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To celebrate International Women’s Day and to highlight the important role women play in the workplace, we have brought together some of the women from Zevo Health for this month’s episode of Zevo Talks.
We are delighted to be joined by Davina Ramkissoon, Wellbeing Director, Tracey Dollard, Head of Operations, Michelle Coates, Producer of Zevo Talks, and Aisling Weldon, Business Operations Executive all at Zevo Health.
The place of women in society has changed hugely over a vast number of years. A woman’s place was firmly at home, as recently as 1973 women in Ireland were expected to quit their job once they were married. Not even 50 years later and this has all completely changed. The working world today is a vast contrast of what it once was and we want to look at how far we have come and what limitations are still present today.
This podcast will explore the following:
- The importance of International Women’s Day
- What it means to be a woman in today’s working world
- The changing voice of women
- Discussing the different stereotypes of women in the workplace
You can listen to the podcast below:
Speaker 1
Welcome back to Zevo Talks. My name is Ashine Weldon, and I’ve been with Zevo for coming up to two years now. So I am delighted to be joined by some of the women here in Zevo Health, Davina Ramkasun, who is our Wellbeing Director, our Head of Operations, Tracy Doddard, and finally Michelle Coates, who is the producer of Zevo Talks.
Speaker 1
We’ve come from a broad background and different life experiences, which will hopefully give you, the listener, a well-rounded view of life as a woman in 2021, which has massively changed in the last generation.
Speaker 1
A woman’s face was firmly at home. As recently as 1973, women in Ireland were expected to quit their job once they were married. Not even 50 years later, and this is all completely changed. The working world today is a vast contrast of what it once was.
Speaker 1
And we want to look at how far we’ve come and what limitations are still present today. So to start off this month, we have International Women’s Day. So what does this day mean to each of you?
Speaker 2
I think that this day is somewhat a day of reflection. It’s an appreciation for how far we’ve come, but I think it’s also very much a day to look back and see the gaps that are still there. Like as much as, as far as we’ve come, they’re still things that are far from perfect.
Speaker 2
I thought early in the year with the resonation, I watched the Netflix show, Bridgerton, and there was a lot of things in that show that people would comment on. But one thing I noticed was that when the daughters were getting married, the discussion always came back to the diary.
Speaker 2
And basically the payment of someone to join another family. And it’s interesting to think, because that’s only a couple of hundred years ago, that was, that was a thing then, but it’s also still a pain in some parts of the world.
Speaker 2
Obviously it’s not as much in the Western world, but in the Western world, we very much rely back, or look to the kind of the tradition that the bride’s family would pay for the wedding. And it would kind of make you think, is that a 21st century kind of version of a diary?
Speaker 2
And it kind of does make you think then, what, how far have we come, and where we are now as a whole kind of thing? Definitely, Michelle. I think that diary element that you picked on, even in my culture, up until quite recently, would have been very apparent in, you know, giving the woman the bride away and having her absorbed into a new family.
Speaker 2
It’s very interesting. And I think, yeah, just exactly what you said, it’s all of those things that you mentioned. And for me as well, like, yeah, celebrating the achievements of how far we have come, the visibility of those achievements, and the piece around education, like there’s so much happening around education and trying to encourage girls, young girls, out of the stereotypes that would have been enforced on them,
Speaker 2
getting them more engaged in, you know, the sciences and having that filter through into industry as well. But like you’re saying, that piece on advancement and equality and how much is left to do, there’s probably still quite a lot more to do.
Speaker 2
And especially with the pandemic, there’s a sense of we could be reversing some of those good changes that we’ve had as women feel more pressurized to, who may have children who are at home working to kind of step back into that full-time carer role whilst the other partner takes on the working responsibilities.
Speaker 2
So we’re in a very pivotal time as well in the sense of what could come next.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I definitely agree with that, and I suppose for me, just echoing Michelle and Demine, it is a celebration. You know, things have changed dramatically, even, you know, in my own sort of career lifespan, you know, what it was in sort of the early, late 80s, early 90s to what, you know, the working environment is for women today has, you know, changed beyond recognition almost.
Speaker 3
But it’s, you know, the theme of the cheer is choose to challenge. And that’s, I think, you know, for me, it’s enforcing that really and empowering women to challenge, and I want to instill that in my own girls who are in the 20s at the moment, you know, that sort of question everything mentality.
Speaker 3
I think I’d love to see that being pushed through and not accepting, you know, what was or the traditions or the norms or just because it was how, you know, things were in the past. So, yeah, so that’s a celebration for sure, but it’s absolutely highlighting, you know, the things that need to be addressed still.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I definitely think it’s a celebration of women and women kind of in power who I would look up to and idolise and aspire to push myself to be better than what I am, kind of, or what we’re like to try and be better every day.
Speaker 1
But I also think it’s important to, you know, celebrate the women around us and who are close to us and recognise all the achievements, great or small, that we’ve all kind of achieved our lives and how we’re successful.
Speaker 1
And especially I think, you know, in the workplace now, I’ve had a lot of friends in different types of industries and some would be heavily male dominated. So I take time as well to look at my friends and say, you know, you’ve come this far and you’ve done this amount of work and you’ve got really successful friends, like female friends in different industries.
Speaker 1
And I just think it’s a day that we have to look at ourselves especially and remember all the things that we’ve achieved and how far we’ve all come. And I definitely think, yeah, it’s a celebration of just how great women are, essentially like it is.
Speaker 1
And I think because the way that we were kind of the way a woman can be stereotyped into particular roles in life, that it’s important that that we’re battling these stereotypes and like looking at our achievements, not just as an achievement is to go to college, to get married, to have a child, that there’s different types of female achievements now that are recognised.
Speaker 1
So that kind of brings us into the next question then in the workplace. How can we counteract any negative stereotypes of women and enforce positive feminism in both our men and women?
Speaker 2
Well, we could spend all day just talking about this and drawing out plans and strategies to solve the problem. But I really like what you were saying that Ash about being a cheerleader for people. Like really kind of, I think it can be really difficult at times for women or any individual to kind of reflect on where they’ve come from and what they’ve achieved because the way in which our society is geared right now is it’s always looking for the next milestone,
Speaker 2
the next achievement, the next thing, which means that we don’t actually take time to take pause and reflect on how far we have come and we minimize those achievements and those accomplishments. And sometimes it is having the support of someone really close to you to say, hold up, this is what you’ve done.
Speaker 2
I’m looking at your journey and it’s not gonna be smooth sailing, it’s gonna be painful along the way, but you’re doing great. So I really would encourage that. And I guess the other thing I’d probably say on it is just, yeah, to become aware, like to not push the problem outside, to really become aware of what’s happening internally for you.
Speaker 2
So we all have stereotypes, we all have biases and whether they’re conscious or unconscious and it’s becoming aware of that first before you can really take on the bigger picture and the bigger work that needs to be done.
Speaker 2
And that’s where it kind of moves with the organization, you know, what are the unwritten rules of behavior? How is role modeling exhibited in an organization? What is seen as acceptable or not? And taking it that step further.
Speaker 2
But yeah, I think there’s lots that we can all do every day when we show up to any interaction, you know, coming back to that, are we enabling someone to feel comfortable, to voice their, to whatever opinion they have or to bring their full selves to work and to just feel like they’re accepted just the way they are.
Speaker 3
Yeah. And it’s the whole of the workforce. It’s not just women in the workforce. It needs to be everybody, you know, because, you know, it’s equality. It’s equality in lots of different areas, but it’s the equal voice.
Speaker 3
It’s the equal position. And as Davina says, it’s an empowerment piece to make sure that everybody feels that they have an equal stance, I suppose, in the organisation and they’re able to be heard.
Speaker 1
I think the language that we use as well is really important to baffled stereotypes and the language we use to talk about ourselves. So, you know, it’s like if a woman is seen as assertive or decisive, she’s seen as bossy or bitchy.
Speaker 1
And it’s, but we can also be guilty ourselves of using that language against ourselves, and then if we’re putting it out there and other people are picking up on it, then, you know, you’re, you’re bringing yourself down essentially, because that’s not the case at all.
Speaker 1
Because any, a man who’s seen as assertive is assertive. It’s not, there’s no other kind of like reason why they would be that way. And so I think that it’s our responsibility as well to choose better language to describe ourselves.
Speaker 2
That’s really interesting Ash that you mentioned that there’s a good amount of research in that and it’s the gender biases So what happens when a female? Behaves in tendencies that we would associate with man So that assertiveness for a man to be assertive where we think that that’s good leadership for a woman to do it It’s yeah, exactly as you said, she’s bossy or you know asking too much.
Speaker 2
We challenge it more and You know you hear those saying so that’s not very lady-like things like that that come through just in the gender biases that we may already hold and so if you’re in a dynamic where Someone is holding that bias of what it is to be female or male You’ve got two battles there You’ve got the internal battle of being the person who is just trying to do their job Maybe in whatever way they need to get it done and then there’s the imposed perspective of what other people think of you and how that how your communication or your Approach is viewed and analyzed.
Speaker 2
So it is quite you know, it’s not a two way It’s not a one-way process. It’s definitely two way probably even three way because it goes out and goes back. It’s reviewed and yeah Yeah, so when I was in college I remember one day we were in a lecture and it came up the conversation of feminism in broader society sort of thing and There was a who here would describe themselves as a feminist.
Speaker 2
I’m gonna say out of a room of 200 maybe I’m gonna say that 40 hands went up and maybe five guys and There was a girl in my course and she was Swedish and she was shocked and I remember about three weeks after I’ll be here But I can’t believe this.
Speaker 2
I can’t believe this and she just kept saying everyone where she was from everyone, Sweden Would describe themselves as a feminist. She just said that’s the way it was because it said a lot of people are Bit daunted by the word feminism, but if you replace feminism with equality so instead of I’m a feminist because I believe in equality because and I just I remember thinking because like a lot of the times when you do hear people talk about feminism and Stereotypes within women and that sort of thing they go back to the very Fundamentals the I get fundamentals and anything
Speaker 1
So working in the wellbeing industry, there is quite an equal balance if not slightly leaning to women being the majority, although it is important to continue to strive for equality. For someone listening, how can they encourage this in an organisation that may not be as female dominated?
Speaker 1
It’s a good question isn’t it?
Speaker 3
It’s kind of back to what we were talking about before, rather than sort of, and even using the word, enforcing feminism, you know? It’s about equality, it’s about equal rights and ensuring that equal rights are a given in the organization.
Speaker 3
That’s what we’re striving for, really. It’s to make sure that, and I think as well as just saying, oh yeah, everybody should have equal rights. You know, what does that actually mean? I mean, there’s equal rights when it comes to pay.
Speaker 3
There’s equal rights when it comes to division of labor, for example, and they’re fairly, in my mind, easy to get right, you know? But there’s other sort of more complex rights that we want to sort of, we want to kind of achieve in an organization.
Speaker 3
And I think to do that, it’s actually recognizing the differences and it’s recognizing the difference, the different needs of the people in your organization. So I come to work and I’m at a certain stage in my own life.
Speaker 3
So my needs and what I need to motivate myself to contribute to the organization is gonna be different to somebody who’s maybe 20 years my junior and has a different set of motivations and needs and what’s going on in their personal life.
Speaker 3
So I think the conversation needs to be just broadened out completely. It’s great to see, for example, that the parental leave and maternity leave, the paternity leaves are being extended and broadened and that’s kind of becoming part of the statute and part of our legislation and that’s great.
Speaker 3
And I think having that support from government is driving a lot of these conversations around what is actually important to people depending on the stage that they’re in in their life. And that traditional model of, okay, the working woman, she gets pregnant, she’s taking maternity leave, she’s gone off to kind of care for the baby and the child and then she kind of needs to figure out how she’s gonna manage to get herself back to work and all of that care and responsibility.
Speaker 3
Traditionally, that was kind of on her, you know? And it’s nice to see that we’re starting, we’re not anywhere close to where I believe we should be, but we are starting to have different conversations around the man’s role, the father’s role in all of this and where he comes in and what does he need in his employment arrangement to facilitate the caring of a child that he has also brought into the world.
Speaker 3
So that’s something I think that needs to drive the conversation as well. And whether that comes through government legislation or whether that is driven from the workforce, if you like, I think it needs to be continued as a conversation and as part of that conversation and part of that narrative, we will achieve some equality of rights or more equality of rights, but I think certainly where you have a more male-dominated workforce and I’ve worked in those industries,
Speaker 3
it’s difficult. It is very difficult, you know? And in my own personal experience, and I’m not speaking in general terms about workforce, I’m talking about my own personal experience, women who are pregnant and who are raising families are seen, aware seen as a bit of an inconvenience, really.
Speaker 3
You know, and she’s a bad age.
Speaker 2
Yeah. That’s really sad, isn’t it? Because you lose a lot of talent from the organization.
Speaker 3
Yeah. And that’s kind of, that was the battle, wasn’t it? That was the sort of the, you know, it was, it was, it was very difficult in my sort of early years and, you know, of having children. It was, it was difficult and it was sort of a, it wasn’t really a conversation that was had in the canteen, you know, and if you raised it in the canteen, you were seen as feminist.
Speaker 1
I think that that would could come into like the recruitment stage as well that if you’re a woman of a certain age, that if you’re applying for a job that that would be nearly taken into consideration as well, maybe like that.
Speaker 3
I was asked correctly in an interview that I plan on having any more children.
Speaker 2
Absolutely shocking, isn’t it?
Speaker 1
man would never be asked that and that’s where the inequality that like it’s those little one-liners that uh still the difference it’s still there’s still things there that need to like need change
Speaker 2
Yeah. And let’s not forget raising a child is a full-time job and it’s not recognized. It’s unpaid labor in essence, you know, and that child is going to go on and contribute towards the economy. So it all feeds into the right direction, you know, giving that woman, that family, as much of a stable foundation to nurture and develop a child is only going to do the state a benefit because they’re going to be able to be a productive member of society,
Speaker 2
contribute towards the economy, take up work, you know, all of these things that we need to keep the economy going. It is very sad to see that that is, that was the experience and probably there might be some people who are still experiencing that.
Speaker 2
Actually talking to my cousin yesterday, she became a first-time mother just before Christmas. She had her lovely little baby girl back in December. So she’s obviously still a maternity leave and trying to come to the groups of having a child.
Speaker 2
But she was basically saying she’s a teacher and she’s obviously out on maternity leave at the moment and she won’t be due to go back to hopefully in September, but she’ll see what COVID’s like at that stage.
Speaker 2
But she was saying about basically how she was, even though within the school, obviously the hours are structured, they’re a lot different to an office nine to five. So she said the skill would be usually close half, three, four o’clock each and she’s always been very involved, especially in green schools, that sort of area.
Speaker 2
But she was basically saying that it’s just, it’s not a, it’s not conducive to having a child and raising a child. And these things, even though for all the will in the world, things do get unorganized and things happen last minute.
Speaker 2
So if a meeting all of a sudden that was meant to be during lunch is now at four o’clock, she can no longer go because the six month old baby isn’t able to walk home from crash by itself and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2
So she basically just, even in a more female dominant industry, which education has always been, there’s still those kind of the unfair balance even towards, even towards a woman that doesn’t have a child necessarily.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and I think that leads kind of into our next question quite well. So as a woman, we have all had experiences where being a woman has both a benefit and a setback. So does anyone have any experiences of this they want to share?
Speaker 2
We’re all smiling.
Speaker 3
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1
Like I think personally, you know, a setback for me would be like this just quite personal that like if if I’m out walking alone and it’s dark and you know you see the group of kind of anyone it could be one person by themselves or a group of people.
Speaker 1
And it’s that initial kind of fear that I just feel is programmed into a lot of women that it’s like your fight or flight kind of thing. And I guess the older I’ve gotten, the more confident I’ve gotten in myself and my ability to like if I have to fight like I would I guess.
Speaker 1
I think that’s just something that anyone who I’ve ever really spoken to has kind of had the same fears if they’re out kind of by themselves or walking alone at night time. But then a benefit of this in a weird way has been that my male friends that have spoken to me about this because they’ve all kind of noticed it that when if they’re out walking and there’s someone in a girl in front of them that they’re like how can I like let this girl know that she doesn’t have to be afraid of me I guess.
Speaker 1
So you know they came to me and I was like oh well you could take out your phone start talking to the phone and you know say like so that they can hear a voice and they can hear kind of that there’s someone it’s a person it’s not just this dark fear kind of walking behind them.
Speaker 1
And it’s a weird one I guess being a benefit but I think the more we we’re open or speaking openly about these little fears that we have the more kind of people are like oh the same and then this is how you solve this.
Speaker 3
Isn’t it fantastic to hear, though, that your male friends are so acutely aware of this and, you know, they’re…
Speaker 1
education. It’s like they’re more educated about and I think they want to do better if thought like you know there’s a lot of things where it’s just it’s we’re pointing the finger at men and it’s all their fault but you know it’s it’s also hey they’ve been brought open the education that they’ve been given so but that’s why it’s kind of our responsibility somewhat as well to educate the men that are around us too and so that they can do better and they don’t really have an excuse because you know we can be like oh we we we kind of gave you tips on how to do this this and this or whatever so but I do yeah I think I think it’s more so that there’s I think the last couple of years there’s just been a lot of negativity in like for men in like against women kind of in in the media so any any guy I think who thinks you know that they’re not involved in that then should be educating themselves so they they can educate their friends too so it’s just like this one kind of pulse of education.
Speaker 2
something similar to that, last night I was kind of doing a preparation for this conversation and I thought to myself, I’m my own brother, so that’s myself and my brother, so obviously female and a male, and I asked my mum, I just said to her, my brother is about four years older than me, and I said, when I was born and when my brother was born, I said, is there anything you felt you needed to instill in this kind of thing for my brother to be a certain way,
Speaker 2
or for me to be a certain way, just purely on our genders, and which she said, quick enough as we were kind of becoming our own people, she was like, I knew a boat, he was able to stand up for yourself and all that sort of thing, believe it or not, I’m actually the quiet one, but one thing she said, particularly my brother Steve was, she said, I never wanted him to be the Lord Muck, the kind of the king of the castle,
Speaker 2
she said it was actually more to do with him having a good respect for women and believing that he wasn’t above these things, she said, my mum is from, she’s from rural Ireland, and she grew up on a farm, and she said when she was about 20, her brother was about 17, and she said they were doing the dishes one day, and he wanted a cup or something like that, and she was like, where is the, and she was chewing a tea cloth,
Speaker 2
and she said, well draw it and wait for it, try to do it yourself, and she said, I almost had to pick him up off the floor, I thought he was having a heart failure, he couldn’t get over it, as simple as something like drawing a cup.
Speaker 2
Definitely, I think family dynamics are, you know, where we kind of have a lot of subconscious kind of beliefs about gender come through, and how it can carry on playing out through our own kind of dynamics, dependent on our role and gender.
Speaker 2
I have a really good story from when I was younger, and it’s actually just of, as my PE teacher, so my physical education teacher, in secondary school, we must have been about 12, and he’s male, and we’re playing rugby, so he’s teaching us how to tackle, and to basically bring someone to the ground, and we’re all lined up, and it’s mixed class, so there’s boys and girls in it, and it was my turn,
Speaker 2
I was meant to run up and tackle this lad down, and he was like a mini rugby player himself, he was solid, and I looked at my PE teacher, looked back at this lad, looked back at my PE teacher, and he just went, go on, and I was like, in my head, I was like, are you mad?
Speaker 2
But then I was like, I ran after him, and I could hear my PE teacher going, drive your shoulder in, drive your shoulder in, and it was just, he was, like, that sort of thing also has stayed with me, in the sense of you’ve got, you know, someone who, you know, is kind of cheering on this little, little girl, or is littler at the time, against this big lad, and he’s like, he’s not seeing any of that,
Speaker 2
he’s trying to push me, and like, on reflection, and in light of the conversation that we’re having, you know, those things also mean and carry a lot when you have those experiences, someone who is male, or female, who’s looking at you, and maybe you’re, you maybe have these limitations in your mind, and they’re going, so, try it, go, push as hard as you can, and I think that’s really, like, that’s been one of the best kind of experiences from childhood as well,
Speaker 2
just having those teachers kind of just look at you and go, so, you can do it, kind of move, like, go through it, and that’s really heartwarming to have had as well.
Speaker 1
So then it can be a stereotype that women can be catty and may not be looking out for one another. It is important in Zevo Health for women to build each other up.
Speaker 3
Yeah. It’s just important for the stuff you know. Yeah, no matter where you are. No matter where you are. You know, absolutely. And yeah, I mean, it’s just, and this, again, it’s this stereotype of a woman in a paddy, you know, she’s very bossy, you know.
Speaker 3
I mean, I’ve had sort of labels attached. And even in my younger, in my younger years, you know, when I sort of started out on my HR career, you know, I had this sort of label of, she’s the mammy of the group.
Speaker 3
You know, and that’s fine. And I’ve kind of, I’m still getting that label attached, she’s the mammy of the group. And it comes from a couple of different aspects. And, you know, what I’m sort of putting out there.
Speaker 3
And yes, I’m caring. I’m a caring nature. I hope I’m a caring nature. And I do genuinely want to make sure that people are safe and happy in the workforce and in life in my own sort of circle in general.
Speaker 3
But, you know, and that’s fine. And yeah, the mammy of the group and the whole art is fine to a degree. But then it gets to a stage where you’re saying, but I’m not your mammy. You need to think about that yourself.
Speaker 3
And again, going back to the sort of, she’s very assertive. And that means I’m bossy. So I’m the eldest of three, two younger brothers. And my mother brought us up as a single parent. So and within the household of very, very strong women.
Speaker 3
So I grew up with two women raising me effectively, my grandmother and my mother. My grandfather was there also. We kind of lived with him. So, but I grew up surrounded by just really, really strong, hardworking, determined women who, you know, they worked so hard that they didn’t actually have time for, you know, almost the niceties and the whole lot.
Speaker 3
But my mother is lovely. But I suppose, you know, you get this sort of label of she’s assertive. I mean, she’s bossy. She’s, you know, and, you know, can women be catty? I think people can be catty. You know, people can be mean to each other sometimes, you know, it’s not just down to women.
Speaker 3
It’s not that men are really nice. And it’s only women who, who are catty or snide, make snide remarks in the hall. That is across the board. You know, it really is. Should we, should we build each other up all of the time?
Speaker 3
Absolutely. Of course. We have to be able to lean on each other. We have traits that are unique to us as women, but what men don’t share and, and, you know, that we need to kind of support each other through.
Speaker 3
And there’s different things that happen in our lives as women that men don’t experience. And we need to be able to sort of share those experiences ourselves, understand them and support each other through all of those different life stages, I guess.
Speaker 2
Yeah, Tracy, I think it’s really important. And I think it’s coming back to the gender stereotypes. When you were talking, I’m just thinking of that, they’re saying, you’re damned if you’re doing, you’re damned if you don’t.
Speaker 2
So if people are stereotyping you as the mammy of the group, and then you pull back and go, actually, you have to figure this out by yourself, then you receive backlash, or because you’re not fulfilling the gender stereotype that someone has of you.
Speaker 2
And I think maybe I’m throwing this out there, maybe us as women, like we need to rewrite that stereotype on a collective level. And conversations like this are doing it. But I think it’s that every day interaction, what expectations are we putting on this individual, be it a woman, be it a man, but say it as a woman, are we holding her to that level that we have of a gendered stereotype in our mind?
Speaker 2
And then working with that to see, is that actually helping the situation? Is that actually helping me to figure out and grow through this process? It is interesting, some of the pandemic data has shown the countries that are being led by women are having better outcomes.
Speaker 2
And I think they were just saying, it’s more around the proactivity and the collaboration around policy, implementation, design and implementation. So I think there’s something to be said there as well.
Speaker 2
And obviously that data is not conclusive. We’re still going through the pandemic. But yeah, I think it is quite fascinating to see that that finding has been observed. It is definitely going to make us think about women in leadership differently.
Speaker 2
And when you’ve got strong people, like Jacinda Arden, who are very transparent in her communication, she doesn’t fluff it up. She goes, you know, she speaks honestly from the conversations that I can see of her speaking online.
Speaker 2
And I think that’s refreshing to see as well.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think as well, you know, what Tracy said there that everyone can be Katty and it’s like everyone who doesn’t love a good rant, you know, and sometimes you just need to vent and then off-steam and, you know, it’s, you know, you just, and that kind of needs to happen and it doesn’t need to be seen as Katty or anything, it just needs to be seen as a personal release, I think, that you’re just kind of blowing off steam and then it’s forgotten about.
Speaker 1
And it’s like, you know, my housemate, he’s a guy and he’s just as able to have that same rant that I would or to be just as Katty as I am. And I think that it’s just, like, I love the saying, it’s my favorite saying that empowered women, empower women.
Speaker 1
So it’s just so important that, like, you know, we’re constantly pushing each other to do our best and to offer help and help as needed and just, yeah, just to be willing and open to listen to people and not, even if someone is having a rant, to not be judging them for being a certain way or putting a label on that rant or calling it Katty, just listening and saying, okay, you needed to vent, so I’m listening and then it’s forgotten about and you move on.
Speaker 2
I think like, everyone’s worked with women that are catchy, bitchy, whatever, in the exact same way we’ve all worked with men that are catchy, bitchy, whatever other phrase you want to put on us. I just, I think it’s very easy to throw that label on women.
Speaker 1
Being women in the working world, how do you think the voice of the woman has changed over time?
Speaker 2
Well, I think it’s listened to a lot more. I think, and again, like we’ve been speaking about this, there’s still a lot more to do, but it’s having people at the table, having women at the leadership tables, and seeing that reflected in other organisations, that it’s acceptable to have women there.
Speaker 2
They wouldn’t have been able to, like Tracey was saying, you get pregnant, you leave the workforce, that’s your career over. It’s thinking more flexibly around what is a career to anyone who wants to take on caring responsibilities, to have family, to take a step back from a career, come back, join, start a different path.
Speaker 2
And I think one of the things that I’ve seen is that transition, in the sense of some of the most interesting people that I’ve worked with have come to their positions, but they haven’t followed the traditional path.
Speaker 2
They’ve maybe started in one career, moved to another one, kind of sidestepped into another position, and they’ve taken all of that knowledge, expertise and skills with them, which makes them stronger and well-rounded individual when they are coming.
Speaker 2
And they are at that table because they’ve got so much experience to pull on, to draw on, to talk and to troubleshoot. And that shouldn’t be lost. Coming back to that pandemic point around, are we going to see women exit the workforce because of the external pressures?
Speaker 2
Like, I hope we don’t have that, because having a child, and I don’t have one, but seeing my sisters have children, it’s very stressful, but it enriches your life. You see life from a different perspective, and having that represented in the workplace is going to be important for the future generations.
Speaker 2
We’re seeing different needs being voiced from the younger generations entering the workforce. And I think it’s 2050, 50% of the workforce is going to be millennials. So there’s going to be a huge seismic shift that’s going to come through, and you’re going to have to bring them with you.
Speaker 2
You can’t just say, I’m at the top and I’ve got it all figured out. It’s going to constantly evolve, but it is good to see that more voices are being heard. You’re seeing groups pop up, so there’s full campaigns around women in tech or women in leadership.
Speaker 2
That’s mirrored across the media with, say, challenging the stereotypes around, run like a girl. I think always were the one that did that. And having it mirrored across so many different layers in our society.
Speaker 3
Yeah, I completely agree. And what we’re seeing is why I guess employers, particularly some of the very big companies that are out there are recognizing the profitability, to be frank, that’s had in making sure that your leadership team has gender equality, that your women in leadership are very much front and center of the decision-making process in your organization, that your benefits package is reflective of the entire workforce and responds to the needs.
Speaker 3
And as you said, I mean, the workforce needs have evolved. And I think the demand for a more equal workforce is becoming louder and louder. And it’s fantastic to see, you know, because I don’t think that, I hope that pandemic won’t put women’s rights on any sort of backward footing.
Speaker 3
I do hope that it, you know, it continues. And the workforce changes and adapts to what everyone needs, you know, man, woman, whatever, you know, it’s whatever needs the individual has that they’re met within their working life.
Speaker 3
For myself, and, you know, just to touch on what you said, Dovina, like, you know, people change careers, change, you know, their skillset, they, you know, re-educate themselves, they re-skill themselves, they change according to life because life changes and you can have a plan and you can be saying to yourself, okay, in the next 20 years, I’m going to X, Y and Z, life will throw different curve balls at you and anything can happen to throw you off that course and being able to adapt to that and being empowered to adapt to that and having support that allows you to adapt and to grow and to develop and to move on.
Speaker 3
And that’s incredibly important, you know.
Speaker 1
I think as well, so I would have had my first job when I was 16 and like just working in kind of a euro spire, nothing too major but you know my managers and the kind of anyone who was in management or leadership role, it was all male, like they’re all men and I guess kind of 14 years on now I feel quite lucky that I get to work in a company that has a lot of women and female kind of female people or sorry,
Speaker 1
and has a lot of women in leadership roles and you know for me it’s great because it kind of just that’s a huge thing for me that I can see okay there is the chance and there is I can progress and be kind of in a more powerful role or like a leadership role so and in my kind of way that’s how the voice of women has changed in the workplace and I’ve gone from seeing a lot of men in leadership roles to now a lot of women so for me that’s changed.
Speaker 2
I was just thinking about all the managers I’ve had over the years and all the people that were above me. I think it was my fourth job before there was any woman manager, like she wasn’t even my manager, which was any sort of female manager.
Speaker 2
Okay, so I think we’ll move on to the questions towards individuals now. So I suppose the first would be for Ashlyn. Ash, have you ever felt a change in how you’re viewed because you’re a woman?
Speaker 1
Yes and no, I guess it goes back to kind of what I was saying before that when I was in school, so I went to an all girls’ Catholic school and the first kind of difference that I noticed between the girls’ Catholic school and the boys’ Catholic school was that we’re doing home economics and the boys are doing woodwork and I was a bit like, why can’t I take on those types of subjects?
Speaker 1
It’s because they’re seen as male subjects and the home economics was seen as a female subject because they didn’t have that option to home economics either. And then I guess it was the expectation that my life would look a certain way, so it would be to go to school, go to college, get a job, then get married, buy a house, have children and that’s kind of the way that it was set out.
Speaker 1
And while I was in school as well, I always fit into the alternative group of people, I guess, like I like to dye my hair, I was interested in piercings, tattoos, that kind of thing and they were never seen then as ladylike or feminine.
Speaker 1
So because of that, I kind of went through a lot of different phases of style and kind of trying to figure out who I was and eventually kind of coming back to who I was when I was 16, so I’m back at my coloured hair.
Speaker 1
And so I think that for me, the treatment wasn’t necessarily like, it was more so how I was reading into things, so even like how I was supposed to look as a woman and the image of women in media. And how it’s changed to now is that there’s far more representation of different types of women in the media and there’s far more opportunities, I guess, to just be who you actually want to be as yourself without judgment,
Speaker 1
because it’s just a bit more normalised, I guess, to be a bit different, if that makes sense. And I think now, though, things like, things that would have bothered me maybe when I was younger, because I didn’t know how to handle them, don’t bother me anymore.
Speaker 1
But I also don’t know if that’s necessarily a good thing, because have I just gotten used to being treated as a certain way.
Speaker 2
Can I just say one thing, when you said about the Palmecham School, I remember I live at the top of a hill and all the schools are at the bottom of the hill. And I used to remember those two schools there, there was the boys and the girls, both Catholics, so I went to a convent.
Speaker 2
And I used to remember the girls were walking down with their bags, with their flour and their eggs, and their whatever, they were making that week at home. And all the lads would have this stick poking out of their bag for woodwork.
Speaker 2
Even from a distance of the girls who were in the skirts, because God forbid we wore trousers. But even from a distance, you can see the obvious, like the immediate difference kind of thing. It’s crazy that even it’s in stillsons from Tokyo.
Speaker 1
Cause even like that instills then that our, our job and that the home is going to be in the kitchen and the man’s job is going to be the DIY stuff. Whereas I’m actually unreal at DIY. I do like, I love to cook, but I’m, you know, I really enjoy DIY and I always think back.
Speaker 1
What if I had the chance to do woodwork in school? Like, could I be in a different place now? Could I be, you know, the kind of way. So I think, um, I think kind of society has had a lot to do with kind of, you know, our upbringing, obviously.
Speaker 1
And like how, what we’re expected to do and what our lives are expected to be. And you know, now it’s a bit, it’s, it’s, it’s okay to live kind of a non-controvert, a different kind of life. Like you don’t have to do those steps, which I think is a good change.
Speaker 1
It’s not always expected. I think hopefully people are a bit more open-minded to different kinds of lifestyles.
Speaker 2
And hey, Aisling, it’s never too late to take up woodwork, so you’ve got it. But Michelle, even what you’re saying, we went through a huge petition in my secondary school to get girls able to wear trousers.
Speaker 2
There was huge kind of, I’m not sure what the reasoning was, but they didn’t want girls wearing trousers to school for some reason. They wanted us in our skirts with, you know, our nice socks, colour-coordinated socks and all that stuff.
Speaker 2
Now, it did come through, but like, you know, I can probably assume maybe wrongly or rightly what the reasons and rationale were. But it was even that, a challenge to get girls to be able to come to school.
Speaker 2
Like, who wants to be in a skirt in the middle of winter? You know? Things like that. I was like, Aisling was a kilt, so a bit of wind came, and the wind, even now, the uniform is still the kilt.
Speaker 1
And Michelle, have you ever found expectations as a woman that simply aren’t expected from men, for example, the assumption that because you’re a woman you want children?
Speaker 2
100%. I think the gender norms we’ve really, the gender norms in society, because they’re instilled in you from so young, you’re really, it’s in your brain, if you like it or not, there’s so many things that you automatically think this is the way it should be.
Speaker 2
Like, as you said, when you’re in school, when you’re a child, you’re, you do gravitate for the certain lifestyle, like your own, it’s in your DNA. But then society around you is saying that as a young girl, you’ll go to school, you’ll do X, Y and Z subjects, you’ll go to college, and then you’ll, obviously, the only thing of any woman wants is a baby and a husband, because they’re the obvious things.
Speaker 2
A few months ago, I was actually, it was just after Christmas, and I was on the phone, it was for work, actually. And the woman I was talking to mentioned about, she had something about her family over Christmas.
Speaker 2
And I mentioned, oh, me and my boyfriend did something over Christmas. And she was like, oh, is there a ring coming? Is there a baby on the way? Like, no, I’m like, I’m in 20s. I was like, that’s not anywhere on the agenda.
Speaker 2
Like, don’t you worry. I mentioned it then to my boyfriend, Jack, and he was like, he was taken aback. He thought that was crazy. He was like, I couldn’t imagine anyone saying that to me. And I thought like, nobody would say it to you.
Speaker 2
Because obviously, as a woman, that’s the only thing that apparently is on my brain. But even the fact that that came from a woman, it wasn’t, I don’t know if it’d be worse or better than it’s from a woman, but it was either way.
Speaker 2
And I suppose then as well, one thing over the weekend, I don’t know if anyone saw, it was a BBC, it was a female commentator. And she was doing an interview with a rugby player after, it was after the England match on, I think Saturday.
Speaker 2
Saturday, yeah. I’m not a rugby person, sorry. And she was reduced to tears. She was basically got abuse online. And it just really showed that for as far as we’ve come, sport is one area that just doesn’t seem to be, it just doesn’t seem to, even the fact that we say the women’s football.
Speaker 2
We, I’m from Dublin, obviously. And so the Dobbs have won what the last year was the bosun for half a dozen. So they’re doing fantastically well. As are the women, but the women’s football, even the fact we describe it as the women’s football, and then the Dobbs or and the Dublin, like, there has to be the differentiation there.
Speaker 2
And sport is something and like, just be an active overall is something that everyone should be certain amount in their lifestyle. So why when it comes to anything to do with sport or like a bigger game, do we have to do the differentiation there?
Speaker 2
It just, it doesn’t, it doesn’t make sense because as children, we’re all packed up for our lunches to go to, I don’t know, go down to the local GAA field to whack a hurl around or whatever. Why is it different?
Speaker 2
It just, it seems crazy. I think that when it was so public at the weekend, like a BBC reporter, you know what I mean? Like, you just don’t expect that sort of thing in the modern age.
Speaker 3
Yeah. And she almost got, I mean, she almost got double the backlash for crying. Yeah. God forbid she had an emotion, you know, so she cried because the man wouldn’t cry, kind of taken on the chin. And yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3
Just when you were talking about sort of the, the, the gender stereotypes that we instill in kids, my, my brother, the younger, the youngest guy, um, when he was little, for Christmas, he wanted, um, to have the big yellow teapots.
Speaker 3
We wanted a big yellow teapot and he wanted, um, a host office. The older guy was, uh, you know, he was into sort of tanks and helicopters and all this, you know, blow it up and shoot type of thing. And he got, so, you know, he, he got his, his big yellow teapot and played happy for months.
Speaker 3
He got great back and knocked the great back out of this thing. And we would slag him over the years. We’d always say, you know, do you remember when he got the type of thing and his hero, you killed me for saying this, was sort of JR Ewing in Dallas.
Speaker 3
This was what he did. He was five and this is what he did. Oh, he slagged him so much over the years. His son is now 10 and I have nieces who are 7 and 15 and they’re very close and they’re growing up together in the whole lot, you know, and his son wanted, um, a dal and pram.
Speaker 3
So he got a dal and pram and it was just ego. Yeah, that’s, that’s what, you know, and a couple of years, sort of, then he was running around with this, this dal and pram and the whole lot and it did not, you know, define any of those kids.
Speaker 3
It, you know, it didn’t define my brother, it doesn’t define, you know, so the more that we can do as the adults and the influencers around children to, to kind of strip away all of that stereotypical behavior and, and labeling and you’re this and you’re that and you’re going to be this and this is what the expectation, if we can get in there really early and, and just, you know, level it, level the plane,
Speaker 3
literally level the plane field, I think we stand a much better chance as society to, to kind of creating that equality.
Speaker 2
100%. And it’s like a judgment piece, isn’t it? Because I think a lot of people would feel comfortable to do that. But then, oh, what will that person say? Or, you know, like, that feeds into our behaviors as well.
Speaker 2
And I think, yeah, you’re dead right there as well, Tracy on that front. And my little niece, she’s two now, just turned two. And she’s got all her father’s old kind of racing cars. He kept them all from his childhood.
Speaker 2
She has her favorite car. She won’t go to bed without it. And she’s happy playing. Yeah. And it’s just a child at the end of the day. And I think you raise much more kind of confident children, confident in themselves, if they don’t feel that they have to fit that potential stereotype that’s being imposed on them.
Speaker 2
And Michelle, just on the pregnancy point, I’m not sure if you’ve seen, but there’s like this whole kind of campaign around don’t ask a woman about whether she’s going to have a child or not, because you don’t know whether she can have children.
Speaker 2
You don’t know whether she’s had five missing carriages, and she is trying her desperate hardest to conceive a child. It’s a very loaded question. And I think it’s just having that awareness again, that we don’t know what everyone else is going through and how that question might actually harm more than, and I think probably from the other perspective, it’s a genuine interest to want to see our life progressing in a way which is traditional and brings comfort.
Speaker 2
But yeah, it’s probably just really being mindful about how close you are to that person, whether you are really close and whether they want to talk to you about it or not, because it is such a personal issue.
Speaker 1
Davina, I know you have previously spoken about the voice of women both inside and outside the workplace. What have your experiences with having your voice been like?
Speaker 2
Um, yeah, really interesting question. Um, I think I’ve been fortunate enough that I’ve had very strong, um, women, um, surrounding me. So my mom, my two sisters, um, and, and that has really kind of helped, um, me to, yeah, to develop and mature into the woman that I am today.
Speaker 2
Um, and I think what has been mirrored that is throughout work, I’ve had very strong women leadership as well. Um, probably in most of my roles, to be honest. Um, but there have been occasions where, um, you’re in meetings and, you know, I have one experience where I was the specialist, the subject matter expert on an issue.
Speaker 2
Um, and a question, it was actually coming from a female at the time who, who wasn’t, um, uh, my, my, uh, manager. Um, so she asked the question, I answered it. She asked the same question, a male paraphrased what I said and she went, okay, great.
Speaker 2
And it happened two more times than that same meeting. And afterwards I chatted to the male and I was like, what just happened there? And he was just like, no, no, no, like I didn’t see any of that. It’s, it’s, it’s not, it’s, it’s in your mind.
Speaker 2
And I’m going, but you’re not a specialist in that subject and you’ve basically taken, you know, what I said and, and, and, and didn’t add anything novel to it. So we had a good chat about it and, um, I kind of, I kind of feel like when those instances happen, it’s, it doesn’t help to kind of get annoyed or angry, even though that might be the basic instinct to do that.
Speaker 2
But I really value the time just going, like being able to speak to my, my male colleague at the time and just be like, what happened there? And, and to, to kind of, um, talk it through with someone who was on my team.
Speaker 2
Um, but I think it also says, like, the thing I try and do is maybe try and not take it too personal. Um, even though it is very irritating, um, because it speaks more about the other individual and where they’re at, and I’m not going to be able to change that perspective in, in one meeting.
Speaker 2
So maybe Ash, similar to you, it’s like controlling the controllables, you know, have I, you know, you try, you have to try and find a way to balance everything. Um, and so I’m sure, you know, there are people like even yourselves here have maybe had that experience where they’re in personal life and you have to, you have to try and find your very best to, to be firm and grounded in what you’re saying.
Speaker 2
Um, and, and the rest, you know, after that, you know, it is for the other individual to decide how they’re going to respond to react. I think having your integrity in what you’re doing is, is really important to, to try and maintain.
Speaker 2
Um, so yeah, it’s unfortunate. I think a lot of people probably, as I said, have experienced that. Um, and I try and use those situations as learning as well. You know, uh, like I said, like that reflection piece and talking it through with people and not just bottling it in, um, because that it’s not going to do me any good.
Speaker 2
Uh, like my wellbeing, my psychological LPA. So yeah, I think as I’m getting older, it’s happening less and less. Um, but yeah, it definitely has happened in the earlier days in my career.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think sometimes when someone tells you that you’ve imagined something or it happens in your head, it’s almost, you’re just like, no, did you not just see what just happened there? And I think it makes you doubt then, are you just being kind of over-sensitive or did it actually happen?
Speaker 1
But I think just being confident in, no, I know what I said, and I know it was kind of, you know, I had to be part of, when you said I had to be part of phrase by a man, to be understood, just, Tracy, so you have two daughters in their twenties, what was your experience of raising two girls?
Speaker 1
Did you find a struggle of being a mother and working and were employers flexible to this?
Speaker 3
In 1996, no, I don’t think we’re into the short answer to that one. Yeah, so I had my eldest girl in 1996 and at that time, maternity leave was 12 weeks. So I had care in October and was due back to work basically just after Christmas in the January.
Speaker 3
You could take an additional, I think four weeks on paid leave, you know. It was barbaric to say the least, you know, I felt, so I guess just kind of feeling like we were recently married, newly married, new house and literally had the new baby.
Speaker 3
So I was the stereotypical, you know, new mom. And where I was working at the time, I spent less school quite early and spent sort of the next however many 10 years or whatever doing in manufacturing, in the manufacturing industry.
Speaker 3
And what that meant was I was working in a high-tech manufacturing plant and we were running shift work. So not only was I expected to go back to work after 12 weeks after having a baby, I was expected to go back to work on three chips.
Speaker 3
So I had to go back and work sort of eight to four, four to 12 and then the night shift, which was 12 to eight. So I did go back, I went back in the October and my husband was working full-time as well.
Speaker 3
We needed the two incomes coming into the houses. Most people will understand and I had an aunt who said that she’d take care of her, you know. And to say that I was less than useless in the workplace when I did go back, because it was such, for me personally, it was just such a wrench to be away from her.
Speaker 3
She was just too small, you know, and you’re literally handing over this new baby to somebody else to look after and way off you go, you know. So it didn’t do me any good at all, as you can imagine. And quite quickly I found that I was on leave again and I just needed to take some time and I needed to be at home with her.
Speaker 3
So how that was addressed to my employer was a knock on the door of my house on an afternoon. And, you know, basically the head car manager at the time coming in and saying, you know, oh, you know, how are you doing?
Speaker 3
Everything okay? Are you okay to come back to work then next week? And I’m going, no, I’m not actually, I’ve been signed off, which I had at the time and him saying, okay, we’ll just, you know, we’ll just leave it there then you can, you know, I don’t think there’s any point.
Speaker 3
And basically before he left the house, I had signed a resignation letter. So that was 1996. Oh my God. Right? I was lucky enough to be able to, you know, we managed and we made the decision as a family and as a couple that I would stay at home with the girls.
Speaker 3
So, you know, I had power within two years. And for us, it was the right thing to do for me to be able to be at home with the girls in those sort of first very early years, you know, and that was just a decision that we were lucky enough to be able to do financially.
Speaker 3
We can afford it and it was great, you know? So sort of skip forward a few years and both of the girls were now at school and I had realized that I had sort of sacrificed my own education in being, you know, forging my own way as a woman and I’ll do what I want and, you know, I’m going to go out and earn and all of this kind of crack.
Speaker 3
And I made a decision myself that I need to re-educate myself. So when they went to school, I went to school, got my education and decided that for me as a work mother or as a mother at that time, I didn’t want to go back into that sort of shift work manufacturing, you know?
Speaker 3
So I needed to make a decision. And at the same time, my marriage sort of broke down. So I found myself back in education as a single mother and now looking for a change in career and a complete change in direction.
Speaker 3
And I guess for me, my observations of, you know, the 90s, the 80s and 90s and that sort of very heavily, heavy industry, manufacturing industry and the traditional workforce and what that looked like, what that workforce was like for women had changed dramatically by the middle of sort of, you know, mid 2000s, I guess, and 2006, I found myself.
Speaker 3
at the start of what I described in my second career, which was in HR and business administration and all of that, you know. And it was a stark contrast with the two. As I said earlier on, you know, I think the rights and the equality of women has been chored up through legislation as opposed to employers going, you weren’t very fair, were we?
Speaker 3
Let’s decide we’re going to do it differently. The government and the legislation said, you’re going to do it differently. And here are the rights and here’s what women need to enable them to have families and to go away after.
Speaker 3
So the maternity leave obviously was extended. It was the introduction I think as well of like this notion of parental leave and term time and flexi leave around, you know, school going. So I was lucky enough that I was able to work full time.
Speaker 3
I was able to afford sort of childcare. And I had a decision to make, you know, because a lot of my peers and colleagues were sort of doing, you know, the 20-hour week and getting this support and all of that, you know, and that worked fine for them.
Speaker 3
It was a conscious decision that I made for myself that I wanted to be in full-time employment. I wanted to get my third level education. I wanted to educate myself because I didn’t want my girls to think that, you know, that leaving school early was a good idea.
Speaker 3
I wanted them to understand their right to their education and how important their education was and to really give themselves the best chance that they possibly could at life. And I didn’t want to be, you know, a barrier to any of that in any way.
Speaker 3
So for me, it was a personal choice, but it was a struggle. It was a struggle. Were employers flexible? They were a little bit more flexible in the 2000s than they were in the 90s for sure. But it’s still really, really difficult.
Speaker 3
And I think to pretend otherwise would be slightly naive. It’s hard to have everything. It’s hard to have, you know, the full-time job. It’s hard to have, you know, I was studying at night as well, you know, over the course of four years.
Speaker 3
And I like that life throws all of these different challenges at you. And you have to sort of in the moment, I remember driving to work one morning. I was actually, sorry, I was driving the kids girls to the Time Minder, you know, at sort of 20 to 9 to drop them off.
Speaker 3
And she rang me to say that she decided that she didn’t want to be a Time Minder anymore from there. It was like 20 minutes to kind of figure something else out. But that’s what you roll with. That’s what, you know, everybody has different challenges.
Speaker 3
Everybody has something going on in their personal lives. And it’s for what we can do, what we can do as an organization, and particularly as women in an organization, is really kind of gather around, you know, and I thought if you’ve heard that, that analogy, you know, it takes a village to raise a child and what that means.
Speaker 3
It really truly does, actually. It’s not just about, you know, your mother, therefore it’s on you to bring up this person, you know, and to have all of that responsibility. It is not. It’s the whole family.
Speaker 3
It’s both parents. It’s also, dare I say it, you know, the employer is also the organization. So we’re contributing to these organizations. We’re giving, you know, what we have. We’re giving our experience and coming with our skills and our qualifications.
Speaker 3
And we’re really giving everything that we have to an organization. And I think, controversial, but I do think it’s time now that that is completely recognized and that our personal needs are met.
Speaker 1
I don’t know if I’ll ever be over here in 12 weeks from maternity leave, but so short.
Speaker 3
yeah look it was it was of its time and still the 90s was a little bit a little bit off because we were all you know we’re after italian 90 the country was was we were having a great crack you know the the banks were loaning lots of money we were buying lots of houses um you know we were they sort of you heard the taxi drivers and having the holiday home in Bulgaria type of thing you know if the country was really booming like properly properly booming booming the likes of which we’d never seen um and jobs were plenty as well you know and and everybody was sort of enjoying enjoying that and i suppose when i think about that when i said that we were able to and we were comfortable enough we were i was able to stay at home i kind of let that slide because it you know it i kind of said okay right okay well look i get to i get to be at home with with the girls you know and my my feminist side didn’t sort of go what the hell just happened you know how dare you know i be put in in that position if that was my husband that would never ever ever happen it just wouldn’t consider it just wouldn’t wouldn’t consider that but actually physically coming into somebody’s home and that wasn’t unusual that’s the thing it wasn’t it wasn’t an unusual you know um situation to be in it was still wrong and you know probably um could have no doubt could be challenged by the time culturally i you know it just it just wasn’t
Speaker 1
Yeah, like my mom would have stayed at home with us and didn’t go back to full-time work until my younger sister went into school. And she didn’t go back to college or anything. She didn’t go back to education, but she did like courses and things so that she was able to brush up on her typing skills and stuff.
Speaker 1
And now the kind of the way she sees it is because she started work later, she has to finish work later. So she’s kind of done this full-time job as being a mother and is now working a full-time job and is going to continue to work a full-time job until she’s like older than my dad would be retiring this year.
Speaker 1
Whereas I think she has another maybe 10 years of service left and she just like, she’s going to be older working. And I know that we’re finishing work at an older age, but I just, I think she’s, it’s that kind of thing of where she’s already done, you know, shall we say, or I guess by the time my sister would have been gone to school, my brother would have been nearly 10.
Speaker 1
So she’s done 10 years of doing the full-time job but on top of kind of go back into work then again.
Speaker 3
Yes, absolutely. And, and would have had, you know, her pension affected for, you know, that’s probably what I’m speaking for him and that’s probably why she’s she feels the need to, you know, so that it right across our society, it never got the work that women did within the home was was very undervalued always, you know, and perhaps still still is.
Speaker 3
And it just doesn’t, it just doesn’t get the recognition and we could talk for another hour if you think about the history of this country comes to how we treated women and children and, and, you know, and right across society and it wasn’t just, you know, what, what the church did or what the state did or, you know, it was everybody’s involvement in that whole period, and that shameful period, really.
Speaker 3
But I think definitely there’s still we’ve come a long way. We have come a long way in how we treat women and children and specifically, I suppose, women and girls, you know, within Ireland, we have, but we’re not there yet.
Speaker 3
And I think to pretend otherwise would be would be naive.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I’d agree. I think there’s still a lot in the sense of acknowledging us as, you know, human beings that have rights, you know, over our own body, over what we want to do, over how we want to live our life, you know, things that have come up that, you know, Michelle Ashleigh and Tracey, we’re all speaking about.
Speaker 2
It’s a much bigger societal picture, isn’t it? Like you’re saying that village piece, you know, well, who are the people in that village? And it’s not just people in your immediate household and your immediate family.
Speaker 2
It’s the whole society, the whole economy that feeds into how that individual develops.
Speaker 3
Well.
Speaker 1
So we’ll end on some more light-hearted questions. So if you could have a dinner party pre-COVID and you can invite three women that are alive, who would you like to invite? Michelle, you go first.
Speaker 2
Um, I think, to be honest, at this stage, I’ve had anybody I’ll refer to in a priority. Um, I think I, first of all, this is very obvious and very cheesy, but I do love Michelle Obama. I think she stands for great things.
Speaker 2
She’s very, I talk with Michelle Obama, I’m going to say twice a week. I’ve read her, if you haven’t watched her documentary on Netflix and read her book, I’d highly recommend them. Um, she does stand for a good thing.
Speaker 2
She’s very much lives in the girls, big one for, um, advocate for education. She’s very good for just overall wellbeing. And then obviously I suppose black in America, she’s very much a huge one for civil rights and for equality across the boards.
Speaker 2
I think she’s a fantastic woman. I think for my second, I would have, um, a family member. I think I would have my, um, late, she was my grandfather’s sister and my auntie Peggy. She was a fantastic woman.
Speaker 2
She, she was alive now. She’d be early nineties. When she was alive, she was, I think she was ahead of her time in the kind of way that just say my, my grandmother, she’s gone as well, but she was, she wouldn’t do anything without my grandfather.
Speaker 2
And she was very much that the women was with the husband. Peggy was not about that. Peggy went off on our holidays and turned off to Spain for two weeks and she came back with her duty free and are like different things.
Speaker 2
I remember once we were at a family occasion and she was like, did you hear about that Jay-Z? And I was like, what? He only went and cheated on Beyonce. And this was like an elderly age. She was just so with it.
Speaker 2
And she had such a, like, I think like she lived her life, like to the max, she was just a fantastic woman. And she, I don’t know, I just think everything about her, she was amazing. If you could bring her back, I would.
Speaker 2
And I think then from my last one, I kind of have two, but I’m kind of thinking I’d go princess Diana purely because I think she was fantastic again for women. She did fantastic things for the world as a whole.
Speaker 2
I think she opened people’s eyes to a lot of social issues and I’d be dying to get the scandal as well. And she seems like a good time. So I think they’d be my dream.
Speaker 3
Brilliant. Who had I? So, I’ve written these down. So don’t French, because I just love her, and for the crack, definitely, would want to go on at my dinner party, and Christina Noble, as well as of the Christina Noble foundation, I just think what, you know, she’s a children’s rights activist, and what she’s done for the children in Milan, Cambodia, I’ve seen the movie, I’ve read one of her books and the whole of her own story,
Speaker 3
is just the resilience, the tenacity, you know, she just keeps going and going, and with good grace, and with a sense of humour, and, you know, coming through all of that adversity. So I want to hear her story firsthand, for sure.
Speaker 3
And then really weird one. I’ve kind of, I’m really interested in the Tudor wives and that sort of period of history. So I’d love to meet all of the Tudor wives, right, I’d love to meet all of them. But Anne of Cleves, in particular, I think I’d invite to my dinner party, because she is reported to have negotiated her way, and narrowly sort of avoided the acts, really, and she did it in a way that was very,
Speaker 3
very clever, ahead of her time in terms of how she sort of dodged that one. And yeah, just for her negotiation skills and to find out what really happened.
Speaker 2
Um, for me, with the exception to my mother and my two sisters, um, I just got to say that in case they listened to this and they go, why didn’t you pick us? Um, cause they’re just phenomenal, um, women anyways, but when I was thinking about this, um, there is a clinical psychologist named Edith Iger.
Speaker 2
Um, she’s, I think she’s in her nineties now. Um, but she was a survivor from Auschwitz, um, and the Holocaust. And like her story is just absolutely breathtaking, all that she enjoyed. And then how far she grew in the sense of she moved to America, she had her children, um, she decided to go back to study.
Speaker 2
Well, not go back. She didn’t have the chance to study. She, I think she went into concentration council and she was 14. Um, so, you know, and then at 50, she did her clinical doctorate. So she’s got some amazing, um, she’s written some great books and her, um, like there’s a, the way she speaks about her experience, the kind of healing that had to happen throughout and continue to happen throughout her adult years and how it was kind of,
Speaker 2
um, re-emerged through different aspects of raising children, um, her own children and, um, her own kind of life experiences that, that affected her. Like her story’s phenomenal. I would definitely say, um, if you haven’t read much about her, like she’s yeah, amazing woman.
Speaker 2
Um, the second person, then similar vein to you, Michelle, like I would be really interested to meet like my great, great, great grandmother, you know, to kind of see and contrast, um, where and how they lived their life.
Speaker 2
And even just, I would say kind of the contrast of how I’m living my life as, you know, raised as a Western woman and the contrast to the Eastern, kind of the Eastern world and the cultures and, um, the variance in how we’ve both like, how I’ve been raised and how they would have been raised.
Speaker 2
I think that would be really humbling and to hear. Um, and there’s always a lot of wisdom in the, in, in like, um, the, the older generation and hearing them speak even from my, my, my, I’ve only got one grandma alive right now, but you know, it was great, great conversations with my grandparents about their lives and what they went through.
Speaker 2
And, and just like hearing that perspective, it’s, it’s sometimes you can’t put words on the things that they endured, but it, you know, as being a woman, having a child, um, you know, being the woman in the house and, and things like that.
Speaker 2
So I would be fascinated to meet someone back in, back in my ancestral past. Um, and then last but not least, I’m gonna have to throw it out there, Beyonce, like, why would you not want, like, I’ve watched documentaries of her and her work ethic, uh, you know, just the way that she applies herself to what she does is, is outstanding.
Speaker 2
Um, yeah, it’d have to be Beyonce, have to, have to offer at the table, maybe have a few songs as well. I’m really surprised you didn’t say Oprah.
Speaker 1
Being my three, so it would be Hayley Williams from Paramore, she’s the lead singer, Lady Gaga, and then probably Dersa Rudin, all three women in music just because Hayley Williams was the first kind of punk, rocker, female lead in a band that I’d seen in such a huge venue when I was 16 and really kind of shaped my taste in music, my taste in style, and you know she’s still making music today just as a solo artist.
Speaker 1
I’m a huge fan of the cranberries and Dersa Rudin as well, just her music and then just even that she sounds Irish I always just appreciated from, like I appreciated that from her, and then Lady Gaga kind of the same with Beyonce, like such great work, ethic, I just adore her.
Speaker 1
Me and my sister went to see her in the Viva and we cried for the whole admiration for her, and I think they beat with me. Finally, on International Women’s Day, what is the most important message you want to send out to young women starting off on their careers?
Speaker 2
Go for it girl, you got this. Like, and I think just always keep the lines to a higher purpose. I think it’s so easy to get caught up in the, the, the, like the stuff that absorbs us and our energy and emotions and time, and it’s pointless.
Speaker 2
And, and it can, and, and some of it, you know, look is important to our development, but I’d say don’t get stuck there, like have the experience, reflect, like, you know, use that, put it in your toolkit, but keep, keep that vision of what you want to achieve, you know, in 10, 20, 30 years.
Speaker 2
I think I’d say two things. I think I’d say you’re doing better than you think you are, because we’re on our worst critic. And just if you’re worried about anything, always think, will it matter even in two weeks, will it matter in a month, will it matter in a year?
Speaker 2
Most of the time, 99% of the time, the answer isn’t no. Even if it doesn’t matter in a week. So just always kind of relate it back to that.
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think mine comes nicely from that as well. Don’t be so hard on yourself. We’re all human, we all make mistakes. And I sometimes think if you’re not making mistakes, especially starting off in a job, then is there something wrong because you’re learning something new.
Speaker 1
And in order to learn more, you need to come up against challenges and start asking questions, not tell you what you kind of, that’s how I learn, I learn by doing. But yeah, so don’t be so hard on yourself because everyone is making mistakes.
Speaker 1
Like everyone at the top are making mistakes and starting off, everyone’s making mistakes. Yeah.
Speaker 3
Exactly. And for me, it’s, you know, I would say to anyone what I say to my daughters, don’t limit yourself. You know, just don’t set those limits for yourself. Plenty of people will try and set the limits for you as you go through life.
Speaker 3
So, you know, decide what you want to do and go for it. And don’t let anyone sort of derail you from that, you know, be determined.
Speaker 1
I’d like to thank you all for joining us today. It has been great to hear from the women of Zevo, different voices from a range of different backgrounds. As we mark Women’s Day, it is both imperative that we look back at how far women have gone and be grateful for this while also looking at how far we still have to go.
Speaker 1
Thanks for listening to another episode of Zevo Talk.