Celebrating International Women's Day

Why do I do what I do?

I don’t have a daughter, so instead for my niece and every girl and woman I work with, as the spoken word poet Sarah Kay says, “the first time she realises that Wonder Woman isn’t coming, I’ll make sure that she knows she doesn’t have to wear the cape all by herself…”

That is why I do what I do. Make the playing field level, where we look after each other.

Because I want her to know herself early in life, to know how to be independent and interdependent.

I want her to cherish and know and nurture her own heart and soul in the first instance, rather than seeking that affirmation from someone else who doesn’t know who they are, let alone her.

I want to make a space in the world for her to belong, not to fit in…

A space where she never has the wall beside her head punched by a man in a rage, or is bullied to breaking by a woman boss who is jealous of her untameable spirit.

A space, where she never is grabbed by the throat in a night club and held backwards over a balcony by a guy before he spits in her face, because she stepped on his foot by accident.

Where she gets given a job on her merits, not because the guy wants to find out if she is wearing stockings under her skirt; or doesn’t want to give her the job because she is too pretty and might distract the serious team players.

...and the worse things, I never, never want those to happen to her.

I never want her to settle for someone less than her equal because she doesn’t know herself. I want her to shine like an exploding comet, living full of open hearted delight, dancing everyday like she has tail feathers.

I do what I do, so that the world will be fairer, safer and she will know that all around her are people who are ‘for’ her and there for her.

When she falls, I want her to know it’s a moment in time and that she can pick herself up and move forward.

I want her to know how to trust herself, especially during these tender years ahead, when the voices around her will slice and dice with their judgements.

More than anything, I want her to know how to trust love as a power unequalled in measure by anything else in the Universe, so that when people look in her eyes they fall in when she smiles.

I want her to be all of exactly who she is.