Tag Archives: feminism

Why the 90s was a bloody brilliant decade to be a young woman (despite the backlash)

Wrote this 2 years ago. It inspired 3 bonus questions on University Challenge in August 2018. (A lot has happened, like #MeToo) But posting it here Marcel Proust- style after finally seeing kd lang on her Ingenue at 25 tour … Continue reading

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Jodie Foster on why The Silence of The Lambs is a perfect film

I recently wrote about why the 1990s was such an amazing time to be a young woman. Jodie Foster confirmed the sense of a breakthrough at a screening of The Silence of The Lambs on Friday night at the BFI … Continue reading

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The making of John Ruskin’s Eurythmic Girls

John Ruskin’s Eurythmic Girls is a Radio 3 Sunday Feature which airs this Sunday Feb 26th at 645pm Intellectual and art school champion of medieval art he may have been, but it is John Ruskin’s alleged horror of female pubic … Continue reading

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How to win the coming culture war in 2017

A version of this article first appeared in The Big Issue magazine in January 2017. Journalism worth paying for. Available weekly from street vendors or subscriptions here. History rarely falls into neat numerical decades. I would assert the 1980s (yuppies, … Continue reading

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We’ll get the President we deserve: Suzan Lori Parks on Hillary Clinton & America’s woman problem

“You’ve consumed too much of the Kool-Aid that the man has been serving you.” Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Susan Lori Parks came into the Front Row studio last week to talk about When Father Came Home From The Wars opening at … Continue reading

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The economics of burkas, bikinis & The Nice Guys

  According to a recent BBC World Service programme about Malawi, the nation’s population hit 17.6 million this year and is expected to double by 2040, which the country’s finance minister described as “scary”. “A ticking timebomb of poverty and … Continue reading

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Johnny Guitar? You probably think this film is about you.

This is the text of an introduction I gave at a re-release screening of Johnny Guitar at the British Film Institute on May 6th 2016 I saw Johnny Guitar for first time here at the BFI to whom I”ll always … Continue reading

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The Danish Girl & the trouble with “real” women

This article first appeared in The Big Issue Magazine – journalism worth paying for. And here’s a link to Tom Hooper’s Front Row interview with me, revealing the extent of his research and discussion with transgender women in preparation for making … Continue reading

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Marriage, Margaret Thatcher & the closet of female expectations

This article first appeared in The Big Issue. Journalism worth paying for (subscriptions available) For years my mother kept an entire cupboard where she used to save up things for my trousseau; the old fashioned concept of a bride’s personal … Continue reading

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Where are all the women refugees?

A version of this column first appeared in The Big Issue magazine in September 2015 One of the strange realizations of being on the Channel 4 series It Was Alright In the 1970s was, when they showed me clips, how … Continue reading

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