The voice of Big Mother does more for women than any Twitter feminist

Feminism in modern Britain is not for the faint-hearted. Only the smartest, mouthiest girls on the social media scene dare join the fray — in print, in blogs, on Twitter — where they yell silently at each other in front of a mute but poisonous audience.

It often seems not so much a fight for ladies’ rights as for territory: Caitlin Moran, Lily Allen, Laurie Penny, all jostling to own each particular piece of feminist turf.

So it pleases me, secretly, that quite unnoticed by the Twitter girls, another woman’s voice, one that speaks aloud to millions every day, has done more (I suspect) to advance equality than the whole shouty lot of them.

I noticed her first when I answered a phone call from an anonymous number not so long ago. Though prerecorded, the lady’s voice that started up was so pleasant that I kept listening for a while. The modern world is difficult, she said, and we all struggle with debt. Was I falling behind on my payments? She was a machine, and a scamster to boot — but she sounded so caring and in command that I almost regretted hanging up.

She opened my ears, that robot. Since then I’ve realised that this voice, or near-identical versions of it, speak to us ceaselessly every day, from loudspeakers, from the radio, from inside our appliances. Sometimes the voice is recorded, sometimes live, but she’s always female and she always cares. She’s pleasantly old-fashioned and futuristic at the same time; classless but classy, effortlessly in charge. I’ve come to think of her as Big Mother.

If I take the bus to work, the 38, then the 24, there she is on both, announcing the stops, with particular feelings about each one. ‘Denmark Street’ she says with a shudder, ‘Tottenham Court Road’ in a sort of ecstasy at making it through Soho again.