Blog posts by Holly Combe: 2009
Another provocative Fay Weldon headline
by Holly Combe // 1 December 2009, 21:47
According to the headline and subheading in today's Telegraph, Fay Weldon thinks Katie Price "drinks too much and sleeps with too many people and talks about it too much for common decency". The more detailed quote, as it appears in...
Presentation and debate in Bristol tomorrow
by Holly Combe // 27 November 2009, 14:42
As Sian Norris mentioned a couple of weeks ago, in her post about the Representations of Women in the Media Project , there will be a presentation and debate at the Malcom X Centre in St Pauls in Bristol tomorrow,...
Transcribers wanted
by Holly Combe // 18 November 2009, 21:36
As part of the ongoing initiative to make this site more widely accessible, we are looking for volunteers to transcribe videos and provide subtitles. While researching recent posts on accessibility, we've followed up one potential lead so far and are...
Broadcasting round-Up (Oxfordshire RTN, sex ed, body hair & Calendar Girls)
by Holly Combe // 10 November 2009, 13:04
There have been a few radio ventures on the F-word front over the past week. You can catch Louise Livesey talking about last Friday's Reclaim the Night in Oxford on BBC Radio Oxfordshire (2.04.15) and regular guest blogger Kate Smuthwaite...
BBC Three Counties Discussion on Platonic Friendship
by Holly Combe // 27 September 2009, 21:59
Unfortunately, popular wisdom still seems to have it that women and men can't be platonic friends. Society might oh-so-tolerantly let you off the hook as a so-called "exception" if you're both gay (if you're lucky) but if one or both...
Opportunity to Buy Tickets for Feminist Comedy on 10 October
by Holly Combe // 24 September 2009, 16:53
Kate Smurthwaite has details on her blog about the feminist cabaret show being held at the Comedy Pub in London on 10 October, after the Feminism in London Conference: It's downstairs at The Comedy Pub on Oxenden Street (between Piccadilly...
Erotic Film With Feminist Aims Wins Award Despite Ban
by Holly Combe // 2 September 2009, 22:36
The film Matinée, directed by Jennifer Lyon Bell, has been given the “Best Short Film” prize by an official jury at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival 2009. The August 26 scheduled screening was halted by the OFLC (Australia’s Office...
Mothers for Women's Lib on Press Treatment of Katie Price
by Holly Combe // 15 August 2009, 14:53
You'll probably be aware that, predictably, the apparent tide of goodwill from the press towards Katie Price (AKA Jordan) finally turned in recent months. Before her split with Peter Andre, it seemed she could do no wrong as far as...
Opportunity to Vote for Your Top Ten Favourite Blogs
by Holly Combe // 27 July 2009, 20:59
The Total Politics site has more here: The votes will be compiled and included in the forthcoming book, the Total Politics Guide to Blogging 2009-10, which will be published in September... The rules are simple. 1. You must vote for...
Three Counties Feature on Name Change
by Holly Combe // 22 July 2009, 21:12
Why does the tradition for a woman to change her name after marriage still persist? I briefly contributed to a discussion on this issue with Luke Ashmead on BBC Three Counties radio last week and, on listening again, was...
More on "Stay-Home-Dads"
by Holly Combe // 9 July 2009, 23:20
Just a quick heads-up to say I took part in a Radio Five Live feature prompted by a report that there has been an 80% increase in men staying at home since April 2008. I realise we probably shouldn't be...
Solidarity Protest for Yarls Wood Hunger Strike
by Holly Combe // 18 June 2009, 19:30
There has been a hunger strike taking place since Tuesday in the Yarls Wood immigration prison: Mothers and Fathers in detention at the Yarl's Wood detention centre near Bedford have been on hunger strike for the past 2 days over...
Mothers Day? Fathers Day? Life Insurance Day!
by Holly Combe // 16 June 2009, 20:00
I was recently alerted to a Just-in-time-for-Fathers-Day article about some research for Legal and General from brand strategy and research company BDifferent (I know... alarm bells already). It highlights an increase in the amount of work men do around the...
Monday Round-up
by Holly Combe // 15 June 2009, 19:40
I discovered through Sunny on Twitter today that Pickled Politics have highlighted the new "Women Uncovered" blog. The site's strapline is "Where Brown British Women Bitch" and there are two posts so far: one on veils, headscarves and hijab and...
Beware the "Look" Policy at Abercrombie & Fitch
by Holly Combe // 14 June 2009, 21:46
Jezebel reports that Riam Dean, an employee of the London flagship Abercrombie and Fitch store, was banished to work in the storeroom for not fitting with their "look" policy. Riam has a prosthetic arm and was asked to buy a...
Daily Politics Work Debate
by Holly Combe // 13 June 2009, 19:36
It only really scratches the surface of the issue but you might be interested to check out a five minute snippet of a Daily Politics debate between Anneka Rice, Phil Woolas and Anne Widdecombe about the changing role of women...
Worrying Result in Spectrum Survey
by Holly Combe // 5 June 2009, 18:39
Following on from Laura's post about violence against trans women around the world, I'd also like to mention that there's a post over at Bird of Paradox (BoP) about a forthcoming UK trans survey on domestic violence. This is much...
Newsflash: Violence is not Ladylike
by Holly Combe // 1 June 2009, 21:00
I expect you'll already be aware that the attack on Danielle Lloyd in a nightclub last week prompted the usual predictable response from the Daily Mail about Bad Women. (I won't bother linking to them on this occasion but will...
No Mr Sunderland Then? Oh.
by Holly Combe // 27 May 2009, 23:57
It seems that beauty pageants are back. Until relatively recently, they appeared to me to be consigned to the history books: a quaint and ludicrous reminder of a time when being pretty and coming across as a sweet, nice person...
Oven Pride and Sexism in Advertising
by Holly Combe // 26 May 2009, 22:36
Is this advert sexist? This was the theme of a debate I took part in on the Richard Bacon programme last Thursday (scroll through to an hour and 43 minutes into the programme) with Stuart Stirling, the General Manager...
EWL Gender Audit Result
by Holly Combe // 24 May 2009, 02:00
As Jess just flagged up, theres only one question in the Vote Match tool that directly relates to gender. If you want to see a more detailed picture of how the manifestos of four of the main European political parties...
"Advancing Women" by... Not Employing Us
by Holly Combe // 19 May 2009, 21:40
Bafflingly, that seems to be the position of Sylvia Tidy-Harris, who you may have seen on the programme Kate appeared on and talked about in her post yesterday. I took part in a debate with Tidy-Harris on BBC Radio London...
Women: Oh! We are Awful!
by Holly Combe // 9 April 2009, 20:00
We've heard it all before. A celebrity laments that, contrary to apparently popular opinion, women are actually incredibly horrid and the idea of "sisterhood" is a myth. The media then delightedly seizes upon it in a sexist frenzy to imply...
PES Member Party Elects Woman Leader
by Holly Combe // 6 April 2009, 22:10
A press release for the Party of European Socialists (PES) announced today that the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) has has joined a growing number of PES member parties with women leaders and shown "the PES is the party of gender...
Art at the Pompidou "Frazzled by Feminism"
by Holly Combe // 14 March 2009, 19:30
There's a rather confusing write up over at the AFP correspondent news blog about the press conference announcing a major exhibition on women artists at the Pompidou museum in Paris. Aside from the possible alarm bells one could get...
Founder of The F-Word, Catherine Redfern, has co-authored a new book with Kristin Aune. Find out more at the 
