Welcome everybody back here to the Martinis Siegel Theatre Center here at the Graduate Center CUNY. My name is Frank Henschkern. I'm the director of the Siegel Center. It's great to see you all here also such great numbers. As you all know, we are restarting our programs and slowly trying to get back into life presenting and presenting what we think are meaningful events, events that have an impact and events that deal with the main mission of our center to bridge academia and professional theater, also international and American theater, but also to plan the foot of academia I think in the research for the theater that we have in town and the performing arts. And tonight I think is one of the evenings which we are very proud to present you tonight. We have Jim Wilson with us at Jordan. Yes, and we are having a book celebration. We, as you know, we publish many books and journals here at the Graduate Center and at the Siegel Center to get together with Marvin Carlson, who is also the director of publishing. We are the largest publisher of our place in translation in the world, by the way, and next to many other things. We published six books in the last eight months. A little corona background next to many other things we did as the prelude festival. But tonight we're going to see a conversation with Jim and Jordan about a book that's topic is of significance always is, but perhaps even now a little bit more in the big pictures about the representation of teachers on the stage and in the performing arts in the American stage. And I think it's a big topic. It touches on many, many issues on on gender on race on ideology and how do you deal with the transfer of information. How do we transfer information to a next generation. That's what teachers do that's what the Graduate Center does that was our great program does. And so I would like to welcome both of you guys to come in here. And Jim worked for many many how many years did you work on the book. Well, I was just telling somebody about 10. But it wasn't 10 straight years I started it on a sabbatical lived on my desk top of my desk top, and about a year and a half or so. Yeah, it's like a great novels.  And, and we have the highest respect for everybody who presents a book who finishes a book I think so much. People go bananas about a touchdown but write a PhD write a book and defend it and present it this is a big achievement. So, Jim, welcome at the Segal Center thank you for joining us tonight and we all would like to know more about failure fascism and teachers in American theater. I want to thank Frank a couple of weeks ago. I saw I'm in the hallway and he just said how's your book coming I said oh publication is imminent and in typical Frank generous and celebratory style said well we need to do something. So here we are so thank you. And I also want to thank. And I also want to thank my dear friend and GC alum, Jordan Schiltkraut, who hadn't even read the book when I asked him if he would participate in this and he unhesitatingly said yes so thank you Jordan. I want to thank all of you here tonight it really means a lot to me. My partner Kevin Lustig who offered constant encouragement throughout and is the Paragon of patients. And then one of my all time favorite artists tug rice, designed the cover. And so, and in this case, I beg of you, judge this book by its cover. And I'm also thrilled to see so many of my dear friends who've come from far and near to be here tonight, and I also just want to call attention to the fact that several of my former and current students from LaGuardia, the Graduate Center and Berg are here tonight so I appreciate that number of colleagues from LaGuardia and the Graduate Center are here, and some of those colleagues are actually former students. So, and I also just want to call attention to my former professor and my academic role model, Marvin Carlson so I'm. Looking at all of you here this evening all I can think is, I didn't order enough food, but there will be a reception following. So, what I would like to do is, since I do not expect anyone to buy this book at the retail price. I will not be buying this book. So what I thought I would do is just give you a brief tour before Jordan and I sit down to have a conversation about the book and the work that's in it. And I do want to also say, I did donate a book to the DTSA the doctoral student, doctoral theater student association, and they are conducting a raffle. I urge you to take a chance. But it's for a very good cause it's for student travel and research endeavors so even if you don't want the book. And you can contribute to the DTSA that would be great. All right, so let me tell you a little bit about this undertaking undertaking. I took on this project, because of my deep love for both teaching and theater. Although I wear many professional hats as a program administrator as a theater historian, as a reviewer, I am in the words of Miss Jean Brody, a teacher, first, last and always. I am certainly not in my prime. And except for the fascism. Jean Brody and I are similar in that I have also dedicated my life to this profession. I'm especially fascinated with the ambivalent attitudes toward, I have to remember to point that way, my ambivalent attitude towards educators at all levels. On one hand, they are revered and they are revered and celebrated working as part of the noble profession in the class I just came from as a matter of fact, we were talking about some of the impacts that teachers have had on our lives. But on this, on the other hand, on the other hand. See, you don't name a book failure and expect to be successful. I must find that teachers also bear the brunt of all of the problems of society, they are the ones who are blamed for all of the social ills. They are alternately accused of being lazy, sinister and recently as pernicious groomers. So one of the things that I noticed is that this ambivalence is nowhere as present as it is in the theater. So what I would like to do is just give a brief snapshot of the five content chapters that follow. And the first one, Frank, the clicker is not working. The first chapter looks at the representations of women's teachers and up through the early 20th century, most women teachers were barred from being married and concurrently philosophers and sexologists pointed to spinsters as mannish sexually non conforming and deviant in their apparent refusal to engage in normal heterosexual coupling. And this monstrous and sadistic school marm, for example, was a familiar writer in vaudeville and burlesque sketches through the 1920s. And as a writer in The Free Woman, a feminist publication wrote in 1911, I write of the high priestess of society, not of the mother of sons but of her barren sister, the withered tree, the assiduous vestal under whose pale shadow we chill and whiten of the spinster, I write. So for many teaching was a profession that you did until you were hopefully able to get out of the profession and marry as writer in the New York Times wrote those who can marry those who cannot continue to teach. So on the other hand, the spinster teacher is occasionally pitiable in her solitary professional existence, and heroic in her single minded devotion to her young charges, as in Harry James Smith's, the little teacher and Emily and Williams, the corn is green and there's a photo of Miss Martha I think probably my all time favorite teacher. Other examples in this chapter include Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker and Miss Dove and Good Morning Miss Dove and another interesting character that I look at is Rose Mary Sydney from picnic if you're familiar with her. She's the example of she just wants to get married so she can get out of teaching she claims that first that offers her independence but as soon as the chance comes up. She takes it. Okay, sorry. In the second half of the 20th century, more and more women were going into the university still far outnumbered by men and current statistics show that women have a much harder time with tenure and getting promoted. In other places, such as the Heidi Chronicles wit office hour and Confederates, the women teachers are referred to, often explicitly as super women. And in the case of Heidi in the Heidi Chronicles, when a television reporter asks her about her being a superwoman. So you have to keep too many lists to be a super woman. What's also notable about these plays is almost all of, except for one that I think they're single. I would suggest that the woman cannot have it all as a professor and Sandra in Confederates also articulates the particular hardships that African American women face in the university she says it is very very hard to be a woman in academia, a black woman, even harder. In the second chapter. I look at in the interwar years, and at that time more and more students were going into schools and actually staying in schools, more so than before. As the depression war on and another world war loomed, the promise and future of the youth seemed especially important. As a result, the physical and psychological fitness of teachers as role models for their students became a source of scrutiny and panic. In 1929 the Board of Education stated, a teacher has an obligation to look after his own health, not only to increase his efficiency to put, but to set an example of an ideal of healthy adulthood. There are many stories at this time in which teachers were fired for instance for being too heavy. One particularly cruel example was a woman was fired because she was considered a fire hazard and to prove it. The Board of Education conducted a fire drill to show that she was unfit and couldn't move out of the building fast enough. The other major issue was homosexuality, and that was a huge concern. And this played itself out in a lot of the plays of the period. And as Willard Waller wrote, nothing seems more certain than that homosexuality is contagious. And in several of the plays of the interwar period, this is evident. So I look at Trio, which is explores the relationship of a professor and a student and luckily, or I shouldn't say, but for that student, this student is saved by a cisgender white male who's anti-intellectual and takes her out of the clutches of this vampiric lesbian professor. The Rats of Norway is a play that has all kinds of couplings. An interesting thing about the Rats of Norway, it also has a sissy character. And unlike almost all of the plays that deal with homosexuality, that character is not destroyed in the end, which I find kind of interesting. And then of course there's the children's hour. And to go back to this idea of homosexuality as contagious, an interesting side note is that the children's hour is based on an actual school from 1810 Scotland, and there was a homosexual panic. And all of the students were removed from that school. But in an interesting footnote, all but one of those students could not be put into another school, because they were concerned that the students having been exposed to homosexuality would cause another outbreak in another school. Okay, so the next chapter should say this was a sign that I saw in the Graduate Center. Those of you who are at the Graduate Center may have seen similar signs. I noticed there's one today about how teachers and students are being targeted for their outspoken views on what's happening in Israel and Gaza. And it sent chills down my spine because I thought, oh, here we go again, because the chapter I focus on is the, sorry, the fact that in the 1940s and 1950s, colleges, schools and universities were presumed hotbeds of communist activity. And thousands of predominantly male school teachers and professors were interrogated for their political beliefs. And most of those investigated were forced to leave the profession. So you'll see lots of headlines like this about communist activities and oaths of loyalty, which were becoming more and more prevalent in the 1940s and 1950s. Hollywood films, as it has been well documented, shied away from critiquing the red scare. But the theater was not so shy. So there were a number of plays that focused on some of these issues, including the light, very silly, but I think it's probably still revivable, the male animal by James Thurber and Elliot Nugent, the melodrama decision by Edward Chaturroff, and the egghead by Molly Kazan, Aliyah's wife. Moving on, the next chapter looks at the debates around progressive education. And by the 1960s, progressive education had really become a hot topic that there was a demand for back to the basics approaches to teaching and some of the main figures in progressive education, such as John Dewey, who wrote School and Society, Democracy and Education, Experience Education, Experience and Education. It said that the schools should be a rehearsal for democracy. It should be a place to train people for democratic citizenship. A.S. Neil, some say, took Dewey's ideas way too far. A.S. Neil created a school called Summerhill, and this was an experiment that I think actually still goes on. In Summerhill, the students are the ones creating the rules. The students decide what they will learn, when they will learn. Somebody was observing and said he couldn't believe he walked by a classroom and the teacher had her feet up on the desk and the children were chewing bubble gum. And that was the outrage. And then finally, looking at Paulo Freire, whose major contribution to education is the pedagogy of the oppressed. And my book actually riffs on that title, minus the pedagogy of the oppressors. And Paulo Freire had an idea that traditional education treats students as empty vessels in which knowledge is poured into them. The three plays in this chapter. The crime of Miss Jean Brody, Miss Margarita's way and Sister Mary Ignatius explains it all for you. Test and thwart some of those principles of progressive education. They can also be read as allegories for dictator controlled societies and in particular, if you're familiar with Miss Margarita's way, we are, as the audience members, her classroom and she bullies us she calls us faggots and morons and she says that if we behave she'll show us parts of her body. But, and then of course, Sister Mary Ignatius is a pretty fierce none in the course of the place she shoots two of the students. And the last chapter is an exploration of men in drama and theater and Willard Waller described teaching as a failure belt or for a or a profession that was suited for men who could make who could not make it in business and for women who couldn't get married. A further element in the popular prejudice against teachers is that teaching is quite generally regarded as a failure belt. There are some justice in this belief, a popular epigram of a few years ago had had that teaching was the refuge of unsayable men and unmarriageable women. And he goes on to say that it has been said that no woman and no Negro is ever fully admitted to the white man's world. Possibly we should add men teachers to the list of the excluded. So this chapter explores the ingrained idea that men who teach are failed men as members of a woman dominated profession of a woman dominated profession, recipients of comparatively modest salaries and intellectuals in an anti intellectual hypermasculinized society, they supposedly forfeit their masculinity. Many of the teachers that are portrayed, such as the Browning version, but Lee, who's afraid of Virginia Woolf. Child's play quarter means terms, all show men as unhappy, disillute and very often drunk. And it shows the transgressive failure, emasculation and thatcherousness of the male teacher. And then finally, so we can get to the good part conversation with Jordan. I just want to conclude by saying that theater and performance like gifted teachers have the power to reveal to us who we are, what we value, and how we fit in the world. My hope is that this book and that the chapters taken together will provide deeper insights into fraught educational, political and social histories to help us better understand the culture wars that we are currently in. And representation matters. Perhaps deconstructing well worn tropes will encourage educators, artists and scholars to forge new ones. These are the lessons and legacies we can impart to generations of future teachers. And I'll just conclude with the words of Hector from the history boys who says, past the parcel. Sometimes all you can do, take it, feel it and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day, pass it on boys. That's the game I wanted you to learn. Pass it on. Thank you. So thank you Jim this was a great overview and question very beautiful to listen to the watch. So I handed over to both of you. It should be on. Can you test? Hello. Hello, Jordan. I believe we're ready to go. Maybe again. Jim first let me take over what why of all the themes to choose from why did you choose this one. In terms of teachers and theater. As I said, because I love teachers, I come from a long line of teachers. And I'm also fascinated by the way they are presented on stage and whenever having well I should say having been a teacher for now 30 years or so. I look at these plays and I say, that's not my experience that's not what it actually is to be a teacher but it seems like that is the accepted view of teachers. So and I'm also very interested in the history of education and how these plays fit into that history of education. I mean, if I can speak I'll say, sorry, hold on just one second. When I had the pleasure of reading your book over this past week, which I just enjoyed thoroughly. One of the insights that struck me is one of the things that you point out that almost everyone in our society will at some point have a connection to a teacher. We don't experience teachers, but yet, often as students, we only experience them within the rarely, you know the relatively narrow confines of the classroom. So these plays and perhaps our interest in these plays I think you're pointing out is to get almost a behind the scenes look at what the lives of these important people in our lives these influential people in our lives may actually be. These sort of biographies that variety of different lives lived by these characters just really paints a complex portrait of that. Thank you. It's in the previous class as I mentioned just came from class we're talking about bell hooks and one of the things that bell hooks says and I don't know if this quite ties in. And why we have this misconception of teachers is we don't think of them as people in their bodies. We think about them as minds only so that there's this assumption that teachers don't work because they're not using their bodies in their classroom So I think that one of the things that I find interesting about the plays in particular, often as that's the opposite. I mean, in many cases, they're almost pure body. I mean, of course, theaters performing but you think about a character like Blanche Dubois, who was a former teacher. And, and by the way, it's also interesting. She also has a gay panic and she says that that was what caused her to become the abuser that she was. I mean, it's an interesting example like in the book you have so much into insight into a bright variety of plays, which I mean I think the audience here got some sense of from your presentation but I just want to take it further and point out for example, that you deal with some plays that are very much you know in the mainstream in the canon of American theater, others that may be familiar, you know, but not as well known and then some that I feel like you've actually rescued from the shadows of history. One of the most interesting sections to me is actually on the play trio. Because to the best of my knowledge, that's never been published. Is that true. That's true. Yeah. So I'm curious about like your research into this how that process was, if you can talk about that. Well, I spent a lot of time in the archives. And I think rescue might be too strong a word for some of these plays. Some of these plays are just not very good plays I mean they're not doable. But in terms of the process of just reading and play like trio was interesting, because there was so much drama. And I think that's the end of the play had trouble getting to New York and then when it did get a theater the theater was revoked and it closed, but it had nothing to do with the lesbian content as they were continually told. But in terms of the pleasures was finding these plays. Another one is the egghead, the Molly Kazan play, which again is not a very good play but it's a really fascinating play in terms of. How it was reflecting society at that time. Good. And I feel like so often that's, you know, what I appreciated about your insights that you're understanding these plays, whether they are like, you know, considered masterpieces like, you know, speak our name desire who's afraid of Virginia Wolf, or perhaps not so much, but still that you take them seriously in terms of the emblematic nature of what they're reflecting what do these characters tell us about society. I feel I was impressed by your own sense of the depth of knowledge about theater history production so like that you talk about for example the different controversies around particular plays like Sister Mary Ignatius is another one, right. But then also the larger social context like so much of the what you presented with us here today even shows this interest in really a cultural history of education. And what that's been an American society are there things that you sort of like discovered in that that surprised you in terms of like how we have thought about education in the past, or perhaps now. Yes, I mean one of the things that surprised me was, particularly what was going on in the 1940s. I mean, I knew what was going on in terms of there was a huge number of plays that dealt with gaze and lesbian characters. So what surprised me was, what was happening in real life in terms of how teachers were being targeted. And, for instance, there was another case, the board of education went into a school, and will they said he said that out of the 30, I think I'll probably get these numbers because the 36,000 New York City teachers 1600 were either insane or psychologically unfit and he conducted a test and he. At first he went into a classroom and he saw that one teacher had her desk with the foot right up to a boy's eye because she claimed that the other children were looking at her and she wanted she wanted to deflect the attention or another teacher was given the pro the math problem. On Apple costs, 5 cents, how many would 15 cost and he wrote that the teacher said she couldn't figure it out without scratch paper so she filled up two sides of the paper and then finally just had to say, I'm stumped. So lots of cases like that where on teachers were demonized. He said it became a national obsession. And then when we look at what's happening today and I'm sure we'll probably have some time. But what's happening in Florida and what's happening in Texas, for instance that teachers can't be trusted to teach material and that students cannot be exposed to racism and racial histories. I guess the surprises to go back to your original question was how little things have changed that these kind of, I don't know a cyclical cultural panics or cultural wars, and the way that education, and then of course teachers or kind of position within that right. You also talk about different philosophies of education, and the way that the plays represent that. And so I'm curious like are there examples of the teacher characters that you looked at that you feel are emblematic of, should we say the best teachers and the worst teachers. Like, what, how do, how do we know what a good teacher is in this world of the theater. That's a, I would say, and one of the things that I look at it and I look at some psychological theories as well. Somebody like Miss Mothat, I'll just talk about Miss Mothat for a moment. Miss Mothat is complete, she gives herself completely over to this one student and she makes all kinds of sacrifices. And when the student gets a young woman pregnant, she doesn't want his chances to be to be undermined. So she agrees to raise the child. What I love about Miss Mothat though, is it really wasn't for the other student, it was for her she even says, you know, this is what I had envisioned this is what I dreamt of. The end when somebody brings the baby's adoption papers. She says, what's that. Oh, I forgot all about that. I mean she forgot all about this baby that she was just taken on. So even in the best of teachers, we see that the motives are always so pure. Right, so the kind of difference in pedagogy between the teacher who inspires and somehow is almost like self sacrificing for the student, but that in other cases, where they are little classroom dictators, right and it's about enforcing conformity of thought and of behavior, and how that tension seems to be recurring and so much of the work that you're looking at. So I think of a teacher for us to admire Sarah rules play max letters from max a ritual. And in that play.  So I think that that might be an example of good teaching. Okay, good. Just to know a bit more about your inspiration. You talk about being the child of teachers. But as you were writing this book, did it cause you to reflect on your own practice as a teacher. Well, I should say that as I mentioned, in some ways I identify with Miss Jean roadie as a teacher. First, last and always, as a child.   But that's the surest way to not be a popular kid. In the neighborhood, children would be around. Oh, look, there's Jimmy Wilson. Is that a lesson plan is carrying run. So it did. As I was writing this I was also thinking about me as a teacher about as they say, my love for teachers. And many of these teachers. I felt I knew they could because I had taught high school for a number of years. I've taught college so some of them. I felt that I knew them. And sometimes so myself in them. So I mean, because I feel like one of the things that you point out about these teachers whether they're seen as really noble inspirational figures or whether they're seen as horrific monsters who are ruining children. They're charismatic. They're good characters. And so this kind of sense of this figure that represents so much about what is other right or wrong in our society. Being an object of theatricality. You mentioned briefly the fact that in many of these plays, the audience is cast as students in the theater for this class. There are other ways that you feel like this is inherently a theatrical dynamic because you know we could obviously talk about teachers and cinema and novels and so forth. Can you talk about the specific theatricality of what you were looking at and what you found. Yeah. Well, I think I kind of alluded to it. One of the things that these teachers often bring to mind is the idea of the cult of the teacher. And so somebody like Miss Jean Brody who I keep going back to tonight.  But so I think that's part of it. And I think to your point to I mean teaching is I mean it goes without saying is a performative profession. And so, many of these characters exemplify those qualities of that charismatic teacher as you mentioned. Good I mean as you were talking about Maggie Smith I was thinking about the fact that so many of these roles that they're really like tour de force roles for some great actors so like we got to see you know like Ethel Barrymore thinking of like you know Alan Bates and but Lee. Are there any performances here that you wish you could have seen on stage. Certainly Ethel Barrymore. Okay, certainly Jessica Tandy in streetcar. I did see a stop Parsons and Miss Marguerita's way she did a revival of it in 1990 so I was able to see that performance.  And now I know. So that's what. So we'll have to work on a revival. Cherry Jones you available. We'll contact her. I'm curious. Actually, no, we should open it up to the audience now. Yeah, we know almost one additional question as a German I course I have to ask it if you go look back at the theater as an educational institution the ideas of lessing good to Schiller. Do you see theater as an educational institution is it the teacher of society. It can be the place I'm looking at or not in general. But I do think that first of all I should say for my own experience. All I know comes from the theater. I mean, anything I know about American history for instance is because I saw in musicals or plays. So I do think that yes, if very much serves that purpose. Yeah, maybe you handed over I just want to point out we did an adaptation of the children's our request the court material at the time and the game marriage but was finally allowed officially in the United States and and there was a discussion afterwards in the play and we liked it so much that actually Jim in the play which we printed is a character on stage as a teacher. So you're part of that legacy but let's now go to the audience and I will come and would like to ask you to maybe short introduce yourself and also speak into the mic. Since the evening is recorded on how around and we also would like to welcome all our guests on that national platform that so greatly supports work the seals and other many others. No. Hi, I mean, I was lucky enough to read a bit of your book and it's really wonderful. I was wondering if you could sort of elucidate what you think the role theater has and national conversations of history and politics etc you sort of touched on that but what do you think is the role. I don't know if it has a defined role I think that assume that it takes on a role. I do think that this is a place for us. The theater is a place to test ideas and to show experiences that people don't get to experience so in terms of entering the political discourse I think it has a very important purpose in that regard. Hi, I'm Philip. Oh, that's loud. Um, while you were speaking Jim I was thinking of the play I had seen years and years ago off Broadway and I'm wondering if you touch on it in your book it was called the primary English class with Diane Keaton. Are you drawing a blank. I'm drawing a blank Diane Keaton. Yes, it was that whatever that theater was on McJugos. Does anyone remember that. It was with Diane Keaton. Okay, I don't know. I don't know that play. You stumped me. Hi, my name is Mitch. My sister was a teacher for 30 years, and she retired when she could because she said the role of parents had changed so much over that 30 years. And I know that is touched on in some place like in the children's hour there's that horrible mother. Do you find because I didn't realize you had also taught high school has that it does that affect college professors as well the role of parents of the students or is is that does that sort of stop when when you're My students generally not. Particularly the CUNY students I teach for instance at LaGuardia. Many of them are first generation college students. So parents that the problem is the parents are not involved enough because they don't know how to. I taught my first election my second high school teaching position was that a very suburban very good school. And I used to say that the students weren't the problem. The parents were the problem because if the student got an A minus. The parent would be calling you how much how's my student going to get into Yale or Harvard within a minus. So, I encountered that as a high school teacher. Kevin, when you were doing your research, do you find any teachers who didn't fit neatly into one into one category. Yes, a lot. Actually, and is Asya here. Asya was my graduate student assistant last year and Asya helped me put together a an appendix at the end and they're about 300 plays with teachers in them. Some of the teachers weren't quite honestly very interesting so I didn't pursue those and some just I didn't know how to actually talk about them, or they were repetitive of other teachers. Hi, this is Casey. I have a sort of two questions. The first, I don't know if you touch on this in the book, but several of the performances you've mentioned tonight have become movies and been sort of frozen and I'm thinking of, you know, Children's Hour, Virginia Woolf, things like that. I'm wondering if you find that that portrayal either changes or becomes more fixed like if there are differences there. And then secondly, I'm wondering about teachers in musical theater. I'm thinking about Mrs. Anna but I'm wondering what you found there. Well, I think, as Jordan had mentioned, I mean, part of the pleasure of seeing a lot of these plays about teachers on stage is their life and teachers in real life are, as I've already mentioned, bodies and so even though they may not explicitly break the fourth wall, there is that particular experience. I never saw Vanessa Redgrave or Zoe Caldwell, but I've already mentioned Maggie Smith. I cannot imagine anybody doing that part better than Maggie Smith. In terms of musicals, one of the ones actually you'd mentioned, King and I, but I was thinking about Matilda Matilda is a really interesting show I know it's based on Roald Dahl's novel. But that has a couple of very familiar versions of the teacher. Mrs. Trunchbull or Ms. Trunchbull is the typical spinster, man-ish character. And then you have Miss Honey, who is the very self-sacrificing also unmarried single woman but very motherly. I'll just mention this. I mean, the fact that you do touch on musical theater in the book, but also some things that we didn't get to so far is like you actually take us back even to like Aristophanes and to Shakespeare. And widen the scope even further in terms of like the way that these archetypes are functioning in a variety of different genres and a variety of different arrows. Hi, Professor Wilson. My name is Brittany Vickers, and I was fortunate enough to come from your class today where we were speaking about this and we had a nice warm up. It really was. And I have two questions for you. The first is, we were speaking about the relationship between teachers and students. And I'm curious how that relationship has changed over the course of your 30 years of teaching. And that might be a difficult question, but have you seen a change? And if so, what is that? Very interesting question. Again, because I'm now primarily, right now primarily working with graduate students, it's a very different relationship with students. One of the things that kind of saddens me about where teaching has gone, teachers are terrified of touching a student, for instance. And I remember that when I was in school, sometimes teachers would hug the students. And now, from what I understand, that's not something one does. So I think there's a fear that I could be overstating it, but I think there's more of a fear of the student than there had been for a number of different reasons in terms of the school shootings or accusations, etc. Thank you. That's a wonderful question. I agree. A question for the world. Now, I'm just having a lot of memories as you speak. But the last thing I'm going to ask you, I was thinking about teachers a great deal today that have touched me on an emotional level. I'm curious if you have a lesson that stayed with you from a teacher that you've had. And if so, what is it? I would say, probably the teacher who had the greatest effect on me was Mrs. Albany's in third grade. And first of all, she was just such a warm woman. I just remember her smiling, big laugh. But she also saw me as this kind of kooky kid. I have to say, I was not a very good student. I was just too scattered. But that year in third grade, she directed a production of The Wizard of Oz and cast me as the scarecrow. And so that was one of those, I would say, life changing moments because at that point I could see how theater and school could come together. And then of course theater is why it was something we talked about in class this evening. But theater was my safe space in high school. Hi, Jim. So I'm very interested in the differences you found between depictions of teachers, meaning 12 and K through 12, and professors, especially because for women, as you kind of mentioned, teaching has always been a professional option. In American history, like that's your professional option of teacher and nurse, right? But women breaking into becoming professors is much more recent. And if you saw any vestiges of that or any differences in terms of gender. I'm sorry. In terms of differences between women's school teachers or women professors. Yes. And also male school teachers and male professors in terms of how they're gendered. Well, first of all, I will say that most of the male professors, not all of the male professors are, as I mentioned, not great people.  And you think about Butler, for instance, they tend to be drunk. They tend to be just cruel with their students. Women, you get the sense that they have to work even harder. And somebody like Vivian Bering in wit, for instance, in order for her to compete with her male colleagues. She has to pretty much sublimate any of her humanity and any of her personal life. So that's something that I also noticed that a lot of the women professor characters are pretty much defined by their job. As I said, almost all single Heidi does. I know that many feminists were really angry with that play, but Heidi wants to try to have it all by having a baby at the end, but still not, still without a partner. I mean, it's interesting just made the connection between Miss Moffat and Heidi that both of these plays and with the woman holding a baby. Well, Miss Moffat's not holding her baby. She's forgotten about the baby. Oh yeah. But yes, it's true. They both end with the baby. Hi, I'm Erica Lynn. Jim, I'm really struck by how subversive your book actually is compared to how depressing the title is. And I'm wondering if you can speak a little bit in about your process in selecting out of 300 some odd plays in your appendix, the case studies that you ended up focusing on, and then whether you went in with a lens that was intending to be so well, I called it subversive, but it's also it's a deeply feminist, right, and deeply, you know, a homophilic reading and also attentive I saw from some of your examples to issues of race. So did you go in with a lens? And was that part of your selection principle? And did that result in failure and fascism? And was that an unexpected outcome of the choices that you made? Interesting. In terms of the choices, I, because of my own background in gender and sexuality studies, I went into it actually the first chapter that I wrote was the queer chapter focusing on those characters. And one of the, I think what actually oftentimes happened was, I started looking at one play. So for instance, Children's Hour. And then as I was looking at Children's Hour, I said, Oh, this has a connection to girls in uniform. So oftentimes those connections revealed themselves to me. The other choice that I often made, as I said, I'm also very interested in education history and one of the books that I had read recently is Jackie Blount's book about women in the profession. So oftentimes I would read the theory and I was able to see how it relates to a particular place. So oftentimes the plays found me through the theories or through the histories. Thank you. Hi, I'm Tori. I also just came from Professor Melsen's class. Something I noticed throughout the time periods is the sexualization of teachers from either like the sexless spinster or the over sexualized like seducer of students. So I'm curious how this image of the teacher and how we sexualize specifically women teachers. How do you think that ties into some of the fear and panic that's going on today, perhaps with queer women teachers or being an example, an adult example of some sort of perverse sexuality. And I think you're absolutely right that that is an issue that pervades a lot of the plays. And I think that the plays reflect that cultural both the fetishization of teachers, but also the fear of teachers. I think that one of the things that runs through history is the fact that, as I mentioned in my presentation, parents were giving their children to the teachers. So there was a great deal of fear that with that closeness. They could use, they could groom to use an awful term that we have now. So I think that closeness is a particular fear even I mentioned David Mamet was a pig. He had said last year that men teachers are drawn to teaching because they're naturally pedophiles. So and Randy Winegarten really gave it to him. But yeah, and I think not only in terms of sexualization, but also ideology. So that's another reason why the fear of the communist infiltration that because the teacher has so much power, they can influence the child. I appreciate that question so much because I think it does bring us to the contemporary right that if you just even put the word teachers into the New York Times search you will get article after article about a teacher being fired or being disciplined for teaching about gender and sexuality for teaching about race, or even just still like being morally unfit that teachers can still be dismissed from this in certain cases in institutions and so it seemed to me that your book is also quite timely. That reflects on a history that we are still living in the reverberations of and so I'm curious to hold this beautiful book in your hand now and see okay here we are now in November of 2023. So probably you could not have predicted while writing the book. Right. Is there anything that has struck you particularly about where we are now. I'm upset. I mean I think that it's very difficult to be a teacher at this time I mean teachers are quite literally under attack when we see that the nation is doing nothing about these continued mass shootings. Also, teachers are being attacked, because they're foisting books on children that deal with sexuality that they parents don't think that they should be reading. But as I said also, I'm also very concerned about the political time period and I think that if the presidency changes next year, one of the first places that we'll see it affecting is education. So we are already seeing what DeSantis is doing in Florida, for instance with new college. So, sorry to end it on this down or no, but sorry but I want to take that from Matilda. But to take that to the up note the fact that you have found, you know, so much richness in this material from history that really does make us reflect on our society and to me that book does make a statement and it's a powerful statement and that to me is a beautiful thing to celebrate. Thank you. So thank you and I hope you can all stay for a little celebration we have some drinks and some libations and something to each so again thank you Jim and thank you Jordan.


Rwy'n meddwl i fynd i gyfle i'r lyingu yn y cwmwysgol i gyda'r gwmpas practise i gael, ac yn mynd yn gallu gwahodol. Mae'n mhebwll i'r ffynifau y torfight y Mae Bethau, felly fe gyda y cyfnodeb ddechrau, i ffynifarsau 3137-3, yn elu phwyllwyr Mikell-Beth, i ffordd o gair yn y bwysig hefyd. Mae'n gymhwynt yde Chyfafol hwnny'r golygu. Mae'n meddwl i'n cefnod i chi'n meddwl, i ddwych chi'n ritatedwch ar gwaith hwnnw, Rydw i'n edrych yn fawr, o bobl oedd yn gweithgafol â holl Llanr and Rathbwrdd, ac rydw i'n rhaid i gael Mi sisiau Tomson i gyd nifer o'i debatiau fyddwch mwy sydd gyda ichi Tomson. Rydw i'n rhaid i gael eu cerddurio'r cyflymau ar Gwия. Rydw i'n gweithio'r cyflymau ar y cyfrannol 190 rhaid, ac rydw i'n gweithio'r cyflymau ar Ffasart Scyddianiaeth, wrth gwrdd i'n cael ei ddeudu'r cyfrannol yn y rhai cyfrannol. Oni, wrth gwrs, yr adeithi dr Jacob Brannowski rwyf yn ysgolwg gydag unig o'r cymdeithasau o'r anol yn y ffordd rwyf yn cyd-dweithio'r cyhoedd y byd, ac yn cymdeithio'r cyhoedd rwyf yn cymdeithasol. Felly, gwrs, mae ymdd yn tynnu fydd y byd yn cymdeithio'r cyhoedd rwyf yn cymdeithio'r cyhoedd. Fy gydag y bydd yn cymdeithio'r cyhoedd rwyf yn cymdeithio'r cyhoedd has been framed by men, for men and the simply does not reflect our wider society. The motion therefore speaks to what I think is an essential truth. If Scotland is to reach her economic potential, the power of women must be unleashed and to do so we will have to see a major cultural shift. We need a culture for business and enterprise that's enabling for women as well as men. There are real strengths and difference and research literature demonstrates that diversity, particularly cognitive diversity, aids effective group-based decision making business. On that point, although today's debate is about women, I believe that we need more inclusive diversity across the board and indeed on the boards. There's much to commend in the progress that's been made in some areas over recent years. For example, in March 2014, the Scottish Government published a framework and action plan to increase the impact of women's enterprise to the Scottish economy. Using a partnership approach, it has been pioneering and was the first of its kind anywhere in the European Union. Scotland established women's enterprise ambassadors and there have been many workshops held by both government bodies such as Business Gateway and a range of private sector firms that are all focused on encouraging women in their business ambitions. However, that can never be enough when faced with unstated cultural assumptions that continue to limit women's engagement. The barriers are quite profound. As research from Women's Enterprise Scotland has found, women start their businesses with 53 per cent less capital than men, ask for 30 per cent less funding and, consequently, are hugely under-capitalised from the outset. Their research has also found that women-owned companies contribute £8.8 billion gross value-add into the Scottish economy every year, and that's more that comes from food and drink, the creative industries or sustainable tourism. Women have created over 230,000 jobs, but that is not yet enough. I hope to see the day when women-owned businesses in Scotland have created closer to a million jobs and I don't regard that as an unreasonable ambition. The most recent global entrepreneurship monitor report into women's entrepreneurship was published in November 2021. It provides both hopeful and worrying insights into recent trends. On the hopeful side, it points to the ambition of women-led businesses to increase their number of employees. In mid-2020, 30.2 per cent of women entrepreneurs surveyed expected to hire six or more employees in the next five years, increasing from only 18.7 per cent in the 2019 report. However, although that is encouraging, it is still less than the 48 per cent of men with high expectations for growth. However, as the monitor makes clear, the patterns of entrepreneurship vary widely when comparing women and men. In 2020, women far exceeded men on the rate of solo entrepreneurship. However, that factor could indicate an inability to access finance at the same rate in stages as men rather than necessarily a business or lifestyle choice. However, those types of businesses add value and can start to break the barriers. For example, InDes, who recently gave evidence to the Economy, Economy and Fair Work Committee write a study that suggests that e-commerce is breaking the mould in gender equality. They suggest that, unlike in the gaming industry or other areas of digital, around 50 per cent of business owners in e-commerce are female. We can learn from areas of progress beyond our shores. I was fascinated some time back to listen to a tech talk by Hala Thomas-Dottier, who managed to take our company on to your capital through the eye of the financial storm in Iceland from 2007 onwards by applying so-called feminine values to financial services. Let me mention just two. Firstly, risk. She argues that we should not be risk averse in preventing innovation, but nor should we be cavalier with risk as it was characteristic of testosterone-filled males who were the authors of the financial crash. I would also argue that risk assessment today must take a different approach given its history and development towards fundamentally men-owned businesses. Women face particularly risks, too, that go beyond finance. Thomas Dottier makes the point also that businesses do not succeed on the basis of spreadsheets, but through people. It reminded me of my days in some businesses where one role in particular sought to deliver transformational change. I always use the phrase that we must deliver through people and not to people. Her focus on due diligence involving emotional capital gives us all much to consider. Some would argue that Government's support for businesses during the pandemic has been gender neutral, but if you look at the actuality and distribution of funding, it tells a different story, not one of neutrality but of gender blindness. The United Nations describes gender blindness as including an inability to realise that policies, programmes and projects have different impacts on men, women, boys and girls. As one example, with thanks again to research from Women's Enterprise Scotland, it is the distribution of the Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund, or Perth for short. It provided bespoke grants and wraparound business support to viable but vulnerable MSEs in Scotland during the pandemic. Proportionately, more funding was given to male than female-led businesses in every local authority area. Indeed, in Angus, East Dunbartonshire and East Lothian, no funding whatsoever was allocated to female-led businesses from Perth. I am a supporter of the need for a more rigorous and comprehensive approach to capturing and disseminating the gender-based data that we need for monitoring policy impact but also designing policies in the first place. I have on my two committees on more than one occasion raised this issue with a number of bodies in Scotland. Only to find out such data is not yet being gathered and disseminated as standard practice, so we need to take women in business issues very seriously. I ask the Scottish Government to reflect on all policies and all strategies to ascertain where appropriate how they support women already in business and into business. For example, the recent retail strategy mentions women but does not yet go far enough to flesh out specifically how women in retail can be the heart of its future. In summing up, Professor Sarah Carter of Strathclyde University in this to say, research shows that if women started businesses at the same rate of men, the number of entrepreneurs in the UK would increase dramatically, whilst the underrepresentation of women in entrepreneurship is an international concern relative to other high-income countries, Scotland's rates of female business ownership are persistently low. I know that this is a rallying call for us all. Access to finance is critical. We need an in-depth understanding of cultural barriers. Our programmes must ensure equality for women in businesses and we must continue the good work that has already started to stamp out misogyny. There is a long way to go yet to create a level playing field for women in business. I believe that this Parliament and this Government will play a leading role in that endeavour. Scotland means business and that means women in business. Thank you, Ms Thomson. I now call on Collette Stevenson to be followed by Pam Gosall for around four minutes. I want to congratulate Michelle Thomson in securing this debate and I'm glad to speak in it. I also want to acknowledge the excellent work that is being done by Women's Enterprise Scotland. Right across the country, women play a vital role in business. When it comes to ownership, however, only 17 per cent of small and medium enterprises are women-led according to the latest small business survey Scotland. Just as in other aspects of society, women face particular challenges in business and we must do more to break down those barriers. When I was a councillor, albeit less than a week ago, I chaired business gateway Lanarkshire for a while and I got to meet many talented entrepreneurs. I know the particular challenges that women can face, including when it comes to disproportionate caring responsibilities and sometimes the lack of confidence in an area dominated by men. That lack of confidence is perhaps reflected in the statistics on women starting business with much less capital than men and asking for less money in funding bids. It has been recognised, including by business gateway, that women in business often want more opportunities for networking and mentoring and often with other women who are or have been in similar situations. Many women have experience of being a main caregiver and having to juggle that with work and other life commitments is often very difficult. There is also the issue of misogyny, and women's health needs, too. There was a great discussion about that at the Women's and Business Cross-Party group last week. It is crucial that we do as much as possible to tailor support for women's wellbeing, and that is true in business, too. In terms of policy, the Scottish Government has committed to establishing a women's business centre supported with a £50 million investment over this Parliament. The centre will ensure that women-led businesses have accessible, relevant advice and the right support. Women's Enterprise Scotland has already launched a digital version of that, and I encourage that any women business are considering setting up a business to look it up. Another commitment from the Scottish Government as part of that work to support women in business is the funding support that will be given to 100 women per year to develop pioneering business ideas. That is our daily welcome policy, and it will support many women entrepreneurs. That will investigate and make recommendations on the gender gap in the opportunities in business and consider things such as education, financing and support and mentoring. I hope that the review's short, medium and long-term recommendations will help to remove barriers and support women in and into business. To conclude, in Scotland, women-owned businesses can contribute an estimated £8.8 billion to the economy and directly employ almost 250,000 people. That is a huge benefit to the women leading those companies, to the employees, to the extractor and to our society as a whole. Just imagine, when we break down the barriers facing women in business, how those benefits will multiply. I thank Michelle Thomson for bringing that motion forward for debate. I am delighted to contribute today on behalf of the Scottish Conservatives. Women in business is a subject that is extremely close to my heart. As some of you may know, after my father sadly passed away in my teenage years, I had to step up and run the family business. Not only did I run the family business, but I later on changed the model to transfer it into a portfolio property so that I could pursue my career and my education. However, it was not without its challenges. I was thrown into the deep end and had to learn to swim without guidance or support as an Asian girl in a male-dominated business environment, but I am proud to stand here today knowing that times have changed. As a trustee of many women groups, I have seen many women starting up a business from the kitchen or garage, having a small dream and turning it into reality. On many occasions, the greatest challenge for women in business is infrastructure. They need allies. They need investment. They need support. A report showed that doubling the number of women-led businesses and increasing productivity by about 40 per cent would power around £50 billion in the UK gross value added. It adds around 50,000 new female entrepreneurs and 260,000 more women-led businesses in the UK economy by 2030. However, this year, women-owned businesses in Scotland only accounted for 14 per cent of SMEs down from 2017 from 20.6 per cent. How do we turn that around? Sitting on the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, I am no stranger to the topic of women's inequality in the labour market and the statistics outline in the member's motion today emphasises the challenges that I speak of. Professor Norrin Arshad told the committee that we need to see more collaboration with financial institutions to understand access to financial support. She also highlighted concerns about duplication and confusion over what is effective, who is doing what and what is going where. It is confusion like this that puts women off, puts them off to attempting to wade through bureaucracy to apply for funding. I will be clear that I welcome the First Minister's £50 million of funding for the National Women's Business Centre, but it is unclear what stage its development is at and how exactly it intends to support and empower women entrepreneurs. However, those issues can be ironed out with more accurate data on women's participation in a labour market. Currently, we lack data on what works and what does not work, what type of support works for intersectional differences among women, whether she is bame, has children, has a dependent or is single. That is not me taking an opportunity to bash the SNP. It is about getting it right for those women and ensuring that investments are effective and not wasted opportunity. Investing in supporting women-led businesses has a great social and economic value. Although I welcome commitments to invest in a women's business centre, that cannot be another botched SNP project that is cluttered with bureaucracy. First, we need more detailed data showing that what is happening on the ground on women's participation in the labour market to inform more accurate support mechanisms for funding streams. Secondly, we need more clarity on the women's business centre, for example, what support will it offer and how will it function. We need to see more promotional campaigns on the social and economic impact of investing in women-led businesses. I want to congratulate and thank Michelle Thompson for her members' debate today and for her great speech. I also thank her for becoming the deputy of the cross-party group on women enterprise. I have chaired it for six years now. After listening to Pam Gosel's speech in particular, I would really love it if Pam Gosel would consider joining as a member, because I think that you have a lot to add to that. I am also speaking to some of the women entrepreneurs who come to the cross-party group on women's enterprise. A lot of them are business leaders and are actively involved in the consultation around shaping the new business women's centre. I think that some of your fears or questions around it might actually get a lot of comfort from hearing those voices, because they are very much involved. It is also interesting to hear what Pam Gosel said about the drivers for how she ended up being a business leader. I am reflecting on my own business career before I came into this Parliament. The stories of many other women that I hear from in the cross-party group, how did they get into business? There are relatively few of them who ever thought that they wanted to run a business. Circumstances led them to setting up in businesses. In my case, I had two small children and I wanted to be able to be in control of what I did over a week. I wanted to be able to work in my profession around media. I wanted to be able to pick and choose what I could do because childcare was an issue. I was almost a dream as such. It was almost a necessity. I think that that is the case for quite a lot of women. I was totally comfortable being a business entrepreneur in a man's world. I was offshore an awful lot. I was working in a male environment of television production, but I was also offshore doing a lot of safety. That never bothered me, but I never scaled up and never went to any so-called networking events or business events. I never did that kind of thing because that aspect of things just seemed a bit kind of dragon's den to me. I did not like that. I came to this job and I am active in the CPG. I find out that I am not an anomaly, but support does not necessarily mean the traditional networking events, the traditional funding opportunities and the structures that are there. Support also means nurturing and being in a female environment where you have that soft support that is out there as well. I was doing a podcast recently with a woman called Brenda Hector from Scale Her Up, and she did a podcast on women enterprise. She asked me what you think you would be doing now if you were still doing your business. I was reflecting on the fact that what would have become of my business if I had to go through the pandemic. I wonder whether I would have adapted or whether I would have sunk. Those are the questions that a lot of women entrepreneurs are actually dealing with right now, post-pandemic—we are not even post-pandemic now—where they are actually rather adapted to the circumstances that we are in. There has to be a real focus on helping the women that maybe their businesses have suffered. A lot of them are involved in things like hair and beauty and art and media, music, textiles, whatever. Those are probably the hardest-hit areas, so there might need to be some targeted supports to keep them going. However, I will end on one thing. I have had an idea for a considerable time. There were an awful lot of disciplines in our colleges that lent themselves to entrepreneurship and self-employment, but they do not get the support on how to set up a business. It is a real failing of the college sector. Music, art, hair, beauty, media, textiles—a lot of things that women enjoy doing—will end up becoming self-employed, usually as a knee-jerk reaction to circumstances rather than anything else. There needs to be some component that helps them to hit the ground running when they graduate. If we give that early support at college level, we will find ourselves with a lot more women-led businesses in the future. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Thank you very much, Ms Martin. I now call on Claire Baker, who will be followed by Emma Harper for around four minutes. First of all, can I recognise Michelle Thomson's efforts in securing this important debate and also very much appreciated her contribution? We are both members of the Economy and Fair Work Committee and I want to recognise and welcome the attention that my committee is giving to equality in business and in the workplace. It is not just for the women members in this committee to speak about this, but it is the most gender balanced that the Economy and Fair Work Committee has ever been and I hope that that will be reflected in our work. Women's role in the economy has been marginalised for too long. Caroline Currie from Women's Enterprise Scotland, who has campaigned for a women's business centre, described at committee last week, have a similar model in Canada and the US has led to them having the highest percentage of women-owned businesses. In the US, 40 per cent of women-owned businesses are women-owned, which is at least double the figure that we have in the UK. The number of women-led employer businesses in Scotland has declined from 20.6 per cent in 2017 to just 14 per cent in 2019, and that is the latest data. The statistic of 14 per cent of women-led businesses is, however, at odds with data that suggests that 51 per cent of new start-ups are women-led. Pam Goethl. An intervention does the member believe that we should be collecting more data, that there is a big gap in data. You have said that in 2017 that there is nothing after that. Thank you. I recognise that it was a point that Pam Goethl made in the debate and that it is something that I will come to later and I will amplify the comments that she made. I think that we have agreement in the chamber for that. The majority of women who are newly self-employed and the increase in the numbers that are becoming self-employed is unprecedented. Historically, women have made up just over a quarter of self-employed, but since 2008 downturn 58 per cent of the newly self-employed have been female. For a growing proportion of women, self-employment does not appear to be a choice, a point that other members have made, but it is a necessity that is driven by factors such as public sector job losses, the upgrading of the female retirement age or a need to accommodate caring responsibilities. One-fifth of women said that they entered self-employment because of a lack of other employment opportunities. The commitment of £50 million across the lifetime of this Parliament to support women into entrepreneurship is welcome, but we need to see a smart approach to this investment that works to reverse the declining trend of growth-orientated women-led employer businesses. We need to see progress on the National Women's Business Centre, which can build on the work by Women Enterprise Scotland in launching the Digital Women's Business Centre in 2020, which has proved a great resource for sharing knowledge and expertise and encouraging more women to start up and grow their businesses. There is a growing recognition that women's business support needs to be specific, underlined by figures showing that men are twice as likely to start a business on women and that pre-pandemic only 21 per cent of Scotland's SMEs were majority-led by women. The characteristics of those businesses are also different, with women-led businesses more likely to be younger sole traders operating from home, working in the service sector and with a lower average turnover and employment. We need a policy response that supports women to grow and expand their businesses that values their contribution to the economy and society. So, when I have highlighted a number of challenges faced by women, they include discrimination, difficulty with access to procurement, access to finance, access to sales training and access to scaling up support. In particular, access to finance for start-ups or growth, that the one-size-fits-all approach does not work for many women. Women are more reluctant to take on loans and risk debt, particularly if they need to take time away from their employment to start a business. That points to the need for a more tailored advice and support routes for gender-based interventions that recognise and value women-led businesses, sectors that are often devalued and overlooked when we are supporting growth sectors and promoting growth strategies for women. Research from the British Bank found—sorry, there are lots of those quotes that are shocking to everybody when you hear them in the chamber—British Business Bank found that female founders received us one pence and every £1 of venture capital. That means that men are receiving 99 times more venture capital than women across the UK. We need to see specific action to address difficulties in accessing financial support for women and action on the lack of gender-disaggregated data. The Scottish Government has said that it will look at that, but we need to see progress on how information is better captured and published. Finally, the Government's strategy for economic transformation recognises some of those issues, but it talks about addressing them in broad terms. It highlights the gender gap in the total rate of early-stage entrepreneurial activity, but it goes on to state that the intention is to increase new businesses in all sizes and sectors rather than point to focused action. Where the document indicates targets to focus and improve access to support for underrepresented groups, including women, it states that an early priority will be to deliver our commitment to review how we support women into entrepreneurship. I would like to see more ambition here. The forthcoming delivery plans are critical to progress. In closing, I would like to seek assurances from the minister that delivery plans will address the need to grow women-owned businesses across all sectors. I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate and congratulate Michelle Thomson on securing it. For setting out so clearly the issues and the challenges that women face in business, it has also been really good to hear everybody else's contribution so far. I am going to focus my contribution this evening on welcoming the positive steps that have been made to support women in business and to congratulate some of the fantastic inspirational women in business across the South Scotland region. The business landscape is changing in Scotland. Covid-19 pandemic aside, we are seeing that attitudes towards traditional ways of doing business are changing. There is evidence to suggest that women are playing a large role in shaping the future of business. Research suggests that the statistic illustrates this very powerfully. If the level of female ownership of businesses in Scotland matched the level of male ownership, the size of our economy would increase by 5 per cent. To put that into context, it equates to £7.6 billion. That is £7.6 billion if we had more women in our economy contributing. Enabling more women into business is not just good for women, it will make us all more prosperous. Scotland is making a huge progress in achieving that objective already. Recently, Pricewaterhouse Cooper released its women in work report. There is good news from that. The report says that it ranks Scotland as one of the best places in the UK for workplace gender equality. One reason is that Scotland's gender pay gap is at an all-time low. Last year, full-time employees were 5.7 per cent, but that is significant lower than across the UK as a whole, where the gender pay gap is at 8.6 per cent. However, the pay gap for all employees, regardless of gender and including part-time work, is much bigger at 15 per cent, but it is declining, and it is lower in Scotland than in other parts of the UK. That is largely down to the close partnership working between the Scottish Government, private business and third sector, such as through the Scottish Government's women and enterprise framework and fund. That is welcome, and I ask the minister for a commitment that initiatives like that will continue to be available to help women excel and to tackle the barriers that face women in business. Across the Freeson Galloway, there are inspirational women who are excelling in business, particularly small business. DNG has been identified as a female entrepreneurship hotspot in a new analysis from the Federation of Small Businesses, the FSB. Official figures show that around 1 in 10, 10.4 per cent of working-age women in the Freeson Galloway are self-employed, the second-highest rate in the country, only behind Murray. Sandra Parterson, Srinrar-based business owner, Women's Enterprise Scotland ambassador, and the FSB member said, is great to see my part of the country high on the women in business league table. Across the region, we have the DNG women and dairy network, open to women involved in dairy and the wider agricultural sector. The network promotes discussion, learning and engagement, and nurturing. It is a bit of a spin-off from the extremely successful women in agriculture, which is supported by Scottish Government funding. DNG also boasts Rhone's dairy, and that is managed and led by Ailet and Tracy Rhone. They have gone from strength to strength, providing milk from the dairy herds, employing local workers, and the creation of the udder bar. An alternative to booze, serving delicious milkshakes at the local agricultural events and the Royal Highland Show pre-pandemic. The ethical dairy produces sought-after cheeses and ice cream, and it is managed by an excellent role model, Wilma Finlay. So much business diversity is being seen across Dumfrieson Galloway, and even in other parts of my South Scotland region, Hazel Smith at Retweed in Eyemouth is an award-winning social enterprise. There are so many more. Joanna Heard from the Galloway soup company, she started out from a farmer's market stall, but now has a successful cafe and shop in Delbeaty. We've got so many. Fiona McElray, Lorraine Galloway of Wigtown, Wigwams, Lyn Atkinson at the White House Gallery, Suzanne Thorpe of the Star restaurant in Twynham. There's a fair wean of fantastic and inspirational women in business across the region, and I want to thank them all for being role models to other women and for their contributing to our contribution to our economy and our contribution to our country. I thank Michelle Thomson for bringing this debate tonight. My own background was 20 years in the finance sector, and what kind of stuck me when Michelle was talking was obviously the lack of women that used to come forward looking for finance at that time, and I think things have probably changed, but nowhere near enough. I wanted to talk a little bit about women's enterprise Scotland that the motion refers to, and as we know, it's a research-led community interest company that champions women-led and women-owned business. It advocates for better evidence-based policy, making them believe that delivering expert business support will enable women to fulfil their aspirations and unlock 8.8 billion economic potential to boost their economy that we've heard before. Wes works with calibration with local, national and international partners towards the vision of gender equal, diverse and inclusive business systems, which will allow innovation and productivity to thrive. Wes was created as a voice for women-owned businesses in Scotland, and to promote policy and best practice which enables women to successfully start up, which is a big challenge, and to grow their own business. If Scotland is to be as successful as possible, the simple fact is that we need more women-owned businesses in Scotland. Wes research showed that women-owned businesses already contribute 8.8 billion into the economy that we've talked about. They also create over 230,000 jobs in local communities throughout Scotland, yet women-owned businesses are just 20 per cent of the business space in Scotland. That's 80 per cent men. That's not right under any measure at all. The ambition of Wes is a quote that we believe that we can encourage more women and girls to try out their business ideas, the provision of a needs-based support co-designed by women-owned businesses and experts in gender techniques. We have an ambition to double the numbers of women-owned businesses, boost the economy by 8.8 billion, create a further 200,000 jobs and, ultimately, consign the gender gap in the face of the history. I want to discuss the initiative, which is the ambition for Scotland to become a global leader in terms of women's entrepreneurship. Caroline Currie recently became an entrepreneur in residence at Greenmarket University in East Lothian. Caroline believes that the women's business centre at the QMU intends to launch could help to unlock the £8 billion activity that I mentioned and provide a model that could be exported globally. The centre is expected to be the first of its kind in the UK that focuses on women. Caroline Currie reckons that it could help address barriers that prevent women from maximising potential they have to become successful business builders. She said in a quote that this could be an economic game changer for Scotland. Ms Currie is also chief executive for Women's Enterprise Scotland, an organisation that she helped to found. She then went on and said, this is not about creating more women entrepreneurs, it is about that extra £8 billion that could go into the economy, but it is also about the innovation that happens in a diverse landscape. If we do not have a diverse ecosystem, we are significantly restricting the capacity to innovate. Ms Currie also held senior roles at Royal Bank of Scotland before becoming the chief operating officer at Wies in 2015. She stated that the activity of the centre will be informed by consultation with local women-owned businesses, as well as staff, students at the university. That will ensure that the needs of women are placed at the heart of the service design of the business centre. The research, also undertaken by Wies, highlighted a range of challenges facing women, including access to funding and to specific growth resources. Around a third of respondents had experienced impressions of discrimination. Networking opportunities, and I think that Gillian Martin mentioned that before, can be hard to come by for women. The centre will be housed in the innovation hub that is expected to open at QMU in 2025. The centre could be one of the initiatives that could benefit from my £50 million commitment from the SNP to support women's enterprise. Technology entrepreneur Anna Stewart has been commissioned by the finance secretary Kate Forbes to the short-term review of how best to target that support and help more women realising their business ambitions. I want to work closely with Carling, QMU and women and business owners in Eastland and Scotland to give us that economic boost that should be achievable. Mullen-Dotter Custi is 24, and she has talked about many times about having her own business at some stage. Her ambition shouldn't be limited by unbuilt disadvantages. I am sure that she will own her business one day. I want to close with a quote and it's from Kamala Harris. Dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourself amazed that others may not simply because they've never seen it before. We need to ensure that more women have that opportunity and can see themselves owning a business. I call on the minister to respond to the debate for up to seven minutes, please, minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. It's great to be here in responding to this very important debate that Michelle Thomson has raised and known Michelle as I do for a number of years. It's no surprise that she's brought this debate in a real commitment to advancing this agenda, which is very well understood. Reflecting on some of the contributions that have taken place during what I thought was an excellent debate and some very valuable input from members across the chamber, Michelle Thomson highlighted the importance of culture. That's a very important aspect of the issue that needs to be taken into account. The very real barriers that women's starting businesses face, in particular around under capitalisation, is a point that was raised by many members in something that I want to address in my remarks as I proceed. It sets on very ambitious targets for the number of employees that she would like to see working in women-owned businesses. It's great to set those ambitions and something that we can all work together towards. It also highlighted the importance of data, something that many members across the chamber have raised and something else that I've come to talk to in my remarks. I collect themes and raise the very important issue around confidence in women's business and the lack of confidence in preventing them from progressing in their business careers. I also thankfully highlighted many of the actions that the Scottish Government is taking to address and make progress on the issue of more women in business. I want to talk to you in a bit more detail. Pam Gossel talked about her personal experience in businesses and the challenges that that threw up. Again, the need for investment and targeted support. Gillian Martin, likewise, talked about her personal experience in business. I have often reflected on what my business would have looked like if it had to survive through the last couple years of Covid, which has been hugely challenging times. It has been highlighted by Gillian and other members, particularly for women-owned businesses in specific sectors. I commend Gillian for her leadership of the cross-party group over the past six years and the great work that she has done in that regard. Her idea on calling support for business start-ups, certainly in the national strategy, we identify doing more with further higher education and the school system to support those who want to start up businesses. We are targeting that specifically on courses where students and women in particular are more likely to be starting up businesses. That is a very good idea and we will take a look at it. Claire Baker highlighted again the challenges around investment and access to venture capital, whether there are some frankly unbelievably bad statistics that she raised that really require to be addressed again in my remarks. I had a meeting with a woman who has run a very successful international exporting business and highlighted that very issue to me that the trouble she has had in attracting investment capital has been a significant drag on the business and highlighted some statistics in that regard that are hugely troubling and concerning. Emma Harper highlighted the examples of women in business in the south of Scotland. It is always a pleasure to visit the south of Scotland with Emma and two around businesses in the region. Next time I go, perhaps we can try to organise a tour of some of those excellent women-owned businesses that she highlighted and also the point that the statistics show. For some reason, it would be really good to dig a bit deeper into that, that the south of Scotland has highlighted some significant higher numbers of women in business in the south of Scotland than elsewhere across the country. Thank the minister for taking an intervention. I am just wondering if he prefers cheese, beer or ice cream. Why there has to be a choice? I do not know, minister, but minister. As Emma Harper knows, when I go in my business tours, I cram a lot of visits since I think we will find room for all three in a tour of the south of Scotland. Last but not least, Paul McClennan commented on the great work of women in enterprise Scotland and much else that is happening to advance the agenda and his commitment to work to take that agenda forward, which is hugely welcome, because at the end of the day men need to have a deep understanding of the challenges that women face in business if we are to address those issues and seek a resolution that works for not just women in business but for the whole of Scotland's economy, which has been highlighted by many members. In 2014, the Scottish Government, working with partners across the public, private and third sector, launched the women in enterprise framework and the action plan, which was refreshed in 2017. The Scottish Government has funded partner organisations to deliver programmes supporting the framework key themes, including women enterprise Scotland's ambassador programme, investing in women's accelerator and the programme for growth that is delivered by business women in Scotland. This year, additional funding was delivered by the Scottish technology ecosystem fund to project supporting women in Scotland's tech sector. I think that goes to one of the points that Claire Baker raised about supporting women across all sectors in the economy. Some progress has been made, but there is clearly an awful lot more that needs to be done. That is why the Government committed that funding of £50 million over the cost of this Parliament to support more women to restart, grow and sustain thriving businesses. Of course, to help to shape that approach, Cabinet Secretary Kate Forbes has asked Anna Stewart, founder of iDesign Group, to undertake a whole system review into the women's enterprise ecosystem in Scotland. We look forward very much to this review and its recommendations, which will form part of our wider work to transform Scotland's economy. I set out in the national strategy with its very clear focus on making sure that we tackle inequality across all aspects of our economy. Very clearly, the issue of poor rate of women start-up in businesses is absolutely a key part of that. Doing so will require a radical transformation in the way in which we deliver results and ensure that new approaches and infrastructure that we build, such as the network of tech skillar hubs that will be designed to be inclusive and work for everyone from the outset. The issue of investment has been raised many times through the cost of this debate. Pioneer organisations such as investing women's angels have invested more than £2 million in 20 companies with more than 90 per cent of funds going to female-founded businesses since the first investment in 2015. They have recently announced a ground-breaking collaboration with the Scottish National Investment Bank to develop a new fund focused exclusively on women and minority founders based in Scotland. That fund would make Scotland one of the very few European nations with a bespoke seed investment fund that is focused on stimulating the growth of female-led companies. Shifting that needle on investment requires a shift in mindset from the investment sector itself. Some courage to see Scottish angel groups, including equity gap and Scottish equity partners, demonstrating their commitment to advancing female entrepreneurship and access to finance by signing the investing in women codes and increasing the diversity of the finance sector and encouraging more women to become active investors, especially those of themselves. Achieving success in business will play a part in removing the barriers that women face. That is why the Ecosystem Fund has supported mint ventures in raising awareness and understanding of investment among women. The issue of data has been raised as something that requires attention. Members who have read with interest the national strategy for economic transformation in their company and evidence paper will recognise that there are data points in there, but clearly we all recognise that more needs to be done in that regard. An issue that was identified by Anna Stewart in her review and the Scottish Government is currently trialling commercial data packages that offer real-time access to business information and the business support partnership that I met with recently is also looking at improving access to data. Work is on going in that regard. Before I finish, I want to congratulate Women's Enterprise Scotland on their 10th anniversary for the past decade. They have been at the forefront of the drive to close the gender gap in enterprise participation here in Scotland and, indeed, on the international stage. We value their voices as a partner and a critical friend, and they have never waived in championing the needs of women in the business world. As a Government, we are determined to lead on closing the gender gap in business start-up and growth, not just because we know what makes clear economic sense but also because we know that it is absolutely the right thing to do. Let me be absolutely clear that it is simply unacceptable that in 2022 women should continue to face barriers to their participation in business and economy, where everyone is supported and empowered to seize opportunities and fully achieve their potential. It is absolutely vital to Scotland's future.