Mary Wakefield

London

Commissioning Editor at The Spectator

commissioning editor @spectator

Articles

Why don’t men ask questions?

1 week ago | spectator.co.uk | Mary Wakefield

I’ll bet most women under 50 in relationships with men have found themselves wondering when on earth the man is going to get round to asking them a question. The man gets home. We ask about his meetings, his lunch, his colleagues, showing empathy and imaginative curiosity. Then we wait in vain for our turn.
Why don’t men ask questions?

1 week ago | spectator.com.au | Mary Wakefield

I’ll bet most women under 50 in relationships with men have found themselves wondering when on earth the man is going to get round to asking them a question. The man gets home. We ask about his meetings, his lunch, his colleagues, showing empathy and imaginative curiosity. Then we wait in vain for our turn.
Keep AI ghouls out of the classroom

1 week ago | thespectator.com | Mary Wakefield

Donald Trump has signed an executive order with the intention of bringing Artificial Intelligence into schools. “This is a big deal, because AI seems to be where it’s at,” Trump said as he signed, which is delightful. There’s a new White House task force which will develop a “Presidential AI Challenge,” and a general idea that AI in the classroom is in everyone’s interest. Well I’m keen to cheer on AI if it helps to revive western civilization in the way that Peter W. Wood describes on p10.
Keep AI ghouls out of the classroom

1 week ago | thespectator.com | Mary Wakefield

Donald Trump has signed an executive order with the intention of bringing Artificial Intelligence into schools. “This is a big deal, because AI seems to be where it’s at,” Trump said as he signed, which is delightful. There’s a new White House task force which will develop a “Presidential AI Challenge,” and a general idea that AI in the classroom is in everyone’s interest. Well I’m keen to cheer on AI if it helps to revive western civilization in the way that Peter W. Wood describes.
Lily Parr and the creepiness of AI resurrection

3 weeks ago | spectator.co.uk | Mary Wakefield

I’m not sure it’s possible to make a horror movie more sinister than the chirpy four-minute film on YouTube purporting to be an ‘interview’ with the late Lily Parr. Parr was a professional footballer who played as winger before the war, a chain-smoking 6ft Lancashire lesbian with that gung-ho spirit I remember from my girls’ boarding school, before the governors purged the spinster games mistresses.
Lily Parr and the creepiness of AI resurrection

3 weeks ago | spectator.com.au | Mary Wakefield

I’m not sure it’s possible to make a horror movie more sinister than the chirpy four-minute film on YouTube purporting to be an ‘interview’ with the late Lily Parr. Parr was a professional footballer who played as winger before the war, a chain-smoking 6ft Lancashire lesbian with that gung-ho spirit I remember from my girls’ boarding school, before the governors purged the spinster games mistresses.
‘Jordan Peterson is a sad and angry man’: an interview with Rowan Williams

4 weeks ago | spectator.com.au | Mary Wakefield

Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, has a new book out, a slim, thoughtful introduction to Christianity. But that’s not quite why I went to Cardiff to visit him. I went because, although I admire the superstar culture warriors of the right, there’s something Williams is witness to which they lack.
‘Jordan Peterson is a sad and angry man’: an interview with Rowan Williams

4 weeks ago | spectator.co.uk | Mary Wakefield

Text size Small Medium Large Line Spacing Compact Normal Spacious Comments Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, has a new book out, a slim, thoughtful introduction to Christianity. But that’s not quite why I went to Cardiff to visit him. I went because, although I admire the superstar culture warriors of the right, there’s something Williams is witness to which they lack. Like many readers, I think Rowan Williams pretty loopy on most subjects – Brexit, Islam, immigration, the...
I'm hobbled by my own hypocrisy about cats

1 month ago | thespectator.com | Mary Wakefield |Arabella Byrne |Raheem Kassam |Aidan Hartley

I don’t like cats. I don’t like their reptilian stealth, or the way their heads are set low and poke out from their bodies. I don’t like the constant showing off of their puckered bums, or their disregard for the normal rules of mammal eye contact. There are roughly 74 million cats in the United States and until recently I found it inexplicable. Why would anyone choose to love and nurture a psycho that dismembers songbirds, often torturing them first in a casual, playful way?
The Met’s misogyny

1 month ago | spectator.co.uk | Mary Wakefield

My friend Rose likes a drink. She lives on the same street as another friend in Camden and three or four times a year, when the weather warms up, she stands on her doorstep, smashed, and yells at the world. I don’t blame her. Rose has been through the mill. She’s a slight woman and she’s suffered at the hands of predatory men all her life.