Pippa: Hello and welcome to FiLiA Podcasts; building sisterhood and solidarity, amplifying the voices of women, and defending women's human rights. I'm Pippa Banham, trainee solicitor at Suffolk Law Centre, and I am absolutely delighted to have with me today, Harriet Wistrich, founder and director of the Centre for Women's Justice. Welcome Harriet, and thank you so much for sharing your time so generously with us at FiLiA. 

 Harriet: Lovely to join you, and FiLiA is a great organisation, so really happy to input in any way. 

 Pippa: Thank you. Thank you very much. So first, a short intro about you, Harriet – actually, you don't really need very much introduction because you're so very well-known - but just to let everybody know: you’re a solicitor of 25 years’ experience, who worked for many years with a renowned civil liberties firm, Birnberg Peirce Limited.

 She's the winner of Liberty Human Rights Lawyer of the Year Award 2014, Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year for 2018 for public law, and the Law Society Gazette Personality of the Year 2019.

 Harriet has worked on many high profile cases around violence against women, including on behalf of women who've challenged the police and parole board in the John Worboys case, women deceived in relationships by undercover police officers, and on behalf of women appealing murder convictions for killing abusive partners, most recently Sally Challen. 

 Harriet is also founder member of the campaign group Justice for Women, and trustee of the charity The Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize. So yeah, quite an impressive roundup there, Harriet, and we're just scratching the surface. Also, I just wanted to mention, if anyone's listening and is interested, you can learn more about Harriet's life from her First 100 Years biography, which celebrates women in law since 1919. So that's also a great listen. 

 But today, we are going to be in conversation with Harriet talking about her work at the Centre for Women's Justice, her activism, and also her feminist philosophy. So if we could get started with the Centre for Women's Justice, can you tell me what prompted you to set it up and how you managed that process?

 Harriet: Yeah. So I had the idea of something along those lines for really quite a long time. I've been a legal aid working in a legal aid practice for many years, I've always been very much a committed feminist, and so although my area of work was not specific to women, because of my feminism as I gained more experience I began to specialise and take cases on that were more specifically around feminist issues.

 I was working primarily in the field of ‘police actions’ or actions against the police and a bit of public law, but I had also a little sideline in criminal appeals, because of my experience of working first on the case of Emma Humphreys, and then later a number of other appeals of women who'd been convicted of killing violent partners.

 But in relation to the police action work, you know, the sort of work was primarily focused around people being wrongly arrested, assaulted, or sometimes killed by the police, and so on, and that was the sort of main focus of that police action work. But particularly after the advent of the Human Rights Act, there seemed to be ways in which one could help not just people accused of crimes but also those who were victims of crimes get access to justice.

 Because of my feminist connections I had over the years often been approached by women who've been really badly let down, by the police or the Crown Prosecution Service or others, and, you know, had failed to get justice, you know, had failed, you know, the police hadn't investigated their cases properly, et cetera, et cetera.

 And so I had been looking into bringing cases, or advising them in some way or other, and had found various routes. But it was pretty difficult to get access to justice for victims. With the Human Rights Act, we kind of realised that there may be a way to challenge the - much challenged but unsuccessfully challenged - idea that police are immune in suit from negligence.

 So basically, whilst most other state organisations that mess up, you know, seriously mess up and cause damage, you can sue them for negligence. It's always been the case, tested to the highest courts on a number of occasions, that you couldn't sue the police for a negligent investigation.

 Interestingly enough, the big test case around that was also on violence against women. That was the case of the mother of the last victim of the Yorkshire Ripper, who tried to do West Yorkshire Police for their very, very serious failings. But the courts said that you couldn't bring that kind of action.

 But through the Human Rights Act, we were able to find a different route, holding the police accountable for their failures. And we did that in the case involving the taxi driver, John Worboys, and the serious failures in the police to investigate a series of complaints they received about his sexual assaults of women.

 So in any event, as a result of that work and other cases, and one or two other lawyers, it seemed to me that there was a place for an organisation that could potentially develop this practice of, you know, specialist practice of getting justice for victims of violence against women and girls and to bring forward strategic litigation. So it was an idea I'd had, I'd tried to get off the ground a few times.

 But when you’re working as a solicitor, as you will no doubt find out, Pippa, if you haven't already, it's pretty much full on all the time. So having time to set up an organisation, you know, with some ambitions like that is not something that's very easy to do. So what eventually led me to setting up the centre was when I took a three month, sort of, sabbatical break in 2015.

 I did some traveling and I was, at that stage, I was thinking about, “what do I want to do with my life? Do I want to carry on working where I've been working, do I want to…” you know, I had various different ideas and I was traveling with a friend, you know, an old friend of mine who had done some coaching and she, you know, kind of said, “let's talk this through, talk through your various ideas.”

 And as a consequence of those conversations together, you know, she said, “you know, you've got a very clear idea of this project, and really, you know, whilst you've still got a bit of time off before you go back, you should do a feasibility study, you should look into whether it's possible to set this up.” 

 And she gave me a bit of guidance, cause she's somebody who works really in a much more sort of… in a different area, not law at all, but one where you, kind of, think about funding and proposals and so on. And so she gave me some tips, really about how to formulate the idea of the centre in a very clear way.

 And then, you know, and then I went around with the idea that I’d formulated, and spoke to lots of women's organisations just to say, “what do you think? Do you think this would be welcome? Would I be treading on your toes?” And not just women's organisations, but some others as well. Anyway, universally people said, “no, this is so needed, you know, you must do this if you can.”

 So in the process of that, kind of, consultation, I spoke to a couple of women who said, “look, there's actually a fund at the moment, Baring Foundation, we've got this funding called ‘strengthening the voluntary sector’,” I think, “and it sounds like your project idea fits perfectly into that.” So I decided that I would try to get some money and talk to the grant giver there, and he said, “it does sound like a really great idea. Why don't you apply for some seed funding?” So that's what I did. 

 Pippa: Well that's, yeah, that's really interesting cause I did want to ask you about, you know, funding is always the biggie, isn't it? Was it just luck that your idea just fitted with that particular seed funding grant or…? 

 Harriet: Well, I mean, obviously it was luck that that particular funding grant became available at the same time as I was conceptualising something that was very much along the lines that they were imagining. Obviously that was just some money to start the organisation off.

 And it was after that really, that having got the organisation going at the beginning - and that was mainly a kind of outreach process, of kind of going around the country, talking to people, kind of bringing together - and the whole concept of Centre for Women's Justice is really to have a very collaborative approach to legal work.

 So to work very closely with the frontline, with activists, with survivors, and with other experts including, you know, academics who are specialists in the subject and others who could input. Go forward, you know, with strength. And so we did a sort of year of outreach around that. And, you know, the more the work of the Centre developed, the more it, you know, it just seemed to be so, so much what everyone wanted.

 So we, you know, since that time, you know, I mean, I was just initially on the seed funding working a day a week, and still working my other practice, and gradually over time I managed to get additional funding. We then applied for a legal aid contract so we could actually take cases and get some funding for those cases through legal aid. 

 Pippa: So what are your legal aid contracts then, at CWJ? 

 Harriet: Well, they're in what's known, is called now, civil actions against public authorities, and public law, which is… review kind of cases. What we don't have is a criminal contract, which is, you know, cause we do do some, or we would like to do some criminal cases. 

 But what we've evolved as an idea is to have a lawyer's reference panel. So we have nearly 200 lawyers on that panel. So the idea is, as well as bringing strategic litigation, we also refer cases to specialist lawyers who have some insight and understanding.

 And we also do a lot of work training the frontline, training all the organisations that provide frontline support to victims, survivors, and training them specifically in understanding where there are kind of duties that may be enforceable in law of the police or other criminal justice agencies, to understand what sort of remedies are available so that, you know, it adds to the effectiveness of the advocacy of those organisations basically. 

 Pippa: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, no, it's really interesting to hear how it's a two-way process of the advocacy going in and out of the organisation, and using the reference panel as well, because I imagine the demand is pretty high. 

 Harriet: Well, I mean, we kind of had a policy of not taking inquiries, just coming into the office, if you like. Just because I knew that it would just escalate, cause there is a massive, massive need out there. And, you know, in fact we did initially start taking some inquiries and, you know, there's some…

 And it's very, very hard to turn cases away when there's something to them. Obviously when somebody comes to you, you don't necessarily know. Sometimes you know immediately that it's not a case or it is a case, but often it's more complex. So you have to spend some time trying to ascertain what the issues are in order to determine if there is a case.

 Now all of that is a huge, huge undertaking, and you can have a whole organisation that did nothing but take inquiries. So what we do instead, is we do what's called second tier inquiries. So it's only when we've trained organisations or when we've worked with frontline organisations, so already they kind of are able to filter through a bit more and know where somebody really needs legal advice and where they don't.

 So we'll then assist those frontline advocates to say, well, either, “here's what this person now needs to do, you know, you can probably help them with this,” you know, it may be that they just need to make a complaint or they need to remind the police officers of their duties under such and such. 

 Sometimes it'll be, “well, actually, it looks like she needs some help or some advice. We will see if one of our lawyers on our panel might be able to assist,” and sometimes it may be a particular issue which kind of feeds into some litigation we might want to do ourselves, or we might… ourselves.

 Pippa: So you've talked about the strategic litigation that you do. How do you think the strategic litigation adds value to feminist activism? And can you amplify it in a particular way, and could you give some examples of that, do you think? 

 Harriet: Yeah, so I mean, basically, you know, a lot of feminist work around particular issues around violence against women will involve a whole range of different tactics and strategies. So supposing we are looking at - and this is an example of something we're doing a lot of work around - the way in which rape is investigated and prosecuted. 

 And there will be many organisations, there'll be individuals who will maybe want to go out and protest, there will, you know, people might want to do stuff to do with writing or, you know, getting stuff out on social media, campaigning in that way.

 There will be organisations that may be interested in putting pressure on politicians or being engaged in consulting directly with the police or the Crown Prosecution Service, to try and influence them to improve their practices. So there's a whole range of different tactics.

 Now what strategic litigation can do is - and I think this is why it's so important to have lawyers as part of the movement really - is that we can challenge decisions or practices that no amount of political lobbying or promises to change or consultations will necessarily achieve the same result.

 So a very good example of that recently, was that we were involved in a challenge around the requests being made by the police and CPS for rape victims, and others, sexual assault, to provide their telephone digital data downloads. So you report a rape by a man you've just - an acquaintance or something, acquaintance, date rape - and the police are then saying, “well, we need to now look at your phone to see what's on it.”

 And, you know, needless to say, many people who report are not happy about having to have their whole personal life and intimate details interrogated, so there's been a lot of a big issue around that. And it's quickly exploded in recent years because of the way in which we store our whole lives on mobile data these days. 

 Pippa: Yeah, absolutely. 

 Harriet: So we brought a legal challenge to something called a ‘digital extraction form’ that had been launched by the National Police Chief Council, the Crown Prosecution Service and College of Policing, which having looked into it, we said was unlawful on a number of grounds.

 It was unlawful in relation to Data Protection Act, it was unlawful in relation to what's known as Article A, privacy rights, if you like, and it was discriminatory because women - who are by far the vast majority of rape and sexual assault - were adversely affected by this practice.

 And we launched the litigation. It then had to be stayed because there was something called an information commissioner's report that was being prepared, and then eventually when the report came out - took much longer than expected - the report basically came to similar conclusions to our analysis of the deficiencies in the form.

 And as it happened around that time by chance, there was a court of appeal judgment about another case to do with a rape, a couple of different rape cases, where the court offered guidance about the appropriate way to get disclosure in criminal case. 

 We don't say, obviously, we don't say that you should be free from disclosing any detail because obviously, if somebody's charged with a criminal offense, they are entitled to have information that will help their defence. But that does not, and should not, extend to a general fishing expedition into the credibility of, you know, somebody's personal life. It has to be something that is really real and relevant to the rape allegations. 

 Pippa: Thank you.

 Harriet: Yeah, so we brought that challenge. So when these two, sorry, the information commissioner and the court of appeal judgment came out, we went back to the police and said, “right, can you get rid of the form now?” And they said, “oh, well, we're in the process now of a consultation about a replacement.” Which was clearly going to go on and on for another year or something, or several months. In the meantime, they're still using the form.

 So we said, “you've got to withdraw it now, or we will continue with our case against you.” And they did. And I think without us having the lever of that litigation, they would probably have just carried on doing what they were doing until they were ready to put in the replacement. 

 Pippa: Yeah, yeah. No, it's fantastic. Fantastic example. 

 Harriet: That's a good example. The other thing, the other big, big case that… been involved in is challenging the Crown Prosecution Service around the prosecution of rape, and most people will be aware that rape prosecutions have dramatically fallen in the last three years. And we have a lot of evidence and information to show that that, sort of, stemmed from the Crown Prosecution Service changing their approach to the prosecution of rape.

 I won't go into all the details cause I'll be here till forever as to what exactly that was. But so we thought to bring a judicial review challenge, we actually raised a lot of money for it through crowd justice because everyone's up in arms around that. And in March we had a… and we got a lot of publicity and we caused huge embarrassment, I think.

 The CPS, the head of, you know, the DPP Max Hill was very defensive around the challenge. They completely denied that they've done anything. They just think the reason for these dramatic falls, and we're talking about really dramatic falls in three years in the number of cases prosecuted, you know, so less than 1.5% of cases reported that are charged, which is just one… 

 Pippa: That's just shocking. Unbelievable.

 Harriet: But having the legal challenge, you know, was a real story for the media. And so it got a lot of publicity and it was, you know, although campaigning and doing other sorts of activism can get publicity, the legal challenge was a really good route into getting publicity and, you know, raising concerns in the public domain about it.

 The sad thing was that the hearing that we had, which was for permission to proceed, was to happen just - we were going to have a huge protest outside court - but it was just in the week before lockdown, so we had to cancel that, although still quite a lot of people came. Unfortunately, the court would not grant us permission, we think completely wrongly, and in fact we're appealing that later this week, to try and appeal the decision not to grant us permission.

 But whether or not we get anywhere with a legal case - and the reasons why we didn't get permission are I think really that it's just potentially such a big thing to say, “the CPS have done this,” when they've said, “we deny it.” Whatever the reasons are, we've got it, you know, it's a legal case that's really focused attention and is forcing the CPSs to change. 

 Pippa: Well, I'm not surprised it attracted so much media attention, because those figures are so stark as well, you know. Well, good luck. Good luck with the appeal.

 Harriet: Huge amount of hope for women who have been through rape, and also for all the rape crisis groups and everyone who's supporting. Just to feel like there is something. I mean, it obviously was gut wrenching that we didn't get the permission at that hearing and we should’ve done. But even so, it's better to fight and not win than not fight at all.

 Pippa: Absolutely. I might quote you on that later. Thank you for those examples. Just moving on to sort of all your cases, all your most notable cases, which case are you most proud of? And why?

 Harriet: I don't think there's a single one, but I think a couple of cases, I think the case that I kind of alluded to earlier, which was established around Worboys and the police investigation, and established, clearly established in law right up to the Supreme Court that there is a duty under the Human Rights Act to conduct an effective investigation. I think that's been a really important case. It's very impactful. 

 Pippa: I agree. That was ground-breaking actually, wasn't it?

 Harriet: Yeah. I think that's a very important case.

 And then, I mean, recently, I suppose the Sally Challan case, because it was such a difficult case. Certainly when I first took it on, I thought, “I have no idea how on earth you could possibly appeal this conviction.” And then just being able to link it with the law passing coercive control, and to use it, not just, obviously, you know, first and foremost it was to try and appeal this conviction, but also just to raise so much awareness around coercive control.

 Pippa: Yeah, no, it really did raise a huge amount of awareness on that. So it was important for lots of reasons, Sally Challan's case. Yeah. And then moving on to Emma Humphrey's case as well, can you just briefly explain what that was about, and also tell us what it was like working with her?

 Harriet: Yeah, so Emma… so basically before I became a lawyer, cause I didn't I didn't start off as a lawyer, I was sort of working in other areas. I had got involved with some friends, feminist activists, in setting up an organisation, Justice For Women. That was in 1991.

 And that was around the time of the Sara Thornton case, remember, and Kiranjit Ahluwalia. And we'd set up a campaign called Justice for Women, which was about, you know, women who kill violent partners. And we worked closely with Southall Black Sisters, who were campaigning around Kiranjit Ahluwalia, and achieved a lot, there was a lot of publicity, and as a result of that, we would sometimes receive letters from women in prison.

 And one such letter, which came to us a couple of years later after Kiranjit's successful case, was from Emma Humphreys, who by that stage had been serving seven years in prison. She had been only 17 when she was arrested and convicted for the murder of her violent boyfriend/pimp, really - I mean, she… boyfriend, but really he was, he completely controlled her and he was like a pimp. And he was a pimp really.

 And she had, you know, she suffered a whole range of different horrendous experiences, probablyjust about every kind of different form of violence against women that you can go through, not every, but a lot of them, you know, from childhood really. 

 And then she kind of ended up in prostitution aged, you know, 15, 16, and Armitage, the man who was twice her age who she killed had been very controlling and abusive of her and so on. And when she got to court, she was represented by very inappropriate male solicitor, and she wasn't really able to talk to him about what had gone on.

 And when she got to court to give evidence, I think her barrister said to her, asked her this question, you know, “well, what was it? Was it the sex or was it the violence? And something just clicked and she just thought, “I'm not going to speak, I don't want to talk about my experiences in court.” So she didn't speak. 

 And not surprisingly, particularly given the poor work that had been done by her lawyer, she was convicted of murder. She was only 17. She was detained at her Majesty's pleasure, but that's the same really, it's a life sentence. And it was only after she'd been in prison a couple of years that she began to, kind of, seek justice and start writing about her experiences and stuff. 

 But it took seven years, and I think it was seeing the Sara Thornton and Kiranjit Ahluwalia cases that she was able to connect it with her own. And she wrote to us, a very powerful letter about her experiences. Now, when we got that letter, none of us were lawyers in the group. Well we thought we'd go to, we asked Kiranjit’s lawyer, he was a man called Rohit Sanghvi whether he would take it on.

 And he said, “well, I can take it on, but I need somebody in Justice For Women to do the work with Emma. I need a really, really full, detailed account of her life and her experiences and what led to her being convicted of murder, sorry, of committing the offense.” And I decided to volunteer to do that piece of work.

 Partly, I think also cause I was vaguely wondering whether I might want to move into, change career really, and move into law. And so I then spent several months visiting her in prison every other week to take a very, very detailed account and statement from her. going right through her life and so on. 

 Pippa: So based on that experience - I'm looking for tips here now, Harriet, I'm sorry - could you give us a steer maybe on how, as lawyers and also, you know, in other walks of life, how to centre women as clients from a feminist perspective?

 Harriet: Well I think, you know, you obviously, you have to listen and you have to not judge. And be very clear that you don't judge and you don't blame, or you don't, you know, you don't fall into any kind of victim blaming type possible responses. That you don't, that you make it…

 I would say when people are talking about really, really, awful, awful things that happened to them, that you don't, you know, kind of, not cope with it or express shock or outrage, that you just show, you know, that you understand that. Occasionally you can push and prompt a bit. Like if somebody won't use the word ‘rape’, you know, you, you might just say, “well, when you had sex that time, was it something that you wanted?”

 So, you know, there are different ways in which you approach that. Because obviously, you know, many women who are undergoing real violence and, you know, are perhaps being, you know, raped continuously or having very unwanted sexual practices, you know, they may not be able, they won't be able to name it as rape at the time or they may not be able to name their experiences, so don't…

 Let them describe it as they wish, but also just probe it gently, as to what exactly was going on, what was happening. So find different ways of… And I think it's important, you know, when people open up, to recognise how distressing and traumatising it can be and just to give space for that and to just think about.

 And especially if somebody's in prison and they're going back to their prison cell and they've got no one, you know, that it can be quite a damaging thing, the process of doing that and of talking about it. So I think it's just a question of being incredibly supportive and being able to ensure that you are there or somebody is there to sort of take the fallout from that.

 But obviously not to get too over-involved and to sort of maybe think about other… you know, because it can also take a toll on you, I think, and it can be too much. So to try and think about what other forms of support can be there, because as a lawyer you are there really to get their account, you know, for a particular purpose, not to be their support worker. 

 Pippa: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, I will try to put that into practice. Thank you very much. 

 Moving on now to, sort of, more general question on legislation. You've already talked about groundbreaking cases and using law in a really interesting way. Just a general question, what piece of legislation would you most like to reform? And why? There's probably lots.

 Harriet: Yeah, I don’t know if there's any particular piece of legislation that I can think of off the top of my head. What I can talk about is, just cause it's fairly current, is that we’re inputting quite a bit into the domestic abuse bill, which is going through at the moment.

 And, you know, there's some good things about it, but there's a huge amount of things that are missing from it, or that are wrong with it, as well. So we've been, sort of, lobbying alongside a whole range of different people in the women's sector to try and get amendments through. And a couple of ones that we've been involved in, they're not necessarily...

 I mean, you know, one of the most important ones, which we are not leading on because there are are plenty of other organisations who are taking this up, mainly Black-led organisations, is around the issue of those with insecure immigration status, you know, having some protection so that if they report, they're not going to be threatened with potential removal, deportation, or whatever. Or, you know, they don't have funds, they have no recourse to public funds. So there's some specific issues around there, which the government have not dealt with, which are really important.

 But the couple of ones that we at Centre have been involved in, which are really important, one is we want to introduce a new offense called ‘non-fatal strangulation’. So at the moment there is no specific offense of non-fatal strangulation. The act of non-fatal strangulation can be prosecuted as an offense of ABH, for example, so occasionally actual bodily harm. But often it isn't picked up by the police or it's only prosecuted as a common assault.

 And yet we know that in domestic violence, strangulation is a real… is used quite a lot, particularly as a way of, you know, frightening and controlling, by basically saying, you know, “all it takes is this, and, you know, I could kill you.” And it keeps her in her place. And it is very commonplace and it is a high risk indicator.

 So it's one of those things that, you know, when somebody's actually murdered and, you know, you look at these cases and you see how many incidents where she may have reported strangulation, and of course often it's never reported. So that's one particular offense..

 And the other one that I'm very passionate around, particularly cause of my work from Justice for Women, is trying to introduce a defence for women who commit offenses as a consequence of being abused. And I think that probably is something I just think would make a huge difference because we know that most of the women in prison have suffered domestic violence, child abuse, and so on, and many of the crimes committed are committed as a result of being coerced in some way.

 And there is no defence other than duress, which is an impossible defence. So that's something that we do feel, you know, I think is a really, really important thing. I don't think it'll get, although it's been proposed as an amendment, I think there's far too much resistance, certainly from the government around it. But it is something I think that, you know, I would really like to change.

 And I think one of the things I think about, feel about most passionately in terms of what we do, as well as the failures of policing is, where when women are - I do think when women are prosecuted, I think they're often prosecuted outrageously, and they shouldn't be prosecuted, and they're often prosecuted with much greater vigour than their male counterparts. Because when a woman steps outside the line, she's often monsterised. So yeah, I think that's an area I feel particularly passionately about. 

 Pippa: Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for that. So, working as a feminist and a lawyer or a feminist lawyer, do those worlds collide often, or… I'm thinking along the lines of cancel culture, which has been in the news a lot lately, and I just wondered what your thoughts were on that?

 Harriet: So this is basically trying to shut people up.

 Pippa: Yeah. No platforming. Yeah. All of that.

 Harriet: Yeah. I mean, it's an issue which clearly has legal ramifications. In particular, you know, the right to free speech. And there are, I mean, often, those sorts of - and it also kind of engages in libel quite often really, because the most horrendous things are said about feminists, who are, you know… 

 Like, witness JK Rowling, who published something that was, you know, just an explanation for why she had some concerns about the trans issue whilst recognising discrimination against trans people, and who decided to speak out about her abuse, her own abuse. And the response to that was extraordinary. And, you know, we see that all the time. 

 And there are potentially legal avenues to challenge sometimes that kind of response, whether or not the legal avenue is tactically the right thing to do will depend on individual cases and circumstances. From the Centre’s point of view we haven't particularly chosen to get engaged. I mean, we sometimes are approached about particular cases.

 And so far, I mean, it's very limited, you know, the cases we take on directly, sometimes we help put somebody, you know, through our legal panel in contact with the lawyer who can take it on. But I guess it's not… one, it's not quite central to our work, and two, because of the way in which the social media, you know, the kind of ‘pile-on’s happen, we don't particularly want to.

 You know, when we're doing so many really, really important challenges, we don't want to kind of have all our energy completely focused on fighting over attempts to cancel us as well. So, I suppose from the Centre’s point of view, it's more just a kind of thinking about things, you know, trying to assist people without necessarily taking the cases on ourselves. 

 Pippa: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. We're almost out of time, so I need to get onto a really important question, which is, have you been watching Mrs America? 

 Harriet: I certainly have. I haven't finished it yet. I've got two more episodes. I'm saving it up. But it's fantastic. Yeah. It's a really, really great program. Really, really interesting, I think. 

 Pippa: Yeah. Yeah. So do you remember the ERA campaign? Back in the seventies? 

 Harriet: Not really. No. I was still, I was a teenager then, so I think I probably wasn't particularly focused on... I don't particularly remember it. No. 

 Pippa: Yeah. And I just want to know, which character do you identify with most?

 Harriet: I don't think I particularly identify with any of them really! I mean, obviously the nearest to a sort of feminism that I espouse is Gloria Steinem? Probably. But I wouldn't identify with her. I think, out of all the characters, she's portrayed the least sympathetically actually. It may be realistic, I don't know, but she comes across as quite flat really and a little insipid, really, which… 

 Pippa: A bit ‘sitting on the fence’, I think was the phrase used, wasn't it? Yeah.

 Harriet: I mean, that's the problem, isn't it? When you engage in mainstream politics, you know, and the extent to which you then, you know, kind of… I mean, that's part of the theme, isn't it, for this… that we're promoting the ERA, is the extent to which you, you know, kind of make compromises in order to achieve your objective.

 So it's, you knows, that's what's a fascinating question. I think, you know, the really amazing character obviously in many ways is Phyllis Schlafly, and, you know, despite obviously completely, you know, complete right wing views. And what's fascinating about the program, I think, is that it shows how everybody, you know, from the right and from the left, are shafted by men, basically!

That's, you know, whether you choose to try and please men or you challenge them, you get shafted by them mostly. And, you know, I think it shows that really well. 

 Pippa: So it does. I love that line that Jill, when she's in the bar with Phyllis and, you know, she says, “well, that's fine, if you want to climb on the shoulders of men, just be aware, they're looking right up your skirt.” And it's just a beautiful moment. I agree. 

 Harriet: So I think it's a really interesting program and, yeah.

 Pippa: Good, I'm glad you've been enjoying it. So just to wrap up then, what do you think is the most pressing issue for feminism in the UK at the moment?

 Harriet: I think we are always in the midst of a backlash, I think. Yeah. At any time. I think, you know, in a way feminism has achieved so much and it has got such a wide appeal. It's really brought so many people on board. You know, back in, you know, the second wave days it was a much smaller movement, apart from as a sort of very, very reformist kind of political ERA type movement.

 But, you know, in terms of a more radical movement, I think it has a huge appeal, but I think that's why we are facing such a horrendous backlash at the moment. And I think that the fear that has been created by the cancel culture that you mentioned earlier, and the attempts to silence women, is hugely challenging. 

 And the attempts to degenderise everything as well, so that we stop talking about violence against women and take away an analysis which shows that women are oppressed as a sex class, in a sense, by the change in language that has come about. I think that's probably the most, kind of, pressing issue is to find ways of resisting that, and enabling women, you know… 

 Women forever have been put off becoming feminists. And there's an obvious reason why, because it's too challenging. And there are different ways in which women are challenged, you know, men who are threatened by feminism will approach how to challenge. And in the old days it was calling somebody an ugly dyke, or whatever, and in these days it's by accusing, you know, feminists of being bigots. And it's outrageous.

 And I also despair of the fact that half the population seem to have abandoned rational thinking, really. I just, I don't understand, you know, we've kind of, we've walked into 1984, you know, where you speak the opposite of the truth all the time and assert it as the truth.

 So it's very frightening times, I think. But I think also what's heartening is that more and more women are speaking out. And we just have to hold on to that and hold on to solidarity, and hope that rational thought will one day reappear. 

 Pippa: Yeah. Fingers crossed. 

 Harriet: Not surprising with people like Trump in power, is it really. Brexit stuff, that we’re living in these times really.

 Pippa: Yes. Well, Phyllis Schlafly paved the way for Trump, didn't she? All the way back. All the way back to that again. 

 Harriet, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciated it and really enjoyed talking to you, and really appreciate you sharing your legal and feminist experience with us. Thank you.

 Harriet: It’s a pleasure. Okay, bye. 

 Pippa: Thanks.