Women’s rage is at an all-time high, and I’m not surprised

A new poll has found women are getting angrier. Not just here in the UK but the world over. In 150 countries, during the last 10 years, the fury has been growing from a simmering “WTF” to an all-out red-hot rage. A decade ago men and women reported the same levels of anger and stress. Yet 10 years later and the women surveyed are angrier than men by some margin — and it’s been worse since the pandemic.

So what’s happened? Are women really filled with more fury than before or, rather, have we just found our voice? I’m afraid to say, from where I’m standing, there is a lot to be angry about.

Covid had a disproportionate effect on women’s employment. The Fawcett Society have declared that “women’s workplace equality will have been set back decades by this crisis”. Thirty-five per cent of working mothers were forced to lose or quit work, they said. Studies have shown that childcare, homeschooling and the bulk of the general humdrum chores fell predominantly to women.

As if the extra stress and tedium wasn’t unwelcome enough, as job security fell, domestic violence rose. There was a seven per cent growth in reported domestic abuse and the number of women killed was the highest recorded for 11 years. Sexual assaults were up 13 per cent in 2021 and the number of rapes made for another depressing record-breaking figure, all while rape prosecutions collapsed and the brutal murders of people like Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa brought into terrifying focus how unsafe women and girls had been feeling in the capital. Meanwhile, the people meant to protect us (the Met) were found to be institutionally misogynistic.

Away from violence and inequity, women’s health remains an afterthought. According to the Care Quality Commission, two in five maternity units in England are providing “substandard care to mothers and babies.”

Elsewhere, the overturning of Roe vs Wade and the rolling back of abortion laws in the US sent fear down the spines of women around the world. That’s nothing compared to what the women of Afghanistan have been enduring as their rights to education, work and freedom were rolled back overnight.

Last summer, Turkey withdrew from an international treaty designed to protect women from violence. In Iran, a woman was arrested for wearing skinny jeans and beaten to death by the so-called morality police. This month, we’re supposed to be enjoying a World Cup in a country where women are required to have a guardian to marry, travel and study abroad.

Then there are the microaggressions, like last week when New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern was asked by a male reporter if she was meeting the Finnish PM Sanna Marin because they are both young and female. She picked him apart and it was a joy to watch. But, mostly, I’m afraid, there is definitely a lot to be angry about.

Farewell, Fenwicks

I was shocked by how sad I felt at the news that Fenwick’s on New Bond Street is closing after 130 years. It’s been sold for a reported £430million to the Lazari family, who say it will create a “mixed use development.”

Fenwick’s was always a sanctuary to me. If the frenzied crush of Oxford Street or the hormonal teenage scrum of Topshop (also RIP) became too much, it was to Fenwick’s that I would retreat.