Feminism
Dear Mary: Why does my feminist friend always expect me to pay for dinner?
Q. One of my very best female friends has got into the habit of lecturing me on gender equality, in…
George Eliot was much more radical than we give her credit for
It’s easy to forget, as we celebrate the 200th anniversary of her birth, how radical George Eliot actually was. The…
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Alcohol is the perfect cure for deafness
New York A busy ten days, or nights rather, with some heroic drinking thrown in for good measure. Hangovers…
A 90-minute slog up to a dazzling peak: ‘Master Harold’… and the boys reviewed
Athol Fugard likes to dump his characters in settings with no dramatic thrust or tension. A prison yard is a…
The enduring allure of ‘er indoors
‘She’s only a bird in a gilded cage, a beautiful sight to see. You may think she’s happy and free…
Why Simone de Beauvoir is my kind of woman
New York A strange thing happened to me here in the Bagel last week. Having read the recent review…
The Kan-do spirit: Under Red Skies, by Karoline Kan, reviewed
The defining feature of Chinese millennials is not Instagram, avocado on toast or propertylessness. Born in the early years of…
Cindy Sherman – selfie queen
The selfie is, of course, a major, and to me mysterious, phenomenon of our age. The sheer indefatigability of selfie-takers,…
What Mary Wollstonecraft writes about motherhood is still so relevant
Walking into Fingal’s Cave, after scrambling across the rocks to reach it from the landing stage where the boat from…
Enveloping and gorgeous: Cate Le Bon reviewed
The last time Bikini Kill played in London was in a room that now serves as the restaurant of a…
Poetic and profound: The Starry Messenger reviewed
Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote the movie Manchester by the Sea, shapes his work from loss, disillusionment, small-mindedness, hesitation and superficiality,…
Sunday night on the Beeb was an orgy of virtue-signalling and third-rate sport
After its new costume drama You Go, Girl! (Sundays) about how amazing, empowered and better-than-men women are, especially if they…
The forgotten masterpieces of Amy Beach
At the Wigmore Hall last Friday, the Takacs String Quartet and Garrick Ohlsson played a piano quintet that was once…
Feminism for the Fleabag generation: The Polyglot Lovers, by Lina Wolff, reviewed
Everyone behaves badly in The Polyglot Lovers — no saving graces. It’s a complex, shifting structure of sex, self-hatred and…
Feminism has succeeded – so why don’t we call it quits?
You would think that the British Film Institute’s sponsorship of a month-long festival celebrating some of the most memorable female…
Is anything creepier than a ‘male feminist’?
Over a drink recently I sat next to a man who announced, barely before he’d taken his first sip, that…
Rebel girls of the 13th century
Women who can — however tenuously — be described as ‘rebel girls’ are big in publishing now. Goodnight Stories for…
A tease for #MeToo
Titania McGrath is the alter ego of the schoolteacher Andrew Doyle. A perpetually enraged ‘activist, healer and radical intersectional poet’,…
Slow-moving tale with a strong echo of Brideshead: Alys, Always at the Bridge reviewed
Nicholas Hytner’s new show, Alys, Always, is based on a Harriet Lane novel that carries a strong echo of Brideshead.…
Finally a Marvel film that doesn’t entirely bore the pants off Deborah Ross
Captain Marvel is the 654th film in the Marvel franchise — the figure is something like that, I think —…
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I was forced to wear a hijab. It wasn’t liberating
It was World Hijab Day earlier this month. You probably missed it, but you can imagine the idea: ‘global citizens’…
Zoë Ball has the voice and warmth but not so much the chat
Whether by accident or design, Zoë Ball took over the coveted early-morning slot on Radio 2 this week just as…
Should we all write ‘feminist’ stocking fillers?
I arrived at Waterloo, half an hour before my train departed. Needing to buy a birthday card, I popped into…
Refreshingly understated: BBC1’s Mrs Wilson reviewed
Shortly before her husband’s funeral, the undertaker told the eponymous main character in Mrs Wilson (BBC1, Tuesday) that, ‘We’re here…
Why we’re lying to ourselves over trans rights
On 21 November, a debate took place in the House of Commons about proposals to reform the Gender Recognition Act…
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