To celebrate UK Mothers Day 2018 we met up with Charlotte and Kat, a mother-daughter duo, as they discuss their intertwining journeys to feminism and nursing.
What originally drew you to feminism, what made you sit up and think ‘I am a feminist?’
Charlotte: For me it was a gradual process, I don’t know about you, I don’t think I ever really thought about it. I think I probably was always a feminist. In the past 5 years or so, I’ve had more of an education around the subtleties and inequalities. I will say that I think Kathrine was always a feminist so I’ve been learning more from her as well.
When you have a daughter you want them to grow up to be empowered, and you do think a lot about the discrimination they face that you don’t want them to. You think about how they will be unsafe at night compared to your son, but I don’t think it was until I had a son that I realised that it’s sons that need educating. We shouldn’t be telling our daughters to ‘take care at night’ so as to not be raped, we should be telling our sons not to rape.
And when people say ‘you’re a feminist eurgh’ and it’s realising that it’s OK to stand up and say ‘I am a feminist.’ I’m learning all the time, I’m learning new things all the time, I don’t always get it right and I’m happy to be called out for that, because it’s an ongoing education isn’t it?
Kat: I am definitely aware of the fact that I’ve been constantly learning about feminism, and different things about that. I definitely think I see myself as a feminist from being quite young, and through school and university I just think that I could never apply it and say ‘I am a feminist’ but I was through the way that I acted, and the things that I did. I spent a lot of time feeling angry as a teenager and it wasn’t until I learnt more about feminism that I understood why.
Did either of you go through the ‘Don’t call me a feminist!’ phase?
K: I went through a phase where I kind of resisted it, but looking back that was because of the criticism you can get from telling someone you’re a feminist. I think you go through life and see inequality and discrimination and think it’s wrong and it’s not until you think about the cause and the reasons behind it that makes you go ‘Oh Shit!’
C: Yeah, I agree with that. I think I spent a lot of my 20s trying not to be a feminist! Wanting to conform but knowing deep down inside that wasn’t me. When I did feminist things I was criticised for it, but once I embraced it, it is empowering.
Did it help having a feminist mother to an extent, especially in your more formative years?
C: I’m sure you didn’t see me as a feminist mother.
K: I’m not going to lie I didn’t, when I was growing up.
C: I think that’s fair. Katherine is more perceptive than I am, and it took her to voice those thoughts for me to realise that’s what I’d been thinking all along as well. I think it’s a generational thing when I look back and see the 90s which was seen as an empowering time for women with the whole ladette culture. My feminist icons were Sarah Cox and Zoe Ball but it was about being the same as ‘the lads’ rather than saying we don’t want to be like men but we want the same opportunities.
K: No, I did in some ways, again it’s just the whole negativity around label ‘feminist/ feminism’ - but I did. I admired you, the way you are about your career and the way you’re knowledgeable and I looked up to that. I think that’s feminist.
I think that another reason why, is that I grew up with you as a single mum in middle class city and I remember the people behaved towards you and I think that’s part of the reason I started thinking the way I did because it wasn’t right.
C: Yeah, definitely, it wasn’t right. You went to a school that was typical, middle class white people who definitely had ambitions for their kids and looked down on what was seen as the traditional kind of family.
And were you working at that time?
C: Yeah, so when she went to school I think I was still doing my training. We both experienced discrimination, I think, looking back. That’s how it was to me. It is hard to think ‘I don’t care’ when you can see them openly being discriminative.
K: As a child the things people would say to me, I remember at the time knowing that that wasn’t OK - not agreeing with it, I just got more and more angry.
So you were doing your nurse training when Kat was quite little?
C: I think I started when she was 3, it was tough. I think back, there’s never been any change in childcare or expectation. My bursary was £380 when she was in nursery my nursery fees were £300 and at the time we were rostered students, essentially employed by the trust. You couldn’t claim student loans or grants because you were employed, and you couldn’t apply for benefits because you were a nursing student. So it was really tough, it was hard. I know I’m sorry, but the early years were really tough, like on me mentally as well and I wasn’t great.
K: No, I definitely understand that, I couldn’t do that.
C: I don’t think I did it very well.
I still do look back and think ‘what the fuck?’ but I never ever think I did the wrong thing having you. I did look at you when you were 21 I thought ‘shit I had a 3 year old by now!’ I don’t think I realised what the hell I was doing to be honest!
There’s a lot of discussion around if nursing is a ‘calling’ or whether we’re taught by society to believe that. What are your thoughts on this?
C: We’re socialised into thinking that it’s a calling, absolutely. You only have to look back to how at our uniforms, we used to be dressed like nuns!
I really want a cape!
C: You can have a cape! But that was the post-Florence days; you were both a nun and a sex symbol thanks to Barbara Windsor. We need to stop calling it a ‘calling’ and start saying it is a profession and we should be treated like that.
Did you always know that you wanted to be a nurse?
C: I always knew I wanted to do something with people, and when I was 16 I worked in a care home and thought, ‘yeah, this is what I want to do.’
K: No, I didn’t always want to be a nurse. I was just pottering along through school, because that’s what you do, and then I starting think about what I was saying before, that I was always a feminist. I never thought about it in terms of theory, or that label ‘feminist’ but when I did start to think about it more and looking at inequalities and discrimination I became more passionate about it. Then I did start think I wanted to do something were we look after people who are vulnerable in society and so it was a gradual process for me.
C: I remember the point you came and told me you wanted to be a nurse, I still vividly remember it. Half way through Sixth Form doing English, History and Art A Levels going ‘I think I want to be a nurse…’
I’ve had people say ‘did you not try and discourage her?’ I don’t think I ever tried to discourage you I was proud!
K: I know! I hear people say that ‘I tell my children: never go into nursing’ but I think we should be proud of what we do.
C: I’m really proud of you.
K: You were really supportive, shocked, but supportive.
C: I do sometimes wonder when people say ‘I discourage them from going into nursing’ that that’s not snobbery. I see it like when I go to careers events. I ask ‘do you want to be a nurse?’ but more people are encouraged to be a doctors than nurses!
Do you think there is that attitude that actually because nursing is ‘women’s work’ that it’s actually looked down upon?
C: Yeah, especially I think with adult nursing, it seems different if you’re a child’s nurse or a midwife. There seems to be more of a view of it being more professional or respectable.
Do you think there’s more validity in midwifery and children’s nursing because of that strong female history to that. That it has always been women’s work and maybe there have found more empowerment through that?
C: I guess you could say they’re more autonomous, or they’re more empowered maybe. I think that historically nurses where seen as the doctors handmaids. In the “olden days” it was the house officer that went round and gave all the IVs and there was uproar at nurses taking over the house officer’s job. I worked with nurses that thought that! We’ve realised we can do those jobs, and we can probably do them better and safer as well, but for some reason society still doesn’t really acknowledge or see that.
K: I think that in adult nursing were often having to fight to prove that we’re a profession in our own right because we take on so many roles. When you think, we help in terms of physio and social, there’s a lot to think about. I know I’ve struggled because people think you’re on the path to becoming a doctor, like it’s not that I’m actually proud of what we actually do. I know that you say, because you’re an Advanced Practioner now, that you still yourself as a nurse.
C: Yeah, definitely I am a nurse. I am a nurse. The amount of times I say that! And I understand why people think otherwise - because Advanced Practioners are new roles, and research shows that the public know nurse and doctor, and that’s it really. I tend to refer to myself as a Nurse Practioner at work and when I introduce myself to patients. I get a lot of times that someone will say ‘well the doctor said this’ and I have to say ‘I’m not a doctor I am a nurse.’ I’m proud to be a nurse, I’m proud of our profession.
I don’t think that we can get away from the fact that we’re taking on a lot of the jobs and roles that the doctors used to do, there’s that kind of overlap how do you balance the two?
C: I think what we need to change is how we see roles in healthcare. What we’re seeing now is that all roles are expected to have some sort of overlap and nurses are doing a lot more autonomous roles. I think about some nurses that work in HDU or CCU, A&E you’re often the first person on the scene at an emergency. If you’re on a ward and the crash bell goes off, most nurses can defib, and provide emergency interventions. I think that there is a lot of crossover of roles, not just with the Advanced Practioners, but with all of our professions. Healthcare providers and provisions needs to be dragged into the 21st century. Patient’s illness and needs and healthcare has changed massively over the past 30/40 years and what we need to do as a whole we all need to change with that in all our professions, especially with the financial cut backs as well.