Feminism

When I think about love, that old line by William Goldman about Hollywood comes back to me: Nobody knows anything. It seems that as we grow franker about sex (witness the Naked Attraction TV show, recently described as ‘Blind Date in a brothel’) love reveals less of its mysteries. Just as we’ve all now seen on screen 1001 ways to kill someone and yet know nothing about death, we now know 69 ways to screw someone – once more, often seen on screen for the less adventurous amongst us – and nothing about love. Not even the most basic stuff – how to avoid falling in love with someone we shouldn’t,

Forget Pimm’s, sunburn and rain abandoned picnics. What really makes summer is a heap of outrage directed at an old white man for saying something feminists think is beyond the pale. Last year it was Sir Tim Hunt and his quip about the problem of women in labs. This time it is Kevin Roberts, chairman of Saatchi and Saatchi, who has suggested gender bias is not an issue in the advertising industry. For this crime against feminism, Roberts has been suspended and will spend this summer in his garden rather than in the office. Unpicking the obligatory social media bluster about ‘misogyny’ and ‘the patriarchy’ to work out where exactly

Six weeks ago I was one of the 1.3 million Londoners who voted for Sadiq Khan as mayor. Boy do I regret it now. Because he’s just shown what he really thinks of us inhabitants of the capital: that we’re so mentally fragile, so pathetic, so vulnerable to the wicked charms of advertisers, that he must censor allegedly sexist ads on our behalf and protect us from offence. In proposing a blanket ban on bus and Tube ads that make people feel bad about their bodies, Sadiq has revealed his authoritarian, paternalistic contempt for the people who swept him to power. I’m amazed there isn’t more fury about his extraordinary

It was only a matter of time before Glastonbury, the world’s most middle-class festival, caught up with the latest political trend. In an announcement heralded as brave, pioneering and ‘necessary’, a group called ‘The Sisterhood’ have announced a women-only venue at the four-day festival. ‘In a world that is still run by and designed to benefit mainly men,’ the group argue, ‘oppression against women continues in various manifestations’. The way to combat this global sexism, it seems, is to have a boy-free zone at festivals. The Sisterhood has designed the special zone to allow women ‘to connect, network [and] share their stories’ about sex work, domestic violence and the pay

Women of the world unite! Back Hillary Clinton! Otherwise, prepare to be damned to that special place in hell that former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright insists exists ‘for women who don’t help each other’! Exclamation marks are crucial to discussing Hillary Clinton for President. If you don’t deploy one at the end of each sentence, people might think you’re hopelessly depressed that a woman is about to become leader of the free world. We’re supposed to be excited that a woman has just clinched the Democratic nomination. It took America 227 years to get so far. Never mind that the woman in question is widely disliked by a majority

I consider myself such an extreme feminist that I make Germaine Greer look like Greer Garson. (Ask your gran.) But this doesn’t mean that I have to believe women are superior to men in every way. Yes, we violently attack, sexually assault and feel the need to commit murder far less than they do. But when it comes to the little things, there are many ways in which manning up would make women better. Maturity is one of them. We are told from the get-go that females ‘mature’ far earlier than males. It’s weird that feminists go along with this, because it’s one of the main justifications for adult men