Bird Lines

Recently a discussion amongst a group of friends turned to a friend’s date night with his girlfriend or ‘bird’ as one of my male friends put it. Fear not, this isn’t a naming and shaming of that individual fellow, who used the term in a joking, ironic sort-of-way. The implication was the ridiculousness of the term, in his use anyway.

Earth Day 2014 - Why women should fight consumerism

Somewhat appropriately timed to fall right after the orgy of excess food, cheap chocolate and plastic wrapping that characterises the modern celebration of Easter, today we mark a newer annual tradition: Earth Day. Instigated in 1970 by a United States senator as a day of environmental education, the event spread worldwide by the 1990s. Now individuals and organisations all around the globe stop and pause for a moment, consider the impact they are having on the Earth’s delicate ecosystem, and use this moment - when the fickle mind of the world’s media is briefly focused on environmental issues - to promote awareness, start and accelerate campaigns ranging from tree-planting to eating less meat, and generally pledge to focus less on themselves and more on the future of the planet.

Do mothers have the "toughest job in the world"?

So the point of this video (which went viral earlier this week) is to tell everyone in America how great "moms" are (psssst, buy a card from Cardstore). Cynicism aside, celebrating mums is great! We all need reminding of the amount of blood sweat and tears that goes into birthing and nurturing sprogs, and women definitely do not get enough recognition for the work they do. In fact, UN Special Rapporteur Magdalena Sepulveda said that women's unpaid care work is a major human rights issue.

In Defence of FEMEN

FEMEN – the marmite of feminist organisations. At first I thought “what the hell? How on earth does this help?” which was followed closely by “when did the Page 3 girls get together and form a political organisation?”