It’ll be a week or so before I blog again. My PhD graduation is coming up next week, family and friends are flying in, and there is a lot of celebrating to do! So I will leave you (for a time) with these reflections on my very favorite play. The first time I saw the … Continue reading
Tag Archives: gender
A Return to Wodehousian Sensibilities
I entered a writing contest, but alas didn’t win this time. Here’s what I said: In my travels about London I’ve noticed a return to Wodehousian sensibilities in gentlemen’s attire of which I am very much in favour. Do we not pine for that imagined past when all that stood between us and happiness was … 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
Dedicated followers of fashion in Dubai
This is an excerpt from a blog I wrote for the Independent. Click the link to read the rest: o For women in the Arab world, cross-dressing can be a way of accessing masculine power and privilege. In September 2010 a widely circulated New York Times article covered the practice, believed to be fairly common … 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
Where are the Women? Raising their Voices
Excerpt from Skirt.com, click the link to read the rest 0 Egypt is the word in everyone’s minds the past few days. One question I keep hearing surprised me, though–some have asked me why no women have been out protesting. I could only raise an extremely skeptical eyebrow at them, because on the BBC, CNN … Continue reading
Are You a Man?
Ah, kids. Adolescent insults haven’t improved since I was a sullen fifteen-year-old. Walking in a public park recently I passed a group of teenagers whose commentary, “Hey! You! Hey! Are you a man? Hey! Hey you! Are you a man?” was singularly uninspired. Or at least so I thought. Until a few days later when … Continue reading
Painted Women
I am absolutely in love with this new BBC series, “Desperate Romantics.” It’s about the formation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the Victorian period. It’s being told in the voice of Frederic George Stephens (Fred), a writer portrayed in the series as a moth to the dazzling personalities of the artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Holman … Continue reading
In a Merry Hour: Caitlin E McDonald 