The power of the pen

Published by Karen Hands on

These days, it’s the keyboard I turn to rather than a pen and paper when I want to write, but the image is as powerful as ever. Whether spoken or written, women’s voices don’t yet achieve the prominence they warrant. Three years ago, I wrote the first draft of a book about the gender agenda but felt that it didn’t do sufficient justice to my message. Since then, real life has got in the way!

Writing is a habit and this blog is part of my strategy for getting back into that habit. If you subscribe to the blog, you’ll also receive my quarterly Editorial, which includes a slightly longer feature article with news updates. Be sure to register if you want to keep in touch: I write when I’ve got something to say, so I doubt if you’ll feel inundated with my updates. I listen to the advice of social media specialists and then apply my own standards of behaviour.

This month, so many potential blog topics have crossed my mind. I could write about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, saying we’ve got twelve years to act to keep global warming to the almost-manageable rise of 1.5 deg C. I could comment on how each of us picks and chooses which bit to apply, so we end up with a piecemeal response. I haven’t owned a car for over 12 years. Some of my friends have stopped eating meat. It’s similar to the behaviour I observe in people of religious faith: we all pick and choose the bits to which we can adapt without stretching our comfort zone too far.

Another potential topic was the hearings leading up to the swearing-in of Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court. I had a mental picture of large numbers of women at one end of a see-saw, trying to add enough weight to counter one man’s voice. How many of us does it take, to get the message across?

Then there’s the news that Cuadrilla have started fracking at Preston New Road in Lancashire, where all the voices saying ‘LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND’ have been drowned out. Apparently the discipline of economics is too short-term to consider what happens when you destroy the very resources on which our life depends, despite the obvious truth and overwhelming evidence of long-term effects. Look no further than that IPCC Report.

As I write, investigations are ongoing into the disappearance of Saudi dissident and Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It doesn’t look promising. It’s a bad time for freedom of speech around the world, which is why we all have a duty to speak up when it matters. I’m back at my keyboard, re-working my book, and I use this blog to test out some of my ideas and interpretations. I hope you’ll be inspired to write too, whether as comments to my post or under your own banner. Give me the chance to speak about my opinions in public, and I’ll take that platform too.


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