We are so lucky to live in the time we do, and yet still, almost every day, in every aspect of life, there is stigma.

Life gives us choices, but there always seems to be a preferred one, usually the conventional.

– To work full or part time, when you can afford to choose to spend more time with family.
– To eat meat or follow a plant based diet.
– To continue into further education and acrue debt, or take an internship in industry and work.
– To breast or bottle feed.
– To follow a passion or pick a career.
– To wear the latest fashion or recycle your comfort clothes.
– To stay single or marry and have children, or find a life partner, or bring up children as a solo or same sex parents.
– To restrict yourself for the bikini body, or enjoy dessert, wine and cheese when the whim arises.
– To work a conventional gender biased role, or step out of that box.

Recently I went to a convention in Brussels for women in transport, an amount of it was posturing by people looking for funding for research projects, but the majority was experience sharing by people in the industry with the desire that together we can learn and be a stronger force. Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t consider myself a feminist, I don’t intend to march or protest any time soon, but I definitely don’t like to be put in a box, whether it’s because of my height, weight, size or gender.

I’m so delighted that so many of my female friends have insanely high profile roles in the City. Yet it’s almost a shame that it’s a big deal. There should be no reason why they can’t.

But the reason is twofold: compromise and stigma.

Compromise. It took me aback for a second at the conference when, after being asked approximately how many of the instructors I know are female, and I proudly replied 20 to 30%, which is significantly higher than the rest of the transport industry (5-15%), I was then asked how many have children. And my answer was one.

I am lucky, I don’t have to compromise to do a job I love; I have to accept that some weeks I won’t be at home, and have to hand over cat care to others. I acknowledge that this would be much, much harder with small children. And nigh on impossible as a singleton.

Stigma. It shouldn’t exist, but it does. I met women at the conference who work on railway tracks and in the docks, who followed their fathers footsteps but then had to work twice or three times as hard as the men alongside them to earn their place and the respect of their male peers.

I also don’t face much stigma in my role day to day, but I know of female instructors who have, and I am sure it will happen to me. When it does, I will channel the power and fortitude of those women I met at the conference.

Unless it is about winching prowess; I’m happy to leave that to the men. But I can sweat a line with the best of them.