Women's History Month: Marianne de Pierres

You know, I grew up thinking I could do anything I wanted to do; believing that I was equal. I guess that’s a testament to my parents more than anything. It wasn’t really until my early twenties that I realized that not everyone in the world had the same belief. In one particular job I had, I was persistently patronized, belittled and in the end sacked under a pretext. What had done? Well, I’d talked to my teenage charges about sexual harassment in the work force – how to identify it and what to avenues to purse if it was happening – and my superiors perceived that I was trouble making and conveniently made me redundant soon after (after several bollickings).

I haven’t thought about this incident for years, but as I started writing this, the memory resurfaced in Technicolor. I took this as a sign that it was time to talk about it. This incident happened in about 1987, around the time Equal Opportunity began to get a fair hearing in political circles. I think back on how I was treated with such contempt for wanting to educate and protect my trainees against unacceptable behavior. All I succeeded in doing, however, was shattering my own self-confidence and self belief. There was no one there to back me. No wise woman, or sorority sister to call on. It took years of experience and personal growth to get past how I was treated and to regain my belief.

So, in Woman’s History Month, if there is anything I could offer Gillian’s female readers, it would you encourage you all to mentor each other in the workplace and in life. I could have done with such a person in 1987, and I will, to the day I die, always try and be that to someone else in need. – Marianne de Pierres

Marianne de Pierres is an award-winning author who publishes novels in the science fiction, fantasy, crime and young adult genres. Visit her websites at www.mariannedepierres.com, www.tarasharp.com and www.burnbright.com

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Imagine, I've actually written something historical for BiblioBuffet. I really like it that cultural history is now becoming mainstream and not merely something that strange bods such as myself do (which reminds me, I really ought to note some thoughts about how writers can use cultural history before I forget). It' s a single book review, rather than an essay: http://www.bibliobuffet.com/bookish-dreaming/1484-on-matters-military-and-historical-032711 I did it this way because that intersection (military and cultural history) is still uncommon and I wanted to explore what the book said. I stopped myself before I wrote 5000 words, however. it would have been so easy to write 5000 words!

Women's History Month: Tiki Swain

Tiki Swain is a scientist, science communicator and science/environmental advocate, and an urban druid. Her career path's mostly freelance and short-term, allowing her to work on a wide variety of projects as they come up, interest her or become important in the zeitgeist. Her background is heavily oriented towards protecting our land, be it through multi-generational farming or primitive survival and caretaking techniques. She values highly living with awareness.

I can't help but ask questions. I can't help but look at things and try to see them as they are, without the veils of common association and assumption. I'm a scientist. And an artist. Both need that vision, that awareness. One of the first things I learnt when actually “learning” to draw was to draw what was in front of me, not what I thought was in front of me. If you look at a face and see a nose, then draw a nose, you get one result. If you look at a face and see areas of dark and light, or angle and line, or patterns of texture, and draw those as you see them, you get quite a different and often much more realistic result. The aim is always to pierce the veil of habit, to see the difference between what you see and what you think you see. And in that difference springs to life an entire new world. A living one, a challenging one, one that's harder to cope with because there's so much more in it and so much more going on. It's so easy to categorise things and then just let them go because you “know” them. ( For the rest of Tiki's post, click here. )