Eden: Paradise Lost Well, that was a depressing programme? Eden: Paradise Lost was an ‘experiment’ where 23 people were put into a remote part of Scotland to create a community over a year. The original plan of regular episodes to watch progress was canned and, instead, we ended up with a five-part summary of what […]
Mental load: at last, a name for that thing
You should have asked. It’s the title of a comic strip in the Guardian by French feminist artist Emma. It beautifully describes a thing I’ve been clumsily groping towards for years. When you have all of the stuff for everyone in the house in your head, most of the responsibility for getting things done and, […]
Proposing a Bechdel Test for journalism.
I still get cross thinking about it. The story in The Times about spectacularly successful and influential Helena Morrissey and how she copes with her nine children and the fact that her husband is of the ‘house’ persuasion. A successful person with quite a few children is happy to leave them in the care of […]
It’s not just men who are sexist
Get the picture? Taking the mickey out of men just because they are men is easy, it’s (a bit) funny, satisfying and, it’s very wrong. You know the kind of thing – jokes that make blokes out to be overgrown children incapable of anything but watching sport and farting. And that set women apart as […]
What would you say to your 18-year-old self?
Posh Spice started it with her recent advice to her younger self. Then the Daily Record asked a few writers, including me, if they wanted to share their wisdom. Here’s what I wrote: Dear Ellen YOU’RE 18 and you’ve almost finished your first year at university. While you think you’re invincible and that you […]