Bit of a change in tone this week – I’ve been writing a lot recently about the death of my mother-in-law and family, and about our retreat in Wales. But this time I’m going more macro.
It all began with the Budget (nope, I’m not going into that in detail, don’t worry!). I just want to remind you that Rachel Reeves, whatever you think of her politics, is our first EVER female Chancellor of the Exchequer. Yup, the only woman to get the keys to Number 11 Downing Street and take the UK’s financial reins in 800 years.
Just what a “blue job” being Chancellor has always been was made particularly clear when Reeves moved into her office at No 11 in August and found it came with her own personal urinal. Now if that isn’t the definition of a “gendered job”, I don’t know what is. (Reeves tried to get it removed, but found doing so would cost £10,000 so she is apparently using said urinal for ‘flowers and storage’ instead. Atta girl!)
The other new woman in Number 11
There was a flap in the papers last week about how our new lady Chancellor had swapped out Rishi Sunak’s pic of Tory Boy Nigel Lawson from her Number 11 office and replaced it with one of Ellen Wilkinson MP. Red Ellen, as she was dubbed because of her ginger hair and early membership of the Communist Party of Great Britain, was the woman who led the Jarrow March to London in 1934, and who, in 1945 under Clement Atlee, became our first ever female Minister for Education.
Wilkinson is one of those women we should ALL know about. She was born into a poor Mancunian family, worked hard at school (with huge encouragement from her dad) and won a scholarship to Manchester University whence she became part of the Suffrage movement campaigning to get women the vote.
Ironically, despite becoming an MP in 1924 (Britain’s 10th female Member of Parliament ever), Ellen did not personally qualify to wield her ballot in the early years as she didn’t own property. We tend to forget that it wasn’t until 1929 that all women aged over 21 were allowed to vote. That is less than a century ago. And it was 100 years before that that Women’s Suffrage was first put on the political agenda – in 1832. Change takes time.
Interestingly, later Ellen served in Winston Churchill’s war cabinet as minister for Air Raid Shelters; air wardens in the Blitz were often women of huge bravery, organisational skills and fortitude. Indeed during that war, women worked in the land army – farming the land to keep the UK fed – and in munitions factories and the wider economy.
This emancipation was kiboshed in the 1950s, when women were encouraged to return to domestic life so men could have their jobs back. Then it was in the late ’50s that we began to hear about The Feminine Mystique, the strange affliction of being trapped and bored in the home, how women desperately needed to be part of something bigger … eventually leading to the women’s liberation movement in the ’60s and ’70s.
What we can learn from this
I write this because the struggle for equality comes in fits and starts – The Flapper Election of 1929, when women first voted en masse, then the demonstration of our capabilities during the Second World War, followed by the 1950s and a return to the home.
It’s important to remember that until 1975, women couldn’t own their own property or have their own bank accounts. That is within our own lifetimes. It was women of our generation who pushed for Equal Pay, maternity leave and flexible working. The working world is only just beginning to think about the needs of older women. If the Gender Revolution was a plant it would be a young tree, starting its life, not grown yet.
The point of this female-focussed history lesson is to remind us all that we have come a long way, but that progress has taken 2 centuries and isn’t a constant evolution.
Given that by the end of next week we might either have a Queenager President in Kamala Harris … or another term of Trump (with all the negativity he represents for female reproductive rights), it seems worth marking this moment.
A horror is happening in Afghanistan
I also want to talk about the female horror story currently coming out of Afghanistan, which has been muted by all the other troubles in the world. We know that since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, they thave increasingly curtailed women’s rights, even banning formal education for girls and women. And last week it got even worse.
Women have already been prohibited from raising their voices in public in Afghanistan, even to issue a call to prayer. They are allowed out only if clothed from head to foot in shapeless black, with grills over their eyes. Now they are banned from speaking to each other outside the home. Yes, you read that right. They have even had speech taken from them. This isn’t some apocalyptic fiction from a new volume of The Handmaid’s Tale. It is happening in Afghanistan in autumn 2024. Right now. As Nazifa Haqpal, a former Afghan diplomat, put it:
“This surpasses misogyny,” she says. “It exemplifies an extreme level of control and absurdity.”
Insight from our NOON Advisory Board member
Last week I spoke about Afghanistan with my dear old friend and colleague, NOON Advisory board member and foreign correspondent supreme Christina Lamb OBE, who has been reporting from there for 35 years.
Christina says: “What’s happened to Afghan women is heartbreaking – for 20 years of western presence after the Taliban was toppled last time in 2001, Afghan women were promised equality, education, hope – and as a result we saw female police officers, female prosecutors, governors, film directors. Then when the Taliban seized power again in 2021, that was all swept away and now woman are imprisoned behind the four walls of their homes, not allowed to work or go to the park, or gym or hair salon or even speak out loud.
“Afghanistan is the only country on earth where girls can’t go to high school. What worries me is all the outrage about what is happening to them has disappeared; and the world just seems to have moved on. Whatever the West is doing to try to get the Taliban to see reason is not working. So it’s time for women around the world to stand together against this!”
What you can do
If you would like to help, you can support the work of female journalists in Afghanistan here or the female online university for women here and here. Christina’s most recent book about Afghanistan is Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World, and I particularly love her earlier book, The Sewing Circles of Herat: My Afghan Years about women there.
We must not despair, but we must be aware that unless we are actively fighting for gender equality, we tend to go backwards. The progress we have already made has been forged on the backs of brave individual women (like Ellen and Reeves) and collectives, who fought and even died for change.
What we all do matters. Remember what the Dalai Lama’s said, quoting an African proverb: “If you think you are too small to make a difference think of the power of a mosquito!”
Think of it this way…
When I make speeches – which I do rather regularly about all things women – one of my big themes is that we are only in the foothills of equality. Many organisations think they are “done on gender” because they’ve put the odd woman on their board, even though there are still only 8 women running our top 100 companies.
I was arguing with my dad about this the other day – he thinks I am making way too much fuss and the poor chaps are having a hard time. I asked him how he would feel if 92 women were running our top companies alongside only 8 men. If only women were allowed into his beloved Garrick Club, not men. If there was a country where men weren’t allowed to speak outside the house. Or a court case where 50 women from a community had been invited into the marital bedroom to sexually abuse a drugged husband…. (Gosh, Madame Pelicot is brave, and she is right that the shame is “on them” not her.)
In the West, in some places, women have been given the “lanyard” – allowed into the building, as it were – but that the architecture of our systems is still created by and for men.
We need ‘female-shaped’ organisations
We still don’t – as Mariella Frostrup put it to me the other day – have female-shaped organisations, or a world which offers girls the same opportunities as boys. In some countries we’re going backwards.
I write about this because the work we are trying to do here at NOON.org.uk, in this newsletter and my book is part of this push for female equality. How we value women as they age goes to the heart of what we value women for.
We mustn’t get complacent. Misogyny is alive and kicking, mutating and trying to ensnare us anew (online pornography and Andrew Tate anyone?). I keep hearing the ridiculous backlash against diversity or inclusion … because it has “gone too far”.
Some statistics to leave you with
It pays for us to remember that even now:
- At least one woman is killed by her male partner in the UK every day
- Less than 1% of rapes that are reported to the police are successfully prosecuted (The Victims Commissioner wrote a report in 2020 saying that rape in the UK has been essentially decriminalised.)
- For every woman promoted to director level in business, 2 women leave.
- The number of women running businesses fell this year, from 19% back to 15%
- The gender pension gap is 35% even though women live longer
- And, oh yes, female entrepreneurs get less than 2% of all the Venture Capital money for Founders
So three cheers for Rachel Reeves for being the first female to wield the Chancellor’s red box.
Good luck, Kamala Harris… let’s stay optimistic while we can!
Coming this week: NOON Circles
We hope to see lots of you at the Circles around the UK on Monday November 4th and in Mayfair on November 5th. Book your slot now!
Monday, Nov 4 – Cheltenham Circle
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Tuesday, Nov 5 – London Circle – SOLD OUT
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Lots of love
Eleanor
