The F-Word (blog)

Last updated

The F-Word
Type of site
Feminist website
Available in English language
OwnerCatherine Redfern
Created byCatherine Redfern
URL www.thefword.org.uk
Launched2001;23 years ago (2001)

The F-Word is a UK-based feminist website founded by Catherine Redfern in 2001, initially as a forum for young feminists. [1] The F-Word [2] has since turned into a contemporary feminist website containing features, blog pieces and reviews on hot-topic feminist issues.

Contents

Aims and objectives of the F-Word are to provide a place for a new feminist voice, with analytical thinking on contemporary issues, and create a safe supportive environment for readers and contributors.

The website was originally named The F-Word to encompass the idea that feminism is seen as taboo for young women, with Redfern subsequently composing the website of all young women contributors. However, in 2003, the site changed its tagline from "young" to "contemporary", [3] welcoming contributors of all ages. [2]

Contributors

The site

Current categories on the website are Politics, Film and TV, Stage, Books, Music and Life. The F-Word also features reviews of comics, art, books, comedy, events, films, magazines, music, television and theatre, along with hosting a blog containing posts from selected guests and regular writers. [2]

The blog was added to the site in 2005, covering a range of political and feminist topics of the time, including Harriet Harman's tip-of-the-hat for the deputy prime minister job, homophobic bullying, pornography, abortion and women's oppression in Iraq. [4]

The site was edited by Catherine Redfern 2001-2007 and Jess McCabe 2007–2013. It has functioned under a rotating editor system since 2013, with the editor changing yearly. [5]

Recognition

In 2002, the site was "Highly Commended" by the Women in Publishing New Venture Awards and Redfern was named in The Guardian as one of 50 Women to Watch the following year. [5]

It was listed in The Guardian as one of The World's 50 Most Powerful Blogs in 2008. [5]

Notes

  1. Mira Katbamna (7 April 2005). "Shelf awareness | Media". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 "Contemporary UK Feminism - The F-Word".
  3. Redfern, Catherine (16 June 2003). "The F-Word: Contemporary UK Feminism".
  4. Ros Taylor (30 June 2006). "Just for the boys? | Media". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 10 September 2011.
  5. 1 2 3 Aldred, Jessica; Behr, Rafael; Pickard, Anna; Wignall, Alice; Hind, John; Cochrane, Lauren; Wiseman, Eva; Potter, Laura (9 March 2008). "The world's 50 most powerful blogs | Media | The Observer". London: Guardian. Retrieved 10 September 2011.

Related Research Articles

Misandry is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against men or boys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Third-wave feminism</span> Feminist movement, 1990s–2010s

Third-wave feminism is a feminist movement that began in the early 1990s, prominent in the decades prior to the fourth wave. Grounded in the civil-rights advances of the second wave, Gen X third-wave feminists born in the 1960s and 1970s embraced diversity and individualism in women, and sought to redefine what it meant to be a feminist. The third wave saw the emergence of new feminist currents and theories, such as intersectionality, sex positivity, vegetarian ecofeminism, transfeminism, and postmodern feminism. According to feminist scholar Elizabeth Evans, the "confusion surrounding what constitutes third-wave feminism is in some respects its defining feature."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rebecca Walker</span> American writer

Rebecca Walker is an American writer, feminist, and activist. Walker has been regarded as one of the prominent voices of Third Wave Feminism, and the coiner of the term "third wave", since publishing a 1992 article on feminism in Ms. magazine called "Becoming the Third Wave", in which she proclaimed: "I am the Third Wave."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Hall</span> British academic (born 1946)

Catherine Hall is a British academic. She is Emerita Professor of Modern British Social and Cultural History at University College London and chair of its digital scholarship project, the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery. Her work as a feminist historian focuses on the 18th and 19th centuries, and the themes of gender, class, race and empire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cathy Young</span> Russian-American writer (born 1963)

Catherine Alicia Young is a Russian-American journalist. Young is primarily known for her writing about feminism and other cultural issues, as well as about Russia and the former Soviet Union. She is the author of two books, a frequent contributor to the American libertarian monthly Reason, and a regular columnist for Newsday. In 2022, she joined The Bulwark as a staff writer. She describes her political views as "libertarian/conservative".

<i>Signs</i> (journal) Feminist academic journal

Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society is a peer-reviewed feminist academic journal. It was established in 1975 by Jean W. Sacks, Head of the Journals Division, with Catharine R. Stimpson as its first editor in Chief, and is published quarterly by the University of Chicago Press. Signs publishes essays examining the lives of women, men, and non-binary people around the globe from both historical and contemporary perspectives, as well as theoretical and critical articles addressing processes of gendering, sexualization, and racialization.

Shameless is a Canadian magazine with a feminist and anti-oppressive practice perspective for girls and trans youth. It is published three times a year and also maintains a website featuring a blog, web stories and audio content. Shameless is a registered not-for-profit.

<i>Spare Rib</i> Defunct feminist magazine

Spare Rib was a second-wave feminist magazine, founded in 1972 in the United Kingdom, that emerged from the counter culture of the late 1960s as a consequence of meetings involving, among others, Rosie Boycott and Marsha Rowe. Spare Rib is now recognised as an iconic magazine, which shaped debate about feminism in the UK, and as such it was digitised by the British Library in 2015. The magazine contained new writing and creative contributions that challenged stereotypes and supported collective solutions. It was published between 1972 and 1993. The title derives from the Biblical reference to Eve, the first woman, created from Adam's rib.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Angela McRobbie</span> British academic (born 1951)

Angela McRobbie is a British cultural theorist, feminist, and commentator whose work combines the study of popular culture, contemporary media practices and feminism through conceptions of a third-person reflexive gaze. She is a professor of communications at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Feministing</span> Feminist blog

Feministing.com was a feminist blog founded in 2004 by sisters Jessica and Vanessa Valenti. It had 1.2 million unique monthly visitors at its peak. The blog helped to popularize the term slut-shaming according to its directors Lori Adelman and Maya Dusenbery. Towards the end of 2019 it was announced that the blog's shutdown was planned for the following weeks. The blog's final post was published in December 2019.

Feminist Mormon Housewives (fMh) is a group blog, podcast, and Facebook group featuring commentary and discussion on contemporary Mormon culture and women's issues. According to The New York Times, "Unlike the more mainstream Mormon blogs – known collectively as the Bloggernacle – that by and large promote the faith, this online diary focuses on the universal challenges of mothering young children and on frustration with the limited roles women have in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."

Australian feminist art timeline lists exhibitions, artists, artworks and milestones that have contributed to discussion and development of feminist art in Australia. The timeline focuses on the impact of feminism on Australian contemporary art. It was initiated by Daine Singer for The View From Here: 19 Perspectives on Feminism, an exhibition and publishing project held at West Space as part of the 2010 Next Wave Festival.

Julie Zeilinger is an American author and writer. Her books include A Little F'd Up: Why Feminism is Not a Dirty Word (2012) and she founded the feminist blog The FBomb in 2009, which partnered with the Women's Media Center in 2014 to become the online platform WMC FBomb.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kate Smurthwaite</span> British comedian

Kate Smurthwaite is a British comedian and political activist. She has appeared on British television and radio as a pundit, offering opinion and comment on subjects ranging from politics to religion.

Networked feminism is a phenomenon that can be described as the online mobilization and coordination of feminists in response to sexist, misogynistic, racist, and other discriminatory acts against minority groups. This phenomenon covers all possible definitions of what feminist movements may entail, as there have been multiple waves of feminist movements and there is no central authority to control what the term "feminism" claims to be. While one may hold a different opinion from another on the definition of "feminism", all those who believe in these movements and ideologies share the same goal of dismantling the current patriarchal social structure, where men hold primary power and higher social privileges above all others. Networked feminism is not spearheaded by one singular women's group. Rather, it is the manifestation of feminists' ability to leverage the internet to make traditionally unrepresented voices and viewpoints heard. Networked feminism occurs when social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr are used as a catalyst in the promotion of feminist equality and in response to sexism. Users of these social media websites promote the advancement of feminism using tools such as viral Facebook groups and hashtags. These tools are used to push gender equality and call attention to those promoting anything otherwise. Online feminist work is a new engine of contemporary feminism. With the possibility of connecting and communicating all around the world through the Internet, no other form of activism in history has brought together and empowered so many people to take action on a singular issue.

The Vagenda was a feminist online magazine launched in January 2012. It used the tagline "Like King Lear, but for girls," taken from Grazia magazine's summary of the film The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep. The Vagenda was run by British journalists Holly Baxter and Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett; it was founded by ten London-based women journalists in their twenties and was then written by a large group of anonymous contributors from all over the world, both women and men. The editors stated: "the women's press is a large hadron collider of bullshit, and something needed to be done". Cosslett describes The Vagenda as "a media watchdog with a feminist angle". In its last issue, July 2015, it announced a 'summer hiatus' in publication.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TERF (acronym)</span> Acronym for trans-exclusionary radical feminist

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Delia Jarrett-Macauley</span> British writer, academic and broadcaster

Delia Jarrett-Macauley, also known as Dee Jarrett-Macauley, is a London-based British writer, academic and broadcaster of Sierra Leonean heritage. Her debut novel, Moses, Citizen & Me, won the 2006 Orwell Prize for political writing, the first novel to have been awarded the prize. She has devised and presented features on BBC Radio, as well as being a participant in a range of programmes. As a multi-disciplinary scholar in history, literature and cultural politics, she has taught at Leeds University, Birkbeck, University of London, and other educational establishments, most recently as a fellow in English at the University of Warwick. She is also a business and arts consultant, specialising in organisation development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meghan Murphy</span> Canadian feminist and journalist

Meghan Emily Murphy is a Canadian writer, journalist, and founder of Feminist Current, a feminist website and podcast. Her writing, speeches, and talks have criticized third-wave feminism, male feminists, the sex industry, exploitation of women in mass media, censorship, and gender identity legislation. She is based in Vancouver.


Ratchet feminism emerged in the United States from hip hop culture in the early 2000s, largely as a critique of, and a response to, respectability politics. It is distinct from black feminism, womanism, and hip hop feminism. Ratchet feminism coopts the derogatory term (ratchet). Other terms used to describe this concept include ratchet womanism as used by Georgia Tech professor Joycelyn Wilson or ratchet radicalism used by Rutgers professor Brittney Cooper. Ratchet is an identity embraced by many millennials and Gen Z black women and girls. The idea of ratchetness as empowering, or of ratchet feminism, has been articulated by artists and celebrities like Nicki Minaj, City Girls, Amber Rose, and Junglepussy, scholars like Brittney Cooper and Mikki Kendall, and through events like Amber Rose's SlutWalk. Many view ratchet feminism as a form of female empowerment that doesn't adhere to respectability politics.