Feminism
Viva la vulva!
I spent half an hour this week listening to a woman make a plaster cast of her vulva. Kat Harbourne,…
The controversy paradox
The less something is a problem, the more people talk about it
Breast is best
This week, BBC1 brought us a three-part dramatisation of an ‘unprecedented crisis’ in recent British life. Among other things, it…
Slayed queens: the girlboss, dethroned
The girlboss is dead. Intersectionality killed her. Female CEOs who sacrificed their twenties to build their women-focused businesses are being…
Speak up for J.K. Rowling
Nerds everywhere are frantically googling tattoo removal services this week, as the author who inspired their ink failed to STFU…
Hiding Biden is the best way to get him elected
So Mrs American Voter, which septuagenarian sex abuser do you want to be President? The whole ‘#MeToo’ business probably should…
When perving was the norm
Misbehaviour is a film about the 1970 Miss World contest that was disrupted by ‘bloody women’s libbers’ — that’s what…
A thousand and one nightmares
The Moroccan-born Leïla Slimani has made her name writing novels of propulsive intensity. Lullaby, the story of a nanny who…
Are you suffering from Elizabeth Warren Denial Syndrome?
Elizabeth Warren did not die in a tragic accident yesterday. But judging by the reactions of America’s journalists and academics,…
Monopoly
I’ve been playing a lot of Monopoly recently. My son got his first grown-up set for Christmas and, even after…
Why I’m standing by an old enemy
Most people won’t have heard of Selina Todd. The only reason I had was because some years ago the BBC…
Doing Chekhov by halves
Uncle Vanya opens with a puzzle. Is the action set in the early 20th century or right now? The furnishings…
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…
