Why women's day is so important for everyone

As a maturing composer and conductor I have had my fair share of discrimination as a woman in the past. As as result I go out of my way to support my younger colleagues on their career paths and I look forward to a brighter future. Lets not forget on this Woman's Day that over half the World's population has until very recently been under the thumb of male dominance. One of the first feelings I grew up with was that as a girl I was inferior. This learnt lack lead me to all kinds of problems with body dysmorphia. As a kid I wanted to be a boy. Sure I wanted to climb trees, fish and explore the woods but to be honest I also hoped that by some magic I would wake up one day with a penis. 

In Cornwall

My Dad was remarkably helpful. He bought me real wood working tools and played football with me, I was extremely lucky. 

My Dad

However in teenage-hood my perceptions of being a second class citizen fuelled a  renouncement of female fleshiness in favour of thinness during a severe but short bout of anorexia. Fortunately getting into The Royal College of Music when I was 17 and finding a boyfriend resolved not eating, he was too sexy to not allow flesh to creep on. And I realise that this boyfriend who is now my husband was crucial to my inner empowerment as a woman. He has supported my musical career all the way as an equal. 

With Michael Christie

We both entered The Royal College of Music as composers, he played cello and I sang. I wanted to become a composer when I left, but the Principle said I must become an opera singer because women couldn't make it as composers. In many respects I learnt my trade as a composer of operas because of all those years singing many solo roles at The Vlaamse Opera and Opera du Rhin. I have as a result of the standard repertoire made sure that all my operas promote women who are heroic and powerful in their own right such as Boudicca, Artemisia Gentileschi and Rosa Parks. Through these works I have largely exorcised the discrimination that lingered in me. 

The schoolboy in Berg's Lulu at The Vlaamse Opera 

Fortunately attitudes have changed a lot now so that in my maturer years I have been able to shift to being full time composer. I am now in the place that I want to be. In the last 7 years have been empowered by wonderful supervisors at Cambridge University and Royal Birmingham Conservatoire culminating in a PhD in composition. However challenges still remain and false perceptions of my ability due to my genital assignment persist such as the comment from an adjudicator at a conducting competition in Cambridge 2014," you conduct well for a woman but I don't like it that you are so tall " or a top publisher at an Opera Europa Conference " Women composers are lightweight". 

Conducting my opera The Butt in Vienna, 2016

Whatever your take on this it must be faced that the repression of half the World's population from equal opportunities is the largest miscarriage of human freedom in the history of the World. Now we are on the road to improvement in some countries although I fear that woman are still over worried about their physical appearance and keep their real passions recessed in order to fit in. My latest opera HER BODY in particular questions the notion of what we need to be like as women, this also applies to men. 

To conclude: Do we need positive discrimination? Well yes, I believe so. Lets have more Proms commissions for women for example. And others who identify as woman ? Welcome on board just as long as you understand that personally I don't identify as a woman but rather as a successful male composer! 

Happy Woman's Day

In HER BODY for Tête a Tête, London 2021 

Link to conducting The Orbita Orchestra playing HER BODY 2021

https://youtu.be/ls_CZmo6miE

Link to The Opera HER BODY 2021

https://vimeo.com/615142400