Translator: Mary Kay Reviewer: Denise RQ
How exciting to stand on a wonderful red, sparkly circle.
This is my grandmother, Rosemarie Julianna Simon.
She came to the UK in the 1960s with my grandfather
from a tiny island in the Caribbean, called St. Lucia,
with big, big hopes of creating a better future for her family.
You can tell a lot about her from this photograph, I hope.
She liked to be well turned out.
She gave great hugs.
You can imagine a squeeze from her, can't you?
And she enjoyed good food:
sweet mangoes and ripe plantain, the produce of the Caribbean;
her favorites, and mine, too.
There's something you can't tell just by looking at her,
and that's that she became the breadwinner in her family
when my grandfather was made redundant from his engineering career
quite early on.
She was thrust into the position of providing for four children,
paying the mortgage and the bills,
and doing the majority of the housework;
not necessarily the dream she had set out for herself
when she left that small island.
Perhaps you thought
that female breadwinners were something new,
a new phenomenon,
or a bandwagon that middle-class women, who don't know how lucky they are,
have latched onto.
But my grandmother was living this experience over 40 years ago.
And do you know,
even though she worked hard all her life, in blue-collar roles,
where people were mostly considered dispensable,
all I ever got from her was warmth and joy.
This is in stark contrast to the responses I received over the Internet
when I started researching this topic about five years ago now.
I asked, "Have you been a female breadwinner?"
and "How do you feel about it?"
"I was the main earner for three years, and those were dark days,"
was the response I received from one working mom.
I don't know if you know,
but actually, a third of moms in the UK
earn the same, or more, than their partner,
or they're single parents.
That's 2.2 million women.
That's equivalent to the population of Paris.
Actually, the number of stay-at-home dads has also increased to 229,000.
That's equivalent to the population of Aberdeen,
Scotland's third largest city.
So think about the people you know, your friends, your colleagues.
The odds are that among them,
there will be some female breadwinners.
and there may even be some stay-at-home dads,
house-husbands, or in-between-career men.
Have you ever thought about that?
Have you ever discussed it?
Have you ever analyzed your feelings about it?
The reason I ask is because I don't think it's something that we talk about.
Couples, in particular, don't want to talk about anything
that will lead to an argument, do they?
The most sensitive topics are the in-laws, are the household chores,
and are money.
Yes, I see some of you nodding your heads knowingly.
I wonder if my grandparents ever talked about this,
because although I've said
that my grandmother embraced her role with joy,
I'm not sure that my granddad felt exactly the same way.
I remember him being very territorial about the TV set.
He'd had the remote control.
He'd be watching a TV show,
turn it over for the exact duration of the TV ad,
and turn it back with an engineer's precision
at exactly the right time.
He was in control.
He was the alpha male,
had job or no job,
and this was expected and acceptable.
It wasn't OK, however, for my grandmother to be the alpha female,
because the qualities of strength, competition, assertiveness
were not really valued in her as a woman, as a wife, as a mother.
In fact,
I don't really remember ever seeing her with the TV remote control,
unless perhaps when my granddad was out.
I think that my grandad's identity
was very much caught up in his work outside the home.
When that was removed,
the shell that was left was not always beautiful.
I think the heavy gaze of society
on individuals,
and also, the cloak of invisibility
that comes with not being employed through paid work
can be a heavy weight to bear.
His dissatisfaction would sometimes leak out,
but only when lubricated with a glass or two of rum.
I think, what he knew
was that if he was contributing through paid work,
his status would have been elevated.
He would have received a pat on the back.
But instead, he knew
that my grandmother in her role was more likely to be pitied,
whether or not she enjoyed the freedom, the independence,
or the friendships that she got from working.
I wish for him a different perspective,
a way to embrace joy,
a way to choose joy in whatever role he undertook,
as my grandmother had done.
This tiny shift could have made a huge difference,
but it's easier said than done.
I think we often want to change perspective,
we often want to look at things differently,
and it's not always so easy.
So I want us to do a little exercise together
to think about that.
I'm going to demonstrate it first,
and then I want you to do it with me.
OK?
So what we're going to do
is we're going to raise our hand up to the ceiling,
point, you can point a finger,
- I've got a clicker - when we do it,
and we're going to draw a large anti-clockwise circle
in the ceiling.
Then we're going to slowly bring it down,
keeping the integrity of the circle,
until it's just below our waist.
That make sense? Yeah?
OK, let's do it together.
Point at the ceiling,
draw a large, anti-clockwise circle,
and slowly, bring it down, keeping the integrity of that circle,
until it's just below your waist.
Be careful, health and safety --
I don't want anyone's eyes being poked out!
OK, tell me, what direction is that circle going now,
when you look down at it?
Clockwise?
How did it change?
We crossed the equator? That's interesting!
Do we have faulty fingers?
Or is there some sort of Bermuda triangle experience happening here
in Reading?
No.
I heard someone say, "Perspective."
We were able just by the difference between looking up and looking down,
to have a very different perspective.
I think that's what we all need to do.
If my granddad had been able to do that,
he could have enjoyed life a bit more, I think.
He was creative, he had carpentry skills.
He could have thought, "Wow, with Grandmother's earning money,
together, as a family unit, we can do so much,
and I can really enjoy my role."
I'm not quite sure he was quite able to embrace that.
So the opportunity came for me.
It came for me to embrace joy
in the same way my grandmother had done.
Just over 14 years ago,
when I fell pregnant with my daughter,
I was on a career path, I really enjoyed work.
I was moving forward up the career ladder,
qualified and equipped to move myself forward,
and my husband
- a consummate professional in choosing joy;
If there's the fun to be found in a situation,
and if there were awards given out, he would win, hands down -
said, "Do you know what? I could stay home.
I can be a stay-at-home dad.
I think that would make perfect sense."
And it does, doesn't it?
So what do you think I said
when he made this very sensible suggestion?
I said, "If anyone's going to stay at home,
it will be me."
I had the perfect opportunity to choose joy,
in the same way my grandmother had done.
But I blew it.
I failed miserably.
The voice in my head was saying,
"Women stay at home. Men go to work."
When I reflected on this,
when I reflected on my daily experience,
it all started to make sense.
I go to a restaurant with my husband,
we have a fantastic meal, we ask for the bill,
and who does the waiter give the bill to?
My husband.
What do we do?
Do we slide the credit card under the table,
so that he can pay the bill?
Do we make the joke, "Oh I'm treating him. It's his birthday."
And never go there again?
Or I'm at a party with friends,
and a man introduces himself and says that he's a stay-at-home dad.
And the women coo,
"Oh my gosh, he's amazing! He changes nappies! Wow!"
And the men start to distance themselves,
as though he smells of rotten eggs.
I negotiate hard for a pay rise,
and my boss doesn't understand why, as a woman, I'm doing that.
He thinks my salary, my money, tops up the income,
rather than is the income.
These messages entered my subconscious
and on a daily basis, were saying,
"Gender overrides joy, every time."
Me, who comes from a generation of female breadwinners,
because what I didn't tell you is that my mom had been one, too,
had still been so influenced
by the other messages that I was receiving.
But then, I found the secret.
I found the secret to choosing joy over gender.
And that was, for myself and others,
to express who we are in the very fullest sense.
I haven't told you what my grandmother did for a living,
because if I did,
it would have been laden with assumptions and judgments
about who she was.
It would have constrained what you think of her.
Instead, you have a much rounder, and fuller picture of her.
I want the same for you.
I want you to be able to express yourself
and have the opportunity to do that beyond gender.
So how do we do that?
Stop asking people what they do,
and ask them who they are.
In a moment, I'm going to ask you to do that,
and when you turn to the person next to you,
and you ask them that question, resist the temptation to say,
"I'm a student", "I'm a mother," I'm an architect,"
and actually express who you are in the very fullest sense.
What would you do if you had the opportunity
no matter, male or female,
no matter whether you were being paid or not;
what excites you?
What gets you up in the morning?
What are you passionate about?
That is who you are.
So, I want you to turn to the person next to you,
and I want you to ask them, "Who are you?"
Go.
(Indistinct conversation)
OK, OK.
Quite a buzz in the air.
Hopefully, some surprising answers.
And maybe some of you were stuck which means that, perhaps,
you need to reflect on that question a little bit more.
My grandmother is no longer with us.
In fact, sadly, she passed away a year ago, today.
But I know. if I asked her, "Who are you?"
I believe she would have said, "I am love."
Who am I?
I'm an inspirer and empowerer,
male or female, paid or unpaid.
Who are you?
Ask yourself the question,
unleash yourself from gender,
so that you, too, can choose joy.
Thank you.
(Applauses)