Women

The Times has a fascinating splash today on the discrepancy in prices between products for women and men. It reports that high street stores are charging women up to twice as much as men for practically identical products, with the addition of pink to something seemingly boosting its price hugely. The most striking finding is that products as banal as razors can be twice as expensive for women as they are for men. MPs are already involved, with Maria Miller, chair of the women and equalities committee, threatening to summon retail bosses to parliament to explain the ‘unacceptable’ higher prices. But while the Times has performed a vital public service

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/thedeathoffeminism/media.mp3″ title=”Charlotte Proudman and Emily Hill debate whether feminism is dead” startat=35 fullwidth=”yes”] Listen [/audioplayer]It would be easy to believe from the papers these days that women have never been more oppressed. From the columnist Caitlin Moran to the comedian Bridget Christie, a new creed is preached: that we are the victims, not the victors, of the sex war. Feminists claim we are objectified by the builder’s whistle, that a strange man attempting to flirt with us is tantamount to sexual assault. Suddenly, just as it seemed we women were about to have it all, a new wave of feminists has begun to portray us as feeble-minded — unable

When the first schoolgirls ran away to Isis I had some sympathy for them — at least, I could see how they’d been suckered in. The girls were young, daft, desperate for a cause. They’d nosed about online, and found the Twitter feeds of jihadi wives who sell Syria as a teenage paradise: all fast food, deathless love, martyrdom and shopping. Because I felt for those first schoolgirls, I kept following their progress, checking for them online as they set up in Syria, married, and began to tweet themselves. But as I followed them on social media, my sympathy soon turned to disgust. ‘Happy #9/11’ wrote young Zahra Halane, one