Let's Get Visible

As you subscribe to Visible Women newsletter, a series of interviews with women of all ages about confidence, ageing and visibility, you might like this podcast series.

This time last year I started writing a series of blogs. After 12 I got stuck with title ideas, so whilst on a trip away with my friends I asked them to think of phrases they grew up with. In between swimming in the pool, the odd tipple and a lot of laughter (I'm more fun than you might think) they would shout out a title they'd remembered and I'd scribble it down, it would then lead us into a memory about said phrase and how insidious the messaging was. We all grew up in different parts of England so they were varied. After that weekend away I had over 40 phrases.

I continued to write for 6 months and then decided to turn my writing into short podcasts. I started in February this year. Since then it's evolved. I'm experimenting 'visibly' with ideas. It's a hobby and enables me to direct my creative energy into something tangible.

Series 1 is a series of stories written by me about women in mid and later life who have been affected by domestic abuse and trauma. How this impacted their life course and the systematic oppression which often leaves women invisible.

Don't cry over spilt milk

Six of one & half a dozen of the other

Don't air your dirty laundry in public

Out of the frying pan & into the fire

Don't speak ill of the dead

A wolf in sheep's clothing

The walls have ears

Can't see the wood for the trees

Don't blow your own trumpet

Spill the beans

Off to spend a penny

Blood is thicker than water

You've made your bed now lie in it

The good old days

You reap what you sow

Woman know your place

Season 2 is a series of interviews with women Blue Van Woman, Ayse Hussein Lucy Wade Debs Teale (MSc) Sam Beckinsale and a male ally Richard Port MBE . We talk about systematic failings, starting a podcast, the mental health system, the family courts and how drama and the arts can help us move forward.

Season 3 is a series of more stories written by me, we stay on the theme of familiar phrases we grew up with and how untold trauma can leave women feeling they are unwell, going mad and their problems are in their head rather than around them. I also weave in how perimenopause and menopause may affect us in mid life and the overlap with feelings of confusion, brain fog and loss of identity, which can feel similar when we are subjected to coercive control.

Too good to be true

Living on her nerves

A thorn in my side

Boys will be boys

Take advice from someone who knows keep your nightie pinned to your toes

Together through thick & thin

A storm in a teacup

I wasn't born yesterday

Season 4 is another series of interviews with another male ally Jeremy Stockdale and more incredible women Hannah Harris Samantha Billingham @JoHigson Val Stanley and Blue Van Woman. We talk about smashing the patriarchy, domestic abuse and rape in our early relationships, older men becoming allies, our younger and future selves, the impact on us later in life, sex, Phd's, the power of writing, travel and much more.

There's few more to go before I take a break for the summer, which includes a weekend away with the same friends, so who knows what ideas I'll come back with! Some will work and some won't, but I'll keep experimenting.

Visible Women will be back later this year, if you'd like to contribute do message me.

I was prompted to write this as I'm doing a refresher course with UPFRONT at the moment, which is giving me the boost I needed.