gender & feminism

Friday Hoyden: Jean Hirst

I was rather taken today by the story of Jean Hirst. This 72-year-old woman was giving three teenage girls a lift after asking them directions to a theatre. One of the girls thought she saw an easy mark, grabbed Hirst’s… Read More ›

Quickhit: How Hollywood made its heroines weight-obsessed and man mad

From the Guardian/Observer:

Hollywood heroines are being increasingly portrayed as neurotic, idiotic and obsessed by men, weight and weddings, a professor at Oxford University has claimed.

Dr Diane Purkiss, who is a fellow at Keble College, argued that over the past five decades the film industry has made its female characters “dumber and dumber”. The latest slew of chick-flicks, including He’s Just Not That Into You and Confessions of a Shopaholic, fall prey to the “worst kind of regressive, pre-feminist stereotype of misogynistic cliche,” she added.