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Face to face with a great feminist

I'm interviewing academics at the University of East London for a research brochure. The other day I met someone called Barbara Taylor.

"So what's the real world impact of your book going to be?" I asked chirpily.

"Well, it's going to be published by Penguin," she replies. "It's about mental health, a mixture of historical study and memoir as I've spent three years researching the asylum system, and I was in Friern Barnet hospital in the 1980s. Books like that tend to attract a lot of attention."

She's only The Barbara Taylor - world famous historian of feminism! Actually I've never heard of her, but one has a way of noticing when one is the presence of brilliance and a quick google afterwards confirmed I had been.

The book is about how we look after each other - everyone needs looking after, mental health is just one example of that. She says that question is nothing new, it's always been a preoccupation of feminism. But the book will shed light on the current political climate in which looking after the vulnerable members of society is looked on with suspicion.

Can't wait!

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