Saturday 2nd May 2026
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Christina Lamb on women’s writing and journalism

Christina Lamb
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Christina Lamb on women’s writing and journalism

This week, Christina Lamb guest edited the Culture section. Below is her editorial and her Rewind article. It was a pleasure to work with her, and we hope that you enjoy her illuminating insights.
Benn and Daniel

When the two male editors of Culture asked me to guest edit this special women’s edition, I thought it was very timely—expecting that by now we would have the first woman President of the United States and it could be a celebration of all things female.

Things didn’t quite work out that way. Not only did that glass ceiling fail to shatter but the man who held it up was a sexual predator who made derogatory comments about women. However, as Hillary said in her concession speech, “I know we have still not shattered that highest and hardest glass ceiling, but someday, someone will.”

And meanwhile women are breaking barriers. We, in the UK, have our second female Prime Minister and plenty to celebrate here in Oxford which of course got its first female Vice-Chancellor this year. Under her guidance, hopefully the University will do more to promote the work of women writers, poets, thinkers and scientists in its courses.

As for women of the future, if the quality of contributions for this edition is anything to go by, we are in safe hands. Sadly, we did not have space for all, but here today is some fabulous writing on and by women.

When I joined Cherwell way back in 1984 and submitted my stories to a male editor and male news editor, Britain was under its first female Prime Minister.

Three decades and several national newspaper jobs later, we now have a second female Prime Minister, but I am still yet to work for a female editor or news editor.

This is concerning as men and women have a different way of looking at things. In my field, which is conflict reporting, my male colleagues tend to be more interested in the ‘bang bang’, while we female reporters prefer to concentrate on the people behind the lines trying to keep life together, who are usually women. And we see them as heroines not as victims.

So whatever I might report, the person deciding what actually goes into the newspaper—and with what prominence—is a man.

My own career was very much helped by a woman and fellow Oxford graduate—and an unexpected invitation to a wedding. After graduating I spent a few weeks as an intern at the Financial Times and one day the foreign editor sent me in his stead to a lunch of South Asian politicians. This led to an interview with Benazir Bhutto, then Pakistan’s opposition leader living in exile in London. The day I met her she announced her engagement, and some months later, I got home from work to find a gold engraved invitation on my door mat.

Benazir’s wedding in December 1987 was my first visit to Pakistan and an incredible introduction to the country. The ceremonies were as colourful and magical as something out of the Arabian Nights and followed by long discussions with her political colleagues fighting to topple the military dictator. When a fortune-telling parakeet on Karachi beach told me I would return shortly, it was right.

As a journalist I see myself as a storyteller and I guess it can’t be a coincidence that many of the stories I have chosen to tell have been those of young women. In recent years I have been lucky to work on books with two very inspiring 16 year olds—Malala, the girl shot by the Taliban, and Nujeen, a disabled girl from Aleppo who taught herself English by watching soap-operas and made the journey to safety in Germany in a wheelchair.

And it turns out I am not the only one whose life was changed by Benazir. She introduced another fellow Oxford graduate, then Theresa Brasier, to Philip May, now Britain’s First Husband.

Corbyn speaks in Oxford ahead of NHS “funeral procession”

Ellen Peirson-Hagger
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Corbyn speaks in Oxford ahead of NHS “funeral procession”

Jeremy Corbyn pledged to “defend our NHS” during a speech in Oxford on Saturday morning, ahead of a 200-strong “funeral procession” for the NHS in Oxfordshire.

The Labour leader addressed a crowd at St Mary and St John church in East Oxford as part of the NHS action day, led by the Labour Party and campaign groups across the country.

Following Corbyn’s talk approximately 200 people took part in a procession, which was led by Keep Our NHS Public and Hands Off Our NHS.

Corbyn himself did not participate in the march, which started in Manzil Way at midday. Campaigners carried cardboard NHS coffins and wore Jeremy Hunt masks.

During his speech, Corbyn pledged to “put social care back in the public hands”, as well as addressing attitudes towards mental health.

He said, “We’ve got millions of people who support us. We can change attitudes by our own approach and our own attitude. No more jokes about people going through depression. No more jokes about people going through a crisis. Support them. Just as much as you would support someone who had a physical illness or an injury.”

Oxford University Labour Club (OULC) Secretary Thomas Zagoria told Cherwell, “Corbyn echoed Nye Bevan in forcefully calling for folk to fight for our NHS. Afterwards he mingled with us – the overwhelming impression he gives off when you meet him is kindliness.

“Having lived in the US, I know how important the NHS is. That the NHS is underfunded and understaffed is something everyone on the left, and most people across the political spectrum, can agree on. Corbyn has done a brilliant job in articulating that sentiment, in my opinion.”

A spokesperson for OULC told Cherwell , “We were delighted to see many labour members, including those in our club, get out and back the NHS. We know that only Labour will run the NHS we all need.”

In a post on Facebook, Labour Councillor Dan Iley-Williamson, who is also a student at Queen’s, wrote, “Today Labour held a national campaign day on the NHS, and here in Oxford we were lucky enough to be joined by Jeremy Corbyn.

“The crisis the NHS is facing is of the Tory’s making. They are defunding it and driving it to ruin. This is, I think, part of a strategy of undermining the NHS, creating a serious crisis within it, only then to offer “reform” (i.e. privatisation) as the solution.

“This must be fought with the utmost intensity. This is not only because free at the point of use healthcare is so important, but also because of the ideal the NHS represents – that access to services should be determined by need, not ability to pay. This ideal underpins the sort of society Labour is fighting for, and which together we can build.”

Merton finalist Harry Gosling told Cherwell, “Whilst this march was reasonably small, supporting the Health Service is certainly a worthy cause. Though the protesters, and people more generally, should recognise that the NHS’s problems extend far beyond shortfalls in funding.”

As part the NHS action day, campaigners also manned stalls around Oxford and Labour members went door-to door, spreading concerns about cuts to healthcare services.

Iris Murdoch’s Oxford Life

Benn Sheridan
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Iris Murdoch’s Oxford Life

“People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.” This line appears towards the close of A Fairly Honourable Defeat, Iris Murdoch’s thirteenth novel, from 1970. As far as literary years go, 1970 does not stand up well. That year, the Booker Prize switched its requirements: whereas up until 1970, it judged books published in the preceding year, thereafter, from 1971, the prize was awarded to books published the same year as the award. This meant that all books published in 1970 were ineligible. Forty years on, her novel was amongst those selected for the ‘Lost Booker’, a testament to Murdoch’s enduring presence as a voice for the silenced.

I say this because in her novels and her philosophy, the subject she tutored at St Anne’s between 1948 and 1963, she sought to emphasise the inherent virtuosity of the inner life, a life untrammelled by notions of gender, sexuality or faith. In Oxford, her mark can be found not just in Anne’s, but in Somerville, where she was a first class Classicist, and Lady Margaret Hall, in whose gardens she was accustomed to go wandering. It must have grated that this avowed believer of ungendered morality should be compelled to remain within the academic confines of three then-female colleges, for Murdoch her womanhood an irrelevance compared to the cogency of her intellectual life. She would undoubtedly be proud to see that in 2016, women can be found in every College and PPH, from Hilda’s to St Benet’s Hall.

In 1996, her final novel, Jackson’s Dilemma, was criticised for its lack of cogency and reliance on tropes and clichés. A reviewer from the New York Times commented, “The story is a psychologically rich tale of romances thwarted and revived. The writing is a mess”. Few knew at that time that Murdoch was in the early stages of Alzheimers Disease. Within three years she was dead. But her mark on Oxford, where she demasculinised the profession of philosophy, and gave aspiring female authors a consummate intellectual to emulate, is indelible. And as for the flowers she loved so much? In those same gardens of LMH is a bench, dedicated to her memory, and ensconced by flowers. Visit, and be “mad with joy” in turn.

Love in a Renault Clio

Susannah Goldsbrough
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Love in a Renault Clio

Long car journeys will always mean Nancy Mitford to me. To preserve their sanity on a three-hour weekly round trip down the M4 with two small children, my parents tried every audiobook they could lay their hands on. At some point we discovered Love in a Cold Climate. On the face of it, a plot largely based on sex scandals was an odd choice for under tens. But strangely enough, of all the writers I was exposed to in the back of that Renault, it is Mitford who has stayed with me. As Prunella Scales’ drawl rumbled through the car like boozy steam off a Christmas pudding, the wasted hours magically lost their tedium.

In my memory, the grey drizzle of the M4 catches the sparkle of Cedric’s diamond studded turban, the hedgerows hide a pack of mud splashed, child-chasing bloodhounds and the heavy cloud morphs into white panels of floating taffeta. I roll unfamiliar words round my mouth like strange sugary sweets: “chub fuddler”; “lecherous lecturer”; “rampant vulgarity”. I imagine eating kippers at a weekend house party, wearing green velvet and silver to dinner, falling in love and falling out of it. And most of all I remember laughing. Because Nancy Mitford is one of the funniest writers ever to have put fountain pen to paper.

There is a wickedness to her humour that can’t be resisted. Take The Pursuit of Love’s heroine Linda’s throw away comment about her Communist friends: “Just at the moment he’s writing a book on famine—goodness! It’s sad—and there’s a dear little Chinese comrade who comes and tells him what famine is like, you never saw such a fat man in your life.” In a single detail, playing on the trope of the entitled upper classes trying to speak for the suffering millions, Mitford manages to make an entire political movement look idiotic.

Authentic English aristocrat as she was, Mitford recognised the absurdity of her world and mocked it with merciless glee. Like Dickens, she had a knack for noticing small eccentricities and translating them into defining characteristics. The result is a magnificent cast of characters hovering just the right side of credibility. “Wonderful old” Lord Montdore who might just as well have been made out of “wonderful old cardboard”, Davey who believes in getting drunk as “challenge to the metabolism” and Uncle Mathew, who wages guerrilla warfare against his housemaids but weeps over sentimental songs.

Mitford is deeply unfashionable, dismissed as a writer twentieth century chick-lit with inane romance plots that never extend beyond the ballroom into the real world. But these detractors can’t have read her work very thoroughly. The opening page of The Pursuit of Love has an underlying note of melancholy as “the minutes, the days, the years, the decades take [the family] further and further from the happiness and promise of youth”. It is not difficult here to draw a connection between the fictional Radlett family and Nancy’s own. Often remembered simply for their eccentricity, the real tragedy of the Mitfords, torn apart by political and sexual scandal, is surely present in the despondency of these lines.

Mitford is often written off as frivolous simply by virtue of being so funny. But there is nothing surprising in the idea of comedy and tragedy existing in close relation. Linda’s story has notes of the tragic bored by one husband, abandoned by another, she finally finds love only to have it snatched cruelly away.

Yet you would never think of Linda as a tragic heroine. She is far too ready to treat her life as an elaborate joke, heedless of reality. In this she is rather like her creator, who wrote her great love Gaston Palewski into her works, only altering the fact that the fictional Palewski returns Linda’s love whereas the real Palewski never did return Mitford’s. She turned her personal tragedy into a bitter literary joke for generations to enjoy.

She is the voice of a lost world, glamorising debutantes and duchesses and then corroding them with her acid observations. When you read a Mitford novel you are only ever a couple of sentences away from laughing out loud but perhaps more interestingly from profound sadness. She mixed tragedy and comedy in her own creative cocktail and then tossed it back like the true party girl she was. Read her to laugh or read her to cry but whatever you do, read Nancy Mitford.

One thing I’d change about Oxford… Hacking

Maxim Parr-Reid
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One thing I’d change about Oxford… Hacking

With different elections happening this week and the next, students appear to be driven by a very clear purpose: they are fighting like rats in a sack, jostling for a small clutch of prestigious society positions. Indeed, you would be forgiven if you thought that it’s all about “political hacking” for most Oxford students.

For many people, joining societies isn’t so much about hacking as meeting new people and friends. Societies continue to attract such people, no matter how ubiquitous the hacking is or how brazen the smear campaigns are.

Yet, when it becomes clear, as it will, that people only meet you for coffee, and that such meetings are only engineered to extract loyalty and votes, new members of societies will become cynical and suspicious. And if you don’t lend your vote to one slate, that just leaves you open to the hacking tactics of another faction. We should beware of late night invitations to Missing Bean or Pret.

Hardly anything in Oxford is untouched by the culture of hacking. This makes our ability to find genuine, like-minded people in doubt. Some hacks even organise special meetings to show how desperate they are to get votes. More experienced, wiser students will tell you that the hacking culture, and the snakes it creates, has put off many students from joining societies.

No wonder that societies already face a severe identity crisis. This is in part because of the snakes that abound, combined with the image of societies being dominated by public schoolboys, have prompted many to boycott such societies.

If societies fail to make it clear to outsiders they’ve more to off er than an omnipresent, omniscient culture of hacking, many more will be put off . That would be a shame, because Oxford’s societies do have many great things to off er to those who join them.

Sustainable journalism?

Stephen Lezak
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Sustainable journalism?

In October the International Energy Agency published a report announcing that new installations of renewable energy sources outnumber their fossil fuel-based counterparts for the first time in history. The news, included in the IEA’s annual five-year energy forecast, made headlines in several major media outlets, including the BBC and Bloomberg.

In one sense, this announcement was critically overdue. Meeting global targets for climate stabilisation, such as those set in Paris last December, will require a steep rise in renewable energy investment relative to recent years’ commitments. This was made clear in some news articles but had a notable absence from others.

This raises an interesting question: should findings such as these be reported simply as single, isolated sustainability victories or rather as important but incremental steps towards a still-distant goal?

The unyielding optimist would see the report as a sure sign that climate change will soon be consigned to the history shelf, alongside the now-healing ozone layer. By contrast, a pessimistic outlook might describe the news as the carbon equivalent of arriving at the train station in time to watch your train leaving the platform, too late to get on board. The space between these poles is a wide expanse of journalistic discretion.

These choices matter. The framing of environmental news shapes the opinion of readers. Journalists reporting on sustainability would undoubtedly benefit from understanding how their outlook on climate change affects their audience.

In recent years, social scientists have set out to engage with this particular issue. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown that reading an optimistic message about climate change will lead people to report, on average, greater belief that global warming is real. Meanwhile, a more ominous message increases scepticism. The authors suggest that, for many people, it is cognitively easier to deny the existence of climate change than to accept the serious implications of an unfolding global crisis.

On the other hand, overly-positive framing may be just as harmful. An article last year in ThinkProgress described the Paris climate accord as “literally world-changing.” It suggests that the agreement is likely to set off a cascade of economic and technological developments that will halt rising greenhouse gas emissions. A reader is left with the impression that, unless something goes terribly wrong, humanity is on a paved path toward a low-carbon future. These tradeoffs continue to confound independent journalism.

Evidently, a balance is required. Newsrooms should bear in mind that what they write and the content they omit can have unintended consequences. The idea that an article might contain ‘just the facts’ should be retired in the context of sustainability—which facts are reported and which are left out will necessarily colour a story, despite the best intentions to avoid bias. Ideally readers would also respond critically to stories that present climate change either as an impending apocalypse or a solved problem.

The movement toward a more liveable planet requires enormous changes to the way we produce and use energy, but above all it requires a shift in our thinking. Reporting should empower even as it emphasizes the magnitude of the task at hand. Finding this journalistic balance will play an essential role in the movement towards a more sustainable planet.

A pioneer erased: Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Alice Townson
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A pioneer erased: Sister Rosetta Tharpe

If someone were to ask if you’d ever heard of an artist named Sister Rosetta Tharpe, what would you say? Granted, if it was your mate with loads of vinyl who always scoffs and says, “What do you mean you don’t have a record player?”, you might try and feign some sort of vague knowledge, but if we’re being honest with each other, you haven’t heard of her. Most people haven’t.

At least not until 2011, when BBC Four aired an hour long documentary entitled ‘The Godmother of Rock & Roll.’ The “original soul sister” deserves your attention. Born in 1915, a decade before Chuck Berry, to two cotton pickers in Arkansas, Sister Rosetta Tharpe would go on to be one of the best and most exciting guitar players America had ever seen.

She attended the Church of God in Christ (CGIC), a domination known for its musical expression and its progressive view on gender roles within the Church. She first picked up a guitar at the age of six and spent the rest of her childhood touring the US with her mother before they moved to Chicago where she continued to perform.

By 1938, her first marriage to preacher Thomas Thorpe (from whom she adopted her stage name) having failed, she moved to New York to further her musical career, appearing at John Hammond’s ‘Spirituals to Swing’ concert at Carnegie Hall in the same year. Sister Rosetta was ground-breaking—not only was she black, not only was she a woman, but she also also dared to mix gospel and secular music, even when met with criticism and abuse.

Her critics, and also her fans, would often say of her that she could “play like a man” but one look at her performances tells you that she could play far better and in a far more modern way than anyone else, woman, man or otherwise, in the late 1930s and 40s. Gordon Stoker says of her guitar skills that, “she did incredible picking. That’s what attracted Elvis to her. He liked her singing, too. But he liked her picking first, because it was so different.”

This comment may appear flattering, but it is symptomatic of the way that Sister Rosetta is constantly discussed and remembered amongst music critics and historians: always in reference to the men who came after her, who were ‘more important’ than her, whom she influenced. She is constantly cited as a ‘pioneer’ of rock’n’roll or a major influence on artists like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash and Little Richard, but she was, in her own right, an astounding musician.

Her daring was even such that it would spell her demise. In the early 1950s, Sister Rosetta attempted to blend gospel with blues, but consequently became so unpopular with her conservative gospel fans that, by the end of the decade, she had been dropped by her record label, Decca. She was able to continue to perform right up until her death thanks to an invitation to tour the UK with trombonist Chris Barber in 1957 and her resulting European fan base, but her reputation in the US had been marred not only by criticism from gospel-lovers, but also with accusations of bisexuality.

She died of a stroke in 1973 and was buried in an unmarked grave. A posthumous revival has been sparked due to praise from Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, but it is important that we do not remember her as an influence on the male artists that came after her. Rather, we should recognise her astounding musical talent in its own right, viewing her as testament to the continuing whitewashing and sexism of rock’n’roll.

Acid leak at Brookes

Sophie Jordan
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Acid leak at Brookes

Several teams of firefighters were called to Brookes University yesterday after a dangerous chemical leak was detected in the Sinclair building.

The South Central Ambulance Service treated one man on the site for breath­ing difficulties, but no other casualties were reported.

Students and staff working in the sur­rounding parts of the campus on Head­ington road had to be evacuated at 11am. The area stayed empty until the site was declared safe again.

The leak was the result of an incident in the Sinclair laboratories for Health and Life sciences. The labs were kept closed by the security services for a few hours in order to ensure that there was no remaining risk of contamination.

Crews from Oxfordshire Fire and Res­cue, three fire engines and a Hazardous Decontamination Unit all rapidly ar­rived at the scene from Slade, Abingdon and Didcot as well as an ambulance from the South Central service.

The incident was described as “a chemical/hazardous material incident” by the firefighters, according to County council Paul Smith who talked to the Oxford Mail directly after the events yes­terday. “The situation is under control and has been made safe and firefighters ex­pect to be able to leave the scene within the next hour,” Paul Smith added.

Natalie Gidley, spokeswoman for Brookes University, told the Oxford Mail, “It’s as a result of an incident involving a chemical spill in one of the labs in the Sinclair building. “The building has been temporar­ily closed and evacuated and we think it will be shut for two or three hours.”

The Sinclair building is situated in the centre of Brookes’ main campus on Headington road. The John Henry Brookes building opposite it houses the main reception along with Brookes Union, cafes and a library.

Other buildings in Headington are currently closed for refurbishment, in­cluding the Clerici building which will offer new research offices and science laboratories.

Paris: One year on in state of emergency

John Mainland
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Paris: One year on in state of emergency

One year ago, following the horrific terrorist attacks in Paris at the Bataclan theatre and the Stade de France, French President Francois Hollande declared a state of emergency—an exceptional situation reserved for periods of existential threat to the Republic. In the name of combatting terrorism, police officers across the country have been authorised to undertake “administrative searches” at their discretion. Within two months of the declaration, 3021 searches had taken place across the country, with more than 500 illegal weapons seized. The state of emergency will remain in force until January of next year.

Criticism of the policy is widespread. Groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Défenseur des Droits have claimed that the State of Emergency has been used as a justification for increased racial profiling by the police without the requirement of any prior judicial authorisation. Pierre Alonso, writing for Libération, has strongly criticised the perceived arbitrariness of the measures taken, noting that the overwhelming majority of them have affected Muslims.

Yet, walking around Paris nothing seems to have changed enormously. Beneath the surface though, tensions are simmering. You get your first hint of this at any of the city’s large metro stations when you find yourself weaving around obelisk-like soldiers who, absurdly powerful guns in hand, silently stare down the passengers getting off each incoming train.

One evening at Sacré-Cœur, I see two young Arab men being searched by police. A young woman, a scarf relaxedly tied around her head, is sitting on a bench next to them—staring with a patient blankness into the space in front of her. The whole process is astonishingly undignified; the men are spun around, with the armed officers brusquely patting them down. Items are snatched out of their pockets; phones, wallets, tissues and handwritten notes—all of which are intensely scrutinised. Finally one officer gives a nod and, without a word, the police disperse back into the throngs of selfie-stick wielding tourists. They’d found nothing

Afterwards I wander over to the group, who are still sitting on the bench. Nobody seems to be in the mood for questions. In fact there’s a fair bit of nervous shuffling after I say I’m writing an article, and when I ask for their names the response is a curt “we’re from the Maghreb.” Once I start asking questions about the search itself though, the young woman opens up. Gesticulating towards me with an intensity of feeling that had been nowhere to be seen during the minutes prior she exclaims “they see exactly what they want to see, two men of colour”, grabbing the skin on one of the men’s arm as if to clarify. “For them that’s enough.”

The French Interior Minister, Bernard Cazaneuve, has repeatedly iterated that the police will continue to operate in a manner consistent with the rule of law, and that the State of Emergency will not be permanent. However, with Amnesty International declaring the “restrictions of human rights” were “beyond what was strictly required by the exigencies of the situation”, and the current state of emergency already having been extended three times, the reality of these statements remains in question.

Oxford Union election results released

Katherine Pye
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Oxford Union election results released

The Oxford Union have announced the results of Michaelmas Term elections 2016. Michael Li, who ran unopposed, will become President in Trinity Term 2017, receiving 822 votes.

The incoming President-Elect told Cherwell, “I’m very much looking forward to being part of one of the strongest and most diverse committees in my time at the Union. I would like to thank everybody for their encouragement and support during this election, and in particular those who took time out to come to the Union on Friday, whoever they chose to vote for”.

The position of Librarian-Elect in Hilary 2017 will be filled by Henry Kitchen, who received 759 votes. Laali Vadlamani will become Treasurer-Elect next term, elected by 827 first preferences. Both ran unopposed and will fill their respective positions in Trinity 2017.

Elected into the office of Secretary for Hilary 2017 is Gui Cavalcanti, with 800 votes.

The five positions in Standing Committee, which all also ran unopposed will be filled next term by Jack Symonds (252 votes), Maan Al-Yasiri (225 votes), Melissa Hinkley (222 votes), Simon Jagoe (187 votes) and Ed Evans (163 votes).

The eleven members elected Secretaries Committee for Hilary 2017 are as follows:

Andrew Ng (155)

Stephen Horvath (116)

Myah Popat (83)

Sabriyah Saeed (73)

Vivien Hasan (70)

Jan Bialas (69)

Redha Rubaie (68)

Minal Haq (67)

Flora Spielman (62)

Kareem Belo-Osagie (61)

Kir Mary West-Hunter (53)

Flora Spielman, elected to Secretaries Committee told Cherwell, “my step count says I walked further on Friday than any other day for years, so at least I got some exercise in. Sorry and thank you to everyone I hacked.”

Zach Klamann, Magdalen second year commented, “there was nothing democratic about this result. So many positions running unopposed is hardly an election.”

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