Controlling Women

Description

Violence against women is out of control. Conviction rates for rape are so low that most survivors think it pointless to report, or later regret doing so. Ruthless trafficking gangs run the sex trade. Women have no confidence in the Metropolitan Police. The year is 1914.

As the First World War began, a group of British campaigners founded the Women Police Volunteers, hoping to protect the vulnerable both from crime and from patriarchal policing and justice. The movement’s pioneers included a militant suffragette who’d spent time behind bars, a moral purity activist, a blue-blooded radical, and a court reporter born in the workhouse to a single mother. Sandra Hempel follows their astonishing journey, through all of its troubling turns.

Controlling Women is a vivid snapshot of rapid national change, and a rich tapestry of ethics and emotions among its fascinating characters. Reconciling political ideals with institutional compromise, these bold, complex women made history, despite establishment opposition and destructive infighting. They show us just how far we have to go in the fight for women’s justice.

Reviews

‘A fascinating study.’ — Chartist

‘A pacy, probing account of women’s long fight to get into the police force, full of tangled feuds and fascinating characters.’ — Emma Donoghue, author of Room; The Paris Express; and Passions Between Women

‘Riveting, and written with such clarity. Hempel has done an immense service to these women, who can finally be remembered.’ — Dr Helen Fry, author of Women in Intelligence

‘Groundbreaking, extremely readable and expertly researched. Just be careful where you read this book, as there will be shards of glass ceiling all around you. Controlling Women has it all—from suffragettes to munitionettes, female police officers to the first woman in Parliament.’ — Kate Vigurs, author of Mission France: The True History of the Women of SOE

‘A terrific account of the first women to patrol the streets of Britain. Insisting they had a vital role to play during war, they forced their way into the manliest man’s world. Their compelling story is told here for the first time.’ — Diane Atkinson, author of Rise Up, Women!: The Remarkable Lives of the Suffragettes

‘It’s all too easy for men to ignore how the criminal justice system treats women. This revelatory tale of the extraordinary characters who were driven to form Britain’s first female police force shows why we shouldn’t. Not just because we need to know, but because this is a brilliant story, told in sharp-focus close-up.’ — Phil Tinline, author of The Death of Consensus and Ghosts of Iron Mountain

Author(s)

Sandra Hempel is a former Times journalist, who has also written for The Guardian, the Daily Mail and other national media. Her previous books are the award-winning history The Medical Detective, and a Victorian ‘true murder mystery’, The Inheritor’s Powder, which was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week.