Author: Sarah Mander (Page 6 of 8)

Not today, thanks!

July 5, 2018 / Sarah Mander

I have recently been asked to be the safeguarding lead for vulnerable staff. I am still figuring out what that means, how to undertake the role and how it overlaps with diversity and inclusion, particularly around staff mental health.

We all know that there is a real stigma in this area and that there is a huge individual and employer cost of absenteeism and sick leave. Mental ill health can have a large impact on how able we are do our jobs, affecting motivation, performance and relationships at work. Research shows that a high proportion of employees (approx.40 %) would not tell their boss the truth about why they were calling in sick if they were ill with stress, anxiety or depression. What’s more, studies show that one in four employees – including bosses – say that they have personally experienced mental ill health.

One of the difficulties with mental ill health is that it can be very easy to overlook. Signs and symptoms can vary from person to person, so it can be hard to identify those that need support. I recently did some really thought provoking Mental Health First Aid training, which raised my levels of knowledge and ability to address certain issues.

By focusing on preventive measures such as fostering a positive workplace culture with good awareness and understanding of mental ill health and support systems for employees who are struggling, we can challenge stigma and shame around mental health. We need to be open and honest about mental health and encourage and support individuals to share their experiences, at team meetings or in one-to-ones. Where those in senior positions are open about their own experiences this sends a clear message that mental health is important and an integral part of everyone’s wellbeing.

I’ve always wondered if those around or above me ever experience those days, that I do, from time to time, when I just can’t face getting dressed or entering the world. On these days I need solitude! I don’t consider myself to have particular mental health issues, but I do understand that different things make me feel better or worse mentally.

I am very lucky. I have had roles that enable me to organise my own time and location and have put into place a practice of generally working from home one day a week. Initially, this was part of being a working parent but on reflection the way it enables me to balance workload and personal interaction also supports me in managing my mental health, particularly when I am feeling low or fragile.

All of this means I am a great advocate of us equipping line managers to be aware of mental health issues and know how to spot the signs in their people. Managers must be given suitable support, such as specialist training, to give them the confidence to initiate and carry out appropriate conversations with affected employees. I know myself it is nerve wracking to raise things, for fear of saying the wrong thing and potentially making things worse. Educating managers on how to help support their employees and letting them know what assistance is available provides confidence and improves effectiveness.

In looking at the intersections with safeguarding and compliance with the Equality Act, I know we can’t remove all work pressures but we should be able to work with affected employees to develop coping strategies to help to reduce stress – for example, through a change in working hours or a change of job role. As a part of our duty of care to protect employee health and safety as well as our duty to provide reasonable adjustments we need to be able to identify and address potential work related triggers for stress or mental health problems.

There is no one size fits all approach to managing mental health at work but institutionally we should ensure we are including it as part of our wider sickness absence management policy. And, if you notice your colleagues are calling in sick or regularly working remotely I’d encourage you to take the time to ask them how they really are – it could make a difference.

Following the leader.

June 8, 2018 / Sarah Mander

I spend a lot of time thinking about and discussing the ‘solutions’ to the various diversity and inclusivity challenges we face as employers and educators. Regardless of who I’m talking to or what I’m reading, the one thing that remains consistent in these discussion is that we need great leaders to create and sustain environments that people want to work in. The kind of work environment that gets you out of bed in the morning.

For me, this means having sense of purpose and feeling as though I’m adding real value – doing real good to ‘change the world’ to make it a fairer place. Working somewhere that has that purpose and with people who share my values is important. That’s what gets me out of bed with a spring in my step.

What also keeps me going is working with leaders that I respect, and given that Diversity & Inclusion will be working closely with some senior leaders in the coming weeks. We will be briefing College Council, the governing body of King’s, on our work in race equality and disability inclusion, and engaging the Senior Management Team in Structural Inequality Training.

This level of commitment form those in such senior positions is heartening and leads me to reflect on what it takes to make a leader that I respect? What characteristics, skills and abilities make for good leadership in the book of Guerra?

Self-awareness is the cornerstone of good leadership for me. We emulate the behaviour of those we look up to. Leaders set the tone and standards of behaviour and are also role models rather than negative influences. Lessons in empathy and understanding yourself as well as your impact is one of the essential steps anyone can take in developing their leadership style.
Dealing with uncertainty whilst creating a vision – this leads people to understand how they influence and persuade others and so enable them to consistently perform well. Part of a leader’s job is to create an environment that enables and inspires people to use their energy and ability create personal, team and organisational success. That means leaders need to deal with uncertainty, find a path for themselves through complexity and a labyrinth of conflicting priorities. To do that they have to have a clear view of a future state they are aiming for and galvanise their own enthusiasm and commitment to achieve success.
Involve others – good leaders recognise they don’t know everything and know they need to work with others and ask for support , listen to answers, join the dots and giving credit generously. Leading is about fostering relationships to achieve mutual goals, which can only work when both parties are honest and transparent. That involves taking responsibility for communicating and being open with those they work with. Communication is a two-way street. It’s so important to get to ‘know your people well’ – paying attention and taking the time to listen and learn from those they are leading.
Inspire and persuade – Those who lead should inspire and persuade through their interactions, rather than relying on status. The create genuine engagement and commitment in others rather than blind acceptance.
Be honest – No one can get things right all the time and good leaders are no exception. Recognising when things go wrong and taking responsibility, being open and showing you have learnt from them is a key leadership behaviour.

IDAHOTB… not just a rainbow piece of cake.

May 17, 2018 / Sarah Mander

The International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia was established in 2004 to draw the attention of policymakers, opinion leaders, social movements, the public and the media to the violence and discrimination experienced by LGBTIQ communities across the globe. In under a decade, May 17 has established itself as an important date for LGBTIQ communities on a worldwide scale. It is easy to feel that with things in the UK have progressed so much over recent years that we are living in a nirvana of rainbow equality.

Sexual orientation is protected under the Equality Act – so it is illegal to discriminate in terms of employment, education and any provision of services. We have marriage equality in the UK, but it didn’t come easily. In 2004, the Civil Partnership Act was passed granting same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities of marriage however, many within the Government remained adamant that they were not equal to the concept of marriage. It wasn’t until 2013 when the Marriage Act passed to allow same-sex couples to legally marry.

However, the UK context is not universal. IDAHOTB on May 17 is now celebrated in more than 130 countries, including 37 where same-sex acts are still illegal. Centuries of stigma and social exclusion don’t just disappear because the law changes. Let’s remember, that the date of May 17th was specifically chosen to commemorate the World Health Organization’s decision in 1990 to declassify homosexuality as a mental disorder.

It was my wedding anniversary last week (16 years!). One of my reflections was how that same year my brothers in-law also celebrated their partnership and commitment. Given the law at the time, they couldn’t enjoy the same social acceptance or legal rights as they couldn’t legally ‘marry’. Also significant parts of their family didn’t recognise or attend the event, casting a shadow on what should have been a joyous experience for them.

My other reflection on the progression of LGBT+ rights and equality is how it feels for young LGBTIQ people? I could let myself believe that the law changing and the apparent liberalness of society would make it easy to be a teenager discovering your sexual orientation in 2018. But then I look at the reality. In my experience, as a parent and as a school governor of a large London academy, I see high levels of homophobic bullying as well as very mixed appetite and capability in teachers to address it. In observing my daughters and their friends, sexual orientation is more openly discussed and understood than it was ‘in my day’, but it hasn’t been my experience that many teenagers are openly identifying as LGBTIQ! And of course, there is still definitely a tendency by friends and families to automatically assume heterosexual relationships.

So until there are worldwide freedoms around sexual orientation, translated into an equality of rights and a shift in culture, thinking and behaviour, it remains important to mark and celebrate IDAHOTB with pride and a little rainbow icing on top.

Lessons in Allyship

May 9, 2018 / Sarah Mander

In anticipation of the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, we’ve invited Kathryn Richards from King’s Wellbeing and the LGBT+ Staff Network to pen a guest blog for us.

With International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia on the horizon, you may have heard about the Great IDAHOBIT Bake-off on the 17^th of May. As I moved to sign up in solidarity, I took a moment to check myself and realised two things; this was the first time I’d heard of IDAHOBIT and, whilst the concept seemed pretty self-explanatory, I had no real understanding of its history and importance. I could bake a pretty (or not so pretty) rainbow cake, but what purpose would that serve on its own?

Fast forward an hour and, with thanks to the powers of the internet, I had a better and more nuanced grasp, including the significance of May 17^thto commemorate the WHO’s declassification of homosexuality as a mental illness, and the relevance of anti LGBTQ+ violence charity Galop as the beneficiary of the bake-off’s funds. It was a small step to take, but one that paved the way to more meaningful engagement with this key date in the LGBTQ+ calendar.

It’s moments like this that remind me that allyship to any group is a continual process and a journey of purposeful, informed actions, rather than a fixed, self-proclaimed status. There are many lessons along the way, with five in particular standing out from my own journey so far.

The Value of Listening

It’s good to talk, but it’s most important to listen. Whilst calling out inappropriate behaviour and language is crucial, it’s important to be able to identify and challenge more than just the most egregious examples of discrimination and that knowledge comes primarily from listening to the lived experiences of those around us and in the public eye.

Feedback is Your Friend

My personal journey has, on more than one occasion, involved screwing up, albeit unintentionally, and being called out on it. It can be uncomfortable to be vulnerable and take accountability for personal blind spots, but surely better than blithely repeating mistakes that serve to marginalise, whilst professing to be supportive all the while!

Broadening Understanding

Listening and being open to constructive criticism are both instructive, but it shouldn’t fall to those we know personally to ‘school’ us; there many pro-active ways to become informed. LGBTQ media, organisations such as Stonewall and Galop, combined with queer film and literature all help build a picture of the community’s diversity, with intersectionality being a key theme. Whilst I can never walk in another person’s shoes, appreciating the multifaceted nature of both identity and discrimination enables deeper engagement and empathy.

Taking Action

Most empowering for me has been learning how to be an active bystander. I used to equate challenging inappropriate language and behaviour with ugly confrontation, but this doesn’t have to be the case and will probably cause more damage than good. There are some excellent resources available to help practise bystander intervention without putting anyone at risk. A good place to start is the Hollaback! website, designed originally for situations of sexual harassment, but with universal principles that can be applied to any type of bystander situation.

Stepping Away from the Spotlight

Ironic, I know, given that I’m putting myself out there with this blog post! However, there’s a fine line between meaningful contributions at the appropriate time and monopolising conversations that should be led by members of the community.

In the end, though, it isn’t my place to self-define as an ally; that title can only be conferred by members of the communities one seeks to support, based on merit and trust. So, my pledge today is to approach IDAHOBIT 2019 better informed, engaged in more meaningful action, with another year’s worth of listening and lesson-learning under my belt.

You called, we came and It Stops Here

May 1, 2018 / Sarah Mander

Last week I had the privilege to go to Windrush – Movement of the People.

It was produced to celebrate the 70th anniversary of SS Empire Windrush arriving which marked the start of Caribbean migration and the growth of multiculturalism in Great Britain. It is particularly poignant as it is being performed against a background of those ‘Windrush immigrants’ facing a challenge to their status as British citizens.

I happened to see the production in the week that was also the anniversary of the racist, hateful murder of Stephen Lawrence and found myself overwhelmed with emotion, tears pouring down my face. I realised I had been studiously avoiding thinking or engaging in the Windrush Home Office fiasco and all the various media pieces on the legacy created by Stephen’s death.

The part of the performance that particularly affected me was the depiction of the boat journey itself accompanied by the spoken words:

You called, and we came

Remember you called.

Upon hearing this, I realised that many deep-seated, well-buried fears had been revived… fears that I don’t belong, that one day I might also be ‘sent back’.

I am British Born. I hold a British Passport. I have never lived anywhere else. Both my parents are immigrants. Technically, my Dad is probably one of the “Windrush people”, having come here from Trinidad in the 60’s to train as a mental health nurse. So these fears are not unfounded. My youth gave me many indicators that I didn’t belong, from friends who wouldn’t invite me over because their parents didn’t like ‘blacks’, to being called a “Paki” in the street, the soundtrack of family telling me to work hard as I would never be accepted, to the Tebbit test (which, for the record, I fail. I’m a straight out West Indies fan).

In recent years, those childhood fears have come back around with renewed force. While I don’t practice a faith, my mum is a Muslim. Yet in an increasingly Islamophobic world, who knows when being half Muslim could become a part of an identity that defines me and affects me or my family’s safety – history shows us that these are very real possibilities.

Sitting in the theatre, all of that hit me. My mum and dad, what might their parallel paths have been? Why did they choose to come to the UK? Why did they choose to endure the ‘no blacks, no Irish, no dogs’ years?

It’s 2017 and people just like my parents are facing the possibility of being “sent back”. As I look back through my life and think about my family – married to a white man and our mixed-race children – I keep asking myself, when will it end? When will the fear of the difference of my heritage and the colour of my skin stop destabilising my life? I fear the answer is never.

It’s all these thoughts, feelings, issues that makes education and efforts to tackle race and religious hatred ever more important. I am so glad that King’s stepped up to participate in the latest Office for Students efforts and that we have been awarded a £50,000 grant to expand our current work on the It Stops Here campaign to look at religious-based hate crime. This gives us an opportunity to expand our established work around prevention and responses to bullying and harassment to better recognize the needs of religious communities within King’s, particularly focusing on incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia.

Home and Kawaii

April 18, 2018 / Sarah Mander

It’s my first day back after a fabulously, mind-blowing family holiday in Japan – Tokyo and Kyoto. I am a mum of 4 in a blended family – I am step mum to Martha (25) and Flora (23) and ‘birth’ mum of Kaela (14) and Lyra (11).

The trip to Japan is one of the many bonuses that arise out of this blended family – Martha and her boyfriend George are living in Australia and we couldn’t afford the time or money to visit them but as luck and serendipity (and some clever scheduling) would have it, five out of our family of six were able to reunite in Tokyo at Easter just in time for cherry blossoms. Sadly Flora couldn’t join us – a hazard of growing up – not being able to take the time off work or afford it.

While I was away I reflected on our family journey and my professional life. I have written untold blogs and speeches about how important it is to support working parents, what the difficulties we face are and how our productivity and contribution can, and should be, maximised. In fact, this week sees a King’s Parent and Carer’s Network Ideas lunch come into fruition. You can also find out more about how King’s supports working parents through our Pregnancy & Maternity Toolkit.

Those pieces whilst true, necessary and relevant can often make it seem like parenting is nothing but a chore. However, I want to also reflect on how brilliant being a working parent can be too. Practically, there is no way I could afford a family holiday in Japan if my partner and I hadn’t had successful careers. I know, in many ways, we are privileged and in part this is thanks to employers, such as the Civil Service that had good maternity and flexible working policies, so we were able to develop our careers and be parents.

I used to see family holidays as hard work; planning, preparing, packing and paying for six people ground me down and took the fun out of the trip itself, but I’m glad we persevered as time has gone, children have grown and the whole dynamic has changed.

Japan was like a sci-fi movie, where someone travels in time and returns to where they started – everything is familiar yet distinctly different and generally somehow incomprehensible. Tokyo is vast, endlessly frenetic and makes next to no accommodation for tourists. In that truly foreign environment I found it really lovely having time off with our children. The challenge and adventure we faced together was great fun. Watching each of us negotiate each new surprise, supporting each other through the tribulations of the Tokyo subway or the surprises of Japanese food (like ‘cod organs’ – an indescribable culinary experience) was really uplifting.

I love watching how each of the people I have had a hand in bringing up see and experience the world. Observing what is important to them, what causes them to pause with excitement or fear alongside the sometimes deeply intellectual and simultaneously hilarious discussions we had every day was such a pleasure. We covered all sorts, feminism, puns, Harry Potter, racism, Hello Kitty, gender identity, puns, Disney, politics, The Princess Diaries, world history, sexual orientation, is water wet, gendered violence, UK football, family dynamics and puns to give just a sprinkling of topics. I haven’t felt so relaxed or laughed so much in ages.

Life as a working parent can be hard with the constant juggling and feeling like you are not doing anything properly, or to anyone’s satisfaction, but overall I am glad to have taken this path and how great my family is. So next time I feel the working stress monster I am going to have this blog to look back on and remind me that life can be brilliant too.

Autism Awareness Day – Jonathan Andrews

April 2, 2018 / Sarah Mander

For Autism Awareness Day, we’ve invited KCL Alumni, trainee solicitor and LGBT and disability advocate, Jonathan Andrews to feature as our guest blogger.

You can read more about Jonathan here and follow him on Twitter.

As an advocate for fair access to the workplace and equality of opportunity, I’m particularly keen to ensure that social mobility is treated as an integral part of any strategy; workplaces need to be open to talent from all backgrounds, as it’s only then that they can be sure they’re reaching out to the widest talent pool possible and not overlooking talented people. This applies to social background (such as the types of school or university attended) as it does for anything else.

More than that, it’s important to remember than nobody has just one identity – everyone has a gender, a race, a sexuality, a social background, etc. – and often these overlap. The majority of disabled people, for example, aren’t going to be from elite backgrounds, just as the majority of BME or LGBT people won’t – and if employers want to reach out to all talent from these groups, they need to consider people of all social backgrounds too. It’s not just a nice thing to do, but makes smart business sense.

Initiatives particularly focused on employment for a particular group – such as King’s Advance internships, which offer employment in leading firms to disabled students – can intersect into improving social mobility in this way. I also know of some fantastic initiatives which are focused on increasing employment among disabled people – particularly autistic people, where despite the majority having a strong determination to work, the rates in full-time paid work is just 16%.

One such project is the Autism Exchange, an innovative initiative on whose steering board I sit. It was developed through a partnership between Ambitious about Autism, the national charity for young autistic people, and the Civil Service. It offers paid quality work experience to young autistic people (aged 18-25) in a variety of sectors, including civil service departments (such as the DWP, the Treasury, the Department of Education and Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) and private sector firms such as Deutsche Bank; and autism awareness training to workplaces, allowing them to effectively understand how to create the conditions for interns to succeed during their placement. Feedback on the placement, and particularly on the skills of interns, has been very positive, with several subsequently being offered full-time roles.

On social mobility more widely, it’s also vital that people are able to see people from backgrounds like themselves making their way in different fields – “If you can see it, you can be it”, as an acquaintance of mine once said, and if there’s no one like you in a field – whether this is due to social background or anything else – it becomes that much harder to visualise yourself there. I’ve set up an alumni network at my old comprehensive Darrick Wood – and worked with national charity Future First who are aiming for an alumni network in every school – to help make this a reality.

Ain’t I A Woman – Poppy Kirby-Green on the Boundaries of Womanhood

March 22, 2018 / Sarah Mander

For the year the 100-year anniversary of partial suffrage in UK, we are running a series of blog posts inspired by Sojourner Truth and her most famous speech “Ain’t I a Woman? “delivered in 1851 was a powerful rebuke to many anti-feminist arguments of the day. It became, and continues to serve, as a classic expression of women’s rights and we would like to take this opportunity to encourage all members of the King’s community to think critically about the media representation of women and the additional struggles faced by those who do not always share the same spotlight – BME, LGBT+, migrant, refugee and disabled women.

We are grateful to Poppy Kirby-Green for contributing to our Women’s History Month blog series.

Sojourner Truth’s ‘Ain’t I A Woman’ speech was a fundamental challenge to the narrow definitions of ‘woman’ that white men had created. As an African American woman her womanhood was questioned and marginalised, an experience that trans women of all backgrounds can empathise with – that is why on this International Women’s day I think that it is key that we collectively challenge those who would seek to police the boundaries of womanhood using an outdated and essentialist patriarchal binary.

Truth noted her physical strength was equal to any man’s, and yet she still experienced deeply misogynist and racist violence and oppression, showing that ultimately it is not physical attributes that determine who we are, but how we move through the world and are treated. The global oppression of trans women demonstrates this – we may not be biologically identical to cis women, yet we are still subject to physical and sexual violence, harassment, objectification and exploitation by the sex trade as well as being suffocated by conventional beauty norms. Trans women of colour globally face additional barriers to transphobia, and misogyny, including racism and in many cases poverty, yet their voices and experiences are rarely involved in (often hostile) cultural and political discourse around trans people.

The oppression that trans women face is shared with women across the world, yet painfully and shamefully there are many who would seek to deny us our womanhood. By insisting that trans women are in fact ‘men’, transphobes render our suffering under patriarchy as invisible, and deny our political and social experiences as women. Trans men are regularly excluded from conversations around trans rights, which tend to myopically focus on the ‘threat’ of trans women who are unable to adequately conform to the gender binary. With cruel irony, trans women seeking refuge from patriarchy in women-only spaces are cast as deviants and predators, a trope that has been used against queer people for millennia. The few trans women that do get represented often have to meet cisnormative beauty standards and conform to conventional femininity in order to be seen as valid in their womanhood. Less privileged trans women whose existence challenges the gender binary, whether by choice or circumstance are typically erased, or depicted as somehow failing womanhood.

On International Women’s Day, I hope that all of us, whether male, female or non-binary can take something from Sojourner’s Truth words all those years ago, that womanhood should not be an exclusive member’s club with a narrow set of criteria, that needs gatekeeping, but a welcoming sisterhood in which the most marginalised women have a voice.

Ain’t I A Woman – Kirsty McLaren on Checking Our Privileges

March 15, 2018 / Sarah Mander

We are grateful to Kirsty McLaren, from King’s Widening Participation for contributing to our Women’s History Month blog series.

Women are beautiful. The most beautiful thing about women is that no two are the same; I have friends that are nurses, lawyers, police officers, psychologists, teachers, mothers, students, professional services staff and work in engineering. Some do jobs that society deem as masculine, and often catch people by surprise when they say what they do for a living because most of them are fiercely feminine. And whether they know it or not, they all step out of the door in the morning and go and kick the patriarchy’s you-know-what.
I’m a lesbian. Despite my appreciation of no two women being the same, up until last year I thought I shared an experience with every other woman who likes kissing girls, but wow I was wrong. I attended Stonewall’s Young Leaders Programme in December, and I’ve never been around such an inspiring group of people whose stories and identities are all vastly different to mine. I heard from women who shared their stories of being black and LGBT+. A bisexual woman will face discrimination for being bisexual and a woman. A black woman will face discrimination for being black and a woman. A black, bisexual woman will face discrimination for all three, and that’s where we need to be better allies – we need to recognise that no two women are the same.

I was also shocked by the discrete form of discrimination and prejudice that is faced by bisexual women. Some said they’d been asked “if they’re a “proper lesbian” of if they’re “going back to boys”, completely disregarding the idea of bisexuality. Now, I am familiar and comfortable with people who are prejudice toward me because I am a lesbian. They have an idea in their head of what I am and for me, I can live with that… I’ll take my Ellen DeGeneres t-shirt and L-Word box set and go be gay and great elsewhere. But it would start a fire inside of me if someone were to completely disregard my identity as false, or temporary. I’ll be the first one to hold my hands up and say this is the sort of thing I’ve been guilty of in the past; I’ve been insecure about having a bisexual girlfriend, in the fear that they may ‘run off with a man.’

It’s lazy to say “I have bisexual friends so it’s fine”. For International Women’s Day, here’s my pledge:

I promise to be an active ally to my bisexual sisters, and call out discrimination even ‘in jest’.
I promise to take a more intersectional approach in supporting LGBT+ groups, for women of colour, religious women, trans women, disabled women and all that identify with more than one group.
I promise to check my privilege, and to stand up for every beautiful woman across the world who battles through barriers one way or another.

Ain’t I A Woman – Sarah Guerra on IWD and Intersectionality

March 8, 2018 / Sarah Mander

Our first Women’s History Month post for International Women’s Day is from Director of Diversity & Inclusion, Sarah Guerra.

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain’t I a woman? ‘Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man–when I could get it–and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?

I’ve found it interesting how many people have asked me what intersectionality is since I arrived at King’s. Kimberley Crenshaw an academic from Cornell University who coined the phrase explains it better than I ever could and this articulation was one of the turning points in my thinking.

I have lived my entire life in the intersections. The obvious ones – I’m a black woman. I am also the daughter of immigrants – so a Londoner and a foreigner depending on you point of view. A parent – so a mother and a person. These factors were my reality from the time I was born and they influenced my life and decisions and perceptions. They also impacted how others treated me long before I was a conscious feminist or equality activist.

As I’ve developed my career new intersections have formed – from working class to middle class income. These intersectionalities was something I had to study and understand in terms of my own identity what drives me, why I think certain things, why I react certain ways.

It is still the cause of much debate in some equality circles. And the 100-year anniversary of women in the UK getting the vote underlines it all perfectly – who actually got the vote? Women over the age of 30 who either owned land themselves or were married to men with property were given the right to vote. So, whilst it is important to celebrate this milestone that so many fought for – we should also pause on Sojourner’s statement – ‘Ain’t I a woman?’ Weren’t women below 30 just as entitled or those who were married to poor men? Or not married at all?

I love to celebrate all the equality months/days – but they also bring out a degree of challenge from me.

Years ago, when I worked for a trade union one of my colleagues said to me – why do you always have to say you’re a black woman – its not important – I beg to differ until we have a fair and equal world where all of us get the chance to succeed on our merits it is important for those of us with a platform to point out our difference so that it is consciously noticed.

Last night I had the privilege of attending the launch of a new book – Racism at Work – The Danger of Indifference by Binna Kandola – the world renowned business psychologist. The book will, I’m sure warrant a blog in its own right when I have read it but for now – safe to say it through academic research and case study demonstrates racism is very much a 21^st century workplace issue and that it has a gendered aspect.

So happy International Women’s Day. I encourage everyone to give some thought to what it means to you and, just as importantly, what it means to others who are different to you.

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