Women writing about everything from fashion to feminism, pop culture to politics…
Posted in Family, Feminism, Parenting, Rants on Feb 28th, 2011
My little lad is a huge fan of Lego. In fairness who isn’t? Although our house is overrun with the stuff and I’ve sustained multiple injuries by standing on various sharp little pieces in my bare feet, I love it too. It’s an excellent, durable, creative toy and has given him, and consequently us, hours [...]
Since 1998, a significant number of Academy Award nominee and winning performances by women have gone to those in biographical productions. Previously, the occasional movie about real-life women such as Norma Rae, Coal Miner’s Daughter or Silkwood garnered critical praise and ticket sales,yet for more than a decade, the biopic has been virtually the lone show in town for women in front of the camera or in [...]
There’s an interesting new interview with Kathleen Lynch over on Mediabite, in which the UCD Professor of Equality Studies discusses inequality in Ireland, her treatment on Tonight with Vincent Browne, and why some female politicians are so scared of feminism. Here’s a taster: What do you think are the main obstacles to gender equality in [...]
Posted in Blast From the Past, Personal, Work on Feb 25th, 2011
We did late dockets in our secondary school. There are variations elsewhere, I know – late slips (why dockets in ours, I’m not sure, unless it was along the lines of the ‘shifts’ in Synge’s Playboy of the Western World and they feared revolt amongst the demure young ladies of the school), black marks, late [...]
Posted in Family, Fashion, Feminism, Guest Posters on Feb 24th, 2011
Last Wednesday evening, around tea time, my daughter grew about three inches. Growth spurts are bad news in our house because they inevitably mean the sudden relegation of an entire wardrobe to the charity bag. Then, only when there is one outfit, peering sad and lonely from a rail of empty hangers, do we admit [...]
Posted in Books, International, Ireland, Media, Politics, Work on Feb 24th, 2011
A couple of weeks after I’d started work in Dublin, a colleague-of-a-colleague asked to pick my brains about the British publishing industry. He’d written a few books for the Irish market and was keen to spread his wings. Could I put him in touch with someone in England? No problems, I said. If you let [...]
Posted in Books on Feb 23rd, 2011
Today, there’s much fanfare about the discovery of a new Enid Blyton book. Jolly good, says a nostalgic generation, including me, who loved Blyton’s books as a child. That said, it’s hard to look at them now through the prism of “isms”s – sexism, racism and classism, even if they are of their time. Mr. [...]
Posted in Parenting, Relationships, Women on Feb 23rd, 2011
…opined my 4 1/2-year-old on the way back from school. He thought the concept quite laughable. Whilst I’m flattered, in a way, to be thought of as in a different category to all other women, according to him, it brought me up short. I’ve been reading unsettling things lately, which has added to my dis-ease [...]
I can’t remember which red carpet she was walking down, but recently I saw a photo of Michelle Williams and thought (after the usual “man, I can’t believe the girl who played Jen Linley on Dawson’s Creek turned into such a good and credible actress), “Wow, she always seems to wear really great clothes”. And [...]
Posted in Guest Posters, Personal, Travel on Feb 22nd, 2011
Growing up in Midwestern America, one of the first school assemblies I can remember being corralled off to was the annual presentation on the topic of Stranger Danger. This talk was carried out with heroic indignity by an ever-shifting but always-cheerful entity known as Officer Friendly, a for-hire, aw-shucks, perennially unthreatening police officer from the [...]
