Listening to Women

Sarah describes how listening is an important part of the Speaking Out project, as the first oral history interviews go ahead.

In the late 1990s, Scottish Women’s Aid produced a publication called ‘25 years of listening to Women: Women’s Aid in Scotland’. Listening to women and learning from women’s experiences have always been at the heart of what Women’s Aid does. While the project is called ‘speaking out’, those of us who have been lucky enough to be working on the project have also recognised the importance of listening, which is why one of our main aims is to collect up to 100 interviews with people who have had a connection to Women’s Aid at any point in its past. From listening to these interviews we are going to learn a lot about the history of Women’s Aid, domestic abuse, feminism and Scottish society more generally.

In order to start preparing to record these interviews it has been a busy few months for the ‘Speaking Out’ team. As part of this we have welcomed a fantastic group of enthusiastic and supportive volunteers who have helped us to shape the interview process, to think of good questions to ask and who are now busy setting up their first interviews. Indeed, the first oral history interview was conducted last week in Dundee and we already have 9 more interviews scheduled during June and July. One of the most exciting aspects of this project is that it will include women’s voices from all around Scotland and will shine a light onto the different groups, women and ideas which made up the Women’s Aid movement.

The interviews are covering themes such as life in a refuge, the ideas behind the movement and the ways in which Women’s Aid has been able to influence ideas and discussions of domestic abuse. We have been really fortunate in that the project has been enthusiastically welcomed by many people around Scotland who have now volunteered to be interviewed or who have put us in touch with people who we need to interview in order for us to be able to tell the story of Women’s Aid. These interviewees will tell us stories about Women’s Aid groups in the Highlands and the Borders and everywhere else in-between. Of course all of this is an interesting exercise in logistics and involves organising a large group of interviewees from around Scotland, a group of around about 30 volunteers, 6 audio recorders and 2 camcorders!

So over the next few months, the Speaking Out team will be doing a lot of listening to women. We’re excited to see what we will learn and are looking forward to sharing all of this with you.

Sarah