Katie Glass | The Spectator columnists & writers

Playboy Bunnies made their choices. They shouldn’t be patronised for them

It would be wildly generous to bill Hugh Hefner as some kind of grandfather of feminism – I’m not sure his interest in women extended beyond getting his rocks off – but it’s equally outrageous to depict him as a gang-master abuser running a harem of sex-slaves. As it seems some feminists have. The women who worked for him were adults making choices and, brace yourself, some of them enjoyed themselves! Still, watching the bile rise for Hef after his death, I've been shocked to see the insults aimed at the women who worked for him, and how quickly their experiences have been written off. In his later years, padding around his decaying mansion in a slithery dressing gown and silk pajamas, Hefner cut a seedy figure: A horny old perv chasing nubile flesh.

Puppy love

There have been times since the break-up when I’ve felt so low I’ve opened a bottle of Shiraz and spent the whole night flicking through my mobile-phone photos of the two of us: the sunsets we watched; the meals we shared. I’d remember long walks on the beach and longer mornings in bed. How you’d crawl up over the duvet and wake me by licking my head. Leaving the boyfriend was surprisingly easy but oh, the agony of losing the dog! My sweet double doodle (that’s a labra-doodle, goldendoodle cross). ‘Yes, she is pretty isn’t she?’ I’d say to the strangers who accosted us. ‘She’s 18 months old and she’s called Stringerbelle after the crack dealer in The Wire.’ Pope Francis’s concern that couples are substituting pets for children is well founded.

Taylor Swift’s sexual assault case reveals feminism’s guilty secret

Despite Taylor Swift’s aspiration that her sexual assault trial last week should stand as an example for all women, what’s been notable outside the courtroom is how little support from the sisterhood Swift’s had. When Swift’s pop contemporary Kesha faced her own sexual assault case last year – against music producer Dr Luke – female celebrities clamoured to express their support. An MTV line-up of Divas tweeted their wishes: Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Kelly Clarkson, Lily Allen and Lorde made #freekesha trend. Even Adele used the headline-grabbing moment she collected her BRIT for Best Female Solo Artist to holler her encouragement for Kesha. By contrast, Swift’s case was met with deafening silence from prominent women.

No, Lena Dunham, the world isn’t out to get you

The face of young feminism, Lena Dunham, took a break from campaigning to #FreeKesha this week to focus on the issue of Photoshopping instead. On Instagram, the social media forum for all serious politic debate, Dunham posted a message to Spanish newspaper El Pais. In it she told her 2.4 million followers the paper had Photoshopped her image for the cover of its magazine Tentaciones. Dunham did not approve of how she had been depicted. Not because the photograph showed Dunham wearing virginal white and thick eyeliner, staring into the camera like a vacuous anime doll - rather than the articulate media power player she is - but rather, Dunham complained, she looked too thin: 'This is NOT what my body has ever looked like or will ever look like – the magazine has done more than the average Photoshop,' she said.

Women proposing on leap years? Wrong on so many levels

I’m planning to propose to my boyfriend this leap year. I’m proposing that he earns another £10,000 and loses a stone. But marriage? Hell, no. I don’t know why, in the age of equality, society still endorses women going down on bended knee on one solitary day every four years. The internet blames it on St Bridget, who in the 5th century allegedly complained that some men took too damn long to propose. It was St Patrick, though, who came up with the wheeze of granting us special dispensation to propose every 29 February. But to propose on this day is hideously outdated. It is tacky. It is tabloid. It is a love cliché. It’s like getting married on Valentine’s Day, or like showering your amore with pink heart-shaped helium balloons and packets of Milk Tray.

A foolish proposal

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/insidethetorieseudogfight/media.mp3" title="Katie Glass and Isabel Hardman discuss Leap Year proposals" startat=1456] Listen [/audioplayer] I’m planning to propose to my boyfriend this leap year. I’m proposing that he earns another £10,000 and loses a stone. But marriage? Hell, no. I don’t know why, in the age of equality, society still endorses women going down on bended knee on one solitary day every four years. The internet blames it on St Bridget, who in the 5th century allegedly complained that some men took too damn long to propose. It was St Patrick, though, who came up with the wheeze of granting us special dispensation to propose every 29 February. But to propose on this day is hideously outdated.

The feminist case for naming names in sexual assault cases

Google ‘Mark Pearson’ and the first thing you will learn about the 51 year-old artist is that he was accused of a sex attack. You can read all about how at Waterloo Station Pearson supposedly sexually assaulted a woman before striking her. Then, if you have time, read on: and you’ll also discover this never happened. That a jury, shown CCTV footage proving the incident never took place, acquitted Pearson this week. Yet while now, and perhaps forever, Pearson’s name will be linked to a crime he did not commit, what we will never know is the name of the women who falsely accused him. Right now we wait in the wake of a report by the Home Affairs Select Committee, which recommended that suspects in sexual offence cases be given the same right to anonymity as complainants, unless or until they are charged.

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