Tia Byer | March 25, 2019
A presentation by Tia Byer, “Feminism Gone Mad? Keira Knightley, mothering and the case against the Disney princess”.
Tia won the award for ‘Most Controversial’ at LLC Blethers, an evening of academic storytelling with the University of Edinburgh, February 2019.
Kitty Ruskin | 9th January 2017.
Many will remember Gretchen Weiner’s often quoted phrase from Mean Girls that dating friends’ ex-boyfriends is ‘off limits’, as per ‘the rules of feminism’. A few months ago, in the midst of the backlash against Taylor Swift, this line came back to me. I took a moment to consider exactly why Gretchen’s line stands out to me in this context, particularly as a feminist in 2016.
12 December 2016 | Maygan Eugenie Forbes
Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show: the models advertised as “Sexy Little Things”, the underwear advertised for “The Perfect Body”, and their yearly revenue estimated to gross up to $7.6 billion. Introduced to mainstream media in 1995, the Show is a mass-marketing extraordinaire. From the beautiful models wearing wings and diamonds to the pop star heavyweights who perform, there’s no denying that this blockbuster extravaganza (the “Super Bowl of fashion,” according to CBS) has an astronomical amount of pulling power — so much so that influential publications all over the Internet are lambasting the Show’s “largely unattainable image of perfection.” However, is the question of attainability really the problem here? Or, is it rather a problem that, whether attainable for some or not, the Show directly reflects and reinforces a wider pool of homogenized, and ultimately oppressive, standards of beauty that are elevated so far as to become an “ideal”?
31 October ¦ Harriet MacMillan
Whilst many may not recognise her name, women living in Britain today owe Caroline Norton (1808-77) a great debt. Her zealous pursuit of reform led to landmark changes in the recognition of women in the law. Her campaigning directly propelled the passing of the Custody of Infants Act of 1839, which gave women the right to custody of their children. She also influenced the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870, which gave women the legal right to their own money. Although Norton certainly influenced the past, does her life still have resonance with contemporary feminist struggles? Can looking back on her story help us understand some of the challenges facing women, particularly famous women, today?
