By Imogen Abbott
Walking into the Feminist Firebrands event at the Sydney Writers’ Festival, the audience was female dominated.
In each row you were guaranteed to find at least one person with a notebook and pen in hand, attentively listening to each word.
The panel brought together a lawyer, a journalist, and an activist – Jennifer Robinson, Hannah Ferguson and Sisonke Msimang – and was hosted by former SWF CEO Jo Dyer.
Throughout the course of an hour the women spoke about a range of challenging topics, including issues that have been circulating in the news such as the case of Brittany Higgins.
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Ferguson is the CEO of Cheek Media Co., a media platform aimed at an audience of young adults.
She was left “deeply traumatised and wanting to make change” after seeing how the law was “failing to deal with the epidemic” of gender-based violence, through cases such as Higgins’. This led her to creating Cheek Media, which she says is the news “younger me needed”.
Through Cheek and her book Bite Back, Ferguson has reported on the media prejudice that surrounds the Higgins case, as well as sharing confronting statistics.
In the case of Higgins, the former liberal staffer faced defamation claims after speaking out.
Given this demoralising consequence, combined with less than two per cent of rape cases being prosecuted, Robinson said we may as well “not have rape laws”.
As a media lawyer and feminist author, Robinson, who represented Amber Heard during her 2020 defamation case, had a lot to say regarding this case.
She, along with Msimang, spoke about how the justice system is a male-centric institution.
Relating the case of Heard to that of Higgins, where both women were met with outside backlash, Robinson said that “juries reflect the societal attitudes in media that Hannah writes about”.
Ferguson said her aim is to “fight the rhetoric” of patriarchal prejudice through her writing.
The audience remained thoughtfully observant throughout the whole event, but laughs were let out when it started to get a little less serious.
Midway through the inspiring seminar, the question of “Man or Bear?” was brought up. This TikTok trend was explained by Ferguson.
After a light-hearted debate of “man or bear?”, the speakers deepened the feminist perspective of the issue.
Msimang shared how she has had the light-hearted conversation of “man or bear?”’” with her two children, who are both in their early teens. She turned this into a discussion about how influential media can be with young audiences, describing how her son was easily influenced by the dangerous teachings of Andrew Tate.
@hannahferguson__ #manorbear ♬ original sound – Hannah Ferguson
Msimang said that people need to be “pragmatic regarding conversations to allow capacity for change”.
The speakers also pointed out the debate’s relation to #MeToo, with both the trend and the movement receiving an accusatory backlash of “not all men”.
Dyer said that it’s “not all men, but it’s a hell of a lot”.
Robinson followed up: “How many bad apples does it take before we cut down the f****** orchard?”
Referencing the #MeToo movement, as well as the cases of Higgins and Heard, the speakers spoke about how society and the media respond to the accused being acquitted.
“What does it mean to belong in a country where a man can be publicly acquitted?” asked Msimang.
“Even if he’s acquitted, it doesn’t mean she lied,” added Robinson.
Featured image: Jennifer Robinson, Sisonke Msimang, Hannah Ferguson and host Jo Dyer. Photo: Jacquie Manning/SWF
