Radio Girls (47 page)

1. Despite the restrictions many women faced in work in the 1920s and '30s in Britain, the BBC was very open in its hiring practices and most of the time did not discriminate in terms of pay. Do you think this decision affected the staff at Savoy Hill and the nature of the programming the BBC offered? Note Hilda's point that presenting informational programs like
The Week in Westminster
at 11:15 in the morning meant it would come on just as “women were having their tea.”

2. A great deal of politics surrounds the characters and life at the BBC. Hilda pushes for more political programming and quietly busies herself gathering Fascist—specifically Nazi—propaganda in the hopes of raising awareness about the growth of European Fascism. Hilda's contact at the intelligence agency MI5 is dismissive of her concerns, noting that the Nazis are a fringe group. What parallels can be seen in politics today? What might Hilda and Maisie have done differently to try to raise awareness about Fascism, and how might they have had greater influence?

3. British society changed radically after the First World War, with more women seeking work and living in semiautonomy. Maisie and Phyllida recognize that women of their class and educational background would never have gotten professional work in an earlier era. As the class system slowly erodes, we see the factions represented by Hilda and Reith, with Reith upholding tradition and Hilda the voice of the progressive movement. What do you think it was in each of their personalities that prompted their stances?

4. Hilda sees radio as an opportunity to educate the public and is especially keen on having more books and poetry discussed on the radio, as well as presenting sociopolitical debates. Does media still serve an educational purpose today? How might media broaden understanding throughout society?

5. Women like Hilda Matheson and Mary Somerville, who were at the Director level, were allowed to marry, and Mary was an even rarer case of a working mother. Women with children were rarely allowed in the workplace in Britain in the 1920s and '30s. How much have things changed for workingwomen today? What about working mothers?

6. Despite the fame of the Bloomsbury Group, and the general acknowledgment that many of the people working in arts and letters were gay, Hilda is quiet about her sexuality in general and closeted at work. Do you think she would have been as quiet about her personal life if Reith weren't so particular about his staff's “morals”? In the final explosion between Hilda and Reith, Maisie is given reason to think that
he
in fact might be a closeted gay man (an opinion shared by a number of historians).
Do you think his being closeted affected his attitudes toward those around him?

7. Maisie is initially mistrustful of both Hilda and Phyllida—Hilda because she is, as Maisie sees it, a woman in a man's job; Phyllida because she appears to look down on Maisie. Both these women become her closest friends and allies. How do you think they help her become a stronger, more confident person? Discuss how Maisie's personality—the wit she's kept under wraps most of her life—blossoms as a result of her friendships.

8. Many people in 1920s Britain are worried about the effect of technology and media. Mrs. Crewe, Maisie's landlady, is fearful of the idea of disembodied voices in the house. Are there any parallels to how technology is viewed in society today? How was the radio in its early days similar to the Internet today? How are the privacy concerns similar and different?

9. British women gained the right to vote in 1918, but 1929 marked the first election where all women over twenty-one could vote, irrespective of marital status or property. Two radio programs,
Questions for Women Voters
and later
The Week in Westminster
, were specifically designed to help women make informed political decisions. Do you think these programs had an effect upon the political process? Are there similar programs today in any form of media that you think legitimately assists citizens in becoming more active in politics and government?

10. When we first meet Maisie, she claims to be determined to use her job to improve her life and eventually attain the family she's always dreamed of. Despite her crush on Cyril, she's very
quick to fall in love with her job and devote all her passion to it. Do you think she really wanted to get married at all, or was she just telling herself that because it was what women were expected to want?

11. Several quotes from Hilda's book
Broadcasting
appear in the novel. Here is another one: “Broadcasting and other forms of electrical communications have sprung up to meet the urgent requirements of a world which must perish unless it can devise an organization capable of expressing its human and economic unity. The need for rapid interchange of news and views, for familiarizing each country with the ideas and habits of all other countries, and above all the need for an education which may fit men and women, literate and illiterate, for the complicated world of tomorrow—all these needs should find in broadcasting an instrument marvellously fitted to serve them.” What do you think of this thought regarding the nature of broadcasting? Does it have any relevance to today? If so, in what way?

Sarah-Jane Stratford
is an author and essayist who has written for the
Guardian
,
Boston Globe
,
Los Angeles Review of Books
,
Marie Claire
, Slate, Salon, and Guernica, among others. She is a member of WAM! (Women, Action, and the Media) and lives in New York
City.

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