Let's be so real about International Women's Day

I don’t want to write this. All parts of me are rejecting writing this, but I refuse to allow my rage to shuttle me into silence. Even when that rage feels messy and complex, riddled with guilt and uncertainty; feeling like a traitor to the cause.

At the time of writing this, there are three more days before International Women’s Day, with this year’s theme being to accelerate action. I have no plans. There were always plans in the past. Days filled with lectures, panel talks, protests, advocacy, and campaign planning. I believe in the spirit of the day, but not what the day has become.

Since I was a teenage girl, and I realised that the world wasn’t a safe place for women to exist, navigate and participate in, especially Black women, I wanted to do something about it. Over the course of my life, I’ve been able to work with and support the most incredible non-profits and grassroots. I have also been the recipient of their support. Those who work tirelessly, even and especially, when equity feels so far away.

My life is a living, breathing, and embodied practice of loving women. It’s where I find my nest. Women have been my dearest loves. I have centred and prioritised my relationships with women since I was at school. I live to celebrate and be surrounded by women. To create and cry with them. Paint, cook, frolic and be immersed in joy with them. Finding in each other the sisterhood that we need to make this world anew. This will always be true.

Which is why, I’m grieving.

Fuck that, I’m not only grieving, I’m mad as hell.

I’m mad that capitalism has co-opted International Women’s Day. I want to weep that social media has turned it into a carousel-filled day of aesthetically cute posts as we don’t want to ruin our grids with the stories of women who will never have the same rights as us. I really don’t want to see any, “Happy International Women’s Day” texts from lads I once dated. I sigh into my lungs when I walk past bars flogging buy one get one free spicy margs, for the ladiessss. I fury when I see IWD shout outs from podcasters that begin with “to all the females”.

But, most of all, I’m mad at us. I am so mad at us, at the moment. And I’m mad that I’m mad at us, because I know the crushing root of why we do this to each other. I’m mad at the women who weaponise the idea of women supporting women, when it’s abundantly clear that they only support some women. The women who look like them. The women who they can benefit from in a business context. The women who they trust won’t overtake them. The women who they thrive on seeing them struggle because it means they won’t be a threat to them.

I’m mad at the piercing claws of internalised misogyny. I’m hurting for us, that these systems and structures of oppression have built up this wall of envy and quiet hatred for each other. When we belong to each other. I’m sad that with each backwards step that gender equity takes in this cultural, social, and political climate; there are still whispers of discontent amongst us, towards each other.

I opened my phone today to another headline about femicide, “More than 170 mothers killed by their sons in 15 years in UK, report reveals.”

That’s the work. That’s what continues to be at stake. That’s what we’re fighting for.

We are fighting for our lives.

We are fighting for our sisters around the world who are not concerned by the gender pay gap of women in cutesy boardrooms in the West, but by female genital mutilation, their daughters not having access to education, and not being able to sleep at night in case they are raped in refugee camps.

We are fighting for their lives.

There’s something so incredibly infuriating and disappointing, to feel all of that and then open TikTok and Instagram. Where in the latest season of Tall Poppy Syndrome and misdirected misery, the women currently at the centre of other women’s hate are Millie Bobby Brown and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex. The comment sections are a stadium filled with other women, echoing familiar phrases of, “I don’t know why I don’t like her, I just don’t”.

From begrudging them for growing up, their fashion choices, how they pose, criticism for making a rainbow fruit platter, and well, criticism for just existing. Calling a woman smug and un-relatable because they’re experiencing joy. Calling one a beast for drinking tea with their friends.

But, let’s forget all of that come the 8th March, and throw on a t-shirt with raised fists and flowers and scream into the digital void that we are the granddaughters of the women that you couldn’t burn. Sure.

We have been raised for this. Conditioned for it. Messages slipped into the recesses of our psyches as soon as we drew first breath. There’s not enough space for all of us to win. All of us won’t get the guy, remember that. If there’s one seat at the table for a woman, you better make sure it’s yours. If you’re being oppressed by the system, direct your anger at the women who on the outside, look like they’re having an easy ride. You’ll only make it, if you’re pretty, slim, smart, and white enough. If you’re not those things, then of course you’re justified to be furious at all the women who are those things. One of you rises? Bring her down, it’ll make you feel better. Hate the smallness that the world has forced you into as a woman? Blame the woman at the top of your road with the bigger house. Angry that you didn’t get what you wanted, well duh, resent the woman who got what you wanted. Fight to the death, stamp on your sisters to make sure the man chooses you. There’s no time to make friends in the office, only one of you will get the job. Did you hear what she said about you? Don’t have that.

“I don’t know why I don’t like her, but I just don’t.”

Probably because she’s a woman.
Probably because she is you.
She is you.
She is all of us.
If we don’t like her, it’s likely because we were trained to not like ourselves.

For all groups of people, it does not serve those who desire to silence and subjugate us, for us to love ourselves or to love each other. Entire industries run on the fuel of women not liking themselves and being envious of each other; we know this.

I see a pair of jeans on a woman online, I want the jeans, I think how awful I look in my old shitty jeans, but she looks great, ugh I’m jealous that she looks so good in the jeans, I should go on a diet, or maybe if I just buy those exact jeans then I can look as good as her, actually, maybe if I buy the jeans then I will become her. On and on, it goes.

Through conversations with my best friend, therapist, women’s group, and twenty pages of my journal, I’ve been sitting with all of the ways I’ve unknowingly made myself small in my life to avoid that feeling. Ever so subconsciously. I have feared being envied, I have never wanted my existence to make anyone diminish their own. I didn’t know I was carrying that, but when we look at how girls are raised on the misogyny of society, of course it’s there.

I don’t want another woman to look at my success, love, joy, or pleasure and feel bad about the lack of it in their own lives. Yes, I know that is absolutely not my work to do for anyone, but boy it’s there. I don’t want to be the subject of the hate I see of successful women, so it’s safer if women just aren’t successful right? It’s safe if we keep our mouths shut. Don’t wear the thing. Don’t take up too much space. We’ve made men the enemies, believing that we stuff ourselves into tiny jewellery boxes to ensure the world keeps turning, and while that is there, we’ve also made ourselves shrink for the comfort of other women. We can’t keep doing this to ourselves.

I know I speak about Meghan a lot, but she represents so much of this conversation, and a few weeks ago as she announced the launch of her brand, it started up again. The tsunami of resent that always finds its way to her, overwhelmingly written by other women. One such example, was this opinion piece by Emma Brockes in The Guardian.

At the end of the article, the paper asked to send letters in with a response to what was said in the column, here’s what I sent in:

"In these days of darkness we must take delight where we can find it", the column optimistically began before using its word count to take delight in bringing down another woman for the outrageous offence of simply existing. Well, lest we forget, in these days of darkness, our reproductive rights are being stolen. In these days of darkness, Black women’s maternal mortality rate in the UK is 3.7 times higher. In these days of darkness, DEI is being rolled back, which for all of the racist, transphobic and ableist rhetoric surrounding it; also includes women. In these days of darkness, we sit in fear, cradling the daughters of the world that their descendants may not have a planet to inhabit. In these days of darkness, we read about the impact of the ‘manosphere’.

Maybe, this article is asking us to reflect on if the call is also coming from inside the house? As women living under and conditioned by patriarchal structures, some of us still have an issue with successful women, women who say no, women who are pursuing their creativity and freedom. Women who are unapologetically choosing themselves. In these days of darkness, there isn't space for misdirected misery at Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, who has and continues to use her platform and privilege to do good for several urgent causes.

This article isn’t about class or even Meghan’s jam. The world is increasingly being run by actual billionaires, whose power and control has the potential to ruin lives, the planet, and yes, increase the likeliness of the masses not being able to afford even non-celebrity branded jam in their local supermarkets; thanks to higher U.S consumer prices caused by tariffs. In these days of darkness, if we can't even bear to witness another person's joy, what kind of world are we actually fighting for?

I’m so bored of this. Women are losing their rights and we want to criticise another woman for minding her business and making jam, and another for not looking like she’s still twelve years old. Let’s be so for real. We have the very real threats of the impact of the growing gender divide, and how it’s playing out in politics, dating and violence against women and girls. We saw that a majority of white women voted for Trump. We are seeing the attempted erasure of our trans sisters, and we’re fighting on the internet with each other about fucking jam and hairstyles that look too aging?

We can’t keep protesting about the forces “out there” that are trying to bring us down, without looking at how we’ve been conditioned to bring each other down. We may not be the cause, but we are the solution, and we must hold each other accountable. We can no longer perpetuate the factors that have led to our suffering.

I wrote this last year for International Women’s Day and I will say it again:

THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS A "HAPPY" INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

I can't be happy today when the world treats women this way. I can't be happy today when gender inequity is wrapped up in the climate crisis. I can't be happy while women are not granted the safety of existing in both public and private spaces. I can't be happy while heteronormativity pushes women into the isolation of nuclear families to mother and partner without any care economy. I can't be happy while Brown and Black women continue to bury their families because of displacement, war, genocide, geopolitics and racism. I can't be happy when the privileged few women in society who are elevated forget about the needs of other women, because they believe their proximity to power will keep them safe. I can't be happy while young girls are forced into marriage, trafficked and don't have access to period products or clean water.

So, yeah I can't be happy today.

But I will continue to demand better for women every single damn day.