Stones, Ripples, Waves: Refiguring The First Stone Media Event Anthea Taylor BA (Hons) MA (Hons) A thesis submitted in full requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of English/Women’s Studies Program University of New South Wales January 2005 Acknowledgements Firstly, I should acknowledge that much of this research was funded by an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA), a Commonwealth Government Scholarship. I consider myself very fortunate to been able to work full-time on this project for the duration of this scholarship. Since April 2001, I have had the privilege of working full-time for the Honourable John Watkins MP, most recently in the Transport portfolio. The knowledge, skills and friends gained in this position have proven invaluable, and I thank him and his former Chief of Staff, Jane Fitzgerald, for the opportunity. The School of English at the UNSW deserves a special word of thanks. A large proportion of this research was conducted, and parts of it written, in an office provided by the School. The School also offered me employment as a research assistant and tutor in both English and Women’s Studies. Thanks to my supervisor, Dr Suzanne Eggins, for carefully reading drafts and providing valuable feedback in its later stages. To my other supervisor, Dr Brigitta Olubas, for reading the penultimate draft. To Dr Helene Bowen Raddeck, outgoing Convenor of the Women’s Studies program, for her e-support and for providing invaluable feedback on one of my chapters. To my current work colleagues: in particular, Simon Hunter, Michelle Flahey, Tina Sorenson, and Josh Murray (also my current Chief of Staff), for making me laugh on a day-to-day basis. Special thanks also to Louise Wagner for her support, encouragement and friendship over the past ten years – and for being one the few people to never utter the words dreaded by every PhD student: ‘Haven’t you finished yet?’ To Rebecca Curran, whose personal and academic support and encouragement have always been unconditional – not to mention her uncompromising feminism. She empathised with the crazy-making pressures of combining fulltime employment with the ‘T’ word, and even found time to carefully read, and comment upon, my drafts. Although her immense intellectual ability will guarantee its success, I wish her all the best for her imminent thesis submission. I thank her profusely for all the cups of tea, countless reassuring emails, and many visits to Glebe, Leichardt and the Feminist Bookshop to ponder our rather ‘daggy’ second wave feminist proclivities. To (now Dr) Ian Collinson, for many years of passionate intellectual sparring – including intense arguments over the ‘evils’ of textual (as opposed to ethnographic) criticism – days in front of the microfilm machines, copious comments on previous drafts, and for his marathon final proof-reading. On both a personal and professional level, I thank him for his energising support when I decided rather late in the process to limit my previously unwieldy thesis to this one media event, and for his unwavering faith in my ability. As a defacto supervisor, I couldn’t have asked for any better. To my brother, Owen, with whom this thesis (in its various incarnations) and I shared a flat for over two years, before he and his partner, Kirsty, left for the UK. Happily, they are home to drink to its submission, and to the birth of their daughter or son this July. Finally, this thesis is dedicated to my parents, Rose and Maurice. This work would never have been possible without many years of unconditional emotional, moral, and financial support. It is my sincere hope that the following work validates their substantial investment. Mum and Dad, I’ve ‘wrapped it up’. ABSTRACT This interdisciplinary study critically revisits the Australian print media’s engagement with Helen Garner’s controversial work of ‘non-fiction’, The First Stone (1995). Print news media engagement with the book, marked by intense discursive contestation over feminism, has been constituted both by feminists and other critics as a significant cultural signpost. However, the highly visible print media event following the book’s publication raised a plethora of critical questions and dilemmas that remain unsatisfactorily addressed. Building upon John Fiske’s work on media events as sites of maximum visibility and discursive turbulence (Fiske: 1996), this study re-theorises the public dialogue following The First Stone’s publication in terms of four constitutive elements: narrative, celebrity, audience, and history and conflict. Through an analysis of these four diverse yet interconnected aspects of the media event, I create a critical space not only for its limitations to emerge but also the frequently overlooked possibilities it offers in terms of the wider feminism and print media culture relationship. As part of its central aim to refigure The First Stone media event, this thesis argues against prior characterisations of the debate as constitutive of either a monologic articulation of conservative, antifeminist voices or an unmitigated attack on its author by a homogenous feminism. In particular, I use this media event as indicative of the sophistication and complexity of media engagement with contemporary feminism, despite both continued derision and overly simplistic celebration of this relationship. Texts subject to analysis here include: The First Stone, various ‘mainstream’ media representations and self-representations of three ‘celebrity feminists’ (Helen Garner, Anne Summers and Jenna Mead), letters to the editor of newspapers and magazines, ‘popular’ feminist books by Kathy Bail and Virginia Trioli, and a number of media texts in which those claiming a feminist subject position and those sympathetic to feminism act as either news sources or columnists/commentators. Although Garner’s narrative is throughout identified to be deeply problematic, I argue that the media event it precipitated provides valuable insights into both the opportunities and the constraints of the print media-feminism nexus in 1990s Australia. Stones, Ripples, Waves: Refiguring The First Stone Media Event Acknowledgements Abstract Page Introduction: 1-18 ‘Stones, Ripples, Waves’ Chapter One: 19-59 Media(ted) Feminisms: Publishing, News and Media Events Chapter Two: 60-104 The Public Life of The First Stone: Production, Circulation, Consumption Chapter Three: Narrative 105-144 Bestselling Feminism – The Textual Politics of The First Stone Chapter Four: Celebrity 145-198 Voices Above Others – Celebrity Feminism in mid-1990s Australia Chapter Five: Audience 199-239 Readers Writing The First Stone Media Event – Letters to the Editor, Australian Feminisms and Mediated Citizenship Chapter Six: History & Conflict 240-288 ‘Mothers’ and ‘Daughters’ – Mediated History, Feminist Conflict and Generational Tropes Conclusion: The Event Refigured 289-297 List of References 298-329 Appendix 330-334 1 Introduction ‘Stones, Ripples, Waves’ A strange thing happened to feminism on its way into the nineties (Marilyn Lake, 1995: 26). The strength of feminism lies in its ability to create discourse, to dispute, to negotiate the boundaries and the barriers, and also to take issue with the various feminisms which have sprung into being (Angela McRobbie, 1994: 72). There is no value to be derived in silencing disputes. The only question is how best to have them, how most productively to stage them, and how to act in ways that acknowledge the irreversible complexity of who we are (Judith Butler, 2001: 416). In March 1995, after a protracted legal battle, Pan MacMillan published a work of non- fiction by well-known Australian author, Helen Garner. The book was loosely based on events at Ormond College, a prestigious residential college of the University of Melbourne, in 1991. The Master of the college was alleged to have sexually harassed two young female students from the university residence under his care and, failing resolution through the College’s internal grievance procedures, was subsequently charged in 1992.1 In The First Stone (1995), Garner maps her deeply emotive, personalised response to these events in a polemic on the limitations of contemporary feminism. The publication of The First Stone (TFS) captured Australian media attention in complex and diverse ways for at least the proceeding two years. While talkback radio, current affairs television, and public events such as literary festivals and forums all engaged with Garner’s text, this work analyses the print media manifestations of this debate. TFS media event raises a plethora of critical questions and dilemmas that remain unsatisfactorily addressed. To help remedy this critical absence, the central aim of this thesis is to reconceptualise the debate in a way that accounts for its limitations and its opportunities for Australian feminism. The vast intertextual web that came to constitute TFS media event marks the opening up of a discursive space within Australian print media previously unavailable to feminism in such a concentrated form. TFS media event has left a mark on the 1 The Master, Alan Gregory (or in Garner’s narrative, ‘Colin Shepherd’), was charged with two counts of indecent assault, subsequently reduced to one; he was convicted but successfully appealed. For valuable summaries and chronologies of these events, see Trioli: 1996 and Goldsworthy, 1996: 64-66. 2 Australian feminist psyche, as it perpetually resurfaces in journals, newspapers, conferences, tutorials, and in day-to-day conversations. It has been common among