The VOICE JOURNAL
Rants. Plus poems about rage, motherhood, politics, grief, awakening and the refusal to be quiet. New work posted as it happens. Read, share, feel something.
Taken Into Care, Left With Him
One in 118 babies in court before their first birthday. Four in five mothers given under a week's notice. A care order that can only name a parent. And nobody has counted how many of them are there because of him.
CRIMINALISED SURVIVAL: Soft on Women, Until She Survives a Man
A single stab wound and a life sentence. 840 women killed by partners against 108 men. The expert the government hired and then overruled. Most women in prison are not a danger to society. Society is more of a danger to them.
Within Living Memory, part three (2029): Head of the Household
Parts two, three and four are fiction, however everything that happens to Hannah in the story has already happened to real women somewhere in the world. On each of these occasions I've put the country and the year that it happened in brackets, and everything is fully sourced at the bottom of the blog.
Within Living Memory, part two (2028): And It Could Happen Here
Part one was all true. Parts two, three and four are fiction, with one caveat: every single thing that happens to Hannah in this story has actually happened, to real women, in real countries. The only thing I've made up is the order and the dates.
Jane Doe: Naming Her Is a Crime in the UK but Legal in America
I am Jane Doe. I can actually say that and mean it. Over here a woman who reports rape gets anonymity for life, by law. In America a man with 350,000 followers can ask the internet to find her, and the only thing standing in his way was thousands of other women. And before we get smug, 2.8% of reported rapes here end in a charge.
Within Living Memory, part one (2021): How Afghan Women Lost Everything in Three Years
I was listening to a podcast at work the other day and it stopped me dead in my tracks. Three years is all it took to go from relative freedom to being muted and erased. This is part one, and it's all true.
Treat Women Like Shit And They’re Not Going To Have Your Babies
England and Wales, 1.41 children per woman, the lowest since 1938. Korea, 0.8. Two thirds of the world below replacement. Women everywhere, at the same time, saying no. This is why, and who's panicking.
The Experiment That Never Happened
Healthy men made to live a mother's routine broke in thirty days, the post said, and not one could talk about his wife the same way again. None of it happened. The real numbers have been there for decades.
The Dial: When The Rich Get Richer, Women Get Hurt
There are societies where rape is almost unknown. Two sets of researchers, forty years apart, found what separates them from ours: hierarchy. Male violence is a setting, not a fact.
A Day’s Income
$567 million sounds like a punishment. So I did the maths. It's one day of Meta's revenue, 0.9% of a year's profit, and on the median UK salary it works out at £366. A boiler repair, for being legally ruled a public nuisance to children.
One Mistress, No Master
Labour has existed for 126 years, calls itself the party of equality, and has never once chosen a woman to lead it. This week it did it again. The reason is the oldest deal in the book: a woman can have power, as long as she doesn’t frighten the men who already have it.
The Scoreboard Lied
Denmark tops the equality rankings AND Europe’s partner violence table at the same time. It’s called the Nordic Paradox, and it exposes the lie we were sold: that closing the pay gap would stop him hitting her.
You Can Have It All
They told us we could have it all. The career, the kids, the spotless house, the lot. It was never an offer. It was a workload dressed up as freedom. Here's the con, and what I'm doing about it.
The Monster Has A Lanyard
We hand girls a faceless monster and point them at the shadows. We never tell them to look at the lanyard. On the myth that protects the trusted man, and the case that proves it.
How To Be The Best At Everything
I found two books in a charity shop. One teaches boys how to fight a bull. One teaches girls how to look beautiful tomorrow. Both published well within my lifetime. This is the painting that arrived in one second, and the lifetime of sorting that made it inevitable.
Every Reason Not To Ban It
The ban's real. So is every argument against it. Here's what I think of each one, where I'm on shakier ground than I'd like, and why none of it changes my mind.
Eight Minutes
He gets 23 minutes before the algorithm radicalises him. She gets 8 before it tells her she’s not enough. Same machine. Different position.
They Did Everything Right
They reported it. They were believed. A jury convicted the boys who raped them ten times over. And a judge sent all three home, without a single night in prison. This was never just a verdict for two girls in Hampshire. Every woman in the country read it.