Image: Sudbury Graffiti Because it's that time of year (the end) where we are required to look back and, if we would be so kind, list certain events on a scale of 1 to 10 as though we are all trapped in some never endingI Heart This Past Year programme doomed to pretend to recall fondly events such as the spacehopper craze and bumbags.
Remember? Remember? Crazy days. Crazy, crazy days. Anyway it's that or an article about how to survive the office Christmas party, or how to enjoy Christmas with your family because it never occurred to you they don't like you either, or a list of wildly expensive gift ideas for him, her, them and who.
Remember? Remember? Crazy days. Crazy, crazy days. Anyway it's that or an article about how to survive the office Christmas party, or how to enjoy Christmas with your family because it never occurred to you they don't like you either, or a list of wildly expensive gift ideas for him, her, them and who.
Kira Cochrane recently wrote about the potential fourth wave of feminism in the Guardian, reflecting on the feminist activity over the past year: "Welcome to the fourth wave of feminism. This movement follows the first-wave campaign for votes for women, which reached its height 100 years ago, the second wave women's liberation movement that blazed through the 1970s and 80s, and the third wave declared by Rebecca Walker, Alice Walker's daughter, and others, in the early 1990s. That shift from second to third wave took many important forms, but often felt broadly generational, with women defining their work as distinct from their mothers'. What's happening now feels like something new again. It's defined by technology: tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive movement online. Just how popular is sometimes slightly startling."
The same publication also recently announced its Guardian Woman Awards 2013: From Miley to Malala, in which "We round up the highs and lows for women this year, with awards for 2013's feminist heroines - and brickbats for the villains…" Politicians, newspaper editors, actors and singers receive awards either for their campaigning or backward comments. There is an air - in spite of the mention of Mary Beard's Twitter trolls and Godfrey Bloom's misogyny - of achievement. Look at feminism now!
However if we look at feminism from, say, the Caitlin Moran (stay with us) angle of vagina ownership and who took charge of vaginas this year it doesn't look good. If we reduce feminism down to My Vagina's Keeper it's still looking pretty bleak. And not just because it excludes a lot of people.
The same publication also recently announced its Guardian Woman Awards 2013: From Miley to Malala, in which "We round up the highs and lows for women this year, with awards for 2013's feminist heroines - and brickbats for the villains…" Politicians, newspaper editors, actors and singers receive awards either for their campaigning or backward comments. There is an air - in spite of the mention of Mary Beard's Twitter trolls and Godfrey Bloom's misogyny - of achievement. Look at feminism now!
However if we look at feminism from, say, the Caitlin Moran (stay with us) angle of vagina ownership and who took charge of vaginas this year it doesn't look good. If we reduce feminism down to My Vagina's Keeper it's still looking pretty bleak. And not just because it excludes a lot of people.
| For the last few years we have been pretty sure of ourselves pube-wise. We might not agree or adhere to the pube memo (go bald or go home) but we were aware. 2013 has been the year to wonder aloud how long this routine is going to go on for. | If we reduce feminism down to My Vagina's Keeper it's still looking pretty bleak. |
A survey carried out by UK Medix in November revealed that 51% of 1,870 women who answered an online pharmacy poll don't bother to "style or groom their pubic hair" and 45% admitting that we can "no longer be bothered to keep up the grooming" and 62% saying that their partner "prefers the natural look". Hey ladies, we can grow pubes again! The media shouted. Like we were waiting for permission. Which, it seems, we were. Cue lots of pieces in praise of the 1970s bush over the 'little girl' look, snidely remarking it was originally for better porn shots don't you know?
Even if some people think so as they scratch their regrowth, we aren't out of the woods (heh, geddit?) yet. Earlier this month the Telegraph informed me that the vajacials are a thing. What's a vajacial you say? Oh really, of all the questions. A vajacial is where your vulva is pampered with various treatments and even steaming. However one vajacial indulger told ABC News (yes) that this is not something people will be gift carding like a massage, "it's definitely a procedure...I would never get one for therapeutic reasons." And why would you?
Also did you know while you have been reading this your vulva has been ageing? Which is why your vulva needs gym equipment and a medical procedure designed to help with medical issues.
2013 has not been a great year for the vagina. Could be worse. I still haven't seen the vulva beaker marketed.
Squeamish Kate
Even if some people think so as they scratch their regrowth, we aren't out of the woods (heh, geddit?) yet. Earlier this month the Telegraph informed me that the vajacials are a thing. What's a vajacial you say? Oh really, of all the questions. A vajacial is where your vulva is pampered with various treatments and even steaming. However one vajacial indulger told ABC News (yes) that this is not something people will be gift carding like a massage, "it's definitely a procedure...I would never get one for therapeutic reasons." And why would you?
Also did you know while you have been reading this your vulva has been ageing? Which is why your vulva needs gym equipment and a medical procedure designed to help with medical issues.
2013 has not been a great year for the vagina. Could be worse. I still haven't seen the vulva beaker marketed.
Squeamish Kate
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