Journal
Articles
Sound the alarm
THERE'S THE TUG of it in her stomach, always, a heavy thing. Sarah's hot, clammy like she knows she...
Up-skirt
A YOUNG WOMAN walks down the street towards an unremarkable terrace house wearing a fetching combination of op-shop style...
Morning song
THE WOMAN WHO stands on the door-step is short and chunky. Her legs are like an elephant's. They go...
Getting on with it
IT IS 1953. In Paris, Simone de Beauvoir launches the term 'women's liberation' in her groundbreaking The Second Sex,...
Taim bilong ol meri?
IN 1975, AS Papua New Guinea claimed its independence and imagined its future, officials set about commissioning a Parliament...
Is it hard to surf with boobs?
When she was reigning World Champion, Layne Beachley was also the female surfers' official representative. This meant that even on mornings she wasn't competing, she'd be on the beach at 5.30 am, the only woman, battling it out on behalf of the other female surfers. 'The female surfer representative has to be very strong willed,' says Beachley. 'I remember arguing constantly with the male surfer rep, the male head judge and the guys' sponsors, arguing about which conditions we were going to get.'
Risky business
NICKI IS ONE of my growing stable of female boxing students. She was wrapping her hands to begin a...
Top girl
'The best man in England.' Ronald Reagan on Margaret Thatcher'For £3 million you could give everyone in Scotland a...
On the rigs
The environment is unapologetically male. It is also isolated and basic: all everyone does is sleep-eat-work. I found it relatively easy to acclimatise given my studies and interests, but I underestimated the impact that being the only woman for most of my time, in a group of between twenty and sixty men, would have on me. I found it more challenging than I expected to navigate work/life nuances on the rigs. There are not many other places in the world where a woman is made more aware of her gender: where you must learn to find the balance as a woman in such an overwhelmingly male world.
The up and down nature of ladders
MARY AND I spend a long time tying the sign on the hood of her rusty station wagon. It...
Homeopathy
TRUTH IS AS truth believes. When the piano needed tuning and the blind piano tuner came to the house,...
In my father’s house
THERE WAS NO sign on the door of my parents' bedroom that said 'keep out', but I knew it...
