Latest news with #patriarchy
The Guardian
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Permission review – one rebellious woman's search for independence from Karachi to London
What does liberation mean? That's the dilemma at the heart of Hunia Chawla's play Permission. Set across continents, on rooftops in Karachi and in university halls in London, it follows Hanna (generously performed by Anisa Butt), a young Pakistani woman with a rebellious spirit, who moves across the world in search of independence. Chawla's writing is knotty and crackles with conflict. Hanna feels stifled by the patriarchal structures of her home town, which prevent her from walking the streets alone or dating without fear of being stopped by the police. But life in London brings with it its own confinements. Here, she meets Anushe (a straight-talking Rea Malhotra Mukhtyar), a third-year student who encourages her to join protests against the university's acceptance of funding from arms dealers – overlooking that speaking out carries far greater risks for someone like Hanna, who is living in the UK on a visa. Ultimately, neither Karachi nor London gives Hanna the full life of autonomy she craves. The comparisons between the cities feel nuanced and layered, showing how systems of control operate in different contexts. Behind the politics, though, is a platonic love story. While Hanna leaves for London, her best, friend Minza (also played by Mukhtyar) chooses to stay and study in Karachi, joining the Aurat Marches on the city's streets. Despite their distance and growing differences, their friendship lives on through phone calls. The pair's conversation bounces from teenage anxieties to bigger discussions about women's rights. Directed by Neetu Singh, it is in these scenes of dialogue where the play lands on its quietest, most intimate flashes. But their affection is not quite enough to wipe away the play's creative inconsistencies. It starts with Butt, as Hanna, performing one side of a conversation; immediately, Permission centres itself as a story about women's experiences. Later, though, the voices of other male characters begin to play through speakers. What emerges is a play that feels torn between competing impulses. There are other gripes, too. Audience interaction is thrown in a little too late to feel authentic, while a scene where Hanna is found smoking weed by her father appears to have no consequences. It's frustrating, as Permission has the beginnings of something truly unique, but too many decisions lack clear reasoning, leaving the play's bold ideas only partially realised. Permission is at Tara theatre, London, from 30 May until 7 June
New York Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
What Is Wrong With Men? Let Michael Douglas Explain.
WHAT IS WRONG WITH MEN: Patriarchy, the Crisis of Masculinity, and How (of Course) Michael Douglas Films Explain Everything, by Jessa Crispin Michael Douglas is one of the last actors who could 'open' a movie, back when movies were something that opened and shut firmly rather than flowing and receding into a general pool of content. He is an original nepo baby: a sapling carved after his mighty oak father, Kirk, down to the indentation on their chins. And to the author Jessa Crispin, he is a symbol of how everything started to go terribly wrong for men in our time. Crispin's byline has long made me sit up straighter. At 23, in 2002, she founded Bookslut, one of the earliest literary blogs, declaring when she shut it down 14 years later, 'I just don't find American literature interesting. I find M.F.A. culture terrible.' She has also dissed The Paris Review and The New Yorker, calling the latter a 'dentist magazine.' In The New York Times's Opinion section, she likened Ivanka Trump's book 'Women Who Work' to 'the scrambled Tumblr feed of a demented 12-year-old who just checked out a copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations from the library.' She's like the Patti LuPone of literary critics. Crispin has produced hybrids of memoir and cultural analysis about her upbringing in Kansas and travels in Europe, and a feminist manifesto provocatively titled 'Why I Am Not a Feminist.' She almost lost me with an 'Artist's Way'-type book about tarot, but 'What Is Wrong With Men,' which argues that Douglas's portrayals in the '80s and '90s provide a kind of road map for the current masculinity crisis, has reeled me back. Like Absolut and cranberry: What a pairing! Douglas's most durable role, the one that earned him a best actor Oscar, is Gordon 'Greed is good' Gekko, the rapacious, pinstriped, slick-haired investor and corporate raider in Oliver Stone's 'Wall Street' (1987). Disturbingly, 21st-century finance bros find that performance inspiring. And yet Crispin's chapter on the movie, which discusses the consequences of banking deregulation, monster mergers and the decline of unions, is her most glancing. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Irish Times
24-05-2025
- Irish Times
Girl with a Fork in a World of Soup by Rosita Sweetman: A short, lively and fast-paced memoir
Girl with a Fork in a World of Soup Author : Rosita Sweetman ISBN-13 : 978-1739570545 Publisher : Menma Books Guideline Price : €17.50 There's a sense of doom in the vivid child-impression idyll created by Rosita Sweetman's shining prose in the first part of this short, fast-paced memoir. Sweetman loved being the middle child of nine, amid the fun, varied bustle of a large, happy and wealthy political-legal Dublin family. But a background of homes on Fitzwilliam Square and along Dublin's elite southside coast – Connemara ponies in rambling gardens, canters on the beach – wasn't enough to shield Sweetman from the pain of being female under patriarchal rule and a misogynistic culture. Born in the mid-1940s, Sweetman came of age under Catholic theocracy in a State that systematically reduced women and girls to third-class citizenship. In response, she joined other Irish feminists in the late 1960s, co-founding the short-lived but pivotal Irish Women's Liberation Movement. She used her journalistic flair to spread feminist ideas in national newspapers and shared pints and politics with figures like Nell McCafferty. Sweetman had early success with bestselling non-fiction books, On Our Knees, and On Our Backs: Sexual Attitudes in a Changing Ireland, and her feminist novel, Fathers Come First. But a damaging relationship with an older, already-married man, begun when she was just 17, devastated her literary ambitions. They married (he was British so could divorce) and were together for 20 years. She managed to escape with her two young children, a Herculean feat at a time when there was no divorce in Ireland, and women who left could be framed as 'deserters', risking home and custody, never mind court-ordered child maintenance. READ MORE Girl with a Fork captures the painful paradox of how a woman steeped in feminist politics can still get entangled in male supremacist abuse – emotional, sexual, physical, and financial. Sweetman lays it bare: the gaslighting, the erosion of confidence, the exhaustion of broke single-handed parenting, while her husband serially cheated, including with relatives, repeatedly abandoning and returning. What's redemptive about this harrowing tale is Sweetman's subtle casting back – through therapy – to trace how family trauma, especially her younger sister's childhood death, and a harsh convent education played into her entrapment. With brave honesty, Sweetman admits how, in her damaged state, she was passing on to her children the emotional abuse she'd suffered – until healing enabled her to break the chain.
Fox News
19-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Hillary Clinton bashes Republican women, says GOP female president would be 'handmaiden to the patriarchy'
Hillary Clinton took a swipe at female Republicans in an interview earlier this month, saying they would all be servants of "the patriarchy" if they became president. "Well, first of all, don't be a handmaiden to the patriarchy, which kind of eliminates every woman on the other side of the aisle, except for very few," Clinton said during a May 1 discussion at New York City's 92nd Street Y when asked by moderator Margaret Hoover what advice she had for the first female President of the United States. Several women, including former Trump UN ambassador Nikki Haley last year, have contended for the presidency in recent election cycles. In the 2024 presidential election, former Vice President Kamala Harris took over the Democratic nomination from former President Joe Biden. Like Clinton in 2016, she was defeated at the hands of President Donald Trump. Clinton pointed to Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski as one of the "few" women in the Republican Party she respected. Murkowski has been a strong critic of Trump at times, including when she voted to convict him during his second impeachment trial in 2021. Clinton responded affirmatively when Hoover mentioned former GOP Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, who endorsed Biden – and then Harris – in 2024 and helped lead the January 6 House committee investigation against Trump. "Yeah, there's a few," Clinton said in the clip flagged by The Daily Caller. The interview was recorded on May 1 and posted last week. Clinton also memorably leveled an insult at many Trump supporters during her failed 2016 run, saying half of his backers belonged in a "basket of deplorables." After she lost, she suggested White women voted against her at the direction of their husbands. Clinton also recalled her support for Harris during the 2024 campaign, suggesting that it will take time to elect a female president. "Look, first we have to get there, and it is, you know, obviously so much harder than it should be," Clinton said. "So, you know, if a woman runs who I think would be a good president — as I thought Kamala Harris would be, and as I knew I would be, I will support that woman."
ABC News
14-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Is the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives feminist?
With season two of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives kicking off, we're asking the big questions about this hit unscripted series. When it comes down to it, are these Mormon #MomTokers breaking the patriarchy or reinforcing it? This episode contains spoilers for the first three eps of season two. Also, wanna compare Wordles scores? We look at how the New York Times' games section may be the most popular for the publisher. Get in touch: How's the feminism on the Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? Write or send a voice memo to stopeverything@ Show notes: Hannah's games leaderboard Bev's games leaderboard Pope Crave / @clubconcrave:
