1. What is your name and role?
Frances Mulcahy. I am one of several Online Engagement Assistants, and I am the primary editor for the OWP Facebook presence.
2. What does a typical day look like for you in your role as an OWP volunteer?
I no longer work in full time employment. My 10-ish hours per week paid work is at my desk, at home. I am early to bed and an early riser. First up, I check internal communications and our Facebook page. I spend about 1.5 hours most days preparing and scheduling Facebook posts. Some material I source, and much material is supplied by team members. I also respond to specific requests to post materials. I spend an additional hour or two so daily preparing content for the blog, upcoming eBooks, and the RARA magazine. Most of this time is background research, reading, and fact checking, much less is time writing, per se.
3. What area of feminism are you most passionate about and why?
I am most passionate about intersectional feminism. Simone de Beauvoir’s book Le Deuxième Sexe (The Second Sex) 1949, introduced the concept of the “otherness” of woman. The world of her time saw males as the “correct” gender and others as simply not having full agency in their lives. For me, feminism is about the effort to lift all categories of the “others” up to full and equal agency and value. In our world the “others” include the gender diverse, First Nations folk, people with the lived experience of disability, migrants, people of colour and more peoples whose intersectional challenges affect their agency.
Why?
I am a mature-age transgender woman with the lived experience of several intersectional disadvantages that I will not list here. I have also lived a faux male life of substantial male privilege. In my work as a primary health care provider, I dealt with the nitty gritty of disadvantage. From my current position of having contented personal fulfilment in an authentic life, I see both sides of the coin, unconscious privilege and intersectional disempowerment. Feminism is the way to equity.
4. Why did you decide to join OWP?
Early in my transition to an authentic life, I read voraciously about inclusive feminism. I attended a OWP seminar series and found a wonderfully diverse and committed group of (young) women. I was immediately included and at home.
5. What do you like to do outside of your OWP role?
! 2 months ago, I would have answered, trail running and racing and sailing old timber boats. Late last year I had a life-threatening illness and at present am physically disabled, so my answer is managing my health so as to wake up on a daily basis, enjoy my wonderful marriage and keep supporting my passions at the desk. Until August, I remain Commodore of my sailing club and look after the logistics of club life, including the club magazine. I am also the young girl at our local frail aged “shopping centre walking group” and very much love the early morning outing with a diverse group of female elders and my new friend William the wheelie walker.