Joanna Williams is an academic and author. Follow her on Substack here
From Educating Rita and The Young Ones to the more recent Fresh Meat, social class differences among university students provide perennial dramatic inspiration. Working class students – what with their funny accents, strange diet and odd clothes – are simply a great source of comic relief. Now there’s a new stereotype for scriptwriters to get
The sisterhood is, apparently, ‘in full flow’ at the BBC. Since the publication last week of the salaries of its 96 highest paid presenters, discussion of the institution’s gender pay gap has filled air time and column inches. How can it be right that Clare Balding is paid less than Gary Lineker? Or that John
Comparisons between Jesus and Jezza became commonplace long before he chose to end his election campaign with a rally at a church in Islington. As far back as August 2015, which in today’s political currency is at least two lifetimes ago, commentators were asking, ‘Is Jeremy Corbyn The New Messiah?’. It wasn’t just the shared
We now know that the video of a cyclist confronting a catcalling driver, which spent much of yesterday being circulated on social media and covered in the national press, was staged. Barely had viewers finished cheering on the woman as she tore the wing mirror off the side of her harasser’s van than the truth
Parents: stop whatever you are doing, go home and give your daughter more pocket money. She needs it. A report out this week shows that girls are getting less than their fair share from the bank of mum and dad; a whopping £2.20 a week less, to be precise. Boys are favoured when it comes
The ‘Women’s March’ on Washington might not have actually happened yet but it can already be judged a success. Few demonstrations in recent years have attracted such advance publicity, inspired so many supportive column inches, or prompted such an abundance of ‘how to’ guides for the novice protester. The march, planned for 21 January – the
Discovering my sons’ school had invited back former pupil Milo Yiannopoulos as a guest speaker was the highlight of an otherwise terrible parents’ evening. I chatted with the Head of School about the teenage Milo and whether there had been any clues as to his future transformation into a darling of the alt-right and anti-hero
It’s official: there is 41 per cent more hatred in Britain now than there was before the vote to quit the EU. Home Office statistics out this week reveal the torrent of religious and racist fury that was unleashed on June 23rd. Only a reversal of the democratic will of the people can possibly save
Forget Pimm’s, sunburn and rain abandoned picnics. What really makes summer is a heap of outrage directed at an old white man for saying something feminists think is beyond the pale. Last year it was Sir Tim Hunt and his quip about the problem of women in labs. This time it is Kevin Roberts, chairman
