Women's freedom to speak the truth must be protected

The National

24-06-2025

It's been almost 100 years since Virginia Woolf wrote these words, yet they could have been written yesterday. So too, perhaps, could the diary entry she wrote the day before
A Room Of One's Own was published, in which she took EM Forster's decision not to review it as an ominous sign: 'It makes me suspect that there is a shrill feminine tone in it which my intimate friends will dislike.'
It might seem odd that a celebrated writer who expressed her feminist views with such clarity and conviction would have had this wobble. But then, Woolf did not identify as a feminist – or at least not consistently so. In the same diary entry she fretted that she would be 'attacked for a feminist and hinted at for a sapphist', as if this might fatally undermine her argument that 'a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction'.
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Among those who did review the essay was Vita Sackville-West, Woolf's friend and (female) lover, who declared: 'Mrs Woolf is too sensible to be a thorough-going feminist.'
What, these days, might constitute a 'thorough-going feminist', from whom another woman of broadly feminist orientation might wish to distance herself?
Would it be she who insists that women's rights must be grounded in an objective definition of 'woman' or, alternatively, her counterpart who believes 'woman' should be a mixed-sex category based on self-identification?
Some would cite Woolf's gender-bending novel Orlando as evidence that she would be in the second group. It could equally be argued that the fantastical biography – inspired by the life of the aforementioned Sackville-West – was a product of its time that deployed the sex change of its protagonist to overcome in literature the sexual and financial barriers the woman faced in real life. Woolf herself was very conscious of her own privilege as a middle-class woman of means.
BBC newsreader Martine Croxall (pictured, second left) sought to 'tell the truth' on Sunday when reading a story about heat-related health risks.
Not, on the face of it, a controversial topic, but when she came to list the specific groups urged to take precautions, she faltered. The list included 'pregnant people', which she quickly corrected to 'women' with a split-second roll of her eyes.
It might seem absurd that this one word – and that barely perceptible gesture – would generate countless news stories, but in the current climate it is no surprise. 'I hope you don't get hauled before the BBC News beak', wrote one follower on X/Twitter. 'Braced x' was Croxall's reply.
It wouldn't be the first time Croxall had braced herself for conflict with the broadcaster's high heid yins. In March she was one of four female news presenters who agreed a settlement with the BBC over claims including sex and age discrimination in relation to a restructuring when its domestic and international news channels merged.
It's probably safe to say that her diary entry for Sunday night will not have featured any concerns about being too shrill, or being taken for a feminist.
The Times later reported that BBC bosses were 'intensely relaxed' about the script change, and that there was a 'groundswell of support internally for using 'honest language'.'
So did Croxall 'tell the truth', or did she express an opinion that she holds? And if there are competing versions of the truth, which opinion should a public broadcaster (or any media outlet) express?
By striking contrast, the word 'woman' was missing when LBC presenter Ali Miraj sought to make his point during a phone-in segment discussing potential regime change in Iran.
A caller highlighted that 'women are getting thrown off buildings' in that country (a reference to 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh and 17-year-old
Nika Shakarami, who died during protests against the death of a woman in the custody of the regime's 'morality police').
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In an extraordinary response, Miraj said that 'a lot of people might be disagreeing with the fact that people are scantily clad in Watford high street on a Saturday night vomiting into the gutter'.
Regardless of whether you agree with his central point – that the UK cannot go around intervening in every instance where it disagrees with the values of others – it was a very troubling comparison, made worse by the fact that he chose a very ethnically diverse English town for his example.
How interesting that he chose to refer to 'people', as opposed to the young women he was undoubtedly describing.
'Who cares?', I know many of you will be asking. What does this have to do with the price of groceries, the climate crisis, the cause of independence?
Perhaps not much. But perhaps more than you think. The freedom to speak the truth must be protected. Without truthful language, we cannot have truthful campaigning. If everything is simply a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact, how can any politician be held to account for misrepresenting the facts, or telling outright lies?
And if large numbers of women are too fearful to speak the truth, in case their 'shrill feminine tone' or versions of the truth will upset their intimate friends – or indeed their employers – where does that leave feminism?
It certainly doesn't help the women who are 'falling' off roofs in Iran. On the contrary, it has created a disastrous rift in a feminist movement that is needed now more than ever, the whole world over.