Fawcett MK: Keeping Up

  Persist and Resist The quietly polite phrase ‘ I prefer not to’ appears repeatedly in a strange short story by Herman Melville (yes, he of Moby Dick fame ). The story ‘ Bartelby the Scrivener’ written in 1883, concerns an unassuming clerk in a law firm, who, when asked to do a routine task one day simply replies, ‘ I prefer not to’. After that, he responds to every request with the same phrase, and the result is chaos, incomprehension and tragedy. It’s a story that has been interpreted in different ways, and the meaning of his response has been the subject of intense argument. Although it seems to be a fairly ordinary low-key statement that simply indicates a courteous refusal, the Slovenian philosopher Zizek , for example, says that its use in the story suggests that actually doing nothing can be more powerful than violent resistance. Resisting Oppression: Women and the Arts Women are often associated with quiet and persistent opposition, using different methods and strategies...

The Heat is on ‘Lovely morning’ we say cheerfully, as we step out to enjoy the early clear skies and comforting warmth of a 2025 summer’s day. ‘And nice to have a bit of a breeze.’ And then, five or six hours later, when the air is still and temperatures have risen to 30 plus, our tune begins to change and all our efforts to cool down fail dismally. The pavements are too hot for dogs to walk on, the plants are parched, burnt skin begins to peel and water levels drop. Nasty things happen in the heat. Over in Mexico, dehydrated and exhausted monkeys are falling lifelessly from the trees. Bats and flying foxes in Australia also plummet to the ground and are lucky if they are rescued and rehydrated. Molluscs and barnacles attached to rocky coastlines off Vancouver Island cannot move to cooler waters, so bake to death in their millions. And human beings, trying to work and earn a living in the heat – what of them? Workers preparing food in sweltering kitchens, or labouring in poly tunnels g...

Take a moment. Wherever you are - sipping your oat-milk skinny latte in a high street café, squashed up and perspiring in a crowded train, tram or bus, staggering round a supermarket with a loaded trolley, sitting studiously in a library…….. wherever you are, take a moment to glance around and check how many women are sporting short hairstyles. And if you spot a carefully trimmed bob or pixie-cut, is the proud owner a younger woman? Probably not. What’s going on? Have the iconic styles of Audrey Hepburn, Mary Quant and Tilda Swinton all disappeared? Is there a new and secret ponytail mandate that is being communicated through a clandestine social media platform? Or is it simply that hardly any one under 50 can afford to get a haircut these days? It creeps up on you, this realisation that long hair is now a la mode. And it’s only when you see a large group of young women together that you notice it. To be fair, teachers, sports coaches and nightclub managers have probably been aware for...

  Women and gardens ‘If Eve had had a spade in Paradise and had known what to do with it, we should not have had all that sad business with the apple’ (Elizabeth von Arnim) In mid-June, as we sizzled towards Midsummer’s Day, plants were shrivelling, flowers were dying, water butts were empty, and hosepipe bans began to creep in. Gardeners despaired, and yet only few weeks previously, our television screens had been filled with the annual explosions of colour and spectacle of the Chelsea Flower Show. From the Garden of Eden to Chelsea, gardens have inspired, delighted, frustrated and soothed us. But what about the gardeners? What do we know of them? And more specifically, for the purposes of this blog, what about the women gardeners? Elizabeth von Arnim, who published her witty autobiographical novel ‘ Elizabeth and her German Garden ’ in 1898, was frustrated by pompous 19th century assumptions that ‘ladies’ should not do physical work in a garden. She describes how she would: ‘ …s...

Museum revelations In the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral there is a fascinating museum, where a visitor can explore all kinds of exhibits from Neolithic burial sites to a representation of the town sewage works. Tucked away in a corner, displayed within a glass case, is a small, beautifully embroidered cape in the purple and silver colours of the early suffrage movement . It is unfinished, with a caption explaining that it once belonged to Millicent Fawcett, who lived in Salisbury for a while. It is probably too small for Millicent herself to have worn but perhaps it was intended as a gift for a child – a mini-Suffragist perhaps. Whatever its actual history, it triggers a poignant reminder of how young Millicent herself was when she became committed to the cause of women’s suffrage. By the age of 19, for example, she was collecting signatures to support a petition to parliament that she was actually too young to sign herself. Museums are wonderful for revealing fascinating and unexpecte...

If April IS the cruellest month, then two dismal images from recent weeks reinforce that perfectly. They are haunting, dispiriting, and difficult to understand.  But at the risk of sounding like an obscure medieval riddle, let’s consider the similarities between a statue and a tree, both of which recently hit the headlines. Why Millicent? ‘When any of us talk about standing on the shoulders of giants, Millicent Fawcett was that giant of female empowerment.’ (Ruth Davidson) Following the Supreme Court’s gender ruling on April 16, demonstrations took place in Parliament Square. The statue of Millicent Fawcett, the only representation of a woman in the square, was defaced, alongside several other statues.  ‘Investigations continue’ according to the police. Millicent Fawcett was not a militant. She was a suffragist who worked tirelessly for over 50 years in pursuit of women’s suffrage. She opposed the violence espoused by Emmeline Pankhurst and the Suffragettes. She lobbied, gav...