Friday 2 September 2011

Standing on a chair, shouting

You know what's awesome? Feminism, that's what.

I've self-identified as a feminist since I was about two, according to my parents. I didn't know the word, but I was perfectly convinced that boys and girls were equal and that was the end of it. It's been the same ever since, really. I have always found myself getting wound up at injustice in the world, and inequality.

That might not be immediately obvious from this blog. Although I'm aiming to make something of a political point in regards of the somewhat mundane reality of being a graduate (you will probably work! it will be mostly uninspiring!) my personal politics haven't really come through too much.

However, here is a relevant point I realised in the office today – I have become significantly more interested in feminism since I graduated, rather than becoming heavily politicised in university itself.

This is, I suspect, not the usual position, and I'm hardly claiming that St Andrews is a den of feminist outrage. It's a famously apathetic university in terms of politics; a recent protest involved someone throwing a key lime pie at a Conservative politician. It's hardly the singing of the Red Flag. However, I work in a male dominated workplace in a male dominated industry and if one more person tells me to make the tea, calls me 'sweetheart' or asks me to go and get a man to check my figures I will explode. In fact, I have exploded. Several times.

However, although I knew the implicit wrongness in everything I've just described there, I couldn't articulate it. As such, I've been quietly self-educating myself on theories of feminism, and working out what I agree with, and what I don't. I went to the library and scared the living daylights of the librarian there. And most recently I read Caitlin Moran's book How To Be A Woman where she advises readers to stand on a chair and declare “I AM A FEMINIST!”

I am not standing on a chair. I am standing on the internet and declaring it instead. That's nearly as good, right?

I'm still trying to educate myself on this, so I don't think now is the time for the super-intelligent analysis. I'm also painfully aware that as a middle-class white graduate type, I'm still doing fairly well in terms of privilege. However, the idea that the graduate world is full of bright and lovely people who are 100% up to equality is completely and utterly wrong, because the world is full of people with meaning and unmeaning biases and we all have to fight against them on a daily basis. It's important to highlight that sometimes.

So the next time someone tells me to 'make a cup of tea, love, I'm parched' in a workplace context, I will put down what is no doubt the quite important work I'm actually doing and make a cup of tea compliantly, but I will think of some feminist outrage and I may even mention it here. All names changed, of course.

4 comments:

  1. I am in a female-dominated workplace. It's in the education sector, so maybe that's a bias there. I was sewing buttons on today (about twenty, onto about twelve different garments). I was at an exhibition in Glasgow the other day, on women's suffrage, and it made me realise that I knew the basics, but not any of the details -and I wanted to know more. I did not know that Lumsden wing was named for Louisa Lumsden, or that she was the person who established St Leonards School. I feel slightly stupid for being in St Andrews for four years and not realising any of this!

    Your writing is really good btw - I've enjoyed all your posts so far.

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  2. I didn't know any of that either! It's really only been recently that I've made the effort to educate myself on these issues, which is a bit embarrassing as I thought I was fairly up on these matters.

    I'm glad you're enjoying the posts! I'm really pleased that people are reading them :-)

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  3. You're going to work in the 1950s? Glad to hear the Doctor finally responded to your fan mail.

    I bet that guy will get deep vein thrombosis from sitting in his chair one day and will rue the times he didn't get up to make the tea himself.

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  4. How weird, I did the exact same thing... Always identified as feminist but didn't have a lot of backup till I started reading up over the past couple of years! Are you aware that since we left the saint there is now a feminist society? Seems like it was a long time coming for such an institution.

    I loved Caitlin Moran's book very much too and I would recommend Bossypants by Tina Fey if you've not come across it. As you might expect it's mainly to do with being a middle class white liberal woman trying to make it as a comedy writer in a male-dominated workplace but it's not angry or preachy, it's just very funny and sarcastic.

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