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“Are you an aviatrix navigating new gender roles in goggles and lipstick, a flapper winning the vote in pearls and crystals, a cowgirl breaking wild horses in a western shirt and gingham neckerchief, or a lady striding defiantly into the gentlemen’s clubs with a pipe and a pocket watch?“

Well, it’s quite possible we’re not any of those exciting things, but I’m sure we’ll be damned if we don’t want to celebrate them. Looking at the calendar of historical events you may not be shocked to see that women are sadly lacking – it’s something we all wax lyrical about a lot so it’s lovely to see something this fun with a bit of feminist flair cocked towards appreciating women’s work and groundbreaking action.

Even better, the two designers that set up the company 10 years ago and run the show today are both women, have a workshop filled with women and celebrate an irreverent kind of fashion that doesn’t demand serious contemplation and contempt for fun.

See the full collection Here.

Watch this programme on the iPlayer about Spirfire Women

“Now that feminism has reclaimed the territory of traditional ‘housewife’ and empowered it…”

It’s a pity that came up in the press release because they had me at ‘practical advice’. I would just have enjoyed the book, maybe I would have said that it’s useful for anyone to have lying around in case the Internet breaks and they need to fix something.

As a woman with a penchant for vintage clothes combined with a skill at spilling food and drink all down the front of them and with a want for eco-friendly care of my belongings the older way of doing things is sometimes exactly what I’m looking for. Added to that I’m a serial sucker for prim looking things for my bookshelves and, my, Home Economics is prim looking all delicate fonts and illustrations anyone with an eye to past times style would be happy to leave it out for people to have a look at. It would have been fine. But they’re telling us we need this as part of our feminist day.

This is not a feminist bible (though, if we do put one together lets find out who did they design on this). Time isn’t enough to make doing the household chores twee and fun, particularly for those of us who have to wash our own clothes and floors. Particularly when you find that most cleaning and caring roles inside the home and within industry are filled by women. At the end of the day I can safely say it isn’t feminism that makes me want to wash things, its health and hygiene. So where does a book get off telling me that traditional feminist roles being played out in the most traditional of ways is reclamation of anything?

You’d be forgiven for thinking that feminism had better things to be doing, arguing too and fro about prostitution, objectification, lack of care and support for those suffering domestic violence and the many myriad ways violence against women shows itself and what to do about them. You’d think when it comes to the homes feminists would be embroiled in working to make sure refugee and asylum seeking women have somewhere safe to stay that isn’t a prison.

Well, look at you being wrong. Every other feminist you know is secretly swatting up on table manners and ‘the happy way of doing things’ as well as curiously studying how to fold them big old men shirts properly. Oh wait, are you reading that new feminist politics book? Now I see you were using to create a straight line you clever thing.

Hilarious rib poking aside, this book is a practical and slightly scientifically flawed repackaging of age old adages and soft focus advice from yesteryear very much pitched at the heterosexual female keeping the home and family clean and upright.

The introduction pays brief service to the interesting ideas behind flicking through now yellowed and unused home economics text books – homemade eco-friendly cleaners and an ability to mend and reuse your own clothes among them. It also makes the great point that many of today’s time saving implements freed women from slaving at the hot stove and the steaming laundry. But that’s not enough at all to try and crowbar feminism into what is a jovial little book with a few nice tips on removing stains and putting an end to food waste but little else.

But here, take an old adage from my book ‘not everything has to be feminist your feminism will be enough to keep you safe, sometimes’. So buy it, enjoy it, love up the vintage olden times glory but don’t buy or repeat throw away marketing pitches aimed at soaking up another segment of the audience know as “women”.

In the meantime if you know any good books which look at how modern kitchen implements freed women from the kitchen let me know, and if there aren’t any pay me to research and write it.

CWS at University of York Announces A Carnival of Feminist Cultural Activism

Carol Ann Duffy Reading, Questions and Book Signing in Lincoln

On Friday 2nd July I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to attend the ‘Not PowerPoint Again! Presenting Research on Women in Popular Culture’ Day School at the University of York. The day itself was organised by two PhD students, Rosemary Hill and Julia Carter, from the Centre for Women’s Studies at the university itself. Set over the course of three ‘Acts’, the day itself comprised of a total of 10 speakers, each with very different pieces of research.

Act One opened with Julia Triston, a textile artist, designer and lecturer based in the North East. Julia presented her Bra-ra dresses, made out of donated bras, and her knicker-bunting – 90metres of bunting made from knickers with buttons for weightin. The bra-ra dresses were fantastic and we were asked to read out excerpts of letters submitted with the bras. Some were exceedingly personal, for instance the donater diagnosed with cancer, whilst others were light-hearted and raised many a smile. The bunting itself was extraordionary. Julia had us pass it around the circle from start to finish. It was peculiar seeing all the different shapes and sizes; it truly was a reflection of real woman out there in Britain. Julia commented on how this was part of the performance; considering your feelings of handling someone else’s underwear. Julia is still accepting donations and more information on her work can be found here and here.

Act One continued with Rosemary Hill utilising hand puppets to consider narratives between Heavy Metal Fans and Emos, and their consideration of females. Rosemary has also recently been interviewed for Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed about subcutlures (certainly worth a listening). Next was Amy Pressland whose work considers women in sport. By using an interactive quiz, Amy showed ideas regarding the visibility of sportswomen in British media. Act Two opened with M.Geneva Murray and Elizabeth Thomas who had both, seperately, considered roller derby in their research. Again, this was a real interactive presentation inviting input from the audience. I found really interesting the idea of bruises and whether they were a badge of honour. And how dress code for Roller Derby was quite often at odds with how members would usually dress. Act Two closed with Caroline Lucas who performed a piece she had composed with dialogue running over and considered gender and nation. This composed piece itself was great and I wanted to find out more about it but whilst Caroline had pointed out why some sounds were included it didn’t seem the place for a full disclosure of the piece itself. However, some very interesting points were raised by the piece.

The day closed with Act Three which was a zine making workshop with Ann Kaloski Naylor which pulled together ideas from the day, putting them into practice. This was a really good idea to finish off the day and there was opporunity to consider each other’s zines before leaving. The day itself really provided food for thought regarding presenting research to others (and not just using the powerpoint which has become the accepted, dominant tool) whilst getting to hear about other’s research into women. The CWS are organising a ‘Cultural Activism’ conference for next year, keep your eye(s) out!

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Since Donna Haraway’s The Cyborg Manifesto, science fiction has been a playground for feminist and queer artists; but why aren’t its possibilities reflected on the big screen? Academics Rachel Armstrong and Patricia MacCormack join Sophie Mayer, guest editor of LGBTQI journal Chroma’s Utopia issue, to discuss queer Future Human cinesexuality in response to Chroma readings by Katy Price and others, and Tina Keane’s short The Making of Dandy Dust.

The big screen will be pulsating at London’s BFI on July 2nd, be there or be totally 20th century.

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