• In the UK, there are 208 women MPs (thirty-two per cent of the House of Commons) and 206 female peers (twenty-six per cent of the House of Lords)

• There is still a gender pay gap – the gap for women of colour is considerably worse than the gap for white women; research in the US suggests that black women are paid thirty-eight per cent less than white men and twenty-one per cent less than white women

• Three million girls worldwide are at risk of undergoing FGM

• The #MeToo movement has provoked discussion and action about sexual harassment worldwide

• The United Nations stated that, ‘No country in the world has successfully eliminated discrimination against women or achieved full equality’

Veroinca Moon’s health is worsening, and Leonie Barratt has been dead for nearly thirty-four years.

26 April 2018

26 April 2018

Exhibition opening day

‘I still can’t believe you came! Do you want to come and talk to people?’ Erica asks, breathless, as she hurries into the side room where Vee is sitting. ‘There are a lot here, you know. I recognise some of them from the photos.’

Vee can’t believe she came, either. She was planning to drop off the envelope for Erica later in the week, or ask her to come over. But she was sitting at home an hour ago, thinking about how long she has waited to be have her work recognised, and realised that she did, after all, want to be here. And she had something to say to Erica, as well as something to give her. So what if she had lost her nerve when she arrived, waved at Erica and stepped behind the door marked ‘PRIVATE’, into an office stacked with boxes of catalogues and the trays the wine glasses were stored in? She can go out into the space later, if she feels up to it. When she’s done this.

‘Erica, I’m very proud of you,’ she says. ‘You’ve done a great job. You’ve – you’ve brought me back to life.’

‘Thank you,’ Erica says, ‘Vee, it’s been an honour.’

Vee can’t trust herself not to cry, so she asks, ‘How did the press call go this afternoon?’

‘All good, I think’ – Erica squishes her eyes shut for a moment – ‘I can’t think about that now. You’re going to stay? Now you’re here?’

‘I don’t know.’ On the one hand, it’s the last thing she wants to do. On the other hand, there are people coming who she will probably never see again: sisters from the old days, the only people who remember Leonie too. She would like to say goodbye to them.

Erica is done up to the nines, of course, heels and a dress and she’s obviously had her hair done. Still, it’s her night, and this is how the patriarchy has made Erica thinks a woman looks on a special occasion.