Readers' letters: Women are still fighting for recognition

It’s a great triumph for the Lionesses in the Euro Cup, especially when women’s football has had to fight so hard for recognition over the years.

It was only in 1971 that the SWFA was launched and the women’s matches were officially recognised.The first recorded women’s match in Scotland was in 1881 at Easter Road, but the score is not documented. A few weeks later in Glasgow the teams met again, but the match was abandoned due to a pitch invasion. The press vilified the female players, criticising their appearance, clothing (which included corsets and bonnets to comply with Victorian standards) and the standard of play.Around the same time, the Edinburgh Seven, the early women medical students, were harassed and jostled by an unruly mob as they approached the Surgeon’s Hall to sit their anatomy exam. They had to fight hard to overcome prejudice against women training as doctors. Such has been the prejudice against women partaking in public life and sport over the years.

Another woman who faced opposition and resistance in her work was Edinburgh’s famous Dr Elsie Inglis. She was told to “Go Home and Sit Still”, when she offered all women fully equipped medical units to the British Government in 1914 at the outbreak of WW1, while French and Serbians welcomed her initiative immediately.

Elsie Inglis died in 1917 and only now is there a recognised movement (wwwelsieinglis.org) to have a statue of this pioneering woman placed in Edinburgh. Plans are for her statue to be unveiled in the High Street, the first woman among twelve male statues, in 2024. The call to artists was launched last week, but only two members of the media even responded to the extensive press release.Enough said.

Fiona Garwood, Edinburgh.

Scexit is like Brexit made much worse

I read Alex Orr’s letter regarding the disastrous fallout following from Brexit with interest (News, 29 July).

He outlined the billions of pounds of lost business to the UK economy, the mountain of red tape that businesses have to deal with and the massive disruption being caused by the fixed borders now we are no longer in the EU.If even a fraction of this is correct, it is absolutely horrendous for everyone living in the UK and we should all be thankful he’s taken the time to break it all down for us.This, of course, means that the economic case for Scotland leaving the UK and gaining independence is dead in the water. Given that we do four times more trade with the rest of the UK than we do with the EU and an independent Scotland would have a hard border with England (assuming we are accepted into EU membership), it would be madness to vote for independence.The damage to Scotland’s economy would be catastrophic, even before taking into account that we would have no currency of our own, no armed forces and no clue how we would pay retired people’s pensions etc etc etc.Thanks again to Mr Orr for alerting us all to the very real vision of the basket case Scotland would become if we were to allow it to go down the same path as Brexit.

David Smith, Prestonpans.

Weedkiller is not a pesticide, gardeners

I'm always amazed at the ignorance of some people. In your report about weedkiller (News, 27 July) you reported that some referred to a weedkiller as a 'pesticide'.A weedkiller is a 'herbicide' (it kills plants) but a 'pesticide' kills pests. Not at all the same thing. The distinction is important.

Steuart Campbell, Edinburgh.

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