A broadcasting icon’s epiphany about feminism happened during supper when she was a teen
One of the biggest stories in the U.K. this weekend is the death of Jenni Murray, who hosted the program Woman’s Hour on BBC Radio 4 for more than three decades. Murray, 75, died March 12, her family said, but news of her death was only made public on Friday.
For Canadians to appreciate Murray’s role in British media and culture, her interviewing style was reminiscent to me of the late Barbara Frum: firm and tenacious, but also warm. Her presence on BBC Radio 4 — the great analogue on the Beeb to our CBC Radio here, with a format heavy on talk and news (and some comedy in there, too) — defined the public broadcaster’s morning service.
As this obituary put it, “Murray, who has died at the age of 75, could tear a strip off a politician, talk about hydrangeas, then campaign against domestic abuse, all within a few minutes.”
I listened to BBC Radio 4 a bit more deliberately in the past, especially if I was at home. My assumptions that this would be lighter fare were quickly corrected; she was a tough interviewer.
When the British comedy series WIA had its protagonist Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville played the overpaid, in-over-his-head BBC bureaucrat) get a good grilling live on the air, I laughed when he was dispatched to Murray’s studio for it to happen. She played herself, and gave it to him. (The topic in the episode, by the way, was ageism against women broadcasters.)
Murray did not shy away from her own perspectives (she sparked outrage once when she said trans women were “not real women”) but often won over audiences with a widen-the-tent perspective to share experiences and points of view.
When I put together a post for a quotation for this blog (you can read them all here), I usually put it at the top. Today, I’m putting it at the bottom. The choice today comes from a wide-ranging interview from 2014 that I read on Saturday.
At one point, Murray was asked when she became a feminist. Her answer reveals a moment of insight that might be relatable.
The day I was aware that I was a feminist, even though I didn’t know the word, was the day my lovely, lovely father came home one evening when I was 15 or 16. My mother had had a really hard day at work and done the shopping, and I’d had a really hard day at school, done my homework, tidied up and helped her cook the supper; and my dad came in and he sat down and he put his feet up and he opened the paper and then he was called to the table and he ate his supper, got up and went and sat down and picked up the paper again.
And I said: ‘Dad, why don’t you clear the table and do the washing up?’ And he said: ‘Oh, I’m sorry, love. I’m quite willing to help if you want me to.’ And I said: ‘It’s not about helping, it’s about doing your share.’ And that was the beginning of that awareness that things were just not right. The gender balance was off-kilter.