English Heritage calls for female blue plaque nominees
English Heritage has admitted that not enough women from history are celebrated with blue plaques and has asked the public to help redress the balance.
Only 14% of the more than 900 blue plaques in...
Why female superheroes shouldn’t hit old ladies
The trailer for Captain Marvel has landed. I always find it hard to tell someone’s superpower from a trailer – it all moves so fast – but I know she can breathe fire out...
The Favourite
Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. Nevertheless, duck racing and pineapple eating are thriving. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel...
Virginie Despentes: ‘What is going on in men’s heads when women’s pleasure has become...
In her living room in northern Paris, Virginie Despentes, a former punk and wild child of French literature, sits on her sofa with coffee in a Motörhead mug, rolling a cigarette and reflecting on...
How we made: Spare Rib magazine
Rosie Boycott, co-founder
There were lots of things rumbling around in 1971. Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch had come out, and there were protests against Miss World – but they didn’t seem to reach the...
A Mary Quant exhibition is coming to London
It’s been announced that the V&A have been given unprecedented access to Dame Mary Quant’s archive to curate an international retrospective on the designer known for inventing the miniskirt. The first of its kind,...
Pride month: the exhibitions celebrating LGBT art in June
It was 28 June 1969 when the Stonewall riots broke out in New York City, and as police raided the Stonewall Inn gay bar on Christopher Street, it also sparked the modern LGBT rights...
My Name Is Lucy Barton review – Laura Linney triumphs as a writer confronting...
Novels, depending on the stream of time, rarely make good plays. Elizabeth Strout’s first-person narrative, longlisted for the Man Booker prize in 2016, however, breaks the rules and fits perfectly on the stage. That’s...
A new low in mansplaining – menopause as a metaphor for a failing economy
A new low in mansplaining – menopause as a metaphor for a failing economy
No offence to my employers, but the continued absence of a menopause cry space, as recently pioneered by Notts police, has...
Karen Finch obituary
Karen Finch, who has died aged 96, was a master weaver before becoming a conservator and, in 1975, founded the Textile Conservation Centre for professional conservation training and research. Housed initially at Hampton Court...
The sound of mega orgasms: the female composers taking music into intimate places
In the early 1990s, the accordionist and musical improviser Pauline Oliveros wrote the soundtrack for a feminist porn film called The Sluts and Goddesses Video Workshop. The film is presented and co-directed by Annie...
From glossies to gal-dem: the websites revolutionising women’s media
Over the past decade, the women’s magazine has undergone a radical makeover. While 00s glossies consisted largely of insidious bodyshaming and bankrupting shoe recommendations, in recent years female-centric journalism has migrated online, simultaneously shifting...
Reni Eddo-Lodge polemic tops poll of most influential books by women
Reni Eddo-Lodge’s book Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race has been named the most influential book written by a woman. The 2017 book bested titles including Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication...
Dame Daphne Sheldrick obituary
Elephant babies like coconut oil. This discovery has saved the life of hundreds of orphaned, unweaned elephants, left behind when their mothers were killed, victims of the ivory wars that have catastrophically reduced elephant...
Fashioned from Nature
This exhibition will present fashionable dress alongside natural history specimens, innovative new fabrics and dyeing processes, inviting visitors to think about the materials of fashion and the sources of their clothes.
‘Clean Up or Die’...
Beyoncé Debuted a Whole New Look for Her Second Coachella Performance
Despite suffering a slight human error on stage, Beyoncé once again dominated the second weekend of Coachella — or, we should say, “Beychella.” While last night’s set was largely the same as her one...
‘Winning netball gold is a game changer’: Housby basks in surprise win
It’s one week on from the sensational last-second goal that could change English netball for ever. Scorer Helen Housby has hardly removed her Commonwealth gold medal. Inside a coffee shop at Sydney’s Olympic park,...
Tammie Jo Shults was a hero long before she saved lives of 148 people
After one of its engines appeared to explode in midair, a flight from New York to Dallas ended terribly and tragically with the death of a passenger, Jennifer Riordan, who had been partially sucked...
Woman who blazed a trail for equality in marathons hits London’s starting line
There are many differences between Sunday’s London marathon and the one run in Boston, Massachusetts last Monday, not least the weather. While Boston’s runners struggled in wintry conditions, London’s race is predicted to be...
From Madonna to Janelle Monáe: how female sexuality progressed in pop
Why Janelle Monáe’s vagina pants make me cheer | Chitra Ramaswamy
In 1997, Aerosmith released an ode to the female anatomy, simply titled Pink, in which Steven Tyler famously brayed about his tremendous love of...
