Helen Lewis | |
|---|---|
 Lewis in 2017 | |
| Born | September 30, 1983 |
| Other names | Helen Lewis-Hasteley |
| Education | [ citation needed ] |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, editor |
| Spouse | Jonathan Haynes (2015–present) |
Helen Alexandra Lewis (born 30 September 1983) [1] is a British journalist and a staff writer at The Atlantic . [2] [3] She is a former deputy editor of the New Statesman, [4] and has also written for The Guardian and The Sunday Times . [5]
After graduating Oxford, [6] Lewis gained a post-graduate diploma in newspaper journalism from London's City University.[ citation needed ] Subsequently, she was accepted on the Daily Mail 's programme for trainee sub-editors[ citation needed ], working in the job for a few years, and later joining the team responsible for commissioning features for the newspaper. She was appointed the Women in the Humanities Honorary Writing Fellow at Oxford University for 2018/2019,[ citation needed ] and since 2019 is on the steering committee for the Reuters Institute for Journalism at Oxford University, [7] where she delivered a lecture on "The Failures of Political Journalism," [8] subsequently adapted as a New Statesman cover story. [9]
Lewis was appointed as deputy editor of the New Statesman in May 2012, [10] after becoming assistant editor in 2010. [11] Since July 2019, she has been a staff writer at The Atlantic . [12]
In September 2018, Lewis interviewed Jordan Peterson for GQ , [13] [14] in a video which has been viewed over 66 million times. [15]
In November 2019, April 2020, October 2020, April 2021, November 2021, June 2023, and October 2023, and May 2024, Lewis was a panellist on BBC's Have I Got News for You . [16] [17] [18] [19]
Lewis's first book Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights, a history of the battles for women's rights, was published by Jonathan Cape on 27 February 2020. Difficult Women was featured in the New Statesman under "Books to Read in 2020", and in the Observer list of "Non-fiction Books to Look Out for in 2020". [20]
In December 2019, Lewis launched her Radio 4 series, The Spark, a longform interview series with each episode dedicated to a single guest (or, in one case, two co-authors). [21] [22] The first four series have been collected by Penguin as an audiobook. [23]
In September 2021, the BBC aired her comedy documentary series Great Wives. [24]
In December 2022, Helen Lewis's eight-part podcast called The New Gurus aired on BBC Radio 4. [25] In it, she investigated the popularity and influence of charismatic individuals from Russell Brand to Jordan Peterson. [26] [27] [28]
Since June 2023, Helen Lewis has been presenting Page 94: The Private Eye Podcast, with Ian Hislop, Andrew Hunter Murray, and Adam Macqueen, which covers current affairs and investigative journalism with a satirical slant.
In 2012, Lewis coined what she herself referred to as "Lewis's Law": "the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism". [29] In January 2013, Lewis edited a week of articles dedicated to transgender issues in the New Statesman, featuring articles by transgender and non-binary writers including Juliet Jacques, Jane Fae and Sky Yarlett. In the introduction, she wrote: "For anyone interested in equality, it should be obvious that trans people are subject to harassment simply for the way they express their gender identity." [30]
While supporting transgender people's right to freedom from harassment and abuse, [31] in July 2017, Lewis wrote about her concerns that gender self-identification would make rape shelters unsafe for women and would lead to an increase in sexual assaults in women's changing rooms, writing: "In this climate, who would challenge someone with a beard exposing their penis in a women's changing room?" [32] [33]
In response to criticism for those comments, Lewis said "I've had two tedious years of being abused online as a transphobe and a 'TERF' or 'trans-exclusionary radical feminist'—despite my belief that trans women are women, and trans men are men—because I have expressed concerns about self-ID and its impact on single-sex spaces". [34] In November 2020, game developer Ubisoft removed two in-game podcasts from Watch Dogs: Legion that featured Lewis due to the comments. [35] [36] [37]
Lewis was educated at the private St Mary's School, Worcester, [38] and then studied English at St Peter's College, Oxford. [39]
Lewis married Guardian journalist Jonathan Haynes in 2015. She was previously married in 2010 and divorced her first husband in 2013. [40]
Misogyny is hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. It is a form of sexism that can keep women at a lower social status than men, thus maintaining the social roles of patriarchy. Misogyny has been widely practised for thousands of years. It is reflected in art, literature, human societal structure, historical events, mythology, philosophy, and religion worldwide.
Have I Got News for You (HIGNFY) is a British television panel show, produced by Hat Trick Productions for the BBC, which premiered on 28 September 1990. The programme focuses on two teams, one always captained by Ian Hislop and one by Paul Merton, each plus a guest panelist, answering questions on various news stories on the week prior to an episode's broadcast. However, the programme's format focuses more on the topical discussions on the subject of the news stories related to questions, and the satirical humour derived from these by the teams. This style of presentation had a profound impact on panel shows in British TV comedy, making it one of the genre's key standard-bearers.
Julia Hartley-Brewer is a conservative British radio presenter, political journalist, and newspaper columnist. She has hosted a radio show on Talkradio simulcast on TalkTV, called Julia Hartley-Brewer on weekdays from 10am.
Joanna Louise Page is a Welsh actress and presenter, known for portraying Stacey Shipman in the BAFTA-winning television series Gavin & Stacey. She played Dora Spenlow in the 1999 adaptation of David Copperfield, and featured as Just Judy in the 2003 romantic comedy Love Actually. She currently co-presents the BBC One consumer series Shop Well for Less. In 2023, Page joined Loose Women as a regular panellist.
Julie Bindel is an English radical feminist writer. She is also co-founder of the law reform group Justice for Women, which has aimed to help women who have been prosecuted for assaulting or killing violent male partners.
Transmisogyny, otherwise known as trans-misogyny and transphobic misogyny, is the intersection of transphobia and misogyny as experienced by trans women and transfeminine people. The term was coined by Julia Serano in her 2007 book Whipping Girl to describe a particular form of oppression experienced by trans women. In an interview with The New York Times, Serano explores the roots of transmisogyny as a critique of feminine gender expressions which are "ridiculed in comparison to masculine interests and gender expression."
Feminist views on transgender topics vary widely.
Paris Lees is an English author, journalist, presenter and campaigner. She topped The Independent on Sunday's 2013 Pink List, came second in the 2014 Rainbow List, and was awarded the Positive Role Model Award for LGBT in the 2012 National Diversity Awards. Lees is the first trans columnist at Vogue and was the first trans woman to present shows on BBC Radio 1 and Channel 4. Her first book, What It Feels Like For a Girl, was published by Penguin in 2021.
TERF is an acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist. First recorded in 2008, the term TERF was originally used to distinguish transgender-inclusive feminists from a group of radical feminists and social conservatives who reject the position that trans women are women, including trans women in women's spaces, and transgender rights legislation. Trans-inclusive feminists assert that these ideas and positions are transphobic and discriminatory towards transgender people. The use of the term TERF has since broadened to include reference to people with trans-exclusionary views who are not necessarily involved with radical feminism.
Isabel Hardman, Baroness Walney, is a British political journalist and the assistant editor of The Spectator. In 2015, she was named Journalist of the Year at the Political Studies Association's annual awards.
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Nesrine Malik is a Sudanese-born journalist and author of We Need New Stories: Challenging the Toxic Myths Behind Our Age of Discontent. Based in London, Malik is a columnist for The Guardian and served as a panellist on the BBC's weekly news discussion programme Dateline London.
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Maya Forstater is a British business studies and international development researcher who was the claimant in Forstater v Centre for Global Development Europe. The case established that gender critical views are protected as a belief under the Equality Act 2010, while stating that the judgment does not permit misgendering transgender people with impunity. At a subsequent full merits hearing, the Employment Tribunal upheld Forstater's case, concluding that she had suffered direct discrimination on the basis of her gender critical beliefs. The judgement for remedies was handed down in June 2023, with Forstater awarded compensation of £91,500 for loss of earnings, injury to feelings and aggravated damages, with an additional £14,900 added as interest.
Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality is a 2021 nonfiction book by journalist and gender critical activist Helen Joyce that criticizes the transgender rights movement and transgender activism. It is published by Oneworld Publications, their fifth book in the Sunday Times bestseller list. Reviews of the book ranged from positive to critical. In 2023 it was shortlisted for the John Maddox Prize.
Helen Joyce is an Irish journalist and gender critical activist. She studied as a mathematician and worked in academia before becoming a journalist. Joyce began working for The Economist as education correspondent for its Britain section in 2005 and has since held several senior positions, including finance editor and international editor. She published her book Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality in 2021.
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Sarah Ditum is an English columnist and author whose work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, New Statesman, The Times, and UnHerd. She is based in Bath. Ditum's writing has covered issues including violence against women, gender identity, parenting, British parliamentary politics and cancel culture. She also writes regular book reviews. Her book Toxic: Women, Fame and The Noughties, about misogyny in celebrity culture during the 2000s, was published by Fleet in 2023.
Gender-critical feminism, also known as trans-exclusionary radical feminism or TERFism, is an ideology or movement that opposes what it refers to as "gender ideology": the concept of gender identity and transgender rights, especially gender self-identification. Gender-critical feminists believe that sex is biological and immutable, while believing gender, including both gender identity and gender roles, to be inherently oppressive. They reject the concept of transgender identities. These views have been described as transphobic by feminist and scholarly critics, and are opposed by many feminist and LGBT rights organizations.
And in November, I got my first stab at its BBC Television equivalent, Have I Got News for You (a relative youngster, having broadcast its first program two days before my seventh birthday).
As I've just told @alicetiara, the comments on any article about feminism justify feminism. That is Lewis's Law.
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