The F Word Address: Alison Whittaker

Due to personal reasons, Alison Whittaker is no longer able to deliver the F Word Address on this date. We hope Alison’s address will be rescheduled in early 2019.

The F Word Address is our annual talk from an outstanding Australian woman on a pressing feminist issue. This year, our speaker is the phenomenal Alison Whittaker: poet, essayist, legal scholar and Gomeroi woman.

Whittaker’s address will focus on criminal justice and the links between incarceration and gendered violence. Prison numbers for both men and women are swelling dramatically across the country. Between 2007 and 2017, the total number of women in prison in Australia increased by 77%. Indigenous women are the fastest growing segment in Australia’s prison population.

In a 30-minute talk, followed by a short interview and audience Q&A, Whittaker will discuss the sentencing and policing changes that have triggered these skyrocketing rates. She’ll outline the feminist case against the imprisonment of women, especially Indigenous women, within the context of gendered violence. She’ll also discuss alternatives, beyond prison, for perpetrators of violence against women.