Full Interview of Kimberly Osivwemu 27-12-08
By Omena Osivwemu
Transcribed by Neelam Mehmood
Manchester Mixed Feminists
Omena: Do you actually call yourself a feminist?
Kimberley: In some settings, yes are a bit few and far between, because its not something we’re been talking about very much. I think its something that’s emerging again, so yeah. Now I do call my self a feminist.
O: So, why did you become a feminist?
Kim:(Laughs) to begin with it was because of the social factors around me. I was brought up in the midlands of England, known as the black county, in a place called Dudley. There was a lot of racism, lots of active racism against me, because I have brown skin. I’m still considered black and so had to be very self determined. I had to be very clear about who I am and what I want. And had to be able to stand up for myself. I had to be firm about not just my difference. Well I had to be assertive, yeah very assertive about my difference; I didn’t like things that were not available for girls. So, I know my grandma (bless her heart) used to bring me a magazine; to begin with it was something like the Diana or the Jackie. There were never any brown or black or anything other than blonde hair and blue eyed girls. (Laughs) and I wanted a wider representation of girls for girls. So, the issues they talked about weren’t anything to do with me. My life wasn’t about hiking! It was about surviving racial attacks and physical abuse on my way from school or dancing or anything else like that I wanted to do. And so I think when I was about 14, 15 I started reading Angela Davis. Which was about not just political but personal decisions that people like her made. And the same I suppose that’s when I became a feminist.
O: So do you think being a feminist has helped you stand up for yourself? (Did it actually help you?)
Kim: Oh yes. Yeah being a feminist is very empowering. It gives you confidence, it gives you confidence to assert your position, you don’t feel a second-class citizen because you’re of a female gender or because you’re a mother. You don’t feel that your physical self, or how people position you because of your physical self makes you any lesser than anybody else. Feminism helps you to realise that. Obviously, its theory. It’s written, but for me it’s also been very practical. Feminists whom I have watched, like Angela Davis, I have watched their certain stance. How they approach life and what they are looking at and considering. So I suppose it’s a sort of… its an international network of thinking. Based on women – being women.
O: So to clarify being a feminist to you mean standing up for yourself? – Is that right?
Kim: Not just standing up for yourself but having a voice. Not feeling that your marginalized or disempowered. So when things happen to me that other people might feel upset or angry about, I think well what would be the feminist critique. What would be the reconfigurement? I know I might be using some long words!! (laughs)
O: I’m sure people will understand.
Kim: Yeah, it gives me the opportunities to explore other approaches, in an intellectual but then a practical way, and it aligns me with other women and that is very important.
O: You know how you were talking about other women?
Kim: Yeah.
O:Do you see yourself as a role model to them?
Kim: Oh! I don’t know I couldn’t consider that. You’d have to ask them. (Laughs)
O: Well, do you see yourself to have any role models? Any people that….
Kim: I have role models. But my role models have changed as I have gone through life. I think certainly to begin with I had role models that were quite domestic. They were quite close. Like my grandmother. She was a single parent but she worked full time. She was a nurse. So she was capable of being very caring and carrying a big big responsibility, but also she looked after her family. She was out in the world of work. I think she learnt to drive when she was in her sixties. So, I mean I have always had role models. My role models have changed from time to time depending on what is happening and what the response is to it. I can’t say that you know that I’ve had one role model all the time. No.
O:So apart from the role models. Did or do you have any strong influences that have helped you on your way to becoming. Get to the point where you call yourself a feminist?
Kim: Did I know anyone else who called themselves feminists?
O: No, have you had any influences that have urged you to become a feminist?
Kim: Oh women’s struggle. Yeah, the struggle of women has always been very inspiring. You know the struggle of women in other countries, like at the moment a lot of the in different parts of the world are having to come to terms with physical abuse and violence. At different points in my working life, the position taken by other women has always been inspiring.
O: Okay. Seen as this is about youth work; what do you do at the moment? As a job/ occupation?
Kim: Well I work part-time for Manchester Metropolitan University as a youth and community work tutor. And I support a lot of students who are on placement, and I teach them in terms of their professional development. So a lot of the feminist perspectives open there. I don’t always say, “ Well this is the feminist perspective!” But I’m thinking it. I mean I don’t know whether the students label me a feminist? But a lot of the theory is certainly black, from a black feminists perspective.
O: So do you want me to tell me about some of your personal experiences and memories?
Kim: Of feminism or youth work?
O: Basically your journey to being a feminist and doing what you do now. And to believing what you believe and stuff.
Kim: Well I mean, one of the things I have always tried to do in terms of my feminist approach to youth work is to do encourage work with young women is essential. It’s essential to encourage young women to network amongst themselves. To learn to support one another. To overcome their differences that exist in society so they can relate to one another as women. Because I firmly believe that we live in a society dominated by men. And that men still have most of the power. We don’t share. We are not equal. So if there is ever the opportunity to advocate for feminist youth work practise and to have separate girls work, I will advocate that. And I’ll encourage and enable to do that. I’ll encourage and enable other women to come together and run and manage things themselves. We are still in a society where adults have to run and organise things.
O: So what would you say are the main issues/problems/inequalities (whichever you prefer to name them) faced by women?
Kim: I think a lot of them, unfortunately are the same as they used to be. I think a lot of them have to do with things like women’s reproductive rights. Women’s sexuality. So you know we’re just beginning to get to grips with civil partnerships, but still they aren’t as equal as heterosexual partnerships. We are beginning to get to grips with women. Whether they’re single women or women as part of a lesbian or same sex relationship. We are beginning to get to grips with them as carers and effective parents. And all of that has taken a very long time. There is still a huge stigma around unmarried mothers. I was talking to a student, just last week, about their experience, and that shows me very clearly that we live in a hegemonic society. We live in a society where there are certain ‘norms’ that dominate, and other things are seen as lesser. So you know I don’t think the work has stopped.
O: Okay. Well have you had any involvement in addressing/ fighting/ or protesting against some of these issues?
Kim: Oh yes. I mean if the trains were not in such a mess I’d be in London, because I wanted to go on ‘Reclaim the Night’ last night, to try and raise awareness of the violence that there is against women. Rape and the threats of violence on the street have increased. Yeah, we are still not paid similar sums of money, to men for our work. Some local authorities are refusing to do that. So I mean its something that I suppose I try to do nearly all the time.
O: Do you have any favourite or most memorable one (protests), that stand out, actual protests or projects that you have been involved in?
Kim: Protests? Projects, Oh there are tones of projects. The development work with the women and girls, I remember. I have got loads of pictures. The development work with women and girls sort of started when I was in Hansworth where I set up the ‘Black women’s’ action group. That was in Hanswoth. We raised money to go on holiday; which was something that women there didn’t do very much. Through that were able do work with girl, because basically I was training them I an approach to do the work. Which I define as feminism; I don’t know whether they did. (Laughs) but then they were able to go off and do other groups, to do other girls groups and all that sort of thing. There was the work that I did in Birmingham. I did work the work at the south Manchester law centre, with some of the women there, setting up a Saheli and Subah. They were Asian women s’ domestic violence projects and that was very good work to do. Subah was for younger women, Saheli was for older women. I worked with some of the Chinese women, to help to set up ‘Wai Yin’ and all of those things. They are partly, they are sort of bittersweet, because you work to set things up and to help others, I would hope, emerging feminists. To become more assertive and to create their own spaces, their own safe spaces and then from there you hope they develop their work. I think, here now you know where we are sat, it is fantastic how this centre has developed (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans Centre in Manchester). I can remember when it didn’t exist, and we used to have to march on the streets in Manchester and argue for centres like this to be available. So out of a centre like this you have a safe space for workers and for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans to come to. So, the groups that are going on here are part of the sort of, original work. I don’t think I’d have any favourites but you know I’ve always tried to work across what’s described as difference. So I wouldn’t say that working with the women on Wai Yin was preferable to working with the women on Saheli or Subah, or working with the women in setting up what was then the lesbian community centre. It was just the gay centre but obviously it’s opened its doors since then and become a wider group. But you know, the sort of struggles against oppression, for me were about giving voice. There about people beginning to understand themselves and how they are, and having the confidence and ability to not just be able to talk about that, but to communicate that. So there are some pieces of work that I did that hasn’t grown in the way this centre (LGBT Centre) has for example. But are no less important. I remember working with Philippina women. I don’t think any of these groups exist anymore. A lot of African groups as well. So you know there are some successes and some that aren’t so successful. But to me that has to do with the core understanding of what feminism is about and faith in the human nature.
O: I think we have a focus on the 1970s-1990s.
Kim: Oh right, well personally I was one of the first black women barristers and I helped with a lot of work around the rights of women. Like the campaign for wages for housework, because I travelled to and from London a lot. There were a lot of immigration campaigns. I have finished doing some work with Women Asylum Seekers Together (WAST) and that work really started with the divided families campaigns and the book Amrit Wilson got together of Asian womens’ voices.
O: Do you want to tell me about your pictures?
Kim: Oh, the pictures that I have brought to try and remind me really, of what I have in trying to put feminism into practice. But they aren’t all youth work focused. They give me ideas and remind me of the things that I have tried to work on and encourage people to work on. So you know, some of the issues we had to campaign on were things like; birthrights, against things like episiotomies, sterilisation without consent. Things like that. I mena the difficulty is that some of these projects, infact most of the projects that I have been involved with, in terms of youth work, have been starved out. There are projects that have either been hidden because they aren’t funded by mainstream funders, or they were sort of done at the same time as others. Or they are projects that only had for example a three year life. I must say that most of the work that I have done has been voluntary, so I haven’t been paid for most of it. It’s been work with other women, sometimes those women have been paid for what they are doing and sometimes they haven’t.
(Pause while taking notes)
O: Do you want to tell me anything else?
Kim: Sorry! I’ve dried up a bit! The difficulty is I can’t remember everything al the time!
O: Why don’t you tell me about motherhood?
Kim: Motherhood. Gosh, well, I was a single parent for 18 years, I think it was. I remember when I was at university. I was outraged! Yes, I was at university in the 70’s doing law. I studied law from 1977 to ’81. I had my first child in 1980 and I remember I was outraged, that we were considered as some sort of social disease. That we were only having children because we wanted to get council flat! I just thought that was ridiculous! There were all sorts of things that I got involved with as a result of that. But you know in my own neighbourhood we had open doors. I still encourage that you know, where people can drop in and you can chat to one another. You could find out how you’re getting on with things. I think you’d call it mentoring buisked coaching or something like that. But they are what I would consider good mentoring techniques and I suppose community development techniques as well. Because I have never been, just a youth work focused, I have been taking people on residentials without being a youth worker. I’ve been like their friend of their companion. So the use of the YHA is different with different women at different times.
O: Is the story about, any of the groups you were telling me about yesterday? When they were all pregnant and cooked for each other, and the Chorlton Parents looking after each other?
Kim: Oh yes I remember. Yeah. That must have been about nineteen years ago now, when I first came to Manchester, there was little child provision. I remember going to shelter conferences and I’d been campaigning for housing for young people who are homeless, or who experience homelessness. And I’d go to these conferences and find there was no crèche. In work, because I have always worked, I found there was little suitable and adequate child care provisions. So I helped to set some up, to begin with it was a self-help group and we became a company limited by guarantee. Now you know it is part of the voluntary sector. The group I did before and after school. To me that’s sort of an example of a feminist community. In know when I think of the time you were mentioning was the time I was in Hansworth. At the time I was a Rastafarian and in know some would consider that as a contradiction, in terms. I didn’t go to church, but I’ve always had faith. I’ve always had a sense of god. So at the time I was a Rastafarian and I knew lots of Rasta women. We had the raniki house was a women’s house in Hansworth. My oldest daughter used to call it the “Ricky house!” A lot of us lived in tall council flat blocks, in Hansworth, so our networks were important. Helping women with childcare and that sort of thing. But I mean, as I said before that practice was more a community thing, then youth work practice really.
O: Have you been involved in any demonstrations or movements? For example on the residential Greenham Common came up?
Kim: No, I wasn’t part of Greenham Common. I was part of a lot of immigration and anti-apartheid campaigns, like the Viraj Mendez defence campaign. When it comes to activism and feminist activism, one of the things that happened was that there was a big split in feminism and black feminists moved away from the sisterhood, I suppose. It was when I was at university in Birmingham and Hazel Carby wrote an article called ‘white women listen.’ I went through a phase where I was totally focusing on work with black women and black communities. Because that is what I felt needed to be done at the time. It’s interesting, because part of the learning experience for me was writing to a white woman, who was in prison as a result of her stance against apartheid. I used to write letters to her because she was in prison and the prison conditions were less than could be desired. I used to send her socks and chocolate, books and all sorts if those things. Because you know as sort of a ‘free women’ in a democratic society I was able to exercise those rights. I thought it was important to use that freedom. So I didn’t go to camp at Greenham Common or anything like that. No, I didn’t do anything like that. I did do marches. I can remember the anti-apartheid marches for various immigration and deportation campaigns. When there were the marches against clause twenty-eight, I attended those. One of the things that happened you see, was that towards the end of the defence campaign was dismantled. Police activity increased, so it became more and more physically dangerous to be ‘active’, on the streets. And of course I had a child with me, because I didn’t have anybody to care for them, while I went out on the campaigns. I mean that would probably be different now, there would probably be people to give me support, so I wouldn’t have to do that. But at that, you know I had to choose; “well I have responsibilities or do I go?” I wasn’t able to sort of say, “ No, I’m not looking after my child!” I usually took thrm with me!! (Laughs)