A Week in the Life of Womanhood

March is far from over, but it has been one of the most dramatic and turbulent times for women here in the UK. It’s felt a bit like a condensed version of the rollercoaster of emotions and events that impact us over years all pushed into the space of only 7 days, but I suppose in the backdrop of the last year nothing is surprising anymore.

The week began with International women’s day, a celebration of all that it is to be a woman, supposedly a recognition of the role women play in our society and an acknowledgment of all that they bring to social discourse and every aspect of daily life. However, the underlying feeling amongst many was, do we still need to be celebrating International Women’s day and if so why? How have things changed over the hundred years since it began and perhaps how have they not? Surely things should have progressed so much further than the lived experience of many women today?

We then had the aftermath of the explosive Megan and Harry interview. We watched a woman try to speak her truth and get viciously shouted down in newspapers and on social media. Her bravery inspired many who find themselves living half-lives, desperate to break away from structures and dynamics that suffocate and suppress them.

The tale she and Harry told shocked many as the colourism so central to British racism was finally brought to the surface and confronted so many people head-on. I was surprised at the shock the general public experienced. Why was it such a revelation that the colonialism that created Britain and is the backbone of the ‘blue’ blooded, would leave behind the sense of white as superior?

Again came that underlying feeling… do we still need to be having these discussions? Have we still not yet moved on from the basics of understanding what it means to be a person of colour, ready to start digging into the real conversations that must be had rather than staying stuck in exclamations of incredulity?

This was compounded by the sense of resignation felt by witnessing the attack on the ‘evil woman’ the true villain of the story coming in-between a family, an untrustworthy outsider out to cause damage. Do we still not believe women when they managed to dredge up the courage to stand in the face of their tormentors and abusers and speak their truth?

What does it take for us to trust the victim?

What does it take for us to no longer ask the questions ‘why didn’t you come forward sooner?’, ‘Why didn’t you seek help?’ Why, why, why, instead of how can I help, how can I support, how can I hear all that you need to say?

In the UK we then experienced the shock of the disappearance and death of Sarah Everard, a woman who was simply on her way home, a woman who highlighted for us yet again that it is not safe to be female in our society.

Her story felt personal, I grew up in Clapham Common and only left south London 8 years ago. The streets she walked home that night bore the echoes of my footsteps. The fact that her murder was at the hands of those who are supposed to protect and serve, rattled the core of so many people on a deeper level as they ingested the idea that the good guy isn’t always good. Sharing the fear exposed by the Black Lives Matter movement to all. Very few of us feel truly safe anymore.

I part of me does wonder if her physical appearance has aided the spread of the message but in all honesty that is a hole I don’t want to go down, so I put it to one side. Sarah’s story of being attacked at night on the way home in the dark, is not a new one, muggings, sexual attacks, all of the things we are warned of and encouraged to fear in every shadow, are if not common, common enough to be accepted as something that we as women must prepare ourselves for, must accept, must take responsibility for in the way we dress, the way we act, in the way we walk, in the way we call attention to ourselves. We make ourselves as small as possible so as not to be seen by the wolves that walk the streets, when perhaps by making ourselves small we have also shrunken our voices and turned to acceptance rather than to demanding justice.

Sarah’s story has highlighted the commonplace of violence against women’s bodies and the acceptance that this is just a part of life, just the way it is. It seems that finally, we might be rebelling against that notion with enough force to reach a line in the sand by which we declare no longer is this acceptable, no longer is the responsibility ours, we will walk the streets and we will do it while demanding your respect, and our safety.

And then came Mother’s day for all those in the UK to finish off a week of raw and angry emotion. A day to celebrate all that our mothers have done for us. But it also highlights and brings to acute awareness the pain that goes hand in hand with motherhood. The struggle for some to become mothers, the struggle for some to be the mothers they want to be or feel they should be. The grief and the sadness of the loss of our own mothers, be that the ones who physically raised and nurtured us, or the idea we carried around of the mothers we wish we had had. And a stark and painful reminder of the grief and the sadness for all of those who are mothers to children who are no longer with us.

While I am grateful for celebration days as they draw our attention and encourage us to demonstrate in a tangible way the love and respect and appreciation that we feel. I think it is important that we acknowledge the challenge those days also bring and go gently with ourselves and those around us.

It was a week full of open-ended emotional triggers, that left us raw and exhausted. I think that we’ve learned in the last year that no singular event that opens us up can be neatly closed away again. It’s much more complicated than that. Any one of the events that occurred will echo into the months to come but after a week like that, the echoes will be louder and more insistent. We all have a lot to think about in terms of the way we lead our lives and the behaviours of both ourselves and others around us. We each need to decide what is acceptable or not for us. We each need to decide which battles are worth fighting with the energy and the time that we have available to us. We can’t take on every fight, just like we can’t open ourselves to every story and every event that comes past us. We need to protect ourselves and not get derailed by the loud voices of others, while not ignoring the huge shifts we are taking, together.

This is an incredible time for women, and I’m sure the intensity will ebb awhile before returning once more. If nothing else it has given us a powerful lens with which to see ourselves through.