Elusive Voice

I'd forgotten I'd lost my voice until I went out shopping yesterday afternoon and barked at the person on the till. She got a bit of a shock and I felt rather sheepish. Or should that be doggish?
I've read three detective novels since Monday and I'm fed up of them. I tried to read Edward Said's Orientalism yesterday and was OK until it got to the list of philosophers, where there were no female ones whatsoever. I couldn't read any further, because he didn't even notice.
There were raised voices chez moi on Tuesday when we were watching The Brits because I was so upset by Stormzy, who I have so admired, performing in front of a bunch of women wearing those high legged knicker things, not playing an instrument, not singing, not speaking.
I shouldn't have argued, should have just thought thoughts: the next morning there was no voice at all.
Was this Stormzy karma?
Let's ask Miley Cyrus on the wrecking ball.

Of course, on reflection, this is so like back in the punk days when we were making a lot of noise about things we wanted to change. It seemed like every organisation wanted a pet punk band. A feminist group from the University of Sussex had a chat with me in the toilets at the Resource Centre after a Joby and the Hooligans gig about the lyrics I was singing in unison with Joby. They thought I was silly and I didn't realise that I was singing sexist lyrics. On my side, I thought they were silly to misunderstand the irony of a young woman singing along merrily with Joby. So I wrote Thrush, just to make it clear that I was fully aware of my gender. It wasn't just them, though: there were myriad organisations who wanted to implant ideas in our dumb little heads and have us act as mouthpieces for them.

That's why when Rock against Racism started up, it was such a blessing. Yet there was misogyny from some of the bands who were involved in that, too.
It really seems as though prejudice against women is the final taboo: so visible, it's invisible. It's the ultimate elephant in the room, and now I'm going to write that song.