I’ll always remember the condescending smile on the face of my interlocutor as I finally walked away. The argument was, unbelievably, about the continuing need for feminism, which my adversary contended was out of date. “Can you name a single instance in your life where you’ve been discriminated against?” My failure to come up with … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Feminism
Powerful Contemporary Relevance: Blue Stockings at Shakespeare’s Globe
Repost: with One Stop Arts closing, I migrated this review here. In a time when young women are still shot in the head for pursuing the right to an education, the conflicts explored in Jessica Swale’s first play, Blue Stockings, could not be more urgent. John Dove directs a witty and rousing production at Shakespeare’s Globe. … Continue reading
Powerful Contemporary Relevance: Blue Stockings at Shakespeare’s Globe
Repost: with One Stop Arts closing, I migrated this review here. In a time when young women are still shot in the head for pursuing the right to an education, the conflicts explored in Jessica Swale’s first play, Blue Stockings, could not be more urgent. John Dove directs a witty and rousing production at Shakespeare’s Globe. … Continue reading
The Bellicose Beauty of Penthesilea at the Space
Repost: with One Stop Arts closing, I migrated this review here. In a time when social expectations of the female body in public space seem a particularly vexed issue at the forefront of the public imagination, Penthesilea opens vital space for exploring how those expectations might be reimagined. It also begs the question of what we … Continue reading
The Bellicose Beauty of Penthesilea at the Space
Repost: with One Stop Arts closing, I migrated this review here. In a time when social expectations of the female body in public space seem a particularly vexed issue at the forefront of the public imagination, Penthesilea opens vital space for exploring how those expectations might be reimagined. It also begs the question of what we … Continue reading
Stripped Star Trek: When is it Gratuitous?
A while back I wrote glowingly about the new Star Trek film (or rather, I wrote glowingly about the idea of Starfleet and how fabulous it would be to work there.) There was this one scene in the film that has drawn a lot of criticism from feminists–I don’t think it will be too much … Continue reading
Merry Widows and Gay Divorcees: Gender & Power in Marriage Narratives
After reading my friend & colleague Dr Jem Bloomfield’s post on Twelfth Night and “Mapp and Lucia”, which focused on the discomforts caused by sexual tension (or imagined sexual tension) between sets of people in social power relationships of inequality, I had some follow-up thoughts. For Jem, the focus of these two narratives on “the … Continue reading
Meeting the Neighbors
Last week appears to have been a week for testing my mettle. The day after Bus Day, I was running an errand in my neighborhood in the middle of the morning. I walked from Shadwell station towards my house; in front of me a couple walked along the road together, laughing. Suddenly he reached out, … Continue reading
Spinning their wheels or driving change?
This is an excerpt from a blog I wrote for the Independent. Click the link to read the rest: o The women of Saudi Arabia are again challenging the ban that prevents them from obtaining driver’s license. Over the weekend approximately 50 women around the Gulf nation took to the wheel, some making videos of … Continue reading
“Yeah, we did it.”
This is an excerpt from a blog I wrote for the Independent. Click the link to read the rest: o Sexual assault and rape are well-documented weapons in situations of armed conflict. They also feature as a control technique deployed by many totalitarian regimes. This includes the newly overthrown Egyptian government, in which the sexual … Continue reading