Controlling Women

The Untold Story of Britain's First Female Police Force, Hurst: 2025

Violence against women is out of control.
Conviction rates for rape are so low that most
survivors think it pointless to report, or later
regret doing so. Ruthless tra cking gangs run
the sex trade. Women have no confi dence in
the Metropolitan Police. The year is 1914.
As the First World War began, a group of
British campaigners founded the Women Police
Volunteers, hoping to protect the vulnerable
both from crime and from patriarchal policing
and justice. The movement’s pioneers included
a militant su ragette who’d spent time behind
bars, a moral purity activist, a blue-blooded
radical, and a court reporter born in the
workhouse to a single mother. Sandra Hempel
follows their astonishing journey, through all
of its troubling turns.
Controlling Women is a vivid snapshot of
rapid national change, and a rich tapestry of
ethics and emotions among its fascinating
characters. Reconciling political ideals with
institutional compromise, these bold, complex
women made history, despite establishment
opposition and destructive infi ghting. They
show us just how far we have to go in the fi ght
for women’s justice.