Knowing your worth, owning your value

In the latest of our blogs from the RCVS Officer Team, RCVS Senior Vice-President Mandisa Greene talks about some of the challenges she faced as a woman in the veterinary profession, including the intersectionality of gender and race. 

I recall the first time my femininity being noted was when I was a vet student during lambing time.  My small hands seen as an asset to assist safe delivery of distressed lambs. Having looked the farmer’s hands, I couldn’t help but agree. 

At first glance, qualifying as a veterinary surgeon in 2008 meant I had to navigate a very different landscape than many of the women who qualified before me. I attended vet school with a majority female cohort and graduated into a workforce where I wasn’t the only female in the practice, in fact, we had a majority of female vets in our practice, but I still faced challenges. 

Considering the gender pay gap, this does exist but there is also intersectionality of being female and, in my case, black. As a recently qualified vet, I started work in a practice where we weren’t supposed to speak about our salary; well we did. It turns out I was being offered 8K less than a colleague with a similar level of experience. I asked for a meeting to discuss this with one of the partners and the practice manager. After much discussion at the partners meeting, they agreed to increase my package by 1K. I protested the unfairness of the situation; ‘okay 2K’ they said.  I remember thinking to myself: ‘know your worth; own your value.’

We often accept what is given to us but it’s important to have open and transparent conversations with employers and with each other.  Working on closing the pay gap is essential, it involves a cultural shift and it’s important to challenge inequality wherever we find it. 

I can also identify with the challenge of managing a home and being a vet. No significant paternity leave was available when both my children were born, so it was expected that I take maternity leave and caring responsibilities for my children whilst my husband went to work. My career was important to me, and instead of giving it up I worked around my family while meanwhile developing other interests, like my involvement with the RCVS. 

It was during my early days on RCVS Council (with a toddler and an infant at home) where I was introduced to some phenomenal veterinary professionals, vets and vet nurses who managed to raise children and establish their careers. I remember sitting with some of them during a lunch break and a discussion started about what their most and least favourite household chores were. The conversation ended in laughter and a bit of advice for me - you can have everything, just not at the same time and for now you need to have enough. Enough time in your career to fulfil your passion, enough time with your family to nurture them and enough time to give back, to yourself and your community. It might seem like a big ask, getting enough, but in my experience, it’s been a constant balancing act which at times has not been easy. But at other times, when I get the balance right, it has been glorious.