Ella Whelan

Have you ever met a real misogynist? Probably not, because misogyny is a very strong word. Coming from the ancient Greek misos (hatred) and gyne (woman), it should only be used to define extreme behaviour: woman-hating to be exact.  And yet some people seem to think that British streets are full of woman-haters. Misogyny was made a hate crime in Nottingham two years ago, meaning that anyone caught wolfwhistling at women, being sexually explicit or generally mean to the fairer sex was liable to be investigated by the police as a woman-hater. This pilot scheme has been deemed to be a success; now some campaigners are calling for misogyny to be classed as a hate crime across the whole of the UK.

Writer and comedian Michelle Wolf has hit the headlines for her routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday. Comedians were invited to take the piss out of the American political establishment and the press, and Wolf did not disappoint. Her jokes ranged from Trump using pussy-grabbing to find loose change to Senator Mitch McConnell getting his neck circumcised. No one was let off the hook. Wolf joked that she could talk about Russia but, addressing the ‘liberal media’ in the room, said that ‘I’ve never really wanted to know what any of you look like when you orgasm’. She poked fun at Hillary for losing Michigan, as well as Ivanka Trump for being ‘about as helpful to women as an empty box of tampons’.

Almost two and a half years ago, feminists called on Transport for London to remove adverts of a scantily-clad Australian from the tube. Protests against the infamous 'beach body ready' adverts claimed that showcasing a woman in a bikini to peddle weight-loss pills was offensive to women. Apparently the sight of a skinny woman was upsetting to all of us non-skinny women. And, after pressure from London Mayor Sadiq Khan in 2016, TfL promised to ban all adverts which didn't adhere to the notion of 'body positivity'. Not all women were happy about the ban. Back then, I, and other commentators, warned that giving TfL the power to decide which images of a woman were ‘damaging’ and which were acceptable was pretty dangerous.

Glamour magazine has announced its annual women of the year awards, and, this year, they’re naming a man of the year too. Paul Hewson - or as we know him, the prat in glasses, or, Bono - has been given the award for being one of the ‘most outspoken advocates for women and girls’. Glamour certainly knows how to create a headline. Last year, it was transgender athlete Caitlyn Jenner who won woman of the year; this time round the magazine has gone for a smaller, less stylish, but equally annoying bloke to grab some attention. It was Bono’s ‘Poverty Is Sexist’ campaign, which draws attention to the fact that ‘powerful men can, and should, take on these deep-rooted issues’ that won him Glamour's accolade.

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 gap.

You thought starting university was meant to be fun? Think again. A new league table, published in time for freshers' week 2016, ranks universities on the basis of their local crime rate. The Complete University Guide has published the results, alongside a guide to ‘sexism on campus’, which gives students tips on how to scope out their university’s attitude to sexism and sexual harassment. But as the survey points out, official data for crime specifically against students is not available, so these figures are chosen because they relate to crimes 'most likely to affect students'. The growing panic about sexual violence on campus is based on various reports published by the National Union of Students (NUS).

Last week, New York magazine ran a front-cover photo of 35 of the 46 women who have accused actor Bill Cosby of sexual assault. The feature inside includes individual interviews with each woman, but argues that ‘the horror is multiplied by the sheer volume of seeing them together, reading them together, considering their shared experience’. The collation of these women’s accusations follows intense public interest in Cosby's alleged misconduct, triggered last year when the comedian Hannibal Buress declared ‘you raped women, Bill Cosby’ during a routine. The New York feature is not an attempt to bring Cosby to justice, or even to challenge the statute of limitations that impedes any potential legal process against him.

'Seasoned feminist’ Jessica Valenti has written in the Guardian about catcalling and the detrimental effect it is having on her self-esteem as she grows older. Valenti mourns ‘the hellishness of my teen years’, ruined by unsolicited comments from strange men, and feels even more sorry for herself now, a slightly older mother who gets fewer catcalls and feels like she is becoming ‘invisible to men’. Feminists are never happy: whistle at them, and it's an act of abusive male entitlement; don't whistle at them, and you're ignoring women, treating them as invisible. What are men to do? Our relationship towards social interaction is changing.

Earlier this month, a review published by the Cochrane Library criticised the idea of ‘eating for two’ while pregnant, suggesting that doing so would affect foetal development and increase the likelihood of obesity in the child. At the weekend, the British Medical Association said it plans to revise all previous advice given to pregnant women, and will now inform them that the consumption of any alcohol while pregnant will have a negative effect on the child. Why doesn’t the BMA just come out and say that it doesn't want pregnant women to have any fun? The continual revision of medical advice to make it fit with our health-obsessed culture is impacting on all our lives, through smoking bans, drinking limits and calorie warnings on eclairs.