As She Made A Lady, SHIRLEY CONRAN Says… Why Money Is The Key To Becoming A Superwoman

After my divorce from Terence Conran in 1962, I discovered that it was virtually impossible for a woman to get a mortgage.

A lack of steady income wasn’t the problem; As a mother of two young sons, I had a job, but while male colleagues could get a loan, I couldn’t.

My mother ended up bailing me out, so I ended up buying our family home from Terence – for three times what he paid for it.

But the endless bickering with lawyers and being told by them and bankers that women “didn’t understand money” (and therefore, by implication, shouldn’t own their own property) stoked the feminist fire in me.

I wanted to eradicate this inequality. For the past twenty years I have been trying to do this through mathematics. Math is money and money is power. I want women to get richer and stay richer. To achieve this, they must be financially literate.

Even today, mathematics remains an unpopular subject for girls. Only 39 percent of students taking A-level maths are female.

I’ve created a series of groundbreaking, free online math books for girls. And last week, as founder of The Maths Anxiety Trust, I was appointed Dame for services to mathematics education. I am amazed and delighted by the honor, but there is still much work to be done.

My divorce from Terence has led me to help improve the lives of women. I was 36 and a single mother when I became the new ladies editor of the Daily Mail. In the fall of 1968 I became the launch editor of the groundbreaking Femail.

Until then, the newspapers had only included a women’s section on knitting, dress patterns, recipes and the occasional interview with charity organizers. In Femail, articles were written by women for women for the first time. We wrote about our weaknesses and fears.

And we weren’t afraid to ruffle feathers. Femail tapped into the feeling that life could be better for a woman.

A year later, in 1969, a viral pneumonia forced me to quit work and leave the post. Undeterred, I led a torchlight procession of seven hundred women to Number 10, where they demanded equal pay. The Equal Pay Act of 1970 was the result. Unfortunately, half a century later, women still lag behind male colleagues when it comes to pay.

My guide to first-generation working mothers, Superwoman, became a bestseller in 1975, leading to an exhausting book tour – and a diagnosis of ME (chronic fatigue syndrome).

I continued to struggle with my health and realizing that I would likely need expensive medical care for the rest of my life, I decided I would be better off trying to write an international bestseller.

In 1969, Shirley led a torchlight procession of 700 women to Number 10, where she demanded equal pay. While the Equal Pay Act of 1970 was the result, women still trail male colleagues in pay fifty years later

I turned my gaze to America and realized it was selling five times as much as Britain.

It took eighteen months to write Lace and I was worried because I knew I might never find a publisher. Fortunately, in 1982 it was sold, with film rights, to Simon & Schuster for a million dollars. Six more bestsellers followed.

I used a third of the money I made to become what I call a social entrepreneur, which means you oversee how your money is spent. I founded Mothers In Management in 1998, with the aim of improving working conditions and flexible practices for working mothers.

Three years later I founded The Work-Life Balance Trust, which lobbied for flexible hours for both men and women. In 2004 I was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire for my services to equal opportunities.

It was also in 2004 that my campaign for mathematics began. I was asked to find a good math book for my goddaughter, but couldn’t find one. At the time, one in four children left school math illiterate.

I put the dots together and decided to write a math course based on my own experiences. This became Money Stuff, a collection of online maths books for girls following the GCSE syllabus.

Shirley decided to write a math course based on her own experiences when she was asked to find a good math book for her goddaughter in 2004, but she couldn’t find one. This became Money Stuff, a collection of online maths books for girls following the GCSE syllabus

I founded The Maths Anxiety Trust in 2018 to raise public awareness of the condition known as Maths Anxiety and find solutions.

For too long we have accepted women’s apparent aversion to handling and discussing money. I’m sure this is part of the reason why in the top 100 UK companies, nine CEOs are women and 91 are men.

Women have come a long way since Femail launched in 1968. None of it has been easy. I am proud that Femail remains at the center of the debate, with a thriving readership. For me, it was the first step toward improving women’s lives.

As for my femininity, my sons are proud of me, which means so much. I also received 7,000 emails, most of which said it was about time. That’s how I think about women now; it’s time we get the equality and respect we deserve. We’re not there yet.