‘A new motto: What have they done to you, poor child? But now enough of my filthy stories.’   (Sigmund Freud writing to Wilhelm Fliess on 22 December 1897).       Peter Whitehead and Niki de Saint Phalle’s 1973 film Daddy is an angry retort to oppressive regimes, particularly that most destructive one of childhood sexual abuse. But its power lies equally in its ambivalence and, in the end, its profound negativity. While Whitehead and de Saint Phalle resolutely sought to free

Merle Thornton speaking about the protest in 1965. I am sad to hear of the death of Merle Thornton, Queensland feminist activist and academic, who died last year, aged 93. I never met her, but she appears in a book I am currently writing on wine and women. She achieved so many things in her life, but she came to my attention as one of the ‘bar suffragettes’.   In March 1965, Thornton (a philosophy postgraduate at the University of Queensland) and Rosalie ‘Ro’ Bognor (who was

This is a talk I presented at the 109 th  Rectors’ Assembly of Greek Universities on 10 th  July 2025.  (For the video-ed version of the talk, go to the 'Video and Audio section of my website: https://www.joannabourke.com/home-3 )   The high point of The University was from the postwar period (1940s) to the 1980s, a period characterized by the rapid expansion of Higher Education, coupled (albeit patchily) with a dedication to the value of knowledge and critical thinking. It w

Breaking news! This is the (draft) cover of my new book. It will be 'out' early next year, with the amazing publisher, Reaktion Books....

Ishiuchi Miyako, ‘ ひろしま/hiroshima ’, #71, 2007.     ‘The photograph gives off mixed signals. Stop this [the violence], it urges. But it...

My views on Open Play. The Case for Feminist Sport by Sheree Bekker and Stephen Mumford (Reaktion Books, 2025)     Sport is a feminist issue. We also know that it is highly gendered. But what if what we know about gender and sport is wrong?   Sheree Bekker and Stephen Mumford set out to show that physical differences between men and women are artificial ('socially constructed'), not ‘natural: they are the result of social and cultural forces including differences in opportu

(This is a version of a talk I gave at the Recovery Histories Network , led by Dr Ruth Beecher, at Birkbeck , University of London, in May 2025. Please note, this blog includes profanity.)     This is a difficult topic to think about, let alone discuss. In this blog, I explore debates about intergenerational sex between older and younger males from the 1970s onwards, with a focus on the largest U.S. organization supporting such sexual activity, NAMBLA or the North American Ma

(This is the spoken version of the Alan Graham Memorial Lecture, that I gave at the conference ‘We The People’, Irish Association for American Studies, Trinity College Dublin, 25 April 2025. It is not the ‘final’ version, since I will continue to work on it, but gives a taste of my ideas.)     ‘We the People’. The preamble to the Constitution of the United States (1789) declares that ‘We the People of the United States… do ordain and establish this Constitution’. In the Frenc

In 1929, the Men’s Dress Reform Party was established in response to what its founders regarded as the heinous modern age. One of them, John Carl Flugel (a psychologist from University College London), contended that, since the end of the eighteenth-century men had been progressively ignoring brighter, more elaborate, and more varied forms of masculine ornamentation by ‘making their own tailoring the more austere and ascetic of the arts’. He called this event ‘The Great Mascu

In 1859, the Lurgan Mechanics’ Institute was formally inaugurated, ‘in the presence of one of the largest and most fashionable...

Incels is the portmanteau of Involuntary Celibates. They are primarily young men furious about being excluded from romantic and sexual...

When I became a Birkbeck Fellow, I used the opportunity to reflect on my own personal history and how I became a writer.

A möbius strip: 'Which side of the strip are the ants walking on?'. (A 1963 poster of a woodcut by M. C. Escher) The concept ‘the human’...

Why aren’t gay, lesbian, trans, and queer people full citizens in law? This question enraged gay activists in 1990s Britain. The HIV/AIDS...

Caption: Reception for the Shameless! Festival of Activism Against Sexual Violence. Left to right: Professor Joanna Bourke, Julia...

I loved working with the SHaME (Sexual Harms and Medical Encounters) team over 5 and a half years. SHaME’s Public Engagement Lead, Dr...

The SHaME project have talked to some incredible people who reflect on sexual violence and ways to create rape-free worlds. You can...

The events I have enjoyed most in connection with the SHaME project were our two Shameless! Festivals of Activism Against Sexual...

For five and a half years, I have been privileged to work with the SHaME team at Birkbeck. It has been the most intellectually rewarding...

Audre Lorde changed the way generations of feminists throughout the world think about intersectional identities, social justice, and the...