Sisters doing it for themselves

Georgina Fuller - 10 Mar 15

“Are you the sort of person who gloats when they see a woman fall, or the kind that celebrates a magnificent recovery?” JK Rowling rhetorically asked the Twittersphere last week after Madonna’s unfortunate tumble at the Brit awards. To which the Mighty Madge replied – “Thank you J.K Rowling! So nice to read your words of support! Women supporting women! Hell to the yeah! (sic)”

To see two amazing female icons supporting and endorsing each other so publicly filled me with a warm, fuzzy sort of glow (which l usually only get after wine or gin.) lt got me thinking how fashionable feminism has become of late and what a great thing it is that, in the words of Annie Lennox, another great heroine, sisters, really are doing it for themselves.

Whether it’s Caroline Criado-Perez’s brave campaign to get famous historical women on Bank of England notes, Emma Watson’s wonderful ‘He for She’ United Nations campaign or Patricia Arquette’s public outcry for equal pay at the Oscar’s, it’s all about the girls these days.

And l am seeing this reflected in all aspects of life – from the office to the school gates to social media. The group of mum’s at my eldest son’s school are always offering to help each other out, whether it’s picking up another child after school or looking after a younger sibling for a few hours. When l had my third (and last!) child one of the mum’s in my village kindly offered to pick my eldest up each morning on the way to school so l wouldn’t have to get all three of the children (and myself) out of the house by 8:30am. l will be eternally grateful to her for that and it made those first few months so much easier.

As a stay at home mum who also works in my spare (!) time, l have yet to come across any sort of divide between stay at home mums and working mums, which is just as well as l have a foot in both camps.

l see women supporting women on Facebook and Twitter all the time too, which warms the cockles of my heart even more as l am the product of an all-girls school. Anyone that’s been to a single sex school will know that putting a load of adolescent girls in close proximity in their formative years is probably going to result in a considerable amount of bitching.

l may have even been (whisper it) a bit of a bitch myself at times – as was the style in the grungey 1990’s. l think the achingly cool Winona Ryder in that classic teenage flick Heathers (before her shoplifting days) and Alicia Silverstone in Clueless had a lot to answer for. The former flick may have come out in 1988 but the line: “Heather, why are you such a mega bitch? Because l can be” pretty much set the tone for the angst ridden, self-conscious decade that followed.

But now, almost 20 years after l left school, the sense of camaraderie l have with many of my old school friends and former female colleagues is heartening and, l think, a wonderful by-product of the feminist movement. We share parenting tips, send words of comfort when one another is ill and wish each other’s children happy birthday and l know it’s probably my school friends who will share posts like this.

Unfortunately, there will always be women that don’t stick up for other women and even those that publicly put them down, like Katie Hopkins and Liz Jones, and the less said about them the better. l think former UN ambassador Madeline Allbright summed it up pretty well when she said: “There is a special place in hell for women that don’t support other women.”

In the meantime, let’s try and encourage one another and take our cue from the likes of the legendary JK Rowling and Madonna. Come on, let’s hear it for the girls!

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Georgina Fuller

Georgina Fuller is a freelance journalist, reluctant realist and mother of three; Charlie (8), Edward (5) and Jemima (3.) She writes for The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Red, Smallish, Little London magazine and anyone else who pays her. After eight years in London, she now lives in a Midsomer Murdersesque village on the edge of the Cotswolds.

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