I’m so proud to be part of a generation of women who are coming for everything. We sit on the shoulders of the many women who came before us. While the views have improved, we’re also constantly ducking the glass shards that are almost constantly falling from the ceilings we continue to shatter.
The exercise of “Shattering glass ceilings” is exactly as dramatic and potentially dangerous as the wording suggests: It’s costly, it hurts and the risk/benefit ratio can be precarious at times but my goodness the air is so clear and the view so breathtaking (even if you’re sometimes bleeding as a result but, like most of us do every month, you keep it moving because there’s still lots of work to do and what’s a little blood?).
I thank God for the women in my life who hold me up and keep me going and get me through. It’s in the freely shared tampons, the shameless reclaiming of our feminity. It’s there in the choices we’re fighting to make about the bodies we live and move and breath in that seem to constantly be at odds and entangled with the government for some reason. It’s in the drunken club bathroom sisterhood and the keys between our knuckles when we deign to jog while being identifiably female. Thank you for the women who pretend they know each other or walk strangers home because they look unsafe, uncomfortable or afraid. It’s in the “I’m home safe” roll call after a night out and the safe spaces we create for one another where we can be vulnerable and admit that we’re afraid. Where we can admit that it hurts when boys are mean to us. That it hurts that the world is an inescapably hostile place sometimes. That it hurts that our victories come with shards of glass and that it sucks to have to kickass all the time so we can breath.
To the women with or without vaginas doing the most, kicking ass, taking names (or being soft and taking breaks) I love you for taking up space and just being. I take solace in the small simple revolutions that take place every morning when we wake up unharmed and alive to fight another day in a world that wasn’t built with us in mind. A world we’re tearing down brick by brick with dull tools and one had tied behind our backs. I am sapped by every #tag for I recognise that for every name we see (that could very well be my own tomorrow) there are many more who remain silent nameless statistics.
Whether your brand of resistance is kicking down doors in stilettos or sneakers, I’m thankful for your collective existence at such a time as this.
*For your enjoyment: “deep inside, we’re all just pink”.
*Janelle Monae’s Pynk: A gorgeous, unapologetically feminine video featuring comfortable-looking women having a unapologetically self-indulgent ball of a time. This praise becomes extravagant when you learn that I’m not really a fan of the colour pink.
Collaborative Eavesdropping 