The Power of Words
Every time I’ve travelled before (and by that I mean more than a holiday) I’ve been on my own, or in the presence of other women. Living in China, travelling round South East Asia, in Botswana for a month, I was never with a man. We’ve just arrived in Santiago, and it’s the first time […]
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Genderspecs – changing gendered perspectives, one blog at a time. It’s always a joyous moment when I receive an email telling me that the next podcast episode of ‘The Guilty Feminist’ is out. This time the theme was ‘Taking Up Space,’ and how women don’t tend to do it quite as much as men. I’ve […]
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I know I’m massively behind the times in reading this, but as I’m currently working on a similar narrative, several people recommended this graphic novel as a good place to look at how a gender-imbalanced dystopia played out. Interesting ideas, some lessons learned, and a few pitfalls to avoid. On a day in 2002, a […]
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There’s something immensely satisfying in a novel that appears to start out one way, and then takes you somewhere you weren’t expecting. Initially, A Little Life appears to be a well-written if slightly superficial account of a group of young men in New York. The prose is beautiful, but not laboriously so. At a moment […]
Read MorePersonally, I’m not a fan of the word ‘genius.’ It’s derived from ‘genie.’ The idea that a little imp comes and sits on your shoulder and gives you an idea, and that’s where your fantastic work comes from. To me, that detracts from the graft, the inspiration, the dedication, needed in order to produce something […]
Read MoreGenderspecs – unpicking gender stereotypes, one blog at a time There’s an awful lot that can empower you these days. Shower gel, pants and even socks are being held up as things that allow us to assert our rights. To a certain extent, this can be true. The physical expression of who we are can allow […]
Read MoreRecently, a man complained about being forced to go to ‘consent’ lessons at University. I can see his point. Not only is it a little bit insulting, but it’s probably a little bit late. But what else are Universities supposed to do? When one in seven women in University will experience some form of sexual assault, […]
Read MoreSo what’s your book about then? It’s the obvious question, once you’ve fessed up to what you spend a large chunk of your time doing. There are several options here. You can keep it vague, although you run the risk of sounding pretentious: It’s about gender identity. You can make it very specific, more about […]
Read MoreHonestly, the way everyone keeps on going on about boring politics (apart from, unsurprisingly, The Metro) anyone would think there was a major election about to happen. Oh, hang on… So what is a person to do? In the UK, it would seem, this is a far more complicated question than you would think. You might assume […]
Read MoreIt’s definitely a reason to be cheerful. In Devon last week, people were on the beach in actual bikinis (I was in my boyfriend’s shorts as I’d packed a little pessimistically). Flip flops were flapping well into the night, despite plummeting evening temperatures (I couldn’t feel my feet) and everywhere the glow of red faces […]
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