Preliminary Program

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Key Speakers

Ruth Busch - Associate Professor, School of Law, University of Waikato
Debbie Kilroy - Sisters Inside Inc
Patricia McFadden - Feminist, Activist & Author
Dr Betty McLellan - Associate Professor, James Cook University
Dr S. Carline Taylor PhD - Research Fellow, University of Ballarat
Dr. Karen Boyle - Lecturer in Film & Television Studies at the University of Glasgow

Ruth Busch
Associate Professor, School of Law, University of Waikato

Ruth Busch is an Associate Professor in the Law School at the University of Waikato. Her primary teaching and research interests are in the areas of Family Law and Domestic Violence law reform, focusing on such issues as the impact of domestic violence on child witnesses, domestic violence and its impact on residence/contact decision-making in the Family Court, supervised access, the development of coordinated multi-agency responses to domestic violence, and the (in)appropriateness of restorative justice to deal with domestic violence offending.

Ruth has been a campaigner for domestic violence law reform in New Zealand for the past decade and more. She was a consultant to the New Zealand Justice Department on the drafting of the Domestic Violence Act 1995 and the Guardianship Amendment Act 1995 and has been a long-time legal advisor to the Hamilton Abuse Intervention Project and the National Collective of Independent Women’s Refuges. She is currently working on a research project sponsored by the NZ Ministry of Women’s Affairs analysing Women’s Experiences under the Domestic Violence Act 1995.

Debbie Kilroy
Sisters Inside Inc

Deb Kilroy, OAM, BSocWk, former prisoner Psychotherapist, LLB candidate, Director of Sisters Inside, a community organisation that advocates for the human rights of women in the Criminal Justice System. Debbie continues to be a strong activist, both Nationally and Internationally, on issues relating to the abolition of prisons.

Patricia McFadden
Feminist, Activist & Author

Patricia revels in introducing herself as a Radical African Feminist who does not compromise on women's inalienable rights- anywhere women live and struggle for dignity and integrity. Born in Swaziland over a half century ago Patricia lives and works in Zimbabwe and is based at the Southern African Political Economy Trust. Her work in the women's movement is national and regional in addition to global work in the women's movement on issues of Violation and Sexuality.

Patricia is a well respected feminist activist and scholar, she is presently gathering her many articles written over the past 3 decades on a number of issues impacting women's lives and hope to publish them as a collected volume with South End Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts later in 2005. Her most recent work/writing /activism is focused on issues of citizenship and women's engagements with the state on issues of entitlement and security.

Dr Betty McLellan
Associate Professor, James Cook University

Dr Betty McLellan is one of four women who formed the Coalition for a Feminist Agenda in Townsville and organised the very successful Townsville International Women¹s Conference in July 2002. By profession, she is a Psychotherapist and, by passion, a radical feminist activist concerned primarily about the personal, social and political wellbeing of women. Her doctoral study and much of her subsequent writing focus on the conjunction between psychology and social ethics. She is Adjunct Associate Professor at James Cook University, facilitator of the f-agenda email discussion list and author of three books: Overcoming Anxiety (1992); Beyond Psychoppression: A feminist alternative therapy (1995); and Help! I¹m Living with a (Man) Boy (1999).

Dr S. Carline Taylor PhD
Research Fellow, University of Ballarat

Dr. S. Caroline Taylor is a researcher and author in the field of child and adult sexual violence. Her PhD received a national award (2001) for the most outstanding PhD thesis in social science from an Australian university.

A particular focus of her work has been the socio-legal response to child sexual abuse as well as the trauma and social consequences for child and adult survivors of abuse post-disclosure. She was a member of the Victorian Law Reform Commission Advisory Committee on Sexual Offences (2002-2004) and is currently on the Victoria Police Review Panel for the Code of Practice for Investigating Sexual Offences. She is the author of two recently released books "Court Licensed Abuse" and "Surviving the Legal System: a handbook for adult and child sexual assault survivors and those supporting them".

Dr. Karen Boyle
Lecturer in Film & Television Studies at the University of Glasgow

Dr. Karen Boyle is a Lecturer in Film & Television Studies at the University of Glasgow. Her research focuses on representations of gendered and sexualised violence in the media, work that is grounded in her involvement in the feminist anti-violence sector in Glasgow. She is the author of Media and Violence: Gendering the Debates (Sage, 2005) and has published articles on pornography and violence in a number of journals including Women's Studies International Forum and the Journal of Gender Studies.