Category Archives: Ranty ones

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Read some awesome books by women

A selection of books written by womenYesterday on Twitter I spotted this piece of genius: Tegan (aka BellJarred) has a message on her Tinder profile that tells people to only message her if they’ve read five books written by women. Inundated, she is… but not with messages from guys who’ve read five books by women.

There are two things here that annoy me. Primarily the point that these people have obviously ignored the one criteria she stipulates. Regardless of whether you agree with the criteria, that’s pretty frustrating, no? And secondly the fact that good books by women are not exactly hard to find. Here’s the deal: you don’t have to read books to be a good person. I bloody love a good book, but I’m not going to shit on you if you’re not a reader. What I will be really fucked off about, though, is if you are a voracious reader and yet you can’t name five books you love that are written by women.

In a rage after reading some of the messages sent to Tegan, I did a quick whip-round my bookshelves and picked the first few books I could see that were written by women.

Check out the lists below, recommend more awesome books in the comments (and you get to enter a competition in the process which is FUN), or go and read BookCunt’s blog, because she’s spectacularly funny and sweary and reads way more books than I do.

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How to say no (to things that aren’t sexy)

“Do you want another biscuit?”

“Ah, no I’m OK thanks. I’ve had five and I had a big lunch – I’m really full.”

“Sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure thanks.”

“Go on – they’re delicious!”

“I know. I just…”

“G’wan.”

“OK, thanks.”

And then I sit and eat the biscuit and think ‘for fuck’s sake, I am a grown up. I should be able to decide whether I want a fucking biscuit.’ But then someone will pass the plate around again, and I’ll take another, because I don’t want to be rude. And by the end of the day I will be so sick of biscuits and so sad that these things I love very much (biscuits) have been ruined by the fact that I’ve had them politely shoveled into my face alongside the cup of tea that I don’t really like either.

This isn’t a metaphor for sex.

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In their own words: let’s get angry

I don’t have a guest blog for you this week, but what I do have is a couple of things that I’d love you to take a look at. If there’s a broad theme here it’s anger. Anger at shit decisions or anger at something that could be better but isn’t.

Please check them out.

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Is it wrong for a dad to want to pass on his surname?

A man is sad because he wants his children to have his surname. He wants it so much that he wrote an article in the Telegraph about it. I’m not sure this is the traditional way to solve an argument with a loved one, but if that’s what we’re doing now then I’d love a column in which I can explain to my Mum why she’s wrong about which way the knives go up in the dishwasher.

Anyway. He is sad because traditionally kids take the name of the guy in a relationship (and because traditionally of course relationships consist of one man, one woman, some kids and a dog called ‘Bunty’), yet because of the rapid erosion of patriarchy, and the towering inferno of feminist rage that is currently decimating our society, he has NOTHING LEFT TO CALL HIS OWN NOW. All he’s asking is to give his kids his surname. Please will we just let him have this one little thing that’s really important? Is it too much to ask? IS IT?

Let’s explore.

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Do women like porn?

Imagine a club in which all the doors are five foot six. You’re six foot tall, so you have to duck to enter. On your way to the club, you had to get out at the train station and hop onto a crowded shuttle bus. There was a person standing with a sign directing you to it:

“Shuttle bus for people below five foot six this way!”

When you walked past them to step onto the bus, they didn’t exactly tell you to leave, but a fair few people gave you weird looks.

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