This Women’s History Month, we spoke to the Mayor of Kingston about trailblazing women, imposter syndrome and remaining neutral on issues.
The mayoral role is one that is historically associated with being male.
Liz Green, the 190th Mayor of Kingston upon Thames, said she gets frustrated when people referred to her, and the female mayors who came before her, as ‘mayoresses’.
“The mayor is non-gendered. By using ‘mayoress’, you are essentially saying you are the wife or partner of a mayor, it’s a more junior role,” she said.
When Green became leader of Kingston Council in 2013, she was the first woman to hold this senior position in the borough’s history.
In her two decades as a councillor, she pushed forward agendas representing women’s interests.
These included maternity leave for councillors, signing up to the White Ribbon Campaign, and making Kingston the first local authority to tackle period stigma, becoming a ‘Bloody Good Employer’.
Now as mayor, her political interests must take a backseat.
The day-to-day work
Green likened her day-to-day role to the act of giving schoolchildren stickers when they have done well.
She attends shop openings, award ceremonies and events to celebrate with local people.
“If I am standing there in the chains saying congratulations, celebrating their achievement, people feel good,” she said.
Green saw these benefits as going beyond the individuals she meets, and believed they filter down into the overall feeling of the borough.
“If people feel good about their achievements, there is better community spirit, and it just leads to Kingston being a nicer place,” she said.
She added that it was the small successes that help uplift the area, saying: “People say it’s just dressing up, but it provides a real benefit.”
What powers does the mayor have?
Green, who has been Mayor since her appointment last May, admitted she has limited power in the role.
“I am a civic mayor, a ceremonial one,” she said. “I don’t even sit on the committees, let alone have any executive powers.”
That, she added, was one of the biggest misconceptions about her role.
“People know Sadiq Khan has got executive powers, so they think I, as Mayor of Kingston, must have executive powers too,” Green said.
Unlike Khan’s role, a civic mayor is non-party political and unelected, chosen by the council to serve a one-year term.
The selection process
Green’s longevity of service on the council meant she was a prime candidate for mayor.
She believed that two decades as a councillor gave her an affinity with the people of Kingston, and an understanding of their needs beyond what a mayor sees day-to-day.
Balancing both, she said, was crucial.
“You see a different side to it when you’re mayor than when you’re leader of the council.
“As mayor, you are celebrating with people. They’re happy. But as leader, you see them at their lowest.”
Being outspoken but non-political
The Mayor admitted she has always been outspoken when it comes to politics.
However, when she took on the mayoral role, she knew she would no longer have that privilege.
“As much as it’s non-political, I cannot change who I am,” she said.
Although there are things she was comfortable staying neutral on, there are other times she found it more difficult to stay silent.
Green presents citizenship ceremonies every fortnight as part of her mayoral duties.
“I believe very strongly in diversity and equality, and whilst it can be taken as slightly political, actually, that’s who I am in essence of me,” Green said.
Green feels that within these, it is her job to welcome people from diverse backgrounds to Kingston.
The challenges facing female leaders
Despite Green’s outspoken and confident attitude, she says she experienced feelings of imposter syndrome as soon as she became leader of the council.
“It was such a weird feeling, because I knew I had the experience and wasn’t new to the job, but I felt incapable,” she said.
Green admitted that being a woman played into her not feeling good enough, or qualified enough, to be in her role.
“I didn’t feel like I was chosen to be leader purely because I was a woman, but I do think others looked at me as if that was the reason,” she added.
Research by the Fawcett Society shows that women make up only 35% of local government positions. Green said this has been a stubborn statistic for almost two decades.
According to Green’s own research, female-led councils, and female majority councils, were still a rarity.
“And yet,” she added, “most of the services are actually used by women.”
Additional data from the Women’s Budget Group suggests that women are more impacted by council budget cuts, because they make up 75% of local government employees and school workers.
Women and local government
Green recognised that council meetings can descend into a bit of a free-for-all and admitted she has no qualms about throwing out members who are badly behaved.
“There is evidence that puts women off standing, and although it never bothered me personally, I know it puts a lot of people off,” she said.
“At my annual council, one of my rules was that there will be no shouting out, and you will raise your hand if you wish to make a point of order. I said that no one will denigrate another councillor in here, and if you do, I will throw them out.”
And it is not just within the council meetings that female councillors feel harassed. Green said that she too has experienced abuse while going about her daily life.
“I have been insulted on the streets,” she said, “Not as mayor, but as a councillor. I have been blamed for things that are nothing to do with me and not my fault, because my party did something.
“I do know other female leaders where they have had proper death threats, or more commonly, threats of sexual violence.”
Green had to contact the police over comments left on a Facebook post that were threatening, something she described as “very common, far too common”.
Continuing the push for gender equity
Green said there is not one particular woman in history that inspires her.
Instead, she found inspiration from the collective of boundary-pushing figures who challenged ideas about what women could do.
She named sisters Millicent Fawcett and Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the suffragist and first British woman to qualify as a doctor, as examples.
Although society has come a long way since these trailblazers, Green believed there is still a way to go to ensure women are represented at a local government level.
“I like to think what I do is pushing for equity, in a world that still has too many barriers of expectation for women,” she said.
