Lindy West
Lindy West is a Seattle-based writer, editor and performer whose work focuses on pop culture, social justice, humour and body image. She's currently a culture writer for GQ Magazine and GQ.com, as well as the founder and editor of I Believe You | It's Not Your Fault, an advice blog for teens.
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Jane Got a Gun is not a feminist western – unless by ‘feminist’ you mean ‘contains a woman’Why can’t westerns portray women as fully formed human beings with complex lives, and subvert the character topes of tragic brothel employee, bawdy brothel employee and brothel employee who is just OK with it?
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Batman v Superman is 153 minutes of a grown man whacking two dolls togetherUnlike most of the movie, this latest superhero instalment is not a dream. It is really happening to you
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Women deserve better than two clowns reducing the presidential race to a hottest wife contestDonald Trump and Ted Cruz’s Twitter slap-fight reveals the misogynist bigotry in the Republican DNA
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The macabre truth of gun control in the US is that toddlers kill more people than terrorists doLast week, a Florida gun rights activist was shot in the back by her four-year-old son. How much longer will we keep participating in the collective lie that deadly weapons keep us safe?
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My thank-you letter to an abortion doctorAbortion providers in the US risk death to help women. It’s time to #ShoutYourAbortion and thank them for giving us the right to steer our own lives
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Public toilets – the key battleground for bigots wanting to legislate trans people out of existenceThe reasoning behind South Dakota’s ill-judged new law would be ludicrous if it weren’t so dangerous
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Female characters should be more than ‘athletic but sexy, 28’One Twitter feed lays bare the abysmal way women are described in film scripts. This relentless cultural messaging shapes female identity
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Now Roosh V and his band of sad men in dark rooms know how it feels to be bombarded with bileTo see ‘neomasculine’ pick-up artist Daryush ‘Roosh V’ Valizadeh and his acolytes pilloried has been a strange experience for the women his site has attacked – including me
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What I’ve learned about diets: punishing your body is not taking care of it‘I will hate myself until I turn into Gisele Bündchen’ is not a reasonable, reachable goal. Don’t treat yourself that way this year
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The feminist news quiz of 2015From Meryl Streep’s controversial T-shirt, to the furore over the Ghostbusters reboot, have you been paying attention to what’s been going on?
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How Reddit’s Ellen Pao survived one of ‘the largest trolling attacks in history’After tackling revenge porn on the site, its former CEO was subjected to vicious abuse and forced to resign. Can the internet ever get over its misogyny?
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The case of serial rapist police officer Daniel Holtzclaw tells us so much about 2015The Oklahoma City police officer knew the odds were rigged in his favour – we live in a world where police violence against black bodies isn’t simply tolerated, it is encouraged
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From #BlackLivesMatter to internet trolls: the best and worst of my darkest yearHere are the people who defined 2015 for me – at both ends of the spectrum
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The US debate around Islam makes George W Bush look progressiveI used to think anyone on earth would make a better president than Bush. The reaction of Republican presidential candidates to the Paris attacks has proven me wrong
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‘Political correctness’ doesn’t hinder free speech – it expands itAfter decades of racism and casual misogyny, the punchlines are punching back. The American university system is currently the battleground for our next great culture war
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I set up #ShoutYourAbortion because I am not sorry, and I will not whisperLast week I realised that, even among my pro-choice friends, I never, ever talk about my abortion. We need to chip away at stigma, at lies, at the climate of shame
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The 'Dear Fat People' video is tired, cruel and lazy – but I still fight for the woman who made itCanadian comedian Nicole Arbour thinks she’s ‘hella brave’ for telling fat people to eat less and exercise more. Here’s my message for any woman who agrees with her …
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Trigger warnings don’t hinder freedom of expression: they expand itSome content may be distressing. A considerate heads-up surely isn’t too much to ask?
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Black American lives are being erased. The victors still rewrite historyThe policeman who killed Michael Brown gets more sympathetic coverage than the dead teenager did, and let’s not even get started on Cecil the lion
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My wedding was perfect – and I was fat as hell the whole timeAs a fat woman, you are told to disguise, shrink or flatter your body. But I wasn’t going to hide at my wedding – the older I get, the harder it is to depoliticise simple acts
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My country is a racist country – built on the lie of freedom and opportunityWe need to start speaking the truth about the US, about the accusations of racism levelled at retailer Zara and about the familiar shape of Dylann Roof’s crimes
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What do the politically correct brain police have against venerable man comedians like Jerry Seinfeld?The vintage observational jokester says killjoys are ruining comedy. But where he sees a threat, I see marginalised voices finally being allowed into the club
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Josh Duggar allegations: we're so used to giving famous men the benefit of the doubtOur culture treats mens’ reputations with the same reverence as victims’ safety. That’s frightening
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If even Michelle Obama can’t speak about race without being told to ‘quit whining’ then who can?The nauseating reaction to the first lady’s speech about being an African American proves that the internet’s brightest and whitest are still in deep denial
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Two-way mirrors in the toilets: yet another sign that comedy has a sexist dark sideThe owner of a Chicago bar with a creepy secret has said it was just part of his ‘fun-house’ theme. But from lazy sexist laughs to Bill Cosby’s rape jokes, comedians have often treated women as a joke
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Hillary Clinton plus the presidency adds up to far more than a symbolAfter all those straight white men, we are overdue a woman in the Oval Office. More than one, in fact …
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My hot tips for parents with a fat kid: feed them fun, kindness and dignityParents may not be able to recognise that their child is obese, according to a new study. Well that’s two fewer people making their offspring feel like a failure
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'Sick and asphyxiating' – why we live in an age of anxiety