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...

  Nourishing our minds Welcome to (L)egoland, where cruel and pompous men are strutting their stuff and playing with countries as if they were little plastic bricks. In this global playpen for billionaires, the President of the United States, having played a leisurely round of golf, feels he can in all seriousness quote Napoleon: ‘celui qui sauve sa patrie ne viole aucune loi’, (he who saves his country violates no law). So, for this president, laws don’t apply, people are fired from their jobs, lying has become the norm, women scarcely feature, and war ravaged countries are eyed up as potential holiday resorts.  Is switching off the answer? Elsewhere in the world…well….where to start? Misery, violence, racism, misogyny, poverty, abuse? Levels of awfulness so great that for some of us the only answer is to switch off completely. How many people have you heard saying ‘I can’t watch the news anymore, it’s too upsetting, I can’t face it’ .  But if we don’t face it, what then...

The Darkling Plain A new year begins Well, here we are. About a couple of weeks into 2025. As we reached the Quarter Century out came the fireworks. Hurray! Auld Lang Syne, Peace and Goodwill, ring out the bells and all that. An opportunity to listen calmly to wise words from highly regarded world leaders offering us hope and optimism for the future and reassuring us that we are safe under their watch. Oh, sorry. No chance of any of that. Whatever were you thinking? Racing to the bottom Listen instead to the grating sound of people yelling and screaming and twittering at each other. Look at the rich, entitled and powerful who are taking offence at the smallest perceived slight as they desperately seek attention. Watch as people leap onto bandwagons and make pompous and abusive statements about things that they know nothing about and care even less. And notice how addressing the suffering in Gaza, in Ukraine, in Sudan and elsewhere is now much less important than the priorities of vario...

Drama Queen, Moaning Minnie, Jailbait? What's in a label? Shockingly, but also intriguingly, a body part of the mountaineer Sandy Irvine has been found on Mount Everest. He disappeared in 1924, and the find consisted of a boot and a sock containing the remains of his foot. We only know his name because of the embroidered name label neatly sewn into his sock. Those of us of a certain age will have mixed memories of name labels. Schools frequently demanded that they be attached to all garments, including those compulsory and terrible navy-blue knickers required for girls’ PE lessons. Shoes also had to be identifiable, and regular inspections ensured compliance. Name labels were as much a part of school life as textbooks covered in wallpaper and tiny bottles of tepid milk at break time. And of course, they are still quite useful for schools and other institutions, although now they are more likely to be adhesive and come in a variety of colours with added images of footballs, unicorns...

SHUT UP! ‘But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence’ As a starting point, and for a bit of a change, let’s begin on a pious note, with a biblical quotation. The ponderous words above are allegedly those of St Paul writing to his follower Timothy, a missionary. In fact, we may actually be looking at an early example of fake news as there is some debate about the authenticity of the epistle. But hey, when did a questionable piece of information ever stop anyone for relaying it (and in this case literally) as gospel truth? Ways of silencing women have persisted since the year dot. In Women and Power  Mary Beard describes what she calls the first example in Western literature of a man telling a woman to shut up. In The Odyssey , when Penelope enters a public area of the palace to make a complaint, her son, Telemachus, tells her to be silent, return to her own rooms and do women’s work, reminding her that public life is the exclusive re...

  August Reflections The Dog Days In late July and August, Sirius (known as the Dog Star), appears to rise at the same time as the sun. In Ancient Greece and Rome, the belief was that the combined heat of the two stars led to intolerable blazing hot weather, which in turn resulted in thunderstorms, fires, drought, high fever, and madness – a period known as the dog days. Today the phrase tends to evoke the hot, lazy days of summer, and until recently this time of year has been known as the ‘silly season’, described by the Cambridge Dictionary as a time:  ‘usually in the summer, when newspapers are full of stories that are not important because there is no important, especially political, news’.  The silly season, if it ever really existed, is now in the past, and today’s news bulletins are more likely to lead to despair. Wars are raging around the world with scant hopes for peaceful resolutions. The climate emergency is terrifying. In Britain, dreadful harms have been inf...