Feminism

It was International Women’s Day on Wednesday of this last week. The Guardian had enjoined its readers to send in reports of what they had done to advance the struggle, or how they had been in some way oppressed by men — perhaps raped, or talked to as if they were stupid, or looked at a little coldly when they squirted breast milk over fellow diners at The Ivy. I tried to think of something I had done for the cause but came up short, sad to say. So instead I tried to show solidarity by spending a substantial amount of International Women’s Day looking at a photograph of Emma

There’s a real whiff of hypocrisy about Emma Watson’s latest shoot for Vanity Fair, in which she poses semi-nude. Women’s magazines will tell you it’s stunning, artistic, so feminist, and the rest, but the lady doth pose too much, methinks. This is, after all, the gal who’s spent the last three years lecturing others about breaking away from the limitations of gender; who once said ‘with airbrushing and digital manipulation, fashion can be an unobtainable image that’s dangerously unhealthy.’ Yeah, yeah. It’s Watson’s brand of ‘have your cake and eat it’ feminism that has proven particularly bothersome; a variety that has largely been swallowed up by the public, ever since her appointment as the UN Women Goodwill

We now know that the video of a cyclist confronting a catcalling driver, which spent much of yesterday being circulated on social media and covered in the national press, was staged. Barely had viewers finished cheering on the woman as she tore the wing mirror off the side of her harasser’s van than the truth emerged. An eyewitness told the Sun, ‘They practiced the scene two or three times with the motorbike riding behind them. You could see there was already damage to the wing mirror, it was loose.’ The company that hosted the video, Jungle Creations, has now issued a statement claiming that although it was under the impression that

There aren’t many toy companies that could make headlines in the business press merely by expanding their London offices — ‘Lego blocks out Brexit concerns’ — but Lego is not like other toy companies. Last week it was named the world’s most powerful brand by the consultancy Brand Finance; this week the second Lego movie is opening in cinemas; the University of Cambridge will shortly be appointing its first Lego professor of play. For a company that, a decade ago, was losing $1 million a day, this is a remarkable reconstruction. But Lego has spent those ten years regaining ‘belief in the brick’, according to its new British chief executive, Bali

I like to prance around showing off in hats and shouting at men as much as the next broad but – apart from the fact that I can get it at home – there were several reasons why I chose not to join a whole batch of my bitches on the Women’s March this weekend. Firstly, I was sure it would be full of ‘Strong Women‘, a phrase I hate at the best of times – and feel should only be used if the lady in question can tear a telephone directory in half with her bare hands – and which seemed especially inappropriate to describe a bunch of overgrown Violet

Can you be a Disney princess and the feminist messiah? I wondered this earlier this week, upon seeing new images released for the new Beauty and the Beast film. It stars She Almighty – Emma Watson – the woman who hates female subjugation, gender stereotypes and all-round sexism, yet will be in a franchise that romanticises all three. In fact, Watson’s career choice confirms my suspicions that she is not the militant campaigner the world has taken her for, but mushy and romantic. As I saw her in Belle’s yellow gown – which I had myself aged four – I tried to imagine Germaine Greer and Camille Paglia doing the same,

Glamour magazine has announced its annual women of the year awards, and, this year, they’re naming a man of the year too. Paul Hewson – or as we know him, the prat in glasses, or, Bono – has been given the award for being one of the ‘most outspoken advocates for women and girls’. Glamour certainly knows how to create a headline. Last year, it was transgender athlete Caitlyn Jenner who won woman of the year; this time round the magazine has gone for a smaller, less stylish, but equally annoying bloke to grab some attention. It was Bono’s ‘Poverty Is Sexist’ campaign, which draws attention to the fact that ‘powerful

Talking to Camille Paglia is like approaching a machine gun: madness to stick your head up and ask a question, unless you want your brain blown apart by the answer, but a visceral delight to watch as she obliterates every subject in sight. Most of the time she does this for kicks. It’s only on turning to Hillary Clinton that she perpetrates an actual murder: of Clinton II’s most cherished claim, that her becoming 45th president of the United States would represent a feminist triumph. ‘In order to run for president of the United States, you have to spend two or three years of your life out on the road