Jack Monroe

For other people named Jack Monroe, see Jack Monroe (disambiguation).

Jack Monroe
Jack Monroe
Born	(1988-03-17) 17 March 1988 Southend-on-Sea, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Occupation	Writer, journalist, campaigner
Years active	2012–present
Children	1
Website	fwww.cookingonabootstrap.com

Melissa "Jack" Monroe (born 1988) is a British cookery journalist and activist who has campaigned over poverty issues, particularly hunger relief, and has published a blog and several books of "austerity recipes". As a so-called transgendered person, writing a blog titled A Girl Called Jack, she obtained a post writing for The Guardian newspaper, which has a strong pro-LGBT bias. She has since written for The Echo, The Huffington Post, and The New Yorker. The Guardian called her "the face of modern poverty" in an article which argued that after having free education, free health care and free contraception, it could not possibly be her fault that she was an unemployed, unmarried mother .

Monroe's life has also included a very well-publicized breakdown and a suicide attempt.

Early life and career

Monroe was born in Southend-on-Sea to David Hadjicostas and Evelyn (née Beatty), a former nurse. David Hadjicostas is of Greek-Cypriot heritage, and served in the British Army for seven years and in the fire service for 30 years; he was awarded the MBE in 2007. Monroe has three siblings..

Monroe passed the 11-plus examination and attended Westcliff High School for Girls, a grammar school in Westcliff-on-Sea, where she claims she was bullied . She left at age 16, with insufficient GCSEs to progress to A-level (the minimum is usually five). Monroe left the family home and began working in a chip shop, before going to work in 2007 as a call handler for Essex County Fire and Rescue Service, where her father was employed.

Monroe then got pregnant as a result of what she calls a brief relationship with a close male friend. She has never denied that it was consensual. The father apparently took no responsibility for the child. After having the child, a boy, Monroe was unable to arrange her work around childcare, so she resigned in 2011. It was at this point she changed her name from Melissa to Jack – "Jack" being short for "Jack of all trades", her nickname.

Monroe spent the following 18 months living on state benefits and started a blog A Girl Called Jack. In the blog she wrote extensively about her financial hardship, claiming that she had to feed her son on £10 per week which is curious since in the UK single mothers can claim hundreds of pounds per week from the state in income support, child tax credit and housing benefit. Many choose this as a comfortable way of life.

Her blog got her invited to write for The Guardian, where she adopted a posture of plaintive penury and proceeded to publish recipes that were reminiscent of the 1970s bean-and-lentil hippie culture. She had no training or culinary expertise and offered such ideas as cooking cutlets of baked beans and beetroot, or of cooking pork ribs in Coca-Cola. Despite her extreme poverty she could evidently afford a mobile phone, computer with the latest software and internet access.

When other journalists described her life of supposedly grinding poverty as being a lifestyle choice, since she was living in a country with free contraception, and ample state benefits, she responded with fierce denial. In December 2015 the blog was renamed Cooking on a Bootstrap.

In 2012 Monroe became a weekly columnist for The Echo, a south Essex daily newspaper, and in February 2013 was taken on by the same as a trainee reporter. Monroe was later retained as an unpaid columnist for The Huffington Post, before signing a publishing deal with Penguin Group. The book deal, reported as worth £25,000, resulted in housing benefit being cut off and Monroe came close to being evicted, which led to moving into cheaper accommodation. Despite working every day, Monroe was unable to make ends meet. By January 2014, finances had improved, and Monroe was able to move into a small two-bedroom flat with her son.

Monroe wrote a twice-monthly food and recipe column for The Guardian and additionally contributed a number of political columns, as well as being featured in The New York Times and The New Yorker. Monroe has written several budget cooking recipe books.

In 2013 Monroe appeared in a six-week advertising campaign for Sainsbury's supermarket. Monroe accepted the equivalent of the living wage for the six weeks that the campaign ran and donated the remainder of the fee to charities including a food bank.

Speaking in 2014, Monroe described life as having "changed beyond recognition", but said that she is still affected by her experience of poverty.

Entitlement to Awards Questioned

When the University of Essex announced in May 2015 that it would award Monroe an honorary degree the honor was widely ridiculed and regarded as a political gesture, not merited by any academic or career achievement.

TV Appearances

Monroe appeared on BBC television's late night political programme This Week in June 2015.

Gender Confusion

In 2015 Monroe won the Women of the Future Award in the media category. Monroe was "surprised", saying "I'm not sure I'll even be a woman in the future". The award was won after Monroe came out as transgender, which created some controversy. It caused a gender debate and angered Monroe, who questioned the headlines of some newspapers and said "Because of my trans identity, I'm attacked for accepting a real woman's award."

The implication seems to be that she found something unjust in their objections and she could not understand their logic.

Campaigning and politics

Monroe has been an active campaigner for a number of causes in the UK, particularly those concerned with poverty and hunger, campaigning alongside organisations such as Unite, The Trussell Trust, Child Poverty Action Group and Oxfam.

Monroe was a supporter of the Labour Party, and appeared in a Labour campaign video in October 2013. Monroe left the party in March 2015 after disagreeing with it on immigration, and became a member of the Green Party of England and Wales.

In November 2014, Monroe lost her contract promoting food for Sainsburys because of her highly insensitive aspersion on the bereavement of the Prime Minister David Cameron, whose first son died in infancy. She said on Twitter that David Cameron "uses stories about his dead son as misty-eyed rhetoric to legitimise selling our NHS to his friends". The insensitive nature of this remark was widely condemned. There was a furious backlash online and many pointed out that Monroe made frequent use of her own son to make political points and obtain sympathy from the readers of her blog. The Daily Mail journalist Sarah Vine (wife of the senior Conservative politician Michael Gove) condemned Monroe's words and pointed out that she had chosen a life on benefits. She wrote 'If she was unsure about her sexuality, she should have taken greater precautions' (to avoid pregnancy) and added "It seems Ms Monroe isn't one for assuming responsibility for her actions". Monroe replied predictably that the column was "homophobic, transphobic, deadnaming [and] ignorant".

It remains unclear why Monroe accused Sarah Vine, who is a graduate of University College London and former Arts Editor of The Times newspaper, of "ignorance".

In April 2016 Monroe appeared online supporting the Women's Equality Party.

Monroe then transferred her allegiance to the National Health Action Party in the United Kingdom general election, 2017 in Southend West.

Personal life

Monroe, who was assigned female at birth, identifies as non-binary transgender, and has spoken of beginning to identify as trans from an early age. Monroe did not take part in a fire service passing out ceremony in 2008, because protocol would have required her (then living as a woman) to wear a skirt. Monroe kept her birthname while working at the fire service, concerned over "the potential for deadnaming and bullying in a not-particularly-tolerant organisation. Not a great place to be gay, let alone genderqueer."

On leaving the fire service, Monroe adopted a short haircut and took the forename "Jack". She began identifying to friends and family as a lesbian woman, and began a relationship with a woman; the relationship ended shortly after Monroe told her partner she was considering a mastectomy. Monroe was still careful at this point to downplay any suggestions of gender ambiguity, and in an interview in February 2014 described herself as a "lefty, liberal, lezzer cook" who had reassured her parents that she identified as female. "I was like, no, I'm a little bit tomboyish, a little bit butch. But I have no immediate plans to transition." Monroe publicly came out as non-binary in October 2015.

In 2013, Monroe was ranked No. 19 in The Independent on Sunday's Pink List of influential LGBT people in the United Kingdom. In 2014 it was reported that Monroe and her son were living with Monroe's then-girlfriend Allegra McEvedy, and McEvedy's daughter in London; the relationship ended in October 2015.

Libel cases

Monroe is notoriously litigious. She initiated legal action in 2015 after the Daily Mail claimed that "Jack" was not her real name, and has requested that her birth name not be used by the media.

In 2017, Monroe won a libel case against the newspaper columnist and television personality Katie Hopkins after Hopkins asked her in a jokey way on Twitter whether she was supportive of vandalism of a war memorial. The High Court awarded Monroe £24,000 in damages plus costs.

Mixed Reputation

Monroe's reputation on Twitter remains a mixed one, with some people calling her a "whiner" or a "whinger". and others admitting they find her "whinging" irritating. Indeed, "whinging" is a term that seems to recur frequently in allusions to Ms Monroe.

There have been many angry comments from disappointed purchasers of Monroe's latest book of recipes. The comments complain that books ordered have never arrived, or that the book when finally sent was not properly packaged and arrived damaged, or that the book itself was disappointing. One customer writes "if all the postage money has been spent it is further evidence of how badly managed this whole project has been! But I agree, we need another update for all of us that are still waiting for our books, nearly through February now and this is beyond a farce." Another writes "Still no book for me. I would really appreciate an update. I don't mind waiting - I would just like to be kept up to date on when it might arrive. Not sure what to do as this wait is frustrating - maybe all the pledged postage costs money has been spent and this is holding up the process?" and a third says "Some of the recent recipes are old ones updated ". Other comments in February include "Still no book - I wonder if the recipes appearing on facebook daily are new ones or are in this book." and "Gina Moreland on February 19 And still no book here either. Why does Jack feel the need to do this alone? I know there were offers to help. And does Jack's partner not help? What is so annoying is the constant presence on Twitter and several blog posts daily, but nothing here. I don't know why I'm commenting here again, Jack doesn't keep in touch here at all and only complains that we (the backers of this shambolic project) are bullying and rude."