POLITICS IN CLASS: PRO-HUMAN RIGHTS

I was told yesterday that I must bear in mind that not all of our students agree with the left-wing political position I defend, as a feminist and a socialist, and that some actually support right-wing policies. This is hardly surprising if we take into account voting statistics and the growth of the extreme right […]

VILLAINOUS WOMEN IN FICTION: A BOOK SOMEONE OUGHT TO WRITE

Many years ago, a publisher offered me the chance to publish a book about the figure of the femme fatale, addressed to a general readership. I cannot recommend enough the two books by Bram Dijkstra’s Idols of Perversity: Fantasies of Feminine Evil in Fin-de-Siècle Culture (1986) and Evil Sisters: The Threat of Female Sexuality in […]

PATRIARCHY MADE ME DO IT AND THE 24 GENDERS

This has turned out to be a weird week in terms of gender, particularly in Scotland and in Spain. I’m writing this specially for my international MA class in the subject ‘Body and Gender in Narrative’ as they might miss either one of the two events I wish to discuss here: the complete withdrawal from […]

DOING MASCULINITIES STUDIES AS A FEMINIST WOMAN: AIMS AND GAINS

On Friday I’ll be giving a lecture as the guest of ICGR’s 7th International Conference on Gender Research, to be celebrated at my own university, UAB. The title of my lecture is the one I’m using for this post: ‘Doing Masculinities Studies as a Feminist Woman: Aims and Gains.’ This invitation has reached me at […]

OF FAIRIES AND WITCHES: AN ACCIDENT OF HISTORY

My doctoral student Laura Luque is now giving the finishing touches to her excellent PhD dissertation on the positive representation of the witch as a figure of empowerment in contemporary YA fantasy literature. She has focused on Terry Pratchett, J.K. Rowling, Rin Chupeco and Kelley Armstrong, which is certainly enough, although as the lists in […]

KEN LEARNS ABOUT THE PATRIARCHY: KENOUGH MIGHT NOT BE KENOUGH

[WARNING: This post discusses the movie Barbie with spoilers] It’s been a week since Greta Gerwig’s movie Barbie was released and the internet is abuzz with comments of all sizes and types. Surely, mine is not needed but, as happens, the more I think about the movie, the more restless I get. I was delighted […]