In 2017, Gina Martin was the victim of a sexual offence that was not, at the time, a sexual offence. Martin was attending a festival when a stranger took a photograph up her skirt without her consent. For her, this …
The invisibility of autistic girls
“Let’s go to page seven,” says the psychologist.
I flick through the papers on my lap. There it is, at the bottom: “Autism, without accompanying intellectual impairment and without accompanying language impairment.” I read that I fulfil all seven diagnostic …
Does menopause madness really exist?
The menopause had a “MeToo moment” the year I turned 45. It was 2020 and women were finally speaking out about their hot flushes and sleepless nights. The roots of this revolution could be tracked back to a 2017 interview …
No one cares for carers
Granny Rosie, as she is known to everyone, is still very much herself at the age of 92: partial to a G&T when the sun is over the yardarm, and always up for a gossip. She’s also frustrated to be …
The fantasy of dating a Republican
More than 20 years before the advent of Tinder, an MTV show called Singled Out offered an unwittingly prescient insight into the dangers of algorithmic dating. The premise was simple: a dating pool of 50 potential suitors milled around in …
What authors hide about sensitivity readers
Although created with good intentions, the practice of sensitivity reading has a way of tipping over into absurdity — the most recent example being Anthony Horowitz’s new book, which features a Native American character. It was dinged for two instances …
The Labour Party has a woman problem
Domestic abuse is about control and power and silencing someone. It can take many forms. A text. A glance. A threat disguised as a promise. The idea is to manipulate you; to paralyse you.
I have lived through an abusive …
Why is Edward Enninful editing Vogue?
Why are the models so thin? Why are the clothes so expensive? And what is the point of fashion? These were questions I had to answer pretty much every day for the decade I worked as a fashion journalist, and …
The curse of Miserable Older White Women
There is a corner of the internet that is obsessed with depressed middle-aged women. Or, specifically, is fixated on a four-year-old study, which suggested that 41% of Americans who use antidepressants are white, female and over 45. The obsession has …
What women coppers conceal
If a woman wanted to become a police officer in the Seventies, she joined the Women’s Police Department. Run separately from the mainstream service, its main purpose was to deal with “women’s issues” such as sexual assault and domestic violence. …
Publishing will never be fair
When I worked in publishing in the early Noughties, “nobody is going to buy a book with a black girl on the cover” was a thing that people still said, out loud, in professional settings. The received wisdom was that …
Who wants a middle-aged Love Island?
Every year on Love Island, there is bad behaviour, misogyny, shouting matches and tears. But it seems the further we get from #MeToo, the harsher and more manipulative the male contestants have become. Unsurprisingly, there has been a backlash: the …
Why should lesbians have sex with men?
These days, a woman who calls herself a lesbian invites suspicion. Over the past 20 years, bars, bookstores, and festivals, once set aside for women attracted to other women, have rebranded themselves as “trans-inclusive” or “queer”, shut down, or gone …
Who wants to be a stripper?
One of the few things that has remained constant in 200,000 years of human history is our fascination with the female form: a source of desire, inspiration, even obsession. And the only thing more exciting than a woman’s naked body …
Liberal women won Australia’s election
For the first time in nearly a decade, Australia has a Labor Government. On Monday, Australian Labor Party (ALP) leader Anthony Albanese was sworn in as the country’s 31st Prime Minister. How did he secure victory?
One explanation is that …