Professor Alice Roberts and I were filming a documentary on location in Manchester last weekend. We were interrupted by a rude and offensive man.
Not in itself a remarkable event. Most women have had the misfortune of being harassed whilst working. Misogyny and misogynoir is very much alive as we all know.
What made the incident all the more remarkable however, was that we were filming by Our Emmeline. Emmeline Pankhurst’s statue by the sculptor Hazel Reeves in Manchester, where the words ‘Rise Up’ are carved in stone.
So, there we were. 2 women and a film crew. Stood in front of the Emmeline Pankhurst statue discussing resistance, rebellion, equality & women’s rights.
Is there still work to be done? What would Emmeline think today of the progress towards equal rights for women, we asked. Standing there, whilst being harassed, eye balled and shouted at by a man demanding I answer his questions and account for myself and the suffragette movement.
Not on our watch.
There was something poetically ironic about the situation for me.
Having the patriarchy literally shoved in your face whilst celebrating the work of one of history’s most courageous women. A woman who fought the physical, mental, emotional and verbal oppression of men, in order to give women an equal future in society.
In the catalogues of harassment, violence against women, de-platforming, cancel culture and the rest, this was hardly monumental. But it was a symbolic one. In its location, its time in history and what it represented about progress.
I can only imagine had Emmeline actually been standing on the chair what she’d have said to the man.
For me, early in my activist years, standing there with a crew of 6 and 1 very angry man, I had a real sense of the gargantuan levels of courage, strength and bravery it took the suffragettes 100 years ago.
To repeatedly stand amidst rooms bursting full of misogynists smothering your mouth to mask your voice. Pulled to the ground and imprisoned, force fed. For wanting to speak for equal rights. Consider what courage this takes?
The more my courage research challenges me to ask the questions about the psychology of courage, the more I begin to uncover how risk, fear, emotion, motivation, purpose, values, sense of agency and the shape of society all co-exist.
Whenever I look at the women around me, in our society today, in our history, in our communities, my own networks - they are all exemplars of courage. Courage seems to be a condition of being a women. Throughout history, 100 years ago and still here today.
Women have to choose courage because they face fears and risks on the basis of their sex at every level on a daily basis because of existing in an unequal, prejudice and discriminatory society. Women ARE courage.
It is far easier to be brave when you have been trained to go in to battle than it is to face the personal, physical, psychological battles women face every day.
I never expected when I became a Pankhurst to feel so challenged by the name. I simply wanted to be proud of it. Never did I imagine I would feel such a weight of responsibility to do the name proud.
In some ways, Emmeline was no more extraordinary than any of us. Yet of course she inspired women across the globe, to recognise that they had the strength and courage within them to be the change-makers that the world needed them to be.
They followed her cause because they too believed in it, shared the same beliefs and vision. Every one of them was equally courageous. Facing their own struggles to support a cause those in power sought to oppress.
She helped them see that there was no hero coming to the rescue to fight for women’s rights. We are the change-makers.
So don’t tolerate things in you organisation, your community, your home, relationships or your life that hold you back. Don’t have your voice silenced, be made to feel small or unsafe.