Coming soon... Invisible Women

In my newsletter series Visible Women, I interviewed a range of women of all ages about their confidence, visibility & ageing. They also talked about their careers, families and hopes & worries about later life.

Invisible Women is different.

Each month I will publish a newsletter drawing out my learning from that month, using a trauma informed, feminist perspective with references to fictional stories.

These fictional stories are already published on my website knowyourplace.uk

Fictional storytelling can be an impactful method of sharing the experiences of those who have been, or are being harmed, where it may be unsafe or retraumatising for them to tell their own story.

The central character in each story is a woman in mid or later life, who has been subjected to trauma or abuse. On my website I use questions to draw out the reader's critical thinking, but these monthly articles will go deeper.

I write these articles to raise awareness and educate, but I also find it really helps me consolidate my own learning & articulate that learning in a way I feel comfortable with.

My writing isn't 'perfect' but I write with passion and instinctively, so please forgive grammar and typos.

I’ve had the privilege of working with people in their later years in a variety of roles. This has given me time and insight into the lives of many women who have lived extraordinary lives from the 1920's onwards. But that privilege has also?given me a view of?the hidden, chronic fear?some people, mostly women, endure for decades.?

Women who have lived during a time where they?were often expected to marry young, bear children and provide a warm welcoming home for their husband, and family with little consideration for their own wants and desires.?

A time when women couldn’t take out a mortgage or loan without her husband or father to guarantee that debt.?

A?time where being in a same sex relationship was illegal.

A time when many pubs wouldn’t serve a woman, if unaccompanied by a man.

A time?being raped by your husband wasn’t a crime.?

Many of us will be able to?relate to that feeling of?invisibility as we age, but imagine?how invisible you would feel if you are being controlled,?abused,?and systematically silenced.

And everyone around can’t?really?see you.

*This article will be published once a month. If you do not wish to read these articles please unsubscribe. If you find them thought provoking and engaging please share them with your network and help raise the visibility of the women who are seldom seen or heard.