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Ruth Russell Human Shield in Iraq 2003
"I had decided to be prepared for suicide. I had a roll of glad wrap, which when wrapped around the face, would suffocate you in 3 minutes. This was in case I was wounded badly or unable to speak. I had a tattoo of my passport number on my arm. You had to be prepared for every eventuality."
My Russian History Professor Margaret Allen, said something, that 25 years later I acted upon .
"At certain times in the history of the world it only takes a nominal 12 people to stand up against a dictator"
Once I had made the decision all kind of opportunities opened up for me to have a really powerful voice. Suddenly all the media, papers and TV studio and radio were interested. I realized that I had the power to make a difference.
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Astrophysicist and President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
She discovered the first radio pulsars,as a postgraduate student. Her thesis supervisor Antony Hewish, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Martin Ryle, because Jocelyn was considered as ineligible as a student. "I was the only female in a class of 50 students in college, which was difficult. There was a tradition among the students that when a female walked into a lecture theatre all the guys stamped and whistled and called and banged the desk. I faced that for every class I walked into for my last two years."
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Being pro-women doesn't imply anti-men, women enjoy being with and parenting with men. But when I was first elected, we didn't name the difference we would make. We didn't say "we're going to do....."101 women Labour candidates! Increase in child benefit, childcare, we didn't name it. The reason I think, is that men do the big shouty rebellious. Men stand on the doorstep bang, bang and shout at the door, while women sneak around the back and see a way in. So they are not seen to be effective. You could see lots of things women had done.
When we got women on the Defense Select Committee, it changed from all about how big the weapons are, now we talk about women and the families of service personnel. Women by their very presence have an effect.
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You can click through to the Archive to read other interview extracts, as well as old newsletters.
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All photographs are used with permission of owners, courtesy of Wikipedia or are the property of ChrisTrainers.
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Welcome All
Thinking of all our readers and friends. Seasonal best wishes and hoping that the New Year will bring peace and prosperity to all .... Cairo, Melbourne, Brisbane, Tuscany and Scotland.
This seasonal OnlyConnecting will be the last. With thousands reading the articles online, there are only so many publications one can manage.
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The Gillard Article: http://www.wearethecity.com/i-raised-my-voice/
OnlyConnecting conversations, communication, collaboration, all those predominately female qualities, not big data.
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Overshadowed Women
When delivering seminars at the Guildhall City Business Library, the newssheet was a support for starting out entrepreneurs, and an alternative look at Networking and how to start up a new business.
At the same time, as a guest speaker, Christina was available through Business Link, Barbican Library, and many other women's networks to speak about the Overlooked, Overshadowed and Outrageous women.
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Invisible Women
The theme became Invisible Women and, shamefully, women are still undervalued and under respected. No more so than in war-torn countries, villages or refugee camps.
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Women Hidden....
David Cameron 2012 "where the potential and perspective of women are locked out of the decisions that shape a society, that society remains stunted and underachieving".
Swift focus to CHOGM, hyperlink or G20 hyperlink and search hard for the women representatives. The photos tell a story.
Women hold up half the sky. We need more women.
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Anna Ford and the Invisibility of Women
Back in 2008, Anna Ford was quoted,
"For the invisibility of women over 50 isn't just a problem of representation on television. It's far more deep-seated than that. It's to do with levels of misogyny that lie so deep as to remain unrecognized and as yet not fully explained."
- We need quotas for women's advancement in politics, law and business
- We need an independent, high-level public investigation into the place of women in our society, to look into why we are so poorly represented, and so poorly served, with some legally binding recommendations.
- We need more female writers for front-page articles to help change the portrayal of women in the newspapers.
- We need to change the ways we make decisions so power is less centralised and shared more equally.
- We need early education about gender and how "equality of opportunity" must mean just that.
And finally:
"Oh, and enforcement of existing discrimination laws please."
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Role Models
The series on role models and inspirational women was never more needed. Young women are bombarded over their body image through social media and marketing magazines where airbrushing shows unattainable body images.
Both celebs and stars are starting to resist this. Keira Knightly won't have her boobs enhanced. Sienna Miller is holding out for equal pay with her male co-stars. But the focus is still on celebs or royals. The winner of the Melbourne Cup was one of the rare occasions when a woman was on the front page of papers. Meanwhile, the Guardian considers being a woman to be a lifestyle, since there are no separate women's sections.
The man from Merlin said it is necessary to re-invent yourself every 6 months. He was talking to small business. In NLP terms, this could be a very small alteration but then if your life or career doesn't seem to be making progress, a change of direction is a good move.
So the underlying theme has always been education, like Julia Gillard, it is fundamental. Finding your voice.
Once education became all about target and failure, it was time to move, but exciting to work in the field of multi-lingual speakers who were being failed by the system, either dyslexic, or special needs, such as Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who is probably one of the foremost global space scientists.
Because she was black, it was thought she couldn't be English, or speak English, so she was shunted off. One of the most egregious examples of a talent we could have lost.
But, as a result, she sees herself as much a Communicator as a Scientist, and inspires thousand of school children every year to aspire to STEM subjects, and to believe in themselves.
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Your Future, Your Ambition
From there the move was to counselling, learning how to listen, and support trouble youth and adults. But, ever since being a Literacy Advisor, the focus was always on Finding A Voice.
However you need to believe in yourself in order to speak out, and self belief has become the problem and concern of our age. Media and Marketing bombard people all the time with their inadequacies, mainly so that they will buy stuff.
The beauty industry has always been to blame but supermarkets follow close behind, in selling unnecessary (and too much) of the comfort foods people turn to.
How can it be that, in one of the top achieving public schools in the country, all the sixth form girls were anorexic? Like a contagious disease.
So it became apparent that what was needed was to shine a light on the invisible women, recognised in their own field, if devalued but unknown, to the wider public.
The series started out as role models, but as the interviews progressed, it became apparent that mentors also played an important part.
Then, listening to Julia Gillard's seminar at LSE, she focused on the importance of family and self belief.
More recently, a session on Women And Power at the Ambassador Theatre, had a guest speaker, Sylvia Hewlett (the founding President of the Centre for Work/Life Policy) n which she told us "forget a mentor, get a sponsor". But it's not just about money, it's about introductions but also, importantly, that you sponsor those on the way up.
A whole article could be dedicated to those wonderful women who highlighted the pipeline; Vanessa Vallely, the Gatekeepers, Fiona Woolf - second female Lord Mayor of the City of London - and the organisation which sponsors Rashada Harry. Who volunteers in Africa because she says 'you need to put a hand behind you'
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Amazing Women
It is quite overwhelming the number of amazing inspiring women out there, and the website of over 30 interviewees is more book than blog. There is to be another shift this time into Global Women. So, whatever your field or interest, you can find a woman who inspires.
As with role models, you don't need to take the whole package, just the outstanding qualities. Separate the person from the beliefs, which makes it possible to admire Maggie Thatcher for raising the profile of women, showing what women can achieve even though some of her policies were disastrous.
All the inspirational women interviews are here:
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Go Well In The World
Here's hoping that all your ambitions will be fulfilled and remember, whenever possible, sponsor someone, encourage someone, praise and celebrate someone be they female or male.
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Christina
Diversity Consultant FRSA, MRI |
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