My latest column: Winter’s Bone: The Anti Chick Flick Debra Granik’s film of the novel by Daniel Woodrell offers a bleak world and an engaging 17-year-old heroine, Ree Dolly. She’s not fighting (or kissing) vampires, she’s not wondering what boys think of her and she’s not shopping. Ree (played with finesse and grace by the…
Category: women
BitchBuzz: Sugarbabes
Tip o’ the pen to my pal Saranna in this week’s column: Holly Hill and “Sugarbabes” as Surrogate Wives Sometimes it’s all I can do not to turn into Little Bunny Foo Foo and hop through this world bopping people on the head. No, not about the mosque—though that issue has exposed the ignorance of…
BitchBuzz: Hate Cute
My latest column: Mainstream Media Realize RomComs Hate Women Suddenly everyone in the media seems to have noticed what women have been talking about for years: how rom-coms seem to really hate on women. The high profile story is Maureen Dowd’s back-and-froth with social historian Sam Wasson about “Why romantic comedies now reek.” It’s a…
New Journal!
I’m really pleased to announce that the Women’s League of Ale Drinkers has decided to start a journal to share with the world the fabulous women who support the League. You can see the details over at the League’s site, but here’s a precis: And that is the mandate of the new journal for the…
I’m So Very Sorry (Maybe)
My latest column for BitchBuzz examines the gendering of apology, based on a couple of events you may or may not have heard about unless, like me, you monitor all media like a Bond villain (yes, Kipper helps): Here’s a study in contrasts: As our own Rebecca Thomson reported, there was a brouhaha about laddish…
BitchBuzz: Tubes
I had tried to call my latest column for BitchBuzz “Strong Men Also Cry” because it’s always good to make a Lebowski reference, but from the start, it was really all about the tubes: What is it with men and tubes? Particularly when they’re men who hold powerful offices and feel the need to wield…
BitchBuzz: Little Earthquakes
My latest column for BitchBuzz touches on the laughable comment by an Islamic cleric that women’s provocative dressing and sexual desire causes earthquakes. Ridiculous because even small children who look for logical answers to natural phenomena know about fault lines, but just another depressing indication of the scapegoating of women that goes on. Until my…
BitchBuzz: Girl Band Movies
My latest column for BitchBuzz gathers up some suggestions for girl group films. They were on my mind because I’m eagerly awaiting the seemingly endlessly delayed opening of The Runaways tomorrow: If you’re still waiting for The Runaways to come along to your neighbourhood and rock your world, there are a few other films you…
BitchBuzz: Havin’ a Larf
My column this week at BitchBuzz delves into the particularly terrifying notion of… FUNNY WOMEN! Why is it that funny women are so intimidating? [waves hand in the air wildly, waiting to be called upon] Humour is a weapon as well as amusement. Angry women scare people (hence the inevitable “Come on, smile!” if you…