8+ hour, 37+ min ago (1068+ words) Is it over? I mean, of course, the annual Reevesnalia. The festive time of year when everything skids to a catastrophic stop and we watch a bizarre, overdressed child skipping about congratulating herself, while screaming that it's actually her who's the victim. I don't want to be too harsh on Rachel Reeves " it is true she works very hard. As she keeps telling us, chancellor of the exchequer is a really big job. But I challenge anyone to sit through any of the incredible, atonal interviews she gave before, during and after her second reckless, self-serving Commie budget and not wonder, who is this person? Just who is she? The thin skin, the angry public crying, the petulance, the industrial, ideological lies. Yeah, yeah, don't lawyer me. In one of the interviews she complained about people "mansplaining" her job back…...

4+ week, 2+ day ago (184+ words) Thirty-five years ago, the feminist writer Carol J Adams had men choking on their hot dogs when she published The Sexual Politics of Meat. In it, she theorised that the objectification of tasty animals and sexy women was the same. Adams argued this was the "patriarchy's" fault " for drooling over both as collections of devourable body parts instead of whole, respected beings. Does any of this matter? After all, little girls and boys love gender stereotypes. Who are we feminist scolds to wag our fingers? Besides, I am no innocent: as a child, all my favourite costumes were always puffy and pink; and in the past three years I have been variously a cop, Marie Antoinette and a nun (and yes, my ankles were visible in all three). There is precisely nothing radical about rehearsing your own victimhood; nothing subversive…...

1+ mon, 4+ day ago (1475+ words) Will political parties of the left ever support women harmed by the gender wars? According to the Canadian writer and commentator Meghan Murphy, believing they might is like "clinging to an abusive husband. Given gender self-ID has been framed in every country as left-wing or progressive, it's unsurprising many cleave towards agreement. Murphy made her remarks on a panel entitled "Sex realism and the new book burnings at last weekend's Battle of Ideas festival in London. She received enormous cheers, though some left-wing feminists in attendance raised their eyebrows. Though shunned by the mainstream, Murphy is something of a celebrity to many involved in broad "anti-woke (for want of a better term) circles. Her opinion of the Canadian left is scathing. "The Liberal Party and "progressives' constantly react to Trump. It's like "if Trump is doing something we'll do the…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago (229+ words) The purpose of this? To intimidate feminists convening to talk about male violence against women. And to make it as difficult as possible to find other venues to host them in future. The reason for the violence and the protests is that this was an international gathering of over 2,000 feminists who think that allowing men to self-identify on demand into women's sexual assault services, changing rooms and sports poses an unacceptable threat to women's privacy, safety and dignity. And that to pretend men can be lesbians is grossly homophobic. To the extent we talked about this, it was because we are forced to by the number of institutions that somehow remain captured by the mad idea that our beliefs " which also happen to reflect the law " are bigoted. You can't effectively combat male violence against women in a society which…...

1+ mon, 2+ week ago (529+ words) The UK's largest feminist conference, attended by victims of male violence, has come under attack from trans activists. A group of masked transgender campaigners filmed themselves smashing the glass frontage of the Brighton Centre before the three-day event was due to begin on Friday. The twice-yearly conference, hosted by the feminist organisation FiLiA, is aimed at defending women's rights and "amplifying" the voices of women who face challenge sex-based injustices. But a group who call themselves "Bash Back" and use the X handle "@TransBashBack" have attacked the conference for hosting what it refers to as "hate groups". " JK Rowling: Emma Watson is ignorant of her own ignorance Further pictures later emerged on social media showing the group had daubed the venue with graffiti with the slogan "feminism is the refusal to define a woman" and "Bash Back". The group also…...

1+ mon, 3+ week ago (1647+ words) Sofi lies back on the bed, holding eye contact with Dave, making sure he's watching. She has already playfully tied his hands with rope and gently pushed her pants into his mouth. Now her hand strokes her collarbone, cups her breast and slides down her stomach, past her suspender belt, moving between her legs. "Cut," John shouts. "Katie," Jane asks, "do you want more masturbating?" In a magnificent Italian villa on a Wednesday afternoon, I am making a porn film. One I wrote, am directing and, more importantly, one that asks a question: is it possible to make feminist porn? The radical American feminist Robin Morgan would be appalled. She famously declared, "Porn is the theory, rape is the practice." Exploring the content of PornHub, the UK's most visited adult website, you might believe titillation depends on women's subjugation. But…...

2+ mon, 4+ day ago (278+ words) There have even been what look suspiciously like attempts to erase Thatcher from feminist history. A 2009 fact sheet for schools on "Women in Power" issued by the Equalities Office, led at the time by the Labour minister Harriet Harman, omitted to mention Thatcher, Britain's first female prime minister (and arguably the UK's most consequential leader since the formation of the postwar consensus). But if feminism has tended to handle Thatcher with tongs, she was equally chary in return. From her first campaigning days she defined herself in opposition to the "women's libbers". This was canny positioning for her ambitions within the Conservative Party, which was not very likely to embrace a full-blooded second-waver as a candidate, never mind a leader. Thatcher deployed her sex as an asset in a way that some feminists would have been squeamish to do. "What…...

2+ mon, 1+ week ago (272+ words) Ever since Bram Stoker's Dracula first drained arteries in 1897, he's exerted a hold on the popular mind that's inspired filmed reincarnations ranging from Max Schreck's original coffin-stiff Nosferatu to Claes Bang's polysexual stud. Theatre can't get enough of him either " next year, Wicked's Cynthia Erivo will descend on the West End for a virtuoso solo retelling, while in this spiky, sonically inventive version at the Lyric Hammersmith in west London, the novel's female characters grab the narrative by the throat. The evening starts promisingly, not least because of the crashes and subsonic rumbles of Adam Cork's sound design and lighting effects from Joshie Harriette that tilt from crepuscular shadow to lurid red. Initially Myers is compelling as the disruptor-in-chief, commanding the human ensemble around her to use memories, cassette recordings and, at one point, even a phonograph to recount the…...

2+ mon, 2+ week ago (550+ words) What's the most radical act of feminism?" I recently asked ChatGPT. It thought for a split second, then presented me with a list of noble acts of feminism waged by women throughout history: suffragists who campaigned for the right to vote, civil rights leaders who fought for access to education, and, more recently, women who protested the rollback of reproductive rights in the US and elsewhere. All true, but not quite what I was hoping for. "What about using AI?" I countered. "That's a fascinating angle," it conceded. "To use AI critically and creatively isn't just tech adoption, it's a radical feminist act of reclaiming the tools that will shape tomorrow." " Can ChatGPT get you fit? Our expert put it to the test Perhaps the simplest way to think about the repercussions of this gen-AI gender gap is to imagine…...

3+ mon, 5+ day ago (497+ words) I welcomed the feminist backlash of the 1980s but, sadly, too many boys got thrown out with the sexist bathwater. I know that this particularly impacted black boys, who were told that they were victims of white male patriarchy rather than of dead-beat dads and single mothers who couldn't cope. " How to fight toxic masculinity? Give new fathers more time off The rightful process of detoxifying the bad masculinity of the 1970s meant that we ended up forgetting the needs of many of our boys from low-income backgrounds. They were now in a world where women were not allowed to say they needed a man in their household. The needs of boys were also parked and the single mother supported by the "benefits" of the state would shape our society going forward. During the 1980s there was a whole industry of feminist-led gender…...