University news

Journalist and broadcaster Lesley Riddoch will give a talk at the University of Glasgow on Women and Rural Society on 5 November.

Presenting the 2007 Naomi Mitchison Memorial Lecture, Lesley Riddoch, who hosts the BBC’s Riddoch’s Questions radio show, will discuss whether women are the backbone of rural society or a silenced majority.

Following the publication of her book, Riddoch on the Outer Hebrides, she will draw on her experiences of those encountered when cycling the length of the Outer Hebrides.

Riddoch said: “The latest survey shows young women are the fastest single group leaving remote island communities like the Western Isles. Job creation, transport and even socialising has unwittingly favoured male patterns of employment and recreation  – and unless Scotland follows Norway’s example of positive discrimination, women will keep leaving, our remote rural areas will fail to realise their potential, and languages like Gaelic will lose the great support that native Gaelic speaking mums provide.

“Tradition is often cited as the reason women are absent from public life in agricultural communities the world over. But many traditions – like Uphellya -- are of relatively recent Victorian not ancient Viking origin. Women must step up to share the rights and responsibilities of making rural communities work – and unhelpful stereotypes of silent, housebound women should be consigned to the last century.

“The situation is worse in Africa where women often don’t own the coffee bushes they spend their lives tending. Young girls in large families are married young – often leading to health problems and the spread of AIDS. Education is for boys and women are largely illiterate. The grand plans of the G8 summit in Gleneagles – like so many others – have tended to overlook the way women’s lowly position in rural societies has halted human development.

“It is time for that to change.”

Writer, broadcaster and commentator, Lesley Riddoch runs an independent radio and podcast company Feisty Ltd which produces Riddoch’s Questions, a topical phone-in programme broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland. She is also a weekly columnist for the Scotsman newspaper and is founder and editor of online newspaper Africawoman.

The talk will take place at the Charles Wilson Lecture Theatre, University of Glasgow on 5 November at 6pm. The event is free and open to the public.

The event has been organised by the University of Glasgow’s School of English and Scottish Language and Literature in conjunction with Scottish Pen.

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Notes to editors

For more information please contact Kate Richardson at the University of Glasgow Media Relations Office on 0141 330 3683 or email K.Richardson@admin.gla.ac.uk

First published: 1 November 2007