The Relevance of Clive Barker’s Imajica to the Modern World - The Control of Women

Trigger Warnings: Abuse, controlling relationships, sex, rape, those types of things

“Why didn’t she just leave?” – Men (#notallmen)

This question, when asked in ignorance, displays a profound lack of understanding, self-reflection, and empathy for those trapped in controlling and abusive relationships. But when asked in the context of this essay, in full knowledge of the existence of such relationships, it implies a different question. Why is she trapped? What are the political structures in place, both in her relationships and society at large, that prevent her from leaving? Who is blame for it, and who is responsible for changing it? These are the questions that Judith grapples with in Imajica, and to some extent, her sister Quaisoir as well.

In our real world there is no real magic, but as we have seen, magic in Imajica is not a real, physical force anyway. It is entirely about directed intent and will. Having a bit of directed intent is probably a good thing, as it allows you to move through the chaos of life in some sort of consistent direction. But when this sort of mental attitude is taken to extremes and paired together with a partner with low self-esteem, we get a power dynamic in which the dominant (often male) partner can effectively control the submissive (often female) partner. Now, sometimes such dynamics exist between consenting adults, and there is an ethical conversation to be had around what it means to consent to such a dynamic. However, in the general (abusive) case there is no consent because there is insufficient understanding of how power dynamics work in the general population. People effectively cannot see the boundaries of the trap they are walking into. Such relationship dynamics are therefore often permanent and based in competitive mental fortitude, not collaborative willingness. It may begin as an unspoken battle for control, but by the end, when the submissive partner has lost and lost and lost again, their self-esteem will be in tatters and they will no longer be able to resist[1,2]. This is why in any consensual relationship, the dominant partner has an ethical responsibility to continuously check their own behaviour.

Personal Control of Judith the Individual

This common type of relationship dynamic is metaphorically explored in Imajica in the character of Judith, who is literally trapped via “magic” as a slave to the Godolphin family. In fact, she was created for exactly that purpose, because two charismatic, powerful and domineering men (Joshua Godolphin and Gentle) couldn’t choose who the original “belonged” to. By the time we meet Judith she has been this way for 200 years, passed between members of the Godolphin family every 10 years or so as her memory resets. The metaphor is clear. What has been done to Judith by magic is what is often done to women in our own world by charismatic men; she is so unaware of her own subservience to Oscar Godolphin that she cannot distinguish between it and “love at first sight”:

“The sense of belonging she’d discovered when she’d set eyes on Oscar had not faded, though she had yet to uncover its true source.”

and even reframes it as a good thing:

“when she was with him in company-at the theatre or at dinner with friends-she was mostly silent, and happily so.”

The sharp contrast and subsequent behavioural change she exhibits upon meeting Oscar are why it is so important that we are introduced to Judith when she is at her most free, independent and powerful. Having just summoned the courage to break away from the uncharismatic, “weaker” Godolphin brother, Charles “Estabrook” Godolphin, she is seeing whoever she wants to see, breaking up with them if she begins to find them dull or possessive (like Marlin), taking in culture and socialising with her own friendship group. Once she meets Oscar Godolphin, however, all this changes and we see the contrast in behaviours. First, she is literally passed from Charles to Oscar as a prize, and Oscar immediately takes control of her life. She stops seeing her own friends, like Clem, even though his partner Taylor has just died and Clem needs her companionship. And she believes all of this to either be her choice, or that she isn’t at all bothered by it. Such is the power of mental manipulation in a power dynamic. Speaking with Clem:

“ ’He’s certainly had quite an effect on you, hasn’t he?’

‘Has he?’

‘You’re so-I don’t know the word exactly-tranquil, maybe? I’ve never seen you this way before.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this way before.’

‘Well, just make sure we don’t lose the Judy we all know and love, huh?’ Clem said. ‘Too much serenity’s bad for the circulation. Everybody needs a good rage once in a while.’

The significance of this exchange didn’t really strike her until the evening after, when-sitting downstairs in the quiet of the house, waiting for Oscar to come home-she realized how passive she’d become. It was almost as if the woman she’d been, the Jude of furies and opinions, had been shed like a dead skin, and now, tender and new, she had entered a time of waiting. Instruction would come, she assumed; she couldn’t live the rest of her life so becalmed. And she knew to whom she had to look for that instruction: the man whose voice in the hall made her heart rise and her head light, Oscar Godolphin.”

An interesting point is that Oscar perhaps doesn’t realise that he is Judith’s literal master either, just as in the real world many men do not realise their own toxic behaviour. This does not excuse that behaviour, not at all, but some people are simply so used to holding power (often wealthy and/or violent men) that they cannot comprehend that what they are doing is wrong.

Judith quickly falls in love with Oscar as she spends more time with him, learning to enjoy his company, his mannerisms and her place at his side. This is an important point. I can almost hear the defences kicking in the minds of all of those people who are in love that are reading this right now. “That isn’t real love.” you might think. “Oscar, the abusive partner, has tricked her into it.” “Real love is supportive, caring, empathic.” Etc. All of those good things. I truly hope that if you are in love, then your love does come in a neat parcel together with those nice things. Love is probably the most beautiful human emotion when based in positivity, support, and mutual growth and respect. But love, defined purely as the emotional attachment to another person, does not have to be based in or caused by positive things. Stockholm Syndrome is the most common example of this, but I think that love based in negativity is a lot more common in society than we’d like to believe. One only needs to look at things like “The Jeremy Kyle Show” in the UK to see the danger posed by love in toxic relationships. I think that the sacralisation (sacred status)¹ of the concept of love prevents us from assisting people who are trapped in its emotional clutches, as we often focus our efforts on preserving or reclaiming the bond of love over the wellbeing of the people involved. I refuse to condescend to the character of Judith, and women everywhere, who are deeply in love with their abusive partners, simply to keep the concept of love on its sacred pedestal. Love itself is not always a good thing, and can itself be an almost inescapable trap. If your love for someone leads you to make choices which cause you long-term unhappiness, then it is not something that ought to be preserved. It is something that ought to be fought against, as one might fight an addiction or mental illness. It is this type of love which Judith suffers from, and I do mean suffers.

Something beautiful about Barker’s books is that he puts sex, that fundamental aspect of human connection, front and centre with no shame. With Judith, we meet her as a sexually liberated woman, unapologetically hanging out with gay people at the height of the whole AIDS scare of the 80s and 90s (Clive Barker is himself a gay man). She is still liberated when she meets Oscar, but her wants and needs start to take second place to his. Judith basically admits that she is not at all physically attracted to Oscar:

“She stared at Oscar. He was overweight, overdressed, and doubtless overbearing: not the kind of individual she’d have sought out, given the choice. But for some reason she didn’t yet comprehend, she’d had that choice denied.”

And yet, she allows him to take her anal virginity, a very intimate type of sexual intercourse. Unlike men, who have an extremely sensitive prostate, women have nothing too physically stimulating there. Hence, as I understand it, the pleasure that comes from this type of sex for women is often more about the experience itself. The intimacy, the connection, even the taboo. This is what Judith feels with Oscar:

“When she slept, it was deeply, and when she woke again, it was like sleeping, dark and pleasurable, the former because the drapes were still drawn, and between their cracks she could see that the sky was still benighted, the latter because Oscar was behind her, and inside. One of his hands was upon her breast, the other lifting her leg so that he could ease his upward stroke. He’d entered her with skill and discretion, she realized. Not only had he not stirred her until he was embedded, but he’d chosen the virgin passage, which-had he suggested it while she was awake-she’d have attempted to coax him from, fearing the discomfort.”

Did she make that choice freely, or was she manipulated into it? She did not consciously consent, and a lack of resistance is absolutely not the same thing as consent. I would argue that this is again a form of manipulation, as her entire attraction to him is based on incomplete information. Further, in hindsight, we see that once Judith becomes aware of her slavery to the Godolphin line, she quickly loses her love for Oscar. Judith’s memory resets every ten years (by design), and Sartori mentions to Judith that love of anal sex is common in the Godolphin family. Is there any doubt that each member of the Godolphin line stole this form of intimacy from Judith again and again over the years? I’m not making any claim of virginity as synonymous with purity here, but I am suggesting that allowing someone in for the first time takes trust, and each of the Godolphin patriarchs have likely done this with Judith under false pretences every time.

To summarise so far, Judith is a slave who cannot see that she is enslaved. This is why it is such a shock to her when Dowd, Godolphin’s openly known slave, compares himself to Judith:

“ ’You have a piffling recall of the past,’ he said; ‘I have too much. You have heat; I have none.

You’re in love; I’ve never understood the word. But Judith: we are the same. Both slaves.’ “ 

But this comparison, made by someone she actively hates, is enough to begin the process of her realising her submission to Oscar. Speaking to Oscar soon after:

“As soon as she came to consciousness and felt his touch, she withdrew from it.

‘I’m… not a pet,’ she struggled to say. ‘You can’t just… stroke me when… it suits you.’ ”

As the story progresses from here, Judith begins to awaken to her enslavement, and this conscious awakening and awareness of the trap is key to everything. Key to breaking the “spell” of control and memory loss she is under. With Yzordderrex as a goal she begins to yearn for ever more for independence and freedom, and when she finally takes the trip, it is without Oscar. Dowd is the one to take Oscar’s place, both slaves wanting the freedom of the Imajica for different reasons. Once she has escaped Oscar, and metaphorically, her slavery to the Godolphin line, she echoes my earlier point about toxic love:

“ ’You can’t leave me,’ he said, as though amazed. ‘I love you. Do you hear me? I love you.’

‘There’s more important things than love,’ she returned, thinking as she spoke that this was easy to say with Gentle awaiting her at home. But it was also true. She’d seen this city overturned and pitched into dust. Preventing that was indeed more important than love, especially Oscar’s spineless variety.”

Unfortunately, relationship dynamics can themselves be a cyclical trap. Relationships formed around toxic love often take similar forms, and there is a certain comfort to the similar. Drug addicts fall into relapse, criminals reoffend, the status quo remains. Following her separation from Oscar, Judith almost immediately falls back in with another charismatic demagogue, this time the Autarch. Being his clone he poses as Gentle (albeit without ever explicitly saying so), yet he does not hide his aggressive and domineering tendencies from her:

“ ‘I don’t want a little part of you,’ he said, approaching the bottom of the bed. ‘I want all of you, every last piece, and I want you to want all of me.’

‘I do,’ she said. ”

Even having met her clone Quaisoir in the 2nd Dominion, having seen and understood how spending so long with the tyrant that is the Autarch has turned Quaisoir into a monster, Judith still goes along with it. She still somewhat believes this to be Gentle, and yet the controlling behaviour should speak for itself. This is a cutting metaphor for the cycle of abusive relationships. People who have only ever known oppression and violence, often women and children from poor backgrounds, do not know any different. They cannot see the trap they are in because they believe, from experience, that that is all there is. Contrary to popular belief, children in abusive families do not necessarily grow up to abuse their own children[3]. In fact, they grow up to be abused themselves later in life[4]. Women in abusive relationships often jump straight into the next one. Just as with Judith, in our own world, these people do not have the means[5,6,7] or motivation to escape. In a particularly dark scene, the Autarch impregnates Judith without her consent, then emotionally guilts her into keeping the child. This theme holds poignant meaning in May 2022 as the Supreme Court of the USA, so-called leaders of the free world, prepare to overturn abortion rights[8]. So how does Barker suggest we alleviate these problems using the metaphorical framework of the Imajica? Well one thing is for sure, he does not suggest we wait around for the spontaneous benevolence of men.

¹ Sacred love is one of the most pernicious forms actually. The God of the Abrahamic religions canonically loves humanity, and because of that love he traps us in an infinitely long relationship with him. Because he is God and his love is so much greater than ours could ever be, that justifies all his abuse towards us. Islam and Christianity openly speak of their submission to God, and this is simply not ok.

Systemic Control of Judith the Woman

The God of the Imajica, Hapexamendios, is without doubt a male. Although in the past the Maestro Sartori(Gentle) referred to the Godhead as a genderless being:

“’You always say “It”,’ McGann observed. ‘Why’s that?’ 

‘Creation and its maker are one and the same. True or false?’

‘True.’

‘And Creation’s as full of women as it is of men. True or false?’

‘Oh, true, true.’

‘Indeed, I give thanks for the fact night and day,’ Gentle said, glancing at Godolphin as he spoke.

‘Beside my bed and in it.’

Joshua laughed his Devil’s laugh.

‘So the Godhead is both male and female. For convenience, an It.’ ”

this is shown to be a highly optimistic and naïve viewpoint. Hapexamendios travelled the Imajica just as Gentle and Pie’Oh’Pah did, and along the way he attempted to destroy every female deity he passed. Indeed, that was the reason he set out in the first place:

“ ‘When the Unbeheld passed through the Dominions, He overthrew all the cults He deemed unworthy. Most of them were sacred to Goddesses. Their oracles and devotees were women.’

‘So you think Hapexamendios did this?’

‘If not him, then His agents, His Righteous. Though on second thought He’s supposed to have walked here alone, so maybe this is His handiwork.’ “

and in his wake he left humanity to carry on that oppression in his image:

“ ‘People tried to stir up revolutions over and over again, but he suppressed them. Burnt down the universities, hanged the theologians and the radicals. He had a stranglehold. And he had the Pivot, and most people believe that’s the Unbeheld’s seal of approval. If Hapexamendios didn’t want the Autarch to rule Yzordderrex, why did He allow the Pivot to be moved here? That’s what they said. And I don’t-‘ “

The very metaphysical structure of the Imajica then, in the time the story takes place, is male-centric, and the dominant philosophical frameworks and subsequent political institutions of the Imajica have long since shifted to match it. Judith’s experiences with men, the commonalities between the different men she meets, even in spite of their deep philosophical and political differences, parallel what today we would recognise as the patriarchy. While some individual woman may be able to free herself from an individual man, the socio-political and economic institutions in place were designed mainly by men, for men. And so collectively, it is extremely difficult for women to escape systemic bondage. The clearest example of systemic oppression in our world may be the wage gap between genders, which in a capitalist society indicates a direct mismatch of power, irrespective of whatever the cause of that mismatch may be. A more indirect form of control that Judith experiences both personally and systemically is the effective control over women’s bodies, which is fully at work in our real world society in the form of oversexualisation of women, insufficient healthcare[8,9] and other things of this form. Consider the concept of modesty. On one hand we have traditional notions of women covering up their “shame”. In Islam (and orthodox Judaism) modesty is taken to extreme lengths as a divine commandment, and in Christianity sexuality itself is presented as somewhat sinful, but this idea extends beyond the bounds of religion in many cases. Yet even the rejection of this notion, the casting off of traditional modesty in modern societies is immediately taken up into the markets, a commodity of feminine freedom to be bought and sold[10]. Women cannot ever truly be said to be making a free choice on what to do with their bodies because it all takes place within a framework of the male / societal gaze. Women’s bodies are not their own no matter what choice they make because they are viewed primarily as sex objects for men, the markets, even for God himself. Sex objects to be shown off or hidden depending on the dominant local perspective.

In Imajica, Hapexamendios literally takes a woman of his choosing, Celestine, brings her to him (escorted by a man), rapes her, impregnates her and leaves her to raise (he hopes) the next generation of metaphysical dominator of women. Celestine is full of shame and regret for this act as though it was her fault, because given the knowledge of divine coupling she walked into it willingly. It is this shame that enables her to reconcile with Judith based in the common experience of abuse by divinity:

“She looked up at Jude.

‘So now you know my shame,’ she said.

‘I know your story,’ said Jude. ‘But I don’t see any reason for shame.’

Her own tears, which she’d been holding back since Celestine had begun to share this horror with her, fell now, flowing a little for the pain she felt and a little for the doubt that still churned in her, but mostly for the smile that came onto Celestine’s face when she heard Jude’s reply, and for the sight of the other woman opening her arms and crossing the room, to embrace her like a loved one who’d been lost and found again before some final fire.”

While clearly portraying the actions of Hapexamendios as vile, Clive Barker distinguishes between this event and rape, and in this I disagree with him based on the modern understanding of rape. The second Celestine wanted to leave but couldn’t, she is being abused, and this is what God does to her under false pretences. Celestine takes her place alongside the Virgin Mary of Christian mythology, reframed within the metaphysics of the Imajica. She is still revered as a Goddess by Judith and others, such as Father Athanasius, but not in a positive light. In a severe contrast to the Christian idea, Celestine’s (and Mary’s) exposure to Hapexamendios and his divinity is portrayed as a severe and traumatic abuse. This shared abuse and the recognised oppression of all women across the Imajica is a uniting focus for women, and the men who stand with them, against the common oppressor Hapexamendios and his patriarchal system.

The existence of Athanasius (and his participation in the Reconciliation itself) shows that men are trapped within that same system just as women are, they are just trapped in positions of arbitrary power and authority. His self-harm may be a metaphor for him trying to put himself at the level of women, who experience more physical hardship than men as a natural part of their existence in periods, childbirth, even sex itself on occasion. I don’t want to stretch the metaphor too far, and yet:

“I didn’t do it,” Athanasius replied. “I woke up with these wounds. Believe me, I don’t welcome them.”

Gentle’s face registered his skepticism, and Athanasius responded with vim.

“I’ve never wanted any of this,” he said. “Not the stigmata. Not the dreams.”

In wider literature and folklore, a lifeform or spirit that is brought into existence due to collective belief is called a Tulpa, and one might argue that the patriarchal systems of control are this type of creature. The Goddesses of the Imajica recount the creation of the independent actor that is Hapexamendios, the divine personification of a system of control:

“ ‘Please understand, sister, the Dominions were never meant to be divided this way. That was the work of the first human spirits, when they came into their terrestrial life. Nor was there any harm in it, at the beginning. It was their way of learning to live in a condition that intimidated them. When they looked up, they saw stars. When they looked down, they saw Earth. They couldn’t make their mark on what was above, but what was below could be divided and owned and fought over. From that division, all others sprang. They lost themselves to territories and nations, all shaped by the other sex, of course; all named by them. They even buried themselves in the Earth to have it more utterly, preferring worms to the company of light. They were blinded to the Imajica, and the circle was broken, and Hapexamendios, who was made by the will of these men, grew strong enough to forsake His makers…’

Slaves to the status quo can even believe that is has always been that way, that the system came first and humans are subject to it. Indeed, the Abrahamic religions are based around the idea of submission to God, even though God is almost without doubt a human construction. The Autarch, as an agent of the status quo, speaks to Judith about the Unbeheld:

‘She was in the Pivot.’

‘That’s impossible,’ he said. ‘The Pivot belongs to the Unbeheld. The whole of the Imajica belongs to the Unbeheld.’

She’d never heard of a breath of subservience in him before, but she heard it now.

Perhaps the emancipation of women will come together with the emancipation of men, all together breaking free of the patriarchy.

Emancipation

The Unbeheld was unable to wipe the power of women away completely:

“Why, if this was indeed the work of Hapexamendios, had the Unbeheld, with all His powers of destruction, not obliterated every last sign of His victims? Was it because they were women or, more particularly, women of power? Had He brought them to ruin as best He could-overturning their altars and unseating their temples-but at the last been unable to wipe them away?”

and so the possibility of true emancipation was never lost. Judith is emancipated together with the Imajica itself, through the inherent power in women and their solidarity. Yet it was never going to be simple. Just as with our concept of modesty, on the surface there appears to be no way out for women. While Gentle is preparing the ritual of the Reconciliation in the climax of the story, Judith is in the Imajica communing with the Goddesses. The Goddesses recognise that women are in a difficult position. On the one hand, the status quo in the unreconciled dominions is bad. On the other, the Reconciliation is being performed by men on behalf of Hapexamendios himself, and so could lead to the finalisation of his work, the complete destruction of women. Judith has the power to stop the Reconciliation; not in order to stop the reconnection and communion of all souls across the Imajica, but rather to stop the machinations of God. Even though Gentle has seen what Hapexamendios had done throughout the Imajica, he still wants to perform the Reconciliation because it’s “his father's business”:

“’And if she’s conspired against us, Clem-if she’s working with the enemy-then I swear I’ll draw a circle right here-‘ he pointed to the boards ‘-and I’ll unmake her so well it’ll be as though she never drew breath.’ ”

That's the power of systemic injustice and the status quo, and why Judith and the Goddesses have difficulty trusting Gentle in the climax of the story. It’s not that they doesn’t trust his intentions, it’s that she doesn’t trust how his intentions may be skewed by the patriarchal system:

‘ “No,” Jude said, glancing up the stairs. “I think he’s doing what he believes is best. In fact I know it.” ‘

The overall implication of the climax of the book, I believe, is that the actions of women are vital in bringing down the patriarchy, but they don't have to take choices given to them by the patriarchy itself. It’s not as simple as either with them or against them, the reductionist binary choice. As Judith notes:

“’This isn’t about sin and forgiveness. That kind of nonsense is for the men. This is…’ she faltered, uncertain of the vocabulary, then said, ‘… this is wiser than that.’”

She is beginning to see that the choices presented to her by the philosophies she knows, are insufficient. Until this point she has been trapped within the dominant systems of thought to the extent that the very language is difficult for her because she is dealing with new concepts, similar to the idea of Newspeak in 1984[11] or the Overton Window in modern politics[12]. An entirely new set of ideas is needed, not simply revolution through the same set of norms, harkening back to my introductory essay on the nature of being trapped in cycles. At this stage, I feel I should say that I have no business in telling women what to do about their own emancipation. But I might suggest that maybe it isn't a victory for feminism when women become rich, high-powered CEOs because these roles currently exist within the framework of finance capitalism, which itself exists to perpetuate the status quo designed by men. Maybe it isn't a victory for feminism when women become soldiers and police officers, to kill other people just as men do, because these roles currently exist within the framework of the military industrial complex, which itself exists to perpetuate the status quo designed by men. Your typical “manosphere” type might note that men are the primary casualties of all forms of political violence across the planet, but perhaps we now realise that men individually are not the problem anymore. Although they designed it, men are now the victims of patriarchy just as women are, albeit with a different set of problems (and perhaps of lesser magnitude). In some circumstances it may be useful to view the patriarchy as a system entirely independent of control due to it’s statistical scale, like Adam Smith’s “Invisible Hand of the Market”[13] or any thermodynamic process in physics.

Judith, on behalf of the Goddesses, chooses the third path and allows the Reconciliation to take place, laying all the plans of Hapexamendios bare for all to see. Showing all his contradictions and petty behaviour while at the same time allowing his oppressed peoples across the entire Imajica to meet one another and share their stories and their lives. Hapexamendios eventually destroys himself (another beautiful metaphor), the very inescapable nature of the Imajica being his downfall, but it is the power of the Goddesses and Judith, combined, that washes away the remains of Hapexamendios in the 1st Dominion. Together with Gentle they free the souls trapped in the circle of Imajica itself, allowing their spirits to move on to somewhere greater. It’s this final metaphysical escape, the knowledge that we can leave any system of control, even a “good” one, that caps off Judith’s story.

Conclusion

I think the metaphors used in Imajica to discuss control mechanisms and the trappings of abuse, especially against women, are quite profound. The book does not caricature women as all-powerful superbeings like Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel. In fact, there is probably something to the claim that such portrayals of women in today’s media are partially virtue signals from companies that just want our money and attention. Barker does not shy away from accurate representations of women in controlling relationships and under systemic male domination. Before the modern notions of patriarchy and men as a controlling class came into the public consciousness, Imajica dealt with the topics on all levels, from personal through political to the metaphysical. I think from a modern perspective the book is suggesting that while men and women both have a role in stopping abuse, (men mostly through apology and reparation), it will eventually be women themselves who take their own place of equality. I think we’re seeing it happen now, actually, and that’s very wonderful.

Bibliography

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[2] Saunders, Daniel G. “Abusive relationships: Why it’s so hard for women to ‘just leave’”, 28/03/2018. Date Accessed: 28/04/2022. https://theconversation.com/abusive-relationships-why-its-so-hard-for-women-to-just-leave-93449

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[6] Coyne, Ellen. “Concerns over ‘financial abuse’ in relationships raised as a fifth of young women don’t have control over their money.” 04/02/2022. Date Accessed: 28/04/2022.  https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/concerns-over-financial-abuse-in-relationships-raised-as-a-fifth-of-young-women-dont-have-control-over-their-money-41311455.html

[7] Oppenheim, Maya. “Domestic abuse victims at risk because universal credit paid into one bank account, campaigners warn.” 18/12/2018. Date Accessed: 28/04/2022.  https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/universal-credit-domestic-abuse-violence-single-payments-bank-account-benefits-welfare-a8687426.html

[8] Bryant, Miranda. “ Women who fought for US abortion rights in the 70s call for mass global protests.” 08/05/2022. Date Accessed: 09/05/2022. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/08/women-who-fought-for-us-abortion-rights-in-the-70s-call-for-mass-global-protests

[9] Slawson, Nicola. “'Women have been woefully neglected': does medical science have a gender problem?” 18/12/2019. Date Accessed: 09/05/2022. https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/dec/18/women-have-been-woefully-neglected-does-medical-science-have-a-gender-problem

[10] Khan, M. (2019) “It's Not About the Burqa: Muslim Women on Faith, Feminism, Sexuality and Race.” Picador. ISBN: 9781509886401

[11] Orwell, G. (2021). “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Penguin Classics. ISBN: 9781784876555

[12] Jones, O. (2015). “The Establishment”. Penguin. ISBN: 9780141974996

[13] Smith, A. (2014) “The Wealth of Nations”. CreateSpace. ISBN: ‎ 9781505577129