ALI Caroline has always been very independent. I think that’s partly to do with her having two older brothers and partly to do with the break-up of my marriage to her father. She was 15 at the time and I think it affected her a lot.
But even before that I suspect she sensed my frustration at being what I called a “handbag” wife. My husband was an international businessman and I followed him round the world. It meant I couldn’t follow my own career as a nurse — or any career. Whenever I started something, I’d have to drop it after two or three years, because we were moving to another country.
There were advantages, though. I got to travel the world, I had help with the kids, and I learnt lots of languages. That was the payoff. But it wasn’t enough, and when my marriage fell apart, I was left with nothing. I’m sorry to say, I wasn’t very good at hiding my distress. I wish I’d been stronger... I know seeing me disintegrate affected Caroline deeply. It made her think: “I will never get into a situation where I am dependent on a man for anything.”
I came out of it, and in my fifties made a new life for myself — one that’s enormously rewarding — and that must have had an influence on her, too. Even though my job with Médecins Sans Frontières is tough, I love it. Every mission is different: I might be in sub-Saharan Africa on a vaccination campaign, or evacuating war-wounded from Libya. It’s scary and dangerous, but also incredibly exciting.
Caroline has been a terrific supporter of all my missions. Before almost every one, I’ve had cold feet. I’ll phone her and say: “Can I cope with the conditions? Will I be able to do the work?” And she says: “Mum. You say that every time. Of course you can.” It’s what she calls “imposter syndrome”. She says she has it — all women have it. It’s this voice in your head that says, “I’m not up to the job,” even though other people know I am.
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Coming back from Sierra Leone this year, I had images in my head that I couldn’t erase of people suffering from ebola... corpses lying on top of people who were still alive. For ages afterwards I had a need to talk to others who’d been out there, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t do it again like a shot.
Although we’ve always been close, Caroline hides things, so I don’t know as much as I’d like to know about how she is feeling. Sometimes she seems super-stressed and she says it’s to do with anxiety, which she feels most of the time — even going to the supermarket — and that does worry me.
Sadly, she didn’t tell me about the Twitter abuse [Caroline was subjected to threats of extreme violence during her successful campaign to get a woman’s face on a British banknote]. She says she didn’t want to upset me; she thought I wouldn’t get it. And she’s right. I don’t get it. It’s beyond my comprehension that there are men out there who have such hatred for women.
One of the things that impresses me most about her is that when she notices something’s not right, she will do something about it. And she won’t give up. When she heard men debating breast cancer on the Today programme — apparently they couldn’t find a female expert — she set up a website called The Women’s Room, which is a database and forum for female professionals.
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Even when she was getting married, she saw there was nowhere on the wedding certificate for the mother’s name — only the father’s. She’s helping to get that changed too; it’s going through parliament now. What she’s doing is important.
It annoys me when people say there’s no need for feminism any more, because women have equality now. It’s just not true.
CAROLINE I grew up knowing my mum was an adventurer. Before she got married, she’d climbed Kathmandu and travelled round the Middle East in a beat-up campervan with a bunch of hippies.
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Then, when I was small and we were living in Taiwan, we went trekking in Thailand and got shot at on the edge of a poppy field. Instead of flying home from Taiwan, we came back on the Trans-Siberian railway through Mongolia, and stopped in Ulan Bator on the way, where we stayed in a yurt.
I didn’t know anything about feminism when I was growing up, but one thing I became increasingly aware of was my mother’s dissatisfaction. Just as she got her teeth into something meaningful, Dad would announce he was being sent somewhere else to work and she would have to start all over again — new country, new culture, new language.
When Caroline was getting married, she saw nowhere on the wedding certificate for the mother’s name, only the father’s. She’s helping to get that changed too
I was about 15 when he left, and watching Mum unravel was just awful. All her life, everything had been about him or us. By not having a life of her own, of feeling fulfilled in other ways, she felt like a support person rather than an actual person. She was also scared of being in social situations; she always felt that my father was the charismatic one when they went out anywhere. And I could see all of this. When Dad left her, and she suffered a breakdown, I said to myself: “I will never, ever, rely on anyone to that extent.”
The thing about Mum is that she can still lack confidence in things that relate to herself, but when it’s to do with putting someone else first, she’s completely different. Her work with MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières] has made me realise that. With work, she doesn’t have any doubts; she’s incredibly brave at putting herself forward and is totally adept at walking into all these really difficult, often very dangerous situations.
Mum had always wanted to work for MSF, ever since she’d completed her nurses training, and once she was on her own again, she realised there was nothing stopping her from applying. So she did, and now she goes on at least a couple of missions every year with them.
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When she went out to help with the Libya crisis last year, the MSF team decided they were going to take a boat into Misrata harbour and evacuate all the people who had been wounded in the war. She just gets on with what needs to be done. It was so dangerous that she wrote us a letter saying: “If you’re reading this, I have died doing something really important.” Thank God it wasn’t necessary to send it.
I’m pleased to say that Mum is definitely her own person now. I’d even go as far as saying she’s become radicalised! I now see her as this fantastic role model, not just for me... but for all women n
Caroline Criado-Perez’s book, Do it Like a Woman, is out now (Portobello Books, £12.99).
She will be speaking at The Times and The Sunday Times Cheltenham Literature Festival on October 3. Times+ members can receive priority booking for tickets from August 28 via mytimesplus.co.uk. For the full festival programme, visit cheltenhamfestivals.com