The official London tube map has only three stops named after women. Together with the actor Emma Watson and the author Rebecca Solnit, I’ve been working on a feminist alternative. Here’s the story behind our contribution to International Women’s Day
When I was a baby feminist, I would argue with friends that public space was political. I had been radicalised by my teenage years, sick to the back teeth of street harassment from men who seemed to think that the streets were theirs to roam freely, while women were relegated to decoration. It wasn’t a regular occurrence, but it happened enough times to enrage me. Walking home from school in London, in uniform, I had been followed, had my arm snatched and had been approached at least once by a man who displayed stalking tendencies. As I grew older, I understood these actions as displays of dominance and I was disgusted. Alongside my indignation, I was crushingly disappointed. I had been raised in this city and hated that this kind of behaviour was an impediment to my teenage desire for autonomy and freedom.
I had been navigating public transport by myself for years at that point, and it took me everywhere I wanted to go. Once I had exhausted my immediate surroundings on foot, I’d take the Piccadilly line to gigs at the now bulldozed Astoria on Charing Cross Road. I’d jump on the Hammersmith and City line, a portal to dancing all day at Notting Hill carnival. The Circle line made me feel like an intellectual in the museums of South Kensington. There was no option back then to outsource travel plans to a clever little app, so in order to go anywhere I, like everyone else, would have to study the tube map to find out how to get to my destination. If I was feeling brave, I’d sometimes jump on the tube at Turnpike Lane and work it out as I went along, peering at the mini maps inside the train carriage and looming awkwardly over whoever was sitting in the seat beneath. I didn’t need a car. The map in my pocket opened up my city.
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