Author: Ayesha Khawla Usmani Year: 1970s
Ayesha with trainee at the Women’s Motor Mechanics Workshop circa 1987
In the 1970s while printing political posters at the Lenthall Road Silk Screen Workshop, one of the women running the collective asked me where the men were? I replied they’re probably in a meeting. She said, ‘So they’re doing the political decision-making while you get to do the hard graft?’
From a very early age I knew things were unfair for women as my mum was the main breadwinner for a family of seven. My father could not find work as an electrical engineer because racism meant employers did not accept his Indian qualifications and years of experience in India, Pakistan and Kurdistan. Mum initially used her creativity to sew shalwar-kameez suits for the small South Asian community in our area. There were no shops selling these suits and soon mum was in high demand. She eventually got a job in a hat factory and progressed onto sewing handbags. She learnt to type at night school and spent her last 15 years of employment in clerical work along with her social and community work. My dad helped with house maintenance and child-care.
My older sister and I helped mum manage the cooking, cleaning, shopping and childcare of our baby brother and sister. We’d argue on the way back from school about whose turn it was to wash the nappies and who would knead the chapati dough, so mum could cook the stew or dahl as soon as she got home. My brother, two years my junior, was allowed to play outside, enraging me and my sister who fought and argued against our unfair treatment. As my parents argued about my father’s inability to get employment, mum would come to us in despair and say ‘…never rely financially on a man’. (In later life this message did not serve me well. I put myself through a lot of hardship because I had to be financially independent while bringing up three daughters.)
I helped my dad with house maintenance tasks, handing him tools and mixing Polyfilla. I watched him fix things and learned to use his tools. Consequently, after a few years of dithering, I decided to study engineering at South Bank Polytechnic. I was the only woman on that course and it was hard resisting the young men saying ‘Let me show you how to do it love’, as they took the tools out of my hands.
I lived two lives simultaneously, one as Ayesha the feminist activist, the other as Khawla helping my mother prepare huge meals for Eid festivities, donning my elaborate shalwar kameez when visiting relatives. Occasionally the two identities overlapped.
As a student, political activism seemed the only solution to making the world a better place, so I joined an eclectic mix of political activities: International Solidarity with Chile, Iran, Nicaragua and El Salvador, Anti-Apartheid, Troops out of Ireland, and eventually the women’s movement. I joined the South London Black Women’s Group and helped to organise the national Socialist Feminist Conference in 1980. I was even co-opted onto the editorial team of Outwrite, even though I had no idea what editing was all about. I just sat in the meetings, listened and learnt a lot.
I got my first bike aged 18 and I cycled everywhere. It was my ticket to freedom. I could travel home fairly safely at night after long hours at the printing press or late-night meetings. I felt a lot safer than when I walked or got public transport late at night.
My parents valued our education and never forced us to get married, so we resisted any proposals by saying, ‘We’re still studying.’ My first job after my engineering degree was at the Lambeth Women’s Carpentry Workshop (LWW) and that was an eye opener! I’d worked in the rag trade and the print industry before my first degree and worked my year-long industrial placement in an engineering company in Northampton. Joining LWW was like a breath of fresh air. Surrounded by women who could do anything and who stuck together like real sisters. We plotted against the patriarchy, ran the workshop as a women’s collective, went on demonstrations together, including the Grunwick Women’s strike and Greenham Common. We drank, ate and danced together. It was the most amazing time in my life. I learnt the true meaning of feminism and sisterhood and learnt compassion towards my parents. Politics and feminism taught me to contextualise their tough lives and understand the structural oppressions leading to multiple inequalities.
I left LWW to go to Mexico for two years and that was amazing, enhancing my understanding of global inequalities, human solidarity and community building.
When I came back I trained in Heavy Vehicle Repair and Maintenance, a six–month full–time training apprenticeship. I was the only woman on that course, and this time I didn’t let any man take the tools from my hands. This path lead to three years at the Women’s Motor Mechanics Workshop (another women’s collective), seven years at City of Westminster College as the only woman in my engineering department, six years pursuing my career as a water engineer and eight years as a science teacher.
Reprinted with permission from Write women into history, Hackney Howlers