When humankind was evicted from Paradise for eating God’s forbidden fruit, it was because, said God, Adam had listened, “to the voice of your wife.”

Little has changed in the stereotype of women as busybodies.  We suspected as the first to taste hidden knowledge yet too trivial to appreciate the consequences. This can make the world a lonely place for women who dare to be the voice of misrule. As the first black Broadway playwright and rights activist Lorraine Hansberry (above) said, “The thing that makes you exceptional… is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.”

In this issue, we explore the exceptional feminine voice. Visionary painter Joanna Kirk and photographer Clare Archibald, creator of the Lone Women project, both explore the emotional tensions of solitude. Outspoken News Editor Lynn Enright asks for raw stories of childbirth and sex. Authors Nicola Barker and Samantha Harvey discuss pushing beyond the prism of what we know. Women may still be viewed as transgressors. But for some of us, risk and solitude are prizes, not punishments.

Soma x

 

Soma Ghosh, Editor

P.S. Hoping to see you at one of the events on our ‘Bacchanalia’ page, with pairs of tickets going to the first goddesses correctly answering our quizzes..