An evening with Germaine Greer sounded interesting, I had been vaguely aware of feminist critical theory at university and had read some of her work. It was 2010 and I was not a feminist, in fact I barely noticed much of what was going on in the newspapers or the third-wave of feminism had been going on since around the time I was born. I thought feminism was something consigned to the past, dealt with and over. We had the vote, after all.

So I went to the evening with Germaine Greer and I listened to what she had to say. It quickly became apparent that my notions of feminism were woefully incorrect and it was something that was definitely alive and kicking. I became aware that it was attitudes of apathy like mine that threatened to undermine all the previous waves of feminism as young women thought the battle was won. Germaine spoke about solidarity, about the future of feminism and about the past. And I started to think about it.

Once you’ve become open to an idea, you start to see elements of it all around you. I began to collect newspaper cuttings about women’s rights, issues on women’s policy and feminism in general. I asked for Caitlin Moran’s, Rebecca Asher’s and Cordelia Fine’s books for my birthday and read them avidly.

When in 2011 I decided I was going to pursue my journalism qualifications I knew the best way to get started out was to set up a blog. I read all the advice on setting up and what to write and it seemed very clear that I should write about feminism and women’s issues because that was what I was passionate about. And so The Bee Catcher was launched.

Every day I see news stories about women’s issues and I write a mixture of straightforward reported pieces and opinion pieces. The last year has been very significant for women’s rights as due to government policy and cuts it’s the first time our rights are actually in reverse. It can be quite a worrying and frightening concept when you think that in modern history women in the west have only had their rights for a few decades. How easily that could all change if people don’t keep pushing for equality and respect.

By Harriet Thacker