The Duck of Minerva

Megan MacKenzie

Megan MacKenzie is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney in Australia. Her main research interests include feminist international relations, gender and the military, the combat exclusion for women, the aftermaths of war and post-conflict resolution, and transitional justice. Her book Beyond the Band of Brothers: the US Military and the Myth that Women Can't Fight comes out with Cambridge University Press in July 2015. https://www.cambridge.org/ee/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/international-relations-and-international-organisations/beyond-band-brothers-us-military-and-myth-women-cant-fight?format=PB

Recent Posts

FP Issue is More Teenage Pop Mag than ‘Sex’ Issue

by Megan MacKenzie | 27 April, 2012 |

After reading the FP special 'sex' issue this week I had the strangest feeling. It was like I woke up and it was 1991 and I was 13 again reading teen magazines. After reading Charli's excellent post on the issue I couldn't help but chime in. You see, I know that one of the obvious retorts to some of the criticism that has been waged about the issue will be 'Hey, it was meant to raise a few issues and have some fun while we're at it. We're riffing off the Cosmo style 'sex' issue and just mixing it up. Lighten up." Ok, fair play FP. But keeping with that theme let me start by saying that most...

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Roseanne vs Kim: TV icons and the Republican ‘war on women’

by Megan MacKenzie | 19 March, 2012 |

Over the last few weeks it has been hard not to get overwhelmed by all the headlines related to the Republican primaries and women. There has been theRush Limbaugh fiasco, with Rush outdoing his usual dink-guisting self by calling law student Sarah Fluke a slut. This has been followed by outrageous comments from almost all the Republican candidates: Romney just declared that he would get rid of planned parenthood, Newt has had a consistent 'woman problem' (and I don't mean his two ex-wives), and Santorum has had a string of great one-liners, including the recent declaration that sex should...

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All Male Soldiers are Rapists and all Female Soldiers are Weak Homewreckers: Fox News on Female Soldiers

by Megan MacKenzie | 22 February, 2012 |

I mostly try to let Fox News polemics slide past me like water off a ducks back. It was easy to dismiss Liz Trotta's first rant about the proposed changes to the US military, which will allow more women into front-line positions (and recognize those women who are already in these posts) but the second iteration, in which she clarifies her position (and clearly reads a diatribe from a prompter) demands another interruption to my blogging hiatus. We should start with a briefing of Liz-isms, including: "hardline feminist," "feminist biology," and "feminist creed." Let's see if these become...

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Whitney Houston, Chris Brown, and Grammy Irony

by Megan MacKenzie | 14 February, 2012 |

image taken from Jezebel.com This Sunday the 2012 Grammy Awards attracted more attention than normal due to the untimely passing of Whitney Houston on the eve of the awards show.During the Sunday night event, numerous artists dedicated their award to Houston or mentioned her amazing talents and the loss her death will mean to the industry.Interestingly, running counter to this somber dedication theme of the evening was a notable counter story: the ordained comeback of Chris Brown's career. Chris Brown was made infamous in 2009 when he was charged with beating his then girlfriend Rihanna....

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What ‘Hot’ Guys Can Tell us About Masculinities and Social Norms

by Megan MacKenzie | 16 October, 2011 |

My second option for a title was: 'How to teach masculinities by looking at pictures of handsome men.' (Note: this photo was sent to me as a humor-gift from one of my students...I didn't do it myself!)Feminist Ryan Gosling, a website featuring photos of actor Ryan Gosling posed next to intelligent quips about feminist politics is a perfect tool to use in a lecture on gender- no really. Why has this website gone viral (it was even re-posted on the Duck last week)? We know from movies and interviews that Gosling is buff (he sports a mean six pack in Crazy Stupid Love) and tough (he recently...

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New Zealand’s Oil Spill and the myth of its ‘100% Pure’ image

by Megan MacKenzie | 13 October, 2011 |

With the rugby world cup semi-final only a few days away, it would take something like a broken ship dumping tons of oil and chemicals onto the country's beaches to get the country to talk anything besides the All Blacks... Wait... New Zealand is all about environmental protection, green energy, clean air (and funny guys like Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Concords) isn't it? I mean, what is a ship with oil even doing near this environmental mecca?Given that the country prides itself on its green and clean image, and given that there is an election in a month, you would think this would...

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Obama ‘how’s that hopey changey stuff working for ya?”

by Megan MacKenzie | 5 October, 2011 |

As the Occupy Wall Street New York movement enters its second week of activity and the movement spreads to LA, Boston, Chicago, Denver and other cities across the country, the silence on the part of the Obama administration becomes more and more noticeable (we can't count Biden's weird and incoherent references to the movement in an interview yesterday). Few expected Obama to come out with any statement last week, when the media was still painting the movement largely as a band of hippies who don't know enough to shower, let alone drive a political movement. Dan Gainor at Fox news pointed...

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Spoiler Alert! Latest Episode of ‘Dictator Survivor: Africa’

by Megan MacKenzie | 1 October, 2011 |

For all you fans of 'Dictator Survivor: Africa,' the forthcoming episode is sure to be the most dramatic one yet. Before this year, fans had gotten tired of some of the story lines and characters (I mean it seems obvious that Mugabe will win, so why bother watching right?), but this last season the international community producers have really intervened to make things more interesting. Forget about Charles Tayor. Sure he was considered at one time to be the front runner in the dictatorship survival race- from the beginning he was named one of the Top Ten African Dictators of all time (no,...

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The Aussie Military Accepts GI Janes into the Ranks

by Megan MacKenzie | 27 September, 2011 |

While the US and UK continue to debate the ways that women impact cohesion and combat effectiveness, effective immediately, the Australian military will allow women to participate in combat roles. Australia joins a small group of countries that have removed combat restrictions for women, which includes Canada, New Zealand, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Norway, Denmark, France, Serbia, Israel and Switzerland.Several individuals within the Australian Defence Forces I've spoken to over the last year have indicated that this policy change has been a long-time coming. Defence...

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Obama Reveals his Superhero Powers at the UN

by Megan MacKenzie | 23 September, 2011 |

The world has been watching this week as the Palestinian Government prepares to make a bid to the Security Council for recognition as an independent state. Many thought Obama had backed himself into a corner with a statement last year declaring his support for Palestinian statehood. But never fear, the President's propensity to dilute astute political goals to the point of meaninglessness appears to be limitless. In fact, if Obama was a superhero it is likely that his power would be to retract from lofty political objectives and political commitments at the speed of light. He entices victims...

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