Bluestocking Oxford

By Olivia Hurton ‘She was a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes’ – Arthur Miller on Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962) was the bleach-blonde-haired beauty, the Hollywood actress, the sex symbol. She was a manufactured persona that Norma Jeane Mortenson, a girl who was abused and […]

By Elodie Harper Boudicca haunts the curriculum of British primary schools, rampaging through textbooks with her flaming red hair and fearsome chariot, a rare woman among all the ancient kings. As children we learn about her as the leader of the Iceni tribe of East Anglia, a rebel queen who almost succeeded in driving the […]

By Millie Hilken This review contains extensive spoilers. Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and rape. Sorry, Baby is a 2025 film directed by Eva Victor about a woman’s experience of sexual assault and rape at the hands of her thesis advisor. In a non-linear, three-act structure, the main character Agnes (also played by […]

By Aijia He Iris Murdoch and Philippa Foot were two women philosophers who spent much of their academic careers in Oxford. Murdoch, born in Dublin in 1919, studied at Somerville College after schooling in Bristol. A year later, Philippa Foot joined her at Somerville. From that point onwards, both their academic and personal lives became […]

By Raye Louise In the academic world, criticism is to be expected. For women, however, the quality of their work or the thesis they present is seldom the focal point of public debate. Media scrutiny often attacks appearance, tone and the apparently indecent approach of the modern feminist, serving to justify the total dismissal of […]