On 8 March 2012, International Women’s Day, British novelist Linda Grant used her Twitter account to discuss the continuing necessity of feminism.
These are the responses she received.
So sayeth A Thousand Reasons, a damn good, illuminating, infuriating Tumblr compiling women’s stories from the dark old days of the 70s (I kid, I kid). Stories like:
In 2010 job interview I was told explicitly that I’d be hired in spite of my degree, because I ‘looked right’.
1969 girls allowed to do metalwork, but teacher only let us polish. 1973, no contraceptive pill without husband’s consent
secondary school 1989 every physics lesson ended “the boys may leave will the girls tidy the labs” I dropped physics
I think there’s something about the Twitter format that makes these stories a lot bleaker. And hopefully that will mean they have a lot more impact with the kind of people who want to pretend that we magically transitioned from a world where women needed their husbands’ signature to open a bank account to a [slightly] less [obviously] sexist one … and feminism somehow had nothing to do with it at all.
In 1980, my stroppy flatmate had to jump through hoops to buy a house. It was virtually impossible because she was single, but she shouted at the bank manager until he quailed. Good on her!
Amen!
It’s 2012 and I’ve discovered that a male colleague now doing my old job is getting paid $10K/year more than I did when I had the position 3 years ago. Inflation can’t do the math on that one Mr John “No Need For Pay Equity Studies” Key.