She's lost control again - How I got PMeSsed up

It was at a music festival when I realised something was seriously wrong. The sun was shining, I was drinking warm cider, the band was playing, I was surrounded by friends... And I started crying my bloody eyes out. In a bad way.

The one new year's resolution every feminist needs.

Ah January, that special time of year when the pressure of maintaining perfection is cranked up to eleven by the ubiquitous phrase, "so what's your new year's resolution?". By this weekend most people will have given up on whatever Spartan regime they've adopted. Women are no strangers to the excessive pressure of "must do" lists - at this time of year we create our own so we can be haunted by our own failure for the rest of the year.

Christmas gifts for her*

 *If by her you mean an independent-minded individual with her own unique interests and a passing interest in feminism.

Am I a bad feminist?

I should preface what I’m about to say with the fact that I do consider myself a feminist. Like total badass and all-round babe Caitlin Moran, I believe that all women simply have to be feminists. It’s a bit strange not to want equal rights for yourself and your gender.

Feminism in London Conference - The crafty fight against Patriarchy

What's the difference between craft and art? Is there one? It can hardly argued that they use different mediums - art can be crafted from anything, be it paint, fabric, elephant dung, or a thirteen-foot tiger shark. Yet there's something about the word 'craft' that leads many people to associate it with primary school projects or baby bonnets handmade by the WI. Most damaging to craft's reputation is that it's guilty of that most heinous crime: being  associated with women and children. Stitching and sewing are seen a form of sub-art that women do as part and parcel of their domestic chores. Surely something so innocuous, so much the epitome of female domesticity, can't be used in acts of protest, can it? 

Don't be a sad lonely feminist - meet some feminist friends at the Feminism in London conference!!

It can get lonely being a sad angry feminazi, sitting in your house full of cats and weeping into your keyboard. Three cheers then for rousing feminist get togethers!

My pants are political

Topshop are currently flogging these pants. The picture above is an arse-view. Now, I don't know about you, but personally I think my boyfriend would be a bit creeped out to find his amorous advances towards my nether-regions met with this whiny school-girl plea. And so he should. As a general rule I don't consult my boyfriend's feelings on my outfits (as evidenced by a life lived in my flatmate's cast off Primark tracky bottoms) - but then, I don't often feel that said outfits would justifiably make him recoil with horror. Why Topshop thinks one would want to bring one's father into one's pants I don't know. Even writing that sentence gives me the creeps.

Summer 2014 - How was it for you?

Cameron's Cabinet, July 2014. Source: BBC news 

Due to a brief sojourn in Croatia on my part, and a fairly large parliamentary recess, I’ve rolled July and August in to one great big mega Summer Westminster round-up. Contrary to popular wisdom, quite a lot actually does happen whilst the MPs and peers are on their ‘holidays’. So don’t expect a wash-out.

The ‘P’ Word (Perfection, not Pussy)

Glamour's list of 30 things by 30

 

I have an addiction to lists.  I have a daily work-tasks list, often two work lists (on super-busy days I have been known to have three), a daily non-work task list, a beauty/health to do list, food/diet planning lists, a life-plan list, lists of things to buy in terms of clothes, beauty products, furniture and other things to turn the new flat I’ve moved into from a shiny new shell to a ‘proper home’, daily lists, weekly lists, monthly lists, seasonal lists. I haven’t got to yearly to do lists yet, but give me time.

First Wave

Identifying yourself as a feminist isn’t as simple as you’d think. To some it’s worse than stating that you vote for the BNP. Often it’s followed by an exclamation regarding how ridiculous it is for a sensible girl to have such notions, or a diatribe against man-hating lesbians with hairy armpits. The media is full of articles that reduce women and girls to the roles of victim, whore or ball-breaker. The internet is a place that can demean, demoralise and brutalise a person for simply identifying as a women. Feminism is under attack, but it is also a resurgent movement that is gaining activists and supporters.

Page 3 - Eleanor Marx

Most commonly known as the daughter of Karl, Eleanor Marx was an impressive figure in her own right. Raised in a household that unsurprisingly instilled a sense of social responsibility in its children, she nevertheless took her father’s towering legacy and diverted it in her own, more practical direction.

June 2014 - How was it for you?

June started with the government setting out its legislative agenda for the next year in the Queen’s Speech. For the first time ever both the proposer and seconder of the Speech were female, with both Penny Mordaunt (Con, Portsmouth North) and Annette Brook (Lib Dem, Mid Dorset and North Poole) receiving much praise for their respective work in welcoming the traditional opening of Parliament. Not being expected to cause any great political earthquakes, the day conformed to expectations. The Childcare Payments Bill and Modern Slavery Bill had already been confirmed in the months leading up to June, so perhaps the announcements that will have the most impact on women in particular were regarding the two pensions bills or the Armed Forces Bill.

May 2014 - How was it for you?

Natalie Bennett, Green Party leader.

This month was set to be all about the local and European elections from the start. It would be churlish not to mention the rise and rise of UKIP, but the obvious points have, at least for now, been done to death by the mainstream media. Whether the coverage of UKIP was justified or not, one thing seems fairly clear: the lack of comparable coverage of the Green Party was shocking. Now the fourth UK party in terms of MEPs (they have 3, 2 more than the Lib Dems), their leader Natalie Bennett didn’t feature in the BBC European results coverage until 2.30am, at which point the presenters were filling due to the delayed London results.

Blobbed off

Picture the scene, dear reader: there I was, mindlessly flopping into a seat on the Central line after a long Saturday traipsing round in the sun giving out council leaflets. My eyes wandered to the advert directly across from me, read it, and returned to contemplating the floor, my expression one of someone who has stared into the depths of political apathy. Then I had the almost physical sensation of my tired mind doing a double-take. Wait a minute, what did I just read?

Page 3 - Manuela Sáenz, never just a lover

Manuela Sáenz is one of Latin America’s ultimate Hussies. She lived her life as a mistress to another man, betraying not only her husband, but also her country. Yet, until 2010 when she was given a state burial, she was one of the region’s unsung heroes, a leader, and a revolutionary. She fought for her own freedom and for the freedom of the people that she loved.

April 2014 - How was it for you?

After a big month for women in Westminster the idea of disciplining myself to write a monthly feminist round-up seemed like a good one. An awful lot happens in the political world that never hits the new headlines, but April shone a spotlight on the often maligned culture and equalities briefs. Four female secretaries of state became three when Maria Miller resigned after being ordered to repay £5800 of mis-claimed expenses and, embarrassingly, to apologise for her attitude to the investigation into her actions. This meant that we not only lost a secretary of state, but also that a new minister for women and equalities needed to be appointed.

What have Workers' Rights ever done for us?

Unless you genuinely live under a rock, you will have noticed a recent upturn in European Union trash talking by white male population of this country. Whenever I hear a middle aged brandy drinker trot out the racist, xenophobic drivel that UKIP call policy, I cannot help but recall that Monty Python sketch from The Life of Brian in which Reg asks “What have the Romans ever done for us?” So on this International Workers' Rights Day, I’d like to lay out for you a few reasons why being in the EU is just as useful to women as aqueducts, roads and the alphabet.

Industries are violating women's human rights. Here's how.

Women face MASSIVE human rights violations in the workplace. To mark International Workers' Day, we've outlined some of the biggest issues, and what you can do to help...

This pair had a feminist marriage... in 1855!

On May Day in 1855 a man and a woman decided to spend the rest of their lives together in ‘an equal and permanent partnership.’ Revolutionary, hunh? Well, I have to admit that before I started this article I hadn’t heard of Lucy Stone and Henry Blackwell’s marriage protest either, but what a step it was on the path towards equality.

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.