Ryan Gosling is the star of three current films: political drama The Ides of March, noir action flick Drive and rom-com Crazy, Stupid Love. He’s also the star of the global gender politics phenomenon Feminist Ryan Gosling. This site picks up on and subverts the internet ‘hey girl’ meme which started with a series of publicity stills of Mr Gosling captioned with amusing romantic slogans. For example, a smiling Ryan says, “Hey Girl, Happy Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for your yams and sweet potato pie.” A distraught looking Ryan says, “Hey Girl, sometimes I get so sad when we can’t watch Golden Girls together.” And, one of several topless Ryans simply says, “Hey girl, my shirt fell off.” This site’s an entertaining but odd mix of humour and romance and boasts an endorsement from Orson Welles, who, presumably from the afterlife, calls Gosling “The most awesomest, raddest, coolest dude since me.” Perhaps it is Gosling’s iconic performance in the romantic drama The Notebook that’s made him such a great blank slate for so many romantic imaginations. Although the over-the-top nature of many the slogans make this site as much a parody of romance as an indulgence in it. Continue reading “Feminist Ryan Gosling”
Now on Facebook: The Feminist Archive
Based in Bristol and in Leeds, the Feminist Archive holds substantial collections of material from the 1960s to the present day and includes local, regional, national and international collections donated by individuals and organisations. There are personal and organisational papers, conferences, pamphlets, journals, newsletters, magazines, oral history interviews, audio tapes, films, posters, badges, T-shirts and banners. They cover all the issues raised by and responded to by the Feminist movement.
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Special Issue of Gender and Education (Thinking Education Feminisms: Engagements with the Work of Diana Leonard)
The extended deadline for abstract submission (7 September) is approaching. Further details are available here
Meat is a Feminist Issue
For a long time I didn’t connect my identities as a feminist and as a vegan. Now I do, or at least I’m beginning to, and this blog is a short attempt to trace some of these connections and to argue that consuming animals is a feminist issue. Continue reading “Meat is a Feminist Issue”
The New Face of Feminism: Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman
In 1981 the noted British sociologist Olive Banks published a work called Faces of Feminism: A Study of Feminism as a Social Movement which provided an overview of feminism from the 1840s up to the end of the 1970s. She identified three feminist traditions: the equal rights tradition of the Enlightenment, the moral impetus of evangelical Christianity and socialism of both the Utopian and Marxist varieties. This framework provided a useful background for the developments of second wave feminism although it was to become less useful as feminism began to fragment from the 1990s onwards. However, now we in the UK have another kid on the block presenting another face of feminism; she is Caitlin Moran and her call to feminism entitled How to be a Woman has been the surprise best seller of this summer. Moran has an interesting background: she is the oldest of eight children, was home educated in a council house in Wolverhampton, joined the music weekly Melody Maker as a journalist at the age of sixteen, was briefly a TV presenter at the age of eighteen and has subsequently put in a solid eighteen years as a columnist for The Times. She is therefore a seasoned media communicator who hasn’t (yet) learnt to keep her mouth shut about the kind of things that women have to go through. Thankfully, she has decided in this book to focus her intellect on making the case for feminism and its relevance to 21st century lives. Continue reading “The New Face of Feminism: Caitlin Moran’s How to be a Woman”
Notes of a London SlutWalker
I am still on a high from the London SlutWalk, June 11, 2011. It was incredible to see all those women, girls, boys and men, queer and straight, old and young, brown and white marching together under the banner of ‘sluts’. There has been a lot written about the SlutWalks which have spread internationally in recent months, but the origins bear repeating; particularly given how the deeply misogynist, sexist remarks that propelled this political action emerged from a Canadian Police Officer at Osgoode Law school, York University, Toronto, where I did my MA and PhD in Women’s Studies! When Michael Sanguinetti a police officer from the Toronto force went on a routine visit to York University on January 24, 2011 to advise the students on personal safety, little did he know that he would unwittingly inspire a movement that has caught fire across the globe. Sanguinetti began his talk with a disclaimer “You know, I think we’re beating around the bush here” He went on to deliver the now infamous line “I’ve been told I’m not supposed to say this – however, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised.” Continue reading “Notes of a London SlutWalker”
Conference 2011 Keynote Address: Gender and Education, History and Progress (Carol Dyhouse)
Carol’s keynote opened the conference by taking stock of girls and women’s position in education for “without the past we can’t understand the present”. She began by troubling the idea of progress for in the history of girls education, things do not only get better. Continue reading “Conference 2011 Keynote Address: Gender and Education, History and Progress (Carol Dyhouse)”
Conference 2011 Keynote Address: Gender and Education in the Twenty-first Century, Engendering Debate? (Becky Francis)
Becky Francis’ keynote took on the task of exploring the current place of gender in the education system. She reflected on our current place as researchers in gender and education, on the theoretical challenges of our work and on our relationship to practice. Continue reading “Conference 2011 Keynote Address: Gender and Education in the Twenty-first Century, Engendering Debate? (Becky Francis)”
‘Sylvia Pankhurst, Everything is Possible’: New Feature Length Documentary Released
A new feature length documentary chronicling Sylvia Pankhurst’s inspiring life as a suffragette and revolutionary has been released by the London based education charity WORLDwrite. Aspiring young filmmakers worked with industry professionals to research, film and produce this in depth epic which is packed with facts from primary sources, rare images from museums and archives, interviews with historians and a compelling testimony from Sylvia’s son Richard Pankhurst and his wife Rita. Continue reading “‘Sylvia Pankhurst, Everything is Possible’: New Feature Length Documentary Released”