Helena Kennedy: Inspirations Series
Kennedy’s great passion is for law. She was called to the Bar at Gray’s Inn in 1972. At the age of only 24 years, just out of pupillage,...
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JOANNA BOURKE
Blogs
Here are my latest blogs! Enjoy.
- Feb 6
- 5 min
Judith Butler: Inspirations Series
Judith Pamela Butler is the most widely read philosopher on the planet and the most influential voice in contemporary gender theory....
140
- Feb 6
- 6 min
Jude Kelly: Inspirations Series
Jude Kelly is known to millions of people around the world. She is a theatre director, with more than 100 productions to her name....
60
- Feb 6
- 5 min
Marai Larasi: Inspirations Series
‘If we are to end violence against women and girls, we need to create seismic shifts across our social norms’. So says Marai Larasi,...
30
- Feb 6
- 14 min
Mechanics' Institutes: What? Why? Where?
When Birkbeck was established in 1823, it was called the London Mechanics’ Institution. It was one of the first ‘mechanics’ institutes’...
50
- Feb 5
- 3 min
Imkaan, Intersectionality, and Sexual Violence
On 4 March 2020, the Black feminist organisation Imkaan launched a report in the Houses of Parliament on sexual violence against...
30
- Feb 5
- 6 min
Medical Professionals and Sexual Violence
On 12 June 1993, the editors of the British Medical Journal published an account by a male doctor of being sexually assaulted by another...
20
- Feb 5
- 4 min
Domestic Violence and Covid-19
The Covid-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of human vulnerability. To be vulnerable (from the Latin ‘vulnus’, meaning ‘wound’) is to be...
00
- Feb 5
- 2 min
Domestic Violence, Firearms, and Covid-19
Covid-19 exposed girls, women, and other minoritised groups to increased domestic violence. As has happened throughout the world, calls...
70
- Feb 5
- 2 min
Rape Kits and the 'Technoscientific Witness of Rape'
Andrea Quinlan’s 2017 book The Technoscientific Witness of Rape: Contentious Histories of Law, Feminism, and Forensic Science (University...
10
- Feb 5
- 4 min
'Forgetting Rape': Proprandolo
What if nurses in A&E wards or staff at rape crisis centres could give rape victims a drug that would make them feel emotionally composed...
40
- Feb 5
- 4 min
Domestic Violence During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic
In 1918-19, the world was in the midst of a global influenza pandemic, that killed 50 million people (more than the 1914-18 war). When...
40
- Feb 5
- 16 min
'Evil Women': Eve's Legacies
Evil women. This is the first of a series of blogs about evil women, so, before turning to Eve’s evil legacies, I want to draw attention...
120
- Feb 5
- 17 min
'Evil Women': Snow White and the Witch
Each generation invents evil. And evil women have incited our imaginations since Eve first plucked that apple. One of my favourites evil...
60
- Feb 5
- 22 min
'Evil Women': Amelia Dyer and Killing Babies
Amelia Dyer was a serial killer of babies and infants. She was the most prolific mass murderer (at least on British soil) in modern...
100
- Feb 5
- 17 min
'Evil Women': Mata Hari and the Femme Fatales
‘Sharing a Birthday with Mata Hari’ is a poem by Susan Gubernat: She refused the blindfold, faced twelve raised guns, Men’s erections so...
30
- Feb 5
- 16 min
'Evil Women': Nurse Ratched
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains, Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend More than cool reason ever comprehends. The lunatic,...
30
- Feb 5
- 18 min
'Evil Women': Myra Hindley on the Moors
Friday, 15 October 1965. Saddleworth Moor, near Oldham in Lancashire, England. On Boxing Day the previous year, Lesley Ann Downey...
00
- Feb 5
- 23 min
A (Very Short) History of Pain
Pain is a phantom, a spectre that haunts clinical encounters. Physical suffering is the chief symptom impelling people to seek medical...
50
- Feb 5
- 18 min
Murder, Women & Police Surgeons: A History
25 February 1946. ‘Poor Mary’ (a.k.a. Mary of Hendon) lies murdered in a field, her petticoats in disarray. Trainee detectives pile out...
10
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