Village Women Garden Party – Tuesday 17^th July 07

http://www.villagedrinks.co.uk/

I attended this event at the Arts Club in Mayfair. Brought to the lesbians of London by the team behind Village Drinks, this was their first “social networking event for professional gay women”. It had quite a friendly atmosphere, partly because it was smallish with around 50 people there. There was an interesting mix of ages (youngest almost certainly me, 24, oldest in her early sixties) and occupations. I chatted with a few PR people, a parliamentary lobbyist, marine biologist, sales manager for a recruitment company, IT specialist working for a cultural quango, a few people with their own start-up companies, and a maritime lawyer. I’m a domestic violence caseworker, and I reckon that’s pretty interesting. I think I had the ‘worthiest’ occupation - I don’t remember anyone else from the public or third sectors.

The invited speaker was Margot James, Vice-Chair of the Conservative Party. I’m rapidly learning that it’s a good idea to take a notepad with me to these things. I would be much more able to recall (and criticise) accurately what was said that evening had I done so.

James spoke about her career success as founder of highly successful PR company Shire Hall. She spoke of her ambition to become an MP (she stood in 2005 for Holborn and St. Pancreas) and talked a little of her experiences as a [white, middle-class, educated, able-bodied] gay woman. In that room of successful and buoyant people it would have been easy to fool oneself that all was right in the world. The event was of course intended as a fun and social evening, but James’ view of the world as she encountered it did not ring true for me, and it hurt. Many people were absent from the room - LGB youth, gay people in rural areas, those who had left education early or were on low incomes or unemployed, LGB parents, gay visible minorities (there was one BME person there), those with a disability, the elderly.

Two subjects emerged from the questions from the floor which endure in my memory:

<!--[if !supportLists]-->·        <!--[endif]-->1. Margot James said that she considers gay and lesbian families to be so few as to be insignificant to her Party. She also stated that marriage is entered into for the function of having children and since gay people can’t have children, civil partnerships are not equivalent to marriage in their social significance as a family unit. I suggested that I am from a younger generation of LGB people who may be more inclined to parent children. James ‘reassured’ us that the benefits proposed by the Tories for married people would be extended to those in civil partnerships.

<!--[if !supportLists]-->·         <!--[endif]-->2. The director of Proud Heritage (http://www.proudheritage.org/), Jack Gilbert (an honorary lesbian for the evening) asked about the Conservative policy on homophobic bullying in schools. James stated that they had not reached that level of detail in that particular area. When asked whether they had a policy on racist bullying she skirted the issue. She added that she felt that the problem of homophobic bullying was not distinct from the general problem of discipline in schools, and that the best way to improve the situation was to equip teachers to hold more disciplined lessons. I asked “what if the teachers are homophobic?” and James seemed uninterested in engaging with this question.

I enjoyed the people I met, would attend the next event and encourage others.

I left feeling fearful that Margot James is a person of status and relative privilege who doesn’t seem to be acknowledging, let alone positively responding to, the challenges that still face gay women, young and old. I’m frightened on behalf of everyone.