Welcome to Women What Whistle

So what's all this about then?

Hi, I’ve been toying with doing this for such a long time now and as it’s International Women’s Month I thought there was no better time than now to start my Substack newsletter straight to your inbox.

Back in the dark ages (around when Facebook and Twitter first came along), I created a platform for topics and conversations particularly relevant to women where we could delve into some of the more uncomfortable conversations as well as those we are all more au fait with. I figured out how to tweak code (yay me!) and transformed an online retail template into a magazine (this was before Wordpress and other blog templates came along), months later, we got there! A few years after that, it was hacked and I lost all of my work, the articles, photographs and posts I had written. I was furious with myself for not bothering with one tiny little necessity - backing up! Aah the joys of life lessons!!

Fast forward to 2019, and I went back to my radio roots and took a microphone inside my wardrobe. The premise of the podcast ‘Inside My Wardrobe’ (Ronseal) was similar to that of the initial online magazine, to cover aspects of being a woman, who we are beneath the surface, what makes us who we are, emotions, hormones, relationships etc and really going to town on some of the issues that don’t get talked about so readily. I think we have covered some good ground so far – trauma, eating disorders, menopause, sex – although I do feel like we have only scratched the surface.

I’m not creating any new episodes for the time being but there are plenty for you to listen to, and it’s available on all podcast platforms. I have however wanted to bring back the written content since the magazine was hacked, something longer than a Tweet or an Instagram post, enabling us to dig a bit deeper and go a bit further. So here we are, Women What Whistle. It’s not an either or, but the conversations here will be different to on the podcast.

Women What Whistle is an homage to my grandmother who taught me to whistle, much to my strict father’s annoyance. She didn’t care that a whistling woman was considered passe, as far as she was concerned, she whistled because she could, and that was her point. Do what you can, and always remember:

There’s no such thing as can’t!

Sometimes we fall in line with what society says we should or shouldn’t do or think, without questioning the reasons why, or even if there are any. She taught me to question and to think beyond what was offered up as fact. I thank her for her rebellious streak that insisted we don’t fall in line too fast.

So Women What Whistle is a newsletter, or commentary and hopefully will grow into a community. I have no doubt that I will talk about what is going on in the world, you’ll see observations from where I stand on anything that happens to get my goat, and definitely aspects that might concern women. I never saw myself as a feminist until recently, but my eyes have been opened to the very real plight that we still face together. Feminism has been through various waves over the years and seems to be redefining itself again, so I will keep a watchful eye on that too.

So this newsletter is for women like my grandmother, and for women like me, who like to grapple and question, and talk about things that aren’t always comfortable, or see the things that aren’t always obvious. I’m not entirely sure where we are headed or how often I’ll post at first, I’m just going to jump in and see what happens and I would love for you to join me.

This is a subscription site and so for the first few months I will make all posts accessible for free. If you would like to comment, you will need to be a paid subscriber - just click the subscribe button to see how it works if you’re new to Substack.

It’s set at £4 per month and you can choose to increase or decrease the amount to fit your own budget or desire to contribute. In time, my hope is that it will earn enough for me to bring someone on board to help get the podcast up and running as well as it takes a good two days each week to produce a full episode so that also needs to start paying for itself. But we shall see, I’m rather taking this one day at a time.

So, here goes, I’m going to hit the publish button and see what happens. Then all you need to do is to hit the subscribe button (remember you can also subscribe for free if you just want to receive the newsletter).

Thanks for finding me here, see you on the other side …

Love first,

Pipa 😊