In last week’s blog I launched a bit of a tirade against the newly elected US President. I have long maintained that there would be far less war and bloodshed if we didn’t have so many men in charge. ‘Peace through strength’ may be a clever motto for some gun toting Americans (and some Eastern Europeans) but I remain to be convinced that the incoming president will make any headway in stopping the ongoing battles in the Middle East and Ukraine.
Naturally I hope I’m wrong. It’s no coincidence perhaps that Trump defeated two women in the two elections he won. Something about the American testosterone fuelled psyche remains.
Of course, we don’t have to go back that far to see the way women were treated in this country to realise that our own history was largely built around a paternalistic culture, and this legacy and approach still presides in many parts of the world and often still hovers (albeit rather more invisibly these days) here in the UK.
Carlton Theatre Group are performing a play by Jessica Swale this week entitled Blue Stockings, directed by our own Communications Executive, Natalie Romero which explores the battle for the rights of young women to receive equal university recognition in 1896. A few tickets were still available at time of writing this for the final three performances on Friday 15 and Saturday 16 November (including the matinee) https://wimbledoncommunity.org/events/united-kingdom/greater-london/london/blue-stockings-join-the-fight-for-womens-right-to-graduate-in-1896-carlton-theatre-group/
It cannot be underestimated the effect that such events would have had on advancing the rights of women in this country and subsequent gender politics including of course the suffragette movement, which we rightly celebrate here in Wimbledon with the achievements of local activist Rose Lamartine Yeats around two decades later, helping secure women’s right to vote.
We have come a long way in this country over the last century since then, and though we can be pleased with the progress achieved on gender equality and women’s choices, the internet continues to throw up examples of absurd macho behaviour from some quarters which can turn a young person’s head – especially when fuelled by aggressive media narrative and images.
It’s an area I hesitate to tread as I write this, but it can be a difficult balancing act being a man these days. Knowing when to play the fatherly, strong, breadwinner character as against the sensitive, caring and supportive one… How easy is it to combine both in reality? I recently missed out on booking on a free short course at Wimbledon Library entitled ‘Life coaching through a male lens’ with Massimo Comuzzi which I believe explored similar such themes.
For someone who is going through a divorce after a long marriage – but was the major earner in the family – yet also regularly worked with (senior) female colleagues throughout my adult life it throws up several challenges on what instinctively feels right and wrong. But it is something I believe we must continue to explore as a society if we are to better understand one another, and that’s without even touching on the more difficult but important subject of gender identity.
Going back to my original theme I do genuinely believe enabling women to get into positions of power will avoid some of the worst warmongering, so long as they don’t simply replicate their male counterparts’ combative behaviour. But of course, it’s not easy. Other themes explored in Blue Stockings include the distractions of love and the cruelty of the class divide as the young women pursue their goals. Both subjects once again which are very close to my heart and which I will endeavour to explore at some stage in the final weeks of this life changing year.