Britain's all-female power groups

Tag : Girls' Pyjamas


As we know, it's women who run the world. They're simply rathersubtle about it, operating in invisible networks, behind closeddoors, using their own ways and means. This piece seeks to gentlylift the lid on women-only groups, to observe them, not with anagenda, but more in the manner of a field study, a survey of someof the sororities that are constantly humming away, making stuffhappen, just below the radar.
How do they organise themselves? What do they want? There are asmany answers as there are groups, but some patterns emerge. Everygroup I spoke to used the word "relaxed". Women-onlyenvironments are just less hassle. Socially and mentally. Withinthem, utopian ideas can flourish, whether it be a plan for helpingyoung women beauty executives climb the greasy pole (see "Thebeauty mafia", page 21) or a vision for how to change publicpolicy on power stations run by coal (see "The ecocabal").
In the privacy of Rebecca Frayn's kitchen, the women behind BrightGreen Pictures have been thinking big. Huge. They want to makeshort films that will change our attitudes towards energyconsumption. I found myself thinking of their radical forebears, ofHannah More, the 18th-century "bishop in petticoats", whowrote so stridently against slavery, calling for "a revolutionin manners... a radical change in the moral behaviour of thenation". What gave her the courage? Being part of theBluestocking movement must have helped.
The Bluestockings shared books, friendship jewels (such as a tinyenamel locket-like box containing each others' pictures) and, mostimportantly, assets – usefully, one of their number,Elizabeth Montagu, was filthy rich. She built a "temple ofvirtue and friendship" on London's Portman Square, where theycould all be brainy together in luxury. When Montagu's husband diedshe used his money to endow her coterie of writers.
It wasn't all sweetness and light, however. Ann Yearsley was amilkmaid from Bristol whom the Bluestockings "discovered"as a gifted poet. They helped her get into print, but Yearsleyclaimed they had defrauded her of 'royalties, and there was anembarrassingly public row. Generally, though, the Bluestockingsseem to have been very happy sharing contacts, painting oneanother's portraits, and enhancing their mutual fabulousness.
What did they do, then, to deserve the 1815 Rowlandson cartoon"The Breaking Up of the Bluestocking Club" (recentlydisplayed at the National Portrait Gallery's Brilliant Womenexhibition), in which they are brawling, scratching and pullinghair? How did the word itself come to be a term of derision?All-women power groups have never delighted the patriarchy, shallwe say. Band together and you're a "coven"; disagree andyou're "at one another's throats". Perhaps it's no wonderthese groups operate so discreetly.
Theatre director Suzy Willson is the co-founder of the ClodEnsemble and the woman behind the internationally successful"happening", the Red Ladies. Dressed identically in redstilettos, red headscarves and dark glasses, the Red Ladies movethrough towns with "great love, incredible style anddevastating integrity" (these are their stage directions). Whoare they, and what is their purpose? The public leap to all sortsof conclusions. Men shout lewd comments at them, or showexaggerated deference. Some people are afraid. Others assume theyare selling something, perfume perhaps. No one knows how to readthe Red Ladies. We are simply not used to seeing women in uniform.
"There's an Everyman, but there isn't an Everywoman,"says Willson. Her performance art is disorienting and excitingbecause it gives us a glimpse of something rare: women looking asif they belong together. Men do it all the time. Think of ablack-tie dinner, a business suit, football supporters. Men slip ona mask that makes them all of a type. Women must always dress likeindividuals. It can be a privilege but it sure gets exhausting;adopting a temporary group identity can be a refuge and a relief.
The Red Ladies have no leader. "They move a bit likestarlings," says Willson. "You think they must bechoreographed, but they're not. The group has its own energy."Some of the more informal groups I interviewed here were the same.They had no head honcho, no stooges. They ran themselves, carriedalong by a mysterious momentum. Could this be a glimpse of –ah! – the lost, the mystical Amazonian Way of Doing Things?
On the other hand, many women's groups just replicate structuresset up by men, for men. At Christ's College, Cambridge, an all-malesporting society called The Marguerites has been carousing roundthe quiet quads since 1899. When women joined the college in the1970s they set up The Hippolytans on very much the same lines."We started as a response to the Marguerites, I'm sure,"says fourth-year undergraduate Lexy Docwra, former secretary of theHippolytans, chair of the May Ball, hockey-team captain andall-round college star. "But there are differences in the waywe do things. When the boys initiate new members, they wake them upwith a pint of vodka. We're much classier. We wake them up with aglass of ' champagne, and then lock them out of their rooms so theyhave to go to the porter's lodge in their pyjamas..." Otherinitiation rites include tipsy wheelbarrow races and stealing"trophies" from other colleges. "We match theMarguerites in high spirits," adds former Hippos president CatMcIntosh, "except we want the girls to have a nice time. It'snot about endurance." The Hippos attend weekly social events,sometimes wearing their black-and-red sorority ties, sometimesfancy dress. On one memorable occasion the theme was"hill-climbing" and the Hippos turned up tied to oneanother by rope. Is there a homoerotic vibe?
"No, that's something I think happens more at all-womencolleges," one Hippo tells me. "They need thepublicity." "I'm sure Hippos sounds strange to theoutside world," says Docwra. "My father understands it,though, because he was a Marguerite, though in his day Christ'sdidn't have any women at all."
It's dizzying thinking how quickly everything has changed.Sometimes women's groups don't keep up. Another group running on amale structure is the female Freemasons. Yes, they exist –6,000 of them – alive, well and busy operating the secrettwo-way tunnel between Selfridges and the Hampstead ladies pond.OK, that last is a lie, but the truth is scarcely lessextraordinary. They address one another as "Worshipful BrotherMargaret" or "Grand Master Florence", slavishlycopying their male counterparts, even though, after 100 years ofnegotiation, they still don't have official recognition from them(in practice, however, both organisations co-operate amicably andshare premises).
The founding female Freemasons of 100 years ago were radicalfeminists because they believed in – oh, horrors –birth control, but times changed and the female Freemasons didn't.These days, they are a conventional lot – when I asked aboutcriteria for membership,I was told you needed to be"respectable" – yet what they do is, in many ways,pretty radical. Usual gender roles are totally upturned.
The women have the grand titles and enjoy elaborate dinners; theirmenfolk are allowed to help out "with charity work". Thefemale Freemasons flounce about in robes decorated with goldenbadges of their Masonic achievements, like glorified, grown-up GirlGuides. They claim the hieratic status of mysticism. When thefemale grand masters took to the stage of the Royal Albert Hall fortheir centenary celebrations last month, husbands were permitted tocome along to watch. "It was the first time most of them hadseen us in our regalia," Zuzanka Penn, assistant grand master,told me proudly. I'll bet they were dazzled. In her robes she is asstunning as a cardinal. Yet her personal preference, as aChristian, is to receive communion from a male officiate. Thefemale Freemasons are indeed a rich source of contradictions.
But the point of this article isn't to simplify, but to revealwomen's groups in all their complicated variety and subtlepermutations. This is what we do when no one's looking, and this,and this, and this...
The radical readers
They went out to support the women of Greenham Common. Thirty-oddyears later, they're still reading against the patriarchy.
"We only read books by women," explains Harriet Spicer, afounder of Virago Press and a long-term group member. "I didonce manage to slide in a biography of Mary Wollstonecraft byRichard Holmes but the idea is to honour women writers by readingthem. My daughter will say, 'Mum's getting all "votes forwomen" again,' but I do think there's work to be done."
No one can quite remember exactly when the group started. "Putit this way, one of the babies who attended in a straw basket isgetting married this summer," says Spicer.
Members past and present include Julia Bard of the JewishSocialists, Anna Barfield, who ran the women's desk at CompendiumBooks in Camden, and Margaret Lally, of The Owl bookshop in KentishTown. Controversial reads over the years include Raising Childrenin the Goddess Tradition by the radical San Francisco feministStarhawk.
Spicer sums up: "Our group works, so no one wants to changeit. Everyone brings food without much consultation, and somehow wenever end up with six pots of hummus... although, to tell thetruth, there is always one pot of hummus."
The eco cabal
Four film-makers – Eski Thomas, Lila Morgan, Christina Robertand Lesley Cavendish – get together as Bright Green Pictureswith one big idea: to make short environmentalconsciousness-raising films, "commercials on behalf of theplanet".
"Motherhood means you take a break, and you start to thinkdifferently, to reprioritise," says Robert. "We all hadthat, I think. We stopped and we realised: you know what? We couldmake small films with a big impact. Between us, we've got quite alot of contacts."
Understatement of the year: not only do all these women have 20-oddyears' film experience, they all happen to be married to majorpower players: Morgan to writer of The Queen Peter Morgan; Thomasto Bertolucci's producer, Jeremy Thomas; Cavendish to the producerof Bridget Jones; while Robert's spouse, Barnaby Thompson, is headof Ealing Studios and produced St Trinian's.
"I see the Trinian's girls quite a lot and Tallulah Riley hastold us she is ready to be in her first Bright Green Picturesfilm," says Robert.
Boy, are these women efficient: "We put our first filmtogether in about three hours in our friend Rebecca Frayn'skitchen," (see www.wecan.uk.com). "We don't have setroles, as such," says Robert, "it just happens. None ofus has patience with hierarchical structures any more. We're allmothers and we all appreciate the value of each other's time."
Cavendish, a producer of adverts and mother of triplets aged 11,sees their association as "post-feminist".
"Nobody shouts each other down," she says, "Butthat's what we're like as individuals. That's nothing to do withgender."
The all-girl dance crew
The SINstar Bgirls crew includes Chi-Boogie, Ladybug, Raquit,RascElle and Remady. Their artistic director is TrubL Roc (akaLucy). SIN stands for Strength In Numbers.
"It's a more united feeling, dancing in a girls' crew,"says TrubL Roc. "When I started out, there weren't many girlsin UK hip hop so a lot of us thought we had to be strong like aboy, or get our cleavages out like French B-girls. We don't doeither of those things.
"We've got inner strength without being butch. We dress likegirls, with big earrings and necklaces that are always falling inour mouths at inopportune moments, and we dance like girls. We getstyle and confidence from each other, definitely." In dance,or in life? "There's no separation!"
TrubL Roc and a friend she had been breakdancing with since primaryschool started their first all-girl group, Cass