"I won't be resigning because I'm quite comfortable with what I said," Molony told the Townsville Bulletin. "Mount Isa, my city, has taken the Olympic Games off the front page of papers all over Australia and the world and I've never heard of that happening before…People have supported me everywhere and at the moment I feel like I'm sitting on the top of Mount Kosciusko."

Someone needs to explain the notion of negative attention to Mr. Molony. You know what other locales have made the front page of many papers? Three Mile Island and Chernobyl! Doesn't mean anyone wants to live in or visit your damn burg.

Anyway, the inimitable Kira Cochrane of the Guardian takes Molony's blustering as an opportunity to explore the stereotype that Australian men are chauvinists. We're all familiar with Australian-born Mel Gibson and his "sugar tits" rant, but Cochrane also points out examples of sexism in Australian media and politics. She quotes Labor leader Mark Latham, who was concerned that Australian men are having a crisis of masculinity, with "mates and good blokes" being replaced "by nervous wrecks, metrosexuals, knobs and tossbags." Hahahaha "knobs and tossbags"!! Sorry. Cochrane concludes that despite knobs like Latham, Australian society is no more chauvinistic than any other. What's more marked about the Aussies is their strong women. "The country has produced some of the world's most prominent feminists - Germaine Greer, Carmen Callil, Lynne Segal," Cochrane notes, and "In fact, if there's one aspect of the Mount Isa story that really stands out for me, it's the women's response…As we went to press, they were organising a protest rally on the lawns of the civic centre. Now, that's the spirit."

Ugly' Mt Isa Locals Turn On Publicity-Hungry Mayor Molony [Townsville Bulletin]
The Ugly Face Of Oz [Guardian]

We're living in a time in which, it often seems, stars rule. They grace magazine covers, shill products, draw attention to charities, make headlines by getting divorced, giving birth or entering rehab. And yet, as Cochrane writes:

We've seen scrutiny of women reach unprecedented levels. In gossip magazines, women's bodies are pored over - a pound gained provoking headlines that they're fat, a pound lost leading to headlines that they're too thin. Circles are drawn around a spot on their ankle where they've failed to apply fake tan, around a bitten nail or a tiny, incipient wrinkle beside their eye - which could just be a stray lash. What is implicit but unsaid is that there is no objective standard of beauty, no level of perfection that a woman could reach at which her body would be perceived as acceptable and in control… The constant message is that women's bodies are not our own. They belong to everyone but us, and are there to be picked apart.

Here's a fun exercise: Think of 5 celebrities you love, and 5 celebs you hate. Now: Are all of the stars you despise women? Meanwhile, abortion rights are in trouble, recorded rapes are at an all-time high (though the number rape crisis centers has declined) and the sex industry — hookers, strippers and internet porn — is booming. As long as you're a woman marketing yourself to or serving a man, you're A-OK. So. Are we experiencing a feminism backlash? Does our culture hate, degrade and vilify women? Do we, as women, hate ourselves? And if the answers are all yes, what can we do about it?

Now, The Backlash [Guardian]

Cochrane shows Tilley as anything but a shrinking violet. "There is something so active and punchy about Tilley's language, that it seems very difficult to imagine her doing anything that she didn't want to do," Cochrane writes. But what about Freud's children, whom he painted in the nude as teenagers? His daughter Rose said of posing in the nude for her pops, "People think there must be an Oedipal thing because of Sigmund Freud, but there isn't." You're right, it's an Electra thing! Freud's other daughter, Esther, who posed for him at 16, said she got to know her father through his painting her. "We'd never lived in the same city before…I simply took my clothes off and sat on a sofa when he asked. It never occurred to me to be ashamed."

There is something to be said for not being ashamed of one's nudity, but in the context of a father gazing upon his offspring's naked flesh for hours on end, it must be said that the matter is a little more complex than Esther is allowing. Just as the recent Australian scandal over nude photographs of young girls shows.

Here's the story: Police shut down a Sydney art exhibition of photographer Bill Henson's work because it featured naked photos of 12 and 13 year old girls. Even the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, came out against Henson, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. "I find [the photographs] absolutely revolting…Whatever the artistic view of the merits of that sort of stuff - frankly I don't think there are any - just allow kids to be kids."

Rudd's assumption is that there is something sexual or at least sinister going on between photographer and subject that robs the subject of her innocence. Again, I don't think the matter is that cut and dry. Though it is undeniable that there are power dynamics at play, it remains to be seen whether those dynamics are necessarily destructive.

[Photograph of Lucien Freud's "Benefits Supervisor Sleeping" by Martin Goodwin]

The Eye Of The Muse [Guardian]
Rudd Revolted [Sydney Morning Herald]

Earlier: Being A Muse Kinda Sucks

At first, she explains, she felt great. She no longer had to have stupid conversations about carbs or compare dress sizes with friends. "It felt liberating," she admits. But as she gained more and more weight she realized all the downsides: Fitting in seats on airplanes, buses and movie theaters; the anxiety that accompanies folding chairs. "To be clear, I didn't hate myself — I've been depressed, I know what self-hate feels like, and this didn't come close — but I didn't feel completely comfortable in myself either," she explains. What's a girl who hates the weight-loss industry to do? She's going on a diet! And writing about it.

I won't be including updates on lost kilos (I don't weigh myself). I won't be providing fabulous tips for reducing the size of your behind (what do I know? I just plan to eat less and exercise more). I shall simply be charting some months in the life of a person who is, at best, reluctant about diets, and, at worst, disgusted by the very notion, but who knows, unfortunately, that something must be done. I warn you: there will be grumpiness.

Losing It [Guardian]
Related: Queen Latifah Signs On to Endorse Jenny Craig [People]