About The F-Word

Who Are We?

Want to find out more about the editorial team behind The F-Word? Then read on! If you want to see a full list of contributors, this is the place you need to click.

Editor: Jess McCabe

Founder: Catherine Redfern

Pictures Editor: Jenny Williamson

Events Editor: Helen G

Social Media Officer: Philippa Willitts

Section Editors

Comics: Marina Strinkovsky

Fiction: Iman Qureshi

Film: Ania Ostrowska

Games and TV: Mathilda Gregory

Music: Cazz Blase and Holly Combe

Non-fiction: Charlene Moore

Theatre and Performing Arts: Cathy B

The F-Word blog is run by a collective, made up of:

Abby O'Reilly
Alicia Izharuddin
Carrie Dunn
Catherine Redfern
Helen G
Holly Combe
Laura Woodhouse
Lynne Miles
Jess McCabe
Jolene Tan
Josephine Tsui
Shiha Kaur
Philippa Willitts
zohra moosa

More about the people behind The F-Word:

Abby O'Reilly

Abby O'Reilly grew up in the Cynon Valley in South Wales and attended the local comprehensive school before reading English literature at Cambridge. A bit of a geek by all accounts, she spends a disproportionate amount of time pre-ordering books in the hope of getting a much-coveted first edition. Obviously, then, she could not be anything but the life and soul of the party. She's had a passion for writing for as long as she can remember, has contributed to a number of national publications, and loves the writings of Hunter S Thompson and Martha Gellhorn. As part of her continuing online procrastination programme, she tweets @AbigailOReilly and has her own blog.

Alicia Izharuddin

Alicia Izharuddin was known to be a sullen, stubborn and argumentative child. She later grew up to be even more stubborn and argumentative but a lot less sullen.

She found feminism the same way she found religion, and all the perplexing childhood questions about why she must not stay out so late at night and why she must one day 'look after her man' were answered. Qualified as a geneticist, Alicia is now a doctoral candidate in gender studies at SOAS, where she teaches gender and sexuality in Southeast Asian cinema.

Ania Ostrowska

Ania Ostrowska moved to London from post-communist Poland in 2005, enabled by her country’s joining the EU. To sanction her feminist credentials, she got an MA in gender studies from SOAS. She lives in the London borough of Hackney and divides her time between working part-time at the Wellcome Library and reaching a conclusive position on the UK feminist movement.

Carrie Dunn

Carrie Dunn is a journalist. She likes sport, musicals, wrestling, reality TV, karaoke, embroidery, World of Warcraft, three-volume Victorian novels and Veronica Mars.

Catherine Redfern

Catherine Redfern founded The F-Word and was editor from 2001-2007. She is from Tameside, Manchester and has been living in London for about ten years, much to her parents' annoyance. She is co-author, with Kristin Aune, of Reclaiming The F Word: The New Feminist Movement, a book about the resurgence and reclamation of feminism over the last ten years, today's issues and today's feminist activism. The book was published in June 2010 by Zed Books. She hangs out @cathredfern and has various craft obsessions which she blogs about on her infrequently updated, unprofessional, low-key personal blog.

Cazz Blase

Cazz Blase was born in Stockport, UK, in 1979. She wrote the fanzine Aggamengmong Moggie between 1993 and 1999, Real Girlsin 2001, and Harlot’s Progress between 2002 and 2006. She also accrued an impressively large collection of other people’s fanzines during this period, many of which she donated to The Women’s Library in 2007. She has dabbled with DJing, co-owned and co-ran a record label and flirted with music journalism. She has been a contributor to The F-Word for eight years. She was a contributing author to the book Riot Grrrl: Revolution Girl Style Now! and is currently invoking the spirit of the 19th century serial through her fiction blog, Screaming In Public while also rebuilding her fanzine collection and taking her first tentative steps towards turning her punk series into a book. She works as a library assistant at Manchester University.

Charlene Moore

Charlene Moore has just finished her final classes in English, journalism and creative writing at the University of Strathclyde, and still hasn't fully accepted becoming a member of the Real World yet. She discovered The F-Word during her Honours year at university, and can credit the site for giving her the confidence to openly call herself a feminist. Ideally she will have a career in women's charity PR and feminist journalism. She finds that the stress of not being a student any more can be lessened by trash TV shows and sweet rums.

Helen G

Helen joined the bloggers' collective at The F-Word in 2008 and has recently taken on the role of Events Editor.

As a middle-aged white woman who is also transsexual she tries to be as aware of her privileges as she is of the intersecting oppressions she faces. She transitioned in 2007 and, although being transsexual has had a sizeable impact on her life, it does not define who she is, both as a woman and a card-carrying member of the human race.

Helen is currently long-term unemployed and her computer geekiness is finding an outlet as volunteer part-time IT Manager for a development and disaster relief charity based in Shoreditch.

In addition to her commitment to The F-Word, she also blogs about TS/TG and social justice/human rights issues at Bird of Paradox and spends far too much time on Twitter. She sometimes writes for Questioning Transphobia and Exile On Moan Street and has curated the Genderfork feed at Twitter since 2009.

Holly Combe

Holly Combe has been a feminist for as long as she can remember but became active when she joined Feminists Against Censorship in 2000. She started reading and contributing to The F-Word in 2002 after receiving an email about the site in a Yahoo group she took part in at the time. She joined the blog in 2005 and recently became joint music review editor with Cazz Blase.

Holly has had writing published in a number of other outlets including Economic Issues, Scarlet magazine, The Guardian, Fresh Outlook, New Statesman, Bookslut, Girlchick and Oxford Mail. She gained an MA in applied social research in 2008 and, along with this, is a radio pundit and occasional DJ.

Iman Qureshi

Iman Qureshi is a reader-writer-ranter extraordinaire and is interested in the intersections of gender, sexuality, race and culture. She loves a good feminist/racial harangue, but finds that her love for Disney occasionally compromises her staunchly Butlerian/Bhabhaian views. She has written for The Guardian CIF, Liberal Conspiracy, Pickled Politics, and DIVA Magazine.

Jenny Williamson

Jenny is a long-term reader of The F-Word and excited to be given the chance to fill it with pictures. By day, she is a mild-mannered accountant discussing the principles of double-entry book-keeping; but by night she throws caution to the wind, and fights the patriarchy by arguing with people on the internet whilst curled up on the sofa with a good book. She lives in North London with her house-gnome called Alphonse and vast quantities of books.

Jess McCabe

When she's not chipping away at the coal face of feminist media, Jess McCabe is a reporter covering environmental and financial stories. You can also find her on Twitter @jester, theoretically blogging on her own site, being bossed about by two Norwegian Forest cats and consuming more pop culture than can be good for her.

Jolene Tan

Jolene is 28. She was born and grew up in Singapore, and currently lives in Germany, after spending several years in the UK. She is a core team member of No To Rape, the volunteer-led campaign for the complete abolition of marital immunity for rape in Singapore. She is interested in a wide range of feminist and human rights issues, including penal reform, migrant workers' rights and secularism.

She loves novels, bunnies, bouldering, hiking and board games.

Josephine Tsui

Josephine Tsui is a regular ol' 'Jill of all Trades'. She is also the co-creator of Good Girls Marry Doctors, an organisation dedicated to bringing awareness of women in first generation Asian immigrant families and their struggle to bring feminism in culturally sensitive ways.

As an Asian Canadian, she is currently living in Bristol. Her day job is focuses on women's rights and food security. She has lived in multiple countries in Southern and Western Africa working with Engineers Without Borders Canada. She has also dabbled in medical research including neuropsychology, prostate cancer pathology.

Laura Woodhouse

Laura Woodhouse is a 26-year-old hairy-legged, cult-surviving feminist who lives and works in Sheffield, currently as a translator. She was one of the founding members of Sheffield Fems (now Sheffield Feminist Network), and The F-Word was her first introduction to feminism. She likes cakes, guinea pigs, crunchy electro beats and obscure French films, and she is apparently the only feminist on the internet who hates cats.

Lynne Miles

Lynne Miles is 31, and has been blogging for The F-Word since the blog began back in 2005. She has lived in London for the past 10 years (excepting a nine-month stint in New York City), the last five of them with a handsomely bearded technical bloke, and they have just had their first baby. She has a degree in economics and politics, and a masters in public policy. When she's not blogging here, she works for a consulting firm, doing things to do with economic development and regional policy. She's also newly involved in the local Labour party and considering a bid for world domination. She likes to be contrary, and will pretty much always take the opposite side of the argument to you.

You can also find Lynne on Twitter (@LynneMiles) or at her personal blog.

Marina Strinkovsky

Marina Strinkovsky lives in Swindon and blogs intermittently at It’s Not a Zero Sum Game. Never particularly mild mannered or retiring, she has no need for a secret identity and can often be seen sitting at her office desk in traditional superhero spandex. You can find her on Twitter @marstrina.

Mathilda Gregory

Mathilda Gregory is a writer who regularly contributes to The Guardian. She is also a senior reviewer for Fringe Guru and has written short fiction about Doctor Who for Big Finish. She was a winner of the BBC's Laughing Stock competition and is currently working on a sitcom pilot and a thriller.

Philippa Willitts

Philippa Willitts is a 34-year-old, disabled, atheist, pacifist oddity who lives in Sheffield and sometimes makes zines. She has been a feminist all her adult life, and joined The F-Word in November 2009. She has eclectic tastes in blogging but particularly covers issues of disability, domestic violence and rape, social justice and sexuality. She enjoys being in nature and mischief, and has her own blog in her incarnation as incurable hippie, as well as contributing to the group blog Where's the Benefit? She can often be found on twitter, both on her personal account @incurablehippie and running @thefworduk account, especially when she is supposed to be doing other things.

Shiha Kaur

Shiha Kaur comes from a British-Asian background and originally started out as a guest blogger for The F-Word in April 2010. She worries about the apparent lack of feminists from her community and the social pressures and demands often inflicted on young British-Asian women. She enjoys dancing, cooking and starting craft projects which never seem to get finished. If she has three hours to spare she likes to watch old Bollywood films with the subtitles switched on.

zohra moosa

zohra moosa is London-based, where she works as women's rights advisor at ActionAid UK.

Prior to this role she was senior policy & campaigns officer at the Fawcett Society where she led a programme on the experiences and priorities of ethnic minority women in the UK called Seeing Double. zohra is also a trustee of the Sophia Forum.

Twitter follow her on @zohramoosa