Gaby Weiner (born 1944)
As far as I can remember I’ve always been a feminist. Perhaps it was because I was an only child raised by a single mother and her sisters, and therefore had a strong sense of being valued as a person. And so being told that I couldn’t do things because I was a girl was like a red rag to a bull. I married early at 18 and having had two children, I remember having arguments with my husband in the mid-1960s about childcare and how we should share it. When doing my teacher training (1968-72) my undergraduate projects were all on women. I had joined locally an organisation called the Hornsey Housebound Housewives (developed from the Housewives Register, I believe it was called). We met in each other’s houses with our pre-school children and talked about feminism among other things. I was also influenced by feminist consciousness-raising which was a thing in London at the time, and so, organised a group of local women neighbours where among other things, we discussed – for the first time in my experience – sex. And of course feminism followed me into my primary school teaching where female teachers weren’t allowed to wear trousers, into my MA where I chose for my dissertation Education and the Sex Discrimination Act, and later as a researcher for the Schools Council on the first national gender and education project. (link to Celia Burgess-Macey)
Initially, for my MA dissertation topic, I had chosen an investigation into the treatment of children with disabilities. But my tutor realised that my heart wasn’t quite in it and encouraged me to pursue my prevailing interest in gender. Its final chapter was edited and published by NFER, my first ever journal publication. And so ensued a long and winding feminist road which for me has never ended!
I have included two pictures of me with my daughter Saira, of course a feminist, who currently works in higher education and is also a tremendous union officer.
Below. 2 pictures of my daughter Saira and me first taken around the mid and then late 1970s
