Joanna Williams

Somewhere on my coffee table lurks a recent Boden catalogue. It shows pictures of beautiful, healthy, impressively clean – and, of course, very well dressed – children. They spend their time cavorting on sunny beaches or striding down iconic London streets.  This week, images of children have provided a rare moment of consensus in our

Is there anything we do not know about Harry and Meghan? They might have ‘stepped back’ as senior royals in order to avoid the media spotlight. They might have a habit of suing newspapers and photographers for breaching their privacy and a fondness for elaborate screens and fences around their various homes. But with the

The Domestic Abuse Bill, championed by Theresa May, could easily have fallen foul of Brexit, Boris Johnson, the suspension of Parliament, a new government or coronavirus. But the Bill has beat the odds: it was passed by the House of Commons this week and is currently making its way to the Lords. It’s pure coincidence

Hats off to the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. It’s hard to get the world’s attention in the middle of a global pandemic but the couple’s perseverance has finally paid off. When news of their plan to launch a charity, Archewell, was met by a collective sigh of ‘please, not now,’ they did not give

On Tuesday, the call went out for 250,000 volunteers to support the NHS in helping vulnerable people ‘stay safe and well at home’ during the coronavirus pandemic. In just one day, more than double that number had come forward to offer their services. So far, much of the discussion around Covid-19 has been dominated by a

Sometimes a politician displays such spectacularly bad judgement their only option is to lash out at their critics. This appears to explain how the SNP’s Mhairi Black has spent much of the past 24 hours. Black has never knowingly shied away from publicity. Perhaps then we shouldn’t be too surprised at her decision to pop

I’ve had a number of embarrassing run-ins with pharmacists. I discovered my daughter had headlice three days into our holiday in Pisa and was forced to mime both insects hopping and head-scratching for the benefit of an apparently drunk Italian chemist who claimed not to know a single word of English. This was nothing on

‘Is there any one of the royal family who wants to be king or queen? I don’t think so.’ Back in 2017, when Meghan Markle was ‘girlfriend’ and not yet ‘Duchess of Sussex,’ Prince Harry was already expressing doubts about his future role. In a lengthy interview with US magazine Newsweek Harry explained, ‘I sometimes

It had all been going so well. Coverage of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s tour to South Africa kicked off with footage of them dancing, before moving on to feature their work promoting the importance of gender equality in education and the horror of violence against women. We’ve been treated to rare pictures of

The film awards season is over and Cannes has been handed back to wealthy holiday-makers, yet the #MeToo movement shows no signs of slowing down. Morgan Freeman is the most recent addition to the ignominious list of film producers, directors and actors who have had accusations of sexual harassment made against them since #MeToo took

They may have perfected the sexy selfie and a nonchalance about internet porn but millennials are just not that into sex. The guilty secret behind today’s swipe-right hookup culture is not promiscuity but abstinence. Research out this week suggests that one in eight 26-year-olds have never had sex, up from one in 20 a generation

David Willetts, one time minister of state for universities and science turned chief spokesperson for baby boomer self-flagellation, is clearly troubled by the year of his birth. Since his 2010 book, The Pinch: How the baby boomers took their children’s future and why they should give it back, he’s been desperately seeking atonement for the

I’ve never shied away from discussing sex with my children and they’ve always been precocious enough to ask probing questions, usually in public. So when the letter came home from school announcing sex education classes for my then ten-year-old, I was relaxed. And when I later asked him, ‘Did you learn anything you didn’t already

The never-ending churn of stories explaining why it is awful to be a woman has a new focus. A survey of workplace ‘decision-makers’ published this week has exposed the shocking news that some employers think maternity leave can be a bit inconvenient. That’s right: some sexist and uncaring bosses do not feel delight when mum-to-be

Today’s centenary of the Representation of the People Act is in danger of becoming a rose-tinted celebration of votes for women. But it’s worth us remembering this historic legislation with more clarity, so that the anniversary does not get used as an excuse for curtailing democracy once more. For a start, the Act only extended

As surely everyone must by now know, 2018 marks the centenary of women securing the vote in Britain. This monumental event represented a giant leap forward for sexual equality and is truly deserving of commemoration. There will, rightly, be television programmes, books column inches and tea towels marking the anniversary. Everyone should know about Sylvia

It’s easy to see why the online dictionary Merriam-Webster chose ‘feminism’ as their word of the year. 2017 kicked off with women across the globe marching against Donald Trump and ended with Time magazine heralding the #MeToo ‘silence breakers’ as their person of the year. Every glossy double-page spread further established feminism as this year’s