Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Blog Page 846

Feminism and fashion with Leomie Anderson

Nicole Rayment
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Feminism and fashion with Leomie Anderson

An international model, an activist and entrepreneur, twenty four year old Leomie Anderson is the epitome of the versatile IT girl. I had the opportunity to interview the Victoria’s Secret model before her talk at Christ Church’s Blue Boar Lecture Theatre. She discussed her decade in the fashion industry, being catapulted into supermodel stardom and her disquiet regarding the pressures young girls are facing. Leomie was invited by the Oxford Guild Business Society, as a part of the launch for the Guild’s Infinity Speakers Series, set up by Matthew Lawson, President of The Oxford Guild: “The Infinity series is a unique speaker series targeted at encouraging women and ethnic minorities to believe that they can succeed in any occupation they choose, and making sure that they have positive role models to which they can aspire. In the wake of a recent surge in racial tensions and divisive policies, we are fighting back against discrimination and striving to create a positive culture of belief that students can do anything they want to, regardless of their gender, ethnicity or background.”

A born-and-bred South Londoner, Leomie was scouted at fourteen years old during her daily commute home from school by an agent from Premier Model Management, her current modelling agency. “I was at the bus stop and a man approached me and asked “have you ever considered modelling?” I thought he was a pervert and ran away, which you should do at fourteen years old when someone asks you to model for them! I saw him again the next day, and he gave me a business card and asked me to give it to my mum. Two months later I was scouted by a different Premier agent—it wasn’t until then that I actually went into the agency, and the rest is history!” The supermodel made her national debut in 2011 as one of Premier’s New Faces, when she appeared on the Channel 4 documentary series ‘The Model Agency’. It delineated the realities of life both within her mother agency and the dazzling modelling industry. Perky, witty and charismatic, Anderson stole the nation’s heart and became a notable face within the fashion industry.

“The show was honestly very interesting because I didn’t know what to expect and what was going to end up being on the show. I love to talk (she giggles), so having someone follow me around with a camera was great! It was my first time going to New York and it was my first ever show season, so it could have been a complete mess. I could have been the girl used as the example of ‘modelling careers don’t always work out’. However, I was very lucky and ended up being booked by Marc Jacobs, and that launched my career.”
Leomie Anderson describes her personal style as tomboyish and said that having an older brother was always something that had influenced her digressive style and love for trainers. “You have to pay me to wear heels! I will only ever wear them for shows and special events”. She rocked up to the interview in a black fitted waist blazer paired with a baby pink elasticated waist belt, loose-fitting army pants, some old-school black Nike high-tops and a Vintage Chanel Sport Fanny Pack in black and white.

I was interested in finding out about the policing of a model’s style while working with a modelling agency, and whether or not Leomie herself fell victim to this. “That’s interesting (she laughs). Being in the fashion industry has taught me what I don’t want to wear more than anything actually. You’re constantly surrounded by models who are constantly told by their agencies “maybe you should wear this” and sometimes models’ styles can be policed, especially when they start from such a young age. I’m not saying that this completely erases an individual’s style, but it can make the model very uniform and I’ve always tried to break out of the mould. If I were to have paid attention to exactly how my agency wanted me to dress between the ages of fourteen to sixteen, I don’t think my style would have developed as much as it has. I’m very much a ‘break the rules’ type of person and I’m always down to experimenting with my style.”

Leomie describes herself as an avid enthusiast for vintage high fashion, and accentuated upon how fortunate she is to be constantly exposed to exclusive vintage pieces at designers’ runway shows. With less of a zeal for current trends, and more of an esteem for vintage fashion, a decade in the industry has gifted Anderson with a distinctive fashion sense. “I love Chanel and I love watching vintage Chanel runway shows and documentaries (she points out her Vintage Chanel Sport Fanny Pack and laughs). I love the brand’s vibe and the fact that Coco Chanel was considered a rebel. In fashion, she was the first person to design the female power-suit which is so inspiring, so her brand is definitely my go-to for inspiration.” The model does not refrain from expressing her qualms on polemical female issues—social media has constituted the primary tool through which she candidly exhibits her concerns.

Last year Leomie sought to create a platform where other women could be heard, so she started up her own brand LAPP: Leomie Anderson the Project the Purpose. The brand consists of two elements, the first being a clothing line, which fuses her own personal style with her dedication to empowering young women with feminist messages, attempting to promote confidence, positivity and unity through fashion. The second element is a blog, which includes a wide variety of stories from women from different backgrounds with disparate, idiosyncratic experiences. From the unjust treatment of black models backstage at fashion week, to the pressures on teenage girls to send sexual images, Leomie seeks to shed light on what it truly means to be a woman in this day and age. “Young girls today cannot differentiate between what is real and what is photoshopped. The concept of social media and the fact that it is not a real representation of life, and just a snapshot, just a little fragment of what someone wants to show you, is so confusing for young girls. It gives them an unrealistic standard of beauty, making them more likely to consider surgery, and to look at Youtube tutorials on how to do their make-up, even if they are just going to school. I created LAPP because I felt like there was a missing piece in the market. I felt like there wasn’t something young women or young girls could visit that has a whole hub of different perspectives that are just for women.” […] I love how people can use fashion to communicate a message—it’s a very universal language. I wanted to create new slogans that empower women and play on pop culture, with an approach of ‘what’s hot right now’. For instance, my ‘Trump Dump’ t-shirt and my ‘This P***y Grabs Back’ hoodie (which Rihanna wore to the women’s march) are items that are ‘hot right now’, and have a powerful message. I’m all about making cute clothes that make people think.”

Something in particular that propelled the Victoria’s Secret Model to embark on her LAPP journey was being invited to speak at an all-girls secondary school. After her talk, she was approached by three girls who had told her that they knew people who had attempted to commit suicide after their nude images had been leaked. “I felt like those girls had nobody to speak to and nowhere to turn to, so I wanted to make them feel like they had somewhere to go, to be able to read stories from people who have had revenge porn leaked, or speak to women who have not engaged in sexual relations at all. In summary, the blog is all about issues that relate to women all coming from an honest place. Because of social media, young girls are receiving mixed messages and I wanted to create a place where it was just honest women writing about issues they cared about.”

In 2015, Anderson’s winning personality and burgeoning ubiquity on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter skyrocketed her to a spot on the Victoria’s Secret Runway—the pinnacle of every professional model’s career. As she discussed landing the job as a VS Angel, the electrifying backstage atmosphere, and her favourite co-Angel, the model’s eyes glistened in delight. “When I first found out I was walking I cried! It was frustrating because I was living alone in New York at the time, so I couldn’t even go to my closest friends and share the news with them. I tried to call my mum, but she never has her phone on her, so it took her about half a day to find out I got the job! I was just so ecstatic because it was something I had really worked hard for and I still can’t put my excitement into words! The backstage atmosphere at Victoria’s Secret is amazing.” “It’s funny because so many people try to squeeze in stories about issues between models and so forth, but I really don’t know which backstage they’re talking about! Everyone is always excited and in good spirits. The fact that they [Victoria’s Secret] encourage all of the models to be themselves, have an amazing time, and exhibit their personalities shows something that fashion is missing at the moment.”

Taking the stage at Fashion Week in London, Paris, Milan, New York, and more, Anderson takes great pride in her job as a supermodel and her opportunity to get a first-hand glimpse at the works of esteemed designers. “The highlight of my career definitely has to be seeing the process behind all of the glitz and glamour. I love watching designers draw out their designs and put together their outfits. The passion that they have behind all of it is incredible, everyone always sees the magazines, the photoshoots, and the runways, but I love seeing designers building up things from scratch and how passionate they are about what they do.” The future for Anderson is beaming. Her blog reads are incessantly growing and she is already working on her next clothing collection which she soon hopes to release.

“At the moment, LAPP is getting on average 40,000 reads a month. I really didn’t know what to expect, but that’s a lot. I’m hoping that, by the end of the year, it will be hundreds of thousands. At the moment, I’m working on the next clothing collections for LAPP. This time, I’m doing something proper and real. My next collection is going to be called ‘Nudity’ which is about the policing of women’s bodies, something that I am really passionate about and am very much excited to bring out.” Leomie Anderson’s Oxford Guild talk was truly spellbinding. Humble, outspoken, and driven, she is the quintessence of a supermodel who utilises her renown dynamically with the hope of inspiring and empowering women. She does this both through her blog and her politically-conscious fashion. The Victoria’s Secret model strives to lend her social media following and prominent voice to other women who may be constrained in effectively communicating their concerns—LAPP functions as a medium through which they are able to do so.

An activist turned entrepreneur, she is triumphantly striving to create a sisterhood through globally unifying the female sex, regardless of their ethnicity, age and location.

Debunking the myth behind organic beauty

Beth Brand
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Debunking the myth behind organic beauty

Following the recent ‘clean eating’ trend, consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of not only what they put into their body, but also what products they put on it. Driven by rumours of health risks associated with some synthetic ingredients, as well as the perceived benefit to the environment, more and more women are switching to using natural products. ‘Organic’ beauty collections are cropping up everywhere, with packaging boldly boasting about their ‘natural’ ingredients; but what do these claims really mean and are they justified? While the word ‘organic’ suggests a product’s ingredients are good for both the consumer and the environment, on further inspection this is not necessarily the case.

‘Clean beauty’ in its most basic sense should be used to refer to products free from any dyes, perfumes, parabens, petrochemicals or phthalates. However, unlike the food industry, there is currently no legal standard in place for organic beauty. This lack of regulation means that in practice, companies can legally write ‘made with organic ingredients’ on product labels even if as little as one per cent is truly organic. With the £61.2 million UK organic health and beauty market growing, and sales up 20 per cent in 2016 alone, it seems that some firms think it is worth being economical with the truth when they have so much profit to potentially cash in on.

The Soil Association, the UK’s largest organic certification body, has recently launched their ‘#ComeCleanAboutBeauty Campaign’, accusing many major brands of misleading consumers with confusing labelling, and urging them to use the terms ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ either responsibly or not at all. Last Monday they published a league table revealing a cross-section of companies, including Boots and Faith in Nature, who they controversially claim are ‘greenwashing’ and using the label ‘organic’ simply to sell more products at a premium price. Even Hollywood actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s range Goop, which on its website claims to ‘nurture your skin with powerful organic ingredients’, features some products that contain petrochemical derivatives. Goop’s £108 replenishing night cream contains retinyl palmitate, which is listed by the Soil Association as one of its ten most hated ingredients.

How, then, can we ever be certain that what we’re buying is really free of unwanted chemicals? There are several useful apps on the market, like ‘Cosmetic Ingredients Maze’ or ‘Think Dirty’, that allow you to enter ingredients of a product or scan its bar code to discover what’s actually safe. The easiest thing to do though, is to look for the brands that have had their products officially certified as organic, such as Neal’s Yard, whose eco-friendly motto is ‘if in doubt, leave it out’. While the standards and requirements differ for each country, with debate raging over what constitutes ‘natural’, there are various trustworthy international certifying bodies.

In Europe, the Soil Association, BDIH, Cosmebio, Ecocert, and ICEA have teamed up to form an internationally recognised cosmetic organic standard known as COSMOS to ensure that beauty products meet the standards they claim to. Founded in 2010, the logo isn’t widely seen at the moment, but is likely to become more visible in coming years and is something to look out for. For a product to be approved as ‘organic’ by COSMOS at least 95 per cent of all its ingredients must be verifiably organic. We must also question however, our assumption that ‘natural’ ingredients are always safer and gentler than their man-made and chemically identical counterparts.

While it is true that some synthetic ingredients may cause irritation to sensitive skin, there have been no rigorous large-scale clinical trials to definitively prove that any of these chemicals represent a serious risk to consumers or are harmful. In fact, certain essential oils, like lavender and tea tree, can cause skin reactions and allergies; and citrus oils are among those that sensitise skin to sun damage. Natural products also have a much shorter shelf life, as they are harder to preserve against microbial contamination and growth. Even Liz Earle, known for her ‘natural’ skincare range, incorporates synthetics in her formulae.

She justifies this use of preservatives on the grounds that not everything natural is good, giving the example that “cyanide and arsenic are natural and are poisonous, of course”. The ‘clean beauty’ label is wrought with problems, and so any products claiming to be ‘organic’ demand a greater degree of cynicism and research. Despite its appealing ideology, ‘organic’ has become a term hijacked as a marketing tool. It has come to define a woolly category and brands need to provide further definition and transparency

“It kept me hooked right until the final denouement”

Harry Hatwell
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“It kept me hooked right until the final denouement”

Directed by Isabel Ion and Alice Camilleri, this production of A View from the Bridge has a rather dark feel to it, as the lighting focuses the audience’s attention to a very small area in the centre of the thrust stage at the Pilch. This insular and quite claustrophobic staging suits View well but does throw up some problems.

Miller’s masterpiece focusses on the life of Eddie Carbone (played by an outstanding Hasan Al-Habib), a labourer in an Italian immigrant family who seeks to save face at all cost. In the end, his self-pride and his desire not be emasculated by Rodolpho (John Maier), the man pursuing his niece, Catherine (Emma Howlett), lead to tragic consequences. The play turns around a small but heated familial dispute, which further adds to the uncomfortable atmosphere and tension which rises through the play as the conflict between the male characters becomes more fraught.

The narration, performed by Alfieri (Jordan Charlesworth) offers a birds-eye view of the plot and helps the audience to connect with the characters on a deeper, more familial level, in-keeping with the Greek style which Miller successfully recreates.

The acting became more natural and improved more generally as the play went on, with Howlett and Tania Shew (as Beatrice) growing into particularly strong lead actresses. Shew was particularly impressive at showing the audience the subtext of Catherine and Eddie’s somewhat oddly close relationship with subtle looks and glances, which were replaced with suitably aggressive outbursts as the plot developed.

That being true, some of the more elegant parts of Miller’s overall vision were lost in this staging, particularly the scene where Catherine lights Eddie’s cigar—the lack of smoke failed to give the image that the script is crying out for; the elegance is lost.

While the dark aesthetic was effective in transmitting the overall view of the directors, the scene changes were lacking in any real feeling as they consisted of mere changes of light. Music, to fill the silence, would have been desirable to breathe some more life into the performance.

Miller, writing in the foreword to the original play script, described Eddie’s character as a “prototype”: a tragic hero who is slowly destroyed as the action progresses. Tragically, some of the most crucial moments in the play were performed in darkness due to the scantiness of lighting, though overall, Playlliol’s production of View delivered in the end. The performances managed to eke out the tension through the duration of the play and keep me hooked right until the final denouement.

A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller was produced by Playlliol at the Pilch Studio, Jowett Walk, and performed during fifth week.

A new era of repressive state censorship dawns over Russian art

Anoushka Kavanagh
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A new era of repressive state censorship dawns over Russian art

In a near revolutionary move, GARAGE – one of Moscow’s leading modern art galleries – launched the first ever triennial of contemporary Russian art, this spring. Unusually including politically charged works, under the ‘Art for Action’ sub-section, the program has been hailed as a turning point for the contemporary Russian art scene: a manoeuvre towards cultural liberalism. Indeed, in a truly profound turn of events, Chechen artist Aslan Gaisumov’s work is amongst the selected. His cold grid of metal house numbers, retrieved from the remnants of Grozny, serve as a reminder of the conflict consequential to separatists declaring independence in 1991, and are an abstruse shock here given the countless cases of artistic persecutions for inciting ‘political provocation’ in recent years.

Yet this liberal outlier is deceptive, for Russia has followed a trajectory towards rising artistic repression over the past two decades. In 2011, this came to global attention when a court ruled that Alexander Savko’s work – ‘Jesus as Mickey Mouse’ (1995) – was to be prohibited from all future publications, as it was deemed ‘religiously offensive’, whilst the exhibition that presented the ‘sacrilegious’ work, Forbidden Art (2006), stirred outcry in itself. The hosting Sakharov Centre directors, Andrei Yerofeyev and Yury Samodurov, were collectively fined 350,000 roubles for ‘inciting religious hatred’ – an offense punishable under Article 282 of the Russian Constitution. More recently in 2015, Freemuse registered seven further violations on visual artistic freedom. Alarmingly, Russia seems to be regressing on creative liberty, with growing similarities to the Soviet regime becoming apparent.

Although today prosecution is usually undertaken on grounds of offenses to the Orthodox Church – with shows like Oleg Yanushevsky’s Contemporary Icons (2004), and Marat Guelman’s Spiritual Invective (2012) defaced in the name of ‘God’ – many targeted examples show little sign of intentional religious offence. When coupled with increasing irregularity of attacks, and questionable verdicts, this suggests a ruse for a new era of totalitarian state censorship.

‘Jesus as Mickey Mouse’ for instance – by replacing Christ with the cartoon character preaching the Sermon on the Mount – actually comments upon the dominance of superficiality in contemporary culture. Savko stated his intention as the representation of “current reality”, or substitution of moral values with mass-cultural values. Though the prosecutor distorted this motive, proclaiming instead that the artist’s technique of uniting sacred and comical elements had produced “a caricature of Jesus”, and thereby presented the Gospel as a cartoon, in a “mocking insult” to Orthodox Christians. Such antagonism suggests ulterior motive in the censorship, which can perhaps be found in Forbidden Art’s original objectives – to explore censorship in modern art. When first exhibited, the work was placed provocatively behind protective peep-holes – as if mocking earlier attacks. It is possibly for this reason, that the piece has been criminalised.

Caution! Religion (2003) – another show subjected to prosecution at the Sakharov – likewise raised problems in certifying offense. The exhibition attracted the attention of the authorities when altar-boys emblazoned works with graffiti slogans reading ‘sacrilege’. Six arrests were made, but ironically it was the curators, rather than vandals, whom were charged with hooliganism and hate crimes. Art historians, from the State Centre for Contemporary Art, were consulted during the trial in attempt to verify these charges: the experts failed to find the artworks blasphemous.

It’s not hard to see why. Kosolapov’s ‘This is my blood’ (2001), for example, may appear to deface Christ by juxtaposing Him within a Coca-Cola commercial. However, Jesus has been cut out of Holy context and pasted onto another setting. The advert dominates in composition, ultimately commenting again upon today’s capitalist worship rather than devaluing faith itself.

Despite this, a case was filed against these academics for providing ‘false expertise’, and a new team offered the satisfactory verdict. Evidently there was reason behind prosecution other than religious protection again. Father Shargunov’s letter to the Duma, in which he noted the centre’s record of controversial shows – including those critical of the Chechen war – as proof of the institution’s subversive nature, has been cited as suggesting political motivation. It became apparent that anything inauspicious to higher authorities’ actions or judgements would face backlash.

The fact that it’s not only supposedly ‘sacrilegious’ work being targeted any more, vindicates this. With attacks becoming evermore frequent and irregular, depictions of overt homosexuality or unpatriotic sentiment seem too to be at risk.

In 2007, Minister of Culture Aleksandr Sokolov, labelled 17 of 240 works headed for the Parisian exhibition Sots Art: Political Art from Russia a ‘disgrace’ to his nation, and barred them from leaving the country. Amongst these was The Blue Noses’ ‘Era of Mercy’ (2007), a controversial satirical photograph depicting two uniformed policemen kissing in a birch-lined grove – no doubt charged with ‘political provocation’ due to Russia’s strong adversity to the LGBT community, in which light the depiction made a mockery of the government. To be Oneself: stories of LGBT teenagers (2015) – meant to be held at Red Square Gallery – similarly agitated the authorities. Attempting to protest the effect of Russia’s 2013 ban on ‘gay propaganda amongst minors’ through a series of adolescent portraits, the artistic activism was repeatedly hindered by police. Roads around the gallery were barricaded, and pictures torn down from the eventual alternative destination of a Moscow boulevard. LGBT photographer Denis Styazhkin was detained in its wake.

Works that satirise Putin’s regime more explicitly have also faced ill treatment. When Vasily Slonov derided regime corruption before the winter Olympics – in graphics-style posters transforming the Olympic rings into gallows and vicious coils of barbed wire – his show, Welcome to Sochi (2013), was closed by federal authorities. Two members of anarchist collective Voina were jailed after a public stunt overturning police cars, in protest of abusive authority, and a shipment of the Blue Noses’ works destined for London, including ‘Mask Show’ (2001), was detained in 2006. This photo derogatively portrays leaders Bin Laden, George Bush, and Putin lounging in boxers on a sofa.

The artists reported that officials were ‘outraged by a less than respectful concept of their leader’, whilst in the former case, federation council member Andrei Klimov, voiced his fury at the denunciatory depiction of the government, likening the posters to images by Hitler’s propagandists of Russia. This is not the first time high level politicians have lent support to artistic prosecution. Parliament member Aleksandr Chuyev proclaimed in the Caution! Religion case that ”There are acceptable boundaries within which it is possible to express an opinion”, boundaries that don’t extend to the orthodox Church. It appears these boundaries more broadly write political criticism off as a taboo too. Unnervingly human rights activists have noted that the Caution! Religion trial was the first occasion since the 1966 trial of writers Andrei Sinyasvsk and Yuli Daniel that individuals have faced criminal charges solely over the content of their work in Russia. Evidently parallels between the Soviet regime can all too easily drawn, as a new era of state-backed repression seems to have dawned in Russia.

Rhodes Must Fall hits back at new Oxford global history course

Jack Hunter
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Rhodes Must Fall hits back at new Oxford global history course

Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford have hit out at reports of a new compulsory global history course which the University plans to introduce next term.

It had been widely reported that Oxford intends to introduce compulsory non-White and non-European history modules from the next academic term. Some reports emphasised how the move followed criticism of the University’s alleged ‘Eurocentric’ syllabus by Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) and similar campaigns across the country.

Yet the group have hit back, criticising the inadequacies of the course and attacking the University for its continued “narrow and Eurocentric worldview”.

In a Facebook post denouncing the “the deep inadequacies in the British press,” the group said: “There is no new course and the global history module which is now being made compulsory on non-European history includes topics such as Jefferson’s America (the history of European settler colonialism outside of Europe).”

It went on: “The step is in the right direction but the ways that it has been exaggerated have given good press to an institution [Oxford University] which still does not deserve any good press at all.”

RMF also criticised the papers, which will expect undergraduates to sit exams on Middle Eastern, Asian and Indian events, for their ignorance of sub-Saharan Africa. “There is still only one fifth of one paper, (a paper on imperialism and globalisation), in which study of sub Saharan Africa, 1/5 of the world’s land mass, is available. There are 7 different option on the history of the British Isles alone [sic],” the statement said.

“The real question is to why, up until 2017, European history was not compulsory on the syllabus of the world’s supposedly best institutions [sic]. There is still an overwhelmingly white academic body whose research interests gather around a very narrow and Eurocentric worldview.”

RMF rose to prominence in 2015, calling for the removal of a statue of the British imperialist Cecil Rhodes from Oriel College. Oriel announced their intention to keep the statue in January 2016.

Although it had been suggested that the move came in response to pressure from campaign groups such as Rhodes Must Fall and the UCL-founded ‘Why is my curriculum white?’, Oxford has insisted that there is “no link” to the RMF campaign.

“It is just formalising what is in effect student practice,” said Martin Conway, professor of contemporary European history and chair of the Oxford History Faculty. “It was all done and dusted before anybody noticed Cecil Rhodes standing on top of a building.”

In their statement, RMF made a series of recommendations for a “decolonised university”, including “a broad and diverse range of staff”, a curriculum which looks at “different traditions [and] places with different worldviews”, and the implementation of an “honest and rigorous dealing with the histories of colonialism, imperialism and racism”.

The statement concluded: “Oxford still falls short in every one of these metrics by a very long way.”

RMF is not the only group to highlight the University’s alleged ‘Eurocentrism’. In April, Billy Nuttall, a history student at Magdalen, launched a crowdfunding campaign to make up a difference of over £400 between Oxford’s History dissertation prizes for British and African research pursuits.

Oxford has also come under attack for the small number of black undergraduates it enrols. In January, the University faced criticism after data revealed that just 45 black applicants were made an offer in 2016.

Asked for a response to RMF’s criticism, a History Faculty spokesperson told Cherwell: “As the History Faculty has already stated, the current reforms to the curriculum are part of an ongoing process of updating and adapting our curriculum. We pay attention to students’ views but we are also guided in these changes by our own discussions. The most recent reforms were the result of an internal process of consultation which began in 2013 and was concluded in 2015.

“We share with many of those who have commented on these issues in the last few days an aspiration to create a diverse and lively curriculum that speaks to a wide range of approaches to History.

“As a faculty, we are fully committed to ensuring diversity among our students and postholders. We have a Race Working Group, and in 8th Week of this term we shall be holding a teach-in for all members of the faculty who wish to discuss these issues more fully.”

Oxford bucks national trend, increases number of female professors

Selma Stearns
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Oxford bucks national trend, increases number of female professors

Oxford University has bucked a nationwide trend to increase its percentage of female professors.

Research by Times Higher Education (THE) has revealed that the proportion of professorships held by women has recently declined in universities across the UK.

Although the total number of women with the title of professor grew by almost a quarter between 2012-13 and 2015-2016, 37 per cent of institutions with a statistically significant number of professors saw a drop in the proportion who were women.

The Equality Challenge Unit’s Athena SWAN charter scheme, established in 2005, seeks to encourage gender diversity in higher education in terms of both standard and students.

The nationwide trend in decrease in female professors has occurred despite the increase in charter members from 61 in 2011 to 143 in 2017.

However, despite the nationwide trend, the University of Oxford has increased its proportion of female professors to 24.2 per cent in 2015- 16, an increase of a fifth from 2012-13. This is slightly higher than the national average of 24 per cent.

The University’s website cites a gender equalities strategic plan 2013- 18, and also notes that all departments in Mathematical and Physical Life Sciences Division (MPLS) and Medical Sciences Division (MSD) have achieved Athena SWAN awards.

Data compiled for the EU by its She Figures 2015 report indicates that the number of female heads of higher education in Europe rose from 15.5 per cent in 2010 to 20 per cent in 2014.

While the latest news regarding the amount of female professors at the University may be cause for celebration, earlier this month, it was revealed that Oxford’s female academics earn 86 per cent of what their male counterparts are paid.

According to recent statistics also released by THE, the average total earned by female academics at the University from 2015-16 was £43,502, compared to £50,618 paid to their male counterparts.

The gender pay gap at Oxford has decreased by just one per cent since 2014-2015, despite the University’s “committed” position on female promotions, the figures showed.

At the beginning of this month, A University of Oxford spokesperson told Cherwell: “The University is committed to increasing the proportion of women in senior roles.

“At Oxford, both the overall proportion of female professors, as well as the proportion of professors in STEM departments is closely aligned with national and Russell Group averages, and has increased in recent years, as part of a proactive commitment to equality and diversity across all university activities.”

However, some academics believe that gender is no barrier to succeeding at Oxford.

Hannah Smithson, Associate Professor of Experimental Psychology at the University, said: “I’ve never been made to feel that my gender was a barrier to success in Oxford. I always wanted to be a scientist and an academic, and I’ve been fortunate to work in supportive departments, both here and elsewhere in the UK and USA.

“Oxford offers joint appointments in the sciences between departments and colleges, and at present both my Head of Department and Head of House are female—that’s actually quite inspiring.”

Although Oxford did see an improvement, the largest improvements in female professorship occurred at Liverpool (from 16.5 per cent to 27.4 per cent) and Kent (from 19 per cent to 27.2 per cent).

Cambridge saw an increase of only 1.3 percentage points in the three years before 2015-16—a growth to 16.9 per cent of professors being female.

Rebecca O’Brien, the Gender Equalities Representative at Pembroke College, said that although it is good that Oxford is above the national average in terms of female professors, there is still work to be done.

“There should be an aim to employ a diverse group of women; women of colour and state-school educated women for example, so that students have many different role models and so these professors can bring their varied experiences to their teaching” she said.

Agnes Headlam-Morley of St Hugh’s was the first female professor at the university, appointed Montague Burton Professor of International Relations in 1948.

Louise Richardson, the first female Vice-Chancellor, was appointed in 2016.

What can horror movies do to terrify us more?

Calum Bradshaw
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What can horror movies do to terrify us more?

I hate horror films. I was a child who hid from Doctor Who. I watched Alien through barely separated fingers. My best friend and I nearly switched off Hot Fuzz after the grim reaper’s first appearance. Embarrassing, yes, but I think understandable. Fear is, in essence, a form of discomfort, and I’m a guy who enjoys fluffy slippers and hugs from puppies—the prospect of being scared out of my mind just doesn’t appeal.

So, in the name of student journalism, I’ve tried something new. That is not to say I’ve watched a horror film. God no. Baby steps. Instead, I opened my curtains, turned on all of my lights, and suffered through the two and a half minutes of pasty makeup, puddles, and creepy kids that is the trailer for the upcoming remake of Stephen King’s It. Then I looked at cute dog pictures for an hour. A harrowing experience.

In It, the classic trope of the ordinary made horrifying is writ large by Pennywise the clown, a leering sewer-dweller who eats unfortunate stray kids. His original screen incarnation, brought to life by Tim Curry in a 1990 miniseries, left an entire generation scared of clowns—this feature-length remake looks likely to compound that fear. Other horror releases of this year, including Jordan Peele’s critically acclaimed Get Out and the hotly anticipated Joel Egerton flick It Comes at Night, seem to be doing the genre proud—horror movies certainly appear healthy. But if, for some twisted reason, we wish to scare ourselves more than me and my slippers did over It, what can film do to further innovate?

In the enjoyment of a horror film, there is a sense of safety—you personally are separate from the events on-screen so can spectate, and to an extent, gain confidence through distance. In an interview with The Atlantic, sociologist Dr. Margee Kerr comments that “To really enjoy a scary situation, we have to know we’re in a safe environment…people also enjoy scary situations because it leaves them with a sense of confidence after it’s over”. So what happens if this safety net is removed? What happens when the distance between horror and audience collapses?

Last summer, a ‘friend’ forced me to play PT, the playable teaser for Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro’s discontinued horror game Silent Hills. It remains the single most terrifying experience of my life, and I’ve been on Nemesis at Alton Towers. It had the expected jumpscares and creepy whispering voices, but by far the scariest moments of PT were those in which you were forced to walk your character around a corner in full knowledge that a leering undead woman was lurking behind it. You were an active agent in your own fear, unable to passively sit by as terror is inflicted on you, as a movie or a rollercoaster allows. There was no looking away—in order to progress I had to choose to scare myself.

This level of immersion is not the sort to be found in 3D or surround sound. I also don’t think that some madcap choose-your-own adventure interactive movie is the answer. To an extent, the line of direct audience involvement is one which a film cannot practically cross while remaining a film. Despite this, in my limited but considered opinion, Hollywood has things to learn from the video game industry. A distinction must exist somewhere—Del Toro’s own involvement in PT shows that he at least believes some stories are best told through other media. However, if a film were capable of marrying the production value of cinema with the active involvement of a video game it would be a horrifying spectacle indeed, and one I certainly would not buy a ticket to.

Old and new fused in ‘Alien: Covenant’

Jonnie Barrow
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Old and new fused in ‘Alien: Covenant’

With the passing of the legendary John Hurt earlier this year, I went back to the original Alien (1979), in which he experiences what is perhaps cinema’s most iconic onscreen death. What I was struck by, having not seen the film in years, is how brilliant Alien is as a character piece.

While Ripley’s presence in the larger series has afforded her an iconic status, the original film is more of an ensemble effort, focusing on the interplay between the whole crew. You grow to love them as a unit, so when people die off it sends emotional shockwaves through the fabric of the film. This was one of the many shortfalls of Prometheus (2012)—its conviction that Elizabeth Shaw was to be ‘The Next Ripley’ led to other characters feeling like mere cannon fodder to be killed off in increasingly gruesome ways.

With its pontifications on gods and monsters, and the frustrating lack of resolution to many of its core questions, many fans felt that Prometheus was a philosophically ponderous lump of celluloid that didn’t cohere with the lean original film. Alien: Covenant attempts to meld the styles of the two films into a cohesive whole, resulting in an intriguing exercise in style and fan service.

Ridley Scott, directing once again, is having fun reconfiguring familiar elements from Alien and Prometheus into new shapes. From small nods like the ship’s computer being called MUTHUR, to the conspicuously Alien-esque title sequence, many elements of Covenant are simply intertextual nods to keep fans happy. Even pivotal story elements, such as the creation of the Xenomorph, are a result of the social media backlash about the lack of the iconic aliens in Prometheus.

But delving into the backstory of the Xenomorph is the kind of fan service that may ultimately prove to be a disservice. The fear of the unknown is much of what made the Xenomorph so scary, so learning more about it, even if it deepens the mythos, will only make it less scary. And, while the callbacks to the previous films are mostly entertaining, they can often highlight how much of the film feels recycled from other Alien movies, pulling you out of the cinematic experience—especially when the final conflict feels like it was lifted straight out of the first two Alien films.

Instead, the film is at its best when carving its own path, especially in its attempts to meld serious philosophical contemplations about God, the act of creation, and the nature of man with schlocky, B-movie thrills, and gross body horror.

The film also repeats some of the mistakes of Prometheus, especially during its first act. The crew of the Alien: Covenant is meant to be made up of brilliant scientists, and yet the plot is predicated on them acting like absolute morons, such as stepping foot on an uncharted planet without spacesuits or scans of the environment, simply assuming there are no highly dangerous aliens or deadly pathogens awaiting them in the wilderness. The film also makes Prometheus’s mistake of clearly marking several characters out as cannon fodder, so their deaths are far more yucky than shocking—but these issues are mostly consigned to the first act, leaving the rest of the film more space to play around in.

More than anything, the film is incredibly handsome to look at, playing to Scott’s strengths as a worldbuilder and a visual stylist. He also draws great performances from Michael Fassbender, Billy Crudup, Katherine Waterstone, and Danny McBride. It proves more than ever that Ridley Scott can direct the hell out of anything, but he can’t make up for the shortfalls in a script. Alien: Covenant is ultimately fun, disposable entertainment and, for all its good qualities, Ridley’s latest experiment in his iconographic toybox might do lasting damage to the rest of the Alien continuity.

Dispatches: Gentrified graffiti on the streets of Stokes Croft

Altair Brandon-Salmon
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Dispatches: Gentrified graffiti on the streets of Stokes Croft

It was a damp, grey morning, the streets oily with recent rain, pregnant clouds overhead threatening more in the coming hours. Still, there were a number of groups toiling the winding road of Stokes Croft, camera phones aloft, guided by eager students. It was freshers’ week at Bristol University and the new arrivals, many from London and the south-east, had come to see art. Not the mediocre collection in the city museum, but instead, graffiti.

People sometimes call them murals, in an attempt to bestow a respectability which graffiti angrily shrugs off. Bristol’s graffiti, or more particularly, Stokes Croft’s graffiti, has become famous: sober students are willing to brave autumnal weather and take photos of Banksy’s ‘The Mild, Mild West’, stencilled across a wall adjoining Hamilton House, a local arts exhibition space. The irony of young, middle class students venturing into what has historically been one of city’s most deprived areas to photograph graffiti, telling their friends ‘I saw a Banksy today!’, and sharing the image on social media, is a testament to gentrification. Or it’s another way of saying that graffiti is not as ‘street’ as it once was. Banksy is in museums these days too.

Stokes Croft has stood apart from other cities like London by actively encouraging graffiti, especially by local business owners. Yet most pieces last only a few months, sometimes even less than that, a new image stencilled over a Banksy, appearing one morning bold and striking, fresh as dew.

Perhaps it’s not quite as egalitarian as the People’s Republic of Stokes Croft would like it to be. After all, Banksy is not quite like every other graffiti artist. His ‘Mobile Lovers’ was deliberately removed from the Broad Plains Boys’ Club to the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. He has become institutionalised, made acceptable to middle class audiences who in the past would have shirked Stokes Croft or dismissed graffiti as urban detritus. The New Yorker’s Lauren Collins described his work as ‘anti-authoritarian whimsy’, which is perhaps another way of saying Banksy is not quite as threatening to the establishment as we may like to think. It’s not so much Banksy has sold out (his authorised website is defiantly sparse), but that his audience has. And in apparently trying to let his graffiti speak for itself, other voices have chimed in.

One only has to walk down Stokes Croft to see a whole host of divergent images on walls, some political, others amusing or ambiguous. The idea of graffiti as street politics is powerful but restrictive—Banksy is a graffiti artist, not the graffiti artist. The graceful anonymity of some of the graffiti in Stokes Croft resists the co-option of an art world hungry for the next big thing.

Meanwhile, Banksy hurtles further towards the status of international artist provocateur, and young, eager students on damp September mornings come to Stokes Croft to take selfies with Banksy’s work. Perhaps they see—and not just glance at—the other graffiti on the walls around them, and think how versatile it can be as an art form. Banksy’s greatest legacy might not be his own work, but bringing a spotlight to his fellow graffitists. There is more to Stokes Croft than ‘The Mild, Mild West.’

A day in the life of… a stage manager

Lucy Coupe
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A day in the life of… a stage manager

There are times when one questions their decision to be on the crew of an Oxford show. Dragging a chaise longue through the midnight February drizzle after your final show, whilst the slightly inebriated cast steam past you riding a trolley and carrying two chairs and a candlestick between them, is one of them.

As a Stage Manager, dressed head to toe in black, you live in the wings, the shadow of the theatre (like the Phantom, but more tone-deaf and a little less angry). You grace the stage in darkness alone and, while the cast go out to meet their adoring fans after the curtain has fallen, you drag the half-broken chairs back into their place and slip out quietly into the night.

Likely to be spotted traipsing the streets with an armful of scythes and a couple of litres of lemonade, a stage manager must abandon all sense of decency and accept that they will spend the next few days whispering, sweating, or carrying unreasonably heavy beds.

You will start show week unknown to the cast, too late to the party to understand the in-jokes and left with only your headset for company until, just before opening night, you will be called upon to locate the most critical prop which has mysteriously vanished and, on finding it, become the backstage hero no one knew they needed.

Should you want speed up this infiltration of the inner circle, here are a few tried and tested techniques to charm the thesps:

1. Frequently arrive at the theatre brandishing copious amounts of food. Bonus points if it is homemade.

2. Offer your house as the location for the after party. (Then apologise to your naïve housemates after a group of half-naked actors climb into the bath at 4AM).

3. Run a tight ship, by all means, but on the last night, turn a blind eye to mischief. Has that cranberry juice turned into red wine? You don’t know, you had nothing to do with it, and you definitely didn’t hide the bottles in the girls’ dressing room.

Follow these steps and you will have gained twenty Facebook friends, a bottle of wine, the title of ‘superwoman’, and an overload of gratitude by the end of the week. You will sleep for a few days, obsessively scour eBay for antique binoculars before realising it’s all over, and confess that you wish you could do it all again.

Then remember you’ve signed up for another show in two weeks, open up Amazon, and get searching for all the fake blood you can possibly find.

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