An interview with our patron, Mary Ann Sieghart
We spoke with our patron, Mary Ann Sieghart, following our review of her powerful book The Authority Gap.
If we bake sexism into our children, we can’t be surprised when it permeates society.
ESIS: We would love to know what inspired your interest in ESIS?
MAS: What gets taught in schools is so important for the formation of children’s attitudes, character and behaviour. By the time they’re adults, these traits are pretty much fixed.
ESIS: Were you shocked by the findings from the ESIS KS3 and KS4 English Literature research?
MAS: Yes, I was! Literature is one of the few arts in which women were allowed to excel in previous centuries. There are so many glorious novels, poems and plays written by women.
ESIS: Why do you think school children should be reading more books by and about women and girls?
MAS: One of the ways in which we learn to understand the human condition is by reading about it. If the main protagonists in children’s stories are almost always boys, both boys and girls will believe that boys are somehow better or should be the main characters in life.
ESIS: What’s one small but radical act anyone can do to challenge the Authority Gap in daily life?
MAS: Assume women are just as competent, intelligent and interesting as men – and if you catch yourself doing the opposite, try to correct for it.
ESIS: The Authority Gap has been such a powerful and influential book, do you have any plans to write a sequel?
MAS: One day I plan to write a prequel: on what happens in childhood to create the Authority Gap and how we can intervene as parents and teachers to counteract it.
ESIS: If you could have dinner with any woman from history – who would it be and why?
MAS: Elizabeth I, because I’d be fascinated to hear how she dealt with being a female leader in a man’s world.
