It’s International Women’s Day today and I’ve been thinking about the women who inspired me. On Friday I was at the unveiling of a Blue Plaque to one very inspirational woman – Bristol-born suffragette Emmeline Pethick Lawrence. She was brought up in Weston-super-Mare and the Plaque was placed on her childhood home, Lewisham House, 80 Bristol Road Lower, Weston-super-Mare. Afterwards, I spoke at a panel event which was part of Weston-super-Mare Literature Festival. W riter and explorer Jacki Hill-Murphy told us all about some remarkable women travellers, including Isabella Bird whose biography she’s just written. Biographer Kathryn Atherton , author of Suffragette Planners and Plotters: The Pankhurst/Pethick-Lawrence Story , shared Emmeline Pethick Lawrence’s remarkable story with us. I gave a short talk about one of my own Inspirational Women – Mary Wollstonecraft. Here is the text of the talk, in which I explain why she is, for me, such an Inspirational Woman. ...

When I was in London a few days ago I spent an enjoyable afternoon strolling around the Houses of Parliament and viewing the statues of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union, and suffragist Millicent Garratt Fawcett, leader of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies. Standing in the middle of Parliament Square on a cold, gloomy day with traffic going about its business, tourists going about their pleasure, and office workers going about their lunch, it was sobering to think of all the dreadful scenes that had taken place there just over a hundred years ago. When I shut my eyes many horribly familiar images rose up in my imagination. Of women attempting to deliver petitions to the House of Commons being set upon by police and thugs, kicked, knocked to the ground, and in some cases sexually assaulted. Of women having their clothes torn and their hair pulled out. Of women arrested, including Mrs Pankhurst herself. A suffra...