Katharine Elizabeth Whitehorn CBE (2 March 1928 – 8 January 2021) was a British journalist, columnist, author and radio presenter.

[1][2][3] Her family was on the left of the political spectrum and nonconformist, with her father being a conscientious objector and her mother having secured a place to study at the University of Cambridge.

After graduation, she worked as a freelancer in London, before moving to Finland to teach English and undertaking postgraduate studies at Cornell University.

[4] Whitehorn started her career in journalism covering fashion,[1] and was a sub-editor for the Woman's Own women's magazine in 1956, when the Picture Post photographer Bert Hardy asked her to model for him.

[1][3] Her writing is characterised by the Observer columnist Barbara Ellen as "defiantly human, female liberal, sane, amused, authentic and often revolutionary in its candid audacity.

"[9] Ellen considers Whitehorn a "feminist voice", and describes her as skilled at "evoking the pathos and humour of chaotic female life".

[9] Her 1963[10] article on sluts, in the sense of 'slovenly women', in which Whitehorn identified herself with the term, created a minor sensation: Have you ever taken anything out of the dirty-clothes basket because it had become, relatively, the cleaner thing?

[11]In 2009, Whitehorn began presenting some editions of the short philosophical Friday evening programme on Radio 4 entitled A Point of View.

In 1965–1967, she sat on a committee chaired by the judge John Latey, which reviewed reducing the UK's age of majority from 21 to 18, and contributed to making its report easy to read.