1 Miranda Harrison discusses changing her mind about debating childcare in WiP

Transcript:

My job after The Good Book Guide was at Yale University Press, and I very quickly found someone at Yale who was a very staunch member of WiP.  She was on the Committee, Ariadne van de Ven, and Araidne told me a lot about the earlier days of Women in Publishing and the issues with childcare and all these things that I hadn’t even given a second thought to, not having children.

I remember saying to her, ‘Why does everyone keep talking about children?’ [Laughs]  Because, I just thought ‘Come On!  We’re career women, why are we talking about children all the time?’  And she got very cross with me.  She said that was very, very, very intolerant of me and really told me off.  This was a very serious bus journey into WiP.  I’ve never forgotten it.

And she, you know, gave me a right old dressing down.  Real lecture.  But I said it and I meant it.

I felt it because I didn’t want children and I just thought that we’re almost playing into stereotypical hands.  Men think women are a bunch of women who talk about children all the time.  And we seem to talk about children all the time, but of course we weren’t, but I was aware there was talk about it.  But of course there was because women have kids and they are in the workplace.  And Ariadne sort of sorted that out in my head for me.