WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.850 --> 00:00:11.562 Welcome to inclusion bites, your sanctuary 2 00:00:11.626 --> 00:00:15.434 for bold conversations that spark change. I'm Joanne Lockwood, 3 00:00:15.482 --> 00:00:18.974 your guide on this journey of exploration into the heart of 4 00:00:19.012 --> 00:00:22.122 inclusion, belonging and societal 5 00:00:22.186 --> 00:00:25.894 transformation. Ever wondered what a true, what it takes to create 6 00:00:25.932 --> 00:00:29.142 a world where everyone not only belongs, but 7 00:00:29.196 --> 00:00:33.046 thrives? You're not alone. Join me as we 8 00:00:33.068 --> 00:00:36.562 uncover the unseen, challenge the status quo 9 00:00:36.706 --> 00:00:40.362 and share stories that resonate deep within. 10 00:00:40.496 --> 00:00:44.070 Ready to dive in? Whether you're sipping your morning coffee 11 00:00:44.150 --> 00:00:47.306 or winding down after a long day, let's connect, 12 00:00:47.488 --> 00:00:50.880 reflect and inspire action together. 13 00:00:51.250 --> 00:00:54.862 Don't forget, you can be part of the conversation too. Reach 14 00:00:54.916 --> 00:00:55.470 out to 15 00:00:55.540 --> 00:00:59.258 jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk 16 00:00:59.354 --> 00:01:03.120 to share your insights or to join me on the show. 17 00:01:03.570 --> 00:01:07.202 So adjust your earbuds and settle in. It's time 18 00:01:07.256 --> 00:01:10.542 to ignite the spark of inclusion with inclusion 19 00:01:10.606 --> 00:01:11.330 bites. 20 00:01:16.330 --> 00:01:20.130 Today is episode 109 with the title 21 00:01:20.290 --> 00:01:23.926 beyond binaries and I have the absolute honour and privilege to 22 00:01:23.948 --> 00:01:27.586 welcome Cynthia Fortlage. Cynthia is an award winning 23 00:01:27.618 --> 00:01:31.146 gender diversity speaker, consultant and writer, and when I asked 24 00:01:31.168 --> 00:01:34.950 Cynthia to describe her superpower, she said she's one leader 25 00:01:35.030 --> 00:01:38.378 with two genders of experience. Hello, Cynthia, welcome to the 26 00:01:38.384 --> 00:01:42.058 show. Hi Jo. Thanks so much for having me on the show. I'm 27 00:01:42.154 --> 00:01:45.806 excited to be here with you today. Fabulous. So, Cynthia, beyond the 28 00:01:45.828 --> 00:01:49.134 binaries and your. Superpower, tell me, 29 00:01:49.332 --> 00:01:52.754 you know, the work that I do today with organisations is 30 00:01:52.792 --> 00:01:56.578 focused on really dealing with all of the issues 31 00:01:56.744 --> 00:02:00.546 that cover the space of gender diversity. And it's not 32 00:02:00.568 --> 00:02:04.082 gender identity, it is how 33 00:02:04.136 --> 00:02:06.920 diverse gender is. And 34 00:02:07.770 --> 00:02:10.642 I talk about, from a historical 35 00:02:10.706 --> 00:02:14.482 perspective, 10,000 years of understanding 36 00:02:14.546 --> 00:02:17.950 language and history, where clearly 37 00:02:18.050 --> 00:02:21.786 10,000 years ago cultures knew that gender was 38 00:02:21.808 --> 00:02:25.514 not binary. Yet we obviously have a lot of 39 00:02:25.552 --> 00:02:28.090 conversation today about, quote, 40 00:02:28.830 --> 00:02:32.142 the binary of gender, when in fact it's actually 41 00:02:32.196 --> 00:02:35.854 not. Even though in my own personal story, I 42 00:02:35.892 --> 00:02:39.390 always describe it as, quote, flipping my binary 43 00:02:39.730 --> 00:02:43.538 because that was what was right for me. And that 44 00:02:43.624 --> 00:02:47.154 insight coming from the place where I 45 00:02:47.192 --> 00:02:50.562 was, which was when I came to this life 46 00:02:50.616 --> 00:02:54.174 epiphany, I was a C suite working executive 47 00:02:54.302 --> 00:02:57.222 overseeing technology for a 48 00:02:57.356 --> 00:03:01.074 international organisation in North America. Hence 49 00:03:01.122 --> 00:03:04.934 my accent. And that journey to where 50 00:03:04.972 --> 00:03:08.582 I am today has been strewn with a whole bunch 51 00:03:08.646 --> 00:03:12.310 of leadership roles and responsibilities. 52 00:03:12.470 --> 00:03:16.122 In fact, it may interest the audience to know that I 53 00:03:16.176 --> 00:03:19.866 actually learned to fight for women's rights before I ever learnt to 54 00:03:19.888 --> 00:03:23.530 fight for LGBTQ plus or trans rights. 55 00:03:23.690 --> 00:03:27.182 And that very much influences the 56 00:03:27.236 --> 00:03:31.050 lenses by which I look at the challenges 57 00:03:31.130 --> 00:03:34.834 that organisations face. And those challenges that I 58 00:03:34.872 --> 00:03:38.642 talk about are not just within the LGBTQ plus or trans 59 00:03:38.696 --> 00:03:42.322 space. But the issues that impact women, that, 60 00:03:42.376 --> 00:03:46.150 again, relate to. For two and a half years, I was learning 61 00:03:46.220 --> 00:03:49.782 to fight for women's rights across all of Canada, not 62 00:03:49.836 --> 00:03:53.622 just the LGBTQ plus ones, but all women. 63 00:03:53.756 --> 00:03:57.494 And therefore, when I became national leader of 64 00:03:57.532 --> 00:04:01.274 that organisation, I was bringing a voice to all 65 00:04:01.312 --> 00:04:04.534 of women's issues. And so that gives me a very unique 66 00:04:04.582 --> 00:04:08.394 insight as well. Also the fact that I have 67 00:04:08.432 --> 00:04:11.746 never met another C suite level executive 68 00:04:11.878 --> 00:04:15.454 who has transitioned on the job. I'm still looking, 69 00:04:15.572 --> 00:04:19.326 I've met senior people, but never someone who actually has a 70 00:04:19.348 --> 00:04:22.754 C suite role, as I did. And there's some very 71 00:04:22.792 --> 00:04:26.402 unique characteristics that I find come with that 72 00:04:26.456 --> 00:04:29.810 role. That gives me a unique insight into 73 00:04:29.960 --> 00:04:33.538 corporate organisations and especially at the leadership level, 74 00:04:33.704 --> 00:04:36.866 that really needs to be factored in when we talk about roles and 75 00:04:36.888 --> 00:04:40.646 responsibilities of leaders and what does that look like when we talk 76 00:04:40.668 --> 00:04:44.054 about corporate cultures and how that transforms? So I've been very 77 00:04:44.092 --> 00:04:46.886 fortunate to do this work since about 2017, 78 00:04:46.908 --> 00:04:50.614 and I've been fortunate 79 00:04:50.662 --> 00:04:54.442 to deal with almost 500 companies in over 80 00:04:54.496 --> 00:04:57.994 30 different countries to date. I am based here in 81 00:04:58.032 --> 00:05:01.070 London, in the UK, and I am 82 00:05:01.140 --> 00:05:04.926 slowly growing my network and my connections and be 83 00:05:04.948 --> 00:05:08.682 able to speak with diversity specialists, HR 84 00:05:08.746 --> 00:05:12.366 specialists and those that may have challenges within their 85 00:05:12.388 --> 00:05:15.874 organisation where gender is impacting their 86 00:05:15.912 --> 00:05:19.762 employees and they're just not sure what the next step forward is. 87 00:05:19.896 --> 00:05:23.486 And I bring that depth and breadth of insight 88 00:05:23.598 --> 00:05:26.520 in order to help those organisations move forward. 89 00:05:27.370 --> 00:05:31.122 So you talk about gender. So for our listeners, 90 00:05:31.266 --> 00:05:34.982 how would you define the term gender? What does that mean? 91 00:05:35.036 --> 00:05:38.826 Because there's lots of misunderstandings around sex, around gender. So what 92 00:05:38.848 --> 00:05:42.182 is gender? Well, I mean, let's break down what it's 93 00:05:42.246 --> 00:05:46.074 not. It's not what today, people use 94 00:05:46.112 --> 00:05:49.686 the term sex to talk about, quote, biological sex, 95 00:05:49.798 --> 00:05:53.402 which the inference is genitalia. 96 00:05:53.546 --> 00:05:56.910 And the whole idea is, it's not that. That is 97 00:05:57.060 --> 00:06:00.640 one aspect. I describe sex as an act between 98 00:06:01.010 --> 00:06:04.434 two consenting adults. So we have that 99 00:06:04.472 --> 00:06:07.950 aspect. So gender is the innate 100 00:06:08.030 --> 00:06:11.778 sense of who we are, but also 101 00:06:11.864 --> 00:06:15.682 how society perceives us and puts 102 00:06:15.746 --> 00:06:19.426 upon us the roles and expectations 103 00:06:19.618 --> 00:06:23.302 of that perceived gender. So in my case, I 104 00:06:23.356 --> 00:06:27.046 normally get treated as a woman in society, which is 105 00:06:27.148 --> 00:06:30.922 how exactly I see myself, and therefore I see that 106 00:06:30.976 --> 00:06:34.806 as in alignment. But that also means that the oppression 107 00:06:34.918 --> 00:06:38.620 that women in the corporate space and in everyday life 108 00:06:39.230 --> 00:06:42.814 encounter is the same experience that I have. And 109 00:06:42.852 --> 00:06:46.318 so this idea of gender is not 110 00:06:46.404 --> 00:06:49.934 fixed based upon a body part. It 111 00:06:49.972 --> 00:06:53.682 is centred on ourselves, of how we 112 00:06:53.736 --> 00:06:57.474 see ourselves, but also how others are seeing us from 113 00:06:57.512 --> 00:07:00.574 a societal level and of course corporate 114 00:07:00.622 --> 00:07:04.014 cultures are a microcosm 115 00:07:04.142 --> 00:07:07.894 of societal cultures and I don't believe I 116 00:07:07.932 --> 00:07:11.654 can quote change an entire society. So I work with 117 00:07:11.692 --> 00:07:15.446 organisations to try and change and help them change one at 118 00:07:15.468 --> 00:07:18.722 a time. You talked about this concept of gender 119 00:07:18.786 --> 00:07:22.422 being innate. It's not our 120 00:07:22.476 --> 00:07:25.626 sex as such, as how we see ourselves, how the world sees us, how we 121 00:07:25.648 --> 00:07:28.970 align. There's also another phrase I've heard, social 122 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:32.734 construct, and that's applied to gender. So how would 123 00:07:32.772 --> 00:07:36.606 we marry a gender and social construct together? What does 124 00:07:36.628 --> 00:07:40.266 that mean? Great question. The key is to realise 125 00:07:40.298 --> 00:07:43.738 that a social construct is of course something that 126 00:07:43.844 --> 00:07:47.682 doesn't actually exist. It's being created by 127 00:07:47.736 --> 00:07:51.586 society who believes it to be true, but it's actually not. And 128 00:07:51.608 --> 00:07:55.090 I'll give you a couple of simple examples. The first is 129 00:07:55.160 --> 00:07:58.742 prior to the 1940s every baby that was born was put 130 00:07:58.796 --> 00:08:02.438 in a pink blanket. Pink. Yet today 131 00:08:02.524 --> 00:08:06.326 when we talk about colours, the idea that pink is for 132 00:08:06.348 --> 00:08:09.942 girls and blue is for boys is a social construct. 133 00:08:10.006 --> 00:08:13.546 It's not true. Somebody made it up and somewhere it 134 00:08:13.568 --> 00:08:17.306 stuck. Probably through the introduction in terms of 135 00:08:17.328 --> 00:08:21.134 in the hospitals. But that's just one example. Another is 136 00:08:21.172 --> 00:08:24.590 that when we refer to children and we refer 137 00:08:24.660 --> 00:08:28.400 to boys and girls. Well if you go back into 138 00:08:28.770 --> 00:08:32.320 18 hundreds and before, the fact is within 139 00:08:33.030 --> 00:08:36.754 households having slaves, the word boy was used to 140 00:08:36.792 --> 00:08:40.594 refer to a male slave, not to 141 00:08:40.712 --> 00:08:43.954 a male child. In fact all 142 00:08:44.072 --> 00:08:47.574 children had a form of girl is what they were 143 00:08:47.612 --> 00:08:51.286 called. So society has advanced language, we 144 00:08:51.308 --> 00:08:54.754 have changed the use of that language. We've 145 00:08:54.802 --> 00:08:58.374 repurposed the word boy to describe a male 146 00:08:58.422 --> 00:09:02.074 child in this case. And along the 147 00:09:02.112 --> 00:09:05.690 way we have somehow come to believe 148 00:09:05.840 --> 00:09:09.594 that these have always been. When in fact many 149 00:09:09.632 --> 00:09:13.230 of these things have only existed within the last few 150 00:09:13.300 --> 00:09:16.560 hundred years, probably within 600 or less years. 151 00:09:16.930 --> 00:09:20.350 But when we talk about the societies of human 152 00:09:20.420 --> 00:09:23.922 beings, we talk about histories that are 10,000 years 153 00:09:23.976 --> 00:09:27.714 old or older so they're not new. 154 00:09:27.912 --> 00:09:31.550 And it just shows that language is ever changing 155 00:09:31.710 --> 00:09:35.326 and therefore our social understanding of what these 156 00:09:35.368 --> 00:09:38.818 words mean is also constantly changing. 157 00:09:38.914 --> 00:09:42.550 Yeah, I'm a big fan of the work that 158 00:09:42.620 --> 00:09:46.086 I often refer to as the gender box. And this is kind of 159 00:09:46.108 --> 00:09:49.714 societal's role, expectations of one's 160 00:09:49.762 --> 00:09:53.466 gender. And it has a lot of roles, doesn't it? The gender box. It 161 00:09:53.488 --> 00:09:56.218 says if you're a woman you must behave like this, if you're a man you 162 00:09:56.224 --> 00:09:59.834 must behave like that. And the thing that I always think about is 163 00:09:59.872 --> 00:10:03.722 that I always think of gender is proportionate or directly 164 00:10:03.786 --> 00:10:07.454 entwined with time, space and civilizations. So 165 00:10:07.492 --> 00:10:11.342 that the expectations of that gender box for a man, 166 00:10:11.396 --> 00:10:14.894 for a woman, for whatever is different today in 167 00:10:14.932 --> 00:10:18.574 2024 than it was in 1820, 417 168 00:10:18.622 --> 00:10:22.318 24, different in China, different in India, different in Saudi 169 00:10:22.334 --> 00:10:25.854 Arabia, different in North America. Exactly. It's the construct 170 00:10:25.982 --> 00:10:29.586 we've created within the society we're living in right now, isn't 171 00:10:29.618 --> 00:10:33.366 it? Oh, it is mean. You know, to take your example a 172 00:10:33.388 --> 00:10:37.174 little further back, if we look at Cleopatra, who 173 00:10:37.212 --> 00:10:40.906 was a pharaoh in Egypt, yet pharaoh was an 174 00:10:40.928 --> 00:10:44.778 assumed male role. So how was this woman all of a 175 00:10:44.784 --> 00:10:48.298 sudden had this role as pharaoh? Right. It was completely 176 00:10:48.384 --> 00:10:51.870 counter to their time, 177 00:10:52.020 --> 00:10:55.166 to the change. But the other aspect is 178 00:10:55.348 --> 00:10:58.894 that when we talk about these aspects and 179 00:10:58.932 --> 00:11:02.414 thinking that everything is binary, black and 180 00:11:02.452 --> 00:11:05.474 white, one, two, on, off, 181 00:11:05.672 --> 00:11:09.426 whatever version of a binary acronym that you want to think of, 182 00:11:09.448 --> 00:11:13.282 ones and zeros for those that are in the computer industry, the reality is 183 00:11:13.336 --> 00:11:16.822 that what people keep forgetting to factor into this 184 00:11:16.876 --> 00:11:20.534 conversation, if you black out kind of all the 185 00:11:20.652 --> 00:11:24.402 perceived aspects and only focus in, say, from a biological 186 00:11:24.466 --> 00:11:28.138 perspective, because a lot of people go there, the challenge is from a 187 00:11:28.144 --> 00:11:31.722 biological perspective, absolutely. Everybody I talk to 188 00:11:31.776 --> 00:11:35.370 forgets the intersex community. Now, intersex people 189 00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:38.982 represent about 2% of any country's 190 00:11:39.046 --> 00:11:42.894 population. Now, the key is many of them do not know their 191 00:11:42.932 --> 00:11:46.494 intersex until they actually have a medical encounter that 192 00:11:46.532 --> 00:11:50.186 requires the discovery, usually from a genetic 193 00:11:50.218 --> 00:11:54.066 analysis, that they're intersex. Now, that means that out 194 00:11:54.088 --> 00:11:57.854 of the about seven physical characteristics 195 00:11:57.902 --> 00:12:01.694 that are biological in our body, within the intersex 196 00:12:01.742 --> 00:12:05.542 community, they are completely varied. And you know what? It makes complete 197 00:12:05.596 --> 00:12:09.110 sense, because when we look at all 198 00:12:09.180 --> 00:12:12.934 aspects of a human being, tell me what 199 00:12:12.972 --> 00:12:16.694 aspects are binary? Because when we talk 200 00:12:16.732 --> 00:12:20.214 about whether it be skin colour or hair colour, eye 201 00:12:20.262 --> 00:12:23.498 colour, we talk about our height, our size, 202 00:12:23.664 --> 00:12:26.694 but we're not this homogeneous 203 00:12:26.822 --> 00:12:30.406 binary group. We are so diverse and 204 00:12:30.528 --> 00:12:34.334 the spectrum is so wide that at the end of the day, the 205 00:12:34.372 --> 00:12:37.742 fact is that biologically we 206 00:12:37.796 --> 00:12:41.582 are very diverse. And from a human 207 00:12:41.636 --> 00:12:44.914 being perspective, that is represented within the 208 00:12:44.952 --> 00:12:48.290 intersex community, that shows that all of these 209 00:12:48.360 --> 00:12:51.826 aspects assumed to be binary, in fact, are not. 210 00:12:51.928 --> 00:12:55.654 And from there, we add on the layers of 211 00:12:55.692 --> 00:12:59.302 people's innate sense of identity, as well as 212 00:12:59.436 --> 00:13:03.094 components of sexuality, the privilege that 213 00:13:03.132 --> 00:13:06.806 comes with that, when we talk about power and privilege from an 214 00:13:06.828 --> 00:13:10.202 allyship perspective, but how are people 215 00:13:10.256 --> 00:13:13.770 oppressed, which is how are they perceived within 216 00:13:13.840 --> 00:13:17.674 societies? And all of these factors may be seen or 217 00:13:17.712 --> 00:13:21.246 unseen. We are faced with 218 00:13:21.348 --> 00:13:24.702 helping folks wake up to the fact that this is 219 00:13:24.756 --> 00:13:28.110 so much of a spectrum 220 00:13:28.450 --> 00:13:32.214 when it was originally perceived as simply a binary. 221 00:13:32.362 --> 00:13:35.730 Yet that's only in the last few hundred 222 00:13:35.800 --> 00:13:38.866 years, not in the totality of the 223 00:13:38.888 --> 00:13:42.658 existence of human beings. And the reality is 224 00:13:42.744 --> 00:13:46.354 that it's not that more people are becoming known as 225 00:13:46.392 --> 00:13:50.054 that. And everybody uses the study of 226 00:13:50.092 --> 00:13:53.414 left handedness where at one point it was illegal and then it was 227 00:13:53.452 --> 00:13:57.174 considered, well, if you write or use or dominant with your left 228 00:13:57.212 --> 00:13:59.820 hand, then you are 229 00:14:00.670 --> 00:14:04.506 working with the devil, and that's the devil's hand. And when 230 00:14:04.528 --> 00:14:07.830 we got rid of all of those societal bias 231 00:14:07.990 --> 00:14:11.258 of perceiving those things as untrue 232 00:14:11.434 --> 00:14:15.230 and they were just a way to classify and 233 00:14:15.380 --> 00:14:19.086 box a particular part of the population, there 234 00:14:19.108 --> 00:14:22.618 was an increase, quote, in the people that identified 235 00:14:22.714 --> 00:14:26.414 as left handed when it was perfectly legal to do so, and they weren't 236 00:14:26.462 --> 00:14:30.050 necessarily shamed as such. And when they did that, 237 00:14:30.200 --> 00:14:33.986 the numbers plateaued out and they plateaued out around the 238 00:14:34.008 --> 00:14:37.558 10% mark. And so we know that within probably 239 00:14:37.724 --> 00:14:41.154 a number of these aspects, there's 240 00:14:41.202 --> 00:14:44.934 probably, quote, the population, about 10% fit in. 241 00:14:44.972 --> 00:14:48.550 So when we talk about, for instance, the LGBTQ plus 242 00:14:48.700 --> 00:14:51.866 community as a whole, based upon the 243 00:14:51.888 --> 00:14:55.690 2022 census in the UK, that represented about 244 00:14:55.760 --> 00:14:59.514 9.2% of the population. So it's kind 245 00:14:59.552 --> 00:15:02.766 of there. So to say that the entire 246 00:15:02.868 --> 00:15:06.366 population of gender diverse people is strictly the 247 00:15:06.388 --> 00:15:10.190 0.5% that was quoted is probably 248 00:15:10.260 --> 00:15:14.106 an understatement, but it's probably an understatement that some people just didn't 249 00:15:14.138 --> 00:15:17.650 feel safe enough in order to make that declaration. And I 250 00:15:17.720 --> 00:15:21.282 certainly remember my own personal journey. That was 251 00:15:21.416 --> 00:15:24.802 not a simple journey to get to that point before I could ever 252 00:15:24.936 --> 00:15:28.626 literally utter those words. It didn't happen till 253 00:15:28.658 --> 00:15:31.894 I was 50, and I did not see 254 00:15:32.012 --> 00:15:35.654 myself represented when I looked in a mirror. I did not 255 00:15:35.692 --> 00:15:39.254 see myself reflected till I was 52 years old. That's 256 00:15:39.302 --> 00:15:43.114 picking up on another phrase you said earlier, is 257 00:15:43.152 --> 00:15:46.954 gender equity. I look back, obviously, I'm not this old, 258 00:15:46.992 --> 00:15:50.174 but I look back through history and we 259 00:15:50.212 --> 00:15:53.642 see that men, women, male, 260 00:15:53.706 --> 00:15:57.374 female, in terms of sex, in terms of gender, have 261 00:15:57.412 --> 00:16:01.022 had very kind of fixed rule sets imposed on them. 262 00:16:01.076 --> 00:16:04.322 And there's almost been a concept that men are 263 00:16:04.376 --> 00:16:07.394 superior and women are less or are 264 00:16:07.432 --> 00:16:11.074 inferior, and that's been kind of reinforced in the 265 00:16:11.112 --> 00:16:14.866 gender roles that have evolved to where we are now, but 266 00:16:14.888 --> 00:16:18.214 maybe even more apparent with the disneyfication of 267 00:16:18.252 --> 00:16:21.846 gender, Snow White and the seven dwarfs view of the 268 00:16:21.868 --> 00:16:25.570 world. But we wind that back to victorian times in the UK 269 00:16:25.650 --> 00:16:29.190 and beyond, those very fixed rules about women 270 00:16:29.260 --> 00:16:32.902 were incapable or perceived incapable of doing certain roles, weren't they? 271 00:16:32.956 --> 00:16:36.506 So where does that come from, do you? I mean, you 272 00:16:36.528 --> 00:16:40.074 know, to your point, all we have to simply look at, to understand what 273 00:16:40.112 --> 00:16:43.386 even know victorian era. And that, just look at the movie Mary 274 00:16:43.418 --> 00:16:46.718 Poppins. It very much demonstrated those 275 00:16:46.804 --> 00:16:50.218 expectations. Mr. Banks was a banker, 276 00:16:50.314 --> 00:16:54.074 right, and his wife was bucking the trend 277 00:16:54.122 --> 00:16:57.730 and she was fighting for the right to vote. Yet if we 278 00:16:57.800 --> 00:17:01.650 trace back the history of when did all of these things kind of change, 279 00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:05.438 it really correlates with colonisation and 280 00:17:05.624 --> 00:17:09.334 the realisation that colonisation on its own, which 281 00:17:09.532 --> 00:17:12.806 the UK and England was not the only country 282 00:17:12.908 --> 00:17:15.910 colonising the world, but when those 283 00:17:15.980 --> 00:17:19.590 colonisers went into these foreign lands 284 00:17:19.670 --> 00:17:23.322 where they had much different understanding of 285 00:17:23.376 --> 00:17:26.634 gender, they also brought religion, and it was 286 00:17:26.672 --> 00:17:30.446 reinforced within religion. And so when we talk 287 00:17:30.468 --> 00:17:34.186 about colonisers, we really can't separate it from the conversation 288 00:17:34.378 --> 00:17:37.374 of a religious understanding or 289 00:17:37.412 --> 00:17:41.246 limitation. Now, when we talk about that, I've got my 290 00:17:41.268 --> 00:17:44.846 own unique history with it. I was born in Belfast, Northern 291 00:17:44.878 --> 00:17:48.462 Ireland, and I was a Protestant. 292 00:17:48.606 --> 00:17:52.354 But unfortunately, the troubles in the early 70s 293 00:17:52.392 --> 00:17:56.134 chased my family away. And so I grew up in Canada, where I 294 00:17:56.172 --> 00:18:00.006 acquired this wonderful accent. And in doing so, I 295 00:18:00.028 --> 00:18:03.650 ended up meeting this wonderful person and we got married 296 00:18:03.810 --> 00:18:07.586 and I converted to being a Catholic. And in fact, I 297 00:18:07.628 --> 00:18:11.046 was so much a Catholic, I even taught catechism to adults. 298 00:18:11.158 --> 00:18:14.730 Now, that showed me a. The huge 299 00:18:14.800 --> 00:18:18.314 amount of similarities that were brought between, even 300 00:18:18.352 --> 00:18:22.142 though there was really just kind of a couple 301 00:18:22.196 --> 00:18:25.438 of the aspects of how each group 302 00:18:25.524 --> 00:18:29.374 practises the religion that separates them. But they were 303 00:18:29.412 --> 00:18:32.814 generally very similar. When we start to go 304 00:18:32.852 --> 00:18:36.050 backwards in time, if we look at, well, 305 00:18:36.200 --> 00:18:39.922 today, a lot of people want to quote the books they use. 306 00:18:39.976 --> 00:18:43.650 Well, which book is that? Because you end up having, 307 00:18:43.720 --> 00:18:47.286 of course, the Old Testament. Well, the Old Testament is the 308 00:18:47.308 --> 00:18:50.774 Jewish Torah, and then we have the New 309 00:18:50.812 --> 00:18:54.598 Testament that was put together. And if we talk about from a 310 00:18:54.604 --> 00:18:58.330 muslim faith perspective, not only is it 311 00:18:58.480 --> 00:19:02.186 the culmination of the Torah, there 312 00:19:02.208 --> 00:19:05.514 is no New Testament to it. So it's the 313 00:19:05.552 --> 00:19:09.382 Torah and aspects of the Old Testament 314 00:19:09.446 --> 00:19:13.134 from the Christian Bible, along with their 315 00:19:13.172 --> 00:19:17.006 own specific historical practises. And when 316 00:19:17.028 --> 00:19:20.430 I see that happening, it's like, oh, my gosh. 317 00:19:20.770 --> 00:19:24.546 The similarities of the points of origin and these 318 00:19:24.648 --> 00:19:28.274 books are not a single book. They are a 319 00:19:28.312 --> 00:19:31.794 culmination of many different writers from 320 00:19:31.912 --> 00:19:35.042 many different lands, creating the 321 00:19:35.096 --> 00:19:38.646 stories, recalling the stories, not in the 322 00:19:38.668 --> 00:19:42.102 moment, in time. Some of it was hundreds of years 323 00:19:42.156 --> 00:19:45.958 later. And the fact is that we know that through the 324 00:19:45.964 --> 00:19:49.782 Dead Sea scrolls and so forth, that through a number of finds, 325 00:19:49.846 --> 00:19:53.354 there have been multiple quote of 326 00:19:53.392 --> 00:19:57.110 these chapters, books that have been found historically, 327 00:19:57.190 --> 00:20:01.018 that through the process of, quote, creating the books that 328 00:20:01.024 --> 00:20:04.858 are used, they just opted not to use certain parts. 329 00:20:05.034 --> 00:20:08.122 And to me it was intriguing, certainly from a christian 330 00:20:08.186 --> 00:20:11.966 perspective, given that was my background, that many of 331 00:20:11.988 --> 00:20:15.566 the books that were created by women were not included. 332 00:20:15.678 --> 00:20:19.314 None of them were included in the final product that we see in 333 00:20:19.352 --> 00:20:23.118 use today, not the least, which was there was a rewrite 334 00:20:23.214 --> 00:20:27.046 for the evangelical community in the 1940s. There's a 335 00:20:27.068 --> 00:20:30.886 whole documentary that's out there that talks about this, and it 336 00:20:30.908 --> 00:20:34.150 was a reinterpretation. And the introduction 337 00:20:34.890 --> 00:20:38.706 of basically same sex relations are a big no 338 00:20:38.748 --> 00:20:42.220 no when that's not actually in the original text. 339 00:20:42.670 --> 00:20:45.690 So we have seen this manipulation 340 00:20:46.110 --> 00:20:49.802 of what we believe to be the truth that has 341 00:20:49.856 --> 00:20:53.454 happened through, you know, people are just doing it to, 342 00:20:53.492 --> 00:20:57.214 quote, create the advantage. So that's why within, say, 343 00:20:57.252 --> 00:21:01.098 the Catholic Church, we still don't see female priests 344 00:21:01.194 --> 00:21:04.782 and being able. You can have lay women practising 345 00:21:04.846 --> 00:21:08.034 and helping with service, but they cannot be 346 00:21:08.072 --> 00:21:11.634 ordained. Yet we have seen other religions, such 347 00:21:11.672 --> 00:21:15.334 as Church of England and others who now are 348 00:21:15.372 --> 00:21:18.882 much more open and they're much more inclusive of realising 349 00:21:18.946 --> 00:21:22.646 that carrying the word carrying. This 350 00:21:22.748 --> 00:21:26.294 interpretation is not restricted to a 351 00:21:26.332 --> 00:21:29.100 particular identity. It is actually 352 00:21:29.470 --> 00:21:33.066 multifaceted. And perhaps in the future 353 00:21:33.248 --> 00:21:36.954 that we will see rewrites and reinterpretations that will 354 00:21:36.992 --> 00:21:40.694 bring in a much more blended understanding, 355 00:21:40.822 --> 00:21:44.526 even though that's not where we're at today. And again, this is 356 00:21:44.548 --> 00:21:48.046 not history. That's a day in the making or a year in the making. 357 00:21:48.228 --> 00:21:52.014 This has been hundreds of years in the making. And that's why 358 00:21:52.052 --> 00:21:55.666 we assume it to be as it 359 00:21:55.688 --> 00:21:59.218 is, binary, when in fact none of it actually is. 360 00:21:59.304 --> 00:22:03.106 Yeah, I think you probably trace it back even further. You 361 00:22:03.128 --> 00:22:06.742 think about the roman empire. The men 362 00:22:06.796 --> 00:22:09.990 were generally off to work, I. E. 363 00:22:10.060 --> 00:22:13.650 Fighting swords, shields, defending or attacking 364 00:22:13.810 --> 00:22:17.586 women, childbearing, nurturing, caring. And those 365 00:22:17.628 --> 00:22:21.222 gender roles are starting to establish, before the birth 366 00:22:21.366 --> 00:22:24.986 of Christ, the mythical sort of like zero 367 00:22:25.088 --> 00:22:28.714 ad sort of time. Yeah, absolutely. Sorry. You keep 368 00:22:28.752 --> 00:22:32.426 going. Yeah, I don't think it's modern 369 00:22:32.458 --> 00:22:35.518 Catholicism or modern Christianity that is the. 370 00:22:35.684 --> 00:22:39.402 These gender roles have been ingrained 371 00:22:39.546 --> 00:22:43.102 in many societies, just down to the fact that many 372 00:22:43.156 --> 00:22:46.594 women bear children. Therefore their role is more 373 00:22:46.632 --> 00:22:50.226 nurturing and home based. Many men are the 374 00:22:50.248 --> 00:22:53.506 hunter gatherer, the killer. They go out, and you can almost see that 375 00:22:53.528 --> 00:22:57.286 mirrored in animal wildlife type 376 00:22:57.388 --> 00:22:59.960 roles as well, where there are kind of 377 00:23:00.890 --> 00:23:04.710 evolutionary gender roles. Maybe sometimes 378 00:23:04.860 --> 00:23:08.646 in the lions, the females do the killing and the males do 379 00:23:08.668 --> 00:23:12.326 the lazing around. But overall protect and procreate. So there's slightly 380 00:23:12.358 --> 00:23:15.782 different roles, but there are generally fixed roles that been evolved. 381 00:23:15.846 --> 00:23:19.226 And I guess as a human species, we fell into that kind of, 382 00:23:19.328 --> 00:23:23.130 that same sort of thinking, I guess, in our prehistoric times. 383 00:23:23.280 --> 00:23:26.750 Yeah, I don't think in prehistoric it was, quote, as 384 00:23:26.820 --> 00:23:30.314 articulated in the same way. I mean, I'm 385 00:23:30.362 --> 00:23:34.066 rereading Mary Beardy's feminist manifesto, kind of 386 00:23:34.088 --> 00:23:37.282 understanding the power of women. 387 00:23:37.416 --> 00:23:41.140 And when you look at that, she makes an amazing 388 00:23:41.510 --> 00:23:45.300 statement. That was news to me when I first read it. 389 00:23:45.610 --> 00:23:49.138 When we go back to about 4000 bce 390 00:23:49.314 --> 00:23:52.374 in the greek world, there was 391 00:23:52.572 --> 00:23:55.574 a greek philosopher who wrote the 392 00:23:55.612 --> 00:23:58.890 original, if you will, role of women 393 00:23:59.040 --> 00:24:02.362 document. So that puts it at about 6000 years 394 00:24:02.416 --> 00:24:06.234 ago. And literally everything you just talked about is 395 00:24:06.272 --> 00:24:09.814 what was embodied in that document and it's 396 00:24:09.862 --> 00:24:13.230 from there. So if we want to trace it back, at least from a 397 00:24:13.300 --> 00:24:17.118 written evidentiary based process, it 398 00:24:17.204 --> 00:24:20.842 probably started 6000 years ago because the roman 399 00:24:20.906 --> 00:24:24.386 empire came after the greek legend. So 400 00:24:24.488 --> 00:24:27.698 Rome was basing itself on all of this 401 00:24:27.784 --> 00:24:30.914