Return to 1998 Christmas Index
Return to 1998 Christmas Index
by Sarah Keen, EditorAs I write I am listening to Britain's perennial favourite Woman's Hour. It is broadcast everyday on BBC R4. A new etiquette and class book is out now and apparently Women are no longer categorised by their husband's class but by their own earnings and the way they are paid. Therefore, if we get a monthly wage, sick pay and pension we get more brownie points in the social scale. Excuse me while I go pull my hair out and scream at the top of my voice.
Why a radio program aimed at speaking for and to women can entertain such drivel is beyond me. Why, at the end of the twentieth century should any woman of sense and drive still need to be categorised by anyone other than herself? If, after nearly a hundred years of Women's Rights and growing financial ease, a woman is forced to define herself only by the mores of the workplace we are in deep deep shit, frankly. For, look around you ladies, how many women directors do you see in the office, in the supermarket, in your bank? In the cut and thrust of the commercial world I doubt you will reckon up more than 10%.
So your social status, if we accept the values of this book, is still reliant on that fickle creature man. He will decide your salary, your title, your contract and your pension. Doesn't that make you feel good? In return, you will be trimmed and pruned to fit the work pattern. How very neat. How very tidy. How very convenient. What rich and easy targets we become for financial houses, advertising and consumerism. What neat, tidy, convenient little women we are
Or not, in my case. I tried very hard for almost twelve years to do the career thing. I even, once, cut my hair into a sleek bob and wore suits to try and build the right image. There were some rewards. It's soothing to walk into a department and know that you can have anything right there either cash or credit by stating your salary and job title. But the rewards seemed drug like. They wore off. You needed bigger shots to get the rush. The emotion that flagged up unhappy regularly was not registered. Take a holiday, buy a dress, decorate a room. It will be OK.
I was utterly weary of the baby question. I am thirty five and single. This is the way I have chosen to live. I like it. It makes me happy. I feel serene alone in my house and my garden with my lovers and friends to visit. I was happy for my work colleagues who were pregnant and sorry for those who were desperate to have children but couldn't - but I didn't want to have a child. Nobody believed me. I was speaking the truth but was not heard.
A ten minute car journey to work ten years ago had become a forty minute traffic jam over the decade. My life seemed to so ordered that where-ever I was I should have been somewhere else ten minutes ago. I grew more concerned that my life consumed a lot and replaced little. Objects, such as cars for example, were valued regardless of the amount of harm they did. Once in the work place, the pruning and the trimming continued relentlessly. One green shoot in the wrong direction, it seemed, and out came the shears. Not surprisingly, I stopped growing.
Things were done because that was the way they had always been done and driven by a paralysing fear of the unknown or being wrong. Managers appear to forget, and workers are not secure enough to explain, that the desire to explore is innate and humans learn through their mistakes. This is repeated in countless offices and companies across the country. A lot of the frustration I felt, I know, is also suffered by the men who have some power in their work place - but not enough to change things. Women do have the extra dilemma of child bearing years - whether or not they choose to use them for children or put their extra energy into a career.
In the end I gave up the unequal struggle and resigned. I spent some weeks in a state of absolute funk, crying into my duvet at every opportunity before realising that the sky had not fallen in. The world was still there for the taking and my house, garden, lovers and friends had not given up on me now I was a career girl failure.
I now work for myself. I have taken a huge salary cut, lost my pension, my sickness pay and bonus. I gave away my car, paid off my credit cards and sternly return all their blandishments for more loans and instant cash payouts. Since I have taken control of my time, I have also taken control of my food. My garden produces vegetables and I bake a lot to avoid a supermarket food chain which is simply wicked.
I had forgotten how it felt to be so happy and my health has improved beyond recognition. The so called status I enjoyed, I have not missed at all. It seems iniquitous that anyone is told they are judged as individuals by their income and criminal that a Woman's program is okaying a value system that is better merely because the woman is not being judged by her husband's wealth.
If you do decide to step off the treadmill - try to do this more elegantly than I did.
If you live in a Victorian labourer's cottage you may find the plot of land is of size which should provide enough fruit and vegetables for a family. It isn't this size by accident and you probably don't have nine children! Use it or see if you can get an allotment.
I sat down to this editorial to write a cheery Christmas piece but got fired up by the radio. I hope you enjoy this bumper edition of the magazine. As I look over my frosted garden, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
best wishes
Sarah.