Why Lot's Wife?
Lot's Wife was named from the famous Biblical passage. Lot and his wife were spared God's wrath at Sodom on the condition that they never looked back. Once safe, Lot's wife was overcome by curiosity to see what had happened to their town, and looked back. God was furious and made her into a pillar of salt.
The Monash student newspaper in the early 1960s was called Chaos. It published such sexist and derogatory material that infuriated students stormed the office and established Lot's Wife. The first edition of Lot's Wife cites the reason for the choice of name was not only to 'not look back,' but also *that the student paper is a pillar of university society, however, 'it must not be a rock-like support for intellectual complacency, nor staid or respectable. That kind of pillar either stands stolidly for generations in an ever-increasing depth of silt, or it staggers beneath the weight of dead material above it.' *'it might be likened to a pillar of salt, adding a distinctive savour to an ever-changing menu of intellectual aliment. Or.. as an irritant to keep us aware of the wounds daring iconoclasts have opened. *Lot's wife didn't have the sense to see that she was being given a chance to escape the Bad Old Days, so she's probably still gazing in stony affection at the remains of a culture that had well and truly had its day.
