Book review: I Call Myself a Feminist: The View from Twenty-Five Women Under Thirty

I call myself a feminist.

I call myself a feminist because gender equality is something we're still striving for even in 2015, because women are still judged and treated in different ways to men and those ways are often demeaning, because being compared to a woman or female characteristics is usually a way to insult someone.

I Call Myself a Feminist, edited by Victoria Pepe, Rachel Holmes, Amy Annette, Martha Mosse and Alice Stride, features essays by 25 women under the age of 30 on feminism. From writer and journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge on what men can do to support feminism, to student Maysa Haque talking about her Islam and her feminism, to author Louise O'Neill writing about her journey to feminism, the book is full of different perspectives on women, their power and their struggles.

It's the different perspectives that are key. I almost cried with joy when I saw the first essay was written by Hajar Wright. Could it be that this book was willing to include a non-white perspective? And as I read further, it became clear that there was more than one non-white perspective in the book, and that there was plenty of other diversity in the book too. The battle for feminism is one that affects all women, but women from non-white backgrounds, women who are not straight, women who are not middle-class, are often battling discrimination on two fronts, or more. Student Jinan Younis captures the subject perfectly in her essay Manifesto for Female Intersectionality, but intersectionality is addressed again and again throughout the book, and it made my heart sing.

I Call Myself a Feminist is an important, powerful book that succinctly lays out why there is still a need for feminism. Its writers are brave, and its editors have curated a collection of essays that I want to press in to the hands of everyone I meet and say: "This. This is inspiring and needed and you should read it because it will help you understand the world and make it want to be a better place." We all still need to call ourselves feminists, and I Call Myself a Feminist tells you why.

•I Call Myself a Feminist is released in the UK on November 5, 2015.

How I got this book: From the publisher, Virago. This did not affect my review.

Opinion: Let's stop asking female actors stupid questions

I wonder how important it was for Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Paul Bettany that their characters in Avengers: Age of Ultron were intelligent as well as being sexy?

I'll be waiting a long time for the answer, since no one asked them that insulting question at the London press conference for Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Someone did, however, ask Scarlett Johansson. Here's the question in full:

Your character could have easily just been written off as the sexy one in the team. How important is it for you that she's actually smart as well as hot?

I guess the journalist who posed the question thought it was ok to ask, because female actors are first about sexiness, and then everything else.

Well, screw that. I don't often get ranty on my blog, but I think this is a good enough reason to lose my temper.

What kind of a question is asking a woman if it was important for her to play a character that is intelligent as well as sexy? Of course it's important, in fact, I'd say the intelligence comes first. Because yes, Johansson's Black Widow is hot, but first and foremost she's an assassin, a warrior, a world-class interrogator, a team player, and so much more. Sexiness is about 100th on the list.

Not for the male journalist who asked the question though, who clearly couldn't see past the Black Widow costume to realise that she's a character who could make him cry with just one look.

Johansson handled herself really well in answering the question. If I'd been her I'd have told the guy to go back to 1815 where he's clearly from, using a lot of colourful language.

It is not, repeat not, okay to ask female actors whether they expect their characters to have brains as well as looks, especially if you're not asking male actors the same question. To do so implies that you think women aren't supposed to be the brains of the operation, and that you don't hold women in that high a regard.

Maybe the journalist who asked the question had a good reason for asking, and I'd like to hear it if so. In the meantime, this is 2015, let's stop asking female actors stupid questions.

Book review: Headscarves and Hymens - Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution by Mona Eltahawy

I thought I already had enough anger in my body at all the injustices done to women around the world, but while reading Mona Altahawy's Headscarves and Hymens: Why the Middle East Needs a Sexual Revolution, I discovered that at 5ft 2ins my body can hold a lot more rage than I thought.

Eltahawy wrote an essay after being sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square while covering the Egyptian Revolution, an essay titled Why They Hate Us that ticked off quite a few people. Now, in this book, she expands on the topic of that essay, taking a deeper look at how the Middle East is largely home to societies built on sexism and misogyny, and how men use religion to control women's rights, women's minds and women's bodies.

Headscarves and Hymens mixes the intensely personal - Eltahawy's experience of getting groped while on Hajj and her struggle with deciding to lose her virginity are among the stories included - with statistics and stories of women she has met. This is part autobiography, part investigative report, part call to arms. All come together to form a heartbreaking look at a group of people treated as second class citizens just because of their gender. I say heartbreaking, because there are stories in this book that made me shut my eyes after reading them, hoping that because I couldn't see the words on the page, the horror of what they described would go away.

Feminism and The 100 - part two

I've already dealt with leadership in The 100, which I think clearly shows the show's feminist credentials, but there's plenty more going on, and we'll start with something that often defines women in television...

Motherhood

Mothers are vulnerable, right? They're either too busy being emotional wrecks because of their children, or sacrificing themselves for their kids, or childbirth is making them physically weak, right? Wrong. The 100's depiction of motherhood (and parenthood) is that it is something completely normal, with the mothers on the programme actually stronger than many of their male counterparts. Motherhood is rarely used as the main defining characteristic of any of the women in The 100, but it is a large and important part of the show, in a positive way.

Feminism and The 100 - part one

The 100 - a teen drama full of gorgeous people, carefully crafted settings, a lot of drama, and a good dash of romance? Well, yes. But somewhere along the way, as I watched season one of The 100, I realised it's also something more.

Somehow, The 100 went from being a piece of dystopian fun (I use the word fun loosely) to being a teen show that totally rocks it on gender equality and its presentation of females. Not only does The 100 present women as powerful, it also presents them as equal, and that, my friends, is what feminism is all about.

Feminism is often misunderstood, with people thinking that it's about women wanting to supersede men, to somehow be better than them, and for men to be under their command. But it's not, or at least not for me, and I think not for The 100. Feminism is about equality, about men and women being treated the same, offered the same opportunities, and criticised in the same way.

Season two of The 100 is about to hit our screens, so here's a quick look at how this seemingly popcorn show is one of the most gender balanced, feminist programmes currently on television (in my opinion), which is all down to the writers, directors and so on. Warning, I'm not a scholar of feminism, so these are just my opinions. And another warning, spoilers for season one ahead...