A Piece of Me Dies
Leaving aside women leaders in other countries and the brilliant trailblazers who run many organizations, I want to focus on one issue that has haunted my thoughts for some time. Namely, Britain has had two women prime ministers in my lifetime (yay!) and every time I hear one of them speak live or on vintage footage, a piece of me dies (aw!).
Let me start by nailing my colours to the mast. It was no coincidence that I left Scotland for Canada in 1991. I gladly left behind the voice of Margaret Thatcher. That carefully rehearsed sincerity, that voice trained to drop half an octave to sound more authoritative—ie masculine—and with enough authority behind it to decimate hundreds of working communities. All such moves committed in the belief that, by the force of the free market alone, things would come right in the end. Presumably she died still waiting for that to happen—or maybe in an act of supreme self-deception she didn’t venture further north than St. Albans.
Now we have Theresa May. The woman who is the embodiment of the caution handed out by those who, to prepare them for interviews, train the nations’ chief spokes persons to pivot and to stay on point. Communication Skills 101. Back in the day I was told, be careful how you use those powers or you’ll end up sounding like an automaton. Apparently she missed that part of the lesson. Either that or she just isn’t smart.
You and I would be hard pressed to find a modicum of compassion, or even a beating heart between the two of them. It’s downright depressing.
Does this mean to succeed in the politics of the right a woman needs to have more steel and less concern for ones fellow human beings than the male of the species? Is that why only the most absolutely rigid, less empathic females rise to the top? Or is it that we are so shocked by their—she’s a woman after all—lack of empathy that we need to find a character flaw to explain it. Look we say, like the first person to discover the cause of the plague, she’s got the gene for a voice in the lower register and psychopathy.
Perhaps more curious, why is it that the left haven’t managed to produce a female leader to put up for the top job in government? Well, occasionally you get a glimpse of the why and the how it would be for women. The good ol’ boys of socialism are apparently malicious when threatened by the feminine side. I suspect the voice coaching or heart-echtomy that worked for Tory women isn’t succesful here. But why is it taking so long for change to happen in a party that wants to appear egalitarian, sensitive, attractive to the young—it isn’t like you have to have hewed coal or built bridges to have credibility these days—or do you? Maybe the class of doctors and geography teachers in the party are treated as a dangerous aberration by men who still can’t figure out what happens when the working class get professional jobs or own small businesses. Maybe they’re kept in a virtual socialist purgatory where everyone pretends they’re one of the lads, but in reality they can’t get out until they become poor and downtrodden again.
Yet in Scotland, until recent days, the leaders of the three main parties have been women. And it appears that they have each, to the degree their base political allegiances allow, been unafraid to stand up for the most vulnerable in that society? Is it because no one thinks it’s okay to shoot them down. As a Scottish woman I like to believe it’s our crazy ‘who-dares?’ attitude, but to be certain this should be studied. It’s apparent we live in times when we have every justification to be concerned and angry about masculine tyranny in all walks of life, so by all means, take a look.
Of course, tyranny exists in Scotland as in all places, so I admit to being slightly tongue in cheek. You have to be considering what has recently happened to the female leader of the Scottish Labour Party, Keiza Dugdale. There’s evidence those same good ol’ boys of the left are roughly the same on both sides of the border. It’s too bad when things were looking so hopeful, but surely worth female voters bearing in mind as they reach for the next ballot.
And internationally, you and I have witnessed in recent days the burning down of the image of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi. She’s let down her people and the world in a monstrous way since being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize—a woman and a Buddhist for goodness sake. I hardly know what to say—another piece of me dies.
Ending on a historical note, Emmiline Pankhurst, contrary to what most of us have been led to believe, didn’t believe in votes for all women—no universal suffrage for her. She only wanted the vote for women property owners. The complex dance between feminism, the often closeted belief that men are the natural rulers, and class division goes back a long way and casts a long shadow.
A Journey Between the Covers
It is a symbol of dreams—back in the day, a thing only rich women had.
“Why would you need one of those?”
Although spending most days in my bedroom, I still bought it a red leather jacket for going on trips. I peek from time—just checking it’s there. It’s been across the Pacific and the Atlantic, experienced the regime in Cuba, got me status in my adopted country. I imagine it would be as comfortable smoking a Gauloise as chomping down on a Deep-fried Mars Bar.
It’s a social leveler.
It’s been through the EEC channel in many customs areas. If it could speak it would probably say, “They all look the same to me.”
Naked, without its smart leather jacket, it’s maroon and gold.
That kid who was told that air travel wasn’t on the cards, now feels like a woman of the world.
Yet in June 2017 something happened that threatens the security which had transcended borders for forty years. And it seems that some can’t wait to go back to the time when we Brits had an empire and our passports were blue.
For me, it doesn’t feel like a coincidence that the days of the blue passport were also they days when the likes of me didn’t travel overseas.
They say, “Let’s all go back to the ‘50’s when we were great.” You who say that, where did you live? Where did you go to school? What was your first job? What kind of accent do you have?
We grew together, me and the maroon passport: higher education, wide horizons, a drive for peace, and a sense of intra-continental unity.
Somehow I doubt it, but most of all hope, that you can’t put that kind of aspiration back into the toothpaste tube as you pick out the exact shade of blue needed for your passport covers in 2019.
I Don’t Think I’ll Kill George Clooney
Ten years ago my marriage ended when I was in my fifties and I feared I would have to be alone for the rest of my life. I fretted. Who would be there in the mornings to help kick-start the day? Who would be there at weekends to fail to communicate with? Would I be one of those cases in the headlines “Woman dies in the prime of life – body severely decomposed before neighbours notice the smell.”
As it turns out my concern, at least in the general overarching sense, was well founded. Here I am still flying solo. I have bought condos, moved twice, went through carer changes and saw children leave the nest. I’ve traveled without having a certain someone to turn to and say, “Would you look at the size of those stones. How did they get them up there?” And then reminiscing in front of a glowing fire about the size of those suckers later in the year. Sometimes it feels like a loss, a little bereftishness.
Loneliness is, let’s face it, a pain. It makes its presence known just when you’re settling down to a nice salad for one, or when you find a Tweet and can only laugh alone into the computer screen without turning to share the moment another. It then settles in for a bit of a stay and disappears without as much as leaving a thank you note. I hate those pangs that grab the gut, but the question is do I hate them more than making the compromises necessary to live cheek to cheek with another human being?
And don’t get me wrong, it’s not entirely about my fear of the annoying habits he might exhibit at the meal table, or about wondering if he’s ever going to buy new underwear. Although lord knows those would be bad. It’s just as much, if not more, about how I’d need to change to become an acceptable companion.
For instance, I’ve recently been working on a novel which I wrote erratically. I’d plan to write one day and then decide I needed to sleep instead, and I didn’t have to explain my inconsistencies to anyone. I wasn’t obliged to look interested when a partner returned from a day toiling at whatever labours, and wanted to tell me about a big fish that got away or whatever other frustration he felt he compelled to share. There was never a need to suck back my true feelings in order to pretend I wasn’t in the middle of a thought he was driving clean out of my head. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, were taken when I was hungry and often cooked by someone at a local restaurant. No one ever hovered in the doorway with a smile and an “I know you didn’t want to be disturbed but would you like me to start a load of laundry.” At which I would have to jump up to ensure, in his moment of helpfulness, he didn’t boil up a red sweater with the white towels.
Being alone has allowed me and both my good and bad habits to roam free. Could they now be reigned-in? Would I even want them to be? Could I reasonably expect anyone who was not paid to attend to me, to appreciate how folding socks is an art form to be copied by all and yet, absolutely cannot work up any enthusiasm about balancing my chequing account. As things stand I don’t have to explain my vagaries to anyone who might have a critical and annoyingly objective point of view.
At moments when my worst fears have their head, I imagine sitting semi-companionably with a man who’s just told me the same story for the hundredth time, or made his usual observation about how his last wife’s pies won prizes. I worry I’d feel obliged to hide sharp objects lest I found myself doing twenty-five to life among women with tattoos and a lust for fresh meat. Of course, there is another side to the coin. Maybe, I would refold the socks just one time too many, and he would crack and plot ways to see me off and claim against the insurance policy he had secretly taken out on my life.
In the end, what might transpire would be some kind of ugly race to get in the death blow first.
Is it wrong of me to think having a faithful companion slash butler like Jeeves is the way to go, rather than having, say, George Clooney hanging around looking gorgeous but wanting to go to bed at the same time every night? Okay, I admit there’s no way I’d kick George to the kerb but it’s a theoretical question I’m posing here. Maybe change would be good for me. Maybe with the right person I’d find tolerance and mercy I didn’t know I possessed, but if that’s the case, George better get here soon or the point’s going to be moot.
elizabeth-sinclair.com 