Hello! Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. The aim of this is to record an oral
history of your experiences and thoughts. The transcript of this oral history will form part
of the Feminist Webs archive as part of an intergenerational project regarding feminism
and youth work. A consent form has been sent to you via email. As the transcript will be
made available as part of the archive, please state if and where you’d like information
that you have divulged to be made anonymous. I have selected the questions from an
exercise involving feminists aged 11 to 25 exploring what we would like to find out
about in interviews with established feminists.
Uh hum…
…are you happy to continue and for the interview to be recorded?
Yes.
Brilliant! Right, would you like to introduce yourself, and for the purpose of the archive
state how you’d like to be referred, such as your status as a woman, your occupation…
Umm, My name is V, Vwould be fine! [laughs] umm, I work at ‘ ’, I’m the director at .
Great, well the first question V; what is your definition of feminism?
I think my definition is about being woman- centred and being woman- focussed… and
by being woman- centred and woman- focussed, it’s also about, sort of like, challenging
and questioning, and not colluding in inequalities that women experience everyday in
their lives. So there is something about being woman- centred, but there is also something
about needing to be, to some degree, an activist… and it’s not activist with a big A, but
activist in the context of… even questioning is sufficient with regard to, kind of, you
know, the negative experiences women have umm in the world, in the U.K., in the
workplace, in the family.. that kind of thing.
o.k. brilliant! Um.. how and when did you first become interested in feminism?
Ummm, probably in the urrmm… oh god, this is going back now!... probably in the late
‘70’s… I didn’t live in this country, I lived abroad, I lived in Africa and… I think… umm
I was very fortunate to be in a family where both my parents, father and mother, had
equal roles… so there was none of this, you know, the women do the cleaning etc. Errr,
my father brought us all up to kind of, share responsibility… but I guess that made me
more aware of what was going on around me; what was happening in my family was
actually not standard practice, wasn’t you know, wasn’t something that happened in a lot
of ummm women’s kind of experiences.. and umm when I was at school, sort of like, I
had… secondary school really… I had started questioning because we’d hear of things
about women kind of, you know, friends of mine disappearing for a long period from
school and then returning, and finding out only as I got older that a lot of these women
were actually returning to these villages to be circumcised, and female circumcision, but
it was not something that anybody talked about, you know, it was always something that
was, that was whispered. So I guess I had the foundations, I would say I really started
thinking about stuff, and maybe becoming more kind of, active and challenging, but also
questioning the whole issue around the position of women umm in the family, and, and in
society, but primarily in the family.
Yeah? You touched a little on this next question in your answer, but I don’t know if you
might want to expand on it; why do you think there is a need for feminism?
I think urr… I think inequalities in the context of women’s experiences exist, I also think
the last ten, five… ten years… this kind of vision which is: “well, you know, women are
loads better” etc, umm you know, “they’ve got more opportunities, they’ve got more
rights”… I think sometimes really hides what is actually going on underneath… that
really what we are seeing is a much more sophisticated form of sexism operating, um,
where it’s quite difficult to actually challenge. I sometimes think that when you have inyour- face sexism, it’s easy to kind of… well not easy… but you can challenge it, it’s
something concrete, but it’s become a lot, a lot more subtle. And you can see it… an
example for me is the whole issue which is around, for example, umm father’s rights in
the context of , of um children’s, kind of, growing up.. you know, and the place of
fathers. There’s also sort of stuff around well young men are actually achieving… the
kind of stuff about: “young women are achieving more, young men aren’t… so we, we
need to do stuff.” What I actually think is not being looked at, I think, is, is really what
might actually be happening on the ground in order to, to enable young women to be high
achievers? Is it because they’ve got more opportunities, or is it because they know as
women they have to work bloody hard to get wherever they want? So, so I think in that
context, I think feminism has got an incredibly important role. And sometimes I do get
kind of quite sad when… you, you do talk to women who are in their kind of early
twenties, and who see feminism as having no relevance what so ever in the context of
their lives.
Yes that is sad but hopefully through the inter- generational nature of this project more
younger women will realise the pertinence of feminism?… What kind of feminism do
you identify as? … so that might be in terms of radical, or in other terms… I mean, I
don’t know how you feel about those terms in general…? And how open have you been
in terms of identifying as this identity?
I’ve always kind of resisted the, the different categories of feminism that you will kind of
connect with through social policy theory and through sociology… because I actually
believe women can’t be pigeon- holed very kind of… within these categories. I would
say as a feminist, I cross across the categories, um and I primarily actually, I think in the
context of my identity, if I were going to define myself, I will define myself as a black
feminist… rather than as the kind of umm the social policy kind of definitions, because to
some degree, you know, depending on how passionately I feel about issues, I could
actually take on a stance of being a radical feminist… um, but at other points I know that
I’m being liberal, and probably could be viewed as being a liberal feminist...um, you
know, when I don’t have the energy to kind of keep challenging stuff, and just need to
kind of… take a step back. So I think the easiest way to describe myself is probably a
black feminist.
Yep. Just, relating to that… I just wondered… quite often there’s fractions that emerge
within feminists themselves, you know, because there is… as you say, women can’t be
pigeon- holed, there’s going to be a whole array of people that call themselves feminists,
so… what do you think… in terms of when those fractions appear, do you think that
maybe an abandoning or… less emphasis on the differences... or are highlighting the
differences important too?
Umm… I think that this was so, so kind of dominant in the ‘80’s… when um, a lot of
women were trying to give a name to their feminists, so you would go to, you know kind
of, black women’s kind of gatherings and be told “we don’t want to embrace the name
Feminists, we want to be called Womanists” because feminism is got its routes in middleclass liberal thinking… umm and then you would go into, in, into environments where
dominant group would be umm lesbian, bisexual women, umm and you’d get the bit
about, you know, “if you’re not having a relationship with a woman, you can’t call
yourself a feminist” blah, blah, blah, you know, so you get those debates. I actually
haven’t got a problem with, with people embracing different forms. I actually also don’t
get as freaked out as, as other people, with issues around conflict because I do feel
conflict actually brings energy, and that energy allows for clear definitions… allows for
more action… and that’s not to say conflicts, sometimes, cannot be scary…and cannot
be.. you know, quite kind of, silencing of people who are kind of in the minority, but, you
know, I do think it’s kind of necessary, in the context of the struggles we have to face.
They’re very few situations you go in which are not conflictual. So to some extent, if
somebody defines themselves as, you know, umm, as whatever type of feminist, and
wants some level of purity, in the context of “feminism needs to be this”, I think what
you’re in danger of doing is actually to exclude rather than include. Whereas if you…
actually, feminism can embrace difference, it can kind of say, well actually, you know,
“you define yourself as a radical feminist, you probably feel really passionate around
peace- related issues, I also feel passionate about it, but perhaps I wouldn’t necessarily
deal with it, or respond to it in the way that you do, but I do appreciate what you’re
doing”. I respond to it in this way because again I think all the time, I’ve not always been
of this position, you know, in, in the ‘80’s, I would have been considered to be a radical
feminist, I was very militant, I was very kind of ‘black: white’, you know, no kind of
grey area. But I think over time I’ve kind of learnt that, if you’re actually able to embrace
a whole range of different perspectives, what you get, is stronger… because there isn’t
just one way of doing stuff, and when you’re challenging stuff, you do need people to
come from different perspectives. I’ll always remember Malcolm X saying: “Let’s no get
confused about the methods, what we need to be agreeable about, is what the core
message is”… we can then embrace different methods to kind of, push forward the core,
the core message. So I guess in answer to that question… I think that it’s going to
happen; if you bring a group of women together, their going to come with diverse
experiences, which will mean that some will feel stronger, some might actually want to
go down a particular pathway. I think the important bit for all of us, is about how we give
women space to say what they think and feel, without rubbishing them and without
shutting them up, to try and really listen to what women are actually saying. I think that
that’s the challenge for feminism actually, um, rather than to get into kind of, soap- box
type politics where we end up excluding voices which don’t support dominant messages.
I think the points you just made are very strong and important to remember. Because it is,
people get very passionate about feminism, but like you say, it’s looking at the main
message of liberating women… what everyone is trying to work towards hopefully.
umm
How do you think other people view feminism? and what reactions have you received?
I think… it’s interesting because again I think in the ‘80s and, to some degree, the early
‘90s… there was much more an openness to feminism. And I think there was some, there
were some battles fought and won during that time. I think over the last fifteen years,
we’ve seen a dilution of it… I think almost, I get a sense.. of.. people not wanting to
identify with feminism. It’s quite interesting the conversations I have with people here
when trying to push forward what you are doing with the Feminist Webs… which was,
you know: “well, are young women actually… don’t identify with those words” and my
question was: How do you know? Have you used it? How do you know? “Just a sense of
feeling”. So I think there is something about… there is the perception of “o.k., you know,
we’ve done it, seen it, achieved it, don’t need to go on about it”. There is a perspective
about feminism is dated, umm, it doesn’t kind of have relevance to women’s lives… I do
think, increasingly, um… you know, it is something that, umm, people see as being
‘odd’, and ‘the other’. And, and so in some ways, when I heard about this project, was
particularly interested because of the inter- generational aspects because I used to teach
on social work courses, used to teach social work students, and very naively I used to
think that anybody coming into social work is political, has to be political, and just being
absolutely stunned when people used to.. cause I used to do the women’s studies
elements in social work, and I used to be absolutely stunned when women would say to
me: “what is feminism?”. And it just used to do my head in at one level, because I used to
think, you can’t be serious, you caaan’t be coming onto a course like this…! But I think it
showed something about people who had been through the Thatcher era, where, where
everything was quite sanitised, and packaged in particular ways.. So I think feminism has
had it’s um, it’s bashing, even people who at one time, you know people like Germaine
Greer for example, who’ve I’ve never fully understood or agreed to, but who was held up
as a feminist icon at one time, even if you hear the stuff that she’s writing about, you just
think my god! Where has this woman gone? And where is she coming from? Because it
sort of feels like almost, using a post- modern kind of framework that you can almost
criticise and, and reduce the significance of a movement which is so incredibly
important… and actually is going on in lots of different ways on an everyday way… and
I think, you know, your work is an example of how it’s still surviving really.
So building on from that, what do you think of the idea of post- modern?
Crap, sorry excuse my language, [laughs] um, you know… when you cut away all the
kind of fancy words and all the fancy analysis, if you look at, what is the route of what is
going on here? It is about women’s experiences, and it is about inequalities, and it is
about injustice. And you know, I sometimes just think why do you want to wrap it up?
Um, in different kind of ways, and I do know that… a lot of my friends, who might, you
are.. some of them are academics, would probably shout me down on this, because we
have discussions and they just think, um you know, I’ve come off the ark really, because
I think a lot of the debates are sometimes framed in language which actually makes it
quite inaccessible, uh, you know, if you go out into the community, you go out to
working class communities, and you talk about that stuff… no wonder women are not
connecting um but if you talk to them about their role in their family, they will have
something to contribute and say, and really some of the real shifts and challenges have
actually happened through the activities of grass- root women, they’re not academic
women, so I think ‘post- feminism’ is an academic concept which has been developed in
order to try and explain the different forms, urrm feminism has taken, over the last five,
ten years really.
I’ve forgotten the exact quote, but that notion that the most intelligent writing is the most
accessible writing, so it’s that idea… so in terms of the context that I’m in at the moment,
21 year old female student at University and my supervisor is a feminist writer…very
academic
Yes
…and she has undoubtedly contributed greatly to feminist understanding, but it is true
what you say… does it translate in the community… as you’re probably aware there’s the
locally produced zine called ‘Race Revolt’…
Yeah..
…and, um, it’s all about how feminism tends to be… well the criticism of feminism as
white, middle- class, university- educated, like me… and the whole… well questioning
why is that?...and I think that also ties in with the language used and who that excludes..
Yes! Yeah… I mean it’s interesting because I do know that supervisor you are speaking
of for example, and I think the supervisor on an everyday basis really practices some of
the… well what I would consider feminism… but yes her writing is incredibly, incredibly
complex and, you know, I think… I just in my head think, well actually you do need
people who write in that way in order to influence people at, kind of, senior academic
level ummm… but in lots of ways I would be very critical about the whole concept of
post- feminism, post- modernism etc, and how it gets articulated.
o.k. interesting thoughts there.. o.k let’s get onto youth work… have you been involved
in youth work, and if so can you tell us a bit about that?
Yeah, many years ago… I mean, I’m not a practitioner obviously as…as… the director
here I don’t any longer practice but we do have, I mean we have quite deliberately renamed our teams and created a youth work team. I think if I go back to..kind of… my
early work when I was a community worker and… I’m not a qualified youth worker, but
use youth work principles when I worked with young Asian women… umm.. a lot of the
work that we did in groups was much more than being activity- based...as a lot of youth
work is kind of becoming more and more… a lot of the work we actually did was around
debate and discussion and was about challenging some of the norms that are accepted, so
one of the pieces of youth work, for example, that I think was, was, was a really powerful
piece was working with a group of young Asian women around education, and what
education was actually available to them, what were the options in schools, how they
were actually perceived, how they could challenge some of those images. And quite
coincidently as we were doing the work, an issue arose in Manchester where they were
wanting to set up a, a, a single- sex education umm for just Asian women, young Asian
women within Manchester… and err Manchester city council has been talking to the socalled community leaders, who were all men, who were sort of saying: “this is what we
want for our girls… this is how we want it to happen…”, and when you looked at the
curriculum, it was all sort of, you know, sewing and domestic science, and urrr, umm,
you know, languages, but languages that were kind of Asian or South Asian orientated.
We found out about a meeting, a bid meeting being held, where the councillors were
meeting with men from the community to talk about setting this up because it had gone
quite a long way down the road, and we were able through the young women, we did…
around Cheetham Hill we went round knocking on doors and got their mothers in, we got
their aunts in, women, and we actually went to the meeting, and we sat ourselves down,
and as a result of that it actually stopped… the school was happening, it’s a long time
since I’ve actually seen that kind of work actually happening… but, but that was the kind
of youth work that I was involved with which actually led to some level of campaigning,
umm around issues that affected young people.
I think in , what we’ve learnt, and what is important, is that… young people over time
have become sooo….err…. disempowered, that very often activity- based type youth
work is actually quite important in bringing young people together, in developing
confidence and in being in groups, etc, you know, so I see that as a very kind of
necessary pathway, and at , much… you know there’s a heck of a lot of pressure not to
do this, to kind of erode this, but on Wednesdays from 12.30, the young people’s space is
women- only space. This actually means even male workers can not go in and use that
space; it is completely women- only space, and we have respected and stuck to that…and
I think, that, that’s a little bit about recognising some of the debates within feminism,
about women having space in which they can grow and call their own, which feeds into a
sense of.. you know, feeling powerful, and feeling well, actually: “I have, I can influence
things here…”
Yeah!
…because it is recognised that I have a voice, and I need the space”. It’s been a hard
thing to hold onto given that most of our space is where…you know, people have their
one- to- one meetings, but we’ve held onto that, and absolutely… you know, not eroded
it…and as far as I’m concerned, will not erode it as long as I remain in this organisation.
That’s fantastic! Because…well, for example, ‘Reclaim the Night’: the march about
women reclaiming the streets without the fear of rape or attack..umm.. a couple of years
ago in Manchester, um, it was women- only: the march, I mean, the party after was open,
but it was women- only the march itself…
Yeah
,,,and then last year, it was ‘women only’, although there are also debates around the
definition of woman within this, so around self- identifying women, trans- women, and
wrongly or rightly the decision was that the march would be all self- identifying women,
but within these terms women- only, and then there was a second march of men with a
banner declaring: “these hands won’t touch women”. But then this year, there is a
mentality creeping in of “the more the merrier… why don’t we have men in the same
march too” and this is where fractions occur within feminism… I take the stance, and
yes, everyone has different opinions…and it is interesting what you said before regarding
the best way is in respecting everyone woman, as being a feminist, their point of view,
but my stance, and this is completely my stance, for example, is that it is important that
we hold onto women- only space, like you’ve been saying, because I think that once we
lose it, it will be gone, it will be so much harder to get back… and why?... it’s like that
notion of “man-hater”; “but I’m not a man- hater”… straight away apologising.. why do
we as women always feel the need to justify? And also, I think it is a superficial stance to
say the more the merrier because although it intrinsically appeals, and I’m certainly for
anyone’s support in other areas of feminism especially consciousness raising etc but.. this
idea of opeing the march up to anyone.. by making the march ‘all- inclusive’, we need to
ask… umm.. well it seems to me, in all this apparent inclusively, who is excluded? And,
like I say this is my personal stance, but for me the answer comes down to.. it’s the
women, and born- women in particular, who are excluded.. so women may well feel
uncomfortable on a march about rape to include men… so although the men are all
include and everything’s great blah, blah, blah, actually it’s not great because it’s the
women, once again, who are ostracised, and and also in not acknowledging the fact that
yes gender is a construct, but unfortunately society completely perpetuates gender
stereotypes and injustices, urrrr and as a born woman I have been exploited and
discriminated because of being a women from the day I was born… and so although there
are many injustices and, for example, trans- people face incredible stigma and illtreatment, that is a separate arena in itself, worthy of activism in its own right, and so too
is women- only space… so setting that in a contemporary debate, I have to agree wholeheatedly with you…. that women- only space is really important, and that is brilliant that
you have… well like you mentioned, in the face of hostility against it… and a lot of
difficulties…
Yeah, and if you go on demos where, where you have women- only space, the
environment is, is, you know, however supportive men are, the environment actually is
very, very different, and I know that, kind of, you know, when we, we used to mobilise
Asian women, and for a lot of Asian women coming out into, onto a demo was… when it
was women- only, you’re more likely to get women coming out… because, I don’t know,
I sometimes, yeah… like you I kind of think, you know, it’s sometimes important for
women to actually be visible as women, and not to have that identity in any way
actually… you know, watered down, and I find it always interesting about the whole
debate about involving men… of course, in some bits…you know, of course there is a
place for men to kind of, be involved in things… but it’s really interesting that men have
got much more around which actually colludes and allows them to meet quite separately,
in a way where nobody actually questions and says, you know, “why are you menonly?!” at one level, but it almost feels like when women do that it’s seen as quite kind
of, threatening, and quite divisive… when it’s actually only about allowing women to
express themselves… so yeah, I know it’s a difficult debate, and we often used to have it
when I was quite actively involved in immigration campaigns ummm because
sometimes… on occasions we used to want to run, have, women- only demos, ummm
and people just saw it as being very divisive to the immigration movement… rather than
something that brings added strength to the movement, where you have women feeling
confident to speak out in their own right without feeling that they needed to be, in some
way supported by… you know, everybody and everything… so I’m probably in the same
place as you on that one, hmm.
Yes, and despite the intentions they might argue to have, I’d question how much of a
feminist a man is who apposes women- only space and who cannot be happy that women
are doing it for themselves… now, umm, this question: how do you think feminism fits
into youth work?
Uh humm, yeah, I sort of… I think it’s an important part of it because one of the things
you’re doing with young people very often or… you know, a lot of the work, is around
identity, and difference, and valuing identities, and for young women… umm.. I think it
is important for them to have the space to debate, to discuss… get involved in womenonly activities, in order to really understand some of the challenges they will face, and
that they face, but also to kind of, create a framework… where you can… where it
doesn’t become.. it’s not, it’s not personal, you start understanding: “it’s not just about
me, because I can’t do x, y and z, it’s not just about me, it is about the world I live in, it is
about the society I live in”… it is about society saying that if you dress in a particular
way or speak in a particular way you will be able to access a, b and c, but you will not be
able to access d, e and f. So, I think feminism in youth work, actually gives some kind of
a framework, to challenge the kind of, the whole gender inequality that is, that is
around… but how that then sort of, subtly gets itself, you know, expressed in everyday
life umm… so I do think it’s important and it does kind of have a place, an important
place. But I also know… I went and did a session once on a youth work course, the youth
and community work course, around, kind of, err… it was called gender… and people
were saying “why are we talking about women, why we not talking about men?” that sort
of thing… and I thought, these people are actually going to go out… they’re final year
students, they’re going to go out and ummm, you know, be youth workers… they’re
going to be working with vulnerable groups of young women and young men, and yet
there isn’t that understanding about… you know, needing to create the space to actually,
really understand what, what inequalities are actually about… so how do you then engage
with that in the context of young women?
Hmmm, do you think youth work, and/ or feminism is inclusive of young Black or Asian
women?
Umm… I think some of it… is. I think, I think in the context of the theory and the
learning possibly, there is some thinking given around it… however, I think in the
context of the actual delivery, I would question it. Umm… and, just to give an example,
why am I questioning it? I’m just trying to think this one through… to give an example of
a scenario which happened in the work place, we had a group of young women meeting
regularly…and we’d set up a refugee and asylum seeking project, and a group of young
asylum seekers wanted to also meet regularly, but the only space was one space. What
was interesting, what we got in there, was… the young women saying: “this is our space,
you can’t take it away”, the young asylum- seekers saying: “but we need space”, and
nobody actually saying is there a way we can actually share space? And the interesting
thing for me was that even workers were going down the: “this is our space, we’ve
always used this space, and we always use the space in a certain way”, so what actually
happened was the young women retained that space, and the young asylum- seekers had a
space away in a tiny corner of the room. And for me that, kind of, indicates that, on
surface- level, there is the kind of… umm.. understanding, the language etc, this is what I
mean when I say things have got much more subtle, but on, on the practice level, it
became very territorial, and what actually happened is that nobody asked the question
would the young women, for example, from the other group want to join in? how do we
actually make our space available and accessible to them? It might be that we need to
think about how we communicate with each other… but that was, that was not
happening, and the youth workers running the space, you know, I have the deepest
respect for them, but yet, nobody asked those questions, so I think, I think, the more the
needs, and the voices of black young women are actually not heard in the same way as, as
kind of, white young women, I would say.
Yeah, o.k. well, you’ve mentioned before about your work with Asian women, so you
have worked with groups of women of ethnic minority origin?
Yeah, you know one of the things errr… I guess you do have young Asian young women
involved in activities, for example in the context of maybe… I would guess… Longsight
youth club, for example, would have young Asian women attending, I think one of the
things that I always questioned in working with the young women, we often question,
was about separate but equal provision, where does that begin, and where does that end?
And, and one of the things is that separate provision is important if it is actually the
choice of young women, if Asian young women actually chose to want separate
provision, then that’s fine, when it’s presented as the only option, it is problematic, and I
think, although there are spaces and it is important, as we’ve talked of women- only
space as well, it is important to have that separate space, but it’s also important to bring
groups together sometimes, and I think that’s the bit where I think it is actually
problematic. It’s the bringing together, it’s finding, finding the language which actually
connect to Black young women and Asian young women, umm, finding the issues which
actually have relevance to them, which brings the joining together, if the joining together
is based on what the dominant group wants, then it’s hardly surprising that groups who
are on the margin; minoritised young women, actually would not engage with stuff,
umm… and I guess, that… for me that’s the challenge, it’s the joining together, it’s about
how do you take the separate, and bring it back into a whole, where all that learning,
confidence etc, feeds into kind of, the whole kind of… youth work agenda in that kind of,
very real way, and for me, my test is… and this is a test I use to do when I used to train
on the social work course, think about, if I’m talking about this particular issue, think
about the image that comes into your head, and as long as the image remains white, and
remains, you know, non- disabled, heterosexual, in your head, then we haven’t done
enough to challenge images. What I think is important is when we talk of particular
scenarios and we don’t just think of one, we are a flash of images, umm across, kind of
going across, and I guess in some ways, the Feminist Webs, and some of the images
being collected and things, I’d hope, would do that, would have that range of, of,
identities that people could look at, or see feminism not just as being white, middle- class,
as being something much more than that…. And I think that’s what needs to happen in
youth work, that’s the challenge for youth work, when you’re thinking of “who am I
going to work with?, who am I actually servicing? Who am I actually delivering services
too?”, umm, you have to think about, not who we dominantly.. who dominates the
service, but those who won’t dominate your service…and until we do that, I actually
think we’ve got quite a long way to go.
Yep, o.k. tying into that, because a group of us women involved in Feminist Webs are
from LGYM, Lesbian, Gay, bisexual, Youth Manchester, so to what extent has youth
work that you’ve been involved in, or youth work in general that you know of, been
inclusive of lesbian, bisexual, or transsexual women?
I would say not very much at all, I would say sexual identity is something that um… it
doesn’t get really kind of, engaged with.. in any, any meaningful way, umm… and when
you think about… sort of like… where as women we begin our biggest questions about
who we are, sexuality plays an enormous role in identity of young people, between 11 to
19/ 20 where, you’re trying to kind of, understand different aspects of yourself, umm, I
think sexual identity is invisible… and, and some of it might be that it is easy to, kind of,
not engage with it, and something remains invisible. You know, again, if you’re starting
point is that every woman that walks into your group is a heterosexual woman, or the
assumption is heterosexual, then you’re going to exclude, or you’re not going to engage,
whereas, if you begin with the assumption that every single woman coming in is going to
be lesbian, bi, or trans, your focus will be very, very different, very different, because
what you expect.. for one… you know, what you’re doing is you’re saying your norm is
actually something that people don’t see as normal, and the moment you think in those
ways, I believe, that you then have to proactively think about inclusion. You know, so…
I don’t think youth work, deals with or engages with, sexual identity in any kind of,
meaningful way. I think it always remains silent… I think in organisations like LGYM, in
organisations like , perhaps, it’s different, but if you’re looking at mainstream youth
services, and if you ask the question why did LGYM happen?... what actually influenced,
you know, its setting up etc… I guess possibly because of the invisibility in mainstream
youth provision, around sexual identity.. so I don’t think it serves it well.
O.K. now, you’ve already mentioned some brilliant things such as your women- only
space… but umm… are you still active in your feminism, whether that’s with a little
‘a’?!...
[laughs] um, it is a little ‘a’, because I can’t, I can’t take part in demonstrations the way I
used to, or in… because of my physical health and my disability… so that’s another thing
that’s marginalised, or excluded from feminism? Yes, yes and I think… I think I’ve got
my own, kind of, rant about umm disabled women who have invisible disabilities, so, for
example, very often people will look at me and will think she’s a non- disabled woman,
you know, because my disability is… sort of like… to some extent, invisible. It’s
becoming a bit more visible with kind of, my mobility, but I don’t use a wheelchair,
umm… and very often, I, I, when I ask questions around disabled access, I get people
look at me as if to say “why are you asking?”. But in the context of, you know, ummm
the small ‘a’, I still kind of, you know, I still meet up with women who, were we were
active in the ‘80’s, we still have debates and conversations, we still do one- off pieces of
work with young women in the community, ummm, but I think more important, I think
I’m now in a position where I have got power as the director, so I think that I’ve got to
put my money where my mouth is basically, and, and work in a way that which actually
makes feminism real, is an everyday living example in practice, which can be really hard
at times, urrr, but which is necessary. So I would say that I would be, urmm, bringing
feminism into the context of my everyday work, but more now, because I have actually
got the power to influence decisions, and therefore, I think I have a responsibility to
actually make sure that feminist perspectives inform decisions which are made.
Yeah, so it’s that thing about different ways that can influence… so umm.. I’ve
mentioned Erica Burman who has contributed greatly through academia, and then there’s
also action, and translating words into action is very important… and that’s... one strand
of psychology which is the degree I’m currently studying, is ‘Community Psychology’,
and that’s about translating it into social action and all the intricacies that come with that,
and so putting it into action.
Yeah.. yep.
Right, with action in mind, but returning to literature, what texts would you recommend
younger feminists to read?
Oh my goodness…. Ummm…. I think I would ask people… I mean, rather than giving
specific textbooks.. I think I would ask people to read stuff written by Belle Hooks..
yep.
Ummm, by Audrey Lorde, I think Audrey Lorde writes umm really beautiful stuff,
ummm, I think, ummm, I think a woman called Kum-Kum Bhavnani… she’s academic
but she has written some really kind of, useful stuff, umm…. Alice Walker…
There’s some great women there!
What has been your favourite moment as a feminist? Or your favourite feminist moment
in history, or should I say ‘herstory’?!
I think… umm…… probably the Greenham Common activity. I found that an incredibly,
incredibly powerful time, umm, and… women actually… getting strong through the kind
of networks, I think that was one event that actually united women across race, sexuality,
disability, in a very powerful way, and going, kind of, you know, on some of the demos,
and I think that experience has been… was immense, absolutely immense.
Yes, a lot of the ‘older’, or more established, feminists that attended the Feminist Webs
residential were saying about that, how it made a real impact…
Yes, it did. I think it gave real fire to the women’s movement as well, in a way that…
umm… hadn’t been seen before and as somebody who… you know, I came here to go to
university when I was 21, I wasn’t educated in this country… so even for somebody like
me, to kind of, have that framework, that chance to meet some amazing women… is
something that actually… yeah… umm stayed in my mind. The other, sorry I just thought
now, the other person, because I’ve linked it to Greenham Common, who I think is good
to read her work, is Pratibha Parmar, she’s done some really good stuff, ummm, and
she’s particularly done a fantastic book with Alice Walker, around female circumcision…
and has talked about what’s the difference between female circumcision, and women
going for plastic surgery to have changes on their breasts etc..
Or even.. there’s vaginal tucks now, aren’t there?
Yes, that’s right. You know, that’s another way of men, kind of, controlling women’s
sexuality, in the same way female circumcision is… it’s just really interesting and that
was an extremely, extremely, powerful book, so she’s somebody else that I would
suggest… sorry, I drifted a bit… but yeah, umm Greenham Common… and possibly,
possibly… the other one… errr… was around, errr…. apartheid. I’m trying to think
whether…. I remember going on this demo…which was women only… which ended up
at South Africa house, err… but I can’t remember what… why it ended up being a
women- only… because there were lots of mixed- gender marches… I can’t remember
what the context was for this march… but some of the anti- apartheid activity was again,
you know, women’s contribution was again, quite powerful, but Greenham Common
stands out.
Umm, just trying to think, we’re coming towards the end of the interview, one of the
questions remaining, which I think we’ve already covered, is: in the period in which
you’ve been involved in feminism, what, if any changes have you seen? …and they are
necessarily good ones, you’ve mentioned post- feminism…
Hmmm, yeah..
But I guess moving on from that, how do you think feminism, and what it means to be a
young feminist, can be promoted to young people? And what do you think the role of
older feminists is in this process?
I think… umm… the way it can be promoted has to, has to touch on the issues affecting
young women. I think if women can brought together about things that they feel
passionately about, you can.. you can use that passion to get them to understand.. or, or to
try and develop a shared understanding of why a particular problem or issue is actually
around… ummm… so I think it is about touching on the passion of umm of young
women. I think in the context of older feminists… I think… I think it is about recognising
that feminism will take on different shapes, and, and this is fine, this is fine because we
defined feminism in a particular way, and that definition was actually informed by our
life experiences, world experiences, and I think the stuff is actually.. it’s the same… I
think young women have to, kind of, take control and shape and define feminism as it
applies to them, and older women have to support that without feeling like there is only
one way of looking, looking at stuff. And I think, I think for older feminists, it’s about a
sharing of knowledge, but it’s also about the ability to listen, listen to what’s being said
very, very carefully, by younger women.
Umm… I think the… maybe there is learning.. I think a lot of the older feminists have
probably, at some stage of their lives, gone through burn- out, because of… I’ve known
friends of mine who’ve kind opted out, simply because they worked to a point of burnout. I guess, some of, some of the stuff is about nurturing… the talent that young women
are presenting… but also perhaps sometimes… about mentoring really… young women
in that context as well.
Yes. It just occurs to me now, because you’ve said that young women now are living in a
different climate, and it’s the 4th of November, 2008, on the eve that Barack Obama
might, you know, hopefully, will be elected. It just strikes me because, it’s such a big
progression, and unthinkable in terms of how far.. in terms of race, … I don’t know, how
do you feel about that?.. for example, Sarah Palin, obviously it is different issues
involved, but Sarah Palin has had such bad press, and umm, policies aside, is it because
she is a woman do you think?
I think… because somebody’s a woman, god, this is going to completely contradict what
I’ve said…I can’t stand Sarah Palin! I think, I think, it’s a little bit like Thatcher, you
know people who say: “oh well, she’s a woman”.. but you know I sometimes think, and I
think this comes up as well in the context of race, you know… some people, if you give
them a gun, who will they shoot? They will shoot women first, because of their kind of
framework, and what they believe in, so there is something about in saying that you
embrace… you know, there is something about feminism being.. kind of… it has to be a
kind of political…there has to be something about it being a political struggle, and there
is something about being woman- centred, as I said, and Sarah Palin is not womancentred.
Yes, I suppose.. I was thinking.. she’s been quite sexualised in terms of people… her
critics… it’s been different to how people would criticise a man… so not necessarily her
as an individual because she has got very, I do agree.. but in terms of the way that people
have sexualised her, and even.. apparently there’s been a blow- up doll made of her that
can be bought over the internet… and that kind of thing.. it wouldn’t happen towards a
man… and I just think… to me, that just shows how far we’ve still got to go in terms of
feminism.
Yeah, yeah, I mean that’s true, but then again, you know, Barack Obama has had all these
things on the net, you know monkey figures being drawn, so that again shows that under
the… under the surface… yeah… I mean I guess it’s right: women in power, very often,
women wanting to be power, very often what gets ridiculed or what gets picked on is the
kind of, the feminine in inverted commas, err, aspects of their identity and urrm that’s
true about Sarah Palin, but I also think, you know.. sometimes as women do we allow
that to happen? Because if you compare that, for example, to Hilary Clinton, now that
was quite different, so, so, so what is actually going on there? But I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t
deny that, umm, the fact that, you know, I know that when I go in particular
environments, and when people call me ‘lady’, I go absolutely AWOL, but I sometimes
have to bite my tongue
[laughs]
Because I think you can’t kind of keep having a stomp, ummm, but you know, when I
hear people at using the term lady, and I think for god sake! You’re working in an
organisation which has got some kind of political focus, but it’s that… I think that it’s
that… that tussle is around and I guess, as I said, if you scratch underneath the surface,
we’ve got a long way to go… there have been some advances, but I think some of the
difficulty is, how have these advances been achieved? Is the actual question, and
therefore, what are the consequences? So you know, have you got, kind of, an icon
figure, in inverted commas, as, as Margaret Thatcher as something that women in power
have to actually follow? Where does somebody like Diana, kind of, fit in? i.e. the
emphasis on the caring side, you’ve then got Sarah Palin, where, her kind of, you know…
her physical appearance is the bit that actually gets exploited, and then you’ve got…. You
know, if you look at it, it’s the whole spectrum… it’s umm, it’s an interesting spectrum,
and then you’ve kind of Asian women, Muslim women, who will wear the hijab and wear
the burkha, and say that that is their choice, they are kind of, managing their identity, I
personally don’t agree with that and I would have a debate about it now, and a debate
with the people concerned, but at the end of the day people choose to do that… that’s
their choice, but are they actually furthering the feminist message? No.
Hmmm. And what is choice all together?
Well yes!
Right, we’ll stop here, I really enjoyed that! And just to end, if there are any artefacts
from your youth work or feminism that you’d like to donate, or we can make copies of
for the archive, please let us know, such as flyers, photos, banners…
o.k.
great, and unless you’d like to add anything else?…
no, I think that’s enough!
then thank you very much!
Thank you for coming to see me.