Quarterly Essay: On Women, Freedom and Misogyny: Anna Goldsworthy

Western women today enjoy unprecedented freedom and power – but it can sometimes seem to be a game of two steps forward, one step back.

Yes, Julia Gillard is our first female prime minister … but her legitimacy has been questioned throughout, and the criticism aimed at her has been curiously gender-specific, from cries of ‘witch’ to calls for her to ‘make an honest woman of herself’.

And while feminism dominates social media and commentators like Clementine Ford and Caitlin Moran attract legions of fans, popular culture is constantly winking at us with storylines featuring submissive women, from Mad Men to Fifty Shades.

In the fiftieth Quarterly Essay, renowned memoirist and concert pianist Anna Goldsworthy lays bare the dilemmas of being a woman today.