Saturday 2nd May 2026
Blog Page 683

Dream Worlds

Zoe Hind
-
0
Dream Worlds

In the days following the blaze that engulfed the Notre Dame, a fluke fire which sent the cathedral’s iconic spire crashing down as all of Paris looked on in horror, I came across a lithograph by Marc Chagall, Le Dimanche (1954), and in viewing the work both mourned the downfall of a building that has stood and endured a range of near-disasters for nearly 900 years, and subsequently admired the widespread acclaim this cathedral has received via its transition into a symbolic extension of France itself.

This vibrant work is charged with human emotion, manifested in the rich colours that bleed into different sections of the composition: an effervescent yellow casts light over the Parisian skyline below, now sunk into an enveloping purple gloom as the contrast in complementary hues imbues the work with a striking luminosity. Furthermore, I was forced to reflect upon the nature of Chagall’s mastery, and whether or not it exists as an illustration of reality of fantasy.

Its expressionist style harbours a mystical atmosphere, and the pictorial iconography has been drawn from the folkoric memories of his Russian-Jewish childhood in the town of Vitebsk. Chagall’s creative spirit is expressed powerfully, commenting on the modern world as experienced through the eyes of the artist. By observing the juxtaposition of rabbinical figures and synagogue steeples with flower bouquets, farmyard animals, dancing peasants and brides, we are granted access to Chagall’s fantastical realm of art. It provides us a sense of catharsis.

In the aftermath of the Paris fire, Le Dimanche became the subliminally sought-after vehicle for my emotional release, and thus Chagall’s artwork doubled as a form of escapism, both for the artist himself and for the viewer.

The element of fantasy pervading Chagall’s work is rooted in the world of nostalgia, accessed through his characteristic incorporation of Hasidic Russian folklore. He has continuously woven the memories of his early life into his artwork, and it offers a new dimension of meaning for his audience. Born into a Lithuanic Jewish Family in 1887 in what was then part of the Russian empire but is now Belarus, Chagall was one of nine children and received his initial education at the local Jewish school. His desire to become an artist came from a natural fascination with drawing, which he initially sated by copying pictures from books in his school library. He uses the ephemeral quality of nature’s beauty to merge two cultural worlds, Vitebsk and Paris, and the subsequent fantasy realm that is created is bound by no set of societal regulations or conventional expectations.

In the Cubist manner of his painterly style, Chagall explores a dreamlike version of reality, and as a result achieves a feeling of magical realism in his work that is inherent in the contradiction between the ordinary and the quaint. In his nostalgia-soaked work I and the Village, Chagall bestows the role of a “dreamer” on the viewer, for they are required to experience the ethereal process of metamorphic developments and displacements, as in a dream. Yet his work is almost gentle, in contrast to the disturbed, Freudian representations of the subconscious by Chagall’s contemporaries, the Surrealists.

Chagall was renowned for his reputation as a fantasist and expressionist, and was not limited by the boundaries of the more orthodox Surrealism. His versatility as an artist was proven through his success across a diverse range of media, from stained glass to painting, printmaking, murals and tiles: Chagall was a man whose work never fell short of a spectacle. André Breton acknowledged the artist’s innovation when he wrote, “with Chagall alone…metaphor makes its triumphant entry into modern painting.”

Yet Chagall himself rejected such literary explanations that others superimposed onto his artwork. He is said to have stated that “the theories which I would make up to explain myself and those which others elaborate in connection with my work are nonsense.” In a much more authentic style, the artist uses Romance, pushed to the point of fantasy, as an outlet for emotional expression: “My paintings are my reason for existence, my life, and that’s all.”

“Vagina.” There, I said it.

-
-
0
“Vagina.” There, I said it.

Maude: Does the female form make you uncomfortable, Mr Lebowski?

The Dude: Is that what this is a picture of?

Maude: In a sense, yes. My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal, which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.

The Dude: Oh yeah?

Maude: Yes, they don’t like hearing it and find it difficult to say. Whereas without batting an eye a man will refer to his dick or his rod or his Johnson.

The Dude: Johnson?

– The Big Lebowski, 1998

Julianne Moore as Maude Lebowski, with her crisp trans-Atlantic accent, is one of the most memorable of the Coen brothers’ characters, and this is how we meet her: detailing her work, which she describes as vaginal. To be pedantic, I think it’s more likely to be vulvar than vaginal, but the effect is the same. It’s funny, pretentious, and unarguably modern.

Maude is a male fantasy in some sense. She’s sexy, blazing, powerful, and in the most obvious sign of her fantasy status, she’s the subject of The Dude’s extended dream sequences. But she has also come to represent a different fantasy: of feminist sexual agency and control. Why else would Beyoncé choose to include the French dubbing of one of Maude’s scenes in Partition? It is quite easy to take her at her word, and to see her as a satirical embodiment of the many modern female artists who reclaim the vulva.

But the subject isn’t new. As long as there has been art, there has been yonic art. The paleolithic Venus of Hohle Fels may well be the oldest surviving artistic representation of a human, and she has a much-exaggerated vulva. It has been interpreted as a representation of fertility and sexuality, but other vulvae in art seem to be purely sexual fantasy. For example, Gustave Courbet’s L’Origine Du Monde (1866) shows a faceless woman, her legs spread apart to display her genitals, lying wrapped in bed-sheets that are lifted to show her breasts. Courbet has removed all the parts of the woman that aren’t obviously erotic.

Though worrying, female objectification is rarely the main theme of a piece of art, and should not be taken as such. Consider Henri Gervex’s Rolla. It is inspired by a poem by Alfed du Mussett, in which the young aristocrat Rolla spends one last night with a prostitute, Marie, before taking his own life. Marie lies on the bed with her legs apart, in much the same way as the faceless woman of L’Origine du Monde. Rolla’s top hat sits on the pile of clothes beside the bed, implying that Marie in her eagerness was entirely naked before Rolla had even removed his hat. The element of sexual fantasy is obvious, but so too is the anguish in the face of a man on the brink of suicide. Gervex ultimately portrayed a moment of tension, both sexual and personal.

Men painting women’s bodies and genitals was never the problem. The problem was that only men painted women’s bodies and genitals and that they excluded women’s identities as they did so.

This is something that feminist artists have challenged, using the vulva as subject – Hannah Wilke’s Needed-Erase-Her (1974), Megumi Igarishi’s genitalia-shaped kayak (2016), and Candice Lin’s The Moon (2010). Often the first example given of vulvar art is Georgia O’Keefe’s flower paintings, usually Black Iris (1962). That these flowers are really vulvae is so well-established that she has become something of a by-word for the genre.

The trouble with this is that O’Keefe herself always denied it. There was a Freudian fantasy in the idea that O’Keefe must have been painting genitals. The association did not come from O’Keefe, but instead from her husband Alfred Stieglitz, and this is no small thing. There is a marked difference between a female artist’s declaration that “I am a woman, I am an artist, I have a vulva and I will paint it” and an observation that “You are a woman, you are an artist, you have a vulva, so that must be what you are painting”.

The most famous example of vulva-in-art that was meant to be vulva-in-art is probably Judy Chicago’s installation The Dinner Party (1979). It’s an immense triangular dinner table, representing the womb, with place settings for 39 women from history and myth. Each woman has a plate painted with an abstract yonic design. This is a fantasy too, of course. How else can you describe a dinner party with Ishtar, Sappho, and Mary Wollstonecraft, if not as fantasy? But it’s one where woman play all sorts of roles, roles beyond being a body – a fantasy grounded in the subjectification, not objectification, of women.

Sojourner Truth’s plate, however, has faces rather than vaginal imagery. Alice Walker, among others, criticised this, suggesting, “perhaps white women feminists, no less white women generally, cannot imagine black women have vaginas.” It’s also a bit disquieting that Chicago centred real women around their genitals, without their knowledge or consent. Chicago’s own fantasy of female empowerment was not the fantasy of all other women.

Our record of human art begins with a vulva. Art is concerned with sex and bodies and occasionally with female genitals – this has never changed. But the way it is portrayed has changed. Vulva art is still evolving, particularly with feminist artists who acknowledge the experiences of transgender women and consider a more nuanced approach to the female body. A modern, engaging, inclusive feminist approach does not need to reject all references to the vulva. It needs to centre the discussion around women’s individual relationships to their genitals, in full awareness of the immense variety of this experience, rather than clinging to an outdated fantasy of a universal female body.

Oxford MP Layla Moran announces decision not to run for Lib Dem leadership

Amelia Horn
-
0
Oxford MP Layla Moran announces decision not to run for Lib Dem leadership

Layla Moran has announced to party members in her constituency, Oxford West and Abingdon, that she will not be running for Liberal Democrat leader when Sir Vince Cable bows out.

The announcement comes less than two weeks before the European Elections.

She said: “I am grateful to the large number of constituents, supporters, party members, and elected representatives who have encouraged me to throw my hat into the ring in the forthcoming Liberal Democrat Leadership contest.

“As a relatively new MP, however, my first priority has to be to serve my constituents to the best of my ability.”

Moran’s departure leaves former minister Jo Swinson as clear favourite. She would become the Lib Dem’s first female leader. Sir Ed Davey, the former Energy Secretary, is now Swinson’s main rival.

In the recent local elections in England, the Liberal Democrats gained 703 seats. Current leader Vince Cable described every vote as “a vote for stopping Brexit.”

In an article for New Statesman, Layla Moran said of the result: “It’s good to be back, isn’t it? The Tories and Labour, those cracking leviathans of the two main parties, have (rightly!) been given a drubbing at the polls by voters frustrated at the absolute mess they have made of Brexit.”

Moran has been contacted for comment.

C. S. Lewis’ fantasy worlds: holding the mirror up to nature

Josh Taylor
-
0
C. S. Lewis’ fantasy worlds: holding the mirror up to nature

Being a Brasenostril, it has almost become part of my daily routine to shuffle in and out of groups of tourists huddled round a tiny door, emblazoned with golden fawns guarding its frame. This stubby passageway, it is alleged, was the inspiration for that famous encounter in C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. So pervasive has fantasy become as a genre that, just yesterday, I saw a group blanketed by their Gryffindor scarves stop at St Mary’s Passage to pay homage to a world of fantastical creatures and happenings that their beloved Daniel Radcliffe wasn’t remotely involved in. Fantasy has become as much of a staple of the literary and cinematic canon as that passageway has of every Oxford guided tour but has this persistence been for the same shared need for escapism through the ages, or is fantasy the discreetly blunt cultural mirror sometimes used to reflect on our reality?

During the aftermath of the Second World War and the less than jovial task of rebuilding the nation from rubble, there emerged a new focus for literature, especially among novels aimed at children. While some European countries began a sustained period of cultural reflection, such as that of the Italian neo-realismo movement, Britain, having been on the winning side, saw a much faster transition to seemingly escapist literature. It took until only 1950 for Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia to get underway with unashamed use of Greek mythology, talking animals, inter-special warfare, and a plethora of magical spells and ablutions. Though on the surface this highly-fictionalised world seems to be turning its back on harsh post-war conditions and discussions, C. S. Lewis was arguably the father of a sub-genre of fantasy that has since played a key role in the British literary canon: complex childfiction.

While the world of Narnia is fictional, its is not without parallel to the world in which C. S. Lewis was writing. Indeed, at the time of Tilda Swinton’s portrayal of the maleficent Queen of Narnia, film critic Stella Papamichael remarked that: “As the cold-hearted White Witch, Tilda Swinton sets the tempo for this bracing adventure. She is a pristine picture of evil, like the spectre of Nazism that forces the children out of London to the sanctuary of a country manor.” Though the dichotomy of absolute good vs. absolute evil perhaps lacked subtlety in viewing Britain as an unrivalled force for righteousness during the Second World War, symbolic undercurrents of that war and its aftermath embellish and shape the fruitful fantasies of Narnia, the most prominent of these being Christianity. It is a rather easily deduced theme of The Chronicles, particularly in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe wherein Aslan dies, only to be reincarnated and save the people of Narnia forevermore. Far more interesting though is the reason for its inclusion; the importance of contextual echoes in fantasy of this type become much clearer when we analyse the why instead of the what.

T. S. Eliot’s Wasteland, a slightly less optimistic fantasyesque prose-poem written post-First World War, descends from the moral and geo-political turmoil that resulted from the conflict. Lewis’ Narnia stems from the same literary endeavour: a chiming in on a possible solution to the vacuous space that inhabits any global sphere after such a large conflict. If the White Witch was an embodiment of Nazism, it was Aslan’s patriotically zoomorphic embodiment of British and Judaeo- Christian values that killed her and allowed for Narnia to live in peace thereafter. The preservation of loving thy neighbour and the stiff upper lip was the backbone of Narnia, and thus the post-war world it reflected; a mirror distant in its worldly content is not necessarily always different in its worldly needs. Such a bold, and not altogether very subtle moral to a bedtime story was not entirely uncontroversial even at the time of writing. Not only was fantasy as a genre still frowned upon, but the highly moralistic tone of the story was hardly comparable to the spiffingly fun and sanitary, knee-length skirt adventures of Enid Blyton.

Thus, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, published later that decade, though perhaps even more fantastically adventurous (hairy-footed hobbits and repugnantly ugly orcs are remarkably less common than centaurs or fawns in fantasy tales) already marks the success of novels that leant towards escapism without pulpit-prose. By 1954, the cogs of the British empire had rusted to near unworkability: with the Suez crisis just around the corner and the jewel of the Empire’s crown already independent, it was clear that Britain was declining in spite of Lewis’ beloved Aslanic values. Tolkien was not entirely without his religious symbolism: Gandalf the Grey coming back as Gandalf the White acting as the saviour of Middle Earth on many an occasion is not too dissimilar from Aslan and neither are the vices particular to each race in Middle Earth incongruous with the Seven Deadly Sins. However, by the time of publication in a world where the stubborn cold war was setting a new global order, and cultural engagement became more widespread, the need for fantasy as a reflection on society, or as an aspirational prophecy, was already diminishing. The need for an escape, where things can easily be classified as good and evil (and where good tend to eventually win), was already increasing.

The emergence of fantasy in film and television in the ensuing decades saw this trend continue. Cult classic fantasy films, such as Willow and Highlander, see a greater devotion to character complexity, narrative tension, and nitty-gritty combat. By this point, the genre has become far more grounded in narrative reality, but with far less attention to societal reflection or moral motivations. This is in part due to the art form: a fight on film is far more enjoyable to watch than a fight in print is to read and films in general are far more popular amongst the general public. But this is also due to the shift in society, especially in the engagement of classes in culture: gone are the days when, to be able to afford books and nights at the opera meant you were almost definitely also concerned with the politics of the day. Culture had ceased to be an elite domain, and so readers and viewers who needed an escape more than a reflection began to form the majority of fantasy consumers.

Jump forward the remaining decades until the present and it is clear that our fantasy narratives have taken on almost purely escapist forms. Harry Potter, though enjoyed by old and young alike as Narnia was, lacks any allegorical meaning: Harry Potter is no more a comment on New Labour than Game of Thrones is on Donald Trump. Though both emotionally and narratively complex, they are parallel worlds designed exactly as that: parallel, with paths never meant to cross.

As the media through which fantasy can be created have become far more widespread, so too has the audience; gone are the days when to be interested in culture often necessitated interest in politics. Instead, in culture, people increasingly sought an escape from daily life: as the globalist curve of modernity rendered individuals less and less important on a large scale, so their escapist desires increased. How often do we hear nowadays that people are going on weekend escapes to detox from society? Chances are they’ll take a book or a boxset with them.

If they want a real escape though, they’re best to avoid delving too far into history lest they find a moral treatise on British Christianity hidden amongst Minotaurs and fawns.

Super Saturday Double-Header in Women’s Rugby

Cerys Baines
-
0
Super Saturday Double-Header in Women’s Rugby

The time was here. The stage was set. The teams were ready. A grey and overcast Saturday of 1st Week provided the perfect conditions for the Women’s Rugby Cuppers Semi-Finals (although it certainly dampened the spirits of anyone attending the myriad of balls that evening).

At opposite ends of the city, women from a multitude of colleges battled it out.

Four strong teams, two tough games, yet only one great pitch (Iffley’s ground has a lot of catching up to do). Who would make it to the 2019 Women’s Rugby Cuppers Final?

At 9:45am on Saturday morning, the Fortress (St John’s sport’s grounds, which are pristine) played host to Saints (St John’s and St Anne’s) versus Turl Street (Jesus, Exeter, Lincoln and Brasenose).

The strength for the Saints side lay in their backs, yet it was Turl Street’s forwards who were the more experienced players, which already signalled that the game would be very exciting.

The first half saw some outstanding play from Turl Street’s Blues players who provided exceptional footwork and power which resulted in numerous breaks through the Saints’ defensive line.

Turl Street’s dominant pack enabled them to play a fast-paced game with skilful offloads and strong carries, and they were consequently able to go three tries up at half time. However, the game was not yet said and done, and at the start of the first half, Saints continued the fight which led to Charley Eaton Hart and Zoe Nunn both scoring, with Nunn securing one conversion. Despite these breaks from Saints’ most experienced players, Turl Street pulled themselves back together, and due to their long phases and control of possession, managed to score another two tries to extend their lead.

Five tries in total for Turl Street (two from Sydney Sopher and the others from Katie Collins, Meg Carter and Joss Barker), as well as two conversions from Meg Carter, saw the side eventually claim a 29-14 victory over Saints and secure their place in the final next weekend.

This was a massive victory for the team, especially as five of their players had never played contact rugby before that morning and were now able to look forward to another game in the upcoming days.

Later that day, it was the turn of Kebiel (Keble and Oriel) and University College, who met at 12pm at Iffley’s rugby pitch. The match saw two exceptional sides battle it out for a place in the final, making the game a big highlight for women’s cuppers this season.

Tries for Kebiel from captain Shekinah Opara, outgoing Blues captain Abby D’Cruz, Susy Rees and Evie Rothwell, as well as two conversions from Abby D’Cruz, meant Kebiel went 29-0 up with not much time left on the clock.

However, the Univ side remained determined and battled on until the very end, with two tries from Anna Bidgood and a conversion meaning the final score ended up as 29-12.

Nonetheless, despite this win looking solid on the scorecard, Kebiel really had to dig deep and fight for their victory, even though the team had more Blues players than their opponents.

This was a testament to how strong the Univ team were and the dedication of their development players, which has created a buzz around OURFC as it is a good sign for the future of the university team.

For OURFC, Cuppers are extremely important in highlighting players who are good enough to move along the player pathway; from Cuppers to the Panthers, and then maybe into the Blues squad.

Kebiel exemplified just how important it is for sides to focus on recruitment throughout the season, rather than becoming complacent halfway through.

This meant that on the day there were some stand out performances from complete novices such as Eloïse Phillips and Evie Rothwell, who was the only development player to score a try across the two semi-finals.

The strength and potential of development players is key for OURFC.

They have found that most of their university star players have come through the cuppers system, and therefore having a strong turnout of new recruits to cuppers each year means a lot to the club.

As for next week, the final is shaping up to be an extremely tough match, with many of the Blues players going head to head. Turl Street and Kebiel already met in the group stages of the competition back in Hilary, with Kebiel winning comfortably.

However, Blues players were not allowed to compete until the semi-finals.

This means that the final is expected to be a much more evenly-balanced and exciting match, especially since star Blues players Katie Collins and Sydney Sopher have made their return to the Turl Street side.

Trials and Tests for female cricketers

Cerys Baines
-
0
Trials and Tests for female cricketers

Claire Taylor, an alumnus of The Queen’s College, Oxford, is known for being one of the best female cricketers England has ever seen.

Taylor secured her full international debut for England in 1998 and from there climbed the ranks of the England team, finally becoming one of England’s most prolific batswomen alongside Charlotte Edwards in 2003. She made her highest score in test cricket, 177, that year in a test match against South Africa.

Since retiring from cricket in 2011, Claire has often found herself back in Oxford, and has worked alongside the university on numerous projects due to her new career in the higher education sector.

She remains heavily involved with Oxford University Cricket Club: she is the Vice-Chair of the Senior Committee and also helps with coaching the teams and running sessions for beginners, which is where I find her today. I begin by asking Claire how much she thinks sport at the university has changed since she herself was a student here in the mid-1990s.

“It’s been an interesting journey, I think Oxford is getting serious and there is a lot of pressure on students now, some of it self-made and some of it down to tutors and the Norrington table. It would be a really interesting conversation if we sat down with some current undergraduate students and asked them about freedom to play. From what I can see, it seems as though the cricketers have a fair amount of freedom to play.

“I also think sport has got a lot more organised and the facilities are a lot better without a doubt – I was captain of the hockey team and we used to have to cycle past the ring road to get to an astro-turf to train as there wasn’t one at Iffley Road back then. The gym at Iffley is better and the sports hall has definitely improved. We didn’t even have a swimming pool here when I was at Oxford.

“Altogether the facilities are better and the clubs are a lot better run – there’s a Sports Federation now which there never used to be, so that provides some extra support to all the clubs, which should mean they are better governed and it’s not just down to a group of students to manage that.

“More clubs are also organised now in terms of getting money from sponsors and getting funding from alumni so there’s that element too.”

After the 2000 Cricket World Cup, Taylor took the decision to focus on her cricketing career and decided to go full-time, meaning she had to give up her job and consequently saw her income take a huge hit. A hit so big, in fact, that she was forced to move back in with her parents. I ask her whether this was a difficult decision for her to make, and about the steps that need to be in place to ensure no other female cricketer would ever have to make this sacrifice in the future.

“We have to think about whether we actually want women to make that decision, or whether we can create career pathways that involve professionalising women’s sport and then they won’t have to make that decision. That obviously was never open to me.

“Now if there is a really good young female cricketer coming up through the England Juniors, she will probably get a contract so she can be semi-professional by the time she is eighteen, nineteen years old. Players like this will have a pretty clear pathway into an England contract if they are good enough and if they are committed and work hard enough.

“I, however, did have to make a decision and it wasn’t a difficult one, because I had a dream and it wasn’t a dream about being the best systems analyst I could be, it was about being the best cricketer I could be. Yes, there were sacrifices made, but I would make the same decision again, I think it was the right one at the time.”

Of course, increasing the popularity of the women’s game would have a huge impact on the lives of the athletes themselves, as they would receive a lot more funding which would allow them to become even more focused on their cricketing careers.

I ask Claire how she thinks we can increase the prominence of women’s cricket in the eyes of the public and make women’s matches the main sporting events, rather than just secondary to the men’s.

“It’s interesting isn’t it – the women’s game isn’t as powerful as the men’s game, the women don’t hit the ball as hard – however you’re watching two women’s teams play against each other, so if you’re watching it for the competitive element and one team beating the other, there should be no difference there.

“To increase viewing figures for the women’s game, we can do things like changing the boundary ropes to make sure we score more runs, we can do things simply by professionalising the structures in the game, which gives women more time to train and therefore they are a better product.

“We also need to get those personalities out there – we need to give teams personality so that they get followings, so that we create a buzz around each of the teams and some of the players.

“We have done this fairly well over the past few years with some of the youngsters coming through, just look at the likes of Tammy Beaumont and Heather Knight.”

I move onto Claire’s career.

Taylor played for England consistently for 12 years, picking up 127 caps from test matches, 78 from One Day Internationals and 11 from Twenty20s.

Her talents did not go unrecognised and 2009 was a stand-out year for her, as she not only won the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year Award but was also the first woman ever to be selected as Wisden’s Cricketer of the Year.

I ask Claire, out of all her successes, what she considered her highlight to be.

“Chasing runs as a batsman was always my toughest challenge – being set a difficult total and then going about trying to reach it. Definitely the highlight in terms of a successful run chase that was absolutely outrageous was the 2009 semi-final in the World Twenty20 against Australia. They scored 160-odd runs and we had never scored that many against them, and it was a tough ask.

“To do that with three or four balls remaining in the game and then to go on and thrash New Zealand in the final – it was a properly good year of cricket for England’s women. We were talking about world domination.”

With that in mind, I put Taylor on the spot and question her about the toughest ever opponent she has faced.

“The obvious answer would be Australia because for the first few years of my career they were much better than we were. We weren’t even on the same park as them in some of the games we played against them. So to get better over the course of my career, both individually and as a team, and then to be competitive and then to start beating them, that was really important.

“But in terms of a real challenge: India away. They have some very good players and they’ve been brought up on their pitches, they have good spinners, good support for the team and they just have a love of cricket over there. It’s just always a great challenge that you want to step up for.”

I wondered whether the conditions and the pitches in India also contributed to the fact that India was a tough fixture.

“India is hard. You know India is going to be hard, you know it’s going to be slow, you know it’s going to turn. The West-Indies was also unexpectedly tough as we were probably expecting quicker pitches over there.

“There is huge variation in pitches around the world. You can do as much as you possibly can to prepare but generally you’re touring in the winter so you can’t get outside, so you have to hope that you have enough time when you get out there to get some decent sessions in and they give you some decent opposition to play against so you get some match practice.”

The conversation inevitably drifts back to the representation of women’s sport and the issue of trying to get more girls and women to participate in sport and make it seem accessible.

“Over the past year or so and into this year, there has been a real push around getting women involved in sport. There are a range of sports that we all played as kids, hopefully cricket, but netball, rounders, maybe football.

“However we maybe got a bit turned off by them at school.”

Taylor moves on to talk about how we can regain that interest from women in regards to sport.

“We’ve had the Cricket World Cup, we’ve got the Netball and Football World Cup this year. There’s so many opportunities to follow and go and support our international female athletes.

“I’d say get out there, get watching some sport. Hopefully that will inspire people to either pick up a tennis racket, badminton racket, squash racket, for example, or go and find out what’s happening at their local women’s football club, because it is so easy now to get involved, there are so many opportunities.

“The way that those structures are set up and the way that the coaching is available now can make sport a really enjoyable experience.

“That’s what we’re going to try and do at this taster session tonight, we’re going to try some stuff with some people who have never played cricket before and really enthuse them about the game.”

Before we finish, Claire is keen to offer advice to any aspiring female athlete who is currently at Oxford and wondering where they can go with their talent and love of sport.

“At Oxford it’s got to be a balance between finding the time to do the work that you need to do to fulfil your potential academically but then making time for sport. I’m a real believer in the positives that sport brings in terms of mental health and finding balance. Two things I would say: don’t be afraid of hard work. We should never shy away from hard work if we want to achieve things.

Secondly, never stop learning.

“We’re in a wonderful situation here but when you leave Oxford, just never stop learning – there’s always people to learn from and to talk to about whatever sport it is you’re interested in, so always be learning and always work hard.”

Lady Pat. R. Honising: Tinderella

Lady Pat R. Honising
-
0
Lady Pat. R. Honising: Tinderella

Dear Lady P,

My moment has finally arrived – after months and months of having tinder “just for a laugh”, the day has come where it has actually served a purpose other than being a vessel of entertainment on gals nights in. My selective swiping rate of approximately one man per hundred has yielded success, and I now have a first date coming up this week with an actually appealing man who might be interested in me? Any advice on how not to accidentally get blackout drunk and make a tit of myself/repel all men for the rest of time would be much appreciated!

Thank you muchly, A lady-in-waiting

Thank you muchly,

A lady-in-waiting

My dear sweet anon,

First of all , a HUGE congrats is in order, how exciting for you! You must lend your incredibly single Aunt some of your Tinder prowess/utilise the ‘share with a friend’ feature if you somehow happen to find another promising needle in the haystack that is Oxford Tinder. But less about that, and more about getting you ready for the date of a lifetime. Luckily for you (and unluckily for me), Tinder dating in Oxford happens to be a topic I am well versed in, you’re in safe hands here my dearest. 

First things first, you need to focus on how you are feeling about the whole shebang. Worry less about analysing his/his ex’s/his maternal cousin twice-removed’s insta posts for now, and more about what you want to get out of the night. Maybe it’s the fleeting bragging rights that come with telling your mates about how he is “sooooo much better looking in person” the next day before getting dumped over text and never mentioning him again, or maybe you are looking for the ‘real deal’. Either way, put yourself first and don’t go in there taking a single ounce of shit – if he turns out to be a flake/catfish/sexist, then you can absolutely now take the moral high ground – he’s the one missing out! If nothing else, at the very least you will come away with all the validation that one night of (hopefully) undivided attention tends to give you, plus very possibly a cute new panic-bought outfit, which we’ll talk more about following this very clunky segue! 

You all know the drill ladies, the key to feeling good is looking good. Sure, that new top you bought off the Topshop sales rack because you wanted to look fit in Bridge could work, but a trip to Westgate with your (probably quite exhausted) girl gang in tow also couldn’t hurt. Not to pedal an old cliché (although I am an Agony Aunt and that is in fact my job), but make sure to dress for you and you alone – do not waste a perfectly nice outfit on a boy who probably thinks that cullottes are something you season your chicken with. Dress for yourself to make sure you’re looking good and feeling gorgeous no matter how things pan out.

Once you’ve got all your emotional and physical prep out of the way, including that one enlightening shower where you shear your way through a month’s worth of unruly leg hair, (N.B. do NOT feel obligated to shave for any man please and thanks!), it’s time for the Big Day. There’s only really one way to prepare from here before you make the trek down to a devastatingly cool/devastatingly spenny Cowley bar – reserving the hour in all of your friends’ calendars for a bit of moral support over a cuppa/something stronger. It doesn’t really matter what words of wisdom they’ll give you during this vital time because you’ll probably still stress over the apparently limitless different ways you could fuck up, but it’s nice all the same. Just try to channel the message of every single “live laugh love” Facebook mum combined and be yourself because it’s probably bloody fantastic. Whether the date ends in an “it’s not you, it’s me” text a week later followed by a grovelling apology DM a year later, or even a fully fledged boyf, it’s all a bit of fun and will probably make a really good story to overshare with in the very near future! Go out and smash it, your Auntie will be thinking of you!

Lots of love and luck in your Tinderella pursuits,

Lady P. xoxoxo

Post-Post-Punk: Got the Spirit, Lose the Feeling

Kavya Deshpande
-
0
Post-Post-Punk: Got the Spirit, Lose the Feeling

“And what’s the point of talking if all your words have been said?” 

So snarls the frontman of Shame on the opening track of their 2018 debut, Songs of Praise. It’s a peculiar lyric, all the more so given that it comes from a band that defines itself as post-punk two decades into the twenty-first century.

This is not to say that Shame’s self-categorisation is wholly unjustified. They have, after all, mastered their territory. Last year’s album resuscitates most of the post-punk pantheon, borrowing from Joy Division, Gang of Four and The Fall. Everything from the relentless guitars to the hoarse delivery has been fine-tuned to maintain the illusion that you could be listening to a remastered album from 1980. Yet beyond the admirable craftsmanship, the effort put into perfecting imitation suggests something else. There’s a sadness to it, like watching a professional Elvis impersonator perform in a backwater pub, noticing a faraway look in his eyes and realising that for a moment there, he wasn’t seeing sticky menus on empty tables but a screaming studio audience on The Ed Sullivan Show. Or something like that, anyway.   

What it comes down to is the fact that post-punk lacks the plasticity of genres like rock or hip-hop, which freely pool together music that would otherwise be separated by decades. It is, by its very name, less a style than a moment in time. Yes, it encompasses sinister riffs and fractured melodies, but it’s also the death-rattle of a country in the wake of punk, the sound of kids on council estates blasting records with swear-words while the people who made those records slowly overdose in cold city squats. Cultural critic Mark Fisher associates it with “the slow cancellation of the future”; the ageing and gradual forgetting of promises that had been made back when the Sex Pistols were still new and a Conservative government was an improbability. We could go even further – post-punk was never anything more than its earliest articulation, the opening line on Joy Division’s 1979 album Unknown Pleasures: “I’ve been waiting for a guide to come, and take me by the hand.”

And if we go with this last definition, it’s clear to see how Shame, a post-punk band far removed from the actual temporality of post-punk, can exist. Many who remember the year 2016 as the beginning of the end-times will share a similar yearning that acts as a succour to their overarching political anxiety. There has always been an expectation that art is at its best when the world burns, and now that expectation is rising in pitch and desperation to become a demand. After all, post-war rationing was countered by rock ‘n’ roll, institutional racism by jazz, Thatcherism by the heirs to punk who quoted Nietzsche over hollow drums. Today, we sit around and wait for our crisis-era culture. It’s an exercise in futility. The conditions that created the old millenarian prophets no longer exist. Or, as Fisher puts it, “Producing the new depends upon certain kinds of withdrawal… but the currently dominant form of socially networked cyberspace, with its endless opportunities for micro-contact and its deluge of YouTube links, has made withdrawal more difficult than ever before.”

There is no guide coming to take us by the hand, and so we get nostalgic. We return to old sounds because we remember how they once made us feel, and we chase them, replicate them, turn them into pastiche if we have to, all in the hope that we might feel the same way again, not realising – or perhaps not wanting to acknowledge – that those sounds were for a different age, that now we will have to learn to cope without a new soundtrack for our new anxieties.     

And perhaps we can’t afford to be cynical. So anyway, ‘One Rizla’ is a banger.

Christ Church JCR votes against Plush accessibility donation

Luke Dunne
-
0
Christ Church JCR votes against Plush accessibility donation

Christ Church JCR has voted against a motion to donate £1000 from its unplanned expenditure budget to help fund the “Plush For All” accessibility campaign.

The planned donation would have helped fund a lift which would make the club accessible for those with disabilities.

The motion failed by a margin of 45 votes to 30, with 2 abstentions.

Other colleges, including Wadham, Pembroke, University, and Hertford already collectively donated over £1800 to the campaign.

Christ Church’s unplanned expenditure budget, from which the money was to be taken, is given £3000 per year, of which £800 has been spent so far. Any money left in the fund returns to the college administration, and does not rollover into the next academic year.

Those present report that one of the main objections which was raised at the meeting included the inappropriateness of using this fund for non-emergencies. The majority of fund spent so far this year went towards building a new herb garden.

Other objections include the lack of accessibility within Christ Church, though no amendment or alternative motion was proposed on that topic, whilst others variously argued that it was inappropriate to donate to a non-charitable organisation, and that the donation would not benefit Christ Church students.

Plush is Oxford’s only LGBT+ club, and since its move at the beginning of Hilary has not been accessible to wheelchair users.

Speaking to Cherwell, the Christ Church LGBTQ+ Representative said: “As LGBTQ+ officer I am disappointed that the JCR was not able to support this motion; one that would have greatly improved the experience of disabled LGBTQ+ Students, present and future.

“However, it is vitally important to remember that Christ Church has a large and vibrant LGBTQ+ community, with a strong support base in college.

“The motion appeared to fail as a result of a general concern towards donating to a for profit organisation, not as a statement of objection towards the LGBTQ+ or disabled communities. While I believe that these concerns are misplaced, they are worth noting.

“There will undoubtedly be considerable controversy and a sense of disappointment moving forward.

“However, members of the JCR, the wider Oxford LGBTQ+ community and prospective students should not lose sight of the fact that Christ Church is a warm and welcoming home for a diverse range of students, the vast majority of whom flourish and succeed here.”

The Christ Church JCR executive, the Plush For All Campain and the SU’s LGBTQ+ campaign have been contacted for comment.

Cat-calling – who’s the real pussy?

Simone Fraser
-
0
Cat-calling – who’s the real pussy?

Content warning: discussion of sexual harassment.

The first time I got wolf-whistled at I was eleven years old. I was walking down a hill in a small town near mine, in a fairly short skirt, tights, and t-shirt when I caught the attention of a load of men on some scaffolding on the other side of the road. I don’t remember them saying anything threatening, and I have to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they thought that I was older than I was – I’ve always been tall. But that doesn’t change that fact that they were sexualising someone who wasn’t even in secondary school yet. The worst thing is, this isn’t a particularly uncommon story.

Flash forward eight years. The gym that I use at home is about fifteen minutes’ walk from the bus stop. You cut through the retail park, along a busy double carriage way for about five minutes, and finally through a quiet council estate. On average, I get cat-called, honked at, or looked up and down by a creepy man (usually over sixty), one in three times I make that journey. I’m fully desensitised to it now. Most of the time they’re in a car, and I’m on the pavement, and by the time I’ve registered what’s happened they’ve gone, and I can shake off the feeling of self-consciousness by ramping up the music through my headphones and pulling my jacket a little tighter around myself.

But not all the time. And for a lot of people this is not the case. It’s a sad fact that almost everyone knows someone who has been seriously threatened or even hurt after an escalation of a situation like this. And this is why we need to take a stand, regardless of gender, against not just the people who do this, but the whole culture of thinking that it’s acceptable.

There’s vaguely the idea floating around that having a group of random men shouting at you is complimentary or that it’s a way of flirting or showing interest. And havingsomeone showing interest in you is a nice thing, surely? And how different is it to having a cheeky, subtle flirt with a bartender, or shop assistant? In short, the answer is very. Flirting assumes some kind of relationship and a sense of safety and equality. Both individuals (crucially, no men flirt in packs, do they) get involved and enjoy it. While both catcalling and flirting 9 times out of 10 give rise to nothing, one leaves a woman feeling empowered (if a bit giggly) and another makes her feel objectified, scared and ashamed.

As for the idea that it is somehow a compliment, why do they ultimately always lead to a woman being sexualised? Sometimes it’s nice to be sexualised, and sometimes women want to be. But not all the time by gangs of random (usually far older) men. It may sound ridiculously naïve, but what’s stopping a man saying “nice shoes”, or “lovely smile” rather than “nice tits” or “the things I’d do to you” etc ad nauseum. Plan International reported that two out of three girls in the U.K. had experienced public harassment — including more than one in three while wearing school uniforms. Which begs the question, do these men in their 20s, 30s, 40s or even 50s actually want to shag a child, or indeed any of the women they catcall? Do they actually expect said cat they are calling to hop in their car, climb up onto the scaffolding they’re on and just get at it right there are then?

No, they don’t. What they want to is make women feel small, while making themselves feel big, particularly in front of their mates. Strangely enough catcalling seems most of all to be about male-male realtionships rather than male-female ones. In a study by UN Women, one self-proclaimed catcaller told the interviewer that “I’m bored. I’m bonding with my male friends. We’re having fun and we aren’t thinking how the woman is feeling.” A tale as old as time, really.

I was in the back of a friend’s car in the summer when I realised just how much of an issue this is, at least in my area. The three boys, all absolutely lovely, respectful, non- sexist (I hope) humans, started reminiscing about a previous journey, where they’d honked at a load of girls in school uniforms, because apparently startling them was funny. To them it was a joke. They knew that they would never harm the girls, and thus they failed to realise that what they were doing was wrong, and that they could cause significant distress and fear of much scarier actions.

Although this is down to their ignorance and they were at fault, it does highlight that a lot of catcalling occurs because it’s ingrained in the heads of many young men that this is okay, and in many young women, including me for the first seventeen or so year of my life, that we just have to put up with it. The simple fact is that we don’t. It isn’t right that there are many places where a woman can’t go out in a short skirt without facing something between minor harassment to full on assault. We need to educate our friends, family, and loved ones that it is not okay to do this, even if the conversation is uncomfortable.

That’s the main point – cat-callers aren’t random, creepy robots, they’re actual people. And the majority of them are not awful, evil humans, they’re subscribing to values of the society that they were raised in. This isn’t to say that they are blameless, we’re all responsible for our own actions, and the way they are acting is completely wrong. However, rather than just condemning them and moving on (I do see the irony in that this is exactly what I’m doing), we need to make a conscious effort, whatever our gender, to make it clear that this kind of behaviour, and in fact casual sexism in general is not acceptable.

As a woman I feel incredibly lucky to live in a society where we are accorded significantly more agency and protection than in many countries, but we all have a responsibility to keep making improvements to society. It’s up to us to effect the positive changes we want to see in society, and this is just one example. So, educate the people around you, help those who are suffering, and as a final point: don’t fucking cat-call.

1...682683684...2,581Page 683 of 2,581

Support Student Journalism

Cherwell is Oxford’s oldest independent newspaper, established in 1920. We are entirely student-run. By supporting us, you will contribute to keeping our paper in print and online. Every donation makes a difference.

Donate

Explore

Follow us

More

Oxford Student Publications Limited © 2025 - All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy

Website by Jamie Ashley