14 NEWS thejc.com THE JEWISH CHRONICLE 15 april 2016 NEWS 15thejc.comTHE JEWISH CHRONICLE

15 april 2016

V Women should have the same opportunities as men. The idea is hardly radical. But, as Jacquelyn Guder-ley points out, there is a big difference between what “should” be a reality, and what actually is – and she plans to do something about it.

As co-founder of stemettes, an organ-isation that runs events and activities encouraging girls to get involved in stem subjects — science, technology, engineering and maths — at school and university, she dedicates her time to empowering young women, disprov-ing sexist clichés and breaking down gender barriers.

her commitment to the cause has led to her selection as one of 11 candi-dates for the Women’s equality Party (We) in next month’s london Assembly elections.

Politics is not her chosen career path, but the 28-year-old says feminism is the driving force behind everything she does.

ms Guderley explains: “It is impor-tant for a female to believe that there is nothing holding her back because of her gender.”

Born and raised in Cockfosters, north london, ms Guderley was educated at dame Alice owen’s school and durham university, where she studied history

and spanish. she describes herself as a “cultural Jew” with a “techy, geeky” father, who loved taking apart and then re-building computers. Technology came to be seen as “a normal part of my life”, she says.

But it was not until she began a grad-uate scheme in the technology division of consultancy firm Accenture that she found a vocation for stem subjects. ms Guderley realised that they could open the door to an array of creative jobs.

simultaneously, she discovered that women working in tech were few and far between.

“Women face challenges in the work-place all the time,” she says. “The way companies are run tends to be more suited to men, with a focus on self-pro-motion and talking about your worth.

“If you go into a meeting and are the only woman there, you feel singled out. That is why in many companies you see numbers of women start to decline as they work their way up the ladder.”

unhappy with the misconceptions she encountered, ms Guderley joined an Accenture programme which aimed to encourage female engagement. It was then that she discovered stemettes.

“I went to its first event and immediately knew I wanted to get involved,”she remembers. The founder, Anne-marie Imafidon, set up the group because the number of women pursu-ing stem subjects was decreasing.

“People were talking about it, but no one was doing anything about it. Anne-marie decided to get girls together.”

Within a year, ms Guderley had left Accenture to work full-time at ste-

By Charlotte oliver

london elections

photo: john russell

From Center Parcs to City Hall for Caroline?V The lIBerAl democrat candidate to be mayor of london does not want to talk details — at least those directly affecting the Jewish community.

over coffee at the party’s Westminster office, Caroline Pidgeon is happy to dis-cuss her plans for more affordable hous-ing, childcare and apprenticeships.

But mention Israel, religious slaugh-ter, anti-terror policies or even disgraced former lib dem mP david Ward, and she tenses up.

southampton-born ms Pidgeon, 43, has been a london Assembly member for eight years. The bookies rate her as a rank outsider to become mayor at 150-1.

While much of the media attention has been on the two front-runners, labour’s sadiq Khan and Conservative Zac Goldsmith, ahead of next month’s election, ms Pidgeon argues it is “a very open race. nobody particularly knows any of the candidates that well. I have as much name recognition as some of them”.

As a vegetarian, discussing religious slaughter makes ms Pidgeon uncom-fortable.

“It’s important to several faith com-munities including the Jewish commu-nity, so of course it should be allowed to go ahead,” she says, seemingly wanting to move on quickly. But what about the

animal rights groups lobbying against religious slaughter?

“okay, I’m not aware of that. It’s not really a matter for the mayor of lon-don,” she says, annoyed. “I’m not in Par-liament getting lobbied on these issues. It’s not something I’ve considered. I’m quite happy for religious slaughter because it meets the needs of our key communities in london.”

At last week’s hustings session at JW3, ms Pidgeon was applauded for her posi-tive stance on faith schools and plan to

put an extra 3,000 police officers across london’s transport network.

she has never been to Israel and says having her son stopped her travelling. “I have a two-year-old. I have not been abroad in several years. I am sure I will go in the future, but I do not travel any-where at the moment. Center Parcs is about as far as I get I am afraid.”

If elected to run City hall, she would support next year’s planned Tel Aviv festival in london. The two cities make good partners, “particularly around

tech industries. I don’t support boycotts. If we want peace in the middle east we need dialogue, proper diplomacy.”

The same applies to any issues that might arise between religious commu-nities in london. “I would be setting up consultative groups to help advise me on all my policies and the situation in london — like the rise in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crime.

“We need a really comprehensive strategy looking at the reporting, inves-tigating and the prosecuting of all hate

crimes,” she adds. “We need some really high profile prosecutions so people understand it’s not acceptable. We need to train up the police more. Clearly the criminal justice system isn’t working in this area.”

ms Pidgeon says that she does not believe that the government’s Prevent strategy to combat radicalisation is working.

“A lot of it is about secrecy, it’s all done at the home office, none of us know which projects they are funding or what’s going on,” she explains. “The mayor should have far more control over it so we can adapt to issues local-ly.”

she does not want to talk about the controversies around mr Ward and the damage they did to her party’s rela-tionship with the community. he had accused “the Jews” of “inflicting atroci-ties on Palestinians” ahead of holocaust memorial day in January 2013.

Clearly irritated by the mention of mr Ward, she snaps: “It has really got nothing to do with london. he’s not an mP anymore.”

her aide steps in. “People are voting for Caroline Pidgeon,” he says, dismiss-ing any suggestion that voters choose a party and its approach to issues as well as its candidate.

“What david Ward and the party may or may not have done has no bearing.”

By Sandy raShtyCaroline Pidgeon making her point at a party rally

V ALONgSIdE the battle for London Mayor, another 25 seats at City Hall are up for grabs in next month’s elections.

Labour is currently the largest party in the London Assembly — the elected forum of the greater London Authority — with 12 seats, one short of a majority.

“The gLA is the governing body of London,” said Linda Kelly, the Conservative candidate hoping to unseat the Labour incumbent in Enfield and Haringey. “It makes a lot of decisions that affect your housing, transport, policing.”

India-born from a

family with roots in the Middle East, the Hindi and Hebrew-speaking Ms Kelly is a local government veteran. She has 12 years of experience as a Hackney councillor, mostly for Labour until she switched to the Tories in 2011.

Also aiming to depose a sitting Labour member is Conservative Joel davidson, who is contesting Brent and Harrow. Elected to Brent Council in 2014, he is from a mixed Jewish-Northern Irish background.

Another challenger is Liberal democrat Zack Polanski who will be trying to dislodge

former Labour MP Andrew dismore in Barnet and Camden.

Fighting to represent the North-East London constituency is Jonathan Silberman of the Communist League.

At number three on the Labour list, former deputy Mayor Nicky gavron is well-placed to return to the Assembly where she has been a member since its inception in 2000.

But at number eight on the Labour list, it would take an extraordinary result for Mike Katz, the Jewish Labour Movement joint vice-chair, to join her.SIMON ROCKER

contenders in race to city hall

from the age of five how to code com-puters. It also runs weekend “hacka-thons”, where girls engage in stem activities. There are also networking events for female students to meet role models in their industries.

Providing a “gendered space” is cru-cial to the group’s success, ms Guderley says. “You hear cases where girls don’t want to study physics because they will be the only girl in the class. our events allow them to do what they love by tak-ing away the pressures of a classroom, because gender becomes a non-factor.”

But that is not to say that she believes in removing men from the conversa-tion — far from it. “We find it harder to engage men than women, so we want to understand what the barriers are that stop men getting involved in femi-nist movements.

“Their voice is crucial. We often find men understand where we are coming from if they can relate it to the women in their lives — to their daughters, sisters and wives. dads come to us because their daughters like physics.”

ms Guderley says “third-wave femi-nism” and its efforts towards gender equality, has opened a “more nuanced discussion” on the topic. It has done some good in banishing the stereotype of feminists as “bra-burning, strident and angry”, moving the discussion on to practical matters such as removing pay gaps and ending violence against women.

After meeting We through ste-mettes, ms Guderley was hooked. Although previously unaligned to a political party she liked the way We was “completely non-partisan”.

only after applying to be a candidate did she realise “just how much I wanted it. It is about doing politics differently. By just being here, political parties have to acknowledge our issues. even if we don’t get in, we don’t mind. You can steal our policies, you can emulate us, we just want to see change because is it taking too long”.

she rubbishes claims that by naming it the “Women’s” equality Party, We is drawing a division between women and men in its own campaign.

“our outcome is a gender equal society, which is going to make society prosperous and fairer. There is nothing to be sorry or ashamed about the fact that we have called it the ‘Women’s’ equality Party, because it is about rais-ing awareness of inequalities as much as anything.”

mettes, becoming a co-founder.mostly funded by corporate sponsor-

ship and partnerships, the group now employs six people and works world-wide to banish stereotypes about what girls can and cannot do.

ms Guderley says: “I suppose it was

then that I became an active feminist. I always knew I was a feminist — my mum taught me that I could do any-thing I wanted. But I realised I could actually do something to change things.”

In Britain, stemettes teaches girls

interVieW Jacquelyn guderley

The woman who wants to change politics