Independent Women: The guest-editors taking over The Independent’s women-focused newsletter

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them,” Margaret Atwood once famously said.

This is just one of the many quotes included in my free weekly women-focused newsletter which launched at the end of May. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Michelle Obama, Angela Davis, and Audrey Lorde are just some of the other forces of nature who have been quoted.

But while each Independent Women newsletter contains a rousing quote which from a wide array of formidable women from different moments in history, each email also contains a stark statistic about gender inequality.

Take the fact that less than two in ten of landholders in the world are women. Or that a third of women in the world will suffer physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives. Or that one in three girls in the UK has been harassed in their school uniforms.

The newsletter, which lands in your inbox every Thursday morning, come rain or shine, provides a succinct round-up of The Independent’s most razor-sharp opinion pieces and hardest-hitting news stories; exploring issues that shatter and ignite the lives of women in the UK and around the world.

Alongside personal anecdotes and analysis, I have used the newsletter to delve deeper into news stories, interviews, features and investigations of my own. These have covered everything from domestic abuse homicides to the terrifying situation women and girls in Afghanistan are facing this very moment, the neglected and rarely discussed plight of being conceived by rape, spiralling gambling addiction among women, the fears quarantine hotel costs risk forced marriage victims dying in ‘honour’ killings, the dark threats and sexual abuse women gamers endure, and much more.

But there have also been positive stories about breastfeeding mothers managing to challenge 'ludicrous' jury service rules and hopes around free period products being provided across England and Wales going forward.

And I am now very chuffed to announce that the newsletter which is penned by me - Maya Oppenheim - the only Women’s Correspondent to exist in a UK news outlet - will now be taken over by a series of high-profile guest-editors. While there is not yet a complete list of the women who will be taking the reigns of the newsletter every eight weeks, as I am still waiting on some big names to confirm, I have included an incomplete list below. It goes without saying their guest-editorship will give them a chance to talk about an issue or a personal experience close to their heart.

As ever, feedback is always appreciated and you can contact me via [email protected] if you have anything you want to say. Or if better still, you have any burning desires or bright ideas for issues to be explored in future stories or newsletters.

Finally, thank you so much to those who have subscribed, and for those who are interested in doing so, you can sign up and check out The Independent’s full range of other newsletters by clicking here. Hasta la vista! I hope!

Deborah Frances-White - London-based comedian who hosts popular podcast The Guilty Feminist

Shannon Watts - US gun violence prevention activist and founder of Moms Demand Action, which is America’s biggest grassroots group fighting against gun violence

Jess Phillips - Labour MP and Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence Safeguarding

Ebtisam Al-Saegh - Leading Bahraini women’s rights defender who is often described as the “voice of political prisoners in Bahrain”

Marsha DeCordova - Labour’s Shadow Women and Equalities Minister

Shon Faye - Writer and presenter who wrote The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice

Lina Al-Hathloul - Saudi activist who campaigned for the release of her imprisoned sister who is famous Saudi women’s rights campaigner Loujain Al-Hathloul

Zarah Sultana - Labour MP who at the age of just 27 is one of the youngest in parliament

Rachel Clarke - NHS palliative care doctor and best-selling author