Women's long battle to get balance in their lives

Terrified workers, many of them young teenagers, flung themselves to certain death from the ninth floor of a burning building rather than be engulfed by the inferno.

Those who remained stood no chance of survival as fire swept through the New York sweatshop on March 25 in 1911.

An investigation into the blaze found that locked doors and inadequate fire escapes were largely to blame for the shockingly high death tolls among the workforce of around 600.

The terrible tragedy led to legislation requiring improved safety standards, and it helped spur the growth of the International Ladies Garments Worker Union.

A year later, 14,000 textile workers went on strike in protest at their pay and conditions.

With the slogan “Better to starve fighting than starve working” the women stayed out for three months.

Their courage inspire the song Bread and Roses which has become associated with International Women’s Day.

It was a time of great unrest, and the oppression and inequality of women was spurring them on to campaign for change. In 1908, 15,000 women had marched through New York City calling for shorter hours, better pay and the right to vote.

The first National Woman’s Day was held in the US in 1909, and two years later more than one million people attended IWD rallies on March 19 in a number of countries campaigning for women’s rights.

Less than a week later the horrific Triangle fire drew attention to the shocking working conditions and need for improved legislation that would become the focus of future International Women’s Days.

Now, nearly a century later, there is no doubting that women have come a long way – in the West at least – since those desperately poor textile workers toiled for long hours, putting their lives at risk in dangerous conditions.

Improved access to education and legislative changes mean that women are now routinely working in areas which were once considered a male-only preserve. Women are at university and in the boardroom. And less than a century after women won the right to vote no-one bats an eye at the thought of a female prime minister.

But there are still issues to debate and battles to be fought – albeit of a different kind.

And women in Wharfedale and the surrounding area are being invited to discuss the issues facing them at an informal gathering tomorrow to celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day.

Entitled Bread and Roses, the event, which starts at 7.30pm in the Ilkley Moor Vaults, looks at whether modern women really can have it all.

Organiser Vera Woodhead, pictured, said: “The bread symbolises economic justice and roses represent quality of life. Although we have come a long way, the struggle for economic success and a work life balance is a struggle that is still waged today by us ordinary women.”

On March 8 women people across the world will be marking International Women’s Day, and Vera is hoping women in this area will use her event as a way of sharing their stories along with their successes, their failures and challenges.

She said “Although we have come a long way, the struggle for economic success and a work life balance is a struggle that is still waged today by women.”

The event is the second organised by Vera. Last year she staged a get together for local women to talk about their achievements and challenges, and she says the feedback has been excellent, although the turnout wasn’t as good as she would have hoped.

She said: “One of the things that put a lot of women off last year was that they felt they haven’t achieved much and hence wouldn’t be able to contribute – so didn’t attend.”

But she is hoping that this year’s more informal event at Ilkley Moor Vaults will encourage a greater turn-out to discuss whether women can ever really have it all.

She said: “It is all about getting people connected and sharing their stories. People have this preconception that everybody’s life is better that theirs, and that they are doing better.

“It is only when you talk to other people and you hear that they are experiencing, that you realise that is not the case.”

Indeed, Vera, who is herself a businesswoman and a mother-of-two, believes having it all is simply not possible.

“It is just too much. You can’t really give your time and quality to any one thing. I don’t think you can have it all – it is impossible.”

She added: “There is a lot of pressure on us that we must bring in an income, and have the children, and contribute to society. You can end up doing nothing because it is too overwhelming.”

“I think if you work full-time you get slated for not being there for your children. If you’re at home you get slated for not contributing to the economy.”

But combining work and family can be notoriously difficult.

“It must be so difficult for people who have very high powered jobs,” she said. “Perhaps that is why there is such a small number of them.”

She believes women need to resist the pressure to feel they have to achieve everything at once, and instead should see their lives as a number of stages.

“It is about identifying what it is you want out of life and if you want a high-powered senior job there will be a cost attached to that.

“I think for a lot of people it is recognising that they are in transition. If you stay at home with your children then you can go on and do something else after that. Do we have to achieve everything at 25?

“For a lot of women once their children become independent that is when they have a lot of time to look for those senior roles – but of course they are so much older than men looking at the same roles and a lot of them get overlooked.”

She said a growing number of women were choosing to work for themselves because of the perceived flexibility in combining family and work responsibilities – and this is an area Vera is researching.

“I was really quite interested in that because a lot of the women as well as running a business have all the other issues to think about – such as getting to the playground on time, or getting their child to the hockey match.”

Vera, discovered first-hand one of the problems facing women when they have children.

“I worked in the NHS and I wanted to go back to work part-time – but I was told if you want to come back part-time we will have to demote you.”

Now she runs her own coaching and training programmes for businesses and individuals.

“I see myself as a developmental coach, which is kind of different from life coaching,” she said. “But all coaching is about trying to get the best out of people and move people forward.”

She concedes the term “coach” can lead to some misunderstandings. Someone asked me if I was a swimming coach – and I thought the amount of time I have sat by the side of Ilkley pool watching my children learning to swim I could be one of those as well,” she laughed.

While women who take time out to have children can sometimes lose confidence in their abilities at work Vera stressed that all the skills they used at home could be transferred to the boardroom.

“I strongly believe that women have so much more of a greater role to play in society,” she said.

And she is not just talking about the top ten per cent in high-flying roles. “I am talking about the other 90 per cent of women who go to work and organise children to be here, there and everywhere.”

“We have not got that many good role models, and who wants a role model who is so far removed that only one per cent can actually get there.”

Vera is hoping that this year’s IWD event in Ilkley will lead to more regular meetings. She is also launching a leadership and business development programme aimed at women in enterprise.

l Anyone who wants to attend tomorrow’s event should just turn up from 7.30pm onwards.