Cigarettes + Revolution: thoughts on PERSEPOLIS, by Marjane Satrapi

Slowly but surely, I'm learning how to read graphic novels. It's a complex affair, drawing together words and images. In my head, it's a skill you naturally have as a child, but one you lose as you start exploring fat books full of words. Unless you stick with comics throughout life, which I regret not doing. My first graphic novel was Watchmen - I got too excited and powered through it without really appreciating the story being told in the images. Next I tried a couple of books Neil Gaiman's Sandman series - the art was so great that I couldn't concentrate on the wordy bits.

Persepolis, however, required no work whatsoever. Marjane Satrapi's tale of a girlhood in and out of Iran is a wonderful synthesis of simple text, minimalist imagery and complicated political, philosophical and familial themes. Marjane is the daughter of middle-class, left-wing parents. She is fond of the word 'dialectic', she wishes to be a prophet, she is sad because her maid does not eat with her family. She is a precocious young girl, and though this is an autobiographical tale, the well-read and super-curious novel-Marjane is reminiscent of Hodgson Burnett's Mary Lennox, transplanted from the gardens of Yorkshire to the unsettled landscape of Iran.

Marjane takes us along with her as she witnesses her country change around her. First it is the protests, then comes the new regime, the war with Iraq, the enforcement of religious law, the closure of her school, upheaval, death, travel to Europe and all of a sudden we realise that Marjane is no longer a young girl. She's a chain smoking young woman left confused by her country's transition from liberal nation to extremist state.

People my age have grown up with Iran in the news. We know Iran as the state it becomes toward the end of this novel - a state of unrest, both political and cultural. A state in which Western countries have involvement in, though we may not always understand why. When I first saw 60's images of Iranian women in mini-skirts I was ridiculously confused. I don't profess to know the ins and outs of Iranian politics, and I know even less about Iranian culture, but Marjane Satrapi teaches us about both, from the perspective of a girl who is undergoing many changes herself. In a subtle act of show and tell, we learn about the modern history of Iran, and how its people have influenced and been influenced by this history, whilst learning about the life of one little girl.

I think we all attempt to relate literature to our own lives, it's only natural. In the case of Persepolis, the bits I found most striking were the alien ones. What it's like to live in a war-torn country, for example. What it's like to leave home and be unsure of your return. However, key tenets of the novel transcend political or national specificity - family, perhaps being the most prominent. Personally, I found Marjane's exploration of what it is to be a woman in a restrictive environment fascinating. Even though Marjane's experiences are at an extreme end of the spectrum, the inherent attitudes found in them are very relevant in societies across the world today.

It's touching, dark, funny, and it's as much a tale of growing up as it's a tale of politics and philosophy. A rare treat of a tale, offset with simple and striking illustration. I really think young girls of all nationalities should read this book, especially in the context of today's perceptions about the Middle East. Satrapi is an inspirational writer and woman -  I can't wait to pass her work on.

What are your recommendations for a novice graphic novel reader? Lots of suggestions welcome.

Marjane Satrapi - picture: persianfilmfestival.com

ANIMALS, by Emma Jane Unsworth

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild,

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world’s more full of weeping

than you can understand.

W.B Yeats, The Stolen Child

Laura Joyce is an occasional writer, a regular drinker, a lover of Yeats and unfortunately she isn’t related to James. Tyler is her best friend, her housemate, a bon viveur and Laura’s enabler. Together they tear through relationships, Manchester, each other, and the pages of Emma Jane Unsworth’s Animals, and we are invited to act as both the intrigued voyeur and the potential participant. What liberty! What liability.

Unsworth’s novel is an exercise in narrative seduction. We meet Laura during a particularly ginny hangover, which is to my mind the peak of human vulnerability. We know the colour of her piss – ‘white piss good, amber piss bad’ - before we know much else – and a bizarrely familiar bond is established. She’s engaged to a teetotal concert pianist, she’s writing a novel about a priest who’s in love with a pig and she’s desperately trying to balance a life of hedonism with an impending life of fine home furnishings. She is every bad hangover we’ve ever experienced and now we’re friends, we’re witnesses, already we are in on something. However, the beauty of Unsworth’s second novel is that the ‘something’, the secret, turns out to be nothing at all. We are all aspiring writers, we are all stuck in dead-end jobs, we are all disappointed and we all of us want to pretend that we are otherwise. And so, we meet Laura and we see ourselves, from the drinking habits, to the Mail on Sunday reading parents, to the secret love for Take Me Out.

The first-person narration superbly draws out this powerful, painful sense of familiarity, whilst the quick-fire dialogue, dirty humour and the assumption of an accomplice-reader keeps us on side through the messiest moments. It’s an obvious statement, but Laura Joyce is a fundamentally enjoyable character to act as a confessional for – not always the case when you’re in someone else’s head for a novel. In Laura, Unsworth has created a character that is part Holden Caulfield, part Bridget Jones, with a twist of Plath, spiked with stolen meth. She is ‘one part optimism, two parts masochism, like all the best cocktails.’ I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a bit of Unsworth too, There was certainly a bit of me in there, and probably every other reader who’s downed a bottle of rose because they couldn’t decide between white or red, or told someone to royally toss off for assuming they have a say in your lifestyle choices.

Tyler, on the other hand, is pure legend. Whilst Laura reaches out of the novel, Tyler explodes it. She is a mythological demon-goddess luring in the human child (me, you, Laura, everyone) like one of Yeats’ goblins. She doesn’t belong in this novel, in anyone’s life, in this plane of reality, which is precisely why she is such a perfect foil to Laura. A manic-pixie-nightmare-girl, and make no mistake. Tyler turns a gritty and realistic novel about the (societally-inflicted/bullshit) perils of being thirty and unsettled, into a tale of messy, meth-y, Mancunian magical realism. Well, almost. There’s vomit, sex, drugs and decisions, peppered with literary allusion and classical tragedy - Laura’s love of Yeats is very apt indeed. You need a bottle of something to soften the assault.

Animals explores tricks, trips (both sorts), bad habits, and what-happens when-you-leave-uni-without-a-publishing-deal, but for me it boils down to a sense of disillusion, even down to the reified setting of city famed for it’s 20 year old cultural wealth. What do we do now? Why didn’t my degree get me anywhere? Why should I care? Why shouldn’t I tell you about the time I had a tick in my groin, why shouldn’t I keep my ‘wreckhead friend’, why should I give up drinking, why should I behave, why should I have kids, why should I have you, why should I give a fuck?

I do give a fuck, especially about this book, but I don’t have the answers, and that’s fine. None of Unsworth’s characters do, nor does Unsworth profess to. We’ve all been given a bit of a shit deal at one point or another, and how you make do is your own business, whether it’s ploughing on with that novel you’re writing or easing yourself in with a quick bev or five at the pub. There’s hope at the end of the hangover, o human child. This is a brilliant, prescient piece of writing, and will need to be read twice – you’ll spend the first time texting your mates all the best lines.

         Be sure to read with wine, especially on trains.

Hunting for Humour, Rape Jokes and Reginald D.

Reginald D. Hunter has been accused of many ‘isms’, but with increasing success and several awards to his (now household) name, he appears to be thriving off the attention. Indeed, his current tour, “In the Midst of Crackers”, kicks off with a few jokes about recent criticism, including allegations of anti-Semitism, and ubiquitous quibbles about use of the N-word.  Halfway through his set at the Pleasance Grand Theatre, Edinburgh, I flattered myself in fearing that I may turn out to be the opening joke in his next show—the grumpy feminist who accused him of misogyny.

I somewhat missed the boat with Hunter’s rise to notoriety, catching only snippets of his shows on television, and hearing rave reviews from many sources—even my boyfriend’s grandmother is a fan. So, I went along to see him with an open mind, confident in the knowledge that he’d be a suitable inaugural Fringe experience—interesting, intelligent, and the only artist I’d spend more than a tenner on all week.

To be fair to Mr Hunter, he had the audience hanging on his every word, speaking interestingly on family life, honesty and male fantasies. Retrospectively however, the set was peppered with warning signs of the impending descent into what I felt was an incoherent and ignorant commentary on feminism, rape and sexualisation. Hunter spoke about his own infidelities and the needs of women with an amiable style that hid an inherent disrespect, telling us how he’d cheated in most relationships. After making a joke about Bernard Manning’s bigotry, he preceded to morph into a more articulate, more intelligent, and thus far more dangerous version of him.

Discussing rape jokes, a salient issue at the Fringe and in the media, Hunter said the following: “rape jokes [are] one of the few safe ways you can push back”. In Hunter’s opinion, it is important that comedians openly discuss issues such as sexism and racism, and I respect him for that. However, Hunter also riffed off the idea that an audience member hearing a rape joke will not immediately decide to go out and commit the offence. Sexism and misogyny aside, the comment was just ignorant. Of course that probably wouldn’t happen, but rape jokes are a huge part of the systematic trivialisation of rape—if we can joke about it, it can’t be that bad, right?

Unlike Frankie Boyle or Jimmy Carr, with their ironically predictable shock tactics , Hunter is praised for an provocative style that actually provokes something – discussion. On top of that, his style is ruminative and  treacherously charming, and as he admits, his rich drawl has a “tonal quality” that “makes everything [he says] sound like it’s true.” Of course it often isn’t, and admirably he acknowledges that. However, during a Fringe festival which saw a feminist comic take the Foster’s prize, an incredibly harrowing play performed by  Indian rape victims, and a whole string of women “shouting back”, Hunter’s musings were more than uncomfortable, they were outdated and uninformed.

More than that, his suggestion that “pseudo-feminists” were claiming rape as a wholly female issue (followed by a tasteless joke about male rape on navy boats) ignores the fact that modern feminism is about equality, and that rape is a human issue. For a man who warmly slips into philosophical musings on “oneness”, the last five minutes of his show were uncharacteristic, and delivered with a far darker tone than his material earlier in the set.

His final offence was perhaps his worst, and epitomises why he is so unsettling. In a joke about a friend’s “sexual desperation”, he alluded, albeit briefly, to the sexual appeal of scantily clad women and the way in which men react to them. The joke drew us in, encouraging us to laugh at the friend who felt compelled to shout “WOMEN!” whenever he saw them, but the implication that men need to control themselves around the opposite sex was uncomfortably close to the idea of  female sexual responsibility. Leaving the theatre I was offended and angry, and found it frustratingly difficult to explain why.

Hunter’s greatest skill lies in his comedic ability to make you question your boundaries, your sensibilities and yourself. Opening the show with a response to critics forces you to question your own reactions, lest you too become one of the easily offended, politically correct types who don’t ‘get it.’ Before writing this I got in touch with Hunter, who was very lovely and happy to respond. He wrote:

‘I’m genuinely disappointed to know that my rant “seemed” misogynist to you. It wasn’t. Nor am I, ma’am.’

His surety made me question my own reaction even more, but I suppose that is the point of comedy such as this – to create questions. In truth, I am not sure I would label Hunter a misogynist, but in each brief allusion, joke or nugget he made a slight contribution to a culture of misogyny that I, among many others, no longer have time for. I’m disappointed too, Reginald.

Originally published by Bad Housekeeping. 

'Life and Style', and the myth of women's journalism

For all the lefty-liberal and progressive qualities of The Guardian, there is one element of its online design that seems oddly archaic, and a little unsettling. In the grand scheme of women's rights it isn't exactly at the forefront of our problems, but nevertheless it strikes me as odd, and got me thinking. My question is this: why, oh why, is the women's section of the newspaper tucked away in 'Life and Style'? 

'Life and Style' is a weirdly nebulous part of any news or magazine publication, generally containing high quality photographs of the latest fashionable pan-something dish, pseudo-scientific articles on whether vitamins actually work, and passionate arguments for why this new style of yoga really will change your life. The sections tend to be a mix of tips and trends, with a pinch of celeb gossip and the occasional link to dating sites and the like. I don't mean to describe these features pejoratively; they form light reading in most newspapers and they are what they are. It's just that they don't exactly fall under hard hitting news, unlike a lot of the pieces that are featured in the 'Women' sub-section. The Guardian tabs (see below) arguably suggest that the Women sub-section contains articles that are only as important as those of 'Fashion' or 'Food', or if we were to be really fussy (and why shouldn't we be) suggest that they are less important, due to their placing. Just as Culture and Sport come after the News on the main page, Women come after other more significant sections. 

It should be said at this point that a) I love The Guardian, and b) it's certainly not the only publication guilty of struggling to find an apt place for a women's section. Although The Telegraph place their Women section alongside the other main sections of the newspaper, the frankly hilarious page title "Wonder Women" is suggestive of an ideal readership of multi-tasking, stiletto wearing power Mums shouting "I can have it all!", baby monitor in one hand and Blackberry in the other. That may have been a bit of a tirade, but it's more than a little patronising, and Theresa May was staring from under the headlines at me during writing so I was immediately ticked off. In comparison to the Daily Mail's 'Femail', both The Telegraph and The Guardian are positively saintly in their representation of women - at least both contain comment pieces on the most important women's issues of the moment, i.e. online sexism, female campaigns. As we can see in the snapshot below, the Femail section contains a huge advert for WeightWatchers (you are too fat, Femail readers), an article about Gwyneth Paltrow, and the new trend of nipple surgery. 

At least The Guardian do not automatically assume that its female readers will be interested in babies and weddings, or for that matter, assume that readers of the opposite gender will not. The Mail however seem to be using their Femail section to perpetuate and encode a stereotype of womanhood that many female journalists are explicitly fighting against. 

It is perhaps not the paper that's the problem, but the idea of a "women's section" to begin with - a place for female journalism, directed at female readers. Criticising a space for women to share their views and read about issues affecting them may sound a little counter-intuitive, but the fact is, this kind of marginalisation is outdated. Thirty years ago a women's section would have been a breakthrough in the media, and rightly so, but surely we are now living in an age where women's news is mainstream news, the subjects important to everyone regardless of gender. For example, within The Guardian's women section is a subsection for feminism - a movement now commonly regarded to be the business of anyone who cares for equal rights, no matter what sex they are or which gender they identify with. 

To be fair to The Guardian their stories can be tagged under any section, as former Guardian IA Martin Belam kindly pointed out to me, and there is a subsection for women under News. However, the branch of Life and Style still sends out a bad message. Although it may initially seem strange when newspapers and magazines don't have a women's section, it actually means that stories which could be interpreted as by females and for females have actually been assimilated into the mainstream sections and editorials to which they belong. Before writing this piece I (being a complete wannabe journo-geek) asked feminist author and writer Laurie Penny for her opinion on the matter, to which she gave a crackingly succinct response, noting that these type of sections cover 

"'Women's-issues journalism' or, as I like to call it, 'journalism'."

And therein lies the whole point of this issue - there is no such thing as women's journalism. Indeed, articles such as the many recent ones on Twitter abuse, misogyny and campaigns such as No More Page Three are of as much importance to men as they are to women, and in many cases are supported by men as well as women. These issues are universal, and so maybe newspapers should consider treating them as such.

Malala Yousafzai: the 16 year old girl fighting for education

Roughly nine months ago, I wrote a piece about the attempted murder of Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai. She was shot at on her way to school by Taliban militants because of her campaign for girls' education and was subsequently flown to Britain for emergency surgery and rehabilitation. Despite her undisputed bravery and dedicated fight for social justice, Malala's future was uncertain. Unable to return to Pakistan for fear of a repeated attack but unlikely to give up her battle, the question remained - could Malala change a nation?

Yesterday, on her 16th birthday, Malala gave a speech at the United Nations that firmly answered that question. "The terrorists thought that they would change my aims and stop my ambitions," she said, "but nothing changed in my life, except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born." Less than a year after undergoing brain surgery, relocating to the United Kingdom and dealing with the repercussions of an assassination attempt, Malala stood amongst world leaders and her peers to let them know that her campaign was not over, and that just as before, education is her chief concern. "One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first."

Schools in Pakistan continue to exist in peril; establishments all over the country are under constant pressure from the Taliban - the threat of violence then discourages parents from sending their children to school, which perpetuates the association of education with fear. Just under a month ago in Quetta, 14 girls were killed by a bus explosion on their way to university, with militants then laying siege to the hospital that the wounded were being treated in. Though Malala has become the face of Pakistani female education rights, it is clear now that her story is one of many incidents of terror and murder throughout the country. The culture of fear is so strong that it has even forced some members of Malala's own community to distance themselves from the girl, out of concern that their children will suffer from similar attacks. However, Malala herself aspires to be the voice for those who do not have one, and it appears that no amount of adversity or threat will change that.

In her address at the UN, Malala focused not only on education in Pakistan, but the provision and implementation of educational policy worldwide. A Unesco and Save the Children studyreleased to coincide with the speech shows that 57 million children are currently out of school, and that attempts to rectify this incredible number have come to a "virtual standstill." Unsurprisingly, half of the primary school aged children out of school live in conflict affected countries. This correlation was noted by Malala in her speech, as she stated, "We are really tired of these wars." The simple collective pronoun spoke for every child forced to grow up in a war zone, every girl denied rights because of her gender, and every child facing hundreds of different wars on a daily basis. This wasn't just a speech about free education for all, but rather a message to all world leaders - strategic policies must change if we are ever to protect children against violence and conflict, let alone offer them the education they are entitled to.

The battle for a basic right to education is a simple wish made daunting by the prospect of cultural, financial and political opposition. Despite this, Malala's petition to UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon asks that "the United Nations General Assembly fund new teachers, schools, books and recommit to getting every girl and boy in school by December 2015." It's an ambitious goal - 44% of the uneducated children in conflict zones are from sub-Saharan Africa, and 14% are from the Arab states. If the recent incidents in Egypt, Libya and Syria, and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East are anything to go by, Malala and her supporters will be facing an uphill struggle. In addition to the political issues, there is also the cultural opposition which is arguably far more difficult to remedy. Practices such as early-marriage and frequent gender violence are some of the key preventatives to women receiving an education - it is estimated that women represent two thirds of the 775 million illiterates in the world.

These numbers are intimidating, the task seemingly impossible, but at the helm of the campaign we have a 16 year old girl whose experiences speak of both intimidation and impossibility. This is just the beginning of one of the most important worldwide campaigns at present. In my first article on Malala, I questioned whether the attack would "spur her on", or whether it would convince her of the danger in her task. The following words taken from her speech are perhaps the only way to answer that question: "The Taliban thought the bullet would silence us, but they failed."

This article was originally published in the Cherwell's online edition.

Bartoli and the Beast

Bartoli and the Beast: an easy title for a touchy subject. Yesterday during Marion Bartoli's storming performance in the Wimbledon final, John Inverdale posed the following question:

"Do you think Bartoli's dad told her when she was little: 'You're never going to be a looker, you'll never be a Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight'?"

Well done, Marion. Well done. Against all the odds, ugly as they may have been, you have achieved the impossible! With your scrappy skills and fighting spirit you beat that pretty little blonde thing from Germany and brought home a Grand Slam. Shame though really, Sabine would've looked much better with Djokovic or Murray at the Championship Dinner... Inverdale's comment was sexist and it was ignorant, but what's worse is that this incident is just the tip of the iceberg with regards to attitude towards sportswomen, female presenters, and even the female companions of men in the game. Inverdale's comments were positively generous compared to some of the vitriolic bile on Twitter:

This isn't everyday or 'casual' sexism, it's hate speech. The language is of the animalistic and sexual persuasion associated with female insults, and the trivialisation of violence and rape is truly disturbing. Perhaps the most revealing of them all is the comment by Steve Cremen (fourth on the left) that Bartoli "cannot be the new face of Wimbledon." That's what female tennis players have been reduced to: faces. But an exclusively pretty face, mind. If Marion isn't good enough, who is? Lisicki? In all honesty, Bartoli's pretty blonde opponent is being equally demeaned by these comments. By placing her as the counterpart to Bartoli's beastliness, she becomes a somewhat creepy Tennis Barbie-bot, detracting from the fact that, like Bartoli, she is an extremely talented and extremely pleasant woman. 

It seems astonishing that 40 years on from the Battle of the Sexes between Billie Jean-King and Bobby Riggs, tennis is still tinted with sexism. But in this context, the origins of the issues are not only between the men and women in the tour, but rather the pundits and presenters who are responsible for broadcasting to millions. Inverdale isn't the only Wimbledon bod guilty of patronising women. Just look at the way the ladies of the players' boxes are treated. Well treated may not be the right word - rather they are zoomed in on, played in slow motion and are often to be found "fighting for their men." Andrew Castle is particularly guilty of this, waxing lyrical about the fact that Kim Sears apparently has actual magical powers that affect boyfriend Andy Murray's decisions on court with every flick of the hair. Yes, this is arguably a personal gripe at a fairly innocuous turn of phrase, but it touches at the roots of the wider problem. Inverdale described his comments as being meant in a "nice way", and once people start veiling blatantly sexist remarks under the banner of good old British banter, or jolly ruddy good Wimbledon fun (pass the Pimms), we lose sight of real problem at the heart of female sport. 

There are countless examples of the double standards in tennis, from the camera's focus on players' girlfriends rather than boyfriends, to the constant argument about how much noise women make on court. Unfortunately, these gender binaries are often perpetuated by the players themselves. Recently, Jo-Wilfred Tsonga proved that his science isn't as strong as his serve, suggesting that women aren't as consistent on the tour due to "hormones". Hormones. He may as well have blamed it all on periods. Equally, Gilles Simon complained that women's tennis is less exciting than men's in a public interview, to which Serena Williams retorted:

‘Women's tennis is really awesome. We fought for years with Billie Jean King, to get equal pay ... Maria (Sharapova)'s right – a lot more people are watching her than him. She’s way hotter than he is."

Yeah, girl power, Serena. Gilles may be a bit of a shit but at least Maria's smoking hot. She probably deserved to win Wimbledon, for 6ft blonde women everywhere. For all the "Sharapova's." Here we see the problem is as rooted in the players as it is in the pundits. What exactly is it to be a "Sharapova"? Inverdale succeeds in both dehumanising a champion tennis player, and creating her as the mould for every attractive, leggy non-Bartoli out there. Inverdale's idiocy aside, I'm not sure Bartoli would ever want to be a Sharapova, (currently embroiled in a love rivalry with frenemy Serena Williams instead of powering her way to a Grand Slam title as Marion did so beautifully.) In all the nastiness and superficiality, Bartoli played the match and reacted to the incident with a grace that has nothing to do with looks. Her response to Inverdale encapsulates what is truly at stake in professional tennis:

"It doesn't matter, honestly. I am not blonde, yes. That is a fact. Have I dreamt about having a model contract? No. I'm sorry. But have I dreamed about winning Wimbledon? Absolutely, yes. And to share this moment with my dad was absolutely amazing and I am so proud of it.

There's a lady with her priorities straight and her dignity in tact - that's pretty hot to me.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: Fashion, Fun and Play

In her seminal work A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792), Mary Wollstonecraft (feminist, philosopher, all around great gal) states:

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.” 

Just over two hundred years later , one would expect that a  woman who was one of the founding feminist philosophers, a social activist and a political radical, would be remembered exactly how she desired women to be treated - rationally. Her work has influenced hundreds of key political and feminist thinkers, from George Eliot, to Virginia Woolf, to Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, who references Wollstonecraft frequently in his theory of Asia's missing girls. As with many renowned writers, Wollstonecraft's life came with its fair share of excitement, and as well as being remembered for her work she is also known for her tempestuous love life, her unorthodox marriage to anarchist William Godwin and her bouts of depression. Fascination with these particular 'graces' is inevitable, but on the whole her legacy is as it should be - influential and necessarily respected.

Imagine then how surprised / bemused / reluctantly entertained I was to discover that the children's website 'Stardoll' has also tapped into Wollstonecraft's legacy. Stardoll is an online dress up site, and have very kindly honoured the world's first feminist with her own page. Just look at those bloomers:

Yes, there she is, staring at her interactive wardrobe with a fabulously ironic expression of distaste. Dollstonecraft comes with several outfits and a whole range of accessories - with brains, beauty and a clothing line like this, this really is 'have it all' all feminism. I should at this point admit that I stumbled across the site in a desperate bid to dress up as Mary Wollstonecraft (long and pretentious story), and that my initial reaction was unbridled laughter, but her presence on the website is really very curious. Sandwiched between MIA and 'McFly Tom', and across from Camilla Parker-Bowles we have an 18th century political writer in nought but her underwear.

Perhaps this is a strategic move by the website. Perhaps somewhere a child got bored of styling members of JLS and decided to Google this Mary lass. For all I know Stardoll could be starting an educational phenomenon of nine year old girls burning their Barbies and trading in their Unofficial Harry Styles biographies for some straight up feminist discourse. We can hope, but the more likely outcome is that, like me, they'll sit and ponder whether the mustard skirt, fan and headdress combo is a bit too much for afternoon tea with Mr Godwin. 

For all its light-heartedness, there is something truly unsettling about a website that quite literally dolls up the woman who called for the end of femininity being treated like domestic ornamentation. Reducing any figure to a silent 2D image and a series of dresses is surely a bad thing - it is a literal representation of style over substance. Wollstonecraft may be remembered rationally by most, but Stardoll have certainly restricted her to the "perpetual state of childhood" that she sought to defy. I wonder what she'd have made of it?