Comments on: How did I learn to be a feminist? By reading ballet books

By: Pamela Freeman

Pamela Freeman — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 01:46:19 +0000

In reply to Jill Osborn. This is exactly how I feel about them - that they prepared me to be a feminist in ways I'm only now understanding.

By: Pamela Freeman

Pamela Freeman — Fri, 08 Jul 2022 01:45:00 +0000

In reply to Fiona. I didn't realise they were the same person! I remember Model Girl!

By: Fiona

Fiona — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 23:52:49 +0000

I was just reminded of the Sara Gay Model Girl series that followed a similar trajectory. They are written by Janet Scott who became well known as Roberta Leigh/ Rachel Lindsay writing female doctors and career women for Mills and Boon.

By: Jill Osborn

Jill Osborn — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 22:06:00 +0000

Absolutely love these thoughts which echo my own experiences so closely. These books were hugely formative in my own feminism-I put them alongside books I read later on such as The Women’s Room in being just as, or thinking about it, even more important because I read the ballet novels at such a young age. I read Lorna Hill as a child during the 1970s and these books, together with Mabel Esther Allan’s Drina series in particular and many Noel Streatfeild titles, were crucial in my forming a powerful determination and work ethic and belief in individual creativity which has stayed with me all my life. I also never dreamed when I read these books that I’d be researching them more than 40 years later! My own mother was a young woman during the 1950s and she often described the incredible pressure put upon her to get married-jobs were easy to come by but were very much seen as a stop-gap between school and marriage, and I wholeheartedly agree about the fantastic message the ballet novels were sending to young readers that gender wasn’t a barrier to having a fulfilling and creative life.