers all of its energy, and in one fell
swoop accomplishes everything it needs to do - and then stops.
Systematic, almost. Methodical. Predetermined. Nothing left
to chance in a German philosopher. The French are a little bit
more playful. Like monkeys, they swing from branch to branch,
idea to idea. There is a lot more play, a lot more experiment, a
lot more what if?s in French philosophy.
I am more of a lizard than a monkey. Just in terms of
temperament. I like to see how the pieces fit before I play with
them.
What is your field of study?
I would probably say 19 th to 21 st Century German
Philosophy, with a specific focus on the Frankfurt School of
Critical Theory. But I also have a background in Continental
European philosophy and the history of philosophy more
What are the big questions for your field?
At least in my stuff, the major issue concerns how to get
the right perspective on contemporary social life and political
action. The problem is… almost like a tragedy. If you think
about Greek tragedy, you’ll see that the tragic hero faces two
8 | Lot’s Wife

STUDENT
fundamental failures or limitations. On the one hand, the scope
of what needs to be considered in order to act well is greater
than what one can entertain. Finite minds and time, right? And
secondly, the consequences of the tragic hero’s actions extend
well beyond what she or he intended.
In contemporary scenarios, buying a chocolate bar or a cup
of coffee instantiates both problems: unbeknownst to you, a
simple purchase can make you complicit in various forms of
exploitation in other parts of the world. Today, a simple act
instantiates a tragic structure once reserved for the biggest
and best amongst us. And the issue now is how to get the right
perspective on that so that there is something that can be done.
Do you think Philosophy can contribute to society?
I think it has an obligation to try. I do not think by simply
being a philosopher, by dint of philosophical education, one
has some kind of privileged perspective on these things. But I
do think that in virtue of being able to study philosophy, say
as a full time position, you probably have a moral obligation
to think very hard about the ways that you can contribute to
society. Because I couldn’t do what I do were it not for the fact
that other people are in really tough shape.
This is one of the motivating ideas behind critical theory.
A good critical theory is supposed to provide agents with the
ability to recognize and understand the specific injustices they
endure whilst also providing them with the tools to do something
about it. This form of social philosophy doesn’t proceed
from “the top down”, and is not an ideal theory in that sense,
but rather it tries to extrapolate both a theory and a form of
engagement from concrete sociological circumstances. So the
goal - the hope - is that somewhere out of the dusty books and
sociological data, comes something that is productive.
What are the big questions for humanity?
I guess I can’t speak about humanity. One of the things I am
really worried about though, is the way in which any substantive
public space for disagreement and argument has disappeared.
That is, the give and take of reasons that need not yield
consensus but that do build understanding. In my experience,
there is this sense in which our first person perspectives no
longer appear open to question: you and I either share similar
perspectives or reject one another’s. It’s as if one’s general
orientation towards the world has become infallible because it
is what one feels -- and how can one be wrong about one feels?!
My sense is that there’s something terribly amiss here. It seems
as if there is no time or space to inquire into the whys and
hows of the things we feel so deeply. The inability to discuss,
question, and argue about things that we feel - without it automatically
becoming a polarizing issue that forecloses further
discussion or debate - looks problematic to me.
I’m more inclined to view ideas like hats. You can try them
on, and when somebody says you look stupid in that hat, you
go: okay, I can take it off… But, before you do, you might want
to think about whether you really do look stupid, and why
someone might think that the hat doesn’t look good. If we are
unable to entertain a contrary idea, or reflect on what might be
wrong with a deeply held belief, then any kind of social or political
engagement is highly problematic. Insisting that something
is incontestable because one feels this way, evacuates any kind of
reason and content from our social spaces. It makes them null
and void. And for me that’s deeply worrying.
Can you see any potential solution to this issue?
Yeah! More education, more philosophy. That is the sort of
quixotic hope in the background of it all. Somehow by being
engaged in certain forms of reflection, certain ways of trying to
unpack the why and how of our fundamental, visceral experiences
and feelings, we get a better grip on what it would mean
to really discuss them.
Why study philosophy?
There are at least two distinct answers to this question,
depending on what we mean by ‘philosophy.’ Roughly, ‘philosophy’
might refer to an academic institution or practice. It might
also just mean a reflective orientation towards one’s own life.
I think the first, professional sense gets off the ground via the
second one, i.e. the realization that you are a stranger to yourself.
This intuitive sense of philosophy as a kind of reflective
practice, is really just an effort to figure out what motivates us,
why we act, and respond the way we do and what makes us
the beings we actually are. Know thy self, right? In that sense,
philosophy gets started when you go, why did I do that? or ask,
why does that hurt? Philosophy gets started in moments of confusion
like these… And confusion is inherently productive.
How do we pronounce Procyshyn?
It’s not that difficult, just think of the word ‘precision’, and
just switch out that ‘e’ for an ‘o’.
Ahh, pro-sis-sion.
An apt name for such a precise and vivid mind.
If you are interested in taking one of Alexei’s classes, you might
consider:
• ATS2860 - After the Death of God. “If a student was
interested in getting their feet wet, the place to start
would be with this course, with Nietzsche.”
• ATS2865 - Language, Truth and Power.
• ATS3405 – Critical Theory and Poststructuralism.
• ATS3419 – Aesthetics and European Philosophy.
Not enough course credit? Why not try reading:
• Blaise Pascal: “To become acquainted with oneself.”
• Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: “One of the most beautiful
philosophical systems ever put together academically... a
deep and sad beauty.”
• Immanuel Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’: “The one
desert book probably worth reading.”
Lot’s Wife | 9

STUDENT
Cantankerous
calculators
by Brian Shih
Illustration by Elizabeth Bridges
The Faculty of Business and Economics has introduced a
calculator regulation policy during mid- semester tests
and end-of-semester examinations commencing in 2016: the
HP10bII+ financial calculator is the only approved calculator
to be used by students. Commerce students will be able to get
the newly approved financial calculator free of charge from
the university. The Business and Economics faculty has made
this decision as a response to student feedback regarding the
need to acquire security stickers for calculators prior to tests
and examinations. Such standardisation of calculators seems
to be a favourable settlement at first sight, but there has been
an immense resistance amongst commerce students over the
past month, as the faculty and MSA Education Department
are being bombarded with complaints and a petition is being
signed.
The HP10bII+ financial calculator, currently marketed at the
price of $73.98 by Officeworks, aims to aid solving of business,
financial, statistical and maths calculations with accuracy
and efficiency. It includes business and statistical functions
for Time Value of Money (TVM), amortisation, depreciation,
interest rate conversion, cash flows, bonds, statistics and more.
Students will be able to calculate specific values via its pre-programmed
functions, which many users have found useful in
finance calculations. Nonetheless, users will have to thoroughly
go through the attached start guide to gain familiarity with the
financial functions, because the entering of digits into any one
of the functions is highly disciplinary and complicated.
There have been rumours that the HP10bII+ financial
calculator does not include parentheses, a basic function that
most calculators have. This HP calculator does in fact come with
parentheses buttons: press “red shift button” and click “RM” or
“M+”. Yet, if the function is used twice in a single calculation,
the answer will turn out to be incorrect. This Catch-22 means
that if users have not gone through the manual or are not
adjusted to its functioning, they will struggle with exponential
or logarithmic calculations.
The approved HP calculator also does not allow users to put
in more than one line of working and go back to check what
they have typed previously. It comes with an unconventional
memory function that stores numbers for varied purposes, but
such number storage and storage register arithmetic functions
can create confusion for new users during exams.
Since the start of the semester, there has been much criticism
on the financial calculator, since all students are accustomed
to their personal calculator they have been using since
high school. It is understandable how the Faculty of Business
and Economics came up with the decision to eliminate inconveniences
of previous security stickers– once everyone uses
the same approved gadget, there will be no concerns of people
cheating in exams with text storage functions some advanced
scientific calculators might have. However, a concern here is
the amount of time students have to dedicate aside from their
official studies to adjust to the change.
The faculty has handed out the approved calculators to
current first year students during Orientation Day, but one
month into the semester, the shortage of stock caused by the
first stage of distribution has caused all other students to wait
for its arrival. Only until early April did the second stage of
handing-out commence, but there are still plenty of students
currently enrolled in units requiring the HP calculator in tests
and final exams waiting an email from the faculty for the collection
of their tool.
I personally come across the change of permission for calculators
when my unit coordinator for a financial accounting unit
mentioned an approval of private calculators in our mid-semester
test due to the HP calculator’s stock shortage. The
change of policy has not been communicated across in a clear
and accurate manner. Commerce students did not received an
email in the beginning of the school year explaining the policy
alternation. Information was not provided on how the decision
was made, the purpose of the new policy and the selection of
the specific financial calculator. Plus, there are no workshops
opened for commerce students, instructing and educating the
functioning and usage of this calculator.
It is possible that some people will later find the HP10bII+
handy once adjusted to it, while others will prefer their own
scientific calculator that they having been using for a long time.
Either way, the faculty is obliged to provide commerce students
with enough information of the change of policy and sufficient
time to learn and adjust. With the examination period
approaching, students will have to figure out a way to learn
using the device, especially for those who have not yet received
the calculators. The purpose of bringing in a calculator into an
exam is to eliminate trivial worries calculations might bring,
but in this case, it seems like the newly approved HP10bII+
financial calculator may add disruptions to the answering of
questions during upcoming finals for some commerce units this
year.
10 | Lot’s Wife

STUDENT THEATRE
Distraction and
deconstruction:
Coming up @ MUST
Monash Uni Student Theatre is department of the
MSA, lead by professional theatre makers, that creates
performances by, with and for Monash students and the
wider community.
Noises Off by Michael Frayn
A fiendishly ingenious homage to the theatre, Noises Off
presents a play within a play, and farce within farce, in what is
often called the funniest play ever written. The piece centres on
a dysfunctional troupe of second-rate actors, as they rehearse
and perform a B-grade British farce, ‘Nothing On’. Everything
that could possibly go wrong does, as the emotional and
accident-prone actors fumble their way through their regional
tour.
Doors slamming, on and off stage intrigue, characters within
characters and entire sets revolving, this is perhaps one of
the most challenging and entertaining productions of the last
century.
Noises Off By Michael Frayn
Directed by MUST Artistic Director Yvonne Virsik, Set Design
by Jason Lehane
Assistant Directed by Helena Dixon and James Malcher
May 13 – 21, 2016
Fri 13 – Sat 14 & Mon 16 – Sat 21, 7.30pm / Matinee Sat 21,
1.30pm
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
This all happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway,
are pretty much true. The aliens, spaceships, human zoo and
assassination, perhaps less so. But there really was a city called
Dresden and it really was fire-bombed during a war that was
really fought by children. And Kurt Vonnegut Jnr really did
witness all that fire and death as a prisoner of war. And he
wrote a book about it. And Fleur Kilpatrick really is adapting it
for the stage.
It will begin like this, “Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck
in time.”
It will end like this “Poo-tee-weet?”
She says of adapting Vonnegut’s novel: “The terrible and
wonderful thing about adapting Slaughterhouse Five is how
much I love it... It makes you work with passion but also with a
terrifying awareness of the heritage of this work: how much it
means to everyone who has read it... It is a deeply painful story
and a messy one – it makes war look foolish and embarrassing –
but it is also very funny, full of delicious sci-fi, porn and aliens.“
Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
Adapted and Directed by Fleur Kilpatrick
Assistant Directed by Joey Burford and Liam Fergeus
26 May – 5 June, 2016
Thurs 26 May – Sat 28 May & Tues 31 May – Sat 4 June,
7.30pm
Sun 5 June, 6pm / Matinee Sat 4 June, 2.30pm
Both shows are performing in the MUST Space:
Grnd Flr West, Campus Centre
21 Chancellors Walk, Monash University, Clayton
Bookings via the MUST web site: msa.monash.edu/must
Get in touch with MUST:
9905 8173
msa-must@monash.edu.au
facebook.com/musttheatre
Lot’s Wife | 11

STUDENT
Sliding scales of success
Most students use the mid semester break for well, a
break.However, I chose to channel my inner nerd and
work on assignments in the hopes of achieving that coveted
HD. It was a reflective essay I was working on, but being a highly
distracted creature, my mind wandered off in a completely
different direction.
I contemplated why I was at my desk slogging away at an
essay when I could use that time for relaxation. Was this an
attempt towards being successful? I’d been thinking a lot
about what success means from the perspective of a university
student.
When I asked my friend Jenny about her university timetable,
she sighed. Working a part time job, she felt overwhelmed
by the workload of juggling a double major with the need to
fend for herself. When prodded about further goals, she wasn’t
sure. Choosing an international relations major was influenced
by her love for politics and diplomacy, but she saw no clear path
that this major could pave for her.
by Devika Pandit
Illustration by Karla Engdahl
I suppose the majority of us are caught up in a similar rut,
toiling away at a goal we are uncertain about. What are all our
efforts, all-nighters, endless essay drafts, working on weekends
and over the breaks… what is it geared towards? Surprisingly, I
obtained conflicted answers on this question.
Patrick, a first year at uni is quite optimistic about his future
prospects. Studying journalism, he wishes to seek a position
with The New York Times and for added measure, has selected
German, explaining that it offers an edge over monolinguals.
Fair enough. However, monetary concerns are not far behind.
Ethan (in his fourth year at university) candidly shared that his
honours followed by a master’s degree was with the sole aim of
improving career prospects, because “nobody wants to hire a
plain old BA”.
Is any goal worth the stress and hectic lifestyle we subject
ourselves to each semester? All the students I spoke to had an
overriding vision underscoring their current activities– the desire
to be successful. I recognise this as a potentially debatable
12 | Lot’s Wife

STUDENT
topic, and so will present my perspective on what success
should ideally mean, and whether happiness has a role to play
in being successful.
I feel that the crazy pressure for a hazy future is not what
makes a successful person. You aspire to be an XYZ in organisation
ABC, for which mindless grooming begins right from
high school. Competitive examinations, dreaded and equally
revered ATAR scores, extra-curricular activities (to impress
university recruitment officials, of course), all contribute to an
aggressively achievement-oriented mindset continuing well
into adulthood.
As students, we harbor a false belief that getting a good job
and being well settled is the ultimate mark of a successful individual.
Never mind the physical and psychological torture you
subject yourself to while on this path. However, what actually
happens once you land a job?
Speaking to Chetan Kumar, a full time chef at Mocha Mojo
Café in Berwick, he says the ability to manage a multi-layered
university life is of little use in juggling the demands of a serious
job. I asked him if he thought he was successful.
“Far from it. It’s not just the money in my account; I want
something more, something that justifies my crazy hours. I
want to be happy in a different kind of way, if you know what I
mean.”
This makes me realize the transience of the conventional
definition of success. Humans were not meant to sit still after
obtaining Goal 1. Setting successively higher aims and working
towards fulfillment is what our lives are about. This natural
evolutionary mechanism ensures we maximize our capacity,
exploring the potential we are gifted with.
So is happiness possible while leading robotic lives? And can
a happy person be successful or is he merely fooling himself?
Unfortunately for our generation, ‘happiness is akin to an
activity, the lowest number on a to-do-list that often goes unmarked’.
More than a state of mind, we believe it to be ‘found’
in certain circumstances, beyond which it requires an extensive
search. This paints a very grim picture of the self-deception we
willingly indulge in.
For example, I wanted to attend the Melbourne Spanish
Film Festival held in April-May this year and was considering
whether or not to book tickets. After an exhaustive cost-benefit
analysis of the situation, I decided against it, because of many
assignments and tests due that week. My friend Mindy laughed
off my attitude. Giving me the best possible reality check, she
said, “No employer wants to know how you performed on a
Spanish Test. So what the fuck are you waiting for? Book those
tickets right away. We’re going to ACMI”.
I realized I was deceiving myself with over-exaggerated
tasks, which were not making me happy. Okay, so I might miss
a 9am lecture. Not really such a big deal. There is so much more
to your contentment than having updated notes or an excellent
bibliography. Thank you Mindy.
The sound of a busy station platform, a cloudy sky tinged
with pink and orange hues on a chilly evening, the bustle
outside ACMI, a hot chocolate later at night (or some other
drinks), making some Spanish friends- this is my picture of
happiness for the evening.
I should learn to be carefree, abandoning all thoughts of
work or study and living in the moment. Enjoying whatever life
wants to throw at me. Maybe this would make me successful.
When I can do as I please without any guilt (conditions apply
What are all
our efforts,
all-nighters,
endless essay
drafts, working
on weekends
and over the
breaks… what
is it geared
towards?
obviously), when am happy because I want to be, not ‘because
of’ somebody/thing, maybe then I’ll consider myself successful.
While saying this, I maintain that efforts need to be consistent
for achieving goals. Progress is essential, but the catch lies
in what you regard your progress to be. An unhealthy obsession
with happiness measured through a glossy certificate, an extra
zero on your bank balance, a promotion, or a perfect relationship—exacerbate
discontentment. These goals are transitory
and can only give us so much happiness. They offer you a position
that is temporary, but a permanent one is sought through
a different outlook better known as attitude swap.
What happens once you are dumped, lose your job, or fail a
class? Are you still successful? My answer is (hold your breath)
an absolute (here it comes) YES. I believe so because I measure
success through satisfaction with what one has. You were
dumped, but you have family still; you lose a job, but are educated
and able enough to seek another one; failed a class, but
have another semester, another chance.
Most importantly, you have yourself. You possess self-belief
(I admit it’s hard to cultivate) that will see you through
any situation. This quality, in my opinion molds a successful
person. Happiness follows alongside, as the Dalai Lama rightly
remarks-
“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from
your own actions.”
Why not apply the same principle for success? It is definitely
not ready made, but working towards it can be meaningful if
only one is content on obtaining it. Contentment therefore
seems to be the golden word in my opinion, for when content,
you need not look further; you already possess all that is
required for being successful.
Lot’s Wife | 13

14 | Lot’s Wife

CLUBS AND SOCIETY
What we’re wearing
presented by FABSOC
1. Where do you find your style inspiration from?
2. Where do you shop?
Clockwise from top left
Alisha Rao (Left)
1. Style inspiration… I don’t think I have one. I follow
lustforlife on Instagram - she’s really cool. I think that’s
my inspiration.
2. I work at French Connection so I buy a lot of clothes
from there. I also shop a lot at Zara.
Samu Elleperuna (right)
1. I love Natasha Oakley. She mostly wears bikinis but
everything she does wear is really nice.
2. I shop at Seed a lot, as well as Zara and Witchery. For any
online shopping, ASOS is always good and sometimes
even SurfStitch.
Kevin Yim
1. My inspiration first came from my mother and my sister.
I used to be a classic teenager and wear the same clothes
everyday. They inspired me to get into fashion, bought
me awesome clothes, and helped me find my style. Now I
mainly get my inspiration from Instagram such as chanmanshop,
mrgumbatron, nami_man, samwines_ .
2. I usually shop in store at stores such as Zara, H&M,
Topman, etc. However, most of my favourite clothes I
bought from small boutique stores in Korea and Japan.
The clothes there fit my skinny asian body better.
Sarah Brantino
1. The majority of my style inspiration comes from instagram
and trawling through the explore page every day
(a very good use of my time). However, I’m also very
much inspired by people I see all around Melbourne,
because we have some damn stylish humans living here.
2. Most of my clothing is from in store, as I am not great
at resisting the lures of capitalism around us. Two years
ago, I was all about buying online, but the companies
I supported at the time have since lost their sense of
community, and also no one wants to pay conversion rate
when your fav brands start selling from overseas.
About FABSOC
FABSOC is the Fashion and Beauty (Appreciation) Society at
Monash University. We host careers and social events on campus.
You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram, where we
hold giveaways, competitions and post our weekly street style
photos. Through the society, we hope to promote more self-confidence,
celebrate diversity and support ethical causes within
the fashion industry.
Upcoming events
27 April - We will be hosting a careers event at Monash from
6-8pm with three incredible guest speakers from the fashion
and beauty industry. Stay tuned through our Facebook page
(facebook.com/fabsoc.monash) for more details!
Fashion Focus: Ethical and Sustainable Clothing
The fashion industry is fast-paced with styles coming in and
going out with a blink of an eye. This demand is driven by us as
consumers, who continually want fast and cheap alternatives of
the latest trends resulting in fashion consumption of clothing
manufactured by underpaid workers and non-eco friendly
materials.
In conjunction with VGen (World Vision) and Oxfam at
Monash, we at FABSOC strive to raise awareness of ethical
alternatives and sustainable fashion in the Monash community.
With our recent event “The Clothing Swap” in collaboration
with VGen Monash, we encouraged students to dig through
their closet and swap for some new clothes without buying into
unethical practices such as child labour. In addition, Oxfam
Monash are raising awareness of the importance of transparency
in the garment industry through their #whomademyclothes
campaign to improve workers’ rights and decrease environmental
impact by the manufacturers.
Let's start conversations with each other about how to shop
sustainably and whether or not the companies and brands we
shop at are ethical. Here are some tips to start:
• Buy QUALITY clothes rather than CHEAP.
• Think of clothes as an INVESTMENT rather than as
DISPOSABLE.
• Buy or trade SECONDHAND clothes.
• Buy new clothes AFTER old ones wear out.
• Support FAIRTRADE brands.
Kieran
1. My style inspiration depends on what mood I’m in! Some
days I wake up and feel like a classy attire, while on other
days I want something casual. A lot of my inspiration
comes from people like Max Snow and Adam Gallagher.
For the more casual outfits I always look at the dynamic
music duo Amine Edge & Dance for some inspiration.
2. Adidas, Calvin Klein,Super Glue and David Jones
Lot’s Wife | 15

OFFICE BEARER REPORTS
MSA PRESIDENT ABBY STAPLETON
Much of my time over the past few weeks has been spent building for the National Day of Action that was
on April 13th. I hope you guys got a chance to see some of the actions we did in the lead up to the date! We
had banner drops in the days beforehand and we saw a bunch of students come together on the Menzies lawn
to form the words ‘NO FEE HIKES’. It was a really successful day and with the combined efforts of the MSA
departments we saw a huge turnout for the protest. I have been doing a lot of work around the parking situation
at Monash. A few weeks ago the MSA put out a petition for student input and I am continuing to bring
that to the attention of the university so I will keep everyone updated! We are in the process of introducing a
new and exciting service to the MSA! The workers advice service will kick off in the next few weeks! Last but
certainly not least! The next National Day of Action will take place on May 11th. MSA reps will be focusing a
lot on cuts the Liberal Government will make in the upcoming budget so make sure you keep an eye out!
TREASURER MATILDA GREY
Hi hey hello - thank godddd the semester is nearly over!
We have been so busy-izzy in the last couple of weeks. Our primary focus has been ensuring everyone on campus
knew about the student protest held on April 13th, where students Australia wide took to the streets in opposition of
the government’s attacks to higher education. It was a great success, with Monash bringing along the largest contingent
of all Victorian campuses! We’re working hard to promote the post-budget rally on May 11, to fight back against
all of the horrid proposals that are sure to come with the 2016 budget.
This week we’re holding a finance subcommittee to keep up to date and in touch with the latest financial happenings
of the MSA, and to ensure things are running smoothly. During the mid-year break there’ll be a number of
students attending a couple of educational conferences which I’ll be helping to organise too.
Good luck to everyone for their exams; have a safe and happy holiday, and we’ll see you again in semester 2 for
more magical mems!
SECRETARY GLENN DONAHOO
It seems like forever ago that I was writing my last report, with so much having gone on since then! Over
the past month I’ve been very busy with a number of events occurring and other things needing to be done.
I helped promote and then attended the student protest against cuts to higher education on April 13th, with
the next one scheduled for May 11, while also ensuring education at Monash is the best it can be. I have also
put together the proposed changes to our Election Regulations and Office-Bearer Regulations, which have
now been voted on by the Monash Student Council.
This is the last edition of Lot’s Wife for the Semester so good luck for all of your exams! And remember
that if you have any issues with your units or during your exams make sure you come and visit our amazing
Student Advocacy and Support Officers who will be able to help you get the best outcome for your situation.
If you have any other issues or have any ideas you think the MSA could help with, just send me an email at
glenn.donahoo@monash.edu
EDUCATION (ACADEMIC AFFAIRS)
The last few weeks has been massive for the Education Department with preparation for the April 13
National Day of Action being high on our to-do list. The NDA saw a massive turnout from students, again
showing that we won’t stand for the Liberal Government’s’ continual attacks on education.
Night exams continues to be the focus of our department, and we’re still collecting responses on our
survey. So if you haven’t had a chance to fill it out yet, the link to the survey can be found on the “MSA
Education” Facebook page. The next milestone in this campaign will be the release of exam timetables. If you
are given a night exam and know you are going to be heavily impacted by it, please get in contact with us!
Whilst we are limited in our ability to help with what will be a crap situation, we need to tell your story, your
experience to Monash when it comes time to review night exams. Please email us at daniel.ffrench-mullen@
monash.edu and/or jessica.stone@monash.edu
DISABILITIES & CARERS
EDUCATION (PUBLIC AFFAIRS)
Hello once again Monash peeps, your Education Public Affairs officers have been working very hard and
have had awesome results. We have just had our first state-wide student protest against the cuts to higher
education proposed by the Turnbull Government on the 13th of April, and there was an amazing Monash
turnout! I’d like to thank all of the students who did attend the protest, as they are pivotal in showing the
government and the public that students are heavily against any changes that endanger our right to a fair
higher education. There will be another student protest on May 11th (a week after the Turnbull government
budget is released) to further the campaign against any cuts and attacks at our higher education. There will
be a Free BBQ on the Lemon Scented lawns at 12pm, and then Free Buses to the protest at 1pm, so come and
fight for your right to a just and fair higher education! Finally, we will be continuing the campaign for a People
of Colour department within the MSA, as it is necessary to have a space in the student organisation where
the voices of ethnic students are heard. If you’d like to become a part of a team advocating for student issues
than you can come to our offices located in the MSA, or you can join the Monash Education Action Group on
Facebook and come along to our meetings. We look forward to seeing you around campus. Sumudu Setunge:
sumudu.setunge@monash.edu Sulaiman Enayatzada: sulaiman.enayatzada@monash.edu
Hello everyone and all! Going to start this report with a shameless plug: The Disabilities and Carers
department is really getting a collective going, and we’re establishing an autonomous facebook group for anyone
who has a disability or is a carer to be able to discuss, talk, hang out, seek support, meet, whatever with
other people who have a disability/are a carer. So! If you do and want to help this department out, become
involved, ask questions, have discussions or in general just have a little more support in this area, please
email me and I shall add you to the closed facebook group: viv.stewart@monash.edu
From there we’re going to start building a committee and getting more involved in the on goings on the
university together. Other than this, D&C week is coming up, so look out for any events you could and would
like to come to!
Thank you, I promise more information about what this department has been up to in the next report!
Cheers and take care of yourselves
16 | Lot’s Wife

OFFICE BEARER REPORTS
QUEER
April has been a huge month!! Queer Week was in week 5 and all our great events like workshops, Queer
Ball, our movie screening and our guest speaker went really well! We’ve also helped out the Women’s department
with their Rad Sex and Consent Week in week 6, are starting planning for Queer Collaborations, the
queer student conference held in Perth during winter break. We’re still holding all our regular meetings like
Queer Beers (Wed 4-6pm Sir John’s Bar), Morning Tea (Tue 11-1pm Queer Lounge) as well as our caucuses,
such as Queer People of Colour Collective, Trans Intersex and Gender Diverse Caucus, and Q sQuared. And as
always, you can get involved with us by sending our Facebook page a message: MSA Queer.
WELFARE
Well well well, how do you do!
The Welfare Team has just been keeping on keeping on doing their usual thing! Free Food
Mondays are going very well with a large number of people coming out for a delicious and
nutritious meal. We have been trying to keep the Survival Centre stocked with useful bits
and pieces such as clothes, crockery, and personal hygiene. Remember if you ever need
anything drop by and grab what you require and if it’s not there then we will try our best to
sort something out! We have a few ideas in the works so stay tuned for the next couple of
weeks to see what they are! Much love, T & B x
ACTIVITIES
MSA Activities is just coming down from an awesome night at our Boat Cruise and Chill event. While
we recover, we’re also planning our next big adventure: AXP! If you don’t know, AXP stands for After eXams
Party and happens after the exams are done. What’s a better way to get over the exam stress? Come down to
The Bottom End and boogie with us! Our launch event is on Wednesday week 10.
We’re still doing our free food Wednesday at Hump Day on the Lemon Scented Lawn, so come down and
grab free lunch in between lectures and hopefully we’ll see you soon at an event :)
ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE
We’ve been busy the last month waging war on the Government. Hopefully you’ll have seen the posters we
put up, maybe heard us make announcements in your lectures, or even taken a leaflet from us and are aware
that the Liberals still want to deregulate universities. Despite Tony Abbott and Christopher Pyne getting the
axe, privatising universities is still a priority for the government. We organised a snap action outside a Liberal
party dinner celebrating 20 years since the Howard government’s election to raise these issues in the media.
Come along to the next rally against these attacks on Wednesday May 11!
We’re also socialists. This means that, as well as being involved in as many progressive campaigns as possible,
we want to politicise the campus and hold many left wing forums. We’ve hosted meetings on the Russian
Revolution, the Panama Papers, and a debate between the Monash Socialists and right wing think tank the
IPA on the topic CAPITALISM vs SOCIALISM. Drop by our stalls on the Menzies Lawn to find out what we
have planned next.
WOMEN’S
Hello! As well as maintaining the women’s room with lovely plants (fake and real), we’ve had our very
own ‘Rad Sex and Consent Week’ throughout week 7 in April. We were very lucky to have some amazing
workshops run professionals such as Jax-Jacki Brown and Sally Goldner and organisations such as YEAH,
RhEd and Ygender who ran many different workshops, discussion groups and panels exploring the sex
and consent issues and ideas that you may have never learnt about in high school and might find even are
tabooed topics in society. Coming up in May: the department will be preparing for the ‘Network Of Women
Students Australia’ (NOWSA) conference as well as rolling out a student lead screening of ‘The Hunting
Ground’, a US documentary on sexual assault in universities. Please come along!
INDIGENOUS
The MSA Indigenous department is having a great 2016 so far! Student engagement in social events is
higher than it has been in the past few years and we are well on track to achieving our goals for semester one.
Planning for the National Indigenous Tertiary Education Student Games (NITESG) is well underway - trials
will be held in the coming days and flights, accommodation and travel in Brisbane will soon be finalised.
This week the Indigenous OBs have organised a dinner and movie night to take place in the Indigenous
Student Lounge. This will be the first time that we are able to fully utilise the great kitchen facilities by cooking
nachos and tacos!
In the coming weeks we look forward to finalising the planning for Indigenous Week, to take place in Week
11 - keep an eye out for events advertised, we’d love to see as many people as we can getting on board with
our campaigns and activities.
Lot’s Wife | 17

SOCIETY

SOCIETY
Keeping Safe Schools safe
by Andrea Duval
Illustration by Timothy Newport
In the “debate” of Safe Schools Coalition (SSC), the spread
of misinformation, accelerated by social media, ministers,
“concerned parents” and the Australian Christian Lobby,
has been central to the push for a review of the voluntary
program. Currently SSC provides member schools professional
development for staff, resources, advice and support to
students and their schools to assist queer students and create
a welcoming environment. Recently some major changes were
announced to the program, and it was confirmed that the
program will not be renewed after 2017. I want to decode some
of the concerns, from the ignorant to the outright homophobic
and transphobic, and consider whether the changes reflect
recommendations of the review. Unfortunately, the debate for
some hasn’t been about whether the program is appropriate,
but whether preventing bullying of queer students is right.
In March, The Australian argued that “in discouraging the
bullying of LGBTI students, it seeks to upend traditional
understandings of gender and impose cultural values offensive
to most Australians.” While this highlights some of the
underlying bias behind many proponents of the SSC, it also
holds that creating an environment where people feel accepted,
and all bullying is discouraged, isn’t something to aspire to
if it challenges pre-existing notions. There is a resistance to
creating an environment where all people feel welcome. While
some opponents prefer a generalised bullying program, others
- like above - implicitly argue our current values and traditions
should involve acceptance of the bullying of queer students.
Beyond The Australian, there have been repeated arguments
made against the SSC which appear borderline absurd to
anyone who really delves into their accuracy. Let’s address some
of these ridiculous assertions:
“But didn’t they give kids a resource about gay erotica
and sex workshops?”
If this were true, it would be a very valid concern. But
there is no direct link to sex sites, the program does not tell or
encourage students to check out these sites, and no program
material includes this content. In reality, what initiated this
is merely a hyperlink trail that starts with an organisation
that sponsors SSC, which may lead to gay male erotica if you
keep clicking links. Now this is shocking, but yes, if you travel
through the internet, you may click on a link to some content
you don’t want. It’s almost like the internet functions in a way
that you can access almost anything in a couple of clicks. SSC
is actually devoid of any sex education and its main resource,
All of Us, was created with educators to ensure the content is
appropriate for year 7 and 8 students.
“Why are we teaching children as young as 11 about
adult proclivities?”
In case you were unaware, apparently queer people don’t
exist until they are 18. The implication is that queer identities
are inherently more sexualised, politicised and perceived as
adult-only. But would you say that your first crush was an
adult experience? Or was it simply an act of child or teenage
adoration? What about the first time you held hands with
someone you liked? Why is this act suddenly so adult if the
two people are of the same sex? Asking someone to imagine
themselves as gay shouldn’t be any more sexualised than asking
them to imagine themselves in a marriage or any couple.
And when kids with backpacks bigger than themselves are
already being bullied for being gender non-conforming, or
when kids younger still are already thinking they are the wrong
gender, why is the concept of transgender people too adult?
There is a pervading idea that the queer identity is an adult
concept that teens simply shouldn’t discuss. A child doesn’t
become prematurely sexualised because they are asked what it
is like to be queer; it teaches them empathy to people different
from them.
“It’s all Marxist propaganda!”
This is not actually an argument against the contents
of the program, but a thinly veiled argument against some
people involved. It relates to the political views of Roz Ward,
the Victorian Project Coordinator. Now to determine if the
program is Marxist in nature, we must look at the details of the
actual program’s design. I don’t know about you, but I certainly
didn’t see any talk about an overthrow of capitalist society and
the establishment of a proletariat democracy in the program.
Perhaps they are referring to ‘cultural Marxism’, a buzzword
that is most commonly used regarding pushes for inclusivity
and learning about new ideas/acceptance.
Lot’s Wife | 19

SOCIETY
“But doesn’t it just bully the straight kids?”
No.
The actual government review showed that many of the
fears expressed by some of the members of the community
were overblown. Professor Bill Louden, who conducted the
report, noted that the material was consistent with the aims
of reducing bullying, homophobia and transphobia in school
and creating a safe, accepting environment for all. Much of the
material catered to high school students and it was found that
the four official guides and posters produced were consistent
with the aims of SSC and were age-appropriate. This includes
the All of Us resource, which notably, received most of the
initial complaints as mentioned above. The review states
that “the resource All of Us is consistent with the aims of the
program, is suitable, robust, age-appropriate, educationally
sound and aligned with the Australian Curriculum. It contains
more material than would be likely to be used in most schools,
and some material that individual schools and teachers would
choose not to use. These choices fall within the range of
reasonable teacher judgement and school policy.”
The actual media release of the proposed changes covered
many areas, but I’ll address two that I found to be most
significant:
“Fix the content of the programme resources”
This section discussed the removal of certain activities,
redesigning the lesson on intersex people, and requiring
additional sources to be peer reviewed. The review saw the
resources as suitable under reasonable teacher judgement,
so it would be understandable to leave it up to the school’s
discretion. To still remove the material is more of an attempt
to appease the conservative faction of the Coalition than out
of concern for student wellbeing. It removes the ability of the
school to make their own decisions about suitability. One of
the lessons that will be amended includes an activity where
students were split into two groups, and asked to imagine
themselves in a relationship with a partner of the opposite
or same gender. They were then asked questions like “Could
you easily talk to your parents or close relatives about your
sexuality?” or “Would you be able to take your partner to
the school formal?”. This will now be removed, though it
did not have any mention of sex or sexual acts, seemingly
because fostering empathy in students is a stain on traditional
sensitivities.
“Ensure parents are appropriately empowered and
engaged”
This section was about allowing parents to consent to
whether their children participate in the program, and
introduces the requirement of parental bodies to approve
of their school to join. There are two major concerns I have.
One, it allows parents to prevent schools from joining SSC,
even though the new changes will already let them prevent
their kid from attending. This essentially means that certain
parents that might not approve of queer people can prevent
others from seeking these resources. Furthermore, it makes
more sense to keep the previous content and allow parents
to consent to the controversial content than reducing the
flexibility and choice of all schools and teachers. Parental bodies
that choose what content can be shown, to the exclusion of
teachers, principals and students, ignore that schools seek out
There is a
pervading idea
that the queer
identity is an
adult concept
that teens
simply shouldn’t
discuss.
SSC to address the needs of individual students. In the review,
schools note that the main reasons they joined the SSC was for
“school staff training,” followed by “access to resources and help
in supporting an individual student.” They see that a program
aimed at these students is absolutely necessary. When 61% of
queer young people experience verbal homophobic abuse, 18%
experience physical abuse and 26% experience other forms of
homophobia, with 80% of this bullying happening in schools,
there is an issue that urgently needs to be addressed.
In the end, the effects of this program can be subtle.
It’s hard to explain the relief that a student who is queer
or questioning receives when they realise their school has
joined this program. Or when a teacher actually backs you
up when you tell someone to not use a slur. Even beyond the
target group, there have been others who have been cruelly
bullied on the assumption they are queer. Even if there are
no ‘out’ students, and explicitly homophobic or transphobic
bullying doesn’t occur, there is a subtle influence on every
questioning student that they may not be welcome. The
experience of not being out and not reaching out when you
struggle with your sexuality or gender dysphoria is inhibiting.
Programs that aim to provide a more accepting and inclusive
environment maximise the social, educational and vocational
potential of students. This is why 362 academics, including 17
professors of Medicine, 120 doctors including paediatricians
and psychiatrists as well as other health professionals and
medical students, have signed an open letter in support of
the SSC. In my case, when my school joined SSC in 2012, a
group of students, many of us who weren’t out, were overjoyed
that our school was doing something. The resources were
entertaining and tailored for students, but most importantly
informative. We knew that the teachers after training would
be more confident to stop people from making queer students
feel unwelcome, whereas previously they were found lacking.
Joining Safe Schools Coalition was an achievement for our
school, and it’s a tragedy that it may now be removed for the all
the wrong reasons.
20 20 | | Lot’s Wife

SOCIETY
Mini-beasts and micro-parties
by Julia Pillai
Illustration by Angus Marian
Remember studying ‘mini-beasts’ in Primary school? Minibeast
is a fancy term for insects and arachnids. Weird
little squirmy, sticky, hairy, gross, animals with many eyes and
wings. Despite their clear insignificance, all have vital roles in
our ecosystem. Asides from scaring us, in the environment that
is Australian politics we have an equal to the mini-beast: the
micro-party.
Much like mini-beasts, micro-parties are strange entities
that keep you up at night with worry. From Motoring
Enthusiast’s Party’s Ricky Muir with his strange facial hair, to
perhaps terrifying parties like Family First. For a long time,
people smarter than us have thought, “How do these people
get elected?” Few people are enthusiastic about cars enough
to vote for the Motoring Enthusiast Party. Many found The
Palmer United Party’s policies confusing, yet not many people
are confused enough to vote for them. While Family First isn’t
generally the first preference for many families. How do these
strange political creatures crawl out of obscurity and into vital
senate positions? One of the biggest factors is the way our
voting system works.
Voters have had the option to vote above the line for one
party or below the line preferencing all candidates. Considering
as many as 60 candidates may be running in the senate, many
people vote above the line. When you vote above the line, your
ballot is filled in order of what your party has preferenced yet
oftentimes, you as a voter may not know how your party has
preferenced. It is here where those strange parties that few
people actually vote for get the votes. This has been a concern
for a while because most people do not know who they are
voting for.
But times have changed, and a new system of voting has
now passed. Now above the line voters are to list at least six
preferences. Voters below the line are encouraged to mark
at least 12 or more preferences, rather than all candidates,
although 6 preferences would still be considered valid.
Additionally, parties will no longer be able to make preference
deals with each other.
Yet, is more control on our votes actually a good idea? This
senate reform is seen as a wonderful way to ensure control
of our votes, and keep the crazies out. But have you ever
thought, “Hey, we might actually need micro-parties.”
Yes, micro-parties seem to make #auspol more of a spectator
sport rather than governance, but just as earthworms
fertilise our soil and maggots play a vital role in decomposing
the dead, maybe we need loose canons in our senate. Maybe
we need people like David Leyonhjelm complaining about
the so called ‘nanny state’. Maybe we need Jacqui Lambie
and her unique views on immigration, veteran affairs and
the ice epidemic. And don’t forget Ricky Muir’s ‘gay marriage
epiphany’. Maybe we need them to have a vigorous debate in
our government and decentralize the power of the Labor and
Liberal parties. Perhaps micro-parties are vital to our democracy,
showing a cross-section of different ideas and views in
the Australian election that does not fit neatly in the larger
parties; these views that may not fit into ideologies such
as trade-unionism, social democracy, neoliberalism, social
conservatism, and so forth, but rather represent different
interest groups in Australian society. Perhaps it’s time to
stop viewing the phenomenon of micro-parties as the people
losing power, but rather that of the people gaining power.
Lot’s Wife | 21

Left behind: is Labor
still progressive?
by Ovindu Rajasinghe
“Illustration” by Lisa Healy
HE GREENS ARE IN BED WITH THE LIBS!”
“T cried the Labor party machine. after the Greens
negotiated with the Liberal Party to pass democratic Senate
voting reform. Such hysteria has emerged more and more from
the Australian Labor Party (ALP), as it is attacked from both
flanks, bleeding votes to the Greens on the left and the Libs on
the right.
The problem with the ALP’s allegations against the Greens
is that Labor has voted with the Government far more than
the Greens ever have. On data retention, on the torture of
asylum seekers, on refusing to bind on marriage equality… the
ALP has been complicit in so many of the awful policies of this
Government.
Many young people, who are interested in progressive
politics in this election year, might be torn between supporting
Labor and the Greens. While either party would be a significant
improvement than the incompetent and regressive Turnbull
Government, some stark differences emerge on the progressive
side of politics.
To understand the complexities of this difference, one has
to delve into Labor factional politics. This is the realm of the
‘faceless men’ and ‘party hacks’ that are oft referred to in the
media.
Factions are formal groupings within political parties, where
individuals with similar political opinions group together to try
and collectively influence party policy. The differences between
factions are often arbitrary, and they are often used to gain
power and influence. The ALP’s factional scene is ridiculously
complex, and it has sub-factions within factions. However,
the two main groupings are the Socialist Left, and the Labor
Right. The split in the ALP dates back to the time of the Cold
War, when the right faction prevailed, and to this day is the
dominant faction in Labor politics.
The Greens and the Labor Left are in broad agreement on
many issues. They both want very similar policy outcomes,
the ones that many progressive young people want to achieve.
The question then becomes one of mechanism: what is the
best means to achieve this progressive change that we want?
Support the Labor Left, and push for change from the inside, or
support the Greens, and push for change from the outside?
Daniel King, President of the Monash University Labor
Club, and former Secretary of the MSA, believes that change
from within the Party is the most effective means of achieving
change.
King’s rationale for backing Labor is that they, unlike the
Greens, have a reasonable chance of exercising actual executive
and legislative power. Should the ALP win a majority in
the House of Representatives (as is looking more and more
22 | Lot’s Wife

OPINION
likely), it will be able to form Government. This would mean
that the ALP would be able to wield progressive influence by
administering the law, and by setting the agenda for legislative
change, whilst the Greens will clearly not have access to this
power in the short to medium term.
King downplays the prominence of factional politics within
the Labor party, saying that there is a significant amount of
cooperation and compromise between the factions, in order
to achieve good policy and maintain a united front. King does
admit that certain people within the party take factional
politics too seriously, acting as if “they were in a real life version
of House of Cards,” and regrets that this does sometimes come
at the expense of focus on substantive policy.
Despite this, the solution set out by King is simple: support
the Labor Left rather than the Greens, and try and win
more influence within the party. This does not necessarily
mean joining the ALP, but could entail things like supporting
progressive Labor candidates such as Stefani Perri, or Tanya
Plibersek. King cites the Labor Environmental Action Group, a
special interest group within the Labor Party. as an example of
achieving policy change this way.
With significant lobbying within the party, they were able
to pass a 50% Renewable Energy Target (RET) at the 2015
National Conference – a significant victory, as the improved
RET is now in the ALP’s official platform. King stresses that
the margins between Labor Left and Right are very slight, and
a few extra Left members here or there in the branches would
mean that more Left party delegates could be elected, and more
progressive policy positions could be achieved.
Despite all of King’s analysis, I am still sceptical that it is
possible to turn the ALP back into a vehicle for progressive
change.
I don’t buy that people supporting the Labor Left will cause
the Party to move to the left. By all accounts, the party machine
is vast and complex, and a move to the left could easily be
quashed or side-tracked. Something might be included in the
ALP platform, but the Parliamentary Labor Party might fail to
implement it because of political cowardice (or pragmatism,
depending on who you ask). Moreover, many individuals within
the Left faction are more concerned about petty politics than
substantive policy change.
One only has to look at the dysfunction and factional
warfare in the National Union of Students, where the NUS
President (and former President of the MSA), Sinead Colee of
the Labor Left, came under pressure to resign by members of
the Right because of her failure to file reports (she has since
retained her position). When faced with this kind of ridiculous
infighting, it is hard to be optimistic about the Labor Party’s
prospects of being a progressive policy force.
While the Greens will obviously not form Government after
the 2 nd of July this year, they are important in other ways.
If there is a hung Parliament (and this is on the cards, with
the ALP and the Libs polling roughly 50-50 on a two-partypreferred
basis), then the Greens might well have significant
power in a minority government, as they did in 2010.
If there is a normal majority Parliament, with a Labor or
Liberal Government, the Greens still have a very important
role to play in terms of advocacy. Politics is not just about
having your hands on the levers of power. Having Members
of Parliament who can stand up in the chamber, and outside,
to speak up about the horrific treatment of asylum seekers,
Certain people
within the party
take factional
politics too
seriously, acting as
if “they were in a
real life version of
House of Cards.”
about the disgusting degradation of the environment, and the
acquiescence of the major parties to their corporate donors
is immeasurably important. By using this platform, they can
win the hearts and minds of the people, who will ultimately
decide what kind of policies they want to be enacted. Enough
public pressure can sway even the staunchest of governments.
For example, the #LetThemStay campaign, which the Greens
supported unequivocally, led to the Turnbull Government
allowing some of the children of asylum seekers to stay in
Australia.
The Greens are playing a long game. As Bob Brown famously
said, “[the Australian Democrats] wanted to keep the bastards
honest. We want to replace them.” The Greens are not going
to win any sort of executive government for the next twenty
or thirty years, but if the ALP continues to be so cowardly in
prosecuting a progressive agenda, then the Greens are going
to keep eating away at their share of the progressive vote.
When you do cast your ballot in July, remember that a vote for
the Greens is not a wasted vote. Even if you live in one of the
vast majority of electorates that the Greens have no chance
of winning in, simply put Labor above the Liberals and your
preferences will flow to Labor.
However, what you just might do is send a message to
the ALP that they are not doing well enough in supporting
progressive policy. If Labor does not heed that message, then
they will be left behind in the dust.
Lot’s Wife | 23

DRAWING
VULVAS
ON THE HER
By Jemma Cakebread
24 | Lot’s Wife

ALD SUN
Lot’s Wife | 25

ESSAY
Every
child
needs a
family
by Sophia McNamara
Every child needs a Mum and a Dad. Does this sound
familiar? It probably does, because it’s the catch phrase
of anti-marriage-equality and anti-adoption-equality rhetoric
throughout the world. In fact, Australian anti-marriageequality
site Australian Marriage has “Think of the Child”
plastered all over their site as their motto, as if it is somehow
a justification for their bigoted and discriminatory views. Ok,
Australian Marriage, let’s think of the child.
I was 5 when Mum and Dad broke up.
Mum and Dad sold our house, split the money both ways
and we moved into another house that was just for Mum, my
brother Rory and myself. However not long after we moved in,
the short-haired female real estate agent from the sale of our
old house was there too and I wasn’t quite sure why. Her name
was Tricia and she was sleeping in Mum’s room and helping her
pack our school lunches. Despite my cluelessness, I figured she
wasn’t really going anywhere.
I was 7 when Mum first explained to me what a “lesbian”
was.
I was too young to realise that there were entire movements
out there dedicated to condemning and shaming people based
on which gender they were naturally attracted to. I was too
young to realise there were governments across the world
criminalising these relationships and refusing to grant legal
equality to these couples. As a child, I couldn’t possibly wrap my
head around the fact that people would hate others based on
Me, Tricia, Mum and Rory. 2002
something so arbitrary, something so harmless, and something
that, to be frank, has nothing to fucking do with them.
I went to primary school in the early 2000s. It wasn’t
actually very long ago, but the world was considerably more
homophobic than it is now. Despite my initial ignorance, it
didn’t take long for me at all to realise that the other kids at
school (and unfortunately, some of their parents too) thought
that we weren’t normal. It forced me into the awkward and
arduous task of hiding the details of our family dynamic.
I had friends come over very frequently. I would consistently
hide the fact that “the other woman” - who really is a woman
because woman can wear men’s clothes and have short hair
too - was actually Mum’s partner. Some days I’d tell people she
was simply Mum’s ‘friend’. Some days she was Mum’s ‘work
colleague’. Some days I’d just awkwardly skirt around the
subject when people asked me if Mum ‘had a boyfriend’. When
I was 8, Tricia and Mum had split up and Mum’s new partner
Kelly moved in later. Kelly was a bit younger than Mum and
a particular highlight of my childhood was the time someone
entertainingly mistook her as Mum’s son.
When I was about 9, I had a best friend who would come
over all the time and I wanted to finally tell her about my gay
mums. I remember trying to test the waters by asking her,
“What would you do if your mum was actually a lesbian?”
“I would call the police and get them to take her away,” she
said. Jesus fucking Christ, ok Soph, abort mission.
26 | Lot’s Wife

SOCIETY
I learned that
expressing your
views loudly and
standing up for what
you believe in would
always help you end
up with the right
people in your life.
This unnecessary nonsense went on till I was about
fourteen. At this age, I met some new friends at school who
were much more radical and open-minded than anyone else
I had met before. After hearing them talk so freely about gay
people, I decided to tell them about having a gay mum. They
thought it was cool. Cool?? I couldn’t believe that I was lucky
enough to find some friends who were not afraid to say out
loud that they openly support LGBTQAI people and are allies in
their struggle.
I always had been a queer ally, but from that moment, I
decided to be more open about it and join the fight against
homophobia. Any time I encountered homophobic comments
– and at the time it happened a lot – I did not hesitate to call
people out on their bullshit. In my eyes, being silent in the face
of homophobia was simply not good enough. To be honest,
I think life got better at that point. I learned that expressing
your views loudly and standing up for what you believe in
would always help you end up with the right people in your life.
Having gay mums exposed Rory and I to social and political
issues at a very young age, issues we probably would not have
taken such an interest in otherwise. The older we got, the
more interested we became in law, policy, progressive politics,
equality and gender issues. It is probably no mere coincidence
that as a 20 year old, I am now in my third year of university
studying law and sociology, hoping it will lead me to a career
in public law and policy one day. It is also probably no mere
coincidence that as a 21 year old, my brother lives just down
the road from Parliament in Wellington, the most political
city of New Zealand, and is in his fourth year of a political
science degree. He may identify as straight, but he also has a
tendency to end up in a dress when he gets to a certain point of
intoxication. It’s rather amusing.
If you couldn’t already tell by now, my mum is a fierce
woman. She started a seafood business at 23 and two decades
later was employing 25 staff and her business was the largest
wholesale seafood provider in New Zealand. After our Dad left,
she was up at 4am every morning and at the fish factory by
5am to get it up and running for the day. She has a truck driver’s
licence and can drive a tractor better than most Kiwi males.
As a strong, independent queer woman, she has been nothing
but the perfect role model for Rory and me.
Having gay mums also steered Rory and I away from buying
into any traditional gender roles. I played cricket and he enjoyed
cooking. Rory would borrow Mum’s t-shirts and sometimes
I would borrow his, but more importantly, we never cared
about what was girly and what was manly. We watched our
Mum own a business and raise us mostly on her own and never
for a second did either of us doubt the fact that women can do
fucking anything.
I didn’t see my Dad a lot as a child but as a teenager he
became a big part of my life. He still calls from New Zealand
every few days just to check on me. Despite everything, I have a
strong and fairly ‘normal’ relationship with both parents. I am
so proud to be an LGBTQAI ally, and I wholeheartedly believe
that they make beautiful families. I have a Mum, a Dad, and
two non-blood-related women called Tricia and Kelly who are
supportive, caring, and treat my brother and me as if we are
their own children. Rory and I are very spoiled that there are so
many adults who love and care for us so deeply.
It’s 2016, but gay couples still can’t marry in Australia, they
can’t adopt children in every state, the age of legal consent is
unnecessarily higher for anal sex than vaginal sex, and gay men
still can’t donate blood in fear of HIV transmission, regardless
of their sexual history. It’s 2016, but according to Australian
criminal law, if you kill someone due to an unwanted gay sexual
advance, your charge will be downgraded from murder to
manslaughter as it is considered sufficient provocation for an
attack and can be used as a legal defence. It’s 2016, but according
to the Australian Human Rights Commission, LGBTQAI
Australians are three times more likely to experience depression
and approximately half hide their sexual orientation or
gender identity in public in fear of violence or discrimination.
It’s 2016, and you know what? It’s about time we all grow the
fuck up and stop treating people like they’re less than us just
for being different (looking at you, Liberal government).
The thing is, Australian Marriage, there’s a rather serious
flaw in your argument. Every child does not need a Mum and a
Dad. Every child needs a family – whether it’s a Mum and Dad,
just a Mum, just a Dad, a Mum and a Mum, a Dad and a Dad,
grandparents, non-blood-related caregivers or an older sibling.
It could be one parent, five parents, or any sort of obscure
combination you can think of. As long as they are safe, they’ll
be just fine, I promise.
Lot’s Wife | 27

Wot’s Life
with Jon Snow
Illustration by Stephie Dim
Is Winter really coming? Weather still seems pretty warm
to me.
If I have to say this one more time I’ll drive my fucking sword
through your stomach. Yes. Winter is coming. The snow will
build up outside and freeze everybody in their houses. The
children will want to go outside, but if they do they’ll be dead
minutes after the air touches their tiny bodies, and they’ll
freeze in the snow and be discovered by their grieving parents
when spring breaks. It won’t matter if you’re a high lord or a
peasant. Unless you’re lucky enough to be trapped in a house
with food and heat, the gods won’t care about your blood when
they strike you down. The weather may be warm now, but
beware what comes next.
I’ve got a test worth 30% of my total mark coming up, and
I’m freaking out. Can you help me study?
I’ve been told that I know nothing. Sam will probably be more
help.
I’m having girl trouble, she’s been ignoring me and talking
smack about me to her friends. I’m pretty pissed, to be
honest. What can I do?
Words? You’re hurt by words? Arrows are more painful. Until
your partner shoots you multiple times in the chest, shut up.
I’m getting kind of scared, walking home at night. What can
I do?
The night is dark and full of terrors. Bringing a sword with
you is the wisest move, Valyrian steel if possible. Find yourself
a sword master and refine your technique. You don’t need to
know much: just learn how not to kill the wrong person.
Are you really dead?
No. I just thought that bleeding out while in the freezing snow
would be fun. Jon Snow. Lying in the snow. Get it?
What’s going to happen to Westeros now?
Fucked if I know. I’m out, I’m done.
Don’t anybody fucking dare bring me back.
28 | Lot’s Wife

designed by Samantha J Ireland
Week 9
Week 10
Women's weekly
discussion 1-3pm
MQD Morning Tea
11am-1pm
MQD Morning Tea
11am-1pm
MQD Qu
4-6pm
Queers o
6.30pm
Budget p
Menzies
State Lib
MQD Qu
4-6pm
Week 11
International Day
Against Homophobia
and Transphobia
MQD Morning Tea
11am-1pm
MQD Q
4-6pm
Week 12
MQD Q
4-6pm
SWOT VAC
BEGINS
Want your event featured in next month’s calendar?
Email us at msa-lotswife@monash.edu

TEAR ME
OUT!
eer Beers
n Screen
rotest 12pm
Lawn; 2pm @
rary
eer Beers
ueer Beers
ueer Beers
June already? Turn over for a killer
poster by Ruby Jones!

IT MEANS THEY CARE?
Relationships, be they partners, friends or family, can be a great
part of life, but sometimes behaviours that we can brush off as
someone 'just showing how much they care' can actaully be
harmful or dangerous. Relationships should be about equality,
respect and open communication. These are some red flags you
should look for before or during any relationship.
MONASH
SAFER COMMUNITY UNIT
T: +61 3 9905 1599
E: safercommunity@monash.edu
monash.edu
Try asking yourself:
• Do they show extreme moodswings, saying that they'll love you
forever then getting angry and saying they hate you?
• Are they expecting you to make big, unreasonable committments to
them very early in the relationship?
• Are they possissive, jealous or manipulative? Do they try to stop you
from seeing your family and friends or spread lies about you to them?
• Are they controlling of your behaviour, such as dictating where
you go, what you can wear or even what you can eat?
Never date someone out of pity and trust your instincts. If these
behaviours sound familiar, the Safer Community Unit can help.
For information, advice and support in a safe environment, please contact the Monash University Safer Community Unit on 9905
1599 or just dial 51599 from a Monash phone.The Safer Community Unit website also lists resources and links to external agencies
http://www.adm.monash.edu.au/safercommunity/
Adapted from Surviving Stalking (2002) by Michele Pathé

SCIENCE
Being a hero:
fighting
antibiotic
resistance
by Sasha Hall
Illustration by Eliza Stribling
In 1928, Alexander Fleming became a medical superhero
saving millions of lives and revolutionising modern
medicine all through an accidental discovery. I’m talking about
penicillin of course: the wonder antibiotic which has enabled
the human race to survive countless bacterial diseases that
were once able to plague our societies, killing in just a few
hours. Today, due to the arduous work of many esteemed
scientists to develop antibiotic drugs, we have the luxury of
taking a small hygienic pill to eradicate any bacterial infection
that comes our way.
But our rampant use and widespread reliance on antibiotics
is threatening the integrity of this powerful medical weapon.
So how does antibiotic resistance work and what can we do to
preserve this panacea?
Bacteria are in everything from the food we eat to the dirt
under our feet to the insides of our bodies (squirm). In fact, for
every body cell we have, we also have 10 bacterial cells sitting
inside us (cringe). Whilst it is difficult for a clean-freak to
envision tiny single celled creatures crawling over everything,
it is comforting to know that they are absolutely ESSENTIAL
to life.
Just think how you would properly digest those fancy kale
salads, or be protected from the many bad microorganisms
trying to get a foothold on your skin? Without these little guys,
your digestive and immune functions, as well as many others
would be compromised, leaving you a sad little lump.
Alas, some bacteria are pathogenic and have provided us
with the joys of food poisoning and pneumonia, syphillis,
gonnorhea, leprosy and tuberculosis, just to name some of the
worst. Admittedly, they can give us a pretty rough time.
Antibiotics are basically any drugs that kill or inhibit the
growth of microorganisms or bacteria (but NOT viruses).
Antibiotics can be derived from fungi, amongst other things,
and act to kill bacteria in many different ways. The main thing
is that they obliterate that nasty bacterial colony that is making
you feel ghastly.
So we have billions of all different kinds of bacteria within
us. Each of these different bacteria have different DNA. Some
have DNA that lets them make proteins to protect them against
antibiotics, through some spontaneous mutation of this DNA
over time.
Suddenly, we get a nasty bacterium or two in our system.
The bacteria divide and divide rapidly because they want to
colonise the wonderful nutrient-rich breeding ground that is
your body. It might be your intestine or lung or any other cosy
breeding ground that suits their fancy. They continue to wage
war, facing competition from all your good bacteria crowding
them out. But eventually you start to feel the effects of the
microscopic battle going on inside your body and hence go to
the doctor, who immediately prescribe antibiotics because your
symptoms strongly suggest a bacterial infection.
You pop one of the sanitary pills into your mouth and it is
dispersed via your bloodstream to the site of the infection.
Once there, the drug makes the once idyllic environment
Lot’s Wife | 35

SCIENCE
inhospitable for most of the bacteria to live or grow in and
so, they die. Most of them. Those cheeky little mutants, that
just happen to have the DNA to make resistance proteins, are
shielded from the antibiotic and stay alive.
Now we have reached a fork in the road. You are starting
to feel better after having taken the drugs for a few days. You
decide to...
A: Stop taking the drugs because you are feeling
better. You don’t take Nurofen when you don’t have a
headache, so why should you have to finish the drugs
prescribed to you here?
Sorry, wrong answer. Doing this is actually how antibiotic
resistance spreads or gets stronger. Here is how it works:
The majority of your good and bad bacteria are dead but
there are those few resistant mutants that linger. You have
stopped taking the drugs and so the mutants can now focus
on dividing instead of making the resistance proteins. They
multiply in greater amounts now also because there are less
good body bacteria to compete with.
The mutants may or may not induce a bacterial war of the
same strength as your initial sickness anytime soon, but they
will linger in your body. During this lingering, the mutants
may transfer some of their resistance-encoding DNA to some
of the surviving good bacteria in your body making them
resistant too! Soon there are enough resistant bacteria that
when a different bad bacterium enters your body to start a new
bacterial infection, it may also uptake those resistance genes.
Next thing, your doctor has you on 2 high strength antibiotics,
after you didn’t get any better from taking the first lot because
your infectious colony is ahead of you– they have the resistance
genes. This miserable joke is on you.
So in short, because you didn’t kill off those stupid mutants,
you are sick again and sicker for longer. You have to take more
pills to kill the infection AND what is worse is that all this
time, your body has been a reservoir for resistant bacteria to
develop and spread to other bodies, contributing to communal
antibiotic resistance.
B: You remember your doctor telling you specifically
to finish your course and it says on the packet to keep
taking until finished. You decide to keep taking the
pills in the same constant routine that you have been
following until you have finished the packet.
And you reap many benefits from choosing Option B. Firstly,
you are able to respond effectively to the same antibiotic
you have just finished, if you happen to get a new bacterial
infection. Secondly, you are not a reservoir for antibioticresistant
bacteria. And thus, you have helped to stop the
slow steady spread of resistance genes and preserved the
effectiveness of arguably humanity’s most important biological
weapon. Your fellow humans should shake your hand and pat
you on the back. After all, you have saved them from facing
bacterial diseases without a weapon in hand. They can claim
victory over these tiny enemies just as you did.
Ultimately, we will start winning this war when the
consumers themselves understand their own responsibilities
when taking these pills. On that note...
How to become a hero: top tips to fight antibiotic
resistance
• Only take antibiotics if prescribed by your GP. Do not
insist on being prescribed antibiotics if you go to your GP
with a cold. Viral colds and flus are more common so if
you have one of those, antibiotics will do NOTHING to
make you better.
• If you are prescribed antibiotics, FINISH your prescribed
dose and do it correctly! Take your pills at regular time
intervals and make sure you check with your Pharmacist
whether you are supposed to take them before, with or
after food because this varies. Kill off all those mutants
and do everyone a favour. There should be no prescribed
pills left!
• Generally practise good hygiene especially when
venturing into public places. It is much harder to become
a bacterial breeding ground when the bad bacteria can’t
get in to begin with.
• Raise awareness to friends and family so that we can
win this war already! It is really a collective battle, so the
more people understand why it is so important and how
to combat the risks, the better off we all are.
Yay, your responsible actions have rendered you a local hero!
Here is what happens inside of you:
The mutants are still alive but as you keep taking the drugs,
the constant concentration and flow of antibiotic into the area
where the mutants are means that the mutants need to work
harder to make resistance proteins. This requires energy but
they are already so spent from making the last lot of proteins.
As the drugs surround them more and more, it eventually
overrides the dwindling proteins, killing the mutants.
The exact number of pills you were prescribed and the
conditions in which you need to take them (3 per day, 5 per day,
before food or after food) are carefully devised to ensure the
antibiotics kill your infection off entirely, so being meticulous
in your pill popping routine is good here. By the end of your
course, all the bacteria with these mutant genes are obliterated
and you emerge the proud victor of this microscopic battle.
36 | Lot’s Wife

INTERVIEW
Maybe he’s born with
it, maybe it’s genetic
modification
Self-described naturalist and sometimes penguin chaser,
Professor John Bowman spoke with Tracy Chen about all
things genetics and contemporary science.
So John, how would you describe yourself?
If I were around in the 19th century, I would have been a
naturalist. In other words, I’m curious about the natural world.
If I was well off, I would have investigated a broad variety of
science.
What’s your position at Monash?
My position is researching and teaching, but the majority of
my time is actually spent running my lab which has postdocs,
PhD students, honours students and undergraduate research
students in it. We study the evolution of the development of
plants.
What led you to pursue genetics?
When I was young, during the summertime, Mum, Dad, my
sister and I would each choose a place in northern or western
North America, and we would drive around and visit all those
places. So I think because of that, my interest in natural history
was piqued.
Even at that stage, I thought I would work on some of the
evolutionary question because of the diversity of things you
see. But when I started my PhD, I realised that the tools that
I wanted to use to investigate evolutionary questions weren't
available. So I decided that genetics was probably the most
fruitful endeavour. I wanted to be able to do experiments to say
this either is or isn't the case, where oftentimes if you go into
ecology or evolution you're dealt with what data you can gather
and it's harder to do experiments.
My personal feeling is that genetics is the underpinning of
all the life sciences. I think if you're going into the life sciences,
genetics is the best way, because once you get that foundation
you can go into any branch of life sciences.
I also think this century is the age of DNA or quantum computing
or something and I think those are still the forefront of
interesting things and science.
Why did you choose to study plants specifically?
That was serendipity. When I started my PhD, I wanted to do
developmental genetics. I had a choice of working on drosophila,
C. elegans or plants.
As is the case with many students, there’s a bias against
plants because we’re not plants. We like to think about things
that are related to us more so than things that are quite unrelated.
So when I started my PhD, there was a great project on
plants that none of the other students wanted to pursue. So for
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SCIENCE
me, being unbiased, I thought that was great.
I guess the choice was very good, looking back, because there
aren’t many people working on plants, there are a lot more
fundamental things to still be discovered. So it's allowed me,
in my career, to be in the right place at the right time to make
three real cool discoveries.
How has your work influenced your life?
As a scientist and professor, it’s not really a 40 hour a week
job, it’s a job that you go to, except for the administration part,
because you enjoy it. I even enjoy teaching, although I don't
enjoy marking exams or anything like that. But the actual interacting
with students is fun. So I think, unlike some jobs, where
you see it as a way to make money and a living, it’s actually a
part of the fabric of your life.
Even when I'm not working, I'm still a naturalist - you go out
for a bush walk and you're always making observations. I think
having a background in science allows you to appreciate a lot of
things.
So I hear that in your spare time you also research a fairy
penguin colony, could you tell me about that?
There’s a colony of about a thousand penguins at the breakwater
in St Kilda and it's a pretty amazing colony because it's
right in the middle of the city.
So since 1986, a community-based research group has been
monitoring them. They go down, catch them, and then every
time you catch them, you weigh them, check their health, see
how long they're living, whose mating with whom, when they're
moulting, how many chicks they're having.
I’ve done this for probably 6 to 8 years. Even when the
weather is really crappy and you’re thinking, “I don't wanna go
out there,” once you’re out on the breakwater, it's very, very
pleasant. The breakwater is divided up into four sections, so
there’s four research teams. I lead one of the teams and we
catch as many penguins as we can within our section.
The interesting thing is that the people on my team, some of
them are scientists or have some sort of scientific background
but other ones are lawyers or school teachers or something
with no scientific background. So it’s quite a nice forum to
interact with people from all different walks of the community.
...Unlike some jobs,
where you see it as a
way to make money
and a living, it’s
actually a part of the
fabric of your life.
Is there anything else you’d like to say before we go?
I am a bit dismayed, considering Australia is a fairly wealthy
country, the amount of money that's put into science is very
much lower than in other countries of similar status.
For example, I moved from the US, and even at the lowest
point in their financial crisis, funding wasn't that much different
from what it is in this country. Since then, theirs have gone
up and ours has not. It starts at the top, Turnbull claims he’s
the innovation guy, but the funding cuts that his government
have proposed are basically the opposite of that.
I think if you’re really keen on science, it’s a very rewarding
career, but at some point you may have to move abroad before
coming back.
What science misconception would you most like to die?
Climate change is publicised a lot, and my viewpoint is that
that's a political problem. The science is there. I don't know if
more publicity will change anything.
From a genetics point of view, in this country, I don’t think a
lot’s been published about genome editing and how that's really
revolutionising genetics and life sciences.
As with all science, the science is always way ahead of community
understanding and ethics. So you could do things with
this technology that people, including myself, would consider
unethical. So it would be very good to discuss the potential
because the potential is enormous. Most people would probably
agree that changes in the human genome that won’t be passed
to next generation are okay, but as soon as you start talking
about being able to manipulate something that will be passed
on, that creates a bit of unease even amongst scientists.
Because the technology is there, because scientists in China
have done this in a human embryo, it should be much more in
the public eye. Science will continue on, regardless of society.
38 | Lot’s Wife

SCIENCE
Invisible illnesses:
mental health
by Basia Mitula
Illustration by Viet-My Bui
There is a common myth in our society: young people do
not get sick. At least, not anything more serious than
the flu.
This is completely false.
96% of people that have an illness have an illness that is
invisible. Many of these people are the same age as the average
uni student. You could be talking to someone with an invisible
illness in your tute tomorrow and never know unless they told
you.
Forty-five percent of people in Australia are estimated to
experience a mental illness in their lifetime. There are many initiatives
that aim to create discussion and raise awareness about
mental illnesses, but there is still a huge amount of stigma. Due
to lack of knowledge, lack of empathy, and ignorance, a ‘hushhush’
attitude exists and there is a lot of awkwardness when
people are confronted with mental illness.
Depression
“Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced...
It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will
ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened
feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad
hurts but it’s a healthy feeling. It is a necessary thing to feel.
Depression is very different.” – J.K. Rowling
It is often thought that depression is just being sad for a
long time. In actual fact, it is a lot more than that. Depression
can affect the whole body, and the emotions involved do not
necessarily include sadness. Some common symptoms include:
• Losing interest in work, hobbies, and/or doing things you
normally enjoy
• Difficulty sleeping or sleeping more than usual
• Finding it hard to concentrate
• Negative feelings such as sadness, being overwhelmed,
Lot’s Wife | 39

SCIENCE
unhappiness, emptiness
• Changes in appetite
If enough of these symptoms are being experienced by
someone (or you) for periods of 2 weeks or more, what they’re
experiencing could be depression.
Anxiety
Having an anxiety disorder has been described as like that
moment where your chair almost tips, or you miss a step going
down the stairs, but it never stops.
“Anxiety is a liar, although it feels incredibly real.” – Alivia
Hall, Huffington Post
Everyone gets anxious, but, if anxiety starts becoming a
problem and affecting your life, it could be classified as an anxiety
disorder. There are many different classifications of anxiety
disorder, from generalised anxiety disorder to social anxiety
disorder, and they can occur simultaneously. Here is a small
selection of symptoms for general anxiety disorder:
• hot and cold flushes
• racing heart
• tightening of the chest
• snowballing worries
Medication, counselling, and lifestyle changes can help
improve the lives of people with anxiety disorders, and, most
importantly, help those who have been overwhelmed take their
lives back.
Bipolar disorder
"You are either too happy, too sad or you just don't care.
Finding the feelings in the middle do not come naturally. You
have to fight every day to find them."--unknown
“I went to a doctor and told him I felt normal on acid, that
I was a light bulb in a world of moths. That is what the manic
state is like.” – Carrie Fisher
Bipolar disorder is often minimised, used as an adjective,
as in the phrase “they’re so bipolar”. It is more than ‘normal’
mood swings. Bipolar disorder is characterised by:
• periods of clinical depression
• periods of mania ‘highs’
These periods of depression and mania are more extreme
than ‘normal’ mood swings, and greatly impact the person’s life.
The treatment for bipolar disorder can vary from the treatment
to depression, so a separate diagnosis is important.
Schizophrenia
"To me, the best analogy of what it's like is that it's a waking
nightmare, where you have all the bizarre images, the terrible
things happening, and the utter terror — only with a nightmare
you open your eyes and it goes away. No such luck with a
psychotic episode." – Elyn Saks, mental health advocate living
with schizophrenia
“Real people with real feelings get schizophrenia. One
should never underestimate the depth of their pain, even
though the illness itself may diminish their ability to convey
it…. As one of my own patients told me, “Whatever this is that
I have, I feel like I’m a caterpillar in a cocoon, and I’m never
going to get the chance to be a butterfly.”” – Samuel Keith MD,
former editor of he Schizophrenia Bulletin
Schizophrenia is quite a stigmatised illness, often being used
in film and television as a plot device. Due to many negative depictions,
almost everyone has negative connotations associated
with it. Think about how you would react if the person next
to you was schizophrenic and you knew that. Would you feel
scared? Worried? Supportive of whatever their particular needs
are? Hopefully it would end up being the last one, but your initial
reaction is likely to be something along the line of the first
two. That is a common attitude taught to us. Contrary to what
is often said in the media, people with schizophrenia are more
of a threat to themselves than to anyone else. It is consistently
found that less than 10% of violent crime is committed by
schizophrenic people. When caught early, treatment is considered
highly effective at reducing or eliminating symptoms.
Some common symptoms include but are not limited to:
• delusions
• hallucinations
• disorganised thinking, behaviour
• reduced or lack of ability to function normally
For more symptoms and explanations of potentially unfamiliar
terminology such as ‘delusions’ the SANE Australia
website has a more detailed factsheet.
The mental illnesses written about here are just four out of
many which exist. Everyone who is having a hard time deserves
to get help, whether that be from a friend, doctor, or counsellor.
It’s always better to ask for help rather than letting problems
fester. Monash has a free counselling service for students,
so if you’re concerned about how your mental health is going,
why not book an appointment?
Taking care of your mental health is really important, whether you
have a mental illness or not. Here are some resources that may be
useful:
SANE Australia (sane.org) – resources for general mental
health and mental illnesses
Beyond Blue (beyondblue.org.au, 1300 22 4636) – resources
for mental health, personal stories, online and over the phone
chat
Kids Helpline (kidshelpline.com.au, 1800 55 1800) – resources
for mental health, for ages 13-25, online and over the phone
chat
Lifeline (lifeline.org.au, 13 11 14) – crisis support and suicide
prevention, online and over the phone chat
40 | Lot’s Wife

y Isaac Reichman
Illustration by Lily Greenwood
Everything we know, will know, can know, is a product
of our experiences; experiences we can only take in via
our five senses of sight, sound, touch, taste and smell. Our
memories are uniquely defined by qualities attributed to these
senses; the view from atop a mountain in Nepal, listening
to the ocean when lying on a beach in Fiji, or the smell of
petrichor during a storm in the Australian bush. But an image
can be taken by someone else; a sound can be recorded; a smell
can be recreated using chemicals. When we lay down with
earphones in and listen to rain, it’s almost as if it were actually
raining. Why don’t we travel more? Why don’t we explore
the beautiful world around us? It could be a multitude of
reasons; money, time, fear, convenience. But what if we could
eliminate these restrictions? What if we could visit the plains
of Africa from our living room couch? What if our perceived
environment is replaced with a computer-generated one, that
may or may not be indistinguishable from the real thing.
ESSAY
Impossible worlds
Virtual reality, or VR, has been an idea in development
for decades. When first developed, VR was used for military
flight training. More recently, VR has developed a reputation
as a product for gamers and entertainers. Sega and Nintendo
both developed VR headsets in conjunction with their arcade
games and consoles; both ultimately abandoning it due to
commercial failure. A big boom in VR interest came on August
2nd of 2012, when the company Oculus launched a Kickstarter
campaign with the intent of funding their new project, the
Rift. Within twenty-four hours of launching their campaign,
Oculus overshot their goal by raising over 2 million dollars.
Even more incredible was two years later, when the company
was purchased by Facebook for two billion dollars. There are
a variety of reasons why Facebook may have purchased the
company (namely them missing out on the telecommunications
game) but they clearly saw, and continue to see special things in
its future.
In 2016 in particular, more and more virtual reality products
are becoming popular with consumers. This is evident by
companies such as HTC, Samsung and Google all becoming
major competitors with the Rift. HTC is the most recent,
releasing their VIVE this April, with Google’s Cardboard and
Samsung’s Gear VR being put on market last year. What differs
between Oculus and HTC’s product sand the other two is that
they are fully contained headsets. What this means is that
when you buy them - for what isn’t an exorbitant amount of
money, when compared to game consoles - you get the whole
shebang. With Google Cardboard and Samsung’s Gear VR, you
supply the accelerometer, screen and gyroscope in the form
of your smartphone. What they have in common with any VR
headset is that they track the user’s head movements in order
to allow them to traverse the simulated world. The better the
tracking, the more real the virtual environment feels.
In the same spirit of film, which began as an artistic
endeavour that developed entertainment and educational uses
as well, VR will spring forth a multitude of applications. The
first and most obvious, way that virtual reality has already
entered consumer life is entertainment, particularly video
games. The new platform will give users more immersion into
the game environment and a deeper connection to the story
being told, as may happen with film. But the use of VR for film
has already begun as well: YouTube has been producing VR
enhanced videos for over a year now. The videos enable the
viewer to look around and explore a video in 360 degrees, for
the entire length of the video.
Beyond the purely practical side of virtual reality is a deeper,
more substantial implication, and the effect it could have on
personal and philosophical connection could be profound.
A portrait by Rembrandt, or symphony by Beethoven from
hundreds of years ago contains enough emotion and detail that
they will always speak to individuals. But what of the individual
experience to the individual? Eventually, simulated reality will
be able to allow people to communicate their deepest thoughts
and feelings in a visceral way, or to be communicated to on a
substantial emotional level.
A simulated environment is an infinite well of potential
for education and development. With simulated laboratories,
students will be able to experiment with chemistry in an
unrestricted environment, drop cannonballs off of skyscrapers
to explore mechanics, or explore the cosmos on an astronomical
scale. Architecture and engineering students will be able to
build and test their structures countless times with as many
variations as they can fathom; their only restriction being their
imagination.
Currently, there is a technological revolution: virtual
reality sits in the same category as 3-D printing and quantum
computing in terms of possibility. Ten years in the future is as
hard to predict as ten years in the past is distant. There is no
way of telling what will be mainstream, and the capabilities it
will allow for humanity. Virtual reality is a step in the direction
of development and growth; it is another step by humanity
from science fiction to science. Pick up your headset and put it
on, the entire universe awaits.
Lot’s Wife | 41

42 | Lot’s Wife
SCIENCE

PUZZLES
1 2 3
4 5
6
7
8
9
10
11 12
13 14
15
16
17
18 19
Across
1. Provides immunity against a disease
ACROSS
4. Autoimmune disease resulting from HIV infection
1. Provides immunity against a disease
6. Family of organisms including yeasts and moulds
4. Autoimmune disease resulting from HIV infection
7. Abbreviation for Tuberculosis
6. Family of organisms including yeasts and moulds
7. Abbreviation 9. Developed for from Tuberculosis a fungus, this is the first compound
identified with antibiotic properties
9. Developed from a fungus, this is the first compound identified
with antibiotic properties
11. A term to describe bacteria that are no longer
susceptible to an antibiotic
11. A term to describe bacteria that are no longer susceptible
15. The process of killing all microorganisms on a
to an antibiotic substance
15. The process of killing all microorganisms on a substance
17. Resistant form of staphylococcus (abbreviation)
17. Resistant form of staphylococcus (abbreviation)
18. Common detergent used for washing hands
18. Common detergent used for washing hands
19. Disease that is almost fully eradicated
19. Disease has almost been fully eradicated
Down
by Rajat Lal
1. Small, non-living infectious particle. Requires a host
DOWN cell.
2. You 1. Small, can catch non-living a… infectious particle. Requires a host cell.
3. Commonly 2. You can used catch bacteria a… in experimentation, some
strains 3. Commonly are pathogenic used (abbreviation)
bacteria in experimentation, some
strains 4. Prescribed are pathogenic to kill bacteria (abbreviation)
5. Respiratory 4. Prescribed virus to kill bacteria
5. Respiratory virus
6. Australian scientist whose clinically trialled the drug
in no. 6. Australian 9 scientist whose clinically trialled the drug in
no. 8. Scottish 9 scientist whose work was crucial for the
development 8. Scottish for scientist no. 9 whose work was crucial for the development
10. Small for prokaryotic no. 9 organisms that can cause
infections 10. Small prokaryotic organisms that can cause infections
12. 12. Deadly Deadly virus virus found found in Africa in Africa
13. 13. Medication is often is often in the in form the of form this of this
14. 14. A prefix A prefix for small for small
16.
16.
Synonym
Synonym
for medicine
for medicine
ANSWERS AT LOTSWIFE.COM.AU
Lot’s Wife | 43

44 | Lot’s Wife

CULTURE
Bury your gays
by Lucy Moloney
Illustration by Julia Pillai
Imagine if every single character that you identified with
died. That there is finally a character with an aspect of yourself
that the media rarely shows exists, and before you get the
chance to really appreciate this character, they die.
This is the fate for queer characters in the media, and the
queer community that watches these shows. This convention
is so prevalent and expected within media, it has its own TV
Tropes page named after it: ‘Bury your Gays’. It is where queer
characters do not get happy endings. Media involving them
usually ends with them dead, or mourning the person they had
loved, if they are even allowed to exist in the media at all.
Some would believe that television writers and producers are
far more liberal and accepting of queer characters in media now
and some would argue that it is an outdated trope, however
this is not quite the case. Between the 22nd of February and
the 20th of March four lesbian or bisexual characters in television
died. Of course, characters die in television all the time,
but the circumstances around their death is telling.
Denise from The Walking Dead died in a way that canonically
in the original comics killed a white straight male, while Lexa
from The 100 died the next scene after sleeping with Clarke
after taking seasons to reach that point.
This is not an unconventional way for lesbians on television
to die. Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (2002), died in the
same episode that she reconciled and slept with Willow.
Fourteen years have passed, and not a lot has changed for
the treatment of queer characters in this nature. Killing queer
characters for shock value is not shocking. It is expected. It is
boring. It is a mark of poor writing.
What does killing a character minutes after they slept with
someone of their gender, or finally reached their happy resolution
achieve? It presents a message that as a community, we do
not deserve these happy endings.
It is not as though we expect queer characters to be immortalised.
And it is upsetting when a straight cis character that
you like dies as well, but when a straight cis character dies, it
does nothing to alter the representation of the show. There are
countless other straight cis, usually white, characters to balance
it out.
And representation is the selling point for a lot of queer
audiences. Part of the beauty of television is being able to
see characters and situations that you identify with. This is
Give us happy
queers exploring
space, or fighting
dragons, or
creating a robot
army.
especially heightened when you’re a member of a minority, and
only very rarely get to see these kind of characters you identify
with. Representation is important because people’s perceptions
of minority groups are effected by how they are presented in
media.
Representation shows that all types of people exist, that
people of various genders, sexual and romantic orientations
exist. We are real, and we are here. We have goals and ambitions
and stories that are more than just tragedy. Queer people are
more than just the sum of their stereotypes, or a plot device to
further the stories of straight, often white, cis characters.
The message that shows like The 100 and The Walking Dead
present is the dramatic value of deaths, and that we do not get
or deserve happy endings.
Queer audiences deserve to see characters that reflect themselves
be happy, and also to have themselves represented in the
same expanse of plot lines that straight cis characters do, and
not just stories about the trials of coming out, of being queer,
and their relationships with other people.
We would like to see queer characters live, and be happy, and
exist in greater worlds and storylines than they currently do.
Give us happy queers exploring space, or fighting dragons, or
creating a robot army. Give us queer characters that are more
than the sum of their gender, sexuality, or romantic orientation.
Give us queer characters that are not tragedies.
Being queer is not a tragedy, and the representation of us in
media should reflect that.
Lot’s Wife | 45

ESSAY
The Rat Race: Does Zootopia’s
hustle to simplify racism fall
short of the finish line?
by Clarissa Kwee
Illustration by Christina Dodds
The Disney Revival continues its ascent with the addition
of Zootopia, which is being lauded by critics as ‘the greatest
movie Disney has ever made.’ Call the appraisal histrionic,
but this is the movie that didn’t drop a single % in ticket sales
after its opening weekend. After topping the box office adjacent
to a certain Dawning of Justice (which, by comparison, suffered
a 68% drop), there’s no doubt the studio’s latest endeavour
claims its well-deserved position at the apex of the cinematic
food chain.
Preliminary reviews of the film made it the apple of Disney’s
eye. For starters, Zootopia actually has a coherent narrative,
one that initially plays out as just a buddy-cop comedy between
two unlikely allies. Rookie cop Judy Hopps and con artist
Nick Wilde are forced to collude in order to save the former’s
new job, and the latter from a life-time of jail. The disparate
elements it manages to bring together are pretty astounding: it
retains that classic, fable-esque Disney core, hides as many pop
culture Easter Eggs as can be crammed into its 1 ½ hour long
basket, features an anthropomorphic Shakira, all while managing
to play out a bit like “The Wire with webbed feet” (Jason
Johnson, The Root). Eventually the two manage to crack the
case wide open, and with it, unleash a socio-political Pandora’s
Box on to cinemas full of children all around the world. Don’t
get me wrong, Zootopia is still an animated movie that delivers
punchy moments and spot-on comedic timing, without always
needing to bring in any sloth-staffed DMVs. But subversively,
its subject matter analogises some contemporary disputes. In
the film, children may laugh harder, but adults laugh longer,
46 | Lot’s Wife

CULTURE
because the disjunction between the light-hearted tone the film
establishes in its opening is leaps and bounds from the message
conveyed, and the polarising effect it has on audiences who’ve
had a chance to reflect.
A fundamental problem lies at the heart of how Zootopia
frames its favoured subject matter – racism and prejudice, on a
primal, pixelated level. The overarching metaphor is quite clear;
animals are analogous to different ethnicities in a multicultural
society, just like how contemporary cities are melting pots of
culture and diversity. What’s also clear is that, just because
Zootopia is a fictional place, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily
eternal sunshine and spotless minds. Despite their evolution,
the natural predator-versus-prey dichotomy embeds stereotypes
into the mammalian utopia, meaning its inhabitants are
faced with casual bigotry in their day-to-day lives. There are
some benign examples, like when Hopps reprimands somebody
for calling her “cute”, an adjective for exclusive use between
bunnies and bunnies alone. But there are malign examples too,
like when it is revealed Wilde was severely bullied as a child for
becoming the only Junior Ranger Scout predator, a position
traditionally held only by prey. This story is starting to sound
familiar. Despite progressive world views in our own society, to
some extent stereotyping of certain races continues to permeate
people’s lives, sometimes in fairly derogatory ways.
What disrupts this metaphor are the semantics that kids
didn’t notice but adults did. It’s a structural oversight that has
to do with how the institution of Zootopia itself is set up, which
is “poorly coded” (Todd VanDerWerff, Vox). When Assistant
Mayor Bellwether, a lamb and (spoiler) mastermind behind
the distribution of drugs that force predators to return to their
pre-evolutionary savage behaviour, declares her motives, she
claims it’s to initiate an uprising against the powerful. In the
movie, predators still retain more dominant, aggressive roles
in society, like those of policemen and government officials,
whereas prey are systematically referred to as ‘the little guy.’
But in the same speech, Bellwether also mentions prey make up
the majority of the population at 90%, making predators the
minority of 10%. The fundamental chain of command the film
is built on never truly mirrors our society in the way Disney
alludes. If we agree with the majority/minority logistics, taking
Western society as an example means that whites make up the
majority of the population, the ‘prey’, while Blacks, Hispanics
and other ethnic minorities are ‘predators’ – this path is much
too inflammatory to tread for any sort of movie, animated or
not.
Animals have been allegorical favourites of humans for
centuries. On one hand, animals are familiar to us in the sense
that they can realistically emulate our traits, but on the other,
are “still alien enough to reflect our own worst qualities without
being off-putting,” (VanDerWerff, Vox). The strange thing about
using animals as our representatives is that not all of their natural
behaviours can be accurately translated to humankind. The
antagonistic relationship between predator and prey ultimately
boils down to “biology”, but the film never enlightens its audience
on what modern, adapted predators actually eat now, and
how they moved away from their aggressive instincts towards
prey. The film’s message implies that the instinct to attack is inherent
in every predator and never truly left, merely just buried
under years of conformity and regulation. And if we’re applying
the aforementioned racial presumptions to this example, that
particular element of the metaphor opens a whole new can of
The strange
thing about using
animals as our
representatives
is that not all
of their natural
behaviours can
be accurately
translated to
humankind.
worms that is better left locked away in a little black box under
the sea.
So in retrospect, Disney might have actually taken a pacifist
approach by creating a world where the puzzle pieces don’t fit
together perfectly. The animal kingdom is just similar enough
to our society to draw relephant ties, but puts enough feathers
and fur in-between their world and ours to cushion the blow
of that realisation. The world is too big for young audiences to
comprehend as it is, let alone when it becomes muddled with
strange paradoxes and analogies that don’t really make their
marks; at their age, children have the right to enjoy unbridled,
amoosing comedies without the educative motive. Injecting
subliminal messages where they don’t belong only leads to a
good-natured, family-friendly picture mutating into a belligerent
political forum. Ultimately Zootopia’s most poignant
parable is a recycled, yet persistent one – and Disney doesn’t
fix what will never be broken – that only when differences are
overcome, evil is overthrown and societies make an effort to recuperate
together does the world settle into a state of harmony.
Lot’s Wife | 47

CULTURE
Meet
‘Zwarte Piet’
by Stefan Boscia
Every year for millions of excited Dutch children,
Sinterklaas, the Dutch version of Santa Claus, arrives
on the 5th of January from a Spanish seaside town to deliver
presents to boys and girls throughout the small European
nation. Accompanying the benevolent Sinterklaas, is his
sidekick and quasi servant Zwarte Piet or, as he is known in
English, Black Pete. While Sinterklaas is seen as somewhat
of a hero amongst children, Zwarte Piet’s role in Christmas
festivities has traditionally been to cane naughty children
before stuffing them into a sack and bringing them back to his
Iberian homeland. However, over the last 50 years Pete has
taken on a role less frightening for children: a clownish goofball
used for light entertainment and as a provider of candy. This
questionable mythological figure is traditionally depicted as a
Caucasian male dressed in blackface, complete with a ‘gollywogstyle’
afro, thick red lips and golden earrings to really hammer
home that minstrel show vibe. This is a practice which has
started to gain the ire of various bodies, such as the United
Nations, who labelled the tradition as a “vestige to slavery”.
From the many different unique cultural experiences which
I have thus far been involved in while studying abroad in
Maastricht, a small and charming border town in the south
of Holland, Black Pete is by far the most bizarre. Known for
their progressiveness, tolerance and generally liberal attitudes,
the mythology of Black Pete at first seemed like a bizarre
outlier in the Dutch cultural landscape. The fact that racial
stereotypes and racially offensive traditions have existed in
the Netherlands’ past is hardly a surprise given their history
of rampant colonialism, however what is surprising is the
continued use and widespread popularity of such a backwards
figure.
A poll conducted as recently as 2014 reveals that 90% of
Dutch residents are in support of continuing to utilise Black
Pete in Christmas celebrations and parades. Even in the face
of accusations of overt racist overtones from several Dutch
activist groups, the Netherlands have remained committed to
standing by their beloved Christmas tradition. When Dutch
Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, was asked about the controversial
children’s character, he waved off the issue stating that “my
friends in the Dutch Antilles, they are very happy that they
have Sinterklaas, because they don’t have to paint their faces.
When I’m playing Zwarte Piet, I am for days trying to get the
stuff off my face. Black Pete is black and I cannot change that.”
When speaking to the locals around Maastricht, I was quite
shocked to actually see this line of thinking validated by so
many different people. Even amongst the student youth of the
city there was a clear consensus on the topic; firstly, that they
thoroughly enjoyed the antics of Zwarte Piet as a youngster,
secondly that they did not think it was racist and thirdly that
they had no reason to suspect that the character could be
perceived as offensive. While some were able to understand
that such a stereotype being bandied around for children to
laugh at could potentially be a little offensive to those of Afro-
Caribbean descent, not one person actually deemed it offensive
in reality.
The connotations behind a white man sporting blackface
should be obvious in this epoch of complete cultural
globalisation. Furthermore, a black servant portrayed as a
halfwit and used as a form of entertainment might be just
a little insensitive towards those with an African heritage.
Introducing 19th century racial stereotypes on children from
a young age, and having them associated with the inevitable
manic excitement of receiving presents, must in some way
shape future perspectives. Having such a clear cut dichotomy
between Sinterklaas and Pete is also bound to reinforce
differences in skin colour in a very harmful manner. The tall,
graceful, white saint and the goofy, dim-witted, black “helper”.
The prominent tradition becomes even more disturbing
when you consider the past indiscretions of the Netherlands
in Africa and the West Indies. The Netherlands were one of the
pre-eminent slave trading countries throughout the 17th, 18th
and 19th centuries, shipping African captives to Brazil, Spain
and the Caribbean until 1863. Coupled with their penchant for
colonialism in the West Indies, the Dutch appear to have quite a
backlog of questionable foreign policy. The legacy of such a dark
history in the Kingdom of Netherlands is still evident today
through a large population of inhabitants with Indonesian,
Dutch Caribbean and Surinamese backgrounds. Yet in the face
of this odious national history and diverse population, the
incredulity of Dutch people when you suggest that Zwarte Piet
may perhaps be racist still remains.
A relic of colonialism, Black Pete’s current appearance dates
back to 1850, and may stand up as an example of systemic
racism that is still present in the Netherlands today. These sorts
of unspoken, implicit insensitivities and social boundaries,
which are passed off as tongue in cheek humour, are a hallmark
of a long-standing culture of prejudice and racism.
Instead of Holland being this utopia of freedom and a
bastion of egalitarian ideologies like many think, there are in
fact still cultural divides in every strata of society. Whether it
be the escalating amount of minority aimed police brutality in
the last few years, Zwarte Piet or monkey chants directed at
black players in the Dutch Football league, there are numerous
examples of rampant xenophobia throughout Dutch society.
I guess after centuries of the most extreme kind of human
right’s abuses you cannot expect a country to completely rid
themselves of these ingrained attitudes after only a little
over 100 years, especially when people are not aware of the
more shameful parts of their country’s history. Many of the
same Dutch people I surveyed about the topic of Black Pete
also revealed that Holland’s history of past atrocities was
conspicuously missing from their high school curriculum.
Instead of trying to sweep their past under the rug and
push these sorts of issues into the background, children and
adolescents must be made aware of why images such as Black
Pete have such deep roots in unimaginable cruelty. A continued
ignorance about these sorts of issues are bound to have adverse
results for the foreseeable future and perhaps explain Zwarte
Piet’s immovable popularity. In the meantime, would it really
be so bad if Black Pete became just plain old Pete?
48 | Lot’s Wife

REVIEW
hildren are maggots.’
‘C The interesting phrase was plastered on a mug
in the gift shop of the Princess Theatre. I laughed and then,
like the education student I am, imagined bringing that mug
into my future classroom. Unsurprisingly, the phrase is Miss
Trunchbull’s belief, and while I should probably strive to be
more like Miss Honey, I can’t help but love the former due to
Matilda the Musical.
We all know Matilda, whether it’s from the Roald Dahl novel
or the 90s movie. So, just what does the musical do to build
upon and bring life to the well-told story?
First is the emotional change. While the musical can be
described as fun and comedic, unlike the novel it also contains
bleakness, and the contrast between the two only serves to
heighten it. As a whole, Matilda is an incredibly serious – and
indeed sad – character, for good reason. Trapped in a home
that doesn’t understand her brilliance, and in a school with a
headmistress that does everything she can to squash it, it’s only
natural that such a small child would feel the weight of these
situations. To be blunt, watching this is often disheartening,
but I believe it makes the just ending of the musical all the
more important. Like Matilda, we’ve been forced to wait for it,
and it’s damn nice when it comes.
But Matilda the Musical is far from all doom and gloom, also
emulating the novel’s ridiculous nature. Labelled as a family
musical, Matilda strives to make everybody laugh, from the
youngest members of the audience to the grandparents taking
them. The pranks pulled are loved by children (and me as well,
don’t make me grow up yet), while the absurdity of the ways
parents view their seemingly omnipotent children has the older
Matilda the Musical
By Maddy Luke
Illustration by Natalie Ng
audience members in tears. In my opinion, the best part is that
the ‘adult’ jokes aren’t really obscene. Instead, they’re often a
touch above the comprehension of children, but just as ridiculous
as the other gags.
In terms of casting, I can’t envision anything better. The
cast heavily consists of children, and they definitely hold their
own in acting, singing and dancing. They fill each character
with childishness, reminding me too easily of being in primary
school. On the night I watched the musical, playing the star
of the show, Matilda, was Alannah Parfett. Not once did she
hesitate or stutter her lines, not to mention that her voice was
incredible. Blown away by her performance, I’m only more
impressed when I consider how complex and demanding the
role is. Remaining in my memory most persistently, however,
is James Millar’s Miss Trunchbull. The absolute madness of the
headmistress is my favourite part of the show, and to act it out
as seriously and dramatically as he does without fault was a
pleasure to watch.
Lastly, the music. Creating a genius soundtrack obviously
requires a genius, and the musical would not have been the
same without Tim Minchin. The songs aren’t just catchy or
fun; they’re damn clever. I think mostly of the lyrics to ‘School
Song’, however as a whole, the music doesn’t fail to evoke the
right mood from the audience, and it takes a very careful person
to pull that off. Of course, the orchestra deserves as much
praise as Minchin himself, consisting of just twelve members
on 17 different instruments.
Do you want to laugh, cry and miss being a child? While
being a university student guarantees all three, for a less stressful
experience I highly recommend seeing Matilda the Musical.
Lot’s Wife | 49

50 | Lot’s Wife
CULTURE

REVIEW
What we’re
reading
by Layla Homewood
Illustration by Jena Oakford
NOS4A2 by Joe Hill
I got this book as a Christmas present a couple of years ago
when it was first released, and I am completely blown away by
the fact that it hasn't blown up in the media. It has everything
a great horror book could need: blood, guts, creepy children,
creepier villains, and Stephen King's son doing all the writing.
The story follows the twists and turns of a young girl,
Vic McQueen and her life which is tainted with the frequent
appearance of the malicious and supernatural Charlie Manx;
who in his vintage Rolls-Royce Wraith can take people
(preferably children) to a magical and horrifying place called
Christmasland.
Even though this novel had me so frightened I had to set it
down for a day or two before I could confront its pages again,
it's an absolute must read for anyone who loves a solid scare.
Even if you're not all that into horror, the fantasy aspect of
Hill's book is so in-depth and well considered that it deserves
more than my own humble praise. An entire world has been
made that lies just beneath our own; a world in which bicycles,
scrabble tiles, and vintage cars can help people do brilliant or
terrifying things.
Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
I know I'm not the first person to pick up this book and tell
you about it since only a few months ago it had a big screen
release, but I might be the first person to tell you how much it
annoyed me.
I'm not sure if it was because everyone told me how brilliant
and amazing and moving the story was, but I was bitterly
disappointed with this book. The story itself was interesting
enough; a young girl moves from the comfort of her family in
Ireland to a new and brilliant life in New York, and illustrates
how she changes and grows in each contrasting home. But for
someone who has a pretty amazing life, man that bitch can
complain.
I got sick of the protagonist's whinging and honestly, her
poor life choices. More than once I was yelling in frustration
at the pages, and I just couldn't sympathise with any of the
characters (I don't know why though, maybe it was poor
writing, maybe I'm heartless). I really think that because very
few characters were likable or even relatable, a story that had
such promising potential could have given so much more.
Slade House by David Mitchell
You've probably seen or heard of Cloud Atlas, or maybe
you've even read The Bone Clocks, and if you have, you'll surely
be aware of David Mitchell's outstanding ability to tap into
a world so unlike our own and completely bring it to life on
paper.
Slade House is one of Mitchell's shorter novels, and is
written so tenderly that your eyes will just glaze over the
words effortlessly. It follows several short snippets of different
character's lives as they are lured to the mystical Slade House
and find escape impossible.
Slade House isn't only impressive because of its brilliant,
fast-paced plot and witty characters. Mitchell delicately creates
his fantastic world, and we can see that this book, apparently a
stand-alone novel, is actually inter-related to his other works.
And this is a feat that Mitchell has done in all of his novels.
Minor characters will crop up sporadically and disappear so
often that you'll hardly even remember seeing them until you
actively note each person in every book, and how they interact
so cleverly in Mitchell's entire world.
The Messenger by Markus Zusak
I was recommended this book by a friend, and after putting
it off for a good while simply because (don't kill me) I never
managed to finish The Book Thief, I finally read it just to get this
mate off my back. And honestly, I'm glad she pestered me for
so long.
The story shows us the dull and unimpressive life of a young
taxi-driver, Ed who one day receives a mysterious playing card
in his mail box outlining missions that may make his seemingly
purposeless life worthwhile again. With the completion of each
task, more playing cards are sent to Ed and that one question
kept pushing me to turn the pages; "Who the hell is sending
these cards?"
The Messenger is an incredibly gripping mystery with
relatable and clever characters. Zusak has managed to give
us a hero unlike any we've read about before and have this
hero handle unbelievable challenges. It's that mixture of
sheer mystery, heart-warming friendship, and heart-breaking
confrontations that'll have you recommending this one to
others in no time.
Lot’s Wife | 51

52 | Lot’s Wife
Illustration by
Elizabeth Bridges

POETRY
Apocalypso:
The Waves
by Amelia Chin
I am struggling. I sit at my desk with all my loves circling around my head with toothy
grins, mottled blue-black ripples all across their sharp calcium hides. There is a song
here that I have forgotten and it goes like…
Here we lie in the valley of the deep
unblinking eyes staring upwards at the rippling azure that is the only sky that we will
ever know
Surrounded by words that will remain unheard, trapped within the pages of what was
never meant to be
We are the unmade past, the unfinished future, the blocks knocked over before we could
build our fabled towers of babel
There’s a universe out there that can’t be traversed,
or we’ll end up in that hearse if we don’t do something first.
I have already killed myself with the longing for what I cannot be, so please, if you meet
me on the road as if I were a Buddha, drown me.
And if you do, I’ll teach you about that sickly intoxication that burrows into your nerves
and forces you to dance along to a melody that never ends
Let me teach you about the cliché of rhyming.
Underneath the veneer of all the fancy (curse) words in rhymed (verse) that lurks under
our service to the surface
we’ll be graceful grateful little pirates sailing across the islands of what we secretly think
we don’t care about but we do
I am struggling. It will never leave me, this scent of salt clinging to my eyes, crystallising
my myriad obsessions so that when you finally crack my skull open maybe you'll find
something beautiful even if I cannot amount to anything.
And all the ages of history we will preserve under there. It will persevere.
We will look back on it and remember the times when we didn’t think that the flood and
the storm were coming, when we stuck our heads in the sandy beaches and let the warm
waves from all them icecaps slowly wash over us-
Be calm, my friends.
We can become silky salty selkies and slip off our human skins, and we can just lay back
and accept that this is how it ends
(The white horse comes at the crest of every wave bringing pestilence and poison and
pollution behind her hooves, and the seafoam cracked open from the sky won’t just
melt into the beach like love but instead)
I remember now. I’m going to need a bigger boat.
Dun duuun dun duuuun da duuuuun! Dun dun dun dun dun dun!
Lot’s Wife | 53

CREATIVE
Absence
by Shannon Ly
54 | Lot’s Wife

PHOTO ESSAY
Lot’s Wife | 55

FICTION
Ordinary Demons
by Justin Jones Li
Augustus hated his job. Why lawyers had to work such unreasonable
hours were beyond him, no matter how many
times it was explained. It was all worth coming home though.
He parked outside his house, a modest single-storey building
with two beds and a bath. Cosy. It was the way he liked it and
needed it.
Roger saw him through the window and opened the front
door as Augustus came up. They kissed.
“How was work?”
“Tiring. And I hate this suit.”
They kissed again.
“No, seriously,” said Augustus. “It’s bright red and so conspicuous.
Gone are the days of subtly taking people’s souls.
Now everyone wants to make a trade.”
“Oh, your CBD assignment will be done soon. Soon you’ll be
back at the retirement home offering a few extra years of life.
In shorts. Now come join me on the couch. I’ve put the kids to
bed already.”
“God, I love you.”
The two of them looked up at the sky to anticipate an imminent
lightning strike. It never came.
“I love you too.”
They kissed for a third time.
Once inside, they sat down on the couch to watch some quality
television. Couples Simultaneously Renovating and Cooking.
Augustus could finally relax in his domestic dream.
Susan and Bjorn were just putting the finishing touches on
the terrace, but they had to rush back and forth between the
oven and the power tools. It was utter chaos. Then it cut to a
shot of Bjorn openly weeping to the camera. Augustus cackled
in delight.
The program suddenly changed. Instead of the emotional
turmoil of ordinary, but well-represented people in mainstream
media, the television now showed a stern East Asian man
peering directly into the non-existent souls of the couple on the
couch.
“Lucifer?” said Augustus. “How may we be of help?”
“I have a job for you. I’ve texted you the GPS coordinates
of a senior executive of a very large company. This person is
seriously considering a career in politics. If you play this right,
their soul could be worth more than that of three corporate
lawyers. Get on it.”
“Look, I just got home from work.”
“And you owe me a solid. I had to spend a lot of souls to get
marriage equality through the door.”
“Are you seriously going to keep guilting me with this? Roger
is right here.”
“What can I say? I’m the devil. And trust me, I can get a
good refund on those souls by changing the law back. Now get
the job done promptly. I don’t want to miss games night at
Beelzebub’s.”
“Hey, if Asmodeus is going to be there,” said Roger, “can you
let him know that I’m really sorry that things didn’t work out?”
Lucifer squinted. “Alright, Roger. But just so you know, you
really hurt him. I don’t know if he can ever forgive you, or even
get over you. Alright, Augustus, I expect that soul in my tray in
two hours. Succeed or else.”
The badly produced reality program came back on. This time,
Susan was cursing at the other contestants, while Bjorn began
binge-eating everyone’s food. Augustus laughed uproariously.
“Aren’t you going to get ready for that job?” asked Roger.
Augustus wrapped his arm around Roger and held him tightly.
“Lucifer be damned. I’ll always choose you.”
And for the fourth time that night, they kissed.
56 | Lot’s Wife

FICTION
The Deep
by Katherine Mitula
People are afraid of the deep. (I’m not.)
They say it’s haunted. They say someone died there
while diving for a piece of coral, that he drowned in his own
blood and water, dragged beneath by unseen arms. Arms like
seaweed, but stronger. They twined around his legs as intimately
as a lover’s caress and wouldn’t let go until he joined them for
eternity in the darkness. That’s what they say.
I don’t believe them. The deep is too beautiful to be deadly.
Though, they say the deadliest things are the prettiest ones.
That’s what the deep is. Pretty, but more than that, at the
same time.
I stand on the deck of the house and gaze out at it, the
wooden boards burning beneath my feet. At first, it looks
ordinary. Ordinary blue, almost black. Black as the night. And
then there’s the coming of the light. The sky is on fire; the deep
shimmers with a thousand tiny suns, blue as sapphires. And
I’m left dazed, wondering: How can anything so beautiful be so
deadly?
***
People leave here to get away from the deep. (They can’t.)
When the deep claims you, it never lets you go. Maybe that’s
what frightens people about it. You take one look at it, and
then you can’t forget. You don’t want to leave that beautiful
place where the sun dazzles and the water dances, where it
seems like anything is possible.
Even if you leave, there’s a part of you that never does and
never will. It’s like the deep takes your will and makes it its
own.
Thoughts flit through your mind, of that place, of what you
left behind, and the world blurs before you, as if nothing else
matters but that single memory. You get a craving, a desperate
need to return to that one place which brought you so much
joy, a need so intense that you have to obey, no matter what.
And so you return, and leave again, and then return again. And
each time there’s a deep feeling of loss, as if your heart is breaking
in two, which seems strange because how can one place
inspire so much feeling? But it’s there, and it doesn’t go away,
no matter what you do.
The deep is like a drug.
Like cocaine, or marijuana. Toxic, but so addictive that people
keep coming back for more. You can’t get enough of it.
It cuts like a knife, setting your heart to bleeding, but you
can’t feel the bleeding because you’re staring at the picture and
it’s so beautiful. Like crystal, translucent and sharp-edged. You
see everything beautiful that you’ve never seen before in that
one glance, and it dazzles you to pieces.
It dazzles me. I take one look at it and I don’t want to ever
leave. How can you leave something that beautiful?
There’s a voice in the back of my mind, warning me.
Reminding me about everything they’ve all said about it. How
it’s dangerous. How it kills. How I should turn away, now, before
it consumes me. I don’t listen.
It’s too late. I never want to leave the deep behind me, never
want to be away from that double-edged beauty. Never want
to feel the loss that other people are feeling right at this very
moment, after leaving the deep behind them. They say that’s a
bad thing. I don’t care.
I sit on the deck, now, and look out at the deep. It’s as
beautiful as always, fiery in the light of the fading sun. Deep. A
fiery deep. It calls to me, will always call to me, and I respond by
staying, by watching it when no one else dares to. I can feel the
beat of my heart in the quiet of this place, in time to the steady
beat of the deep, almost like one entity. Maybe I am one with the
water and the wind and the flaming sky. Maybe it’s consumed
me after all, like it consumed the lone diver. I dance, I soar over
the shimmering waters, my soul bursting, and I think that I’m
dying, except that I’m not. I’m lost in a haze of beauty and pleasure,
where nothing matters except the hammer of my heart and
the freedom of the brazen waves.
I can feel other people around me, talking and laughing. But
I am lost in my own small world. So I watch, and feel as if my
spirit is enlightened by the mysteries of the deep.
***
Lot’s Wife | 57

POETRY
Amphitrite
by Audrey El-Osta
I see you, staring
at my tits. Innocent eyes lost,
diving into an ocean,
fisher-child on a pier,
before you can catch yourself.
Nothing has changed
since last you looked.
I rise and fall, sweeping
across the shore.
It’s always when I wear
my mother’s flowery dress
made for a smaller chest
that I notice it, your eyes
plunge
as I spill over,
warm water in a tub.
Do you wonder
how deep, how wide
you need to split and spread
me open, to dive in headfirst
peering into my ribcage
to find my heart?
You have far to go, to
wade,
to find me.
58 58 | Lot’s | Lot’s Wife Wife

Illustration by Eliza Stribling