Whilst having breakfast this morning I was struck by an item on the Today Programme which only served to highlight the ingrained sexism that was rampant in the Britain of the 1930’s/40’s. It was an item about an extremely brave woman, Pearl Witherington (who became Pearl Cornioley); you can read more about her story here, and here. This extraordinarily brave woman was parachuted into wartime France, where she took charge of and organised a large part of the resistance movement. Her post-war reward, the offer of a civil MBE:-
After the war, Pearl was recommended for a military honour but, as a woman, she was ineligible. When she was instead offered the civil MBE she refused.
I think the telling phrase here is “as a woman, she was ineligible”; of course a mere woman could not hvave had the guts or intelligence to be courageous. Her response in refusal was:-
“There was nothing civil about what I did,” she said many years later. In her letter of rejection, released yesterday, she said the offer was unjust: “The work which I undertook was of a purely military nature in enemy occupied country. I personally was responsible for the training and organisation of nearly 3,000 men for sabotage and guerrilla warfare.”
It took over sixty years for her to be acknowledged as a parachutist by the RAF
For her, the greatest award came only two years ago when the RAF finally presented her with her parachute wings.
this in itself says a lot about the sexist attitudes that remained in place within the realms of the Ministry of Defence until relatively recently.
FFS, surely a hero is a hero no matter what gender the person is, and surely anyone who undertakes to do something that can later be seen as heroic deserves to have their heroism recognised, rather than to be patronised by those people who sat behind their desks and never stuck their heads above the parapet.
