The importance of seeing what's possible✨
Something I’ve been thinking about lately is the importance of representation.
I was always brought up hearing that women could be anything we wanted to be, and that I could follow my dreams.
But when I looked around me, the reality didn’t seem to reflect that.
When I was a teenager and had to choose a degree, I barely knew any women that had their own businesses, or were ambitiously chasing their dreams, or even owned their own house, really.
It’s difficult to see something’s possible when it’s just pure theory.
If I looked at politics, the only example of a woman in power was Margaret Thatcher, and the “Iron Lady” wasn’t exactly aspirational.
In the films I grew up with, like Pretty Woman, Top Gun, The Princess Bride, or my beloved Bond films, women were not the leads. They were secondary characters supporting the men, or love interests to provide distraction.
Even in films depicting children, like the Goonies or ET, the young boys have adventures and solve crimes, while the girls stay on the sidelines looking pretty.
Don’t even get me started on Disney princesses or Baywatch…
When anyone asked me what I wanted to do with my life, and I said that I wanted to make the world a better place, people would tell me to become a missionary, and spend my life in a remote place hidden away from the world.
It didn’t seem to be an option that I could have any kind of bigger impact as a woman.
On a logical level, I always thought that because I had an education, it would all be ok somehow. But the messages that you get every single day from watching the world around you seep deep into your mind.
In the end, the realm of possibilities I could imagine for my life was so oppressively limited and constrictive that I felt tiny and unimportant.
That’s why today I’ve reached a point where I find it difficult to engage with something if I don’t see a decent representation of what society looks like.
If people invite me to a conference and I see that it’s 90% white men with the odd token female or racial minority somewhere at the bottom of the lineup, I have no interest in hearing those stories. Because it’s all I’ve heard my whole life.
If I want to work with a company and see that all the decision-makers are men, I don’t want to invest all my time and energy working there anymore. And if I see that the company is all men selling products to women based on what they think women need, I will scream.
Nowadays, I want to hear a variety of voices. And I especially want to hear the voices of people that haven’t been heard as much before.
I want to invest in female businesses and support women who have big dreams.
I want to see films written by women, with female leads, that tell female stories. I want to learn from women and be inspired by them. I want to read books by women, I want to be coached by women, and I want to learn business skills from them.
I want girls today to have all the representation I didn’t have growing up, to see fierce, independent women who design the life they desire and know that we can change the world, bird by bird.
And I want to be a voice that other women hear. Because for far too long, I’ve been far too silent. And that’s got to change.
Sending you love 💜
Paula
P.S. I’ve written this from my perspective as a woman, but it very much applies to all minorities, whether in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disabilities, or anything else that makes people feel different, separate and alone.
We need to get to a place where every single child (and adult who didn’t have it growing up) can see themselves represented in the world they see out there.
Because that makes it that much easier for your body and your mind to believe that you can truly be anything you want, that there’s a place for you in the world, and that you, too, belong. Isn’t that what we all want in the end?