‘MEN SHOULD HAVE A 10% PAY CUT SO THEY KNOW HOW IT FEELS!’

Author and campaigner Shirley Conran headed up marches and protests for equality in the Seventies

Idon’t have a problem saying I am a feminist because I was there at the barricades. I am one of the ringleaders! As a journalist in Fleet Street I was part of a group called Women in Media, campaigning for equality. There were various things we did, such as a sit-down in front of Scotland Yard and an all-night protest in Trafalgar Square, but the biggest was a march to Downing Street in 1973.

I was leading the march down Whitehall. We had police guards but when we got to Downing Street, I didn’t know what to do. Here we were, in front of the Prime Minister’s door, and we never thought we’d get that far,

so we hadn’t discussed it. One of the policemen on a horse leaned down and helpfully said, ‘They generally hand in a letter at this stage.’ I didn’t have paper or a pen. He ripped a piece out of his notebook and I wrote down a two-liner in pencil saying we wanted equality, which was handed in to Edward Heath.

At the time of the protests we were called man-haters. I remember one woman saying to me, ‘I’m not a feminist but of course I believe in fair play.’ That is what feminism is! It would really have depressed us to know that nearly 50 years later we still don’t have equal pay. I suggest one way of getting it is to reduce men’s pay by 10% – why not? Then men would know exactly

what it felt like and all the men in the land would rise up.

At 17, it seemed I went from being an ordinary schoolgirl to a beautiful one. I had the same face but all men seemed to be lunging at me, to put it politely. By the time I was 21, I knew that all men did it to all women. That’s got to stop.

It is good that women are coming out saying that sexual harassment is unacceptable. There should be zero tolerance about being touched if you don’t want it. Fish need their own space and if you try to pinch a fish’s bottom it will leap in the other direction. In the same way, we should be allowed our own space, and no one should be allowed to touch it.

When we protested we were called manhaters