Ann Henderson – Former Rector at Edinburgh University.

 Raquel from FiLiA in conversation with Ann Henderson.

Raquel: Today, we are delighted to speak with Ann Henderson who is the former rector at the University of Edinburgh, and she was the second female to hold that position. She has a very diverse career. She has worked as a parliamentary researcher in the Scottish Parliament from 1999 and has a background in the railway industry and the women's movement and worked for British Rail in Glasgow for nearly 15 years, initially as a station staff and later as a train crew, including as a train driver and was the Scotland Commissioner on the Women's National Commission prior to its closure in December 2010.

Ann gained experience in public appointments and also the benefits of working across devolved nations in sharing policy and practice. Recently on June 9th, she wrote an essay for the feminist campaigning organisation, WPUK, Woman's Place UK and she spoke about her three-year tenure at the university of Edinburgh and some of the targeting that she received for her defence on women's rights and sex based rights.

So, first of all, you publish this on the 9th of June, today we are at the end of July, how are you feeling now that it is all out there? 

Ann Henderson: Well, it was bothering me and concerned me during my three-year term, not just how I was feeling personally, but more importantly, how the university or how students and staff in the university were engaging with, or not engaging with, what was very much alive across many academic campuses, but also in society more widely. I think probably writing some of it down was helpful for me and just putting some of my concerns on the record. 

I was surprised at the level of interest there was, and the level of support that came from women and men across the country, or in terms of on social media and private emails and so on. And that was obviously lovely and important, but I guess I'm still, there are unresolved questions, I guess. And I feel that I don't want my term as Rector, the second female Rector in 159 years, to be remembered by that one issue.

So that's what I was thinking about because I raised in my piece that was published, conversations that had been raising other questions, which are linked, but around governance around freedom of speech around how institutions conduct themselves and respect views and so on.

So mixed feelings I guess might be the best ways to put it which we can talk through some of today. 

Raquel:  And just to give some sort of overview to our listeners, this issue in the targeting that you receive as Rector started in October 2018. It seems now perhaps because the climate has changed a little bit, that it was disproportionate because what you did is that you retweeted an invitation that was extended to all MPs.

It was a formal invitation by Fairplay for Women to a meeting in parliament so that they could discuss a public policy issue that was live at the moment. The campaigning group Fair Play for Women was raising awareness about the Gender Recognition Act and the potential impact that a reform of this law would have on women and children.

And they organised to speak to the legislators about this matter. So they created this invitation and they made it public on social media. And you didn't say anything about it. You retweeted the invitation. This was October 2018.

Ann Henderson: Yeah. So there is some background to that in terms of it wasn't possible to put absolutely everything, nor appropriate to put everything in the piece that I wrote that was published on WPUK website. 

So in August 2018, it was the summer holidays, the students were not on campus at my university, and it was the summer break. But in August 2018, I had already been elected as Rector, I was elected, and this is important as well, I was elected by students and staff, Edinburgh University in Scotland is the only university which has that electorate. The other Rector positions in universities in Scotland are elected only by students, but my electorate, if you like was with students and staff, and I had been elected by students and staff, it was a contested election.

So I was elected by a student and staff body that knew my track record. If you like around our movement so the reason I'm mentioning it is that in August, I was running in a different election in the Labour Party and the Labour students at Edinburgh University, in August, put an attack on line in the context of that Labour Party election for the National Executive Committee, accusing me of transphobia because I followed WPUK amongst my followers on Twitter. Somebody had gone through my list of who I followed and made allegations of transphobia and in their statement on social media that summer in August 2018, the Labour students at Edinburgh University, amongst other things, said I was not fit hold office as Rector at the university.

I can track it back a little bit farther than in October when I did re-tweet that. I wanted to see engagement, as I said in my article, I wanted to see engagement from a wide range of women's views and with the public consultation process on the Gender Recognition Act reforms at Westminster.

Earlier in the summer, I had already run into what I know many, many, many others have experienced of feeling followed and kind of stalked if you like on Twitter with people looking to see what you're reading and what you're following and there by association drawing the conclusion that I was in some way involved in transphobic or hateful behaviour, none of which was of course true.

By October, it broke out and in a much bigger way. So when I'm looking back over the year, within a very short time of having been elected in the knowledge that I have a past, I have a history of activism and work for women's rights and in the trade union movement, somehow that was turned on its head by October.

I find all that extremely difficult to deal with and not based on fact. 

Raquel: I was meaning to just interject, to say that you were elected to the role with 77% of the votes cast. So it seems that it was decisive that you won that election.

Ann Henderson: Yeah, yeah, for sure. And the election took place in the winter of 2018, basically, so January, February, and it was in the middle of the UCU dispute on pensions. And I was on the picket lines. I was campaigning and the Students Association at that time was solidly behind, also joining in the campaigning. So I was very kind of like visible and around to what was happening on campus and invited to different places to see different activities and just kind of around.

And I met the other candidate, there was one other candidate, who had quite high profile. A recent graduate who had quite high student profile and had more recent contact with the university community than I had, much more. We did hustings, we did leafleting, spoke to students and staff, and I won, of those who voted, with an overwhelming majority 

Raquel: What did that 77% voted for? What were your campaigning topics? 

Ann Henderson: One of my little campaign team’s slogans was the Rector can ask question. I was clear I was going to be a campaigning rector. The Rector’s post over the last 160 odd years has had different people fulfil the role in different ways, but I wanted to be an additional voice for students and staff. That would be the way I would describe that part.  The kind of functions, the official formal functions of the role of Rector is to chair the University Court. And you have a part, and those are like your formal, and a number of other formal duties, a bit of an ambassador for the university. 

We included some demands around childcare, around good working conditions for all staff. And yeah, there were a kind of range of demands, but those kinds of things about the Rector will ask questions on your behalf, treat me as if you like an extra voice.

And we held regular surgeries, did newsletters. This is all a voluntary role, just to be clear. There's no financial gain, not a paid role, and that actually was something that in our campaign team, we had discussed, hoping to raise over the three years of my term of office, because by definition, an awful lot of people, particularly women will be excluded from running for office for something which takes up quite a lot of time and brings with it no support, really, essentially.

So there, those kinds of things, better governance, you know, looking at governance questions. So without going into detail on this call. The Higher Education Act 2016 in Scotland had brought some changes to the way that University Courts operate or should operate.

And so I was going to be the first Director following those changes. So I had an interest in seeing how they worked, if they met some of the ambitions of the 2016 legislation around greater accountability and a better role for the trade unions, which I was sympathetic to.

I mean, for various reasons we didn't get a chance to do some of that work, but, I went into the post thinking that there would be a chance to improve voice, improve accountability. And we were very keen to increase participation in the elections on campus. And we didn't really succeed in that. The turnout wasn't greater than three years previous.

We wanted to have that discussion if you like with senior management and with the students, longer term, because elected positions should engage as many people as possible. If you know what I mean? So we were sort of looking at things around that as well.

There were more voice, certainly around women's lives, around equality, or in childcare and working conditions, those kinds of things. 

Raquel: You wrote on your essay about precisely this issue that you went into the role with policies that you wanted to develop. 

So you wrote: policies on which I had hoped to use my time and work constructively, including tackling the lack of childcare, around harassment and violence against women, on widening the access to higher education, and the importance of the university's relationship with the City of Edinburgh remain undeveloped. 

So I think that there's an interesting juxtaposition between the efforts that you went into the role wanting to focus on, and then this bizarre side in which you have students policing who you follow where you do not follow on social media. I mean, it takes your breath away because social media, unlike life in general, you're supposed to be exposed to different points of view.

You know, I'm sure there are people on Twitter that I follow that I do not agree with, but I need to listen to what they're saying. For example, I think I used to follow Donald Trump when he was there not because I agree with him, but because I need to know what it is that you say to people, but, but this idea that there's an entitlement element in: ‘let's see who Ann Henderson is following on Twitter and make assumptions based on that’.

Did you feel intimidated?

Ann Henderson: I couldn't believe it to be honest. I just couldn't believe that a group of students could publicly, and some of whom had signed my nomination form to become Rector, the Labour students. I couldn't believe that based on someone else telling them who I followed, which it's not a secret, of course you can look on Twitter and see who you follow. That this was enough to disregard, like my 50 odd years of life of campaigning. Well, more than that forever. Do you know what, like years of campaigning and working together, and I'd spoken at the Labour Club the year before about women and trade unions and where there were common causes with student women and you know, before I was ever even asked to stand as reactor.

And I just couldn't believe it, it was a disbelief, it was very hurtful, but it was disbelief as much as anything else. I was like, how can this be? How can people conclude based on who I follow on social media, that I'm not fit to hold the office of Rector, that office to which I was elected only less than six months earlier.

I just couldn't believe it really. It's kept happening of course, because once it started, as you know, social media then keeps repeating an allegation without actually evidencing anything. But I think the idea, and I know many, you know, others have spoken about this as well. The idea that by association, you must therefore be a bad person.

I was thinking, if we didn't have social media and somebody physically followed me around a library and made comment on which book I lifted off the shelf to flick through. You would be outraged and at that level it does feel like you're being followed. It feels like you're being stalked. and that has kept happening with these different things over the last two or three years, and it's not a way of conducting a political discussion, but it's also not a way of making a conclusion about a person. It's really inhumane and absolutely hurtful. You wouldn't criticize someone for picking up a magazine or a newspaper or a book. 

So after the first thing in August, I went and I looked at online apps. I mean, I'd been following WPUK because it was interesting and I knew a number of the women who were involved at the beginning and I've played back more of the talks. And I mean, this is the other thing, all WPUK lectures and the seminar sessions, as you know, are all recorded. They're all online. They're there for anybody to hear and play back. So later on, when tweets appear retweeted by other people, which then attach other sentences and allegations to things WPUK have said, they're not true.

And WPUK later in one or two of the instances around me were successful in getting material taken down from Twitter, because it was just not true. 

It's in the public domain, it's there, there is nothing to hide and the number of the women, like, unless I was listening back in the summer, I played more of the talks back and I'm listening to Bea Campbell, who I was on the Women's National Commission with and other women that I've worked with in the past and the trade union movement in my career and thinking this cannot possibly be a crime to listen to this woman's concerns and points of view.

And I agree with a number of the questions they're raising and a number of things they're saying. In the holding role of Rector for me, the issue was not whether or not I personally agreed with everything, certainly not initially, it was about, was about how will the university engage with what's a public discussion. How do we want our policymakers and our lawmakers to be informed and good policy and good laws are not made by only listening to one view. They have to be robust and tested out and through that scrutiny, unintended consequences of the legal changes proposed will emerge.

And so it was a live discussion in 2018, as we know, and one of the things that the students by the October criticisms, the public criticisms following on later on in October, there were regular exchanges or were not exchanges because I didn't engage with it on Twitter. There were regular statements by the Edinburgh University Students Association and by the Labour club. And they were running sessions to encourage students to complete responses to the public consultation on the Gender Recognition Act at UK level, fine. They’re entitled to do that.

 But they were publicly posting: ‘come and find out what we think ie the Students Association and the Labour club. And so on. This will have no impact on the Equality Act. This is a lie that's being spread around by transphobic people by women who don't, aren't interested in equality and so on and so on’.

The line prior to the closing date of the public consultation was repeatedly: this will not impact on the Equality Act. 

I'm listening to all this and reading, listening, reading more, and it is absolutely clear that it will impact on the Equality Act. And in fact, the public consultation itself in 2018 said, and asked a question about this point.

So I felt surrounded by, in the university setting, by a dishonest approach to a public consultation and discussion and so once it became very much focused on an attack on me and all the other things I mentioned in the article, I just was really disappointed that the university, in a, in a broader sense, didn't see that, or didn't wish to see it. I don't know what was going on really, but didn't see that wider context. 

I know from emails I received from staff and students that they felt the wider context needed to be looked at. They felt as women, and men actually, but particularly I was concerned by the number of emails I received as Rector by the end of October, from women, both students and staff in university raising concerns about how they felt unable to speak themselves, or they felt their voices were not being represented. 

I just thought the institution needed to look at how we were going to deal with this. And so I was bruised and really upset and leaving meetings in a state of distress, but I wanted to keep it all as a Rector separate. I think there's a thing about: you're elected to hold the position and as for the students sabbaticals, I guess that's another issue.

The student sabbatical officers, there's five at the university were elected to hold those positions. And yes, they hold political views. There's obviously student campaigning and they know the electorate choose their candidates. But once you're elected, I think it's a bit like being an MP or something.

Once you're elected or a shop steward in a union, you have some responsibility to represent all of your constituents. And I felt that some of the young women who were coming forward with concerns in particular were not being represented by their student sabbatical officer. And, for me as Rector, I wanted, as I said all along, at the beginning, to listen to everybody, but you weren't given the space to do that, just even to listen. 

Raquel: It's interesting talking to you because I think that you and I experienced something similar, but from two very different perspectives. So I experience what you describe as a student and your experiences as a Rector. So some people would look at the position that you hold and think, well, when you talk about the institution, the Rector is the institution.

Like they would think that being the Rector means that you are the university. But, what you're describing is that it sounds as if you felt kind of isolated going through this. So from your position being inside of the institution as a Rector, did you receive like secret support from people who were supposed to help you, but they just refuse to say it out loud or something like?

Ann Henderson: There was some support, yes, I guess is the case, but the formally, well, not even formally. When I was elected in March 2018, I had the support of the trade unions, the three unions, it was a joint union and there's in committee. The UCU was the kind of biggest union, but I had their support. And I had the support of the Students Association. By October that had gone formally. So the Student Association sabbaticals were having a meeting after that, an attack on me in October, they asked for a meeting with senior management present and I was present and asked how you do you get rid of the Rector, basically, and made other suggestions to provide me with some education on the matter and things like that.

The trade union, the UCU had by then changed, the reps had changed, the local branch leadership had changed. And one of the women who had been really supportive, try to help me in the summer when I'd gone to see her, then subsequently she has run into some of her our own difficulties in trying to arrange events in Edinburgh University.

I didn't have with hindsight, as the Rector I didn't have a kind of support network, whatever had happened, it didn't need to have been this issue, but there isn't a structured support network.

So although you're elected by staff and students, if you, for whatever reason, fall out of favour with both of those structures, there's nobody there. In terms of the university's role, you get some staff, there's a little bit of admin support provided to the Rector, but that's all. And then you have somebody who's a volunteer, which in my case was a director's assessor. She's a volunteer. 

She was recently retired out of it, at the time, was an activist in the union as well. It's a difficult position in a way, because yes, you are seen as the institution, but you're not, you're not a member of the management team. You're not a member of the executive, you're not making decisions. And so without the support of the student and the staff body, that isolation is completely where I had got to by 2020 it was how I felt. Sadly, Angie became very unwell and developed cancer unexpectedly and suddenly died within six months. 

So she died in the summer of 2020s or, but it was also by then the pandemic. I was isolated as were many people in terms of just trying to deal with the pandemic and not having supports in place and all this became different and difficult in that context.

But, there was some support, but informally, but not a lot, maybe the other way of looking actually another way of looking at this: most people at the university, most students and most staff had no idea this was going on. So that would be the other way of looking at it.

Some people will have seen the occasional news headline. Most people in the world don't organise well in the world. Most people don't organise their lives around Twitter and Facebook.

So actually what happened. And I was looking back at this just before I came to speak to you today. First couple of years, when we could be on campus in between my day job, dealing with various family things.

I would spend as much time as possible meeting some others. I would try and go to university venues. I would try and walk. If I was going for a walk, we'd meet Angie and we'd go for a walk on one of the campuses and just being around so that we could talk to staff of every grade and see what was on the student notice boards and just be part of it.

I would pick things out that I'd seen advertised new opening of an exhibition, or, you know, there was a lovely joint piece of work between one of the health departments and the art college, just lovely things and the sports fairs, watching things.  The sports presidents asked me to go and watch one of the hockey teams, things that we'd never have done otherwise, but which absolutely gave you a flavour of life in the university and were really lovely. And people were always pleased to see me. Delighted that their Rector had come along and the photographs reflect that enjoyment and enthusiasm and interest. And so most people didn't know this was happening. 

There’s lots of good positive memories, images from the couple of years when we could be on campus. But I guess in a way that I then find it even more sad and disappointing that I wasn't able to follow through on things that could have helped with, or it could have got a bit of a campaign going on.

I mean, look what we went into with the COVID pandemic and the impact on women's lives in particular, which has been recorded by the Women's Budget Group and various art and academics across the piece, you know, the disproportionate impact on women's lives. This happened in university as well.

Of course, whether it's your post-grad students, your undergraduates, your catering staff, academic staff, and the absence of childcare prevision, will hold back women's careers in academia for years trying to juggle over the last two years, it's recorded and out there.

So Edinburgh University's experience was no different. You had a look where there's a quite high dependence in Edinburgh, on the hospitality sector, for example, and the festivals to provide work for both undergraduates and postgraduates over the summer, and that of course went in 2020. 

Some of the families I spoke with, it was a disaster because it was part of the funding package in their minds about getting them through their time at university. The economy is still kind of collapsed in Edinburgh.

As far as that goes, it's such a huge impact on student lives as well, and including, post-grads.

If we had run a really strong campaign jointly with the unions and students, and the city, which is inadequately supplied with childcare as well, in a wider sense, you could have run something quite imaginative.

There's new campuses, some of which are now held back, but there was new work. There is new work being built on stream in Edinburgh, working with different partners. You could have done something really quite good. And then by when the pandemic, which obviously we didn't know what was coming, but when it came, we could have been in a better place to have had some childcare imaginative shared plans in place.

The other thing is that Edinburgh University now includes Moray House college of education, where there are specialists, they train teachers and specialists working with children. How did we use all that together to make things better? You know? So that's just one example, but it's just it's disappointing.

Raquel: There's an element of this that is about attempting to silence women. And if you cannot actually silence women is about stealing from women, all of those things that you've mentioned, like you had a vision of what you wanted to do, work on policy-wise regarding childcare. You know, it was lovely to hear you speak about the things that you could do on campus.

The university life that you were a part of. And there's an element of this, that reads as if we cannot ensure that she follows a certain line, then let's make sure that we take away the things that she positively wants to do with her life. So you write in your essay:

‘that as a result of all of the defamatory allegations that were made against you and the targeting, every aspect of my personal and professional life was impacted. There has been a significant personal cost with time off work, sleepless nights, and fearing for my own physical safety around campus, student venues. At times I considered resigning, but this was about far more than one individual.’

You campaigned for this role. And now it has become attached to some very negative memories because you refuse to be bullied into silence. There's a punishment element on this. 

Ann Henderson: Yeah, well, it is connected I suppose, but having lost the support. I think most students will not have realised that the five sabbatical officers in 2019, and then again, the sabbatical officers for 2018, 2019, and then the new sabbatical officers for 2019 to 2020, those two academic years, had decided they couldn't work with me, but most of the students wouldn't have known that.

The use of phrases, like ‘we cannot work with Rector because it makes our trans students feel unsafe’ and things like that. It's a waste. But so there's that kind of level. I mean, I was able to do some small things with some of the departments could just be able to do that and sort of obviously be positive when I'm meeting different people, but maybe institutions, I haven’t looked at the other universities recently in terms of the other five, other four or five in Scotland, who have Rectors, maybe they don’t want Rectors who campaign on different topics, but I had been elected.

It's like, what do you bring? And I just felt, it's such a waste. You know, like you were saying in the beginning, some of the different things I've done with my life, I was elected to the position in the knowledge that I would bring these things to share. And then I've got contacts and campaign experience, and you know, I'd been one of the Scottish government advisory groups in 2012 to arrange childcare provision in Scotland. I'd worked with the Scottish TUC with the trade unions that provide, I've done women's training courses. My job with the Scottish TUC involved working with government and parliament. I understood how the process worked. I had 40 odd years of campaigning in the Labour and Trade Union movement on a whole number of different issues. 

I knew where to go to get quick bits of help, to get advice, to get speakers, to make more stronger networks. And, you know, maybe there's some people and maybe that didn't suit everybody, but it was there as an offer and the students and staff reps moved to a place where they chose not to take that, I guess.

It was definitely one of the most negative experiences of the debate around rights and self-ID. It uses up a lot of your time and your energy and that then is not available for you to do something else. You've used your free time to deal with the argument or deal with the different consequences.

So this is just a small example, but like when I started as Rector, early on, I would make appointments, meeting different people before the bad things were going on social media and one of the people I went to meet was the Advice Centre, the students, the advisors that are employed by the student’s association, the staff members that run the advice centre. They raised things, you know, so there were suffering with student housing, students were coming forward around sexual violence on campus, which incidentally was echoed and picked up in that survey and Edinburgh didn’t come out of that very well.

So this is summer of 2018 and one of the points that one of the Student Advisor counsellors raised with me was the absence of breastfeeding facilities on campus. They have over 40,000 students and 16,000 staff, it’s a big institution with numerous different campuses.

So within the complex, the Advice Centre there’s a nice room where a women student can go to breastfeed and a fridge for storing the milk, but it's not accessible like weekends or out of hours. And so they just raised as like, this is something quite, you know, it's a problem. It would be good to better facilities across campus that are accessible for student, student women to use and store the milk and all these things express milk if they want to share feeding, whatever, you know, you know, the arrangements. 

So I think, well, there's an interesting question where. Let's say, is there a map or obviously there's maps of the whole campus, but is there a map that shows all the different campuses where there's a quiet room where there's the health and safety requirements are met around breastfeeding and storage of milk and where, you know, what bits of the campus have got the, the, I forgot what the award is called, but NCT awards or the health service do awards around breastfeeding friendly as well.

Anyway, so it turns out there's nothing. Anyway, there is no such thing. There's no map. Nobody knows how many places there are there. Probably you could count them on less than one hand. So I just thought that's something that would have been quite easy to fix, but there's still nothing, still not been mapped or done. And obviously most people were not on campus in 2020, so it changes. 

But other work is done around toilet facilities. For example, that doesn't take account of these very specific provisions that women need, and also I suppose that shows up now, because of Stonewall. Edinburgh University’s registered with the Stonewall diversity champion scheme. And obviously the FOI recently published their entire submission from Edinburgh University. 

And so references to gender neutral facilities are not using words that allow you to make a difference between men and women are seen as positive in some contexts. You know, to take this away from me, where that discussion is going on, who is actually campaigning for and speaking up for the new mums on campus, be they staff our students, who's speaking up for them? Who is trying to make it easier to be a student or staff, parent?

I don't know who's doing that. I do know where there are student and staff reps who are trying to do that. Like individual parents are trying to find a voice, but that simple thing of let's actually have a positive and visible proactive ‘can we make every university, a breastfeeding friendly award-winning location in all its campuses and student venues’ they just got lost.

 That's women's lives and there'll be loads of bigger examples, but that's a big example for the women concerned. 

I respond to these things because I’m like years of being a rep and working in the trade union movement as well, and you mentioned working in the railway, I mean, there were very, very few women working in the railway and train crew jobs in the early 1980s.

And so there was, for example, in the train crew depots, you'd be hard pressed to find a women's toilets but you'd be hard pressed to find sanitary protection or anything. So there were things to be done and things to be spoken about and changed, you were hard pressed to find a uniform that was sensible for the train crew job that you were doing.

So I’m responsive to those things, I am concerned about those things, but it's like half the population, so it's okay to be concerned about what women want and need in their lives. I think, 

Raquel: Of course, I'm so grateful that you, you're so concerned about this point, because I think that what resonated most to me based on your essay was that you really emphasise that you wanted to work on those material needs that affect half the world's population.

You know, my mom is a university professor. I mean, she's had a bunch of jobs, you know, but my whole life, one of the jobs that she had is that she was a university professor. And when we were very little, like, I remember. You know, there, there was no child care provision. So growing up, I feel like I grew up in the back of a university classroom because my mom was teaching at the front because there was nowhere else to leave me with.

I mean, the same thing happened with my dad when he was taking care of us as well. He's a lawyer. And sometimes he had to take us to court and the judge was sometimes allowing him to take us with him because they're just isn’t childcare provision. So that is such a material thing. And I think it is so bizarre that you have women with passion, with drive, with commitment, to highlight things that are so material.

Meanwhile, they become side-lined and I really liked that you bring the point about academic institutions being Stonewall diversity champions for being part of the workplace scheme, because it's a very interesting parallel to see, both our campaigning, you yourself have written on social media, ‘I am opposed to the reform of the Gender Recognition Act’ or I support single sex spaces for women. That would be a political point of view. 

But what Stonewall is advocating for erasing the words, mother from maternity policies, you know, gender neutralising restrooms. That is also political. There's differential treatment in which Stonewall gets paid by the institutions themselves to be lobbied to go against the law itself, the Equality Act 2010, meanwhile, a woman who is stating an equally valid political position, then we get a different kind of treatment, you know?

So it's almost as if the process itself. The differential treatment we receive to individual women like yourselves versus lobby groups, such as Stonewall that reflects to you the problem that you meant to highlight. 

Ann Henderson: So again, to try and step back a little bit and look at the role of, or the institution. So with the Stonewall FOI request that when the Stonewall paper was made public through an FOI freedom of information request, I hadn't seen it before and I'm sure most members of the university while I was member of the University Court, wouldn't have seen it before. And most students, you know, generally, because this is not a public document, but anyway, so I'm reading through this document and there are of a number of points I think I might have an opinion on, but what I was trying to do was reading it from the point of view of my role as Rector and thinking about the University Court and the papers that come to the University Court and governance questions. 

So there's a small section in the Stonewall paper, which refers to the University Court and actually has some inaccuracies in it and asked some questions and it was made clear there were some inaccuracies or mistakes in the information that was there.

But the point is if -  hypothetical situation - if it was the case that you were going to change the way that you expected the University Court to be chaired, deal and address the Stonewall approach to defining people knowing, how much do you need to know about who's in the room? Is there anybody in the room who maybe is trans trans or non-binary, is that relevant to how you chair the meeting? And, there were a number of concerns for me given once I saw the FYOI paper released. University Court members have not had, this is not discussion about whether the training is the best thing to do or not Raquel, but the University Court has not had the training on trans awareness that I know has been given to invigilators for example, cause separately I knew some invigilators had find it quite difficult to manage and had been uncomfortable with it, so I'm thinking from a governance point of view, what does this actually mean?

Do you know? How do you chair a meeting? How do we address each other in a meeting, in a situation where on a piece of paper, Stonewall are expecting X, Y, and Z, and somebody somewhere is signing up to this in terms of how you would, how you address people and all the sort of stuff, but not actually discussing it and how that interacts with any other policies in the university.

I couldn't, I just was like really struggling with that. And I think, so the University Court papers, not all of them were public, but many of them are published on the university website after the court meetings, they're in the public domain and they have a short sentence in, this, you know, whatever this topic is on. Yes, an equality impact assessment has been carried out. 

It never tells you what that was, or, what you've learned through the equality impact assessment. So I guess one of the things that I kind of said at one of my last meetings, because the Stonewall paper was then public by then was, you know, I really think there's a weakness in governance and I'm sure this is the case in a number of big organisations in how you sign up to these policies to get a champion award or to get a good practice award or whatever it is, you're signing up to something, but you're not looking at how it interacts with other policies or maybe a disproportionate or, as you see it actually doesn't sit comfortably with the provisions of the Equality Act around single sex provision.

Arguably, doesn't sit comfortably with some of the protections on faith and belief either, but, there's no place to have that conversation. And so it wasn't my role as Rector to necessarily make a big speech about. I do think that the university core and this applies to any big academic institution or any board in any big company, have to pay more attention and call in for scrutiny.

What are these schemes that are being signed up to? How does it affect other policies? Does it get to where you want to be in terms of actually addressing inequality? I was really concerned about it actually. And I mean, I know, again, they're speaking really good pieces now written about it and a number of organisations and public institutions that are withdrawing from the Stonewall schemes. But it's concerning that it's possible to make broad and overarching statements and promises and pledges, be it around widening access or around equality and beliefs and freedom of speech, while not looking at what's being signed up to. Does it fit with the Athena Swan program that the university is so proud of?  I can see there's been some changes in some discussion about that as well. It’s maybe as easy to tick a box, you know, and I think that a lot of this discussion, and that was what was kind of disappointing in the university in a broader sense and was: How do you get more discussion? How do we have more meetings where we can actually talk about these things? 

Raquel: It feels like institutions want to do the complete opposite because what you're mentioning, it's like, let's have this question, let's have conversations in which we discuss how we can create an environment that is welcoming for everyone. You know, where nobody is intimidated, nobody's discriminated against, that takes work and discussion. And it sounds like this Stonewall scheme, it sounds like institutions are outsourcing diversity to an outside actor instead of having to do the internal work themselves. 

Ann Henderson: I mean, it's difficult because I know where there are some staff in the University of Edinburgh who are working really hard on that wider question or have huge job remits that are trying to improve interactions and the different policies and things like that.

So it's not a thing about everybody is not paying attention, but you know, what I'm most familiar with would be the discussions because I chair the court meetings, but the Rector is not on any of the committees nor the senior management executive, you read all the papers, which takes all weekend and then chairing a meeting and watching who's coming in with what questions, but this issue of Stonewall for example, Only because it ended up being published through a FOI freedom of information request, did it end up in the public domain.

And so that bothers me. I think if people are or whatever institutions are effectively outsourcing who defines what's good practice and acceptable things on equality, without looking at all the interactions, it's not enough to leave it to a small team to tick the boxes and complete the forms and send them back. You know, it's obviously far bigger. 

I wondered if just briefly I could just touch on something else. So you can see that I was thinking about the trade union movement, where I've spent so much of my life. These comments are transferable across to the trade union movement as well.

Obviously a number of them sign up to the Stonewall diversity champion schemes. We see a statement this week from the TUC signed by the majority, well, nearly every major trade union around self-identification and speaking up for trans rights. And I just worry, that would be an understatement.

I worry that that detailed and careful discussion is not being had to arrive at a possession. I just think we're undoing a lot of the work we've done in the trade union movement that organised and represented and spoke for and with women. And it's ironic really in a situation. By the time I left working at the Scottish TUC, I left, was made redundant in 2017. And at that point we'd done some research work, which showed that more than half of the Trade Union membership in Scotland was female, that whole thing, where might your areas of recruitment be in the future? Obviously we're now dealing with the consequences of the pandemic.

That careful, respectful discussion has to be possible in the workplace. And that means that the trade unions have to be able to do that. And obviously some of the stuff that's out there around how the UCU has been conducting its discussions and the impact that had on Edinburgh University was very negative as well.

So when I was working at the Scottish TUC, one of my jobs, part of my work bilaterally was working with the Women's Committee, the TUC Women's Committee? And I were looking through old papers the other day, and I think it was 2013. Maybe it might have been 2014, but I think it was 2013. It was the year that Agnes told me, who's a Unite activist, was the Chair of the Women's Committee. The guest speaker, the STC Women's Conference that year was Julie Bindel and she had got a standing ovation, that was who the committee wanted to come to speak. That was who they wanted to hear. The committee was campaigning against prostitution, speaking up for women against marketisation sexual marketisation materials for girls and children.

You look where we are now and women were not even able to distribute the WPUK five demands prior to the 2019 election, the STC Women's Conference. 

Raquel: You had an experience with Julie Bindel at the University of Edinburgh. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened?

Ann Henderson: Well, so there was a meeting, a meeting was arranged around different perspectives on women's rights in June 2019. It took a lot of organising Shereen Benjamin and others were instrumental in making it happen. There was many meetings with the university management and extra security was put on. I can't remember. You probably had to sign up if you're going to attend. And it was free. It was like open to all students and staff by there was more security, than I’ve seen at any other academic event in my brief time as Rector and as one of the members of the Scottish parliament who attended said in the parliament herself, she'd never seen so much security ever, women are meeting about women's rights, but anyway, the university security staff did a good job, but we had briefings before the meeting with the speakers included, including Julie and Rosa Freedman was there and different speakers. So there were about six, seven speakers, but we had briefings with the speakers beforehand, from the security about emergency exit routes from the hall and different things. I sat in on all that. I wanted to attend the meeting, but I didn't have a role in the meeting. I was just in the audience but sat and on the briefings.

 Anyway, so the meeting passed along. It was really good. Good speakers. Again, it was recorded. So it's out in the public domain. There's a web link for it. There was a discussion that we didn't see everybody, you know, there was questions and discussion in the meeting.

Rosa and Julie, certainly had to leave the meeting just before it finished and they left. So they left, while questions were still being answered by other speakers, they had a flight to catch, so they had a taxi booked. So they made their way out of the hall and everybody waved goodbye.

And I must say one of my regrets with hindsight, you know, hindsight being a wonderful thing. I wasn't the only person that thought this, we all really wish that a couple of women had left with them, but we knew the two of them were leaving together and their taxi was outside. However, Julie was assaulted by, well, there was a person, and basically there'd been the protests that had been there before the meeting started, which was headlined around ‘no TERFs on our turf’. 

It was students and staff who had been outside when the meeting started with this protest and, that had been a slogan. That'd been round campus for a fortnight. And the LGBT staff network was trying to get the meeting cancelled, the meeting wasn't cancelled. And there was placards and there was no trouble outside the meeting at the beginning, on our way in, other than a tenseness, and the security staff thought the protests had dispersed, but one person was a former student of the university had waited back until the meeting finished and then went up to Julie and threatened Julie.

But I mean, it was witnessed by the security staff they made it safe and the person was subsequently charged and found guilty. I mean, interestingly, there was a whole lot of social media activity afterwards and a student newspaper article, which suggested that Julie had made the whole thing up, which was not true anyway. The person concerned said they simply wanted to talk to Julie, but I gather that lots of abuse was hurled, I wasn't there, we were all in the hall, but it's described and Julie described the incident afters, but the person was found guilty. I mean, was charged and found guilty. It wasn't made up by any stretch of the imagination.

 Now that happened on campus. I don't know of any other meetings during my three years as Rector, where an invited guest speaker was assaulted on campus. 

Raquel: The logical conclusion to everything that we have been discussing. 

If you allow the idea that women speaking opinions that some people might disagree with, to be some sort of form of violence, then some people are going to believe well, countering that violence is justifiable.

It sounds like that's the climate that is being created when you don’t put a stop to the intimidation and harassment of women. 

Ann Henderson: There’s people trying to distance themselves. Obviously the actions of that one individual are not directly the responsibility of any of the agencies involved.

I did go to the WPUK meeting in Brighton Labour Party Conference in 2019, which again has been well reported, but I've never seen aggression like that outside a meeting. And then to be in a basement, the room was in the meeting was held in a basement room with windows that were street level and the windows were kicked for the entire meeting by protestors and they weren't moved on by the police and Brighton nor by anybody.

Just an unacceptable level of violence. I agree, it's unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable. The issue of the Edinburgh University came up at one of the university general counsel meetings subsequently, which remains open to all the alumni of Edinburgh University.

And it was the question and concern about, about that incident was taken to be a criticism of the university security staff, which absolutely isn't. That’s a kind of diversion, that's not really, the point. I think things are changing a little bit and then maybe, maybe not. There's more people engaged maybe with their conversation. And I think that some of the politicians who've been able to speak using, not using parliamentary privilege, but doing what you should do when you're in parliament and question and speak. I think that's helped because it lets others see that their initial thought wasn't mad.

It was like a reasonable question to ask, like: How will you continue to make sure that women can say women as a sex will be understood as such and respected as such and all that goes with that changing a little bit, but we'll see. 

Raquel: Do you think that there is a generational issue going on?

And do you think that there is a role that social media is playing in all of this? Because it sounds like you're speaking mainly about your role as Rector at the University of Edinburgh. A lot of the issues that are happening in academia, a large portion of academia is made up of young people and they are young people, myself included, but they are young people who are growing up in an in an environment in which you can control what views you are exposed to.

If you're on Twitter, for example, you decide who you follow, but you also decide you can mute people. You can block people. If you are really adamant about it, you can create a space in which you only listen to news that reinforce your own use. Right? So it sounds like it's this word, the vitriol comes from, you know, this idea that I only listened to views not contrary to what the song is saying. Therefore, when I see Ann Henderson exposing views that I disagree with, then it feels like some sort of personal attack against me. Do you see a generational or social media problem? 

Ann Henderson: I don't. I hesitate to say it's a generational thing really, because I know many young people who are questioning both the way in which the discussion has been had and questioning what legislative change might come in our country. 

Self-identification is not policy is not law at the moment. I’d be nervous to say it it's entirely a generational thing because I do know a lot of young people who are concerned and also young people are now speaking up.

What I do think is, this cuts across loads of different debates and then I see it in political parties as well is, social media can lend itself to very uninformed and shorthand statements, which suddenly seem to, by the time they've been repeated, many times, become a fact.

And I think combined with like the National Union of Journalists, NUJ, would be explained on some of this as well, or combined with the sort of rundown of the print media, the lack of resource and recognition that actual skills go into being a journalist and, you know, these kinds of proper good research and really getting your arguments properly honed and discussed. 

I'm sure that are good discussions going on in some parts and some places of course, within the school of social policy, in different parts of the university, but social media, doesn't always lend itself to that.

On the other hand, sometimes depending how you use social media, obviously it can bring to your attention articles and publications and new books and things that you would never have come across.

It can feel quite like get in trouble by appearing to agree with something on Facebook. I think when actually they've not read the whole article. They've maybe read something, but they didn't realise that by, I don't know, whatever you do, liking it, you were saying you agree with it. You’re just saying you’ve read it.

So that there's a whole number of things there. But so I don't know. I don't think it's helpful. I mean, I'm watching other debates going on, just now about the women's movement against older and younger women. And I really don't think that's a helpful discussion. Obviously I'm older than I was, but the issues that I campaigned on when I was 19 and 20 are the same questions.

And that was one of the things that was funny about being back at university. It’s where I studied when I was 18, 19, 20, and then I was involved in the women's group in which we campaigned against strippers in the student’s union and rugby club, the boys, and we campaigned for childcare. We campaigned for equality. Abortion rights was a topical and heated debate in the student newspaper for the year that I was editor. 

It was only 1977. That was only a few years after the law, 10 years, the law changed. And one of my early, earlier memories of the women's group at the university and the women's movement in a broader sense was I guess, maybe it's because the abortion rights debate was still so current.

You were working with people with women, you were meeting women who, 1967 Act. It was in there. They need people, doctors, you were listening to the presentations and listening to people, women in particular. I mean, I worked with older women when you look back and I loved it because this is the strength of our movement, you know?

I was looking on my bookshelves, you read different things like the books that everybody had on their bookshelves. but there were older women as well. And the discussions, like that textbook Our Bodies Ourselves, which my mum borrowed off me and devoured it because her generation had not had the chance really, well her and her particular life, hadn't had the chance to even have those conversations about your own sexuality, your own body. I just remember it as when I was young, that excitement of being part of a next stage Women's movement.

 And so I'm quite concerned really. And the trade union movement was, I guess I do remember being a little bit critical of some of the older trade union women, but when you actually listen to what they had fought for in the workplace and what they had struggled for, and within that, there are different political points of view. Of course there are, people have different views about the speed at which change will come, all those things. But there was a commonality of women which cut across ages. And I'm concerned just now about how nasty some of that's becoming 

Raquel: It feels like the cost for individual women. Sometimes it's too much. 

I have a question for you about the essay that you wrote and we should talk about it. You were the second female Rector in 159 years, but you talk about the fact that there was little to no recognition, minimal recognition of that by the University of Edinburgh. And you said:

‘no interviews were conducted or published after your term ended nor was the speech that I gave at my record installation ceremony shared. Instead, a brief press release was issued. In March 2020, what turned out to be my final public speaking engagement as Rector speaking in the Scottish Parliament, I submitted my speech to the university in advance and thought that it would have made content for an international women's day press release, but there was no interest in doing so. The reports and speeches that I wrote during my time were posted on a personal web page, which you belatedly realised you had lost access to when Angela had died. And there was no distinct provision on the university websites for sharing the Rector’s activity with the university community.’ 

And you’re right, recording the contribution that women make matters.

 After you published your essay, was there any response from the university of Edinburgh? Did they ask you? Well, give us the speeches that you have and we post them somewhere. I’m 100% certain that in the university website there can just be a tab for that kind of stuff.

Ann Henderson: No, there was nothing. And actually, before speaking with you, just now I checked the university website and in fact, the press releases from 2018 from my election and from my Rector's installation are not on the website at all.  They must be archived somewhere, but they're not archived on the website. And so there's nothing there. 

And I find that massively disappointing because women's contribution needs to be recorded and you may or may not have agreed with the content of my speeches, that's not the point. actually they were not controversial or much of the things that we were discussing at the beginning about my hopes and aspirations for the role. And yes, it should be there somewhere. And that's about any Rector.

 Raquel: But that’s such a double standard to put you in. We have talked about that in this podcast. You come with a wealth of experience in the trade union sector. You yourself have experience as a parliamentary researcher.

There's so much to your life and it makes me wonder out of all of the other Rectors, did they go to each one of those men and say: 

‘let's see if we agree with every single one of the views that they have’.

 No, they wouldn't because that's impossible. Your views are entirely lawful, you know, like there's nothing that you're saying that is illegal, there is nothing you are saying that is defamatory or something like that.

So the idea that we're going to invisibilise this woman who has this amazing background in so many different sectors, we're going to make her invisible because of this one view that she holds that is entirely in accordance with UK law. 

It is bizarre to see adult university people engaging in that.

Ann Henderson: I'm not wanting to put words into university's mouth as it were, but I feel as if that is what's happened, but I think once you lose the support of the formal representation around you the, the unions. And I mean, I think that there should be something in place. And this is what I was trying to raise during my time as Rector for whoever is the Rector, because it is a kind of lay elected post, and sometimes the person elected may not be the University's choice. You're elected by your electorate, but there should be Rector’s newsletter, there should be a page on the website. There should be something that allows the Rector to update that electorate on a regular basis.

And that's particularly the case so you can say what you’ve been doing, so that you can celebrate particular achievements, that you can raise questions that you can show a campaign or whatever. But also because, the University Court meetings are in the main, the meetings are not open to the public and that's as maybe the papers are often redacted, some are published and some are redacted. So you have to be careful. And this is one of the things that the trade union reps are grappling with at the moment on University Court is: How do you build in greater transparency about the decisions that are being made in a university. Be it around finances, around budgets, around building projects around a diversity champion signature schemes or whatever. How do you build in transparency about how those decisions are being made and what role Court plays? Within that, the Rector as chair as well. Should the Rector be the chair? I don't know. 

But you can't have that discussion in a situation where there's nothing structured for the university to actually promote and explain what the Rector has done or some Rectors don't do much at all. And maybe they just come once every three months to chair a meeting and wouldn't be on campus or be around.

 I started trying to find other Rectors speeches, for example, because I just assumed that the university, the library or somebody would hold the file of all the speeches inaugural speeches made by each rector. And they don't.

I was quite surprised because there was a couple of publications that have tracked the story of all the different Rectors up to a certain date. But I got hold of a copy of the speech that Muriel Grey, who was the first woman Rector in 1988, they gave me a copy of that speech and a couple of other more recent speeches, but they're not filed or recorded.

So I thought that was quite interesting just in terms of what the relationship is between the role of Rector and the university as an institution. 

I haven't quite worked out what to do, it's not just my role as Rector, but there is something about, how do we record what women bring to our role.

How do we, when women become involved in public life, which essentially is that role is one of those roles as well. Where does responsibility lie for making sure that a record is kept of the difference you've made or tried to make. What took you there? 

I should say I've written a piece which looks at some of that and covers some of the different events I attended and things like that, which the University Graduates Association journal has just published. They don't know how many people out of the huge graduate population, which is a worldwide and massive, I don't know how many people are members of that Association, that article has just been published.

And that was really nice of them to invite me to do that. And that allowed me to sort of revisit some of the enthusiasm and optimism I'd had at the beginning. 

The other thing I've come across, which I will send you the link for but there is a former wives and the complaints process, individuals raising issues, which again, I wasn't really wanting to have a big focus on the complaints process.

Because it wasn't the best way to deal with the issue that we were talking about. But anyway I'll send the link for that one. I heard about it before I spoke to you. 

Raquel: You end your statement, you're a very powerful writer by the way, but you end your essay by saying:

‘my small action in October 2018, a retweet from my personal account that encouraged elected members to listen to the voices of women, to listen to everyone with views on legislative proposals to then make good laws, recognise that for many women, their voices were not being heard. How damaging were repercussions for the remaining of my term. I could never have imagined this being the case in my early days of the women's group at Edinburgh University in the 1970s, when so much change seemed possible for women's lives’.

So we've discussed how diverse your background, your campaigning has been, it sounds like this was not a great episode in your life so much could have been better.

So what do you think is the future of this topic within academia? What's the way out?

Ann Henderson: Well, I think we collectively as a society, everybody. We have to have more discussion and Raquel, I think the phrase ‘freedom of speech’ has becoming quite meaningless if it's not actually discussed out in a way that means you can speak, question and discuss some of the contributions. 

I have been working in the Scottish Parliament, some of the Parliament contributions that have been made by parliamentarians have been really important, in just pushing back and saying actually we've got jobs to do here and doing that job means asking questions.

It means not just signing up to something. Things that also seem  be happening that people say ‘sign up to our 10 pledges or you're not okay. And I think there needs to be a bit of pushback on that. It comes back to what we were discussing earlier on about how deeply do you question and quiz and read and I think, hopefully and it is obviously happening in some parts of academia, but, there's too many difficult stories. There's too much stuff out there. 

One of the things we were looking at, well, not we, I was, I think it could be suggested around Edinburgh and I think people are suggesting around other universities is to look like as the University of Essex, do a bit of an independent inquiry to just look at some of the things that maybe could have been handled better or how to go forward.

And I think there's got to be much more of that across academia, because it's also not happening in every academic institution. Someone who has done some mapping around, I was going to use the word wealth, It's not as simple as that. but you know, around like where is this at its worst and why? 

And just unpicking it a bit. I guess it’s all bound up together and I'm just kind of reluctant to say it's because it's not all about this one issue. But women, having got to where we are in a sort of general sense in society, are being set back so much by this. And that may or may not be the plan or a plan. I mean, it's really distressing really, really distressing. I guess when you look back over the number, you know, like you go forward a bit and then back when you're struggling for women's rights, we're not there yet wherever we're trying to get to.

It's just really important, I guess, that we have as much conversation as possible, that’s why FiLiA is so important. In the seventies I discovered Spare Rib and the debates and the discussion there just like Virago and the publishing presses, all these things about making spaces where women can write, speak, talk, but share it with everybody as well. We just have to keep doing that.

That's all I think and in parallel, the discussion has to go on in the trade union movement. The people who make up universities, staff at every, every level, Unison, UCU, whatever, the different staff so they've got different places to have those conversations. It's not solely a campus discussion. 

Raquel: One final question. 

What is next for you personally? Because it sounds like you're not the kind of woman to sort of like be silenced and go away. And there's two parallels, you know, there's sort of two Anns that could have emerged from this. One would have been a woman who was silence and bullied and because you were targeted, you refuse to engage. 

And there's another Ann, who is what came through in the end. There is a woman who is saying ‘I will speak about my experience. I have every right to political opinions, personal opinions, and I will make my opinions heard.’

 So what's next for you? You know, you have such a diverse background.

And maybe this experience at the University of Edinburgh, as Rector, was not what you had hoped it would be where are you going next? 

Ann Henderson: I'm not sure. I'm not sure is the answer to that question. I would like to write up some of the stuff around higher education governance, which I mentioned, because I think that the role as Rector gives you privileged access to a kind of a catch up if you like with what's happening in higher education, which I hadn't really been around for 40 years other than second hand, so I'd like to do some stuff there.

What I'm interested in and one of the phrases I think, we’re in a continuum, we're in a struggle that's not over yet. And then this was some of my work in the trade union movement, was sort look back to the hundred years ago, 150 years ago to the early campaigns around the work place and workers, women and men being treated as they should be treated as humans, as citizens, you know?

And, there's some fantastic ones, I take some strength from that and watch and learn and read and talk about, I like to do a bit more of that to bring to light. And that's why I like Selena Todd's work I used in some of my work and my talks and things, I was doing at the Scottish TC with training for women.

And to then see the way Selena Todd was being treated was just like such a shock. It's been an absolute pleasure to have met her. I know, through different things, these women's networks, but honestly, I couldn't believe it. Some of the early experiences of those women in the mills and those working class women who knew that their sex and to protect their girls, their daughters means talking to women as a sex class. 

So I have to take some strength from that and kind of like try and find some energy to go back. I don't want all the university experience of that three years to be all negative.

I don't want the conclusion to be that women shouldn't run for public office and for election, but it's difficult to keep your head high sometimes. I want to convey a positive experience when actually some of it's been very negative and that will be the case for many women. at the moment who are elected into different positions.

There's a lot of bruising stuff going on at the moment. I'll hopefully find a way to continue. I'm on the Scottish Labour Party Women's Committee and they've nominated me for the UK Labour national Women's Committee. So that's another place where there's an ongoing discussion as you know, from the public domain.

But I hope that there's a home. There's got to be a places for women in political parties to get their views across and build that movement. We owe too much to the past. You can’t just give it away.

Raquel: Definitely. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for speaking with us from all of us at FiLiA. 

Thank you for all the work that you're doing on so many different sectors, to advance the rights of women and girls, because that's the thing that has to come through from this podcast and from your life experiences, you know, it's not about how other people wanting to paint you or defame you it's about the work that you yourself has done and that shines through in all areas.

So thank you so much for participating on the FiLiA podcast. 

Ann Henderson: Thanks to FiLiA and all the amazing networks and contacts and work that you're all doing. I'd booked to attend the FiLiA conference in 2019 in Bradford so I came to the FiLiA conference had a fantastic time, loved it.  Also loved being in the city of Bradford. Just love talking to people. The thing I wanted to see was I felt unable to, on any of my social media, to say where it had been for the weekend.

Now, I look back and I think, goodness, like that's a little, just a wee tiny thing of how I felt by then in Edinburgh University. If I said where I was that weekend on social media, that the abuse that would follow would just make Edinburgh very difficult when I got home, and I didn't have the energy to deal with that.

I was dealing with other things, family and stuff. That's what I remember. I remember being there and I remember being, I remember meeting the women who were setting up labour declaration and all sorts of things. It was like fascinating weekend and there's things I agreed with, things that I didn't, and it was just brilliant being amongst a lot of women. I loved it. I also carry with me that little memory that the consequences of the attacks I'd come under by then.

What is that like that you can't see where you've been for the weekend. You've been at a women's conference and you can't put that out. So next time I'll be telling everybody.

Raquel: you're welcome to come to our FiLiA conference anytime and now can shout about it.

Ann Henderson: But anyway, yeah. So I looked back and then I think, well, that's terrible. Like what an earth was going on in your mind that you felt you couldn't say where you were for the weekend.

 But that's the whole context of the pressure that what we were discussing there in the rest of the podcast, the pressure that, that I felt placed under, and the fact that I didn't want that to then become the narrative of my work as Rector, but that's what happens is taken from you.