Grit your teeth, find inspiration and get ready for 2024!
Grit your teeth, find inspiration and get ready for 2024!
Was there anything good about 2023?
It’s 8.30am on Christmas Eve 2023, a blustery, grey and unseasonably mild morning. It’s very quiet, but Christmas lights have begun to glimmer in a few windows. Over in the park, two women walking their dogs wave at each other and then stop for a chat. A grandmother brings out a toddler to play on the swings and a cat sits hopefully on a doorstep, waiting to be admitted. The only disturbance comes from male blackbirds squabbling over food.
There’s nothing unusual here, it’s a peaceful and familiar British suburban scene. But when the morning news comes on the radio, it’s almost unbearable. The world is covered by dark clouds, horrors upon horrors are reported from the Middle East, the ‘futile logic of war’ seems to have domination and our own relative safety can bring feelings of guilt for those of us whose lives are a comfortable exception.
As 2023 ends, women and children in so many places are bearing the brunt of violence and misogyny. Rape and starvation as weapons of war, attacks on hospitals, laws forbidding women to work, harsh punishments for ‘inappropriate dress’, online abuse and trolling, anti-abortion legislation – they are all relentlessly facilitated by male dominated governments. Even the peaceful suburban Christmas Eve described at the beginning of this piece was tainted by the poisonous words of a Home Secretary who, in the wake of malevolents like Laurence Fox and Russell Brand, was able to ‘joke’ quite comfortably about spiking women’s drinks.
Women for ‘24
So where are the glimmers of hope for 2024? Hope, of course, to be worth anything, must blend into action and motivation, not simply optimism. But there have been moments to treasure, many women to admire and many women to inspire us. Some of them are famous and well known; others may be family members or anonymous passers-by. But they are here to stay, and they are making a difference. There are legions of women who are role models in all kinds of occupations, women who volunteer, women who speak out and take action, women who persist and prevail.
Charlotte Higgins a journalist reporting on Ukraine expressed her feelings like this:
Everywhere there are people volunteering, doing humanitarian work, raising money: a tremendous national effort…….
………And among these people, I reserve special admiration for the younger women I’ve met – women in their 20s or 30s, who often seem older, because of the strength they’ve been obliged to show as the tides of history crash over them.
Here in Britain, fearless women have done tremendous public service over the last year or so. Think of how Louise Casey skewered the Metropolitan Police in her report, finding the Met to be ‘ institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic’. And Donna Ockenden, investigating the deaths of babies in hospitals, has won immense admiration and gratitude from the bereaved families who had long felt that their voices would never be heard.
Sadly, some well-known and extraordinary women died in 2023. Women like Glenda Jackson, Betty Boothroyd, Fay Weldon, Sinead O’ Connor and Tina Turner, were some of the remarkable individuals who will not be forgotten. But the dragons’ teeth have been sown and further generations of strong women are growing and thriving, their voices rising and ready to speak truth to power. Women working in politics, in sport, in culture, science and industry. Women concerned about education, health and the environment. Women speaking loudly about inequality, poverty, abuse and violence.
Your Challenge!
Last October, in Black History Month, as members of the MK Fawcett Group we wrote individual descriptions of women of colour who we found particularly admirable. We enjoyed the experience and learned a lot from each other.
Now, as we perch on the cusp of the New Year, we challenge you to identify the women of 2023 who have interested, challenged and inspired you. Names trip off the tongue, ranging from Brenda Hale to Mary Earps, Ngozi Fulani to Clare Keegan, Jane Goodall to Rosamund Adoo-Kissi Debrah, Maggie Aderin- Pocock to Tracy Emin. Hundreds of women pushing the boundaries and changing the world.
Last year was grim in so many ways, and next year will inevitably have its share of horror. But it can be comforting and also rather exciting to remind ourselves that we are surrounded by creative, talented and able women who continue to be the catalysts for change.
