12 Charlotte Gascoigne discusses WiP's all-women environment

Transcript:

This was the first female-only environment that you had been in.

Yes.

How important was that?

Well I was quite surprised at what a difference it made. I didn’t expect it.  I didn’t expect to feel different in a women-only environment. You know, I think, I found myself more confident in a women-only environment.  I found that I could say things that I,  I was still a desperately shy person, I wasn’t outgoing at all but I think I got a lot of satisfaction from joint activity, from doing things with other women that were making the world a better place as I saw it, and you know it gave me connections with other people in publishing, understanding of other parts of publishing, and helping other women as well.

And I think, I was quite surprised to find that actually that was significant because of course, I mean I wasn’t conscious of the world being a gendered place at that point [laughs].  It was just the way the world was but, I think, when you go into a women-only environment you start to understand that the rest of the world is a very gendered place.  So, I think it helps you to understand more about yourself ‘cos obviously you are, the other women in the room are reflecting back elements of yourself much more than in a mixed environment.