Kate Stannard, aged 28 from Glasgow, Scotland
Interview 1 (June 2009)
A conversation between Mother (54 years) and Daughter (28 years)
Kate (KJS): Do you have a living female icon? If so, who and why?
Elizabeth (EMS): My Mam I suppose, I admire all the strong women in our family living and dead. My grandma smith for running a business with her husband long before that was right or proper for a woman and being parish clerk and church secretary, which were things that women just didn't do.
Then my mother who started farming at the age of 14, when her dad left home, and who still farmed up until she was 70. Also because as well as holding down the duties of a farmers wife she took on her own business (which no farmer's wife ever did), in spite of having a son with learning disabilities to look after.
My daughters, the oldest for continuing to fight and not giving up (or going on to benefits) like a lot of people suffering anorexia and mental illness. Then you, for having the guts to leave home and follow your heart, and for being such a strong woman fighting your corner in the world, yet still looking like my larle lass, lol!
KJS : Whats been the hardest thing you have had to deal with due to the fact that you are female?
EMS: Coming into a professional work environment as a news reporter in the early 70s, when equality of the sexes was unheard of in this small country town. Women in the front office wore overalls and were considered a lower class. The printing works was union dominated therefore male dominated and there would have been no chance of a woman being employed there in fact, as women joined the staff, the printers humiliated them or sexually harassed them so that some refused to go into that department. I suffered the latter and it was horrible.
Female reporters before me had done only "fluffy" stories about golden weddings and cats up trees, so I had to be twice as good and twice as hard working to be considered equal to men; I also felt I had to appear twice as hard. Its hard to believe just how unequal things were between male and female employees and their wages. And it still exists to some degree in a lot of work and domestic situations around here. I always found that hard, as I had never been used to it at home as a child.
KJS: Was there a moment when you realised things could be different?
EMS: Do you mean equality? I don't think I really realised how much inequality there was until I got into the workplace. I was so lucky at home and at both primary school and grammar school.
I am still amazed at how much still exists, particularly for less educated
women, and frightened that the younger generation doesn't realise how bad it was and how easily it could go back that way.
So I don't think I ever realised things could be different (as in better), It was more a case of realising that in the outside world there was terrible Inequalities -- for women, black people, the less educated, those with a disability. There still is.
KJS: What is a feminist?
EMS: In the 60s and 70s a feminist was often perceived to be a man-hater and I think that in some cases that was the outcome as they became so frustrated, at least that was my personal experience of these women. They wanted equal pay for equal work for women; women to have as much say in the home, workplace and society as men; and women's opinions and feelings to no longer be brushed aside compared with what men wanted.
KJS: Man-hater is that not a bit of a cliché? A stereotype?
EMS: No, the active feminists from my school days who walked about
with banners and talked about it all the time, got on my nerves because they didn't have jobs where they proved themselves equal in the workplace, they just hung about in student bars and coffee bars and pubs and ranted on. They really hated men and I think that is bad. Men and women are all humans and they are just different. It seemed silly to me to hate men because they had the upper hand in the social system. It was right to hate the system but wrong to hate men.
KJS; Ok, but it sounds a bit like your personal experience of a few young women from your high school has tarnished your view of the whole feminist movement?
EMS: No. The sorts of national figures I respected just got on with it and made the system work for them. In starting businesses and becoming known and powerful they were able to show other women that they too could go against the system, and still be women with relationships or children or jobs and be equal but different to men.
I view a feminist as simply somebody who fights against the unfairness of females being discriminated against because of their sex. I do, however (and sadly), see that as a losing battle because employers will always prefer to appoint a man who is only to pay while he stays in a job, rather than run the risk of appointing a woman and have her off for lengthy (paid) periods of maternity leave. It is understandable economic sense but sad.
KJS: I have two things to ask; first, you keep referring to feminists as 'they' have you never considered yourself a feminist? Why?
EMS: No because I never broke any new ground, just went in the path others had cleared for me to use. Also I succeeded by learning to work round chauvinist men, not confronting them. It was more successful and less confrontational. So in some way I feel I have never had the courage of my convictions to be a feminist. Gary (long term partner), on the other hand, would disagree totally. He said one of my early speeches to him was about equality and women burning the bra years before and about him being a male chauvinist pig!
KJS: Also you said that its "understandable and economic sense" for a man to be appointed over a woman but surely fairness and equality is more important than economics. I don't think its understandable, i cant understand at all, why we put capitalist ideologies before human
rights ideologies. Dont you think that capitalist attitude is a
patriarchal one and one that deserves to be questioned?
EMS: If I ran a small business I would certainly favor a man over a woman if they were of equal ability. It is an absolute nightmare having a member of staff off for months that your have to pay and then having to try to find
somebody qualified to replace them for an unknown period of time. It is
illegal to ask an expectant mum when she thinks she might be back, or even if she is coming back. You have to leave it down to them and it makes running a small business a nightmare. Cover might not be so bad in a very large organisation. I know we are having nightmares in two departments at present. It's not my business so the economics don't bother me particularly but the logistics of it do.
It's not capital ideologies over equality, just practical common sense to
have a worker in post and not risk having one away for months. Some small firms have been driven to collapse by paying a staff member away on
maternity leave and then having to also pay the person who is replacing them temporarily.
KJS : What changes would you like to see in 20 years time?
EMS: I would like to see yet another change in the relationship between men and women and in the way employers and society view families, so that children did not have to go into care in order that their parents could work. I think the old system of children being at home with a parent (a mother almost always) was far better for them, certainly in pre-school years at least. However the economic situation/promotion system rarely allows this now. Women can be criticised for "wanting it all", i.e. work and family, but it is often a case of them having to "do it all" if they have to earn a living but still want children. Well at least this was my personal experience.
KJS : What is the best thing about being female?
EMS: Being emotionally superior to men and more capable than them.
Being able to multi-task and empathise.
Being able to hug people, even strangers, and cry when I need to.
Being able to tell friends the most intimate secrets and share feelings like men never could.
Feeling absolutely equal to men one minute and then being able to switch to useless feminine persona when the need arises! How wicked is that...!
But most of all, being able to carry, sustain and give birth to new life, that is such a special feeling!
Interview 2 the one that made me sad (KJS)
Email correspondence between two friends D.K (60) and K.J.S (28)
23-6-9
KJS; Do you have a living female icon? If so, who and why?
DK: Not a female icon as such, my icons happen to be male. But I would say my special female friends and special moments with women in particular.
I will recount three, whom early on in our relationships, I 'saw' as angels.
One I met when she was 18, very young and innocent, with a deep inner beauty. I met her on an advanced meditation course where we were spending up to 10 hours a day in deep meditation.
The second I first met when she was about 35-40, she had two children and subsequently a third. Again I had the experience of 'seeing into her soul' and recognizing an angelic quality.
The third was the daughter of a close friend and quite young when I first met her. Again she had this sweetness and potential, however this was never fulfilled.
All three have had tragedies in their life, so profound that this angelic quality has receded very deep into their souls but none seems to be tainted by bitterness or even anger, just resignation, as though they had chosen this fate long ago.
KJS: What is the best thing about being female?
DK: There isn't anything.
KJS: Whats been the hardest thing you have had to deal with due to the fact that you are female?
DK: The put downs by males, the lack of opportunities and expectations for females of my youth, perhaps not so prevalent today.
KJS: What changes would you like to see in 20 years time?
DK: That females can express their potential and not feel that they need to compete with men on their terms.
DK: Good question, is this not a divisive term.?????
DK: I expected things to be different, the shock came in the realisation that they are as they are.
KJS: What do you think are the great achievements of feminism?
DK: Giving females too much stress by feeling the pressure to work and raise family. The pressure to make a second income as family necessity. What was lost was the chance to be able to spend quality time with the family instead of getting home at 9pm tired in too many cases.
KJS: What do you regret?
DK: See above
