The Right Thing

Today

I've been reading Mary Wollstonecraft's "A Vindication of the Rights of Women". Although the language is often convoluted, her arguments are undeniable. I looked up details of her life and found that she was writing her ideas more than two hundred years ago.

And that's pretty depressing when you consider how long it took for women to be allowed to vote, go to university and have their income treated as fully their own.

And we still treat as celebrities and role models women whose main claim to fame is their appearance and their ability to be as vapid as possible. We think it's acceptable for women to have major surgery just to look more attractive to men and younger.

In My Day

I never felt, as I was growing up, that my rights were inferior to that of my brothers and I assumed that I would lead an independent life and follow the career of my choice.

I carried this assumption gaily and naively into adult life, believing that most rational people would accept the equality of all people.

This attitude did, at least, prevent me from carrying about a feminist chip but I also had quite a few wake-up calls, so to speak.

There was the discovery that building societies could quite legally refuse to take all or any of my earning into account when we applied for mortgages. The assumption seemed to be that I would instantly stop earning once I started producing babies, and did not accord us the dignity of allowing us to make our own financial choices, It was only the liberal lending policy of Eastbourne Borough Council, anxious to bring younger people into the town, that allowed us to get off the rental treadmill.

As a working mother I received many a criticism about "farming out" my babies, as though I had somehow abandoned them.

We've had bosses refusing to allow Paul to take a day's leave to care for sick Becky because I should be doing it -"That's the trouble with allowing women to work". People have railed at Paul for "allowing" me to work and others telling me that wearing a suit to work was "aping a man".

The incident that really took my breath away was when I worked at the Tax Office in Lewes. I was pregnant with Becky at the time and was due my annual job review. The district inspector, rather a dry stick, started auspiciously by saying that the review was really a waste of time because I was pregnant. I explained that this was my second pregnancy whilst working for the IR and I had a track record of returning to full-time work. He them moved on  to my promotion prospects which he said were nil, because, having a family, I would not be able to relocate. I began to prickle and said that I wasn't aware that only women had families and why not give me the opportunity. The interview continued in this frosty vein and concluded insultingly with the assumption that I had no outside interests, motherhood having finished off whatever little brain I'd started out with.

(It's interesting that under his leadership not a single woman at Lewes was promoted although many have been since).

I do not apologise for the years I spent working to support me and my family, nor for taking the lead in a number of family matters. My life is and should be my own; shared in marriage as a partner equal  in every way. I have been ever grateful for the wholehearted support that my family has given me and cannot understand why any modern, rational, educated woman would ever for one second, wish to compromise her independence.

Battles have been won, my sisters, but the war is not over!