Tuesday 20 March 2018

All Woman - My experiences as a volunteer with the International Women’s Day event at City Hall on 3rd March 2018


100 years ago this year the first women in the UK achieved the vote. The struggle for women’s suffrage was long and arduous, spanning decades, and with its roots in the campaign to abolish slavery. The fact that only rich white women over 30 were granted the vote in 1918 spoke less to any entrenched bigotry in the movement, but far more to the patriarchal elitism coupled with infantilisation of women of the government of the day. Indeed, so glacial has the pace been on shifting perceptions of women in wider society, we are still battling some of the same deeply, deeply erroneous and ingrained misogynistic views today.

And so this is why, in spite of some murmurs of discomfort, I believe that it is a wonderful thing to be celebrating such a watershed moment in women’s history. And so wonderful to have been part of this truly amazing event put on by Bristol Women’s Voice at City Hall on Saturday 3rd March 2018, 100 years after women began their journey into public life beyond the role of monarch, which only one woman at a time could occupy anyway. This was the start of the recognition of women as human beings in their own right, and paved the way for increasingly diverse women to enter spheres of power and influence, assorted careers, and to gain access to a greater variety of life choices. That there are still barriers, and that we have still not achieved anything like equality is a given, but let’s not underestimate the huge leaps forward that the feminist movement has achieved in the last century. And so, with a gladness in my heart, and surrounded by fabulous people doing all manner of wondrous things, I began my day of volunteering at the event.

Prior to my first shift on the front desk, I had a chance to chat to a few stallholders, including some of the women representing the Feminist Archive, a group responsible for collecting and archiving feminist memorabilia from the women’s movement from 1960 to 2000. We chatted about the work they do, the underground nature of women’s work and activism, the paucity of women’s history represented in the mainstream, and especially the history of ordinary women. With my background as a student and teacher of history, it struck me that I had never reconciled the two conflicting ideas in my head. I knew that there was little women’s history available because of, you know, how sexist everyone was in the old days. But what I was really unable to reconcile was the fact that in a time when all those battles were fought and won, and when equality had supposedly been achieved, there were still very few books or lessons on women’s history. It seems that women’s history, like so much of women’s endeavours in general, are still barely given a thought. This is one of the reasons why the work of the Feminist Archive is so valuable. Little girls need to grow up in a world where women’s achievements, both historically speaking and currently speaking, need to be spoken of and celebrated.
 
Then, onto my first stint at the front desk, greeting event-goers as they entered City Hall with a smile, a programme, and a Suffrage purple wristband. It was a lot of fun ticking off names and signing people up to Bristol Women’s Voice, and I was struck by the diversity of people keen to attend in spite of the snow. Although the majority of folk at the event were identifying as female, there were plenty of men and boys too, representing Bristol’s ethnic diversity and age range, as well as people with disabilities. I enjoyed a laugh and a joke with the event attendees, and my fumbling attempts to get wristbands on without trapping arm hairs certainly lent some unintentional comedy to proceedings. I also really enjoyed chatting with my fellow front desk volunteers. Some were as young as eleven or twelve, and doing an astonishingly assured job of it! And a kind fellow volunteer who responded to my hunger pangs with a timely yoghurt covered rice cake deserves a mention too!

So, a quick dash off for lunch and then back to the exciting task of being a roving reporter for the day. Thus followed a hectic ten minutes or so where I bumped into lots of familiar faces, and even had some time to interview one or two, including Carly Lightbown, who organised the first Bristol Women’s March in 2017, an event so big that it even got a mention in political scientist Cynthia Enloe’s The Big Push. She has also coordinated the setting up of Bristol’s Female Empowerment Network or FEN, which is an online community of some 6-700 people who are interested in discussing issues that affect women and girls, share stories of inspiration, opportunities for training and jobs, and attending Bristol’s feminist events among a myriad of other things. She explained all the various things she was hoping to do at the event, and said:

‘I love what Bristol Women’s Voice do. They do so much around the city and we’re so lucky to have them.’

Bristol is also lucky to have inspirational women like Carly, whose work within various communities was recognised later that day with a Wonderful Woman award in a touching ceremony where each recipient was given a posy of spring daffodils, in spite of the wintry weather outside, in front of an appreciative audience of supporters.

Next, I took a look around various stalls, particularly attracted to the brightly coloured posters and pins designed by graphic designer Jess Augarde of Augarde Art. I’d already purchased a ‘Well behaved women rarely make history’ postcard for my mum for Christmas a few months before, so it was lovely to take a few moments to chat to her and buy three badges with fun but pithy quotes on them – ‘Nasty Woman’ now takes pride of place on my lapel. Apparently the stall had attracted a lot of interest, and the incidentally the ‘Well behaved women’ badge was sold out. Thanks to Jess and the event, there are now plenty of young girls in particular sporting similar badges around Bristol. I bought one for my niece with ‘Girl Power’ on it. The Spice Girls might have made the quote famous but it still bears repeating in a world where girls’ power is rarely acknowledged and seen as aberrant, and where running or throwing ‘like a girl’ is still an insult.

The range and breadth of workshops and talks on that day was truly breath taking, and it was very hard to decide which ones to go to. In fact, some were so popular, you couldn’t even get in the door – the Women in Media panel discussion was a non-starter for me as I got there way too late and there wasn’t even standing room.

One area of particular interest to me is the way in which education either reinforces or challenges existing stereotypes. As a teacher and as a tutor, I have been on my own voyage of discovery when it comes to how we deal with different genders in the classroom, and how our educational approaches and expected outcomes are influenced by unconscious bias and pre-conceived ideas about how girls and boys learn and behave. I was luckily able to attend the first half of the TIGER (Teaching Individuals Gender Equality and Respect) workshop and watch them introduce the topic and begin a series of activities inviting participants to consider their own experiences in education or as parents.

TIGER are a group working places of education, including schools and universities, who work with educators and students in order to facilitate often difficult conversations around the topic, and to raise awareness of how unconscious bias adversely affects girls in particular. One particularly striking example they gave was that in a blind maths exam, where the teachers had to mark anonymous papers, the girls were marked higher than boys overall, but when the same papers were given with names to teachers who knew the students, the boys were marked up and the girls marked down. Apparently, 71% of 11-21 year old girls have reported gender stereotypes used by teachers, and with this example in mind, it shows just how important it is to have gender stereotyping and sexism being countered in the same way that racist bullying or homophobia has in recent years.

Natalie Bennett who works with TIGER explained how the workshops give young people the opportunity to think critically about their own identity, and the identity of their peers, and how sometimes although it might appear that no difference has been made, the workshops often start the process of awareness in students:

‘We’ve had some students where you feel like you’re not making a difference or that you haven’t done anything. But then they’ve gone away and I’ve found out that a couple of months later they’ve started a feminist society. So even the people you’re not sure you’ve changed…you’re still planting the seeds you’ve had these conversations which is really, really powerful, and they’re going to see stuff around them, about gender and how identities are being represented, and start critically thinking about that because of the conversations that we’ve had.’

Ours was a really insightful conversation as well, and certainly chimed with my own experiences in schools and working with students as a tutor. Institutional sexism and gender stereotyping is rife in education, as in all areas of our lives, because of the pervasive culture that teaches that boys and girls are fundamentally different in ways that create an artificial hierarchy which places boys and men above girls and women. She mentioned the particular challenges the group has faced when offering these workshops, and the resistance and defensiveness, often coming from male members of staff, who feel threatened by the messages they are trying to convey. It is unsurprising, given how much of this culture goes unnoticed by all of us, but just underlined for me how essential this work is and that we need to challenge gender stereotypes from a very young age.

This is an issue very close to my heart as an educator, and I will be exploring this issue in more depth with more details of my conversation with Natalie in a separate article in the near future, so look out for that on my blog!


Determined to pack as much into my day as possible, I decided to attend one of the panel discussions held in the Lord Mayor’s Reception, on Women in Public Life. Chaired by Bristol Women’s Voice, Penny Gane, the panel was made up of women who had achieved a public role and the powers and responsibilities that come with it, including Cleo Lake (Green Cllr), Marg Hickman (Labour Cllr), Eve Szczelkun (Youth Mayor) and Sumita Hutchinson (Race Commission). They were discussing why it is important to have women in public life, and what can be done to encourage more women into roles like these.

I have considered representing my ward as a Councillor myself, so it was very interesting to hear what these inspiring and hardworking Bristolian women had to say. They were clear about the particular challenges women face when trying to push themselves forward (‘cut-throat’ was mentioned along with entrenched resistance to change, particularly from the right of the political spectrum) but equally open about the opportunities to shape change and direction that would otherwise have been closed, such as positions on boards etc. This is why it is so important that we have diversity that reflects the true make-up of our societies, or the decisions made by one type of person only reflect the needs of that particular group. We all know only too well what it feels like to live in a world where only one type of voice is dominant.

One particular message that struck a chord with me came from Marg Hickman, who emphasised a need for a different type of politics – a ‘heart-based approach’ which more room for the feminine, as we currently only value masculine-coded survivalist qualities. In a world dominated by voices of fear and hatred and ruthless competition, we have never needed a different approach, a feminine led approach, more than we do right now.

One more talk. This time a more academic one, given by Silu Pascoe, on intersectional barriers to suffrage. Although I couldn’t stay for the whole thing, I found her account of the lesser-known individuals who fought for the vote, such as women of colour and men of colour who supported the movement fascinating. It certainly filled in one or two blanks in my knowledge of the struggle and reinforced my passion for different stories and for a fully rounded history to be taught as standard, instead of the dusty trawl through the successes of rich white men and military leaders that it is today.

After all the listening and recording and furious scribbling of notes, I decided to spend the last hour of the event browsing stalls and seeing who I might bump into. The No More Taboo stall selling reusable sanitary products and supporting women in period poverty drew my attention, not least because of my own desire to stop using disposable products that harm the environment and my back pocket every month. I didn’t even realise until recently that period poverty was even a thing in this UK, but as 1 in 10 girls aged 14-21 in this country (this country!) haven’t been able to afford sanitary protection, it seems that unless we get this on the table and start talking about it, many more girls will miss out on education because of an unavoidable part of being a woman.

I’d been able to talk to Jenna from No More Taboo earlier that day, and she had been effusive about the success of the event:

‘It’s been a really nice day. We’ve had lots of interest at the stall and made some sales and really raised awareness…lots of people asking lots of questions so it’s been really positive in that respect. We have had a lot of people who are menstrual cup curious who come over and ask us, how does it work, is it comfortable? And lots of people asking about the pads because that for a lot of people is something totally new.’

Indeed, it was new for me, so I purchased a pad, got some advice about how to insert the menstrual cup I’d purchased five years ago and totally failed to use due to, I assumed, my unique anatomy. I also felt genuinely excited about having my next period – a phenomenon I hadn’t experienced since I was thirteen and still hadn’t had one yet!

What then followed was a flurry of chats and interviews with all sorts of folk, including the wonderful women from the Somali Kitchen who were at the event showcasing Somali food and spices. They do essential work in their communities, raising awareness of how proper home cooked food is so much better than the cheap takeaways that proliferate in the parts of Bristol where they live, and to encourage pride in their cultural identity through the medium of food. ‘Food brings people together’, Sahra told me, and I couldn’t agree more.

I chatted to 69 year old Linda who had attended for the day, who proclaimed the event ‘amazing’ and saw ’so many parallels’ with the women’s movement in the 70s, which she had been actively involved in. I had a chinwag with Gus, 35, who was there to support his mum who was received a Wonderful Woman award for her work bringing the diffuse community of Jacob’s Wells together. I also managed to exchange a brief word with another recipient of an award, Hannah Hier, who at 15 is the newly elected Youth Mayor, and had managed to fit in a Charleston or two (jealous). And finally, Rhea Warner, 18, who I’d marched and hollered with on the recent Times Up Women’s March in January, who remarked on the great diversity and the atmosphere of the event:

‘It’s been great..I haven’t been in Bristol for a long time…and it’s so nice to be in this environment. Bristolians are hungry to create change and create spaces like this and when they are created you can tell that everyone who comes into them are so eager to be there, so ready to be in that space and to be creative with whatever that space is going to build.’

Yes. This is the point of events like these. You come away brimming with ideas, enthusiasm and potent energy, ready to take on whatever challenges come your way. You feel empowered in the truest sense of the word. And proud – extremely proud – to have been part of something so much bigger than yourself. As Cleo Lake said earlier in the day, we need new stories. I wonder how many new stories were started in the toasty environment of City Hall that day?

As I stepped out into the rapidly thawing streets of Bristol, I could not help but feel humbled by the incredible things I saw and heard, and heartened by the very many friendships and connections I had reinforced or created in one day. I was a little sad that I didn’t get a chance to make a cyanotype photograph, practise the Charleston or get up and improvise some spoken word poetry, but you can’t have everything. Maybe next time. After all, the centenary for women’s suffrage comes once in a lifetime, but the International Women’s Day even is held every year, and I will most definitely be there.