Hurrah! Not only is it Friday but we have a long weekend ahead of us. Ah an extra day over what is usually a dairy heavy weekend of celebration. You probably have plans to give and receive egg-shaped chocolate, or carob if you are so inclined. There is also the probability that you plan to go out and about. At night. In the dark. To places that sell alcohol.

Perhaps you go to these places to meet new people or maybe your plan is purely to scheme evil schemes with your comrades over a pint of real ale. Unfortunately either plan can be interrupted by that most persistent of creatures, the slimy git. They live in a world where no means 'probably, why don't you continue on your charm offensive and see how it goes...' to shake them off is tough, but it can be done. We share our tips.

Of course nothing beats the greatest tip of all... don't be a slimy git.

The Real Women debate is something I have written about previously. It's not a subject I like, in fact I would go as far as to say it irritates me. Perhaps this is because I am not a real woman, or I am simply not clear on how you can define what a real woman is. The most recent 'hurrah look at those real women!' meme has been an image of some lingerie shop mannequins in Sweden. The photo was taken in 2010 but for some reason it's taken 3 years for it to blow our puny minds.

The mannequins in question are bigger and more plausibly shaped than those seen in UK shops. They are apparently a closer reflection of the average shopper than the usual 5'10 size 10 plastic fantastics in the window. While the 'real woman' mannequins photographed are more voluptuous they are also white, well proportioned and more toned than the average size 16 woman.

Being a lady is hard guys. Like, really hard. It's not enough to simply identify yourself as a lady. Your ladynosity has to ooze from every movement you make, every word you quietly utter and every twin set you purchase (because you are a lady you will have a handkerchief in the event of lady-ing all over the furniture). If you're wondering if you are ladylike enough (it's never enough) then you should probably check your ladyness against this helpful guide in The Telegraph. Yeah that's right The Telegraph are taking it upon themselves to learn you how to lady, lady.

Thanks to finishing schools being a thing of the past those who with to lady away the day have to dirty their fingers with a little Googling. Please try to think of Google as a kind of rectangular, quiet butler who is very concerned with how quickly he can bring you things. You can even say 'that will be all Google' when you're done and click the red cross to close the window.

Of course we have Google alerts set up for the term feminism (and women's health, amongst others if you're interested – FYI eat more kale!). Of course we do, what with writing about feminism on a regular basis. When we set up this google alert we thought what we would get would be notifications from feminist resources, articles by feminist writers and, obviously, the odd 'is feminism still relevant?' article.

What we have received has strayed from the expected. Much of the content has not been anti-feminism but plain anti-women. How women are ruining the world, how women are rubbish, can women even contribute? I paraphrase. But it seems there are more Mens Rights Activists talking about feminism online than feminists doing feminist things. Which is odd, because apparently it is all these men can do to get out of bed THANKS TO A FEMINIST. And not in a fun 'sex positive' feminist way, in an 'all men are predators' feminist way. I know, SIGH.

Words are important. That goes (ironically) without saying, surely? The labels that we put on things and the ways in which we discuss them affect our views of them. Discussions of language are not uncommon in feminism - part of wanting to change things is thinking about how current power structures are created by and propped up by the ways we talk about them.

When I was at primary school, we talked about firemen, policemen, postmen. Now the general terms for these jobs are firefighter, police officer, postie. At work our meetings have a chair, not a chairman. Yes, these are small things, but they remove a linguistic signal that says these jobs are only for men to do, or that male is the default, female an afterthought, an add-on. A lot of language is male-dominated, because for so long men were seen as the default. Changing that helps us to realise it's no longer the case. Or rather, it shouldn't be.

The mantra has many definitions but in the western world when we say 'mantra' we mean a calming group of words. They can have a message or just be something you can parrot to yourself that makes you feel soothed in times of high anxiety. That's why so many multi-millionaire celebrities have mantras tattooed on their skin. Angelina Jolie, Rihanna, Demi Lovato and Johnny Depp have all inked a calming memo to themselves on their bodies. Which is very kind because it means each time they get papped we learn something... These celebrities are deep, man.

When the theme for this week was sent out the expected response was one of cynicism. “I don't have a mantra and here's why...” But as it happens we are a bunch of mantra riddled mutterers with tried and tested go-to mantras. Who knew we were so darn mystical. So next time you see one of the Squeamish team wandering the streets and muttering to themselves worry not, they're probably just using their mantras.

For years, even after MySpace, Facebook and Twitter had really got going, we yearned for a way to tell our friends we loved science. No not love science, fucking love science. Oh sure on occasion we'd happily stumble upon a little fact about the platypus poisonous skin but until we truly took the time to read New Scientist properly – instead 'saving it for later' and allowing it to pile up in the bathroom, using the same logic (logic! Sciencey) as the award winning actor 'oh these old Oscars, Ijust use them to prop open the door' so visitors know you are a person that can both understand science and can defecate at the same time.

Then one day a page popped us for Facebookers to like. A page destined to become more popular than previous favourite Yes I will go out of my way to step on that crunchy leaf page. A page that read New Scientist for us and picked out all the science news we cared about. Which is cute animals, but in a slightly more edgy way than Cute Overload.

Squeamish Sue's been having trouble with this century. She can't find breathable fabrics, her fellow students think she's from The Past and her boots are more suited to the moon than Berlin. Still, at least the drugs are free now.

I hadn’t realised quite how much in denial I was over this ‘landmark’ birthday of mine until I was recently getting ye olde monthly prescription for blood pressure tablets. I got out my card to pay, only to be told that my drugs are now free. Good grief, I was so shocked I had to sit down for a minute – to steady my blood pressure. I would willingly still be on the paying side of the fence given the choice!

Because we like everything to be a competition any excuse to get an Us and Them thing going. Which means there is a Who's Winning? Thing going at the same time. Of course those on the 'side' (if you will) of feminism believe the whole point of it is that everybody wins. Those on the other side are a mix of people who have simply never thought about it before, people who think feminism has had its day and, uh, others, who might call themselves traditionalists, or men's rights activists – who also believe their triumph would mean everybody wins. Me? I wish the Thundercats would hurry up and get here from Thundera and sort us all out.

But until the fictional crosses over into the real we still have to work out who is winning, or worse, who has the more justified presence and how do we do that? Examine adverts and how they have, or haven't, changed? Look how they have evolved from expecting women to be hard-working housewives thinking only of cleaning products and tonight's tea to expecting women to have to do all the cleaning, grudgingly (so! Modern!) because men are silly.

Whether we are worrying about their exam grades, looking for people the blame over their visible fertility (it's not boys apparently) or counting down the days until they are legal (it's what we defend press freedom for) teenage girls, or young women are a great concern of the media.

It's easy to see why. They've turned jumping up and down waving a sheet of paper with exam results on into an art. They continue to cope so well and, frankly, bravely with the inevitable over plucked eyebrows episode. They have proudly upheld the tradition of using plum or red hint-of-a-tint hair dye (though I fear the hardcore days of 'my mate done it with Toilet Duck, the burning's nearly stopped now' are over) come year 9. With a mere sneer – which they can now do in person, online or via Blackberry messaging – they can bring down entire nations/celebrities/fashion trends.