It's Not The Waking

This time last week I was filled with that kind of excitement that makes your skin tingle, but you don't realise it's happening. I was buzzing around from room to room, feeling for my phone in my pocket, spinning my head around to see what I might be missing. My brain was on overdrive, doing quick facial recognition checks (it's so good when people actually look like their Avatars) and slotting names and faces alongside each other in my internal database. 

I didn't know that this person was me. I know I like meeting people, and I know I like talking, and I have realised you get to talk more if you listen more, but I did not know that I liked hugging strangers, or brazenly accosting people to introduce myself. 
I've taken to organising events in recent years to make up for my complete absence of social life, and generally that involves guilting my friends into travelling long distances to go to the pub with me. This time it was a bit different, because this wasn't a simple matter of sipping pints of Guinness while reminiscing endlessly about the old days. This time there was a purpose or even, dare I say it, a Cause. 

We were gathering together to talk about being female doctors. We were standing up there and pointing loudly at our woman-ness. We might as well have all been naked with a baby hanging off each nipple. We could not have been more female. 
And it felt ridiculously good. It felt empowering, liberating, enlightening. Exactly what all the critics would worry that it might be like. Bloody women, giving out, no bloody gratitude for all we've done for them, would they not go home and get back to their knitting, 'tis the children I feel sorry for.

Knowledge filled the room. Did you know that some specialities have more female doctors than men? Did you know that those specialities tend to be the lower-paid ones? Did you know there is a massive gender pension gap for female doctors in Ireland? Did you know that some hospitals have far fewer female consultants than others? Did you know that gender affects health outcomes for the entire population, in a multiplicity of ways? Did you know that 160 million women are "missing" worldwide? Did you know that female surgeons have better patient outcomes than male surgeons? Did you know that if you put one hundred women in a room together, they will create an environment where individuals who usually find it hard to speak up at meetings will raise their hand?

Afterwards, I smelled of at least eight different hugged-on perfumes. 

Later on we drank some bubbles on the chilly rooftop, and ate some great food, and chatted about table quizzes and children and lifechanging injuries. We danced a little bit. 

This is where it begins for WIMIN. 
This is going to be the start of something.

Oh, and for the record, one professor brought her knitting with her.