Zoe Williams | |
|---|---|
| Born | Zoe Abigail Williams (1973-08-07)7 August 1973 (age 52)[1] Hounslow, London, England |
| Education | Lincoln College, Oxford (BA) |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist,columnist, author |
| Employer | The Guardian |
| Children | 2 |
Zoe Abigail Williams[2] (born 7 August 1973)[3] is a British columnist, journalist, and author.
Zoe Abigail Williams was born on 7 August 1973 inHounslow, London. Williams was educated at the independentGodolphin and Latymer School for girls in London and read modern history atLincoln College, Oxford.[4] Her father, Mark Williams, was aforensic psychologist;[5] he worked atWandsworth Prison in London.[6] Her mother was a set designer for theBBC.[7] Her parents separated in 1976 and divorced 20 years later.[8]Williams has an older sister[9] and half- and step-siblings from her father's marital and extramarital[9] relationships.Williams said her father was a petty criminal because he committed insurance fraud.[5][10]
Williams is a lifestyle, wellness and political journalist forThe Guardian, with her Fitness in your 40s, family and political columns. Her work has also appeared in other publications, including theNew Statesman,The Spectator,Now,[11] theLondon Cycling Campaign's magazineLondon Cyclist, andThe Times Literary Supplement.[12] She is also a columnist for the LondonEvening Standard, for which she was a diarist writing about being a single woman in London. She reviewed restaurants forThe Sunday Telegraph magazine.[13]
In May 2011, Williams wrote aboutfare dodging when in her 30s while travelling onLondon buses. She wrote: "I actually had a lot of affection forbendy buses, mainly because evading your fare was so easy that to pay was almost missing the point. We used to call it freebussing."[14][15]
In 2014, Williams defended the social policy legacy of formerLabour prime ministerTony Blair and denounced thosecalling him a war criminal.[16] Following the death ofFidel Castro, Williams condemned his rule in Cuba, while imploring her readers to ignore his policies.[17] In August 2015, Williams endorsedJeremy Corbyn'scampaign in theLabour Party leadership election. She wrote inThe Guardian: "The point is, Corbyn doesn't have to be right about everything; he doesn't have to be certain, and fully costed about everything; he doesn't even have to be responsive and listening to everything. This political moment is about breaking open the doors and letting the 21st century in."[18]
Williams writes about her personal life from a feminist perspective, such as her marriages,[19] motherhood, and her abortion.[20][21]
She wroteBring It On, Baby: How to have a dudelike pregnancy, a 2010 book of advice for mothers-to-be, which was republished in 2012 asWhat Not to Expect When You're Expecting.[13]
Williams was longlisted for theOrwell Prize in 2012,[22][23] and was named Columnist of the Year 2010 at the WorkWorld Media Awards.[24]
Williams has appeared as a guest on television.Clive James praised her appearance in documentaryTeenage Kicks: the Search for Sophistication: "The brilliant journalist Zoe Williams did a short piece to camera that was almost an aria."[25] She has presented a radio documentary,Inside the Academy School Revolution, whichMiranda Sawyer found one-sided and "tame",[26] and hosted BBC Radio 4'sWhat The Papers Say. She has been a panellist on the BBC'sAny Questions[27] andQuestion Time.[28]
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In February 2020, Williams was criticised online and inNation.Cymru for her comments about theWelsh language. Her article on exercise criticised a particular Canadian fitness regime as "hard and existentially pointless", continuing: "all that energy spent, no distance covered: it's like eating cottage cheese or learning Welsh."[29][30] Williams had previously praised the language onTwitter for giving Welsh speakers "a more international outlook".[30][31]
In 2020,Kent Live reported criticism of Williams following an altercation that resulted in Williams being told to leave aWetherspoons pub inRamsgate, on the basis that she had broken theCOVID-19 lockdown rules then in force.[32] Williams had written about the incident inThe Guardian.[33]
Williams lives inSouth London with her second husband, Will Higham, and his daughter from another marriage, as well as her son, Thurston,[34] and daughter, Harper,[35] who were fathered by her first husband before she married him.[36] Williams married the father, a geologist,[37] of her son and daughter[38] in 2013, after ten years together, and wrote about the wedding from a feminist perspective in her column forThe Guardian.[39][40] In 2018, after a divorce, Williams married for the second time.[36]
Williams became a trustee of the Butler Trust[41]—which was established to recognise the achievements of prison service staff—in November 2013.[2]
She is a patron ofHumanists UK.[42]
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