Category Archive

I love this article by Margaret Drabble on Sylvia Plath: I think this is what’s so important about Palth, not her suicide: the fact that she started writing about the difficulties of the female experience before the feminist second wave, the frustrations of being a wife as well as childbirth and breatfeeding.

A couple of interesting articles, via Feministing, reponding to the media’s attempts to portray supporting Clinton as a feminist act, or the ‘only’ feminist choice, or whether it’s unfeminist to support Obama: Deborah Siegel and Courtney E Martin in the Washington Post, and Jessica Valenti writing in the Nation about a split in feminism between older, more establishment feminists, and younger ones.

I’ve been thinking about sexuality in preparation for the next meeting so here are a few links and articles I’ve come across.

The wikipedia article on sex-positive feminism is interesting – not perfect, but it raises some of the issues at hand.

Annie Sprinkle has a website in which you can find some of her writings and articles – possibly a little bit NSFW but some interesting stuff on there.

Another sex-positive feminist, Susie Bright, has a really excellent blog in which she discusses all manner of political and feminist current issues.

The f-word has some interesting articles (in their sex and relationships section)and a podcast of a discussion about porn.

Lynne Segal has an interesting article about some problems of feminism and (hetero) sex – I didn’t agree with some of this but it’s pretty interesting anyway.

Link in title. Really, I just don’t know where to start with this. Wannabe WAG Nicola McClean – star of ‘Help, My Wife’s High-Maintanence’, to be shown soon on Channel 5 – says that she never lets her husband see her without make-up, even getting out of bed early in the morning to apply a fresh layer before he wakes up.

“Even when I was in labour I had my full face on, hair straightened and perfect nails. I’m so proud of that,” she boasts.

Boasts? Really, it’s like the 20th century didn’t happen. Nicola then goes on to bemoan the state of modern womanhood: “Letting yourself go is a sign of a lazy slob who doesn’t care about herself or her man. No wonder one in three marriages fail.”

Not content with pinning increasing divorce rates on women getting ideas above their station and ‘letting themselves go’, Nicola then moves on to the subject of parenthood:
“I had my boobs increased from a 32C to a 32G so I didn’t feed my baby because they’d go saggy and lose their sexiness. I wanted to keep my boobs for my boyfriend, know what I mean?”

Nicola later moves on to her frankly retarded views on the domestic division of labour:

The couple’s flashy Bucks home may look perfect, but that’s no thanks to Nicola – she never lifts a perfectly-manicured finger round the house. She refuses to change a lightbulb and proudly says she has never done so in her life. “That’s Tommy’s job,” she sniffs. “Me? Use a screwdriver? With these nails? No way.”

Given the choice of sitting in the dark or flicking a switch on if the fuses went in the house, Nicola curls a glossy lip at the thought of doing anything for herself. “I’d rather sit in the dark – or go to a neighbour for help,” she says… Relinquishing the right to choose her own food, she even lets Tommy order for her in restaurants. She adds: “If my glass was empty and I wanted another one, I wouldn’t ask the waiter. I’d say to Tommy, ‘Babe? Catch someone’s eye, please,’ and he’d do it for me. It’s not for me to do a job like that.”

Her motivation, it seems, is that her hubby keeps her in designer handbags and shoes: “her pampered tootsies only feel comfortable in the £300 Gina shoes Tommy buys her to add to the 30 pairs already lined up in her walk-in wardrobe”.

Which raises a rather difficult point – if, as appears to be the case here, a woman’s primary motivation is money, or at least luxury goods, just where do you draw the line between trophy wife and prostitute? (WAG or slag, you could say…).

In 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft told us that women, “confined in cages like the feathered race…have nothing to do but to plume themselves, and stalk with mock majesty from perch to perch”. We’ve moved on a lot since then, but Nicola isn’t deterred by 216 years of feminist progress:

She exfoliates her entire body and shaves her upper and lower legs, underarms and bikini line every day. The very thought of a missing out on her daily regime shocks Nicola to the very core of her fake-tanned body. She exclaims: “Let my minnie grow a millimetre too long? Never!”

Finally, young Nicola tells us the secret of her happy marriage:

“I hate those girls that let themselves go, let their boyfriends see them without make-up and don’t put an effort in for their men. It’s laziness to look so ugly. I have higher standards, and that’s one reason why Tommy loves me.”

Link in title. I love Wendy Roby’s suggestion of random acts of feminism: sticking post-it notes on Nuts magazine that read ‘I am someone’s sister’ or ‘Real men read BOOKS’…