Here’s a version of a story you might have heard before: first feminists got what they wanted, and then they got what they deserved. At some point in the Noughties, the idea that men and women were fundamentally alike in …
The war for Sydney Sweeney’s breasts
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: it was the time of breasts.
By now, you will surely have seen the video of actress Sydney Sweeney at the end of her Saturday Night Live hosting …
Has Beyoncé killed Jolene?
Not long ago, a post crossed my timeline featuring a black-and-white, heart-stoppingly gorgeous photo of Dolly Parton in the Sixties. The caption read, simply: “What the hell did Jolene look like?” One can only wonder.
As a musical artefact, “Jolene” …
How MeToo became too cringe for America
It was autumn 2018, just over five years ago, when Christine Blasey Ford uttered that unforgettable line. “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” she said, referring to the gleeful cackling of a young Brett Kavanaugh as he allegedly drunkenly …
Ireland’s referendum is an attack on women
The constitution of the Republic of Ireland was voted into law by the Dáil Éireann (Irish parliament) in December 1937, having been approved earlier in the year by a referendum. After centuries of existing as a British colony, this was …
My torment as a gamer girl
Until recently, I did not consider myself a “gamer”. I still flinch at the term, probably because the reputation of gaming is impossibly, incorrigibly lame — adolescent, feverish, and with the stale whiff of the teenaged bedroom. I, conversely, am …
Who’s afraid of a female brain?
For decades now, an axiom of middle-class feminism has decreed that there are no important inbuilt differences between male and female brains. In fact, so the favoured story goes, there are no male and female brains at all, except in …
Shere Hite’s search for the female orgasm
“We need to make a film about me.” That was one of the first things Shere Hite, the feminist sex researcher, said to me when I met her in May 2011. Now, three years after she died aged 77, her …
Biohack feminism won’t save women
A well-worn and tear-soaked origin story, vaguely reminiscent of biblical incarnation, tends to accompany press reporting on new fertility ventures. Once upon a time there was an ordinary Californian woman with great LinkedIn connections who was trying for some particular …
Caught up in the gender-critical civil war
A few nights ago, I attended a gathering at which friends and acquaintances were encouraged to mingle and chat. At one point I found myself discussing the films of Joseph L. Mankiewicz with a gentleman in advanced middle-age. I pointed …
How I became a target in the gender-critical civil war
A few nights ago, I attended a gathering at which friends and acquaintances were encouraged to mingle and chat. At one point I found myself discussing the films of Joseph L. Mankiewicz with a gentleman in advanced middle-age. I pointed …
Twenty years a Terf
Twenty years ago, the slur of “Terf” had not been invented, and the concept of gender ideology was confined to university lectures on Judith Butler. Radical feminists were fighting for the rights of women, and everyone knew they didn’t have …
Why are women ditching the pill?
Like many women, I’ve tried most contraceptive methods. I soldiered on with Microgynon and Cerazette for years longer than I should have, and spent multiple afternoons in the university surgery with an infected implant. The copper coil was a medieval …
Women are losing the abortion election
Ever since the Dobbs decision redefined the reproductive rights of American women, the issue of choice has started to resemble a frantic game of ping-pong. In red states, Republican-controlled senates immediately got busy passing abortion bans, sometimes in direct opposition …
The curse of warrior women
If history teaches us anything, it’s that you can’t be a warrior woman without some guy wondering what you’d look like going commando. According to Herodotus, after the Greeks defeated the Amazons, they loaded three ships with captives — only …
