SAY YES TO THE DRESS!: THE GUILTY PLEASURES OF A FEMINIST

Every time I binge-watch the reality show Say Yes to the Dress! (usually a couple of hours on Saturday afternoon) I wonder why I like it. This is a series which narrates how brides purchase their bridal gown at Kleinfeld’s, a Manhattan store specializing in this kind of fashion (see https://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/say-yes-to-the-dress/). Each episode lasts a […]

THE PROBLEM OF SEXUALIZED SELF-PRESENTATION, AGAIN: SEARCHING FOR ITS ROOTS IN VICTORIAN TIMES

Reading these days Peter Bailey’s excellent Popular Culture and Performance in the Victorian City (1998), I was particularly surprised by his chapter on “The Victorian barmaid as cultural prototype.” First, I loved Bailey’s knack of brilliantly describing layers of thriving Victorian city life that are missing in the Victorian fiction I teach (despite Dickens!). Also, […]

THE WEINSTEIN SCANDAL AND THE SPECTATOR’S COMPLICITY: THE PROBLEM OF SEXUALIZED SELF-PRESENTATION

For the last few weeks, as we all know, top Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein has been accused of criminal sexual misbehaviour, ranging from propositioning to rape, by at least 50 actresses. In all likelihood, the list will increase and Weinstein will eventually land in prison. Countless publications and personal blogs have published articles on practically […]

I’VE GOT THE POWER: THE PROBLEM OF EMPOWERMENT

It’s funny how memory deceives us. I positively know that in the thrilling opening credits of Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing (1989), Rosie Perez box-dances to Public Enemy’s song “Fight the Power”, a call to Afro-American political action which Lee commissioned for the film. Yet, I associate Rosie’s punches not to Public Enemy’s […]

INDOCTRINATING YOUNG MEN: IN SEARCH OF IDEALS

I’m writing this post in the aftermath of the terrible Barcelona attack on 17 August, in which 13 persons were killed by a young man driving a van into the crowded Rambles, leaving 180 others injured. The van driver, 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub, is still at large. Later, in the early hours of 18 August, the […]

TRYING TO CATCH UP…: A BOOK ON RECENT (SCOTTISH) LITERATURE

I have given myself the task of checking my university library’s catalogue and select a variety of volumes for summer reading, in an attempt to catch up with the novelties in the areas I’m interested in. The function of journals used to be exactly that: keeping researchers informed about the latest advances in a given […]

ASEXUALITY REVISITED (WITH SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT LABELS)

Two years ago I published a post with the title “And now for the asexuals… : Ceaseless labelling in Gender Studies” (15 March 2015). This was inspired by the draft of a chapter in a PhD dissertation, which I was asked to assess. Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting on the board for the […]

STUCK IN A RUT: MISOGYNY AND FEMINISM

My post today is inspired by an article in the Verne section of El país, which offers a summary of the messages that many Spanish women have sent to Twitter in reaction to the hashtag #comomujermehapasado (more or less: ‘as a woman I have gone through that’) (see http://verne.elpais.com/verne/2017/04/13/articulo/1492088562_028524.html). I find that whenever a piece […]

BE BOLD FOR CHANGE: INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2017

This year the theme for International Women’s Day is #BeBoldForChange, as you may see from diverse sites on the internet. Tomorrow, 8 of March, we women are also invited to join a worldwide strike to demonstrate that without us the planet will stop rolling. The latest calculations suggest that we are 170 years away from […]