The hatchet

While yielding a hatchet to smash up saloon bars and windows, landed Carrie Nation in jail, in court, and in folklore as a giant, ugly and mentally unstable woman, it also left little doubt about her agency. Advocacy is story and action. Nation used her hatchet when her speeches and writing failed to persuade lawmakers to protect women and children from the violence of inebriated men. She is pretty terrifying and also haven’t we all felt like this when pushed to the edge?

Your story is your hatchet. It can be dangerous and hurtful. It can be dull and useless. It can be life-saving and necessary for survival. A hatchet can make you a crazy woman who is trying to ruin an innocent man’s life and business or it can make you a burly father heating his home with wood to keep his kids warm. Stories, like objects, are defined by the frames society uses to present them. The hatchet alone won’t change your world, but it can influence the way your world sees you.

As a policy advocate for children, I have a Master’s in Community Development and an MFA in Creative Writing. I have worked for and with governments and universities in Ireland and the United States to create more effective policies and systems based on the experiences and needs of communities impacted. I have supported people of all ages to influence their communities and advocate for change.

A subscription to this newsletter will get you regular writing, reporting, and tips on the narrative change happening and needed to drive political (with a small “p”) shifts in our communities and lives and larger poitical and policy change in our institutions to create a healthy place for all women and children to thrive. My writing has appeared in major news outlets and in academic journals and books. Please get in touch if you’d like to be highlighted in this newsletter or have a tip for a battle-axe that I need to meet!

— Colleen Frawley

No one likes a scold, or a nag, or a hag. But if we’re being real what type of middle-age woman do men like? Definitely not one with too much education, lots of opinions, and unruly red hair and I accepted long ago that most men hate me. When I was younger, boys liked me - I was good craic and could drink and take a joke and give as good as I got.

After teaching middle school during covid and getting a divorce, I’ve reached the pinnacle of unlikeable. My new boss called me a “bulldog” and said it was a compliment. I’ts not really a compliment, is it? I’m an advocate and so need to lobby lawmakers and civil servants to improve policies and allocate funding to groups without much (any) political clout - low-income children and schools.

I’ve reached my battle-axe era. The term conjures up images of Sister Michael in Derry Girls with her cutting quotes like “If anyone is feeling anxious or worried, or even if you just want to chat, please, please do not come crying to me.” Or a particularly strict school principal that isn’t really allowed to exist anymore. We had one in middle school who we referred to as Friar Tuck because of her androgynous bowl haircut and boxy brown skirts. While I’m biased and don’t think I’m that bad yet, I’m definitely an “argumentative and determined woman.” While I don’t aspire to be unpleasant or difficult it does seem to come with the territory.

Carrie Nation was the original “battle-axe”, a legendary scold from Kentucky. Nation grew up in poverty, got a teaching certificate and then married a physician in 1867. She left him months later due to his drinking and ten years later married David Nation who divorced her in 1901 on the grounds of desertion. She abandoned her husband for the temperance movement and crusade against saloons. In Kansas where she lived she dressed in black and white and marched into saloons singing and praying before smashing up the bars with her hatchet. It’s fun to imagine. The original rage room. She survived numerous assaults and jail sentences. She paid her fines by selling souvenir hatchets and wrote a memoir about her life published in 1904.

Since I don’t think selling souvenir hatchets will help pay my bills and I don’t have a book deal (yet), I’m going to charge for this newsletter instead.

What’s next: A subscription will get you regular (hopefully weekly) Battle-axe of the week posts and essays on narrative change and policy that centers kids, based on my research adn work at the time. Right now, it’s focuses on the health impact to children by parental problem drinking. It’s a big one.

I plan to offer a battle-axe book club and workshops on advocacy, lobbying and communicating for social change. In the meantime, if you want 1-1 coaching or your group or organization wants to get involved in a campaign or a cause, please get in touch.