Centric Magazine

The feature Women Making Waves was put together by Pauline Lewis, a Barrister and Selina Seesunkur, an Interior Designer and local Councillor.

Pauline Lewis

I grew up in a very different UK than it is now.  Women of colour were rarely seen at university where I studied law. I was the first in my generation to attend university.  My life’s journey has been lived in a way that I have always been acutely aware that there were very few people who looked like me everywhere I went. However, I learned that being the only woman of colour is the only way to start to make a change. This is why I have a passion to see BAME people in places where under-representation is most acute.  There are still many walks of life where we are simply not seen. We have made in-roads into many spheres now but there remain many places where we need to become active participants. 

I have been involved in several initiatives to increase awareness of gender and racial diversity in politics. These have been wide ranging and have included writing articles about the impact of the beauty industry on women and BAME women in particular. Research and debates have challenged, why the Government’s priority to the beauty industry, an industry which is predominantly run by women , is lower than other industries during the lockdown. I was able to raise this with Rt Hon. Caroline Nokes MP, who was Chairing a Select Committee and taking evidence on this issue at the time.

In my professional role as a Barrister, I have been a speaker in meetings on the current Divorce Bill which introduces no-fault divorce, a matter of great interest to many women. I have arranged talks and debates on various topics and enjoyed arranging first hand accounts of MPs in the party from a diverse background. I have a passion for increasing diversity for barristers and am actively involved in promoting this at the Bar of England and Wales.

I have every hope that politics will reflect the diversity of the electorate because so much as changed already.  The fact that I am writing about 20 BAME Women who are changing the face of the politics is proof that change is possible.

Selina Seesunkur

Us, women have a tendency of doing too much, without celebrating our achievements enough. With that in mind, Women Making Waves celebrates women in the tough world of politics.

In doing this piece I got to work closely with Pauline Lewis, who has written for Centric before.  And we got to know so many women by putting our International Women’s Day feature together, (in our case one week as we felt one day was not enough). We spoke to Baronesses, MPs, Doctors, Artists and more. We chose to focus our 2021 International Women’s Day issue on BAME women as it seemed fitting given the current political and social climate.

I got into Politics very late. I never really aspired to get into politics, I wanted to be a Civil Engineer and my intention was to study A ’levels Chemistry and Physics but my very old fashioned father put his foot down, so to annoy him I took social sciences. I never imagine for one moment it would come in handy. With over 15 years dedicated to the public sector, I now see everything happens for a reason. The funny thing is I ended up redesigning BskyB’s UK engineer network for out of warranty goods and I also managed council street engineers, but I never became one.

Being the “only women”, the “only Asian”, “the youngest”, “the least experienced but most senior” was a major driver in my career. Today, I am the only BAME Councillor in my group, the only woman on one board and the only BAME woman on another. Does this bother me? Yes and no, but it won’t stop me getting things done, and my Board colleagues have never made me feel any different just because of my skin, gender or my age.

My circumstance isn’t necessarily a result of inequality or discrimination. In one instance not a single woman applied for any one of the nine board positions available. It seems women are not putting themselves forward and I find myself being “the only…” even today.

No-one ever coaches you to be a role model but if you read the stories of people like Anwara, Deena, and Nora , it is possible to make waves and be a role model to someone, no matter what stage you are at in life.  It is hard for some women to accept they have the skills to inspire others to follow their dreams. I would like to give thanks to all the women who appear in our feature, inspiring other and to everyone who read Women Making Waves and was inspired.