Rural and Environment

Women in the Rural Economy: Part 2

March 4, 2019 by admin No Comments | Category Agriculture, Farming, food and drink

As we approach International Women’s Day, this is the second post in our new series looking at the important and diverse role women play in driving and supporting Scotland’s rural economy. This piece looks at the career and experience of Fiona Matheson of the Orkney Fisheries Association.

To be woman in the rural economy in Orkney is to live a life adapting to what jobs are available. It’s problem solving at every turn rather than ‘choice’ as a traditional career plan does not fit with rural life. Well paid jobs usually in government agencies, are scarce for everyone. Women still have less access to higher paid professional jobs and women’s work is dominated by the caring sector paid and unpaid.

In Orkney there is also a limiting societal and stubborn residual patriarchy. I trained as a teacher but securing contracted permanent work was difficult. I had to take any job that came along which took me into special education and latterly youth work, but I had many years of ‘under’ employment as well as years of ‘unrecognised’ work raising children and looking after my ailing parents. At one time I was a local councillor. I also helped set up Womens’ Aid when the existence of domestic violence was denied by people here. When I could not undertake paid work, I studied psychology with the OU. My husband is a fisherman and early in our marriage EU quota regulations ended his ambitions as a trawlerman. He had to take the only available work on a ‘standby’ vessel in North Sea – the post Piper Alpha safety vessels. His boat was sold and the money invested in self-catering cottages, ironic for an area with a severe social housing shortage that our only means of business development was to create holiday homes. It’s something that still rankles with me. Enforced flexibility has meant that I have expertise in the private business sector and have been pushed out of my comfort zone many times. I have lambed sheep, buried dead ones, gutted fish, mixed cement, scraped boat hulls, done ‘Saturday changeovers’ and groaned over the VAT returns. I now run Orkney Fisheries Association and it is testament to the forward-looking positive attitude I have met among all the men, how gender has never influenced their perception of me or my abilities. The partners of fishermen often are women who get wellies on to help unload a boat or bait the creels.

Today I see around me much more confident young women than I was at 20. Despite the dogged insularity and slowness of the periphery to adapt socially, digital connectivity is enabling change as elsewhere society acknowledges and communicates where negative issues exist be they male attitudes, changing family roles, child-care and gender identity all of which were taboo when I was young.

Tags: International Women's Day, Orkney Fisheries Federation, Rural Scotland, Scotland, Women

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