Oxford's biggest student newspaper, produced by and for members of the University of Oxford, since 1991.
Image description: a silhouette with a raised fist over a light orange background The year is 1991. You pick up a copy of the Bikini Kill zine and find the Riot Grrl manifesto. Towards the top of the page there is the statement: BECAUSE viewing our work as being connected to our girlfriends-politics-real lives is […]
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Image description: a picture of Bath, taken by Sonia on her travels Early on, I mistook my teenage self for an extrovert. I loved socializing and cracking jokes, and a good date felt like some sort of magic. I wasn’t necessarily bursting with confidence, but I had come to assume that being introverted meant being […]
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Image Description: Lara Croft swinging on a rope in some ruins. She’s gaming’s bestselling heroine, holds 5 World Records, and with over 1300 covers she is on more magazines than any supermodel. For someone who began as a sexed-up Indiana Jones fantasy, Lara Croft has come a long way. When I was young, I idolised […]
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Image Description: women at a protest holding up a banner that reads “We Will Not be Silenced”. [CW: violence against women, sexual assault] Sarah Everard was murdered when walking back from her friend’s house via Clapham Common 11 days ago. The Met have confirmed that the man they have now arrested was a serving police […]
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When International Women’s day was first observed in 1911, women (and sympathetic men) were still starving themselves in prisons across the UK and taking to the streets, putting their lives and futures at stake in a long fight for enfranchisement. This year, we’re celebrating the holiday in a world where women have the right to […]
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Image description: An aerial view of the Radcliffe Camera. October 2020 marks the centenary of female students being allowed to matriculate and graduate from the University of Oxford for the first time. The occasion calls for commemoration of all that has changed in that time, as well as reflection on what still needs to be […]
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Image description: woman receives face massage with a towel around her head as her skin is moisturised In amongst the controversies of the past few weeks, there has been growing fury over the re-opening of beauty salons and clinics. The guidance for the beauty industry in the pandemic has not been received well by those […]
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When I was twelve, I started at my relatively small secondary school, after moving with my family down to Newcastle. Anyone who’s been the ‘new kid’ knows that in the package of the experience is an obsession over the things we think make us weird. I was considerably overweight until I reached my late teens, […]
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As we move into the next General Election, more and more female Members of Parliament (MP) have announced their resignation. Despite claims made by conservative commentator Tom Harwood that only 19 out of 59 MPs are standing down, proportionate to 32% female representation in the UK Parliament; the Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Wollaston has argued […]
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Oxford lecture lists for some of the largest courses in Oxford have once again been dominated by male lecturers. Some of the worst subjects for their women representation in lectures this term are chemistry and computer science. Chemistry has this term just one women giving Prelim lecturers, and only 2 out of 28 lecturers for […]
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I’m sure we all remember the pithy response that Georgia, in Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging, is given as a reason for why she shouldn’t have dressed up as an olive to a fancy-dress party. “Boys don’t like girls for funniness”. Although a throwaway line in an admittedly sub-par noughties romcom, this nonetheless taps into […]
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In April, the Profile section was contacted by technology giant HP with an invite to attend their roundtable event in partnership with the Fawcett Society to discuss the barriers which make the tech industry less accessible to women. As a historian, the idea of discussing technology seemed daunting, but the opportunity to see what a […]
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Cambridge has comfortably won the 74th annual Women’s Boat Race following on from their victory last year. This takes the total wins to 44-30 in Cambridge’s favour and is their third victory in a row. Both boats started well, but Cambridge was able to quickly eke out an advantage after a powerful start. The gap […]
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Image Description: four female students from Lady Margaret Hall. Last year, the Joanna Randall MacIver junior research fellowship, which was established in the 1930s exclusively for women specialising in the humanities, was opened up to all genders. This decision was made by the senior committee of the university – the Oxford Council – in response […]
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Image Credit: Elizabeth Kiss Dr. Elizabeth Kiss is the CEO and first female Warden of Rhodes House. Having received her BA in Philosophy, magna cum laude, from Davidson College, North Carolina, in the 1980s, she became the College’s first female Rhodes Scholar. Whilst at Oxford, she received a BPhil and DPhil in Philosophy and […]
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Image Credit: University of Salford Press Office/Ammar Abd Rabbo In Trinity term last year, I hurried to St. Catz after the Oxford Guild’s email went out. As you may have guessed from the byline, the lady I was there to meet was Tawakkol Karman. She was born on February 7th 1979 in Shar’ab al-Salam, Yemen, […]
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Harriet Harman is one of the most prominent political figures in recent history. A pioneer of women’s rights and representation, Harman entered Parliament as a pregnant thirty-two-year-old at a time when 97% of MPs in the House of Commons were men. After serving in various shadow and cabinet positions, including as the first-ever Minister for […]
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In 1865, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson made history as the first women to qualify as a physician and surgeon. Since then, considerable gender equality advancements have been made for workers of the NHS. In 1874, the first medical school in Britain to train women as doctors was founded. Just two years later, a law was passed […]
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How it feels to be a bad example of a good feminist. First and foremost, being a feminist means believing in gender equality; but being a good example of a feminist is so much more. To be a feminist role model means being a ‘strong, independent woman’; one who stands up for herself and for […]
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