Some definitions. 1 “A woman has a vagina; a man has a penis” (some politicians, with a nod to “gender critical” feminists) 2 “A woman does not have a penis” (some politicians, with a nod to “gender critical” feminists) 3 “A woman is an adult human female” (“gender critical” feminists, citing dictionaries). 4 “A woman is a woman and a man is a man, that’s just common sense” (former UK prime-minister, citing the well-known source “common sense” also cited by “gender critical” feminists) What the fuck! Welcome to the patriarchal dystopia otherwise known as “gender critical” feminism where women ..read more

This post is a lecture I gave for the Around the Kitchen Festival, organised by Kunstenfestivaldesarts, earlier this year. I  have added some notes and references and lightly edited the text for clarity. You can also hear me giving the lecture here. I was glad to have the opportunity to reflect on how tables have been my writing companions for many years. With thanks to the organisers of the festival and to the publisher of my academic books, Duke University Press who took a chance with Queer Phenomenology almost 20 years ago. Many other publishers could not understand what I was trying t ..read more

The Equality Act (2010) remains an important tool for protecting people from direct and indirect discrimination as well as harassment on the grounds of gender reassignment; marriage or civil partnership status (in employment only); pregnancy and maternity leave, race including colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin; religious or philosophical belief; sex; and sexual orientation. Recent cases brought to Employment Tribunals have foregrounded how the protection of belief is coming into conflict with other protections. Some beliefs that have been deemed “worthy” or “capable” of being prot ..read more

I am thinking of how we need poetry To express ourselves Practicing feminism By bearing witness to genocide To echo the words of Sarah Ihmoud To get our no’s out. To express, to press out, to speak one’s mind. The sense evolution “perhaps via the intermediary sense of how clay under pressure takes a certain form.” When I imagine that clay, I imagine not only how we give shape to something, but how we  under pressure to take a certain form. Maybe we are supposed to be polite. A smile, a container. To express ourselves, to get it out of ourselves, ourselves out, means we have to resist that ..read more

This was the first year since the beginning of the pandemic that I was able to be in the same room with other feminists, sharing our work, our words, our struggles. It meant so much. Presenting our work virtually has allowed us to reach each other in ways that we had not been able to before. But there is still something special about being in the same room together. It was so energising, to feel that snap, snap, sizzle of an atmosphere. To hear when you laughed. When you didn’t. I am so grateful it was possible to do that. Thank you to everyone for sharing time and space. I wrote The Feminist ..read more

I was asked a question earlier this month. I cannot remember the exact wording, but it went something like “is it sometimes ok to be silent to be at peace with oneself.” If I had been asked this question at another time, or if the question had been asked using slightly different words, I might have given this answer: We do what we can, where we can, by recognising our own limits, our capacities, and that can be a way of surviving politically, by which I mean, keeping hold of our commitments. Sometimes, then, withdrawal from a conversation or silence in a situation can be how we keep doing our ..read more

Since the launch of The Feminist Killjoy Handbook in March of this year, I have been taking #FeministKilljoysOnTour to share some #KilljoySolidarity. I am looking forward to the US edition of #FeministKilljoysOnTour to coincide with the publication of the handbook by Seal Press on October 3rd. I will share details on my website in September. I am pleased to share the audio recording of an event from the earlier tour, a Conversation with Judith Butler that took place on April 28th at Cambridge University.  It was a warm, uplifting and rather overwhelming experience. I was originally i ..read more

Common sense tends to be understood in a commonsensical way at least by those who appeal to it. We typically hear of common sense as what we have lost or what we need to resolve a conflict or dispute in a mature and reasonable way (“a common-sense approach”). Or, common sense is used to indicate the status of proposition as grounded in reality (“it is common sense that sex refers to biology”). Common sense can also be used to demarcate a class of subjects: those who have common sense, who are sensible and practical as well as reasonable, who hold onto reality. Common sense can thus also be use ..read more

The Feminist Killjoy Handbook is out in the world! Bringing it out into the world has taken time – and my blog has been quiet during that time. I am glad to share its arrival here. Please do order the book from independent bookstores, many of whom have got behind the handbook: you can find a list here. If you do read the book, share a picture on twitter (using the hashtag #wearefeministkilljoys). It means so much to me to know the handbook is in your hands. We launched the book at an event in Rich Mix, London, on Thursday, March 2nd 2023. It was electrifying and emotional to be with so many p ..read more

I am often asked how my arguments about complaint activism relate to the projects of transformative and restorative justice as well as abolitionist feminism. In an answer to one such question, I spoke of my caution in using some of these terms to describe some of this work because I had heard of how they can be misused in institutional settings. But I also said that complaint activism “has much more kinship with these other projects including abolitionist projects than it might appear at first” because you are thinking about “how to have accountability, how to deprive people of institutional p ..read more