#feminism

Blog

Read about my journey into becoming a creative freelancer, interviews and reviews with great authors, and advice on writing and creative living.

If there's something you'd like advice on or a book you'd like me to take a look at, do get in touch, I'd love to hear from you.

If you enjoy reading my thoughts on writing, people, books and the world, please consider supporting me, for the price of a coffee. All donations get a reward. You can also become a regular subscriber for exclusive content.

Sep 3, 2020
1 min

Primadonna News!

Very excited to hear that I’ve been longlisted for this year’s Primadonna Prize. The prospect of making only 500 words in any way interesting was certainly a daunting one and it’s great to be in such great company on the longlist (especially Women Writer’s Network member Sandy Bennet-Haber!). Here’s hoping I get the opportunity to write some more words for the lovely people at Primadonna. Shortlist is announced in November. If you fancy checking out the likes of Sandy Toksvig

Jun 21, 2020
7 min

Celebrating Amazing People #5

With the recent Black Lives Matter protests I wanted to look to a different part of untold history. I found this article where Montaz March talked about her dissertation on the unexamined history of black people in the UK. I was particularly interested in her discussion of black women and how they often fail to turn up in the history books because of their desire to assimilate completely into society. It’s so easy to assume that skin colour has always been a way of judging ot

May 27, 2020
5 min

Celebrating Amazing People #4

This post is inspired by the German astronomer Caroline Herschel. A breathing gap in half term so this one is a little more timely than the others! Something about her story created a pompous voice in my head that narrated her experience, which felt more suitable than reimagining her thoughts. If you have any suggestions for people I could use to inspire my fiction please let me know in the comments! Minding The Heavens Just imagine, they said; someone of that stature looking

Apr 5, 2020
5 min

Celebrating Amazing People #2

Much more lighthearted and unusual this week. I was reading the introduction to Cathy Newman’s book Bloody Brilliant Women and I came across an nun from the 10th century who wore golden gowns and argued with the male clergy. I loved the idea of a celebrity culture existing back then around kings and bishops, and thought she was just too interesting not to delve into a little more. Hope you enjoy it. Pride Comes in Many Guises The two thralls slopped through the mud. After a h

Mar 27, 2020
6 min

Celebrating Amazing People #1

Like most people at the moment, I don’t know what to do. Scrolling through endless feeds and WhatsApp messages bring a strange feeling into my gut – helplessness. So many people working hard to help others, while I spend the day checking in online for my students or finding ways to amuse my toddler. Somehow, in the general scheme of things, it doesn’t seem like enough. In an effort to help out, I thought I’d turn my hand to providing some light relief. But what do people want

Jun 7, 2019
3 min

Becoming a Mum Made Me More Supportive of Abortion

I am woman who has a baby. She was wanted, she is loved, but it has been such hard work. There have been times that I have spiralled into despair over how much my life has changed, how tired I am. I spent a lot of time preparing and planning to have her, and even then it’s been tough. She’s wonderful, but no-one should be forced to do something this hard if they don’t want to. If you are not financially, emotionally or mentally prepared, even a little bit, to have a baby, you

Jun 2, 2019
4 min

A Week of Silence

“The world is only tolerable because of the empty places in it…when the world’s filled up, we’ll have to get hold of a star. Any star. Venus, or Mars. Get hold of it and leave it empty. Man needs an empty space somewhere for his spirit to rest in.” Doris Lessing I spent almost all of last week entirely alone. No work, no friends, no family, no baby. No distractions. My very own writing retreat. At first, it felt strange. I noticed the passing of every hour. Teaching is hardly

May 7, 2018
8 min

Man, I Feel Like a Woman

Every time I’ve travelled before (and by that I mean more than a holiday) I’ve been on my own, or in the presence of other women. Living in China, travelling round South East Asia, in Botswana for a month, I was never with a man. We’ve just arrived in Santiago, and it’s the first time someone has advised me about my safety. I was out on my own with the baby in the sling, getting some coffee. A woman called me over and gestured to my back pocket, indicating that I shouldn’t pu

Feb 25, 2018
3 min

Can You See Yourself in History?

When we visit places, we always look to the past. Seek out the origins to better understand the culture and the town that sits there now. Certain places wear their history more openly than others. With the clustering of temples on every corner, the profusion of old-fashioned wooden buildings and streets thronged with people wearing kimonos, Kyoto certainly flaunts its antiquity. The golden pavilion in Kyoto While some people are a little disappointed with the parts that are b

Oct 26, 2017
3 min

Non-Fiction (like pie) is your Friend

My shelf is in danger of falling down. We put it up to replace the bedside tables, so it hovers above our heads, laden with all the stuff I used to cram into those drawers. A basket filled with far too many tubes of half-finished hand cream, assorted earphones, toe separators, the tiny glass pig I brought back from China years ago. And, of course, books. At the moment I’m reading six. There are a couple of literary magazines, one novel, and four non-fiction books. Herein lies

Aug 11, 2017
4 min

Is Borrowing from Mythology Cheating?

When I was a student at University, I took a composition course. Bashing away at the keys of a piano in a quiet practice room (it was 11pm, I had homework due the following day), the impossibility of creating anything genuinely ‘new’ suddenly struck me. There they were, 8 little keys, with black ones in between. Surely there were only a certain number of combinations you could create with this limited palate? Listening to modern pop music (yes, I’m old) it would appear I was

Jul 17, 2017
2 min

Women Are Not A Minority

It’s a pretty important week for females and fantasy. The BBC have announced that the next Dr. Who is going to be a woman. For many, this is a very welcome change. For far too long, this genre has been almost completely dominated by white men. From Superman to Wolverine, Dr Who to Thor, the faces that are seen as saviours and heroes are all too often a variation on a theme, with hair colour and beard being the only factor of difference. With the last companion being black and

Jul 10, 2017
3 min

Why I’m Only Reading Books by Women

I’m trying to remember the last time I read a book by a man. Or, for that matter, the last time I watched something that didn’t have a female character in a dominant role. It seems that, perhaps unconsciously at first, I’m moving away from things created by men, or at least things that have a dominant male perspective. That might seem pretty reductive, to some. Surely only viewing the world through one lens is restrictive, no matter which one you choose? That would be true, i

May 26, 2017
5 min

Laughing About Equality

For many, The Guilty Feminist is not ‘new’ news. With over thirteen thousand followers on Twitter and almost fifty episodes, it’s fair to say that a lot of people are already onto it. It’s covered everything from activism to ethical clothing, using humour to discuss wide-ranging and often thorny feminist issues. Having found out about it a little late, I very quickly listened to all the back episodes and, last week, found myself at the fundraiser for the Women’s Equality Part

Apr 30, 2017
4 min

Power – Gender and Naomi Alderman’s Novel

In terms of power and control, it’s a scary time. Unity and strength seem to be giving way to individual gripes and complaints, people turned against each other to shout blame for the lives they’re not happy with. Unstable times lead to unlikely heroes. People currently in power are those that we wouldn’t have dreamed of electing or giving a voice to. Suddenly, a victory for a abusive right-wing president seems the ‘popular’ choice. Keeping the current UK government, the cham

Jan 26, 2017
5 min

Femspreading – Making Space For Women

Genderspecs – changing gendered perspectives, one blog at a time. It’s always a joyous moment when I receive an email telling me that the next podcast episode of ‘The Guilty Feminist’ is out. This time the theme was ‘Taking Up Space,’ and how women don’t tend to do it quite as much as men. I’ve suffered from bad shoulders for years. Part of it is the curse of the writer/student I became in later life – carrying my laptop about on my back like a tortoise with a portable office

Jan 22, 2017
3 min

Being Nasty – The Power of Protest

There’s something pretty uplifting about meeting a hundred thousand people who share your views, even if you just walk down a road together making ‘woo’ noises every now and again. Or perhaps that makes it even better. When I attended the Women’s March in London, after a slew of thoroughly depressing news articles read under the duvet (yes, this cold still won’t go away) there was undeniable hope and power in the footsteps of thousands who are feeling out of step with the way

Oct 7, 2016
4 min

Y: The Last Man – Book Review

I know I’m massively behind the times in reading this, but as I’m currently working on a similar narrative, several people recommended this graphic novel as a good place to look at how a gender-imbalanced dystopia played out. Interesting ideas, some lessons learned, and a few pitfalls to avoid. On a day in 2002, a mystery virus simultaneously kills off every creature with a Y chromosome on the planet. Apart from one. Yorick (his parents liked Shakespeare) and his monkey Amper

Aug 19, 2016
4 min

Why I’m Not an Angry Feminist

Today I had the joy of experiencing a running buddy while out on the streets. As I ran past him, he came into step beside me, waving his arms and making silly high pitched noises. After which he collapsed in giggles, so amused by the sight of a woman running down the road. All of this was done in the sight of, not a crowd of jeering lads, but what I assume was his young daughter. I can only imagine the lessons she has learnt about the value of women through her eyes as she wa

Aug 5, 2016
4 min

Empress Orchid – The Mistrusted Empress

I first heard about ‘Empress Cixi’ through a BBC documentary called ‘The Ascent of Woman.’ An impressive summary of a huge swathe of human history, the programme asked questions about the subjugation of women over the centuries, and examined the reasons behind it. Much of it was startling, such as the fact that covering women up with veils was considered appropriate to show status and sexual promiscuity, many hundreds of years before Islam existed as a faith. It also examined

Sarah Scribbles

Blog