Feminism
Paying women for housework? Here’s a feminist proposal I actually like
According to a new study published by some feminist academics at the Australian National University, women risk damaging their health…
The Female Persuasion, by Meg Wolitzer reviewed
It’s because it’s the land of the loner that the United States is so loved or loathed. Yet to me…
Terf wars and the ludicrous lexicon of feminist theory
Fiore de Henriquez, a sculptor, had a wonderfully high-windowed studio at the bottom of Cadogan Square, where I sometimes visited…
Kitty Marion: too radical even for the suffragettes
The suffragettes are largely remembered not as firestarters and bombers but as pale martyrs to patriarchy. The hunger artists refusing…
Closing the Queen Elizabeth Hall invigorated the new music scene. Why reopen it?
Imagine the National inviting RuPaul to play Hamlet. Or Tate giving Beryl Cook a retrospective. The London Sinfonietta offered a…
Ramblings takes an unexpected turn
This week’s edition of Ramblings with Clare Balding did all the usual things: a walk in the country (cue breathy…
Sometimes men deserve to be paid more
It is 100 years since women got the vote and I have been joining in the celebrations, on public transport…
Conservatives gave women the vote – but you won’t be reminded of this
A hundred years ago on Tuesday, King George V assented to the Representation of the People Act. Women got the…
Can I be taught how to become a #MeToo Man?
These are tough times for what I call the #MeToo Men — those white, liberal, high-minded men who pride themselves…
The #MeToo fury has spilled over into a feminist war
The #MeToo movement began, I thought, primarily to allow women to speak out about harassment from men, which they had…
Who is Sylvia – what is she?
In May 1956, three months after meeting Ted Hughes, one before they will marry, Sylvia Plath writes to her mother…
A feminist trailblazer
On the evening of 28 October 1908, two unremarkable middle-class women wearing heavy overcoats gained admission to the Ladies’ Gallery,…
A cacophony of complaint
What sort of monster gives a bad review to a book by someone who was gang raped as a 12-year-old…
When did the war on men blight all sides of politics?
When did being a “mediocre white man” become a crime in Australia? When did it become the acceptable butt of…
Dethroned by feminism
I’m a bit worried about Game of Thrones (Sky Atlantic). Not seriously worried: there’s too much money invested, too much…
AFL and the biased politics of sport
Politics thrives and prospers on power. Power seeps through winning over the masses. Where are the masses in Australia? Watching…
Low life
The hen party was seated at an outside restaurant table under the plane trees when I arrived. They sat with…
First Lady of Pop Art
In 1961 the Venezuelan-American sculptor Marisol Escobar made a startling appearance at the New York artists’ group known as the…
There may be trouble ahead
Jane Got a Gun is being sold as a rousing feminist Western although the truth is that it’s about as…
Sex worker
‘Of course,’ said my husband in his worst smirky way, as though waiting for an appreciative chuckle, ‘as soon as…
A trip down Mammary Lane
The V&A is selling £35 Agent Provocateur pants. This is, of course, a business deal because Agent Provocateur — along…
High life
New York Even after all these years, I’m still at times floored by the scale of the place. And…
Feminists for Brexit
Britain is trapped in a bad marriage with the EU. It’s time to leave
Just Williams
It’s tempting to believe that somewhere in the bowels of Broadcasting House in London the voice of Kenneth Williams is…
In defence of gender
Children are not all ‘gender fluid’. It’s dangerous and wrong to try to persuade them that they are
