To celebrate International Women’s Day we spoke to some women in Hackney about their lives, professions and the women who have inspired them.
Meg Hillier 50, MP for Hackney and Shoreditch
When I had my daughter 10 years ago, being pregnant while being an MP was something that hadn’t really been considered much. There were a few of us at the time, including Yvette Cooper, and there had been a few before but not an awful lot. It’s great to see there are now lots of women having babies whilst working and it’s a real signal that Parliament is changing for the better.
Support among women in Parliament is really great. We have places we can meet alone where the men can’t go, which is a nice change. This provides a community with great support and facilitates and a lot of positive discussions whatever party you are from. However heated the debates get in the House, behind closed doors it’s very supportive among women. I often think about how if women were in charge of Brexit it would run far more smoothly.
For me, the most inspirational woman in my life is my mother. She went to University later in life after having her children and it made me realise it’s never too late in life to pursue your dreams.
Hackney women inspire me everyday as well. Some of the women are working three jobs and looking after their kids at the same time and they don’t even have time to stop and realise that what they’re doing is amazing, or make their voice heard. They should be so proud of their work, and I try and act as their voice in Parliament.
My message for International Women’s Day is to be proud of what you do, whatever it is. Whether you stay at home and look after your children, which I often remind women is a job in itself, or have a high-flying career, or are just working hard to pay the bills, you should be proud, and women in Hackney are incredibly heroic.
Lamees Yousif 27, Ladies Captain at Hackney RFC
Member of Hackney RFC for five years and captain for three years
I got into rugby because I did not like the gym and I needed to find a way to get fit. And the girls at my university who were the most fun on a night out were the rugby players, so that’s initially how I got involved, because they looked like they could have a good time. University can be a quite toxic climate and the men were kind of taken more seriously than we were. They were given more fixtures, they had better stash, they had the better coach. So, since I’ve started playing rugby it’s always been a struggle to get women to be taken just as seriously. But then I joined Hackney and the dynamic seemed to change a little bit. The atmosphere was more mature, people were more accepting and accommodating to women players.
However, I realised it had switched and the people that weren’t taking it seriously were the actual women. One time, there was only two of us that had turned up to the training session because it was so wet and so cold they just couldn’t be bothered to get involved. So then, I found myself trying to get women to take it seriously. And, over the course of three years, we’ve gone from having a bank of about 20 women to a bank of about 40. Just because I decided to change the angle of what rugby is all about and tried to make it a bit more of a place for people who don’t really like going to the gym, who have just moved to London and don’t have many friends. A place where they can have a community that opens them up to people who can offer legal advice or teaching advice, just a little seperate community of people who can help each other. If you’re moving one of us will have a car to help you out, if you can’t make a game one of us can come give you a lift.
I’ve always been a fan of Marlie Packer [England rugby player], and she came to train with us once and I was a nervous wreck. I feel like she represents what real women are in the way that she communicates, the way that she holds herself, and the way she messes up as well. She shows people that it’s life and you can’t do it perfectly.
Justine McDonald, 48, Headteacher at Our Lady’s Catholic High School
When I taught in a mixed school the boys really dominated the speaking in class and it was quite difficult to manage that and to give the girls the same opportunity. Obviously, we don’t have that issue here. So, I feel that they get that opportunity during those teenage formative years to feel confident intellectually and that their voice should be heard, which hopefully they will be able to take back out into the world. If they were in a mixed environment, they might not have been able to develop that confidence.
Despite the fact that the statistics show that nationally there are more male headteachers than female headteachers, I work in an amazing borough. There are more female than male headteachers in Hackney secondary schools. There’s an enormous amount of camaraderie and working with other headteachers in Hackney is just brilliant. It’s a very collaborative, supportive group of people.
My experience of sexism was all before I became a teacher, in all honesty. I’ve always found teaching a very supportive profession. I think when you’re a younger teacher it’s hard, but when I hit Head of Department I was fully respected for my work and not for the way I look. And that’s a gift for a profession. It hasn’t been the case for some of my friends in some areas, so they’ve had to work a lot harder.
I still think there is the whole issue of women questioning themselves more, so I do still have a rhetoric in my head about leadership and decision-making, about being liked and not being liked. I think men don’t approach that in the same way. There’s that thing about, as a female leader, you really have to bring an emotional intelligence with it, you have to still perpetuate that female stereotype of being very motherly and nurturing. It is a very important part of leadership, but it has to be at the front.
I have two amazing grandmothers. They’re both second world war brides, they both moved to get married and have children. One moved from London to Glasgow, the other one from Paris to London. And both really told me to capitalise on what they’d all fought for which was women’s equality. That kind of ‘get off your backside and get on with it’ attitude, don’t let men say you can’t have the same things as them, was really embedded in both my parents. I feel like I was given no choice.
I try to explain this to the girls at school: other people worked really hard to say women should have the same opportunities as men and we should really capitalise on that.
Jo Carter, 54, Artistic Director at Immediate Theatre
I set Immediate Theatre up in 1996 as a result of being housed by Hackney council. I’d been in very insecure accommodation as a young arts worker. I really couldn’t afford accommodation even in those days and I’d been on the waiting list for Hackney for about six years. They offered me a property and I thought, right, I’m going to do what I want to do here.
In many ways, I feel as though Hackney has been very supportive of me as a woman setting up my own organisation where in other environments I’ve been conscious of being one of very few women. Prior to this, I was involved with equalities conversations with the BBC and I was thinking, I’m a white middle-class woman and looking around and seeing such massive underrepresentation among women in the arts as leaders. But then coming into Hackney and setting up my own organisation and working in the community, I felt that there were a lot of powerful women in Hackney. So I was one of many, and I felt supported by that. When you go into the mainstream, it’s not so comfortable.
In the early part of my career I was mentored by women, and I felt I had to be more aggressive to get where they were. I always felt they had already fought some of the battles for us. There’s a woman called Susan Croft who ran an organisation called the New Playwrights Trust back in the day, who invited me to be a trustee when I was about 23. I didn’t have a clue what was going on, but she had faith in me. She runs an organisation now called Unfinished Histories. She is a supporter of the voices of unheard women, particularly in theatre. She did a tremendous amount to set me on the right path.
I think getting into theatre is about learning to network. You have to get about, you have to take risks, you have to be brave. But you can do it if you’re willing to put in the work.
Victoria Archer Lee, 34, Firefighter for the London Fire Brigade
I’m currently a Watch Manager at Shoreditch Fire Station on the Red Watch. I’ve been in the London Fire Brigade for coming up to nine years and have worked the past four years in Hackney.
Although I am in the minority at work and it is very much a male-dominated environment, I have never felt at a disadvantage for being female. My job is all about teamwork and working together to ultimately save lives in the extreme, but also to improve the lives of and help members of the public every day. I do not see myself as female or my male colleagues as male, I just see my team around me of amazing people whose intentions are to find solutions to problems and to come to the aid of those in need.
I am lucky to work with and have worked with some really inspiring women who paved the way in the London Fire Brigade and other brigades around the country for myself and my colleagues to succeed in our chosen careers. The Commissioner of the LFB is a woman too, Dany Cotton, and she is definitely someone who’s an inspiration.
When all is said and done, though, my real role model and someone I’ll always look up to is my Mum. She is a really strong woman who is always there for me to turn to and encourages me to achieve in life and my career.
The reason I’m a firefighter is because I followed in my Dad’s footsteps. He is retired now. He left the London Fire Brigade after 29 years in services in 2017. He encouraged and supported me from the very beginning when I said I wanted to join and still does so now.
Catherine Pelley, 51, Chief Nurse at Homerton Hospital
I’ve been a nurse for 34 years and I’ve had a great career, I’ve been given a huge amount of opportunities. And along the way I’ve had some really strong female role models in various parts of the NHS who have really inspired me and motivated me and encouraged me to be where I am today. I’m here at Homerton partly because of the support that female nurse leaders have given me, but also some male colleagues who’ve seen in me things I don’t necessarily see in myself and have encouraged me to take a leap into quite a challenging job.
I didn’t know Hackney until I came here. I travel in from Hertfordshire and haven’t really ever worked in this part of London. I’m loving it. The community and just that connection that the hospital has with the communities is really, really positive. Everybody I’ve met in all the different things I’ve done so far have been really welcoming.
I had the pleasure of working with Yvonne Coghill who is the director of the Workforce Race Equality team at NHS England. She’s always been somebody who’s not only supported me but challenged me to think differently about some really important things in this world around equality and diversity.
Nursing in the NHS can offer you an amazing community in your career, a chance to do amazing things and make such a difference. As a woman, don’t let anybody hold you back. There is so much – not just in nursing, but in medicine – that you can get as a career and a job.
