Dawn Hayley Foster (12 September 1986 – 9 July 2021)
Early life and education
Foster was born in and grew up in Newport,
South Wales.
She also had a background in
Belfast and held dual British and Irish citizenship.
In articles for Child Poverty Action Group and
The Guardian, she wrote that she grew up in poverty in an unemployed family. In 2017, Foster detailed early experiences of hunger and sleeping rough for the Food Memory Bank project.
She attended Caerleon Comprehensive School and Bassaleg School before going on to study English literature at the University of Warwick.
Journalism
Foster held staff writer positions at
Inside Housing, The Guardian, and
Jacobin magazine. She was co-editor of
openDemocracy 50:50
and wrote for numerous publications including
The New York Times,
Tribune, and the
London Review of Books.
The Guardian
The success of Foster's blog on the harassment of female cyclists led to her first commission at
The Guardian in 2010.
In 2011, Foster was appointed as a moderator on
The Guardian Comment is Free website and became a regular contributor to its opinion section.
Foster's career at The Guardian continued with regular columns including Foster on Friday
Inside Housing
After working on
The Guardian comment moderation desk and writing opinion, Foster worked as deputy features editor at
Inside Housing from 2014 to 2015. Her work there includes reports into hoarding,
interviews with social geographer
Danny Dorling and Welsh politician Tanni Grey-Thompson,
and investigations into how periods impact homeless women.
Inside Housing colleagues described Foster as "brave and bold" and a "brilliant journalist."
It was during Foster's role at Inside Housing that International Building Press organisation named her 2014's IBP new journalist of the year.
London Review of Books letter to Toby Young
In 2015, the
London Review of Books' cover story for its 7 May issue was an article written by Foster criticising the free school movement. In it, Foster wrote: "There is no requirement that free school founders have experience of running a school, and no assessment is made as to whether the prospective founders will be able to meet the legally required standards of school governance." The article drew criticism from free schools advocate and journalist
Toby Young. In a letter to the
London Review of Books, Young took issue with Foster's interpretation of free schools data and made claims that were challenged by the author
Michael Rosen, journalist
Melissa Benn, and education researcher Janet Downs in further letters written to the publication. Foster responded to Young in the
London Review of Books' Letters refuting Young's criticism and wrote:
Grenfell Tower fire
On the night of the Grenfell Tower fire, "Foster headed over to do what she could as Grenfell Tower was engulfed in flames, and went on to unearth a blog post written by former residents of the tower warning that the recent refurbishment could cause a 'serious fire'."
Her coverage of the fire included an opinion piece in
The New York Times, in which she wrote the following:On the day of the fire,
Jacobin magazine published an article by Foster on the fire. She called the tragedy an "atrocity" that "was explicitly political" and "a symbol of the United Kingdom's deep inequality".
A tribute to Foster by the writer Juliet Jacques wrote that Foster, "reported on the relentlessly, criticising the way the building's management company and the local council had ignored the residents' concerns".
One year on from the Grenfell fire, Foster discussed the political aftermath and the survivors' struggle for justice with writer and editor James Butler on Novara Media.
2018 Conservative Party Conference
Whilst attending the 2018 Conservative party conference, Foster uncovered an oversight in the event's mobile app that allowed any user to access personal details and phone numbers of attendees including
Boris Johnson and senior members of
Theresa May cabinet. The story went viral online and resulted in an apology and investigation from the Information Commissioner.
Criticism of an MP's use of the phrase "Cultural Marxism"
In 2019, the Conservative Member of Parliament,
Suella Braverman, said in a pro-
Brexit speech for the Bruges Group (a
Eurosceptic think tank): "We are engaged in a war against cultural Marxism" and warned about free speech at universities in the UK. Journalists present at the event included Foster who challenged Braverman's use of the term 'cultural Marxism' highlighting its anti-Semitic history and its connection to the manifesto of mass murderer Anders Breivik. Braverman responded, "Yes, I do believe that we are in a fight against cultural Marxism. We have a culture evolving from the far left which is about snuffing out freedom of speech." Braverman's usage of the conspiracy theory was condemned as
hate speech by other MPs, and the anti-racist organisation Hope Not Hate.
Support of transgender rights
Foster wrote numerous articles against transphobia in British media
and was one of more than 200 feminists who signed a letter to
The Guardian in 2020 rejecting the argument that transgender rights are a threat to women.
In 2019, Foster criticised anti-transgender activist Graham Linehan and others who allegedly engaged in targeted harassment of an NSPCC employee after the charity hired British model and activist Munroe Bergdorf, a transgender woman. Foster called the online abuse "transphobic" and "flatly homophobic".
In 2020, Foster received transphobic emails and threats for her support of the transgender rights movement.
Ireland
Foster often wrote and made commentary on Irish politics and social issues, particularly those concerning Northern Ireland.
A believer in Irish reunification, she attended Sinn Féin public meetings. She was described as "one of the few working-journalists in Britain who intimately understood Ireland" in
An Phoblacht.
Media appearances
Television
Foster made regular appearances as a political commentator on television including
Sky News,
Channel 4 News,
,
and
Newsnight.
Radio and podcasts
Foster also regularly appeared on radio and podcasts in Britain and America. She was a frequent guest on
Novara Media and made appearances to discuss austerity,
politics,
and housing in Britain.
Between 2020 and 2021, Foster also appeared on
Talkradio
In 2017, Foster appeared on The Independents Double Take podcast to discuss solutions to Britain's housing emergency.
In 2020, the London Review Bookshop podcast released a conversation between Foster and the author Lynsey Hanley discussing Hanley's book Estates.
Recorded panels
Recordings of Foster's appearances at The World Transformed include a 2016 panel titled "Building a Radical Media"
and a 2018 panel titled "Tribune: the relaunch",
organised by
Tribune magazine.
In 2016, Foster took part in the Fawcett Society's 150th anniversary celebrations on a panel discussing feminism.
Books
Lean Out
Foster's first book,
Lean Out, was published in January 2016 by
Repeater Books. In Foster's obituary in
The Guardian Lean Out was described as "a rebuttal of
Sheryl Sandberg's argument that corporate women could succeed by 'leaning in' to their careers, it skewered what Dawn called the 'self help' approach of corporate feminism."
In January 2016, Foster was interviewed about Lean Out politics by HuffPost. In it she discussed the book's response to , a 2013 book co-written by Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, and Nell Scovell, a TV and magazine writer. In the interview, Foster said.Foster further discussed her criticism of Lean In and liberal feminism with HuffPost:In March 2016, Foster discussed the book with openDemocracy in a recorded interview titled, "Is capitalism destroying feminism?"
Further promotion of Lean Out included a discussion with Zoe Williams at the London Review Bookshop in February 2016.
Reception
Social geographer
Danny Dorling wrote, "Rarely does 'essential reading' really mean that you urgently need to read a book. But
Lean Out is different." The
Independent on Sunday called
Lean Out, "A very important, much-needed and well-researched book that isn't afraid to ask the right questions and demand answers. It is a straight-talking, timely call to arms." In Times Higher Education, writer and academic
Shahidha Bari wrote that the book was, "Vigorous...trenchant...a robust critique...its conclusion is both inevitable and startling."
The Huffington Post wrote that it was, "Fascinating, thought-provoking and at times outrage-inducing."
In 2017, Lean Out was shortlisted for the Bread and Roses book award.
Incomplete works
According to Foster's obituary in
The Guardian, she had been working on a second book,
Where Will We Live?, about the history of and solutions to the housing crisis: she had one chapter left to write before being sidelined by illness.
According to her biography in the
London Review of Books, she was working on another book, a cultural history of the dole.
Personal life
As a child, Foster practised
Taekwondo.
At the end of her life, Foster was based in South West London. She was a Roman Catholic.
Foster's volunteer work included the Christmases she spent volunteering for homeless charities with ties to her church.
Foster had epilepsy and schwannomatosis, and wrote about her experience of disabilities and disability rights.
Death
Foster's friends and colleagues announced her death on 15 July 2021, at the age of 34. Foster had been discharged from hospital on 9 July and was found in her home, having died suddenly of complications related to her long-term health problems.
Tributes were paid by fellow political commentators and journalists on social media as well as a number of politicians, including Jeremy Corbyn, Mary Lou McDonald, Angela Rayner, and John McDonnell.
Legacy
In July 2021,
South Wales Argus reported on a fundraiser for a memorial bench for Foster in Newport.
Housmans bookshop
In October 2021, the radical, London-based bookshop Housmans announced that Foster's private library had been donated to the bookshop by Foster's next of kin. Each book was stamped with the imprint "DAWN FOSTER FOREVER – From the library of Dawn Foster 1986–2021."
Dawn Foster Memorial Essay Prize
In November 2021, the Dawn Foster Memorial Essay Prize was launched in her memory by HCI Skills Gateway in partnership with Red Pepper magazine.
In 2022, this prize was awarded to Jessica Field's essay on #SaveOurHomesLS26: a resident action group in
Leeds campaigning to save their prefabricated tenanted homes.
The winning essay and the shortlisted entries were published by Red Pepper magazine.
Bibliography
Awards and influence
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The International Building Press Prize for Young Journalist of the Year, 2014.
-
Non-traditional journalist of the year, Words by Women awards, 2016.
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Shortlisted for Scoop of the Year, The International Building Press Prize, 2016.
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Longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Exposing Britain's Social Evils, 2017.
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Shortlisted for the Bread and Roses Award, 2017.
-
Number 82 in "The 100 Most Influential People on the Left" by political commentator Iain Dale, 2017.
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One of the most respected journalists by journalists in the Journalists at Work survey by the National Council for the Training of Journalists, 2018.
External links
