Coming from a dual-nationality family where my mother came to England not knowing a word of English and being a woman, I naturally grew up a feminist. Equality is one of the most important things to me and when I see or feel inequality, rage is something which grows inside of me as fast as the Great Fire of London.
My Bulgarian mother and grandmother were always major influences on me growing up since they both lived under the same roof as me and they both have specific views on how to be a woman. Be loud, be outspoken, be strong, be respectful, move on from hardship. However, a major part of their view on women also includes modesty. Nothing too short, nothing too slutty, not too much makeup, not too much skin, not too much fat. Don’t stand out in your appearance, don’t be different. I always found that these views contradicted each other and yet they have built me up to be the woman I am.
Despite my mother’s inspirational lectures encouraging me to be opinionated, growing up in the current society also means growing up with the societal view that women should be passive and certainly never angery. No matter how much I was told that to have an opinion is to be powerful and impactful, I was always ceased the privileged of fighting back against any of my mother or grandmother’s views. Don’t upset your mother she would say. Don’t upset your grandmother she would say. For most of my life, anger was something which I fought against and told myself was a bad quality to have. After all, I had seen the first-hand negative effects of it at home and fading into the background and being agreeable was something which helped me survive my childhood years. Men, and unfortunately many women, label angry or strong-minded women as ‘bitches’. This too makes me angry. But as the story in Frozen “conceal, don’t feel” was my internal mantra.
But why shouldn’t we be angry? Women have been mistreated and marginalised for years and just because we talk more openly and more often about feminism doesn’t mean that we are equal in the slightest and the fact many women think that what we have is enough makes me angry. We are deserving of basic respect and equality. Yet, does all this anger ever amount to something in my personal life? The answer is no. Because, I too, am weak and scared to defy the patriarchy or my mother in my day to day life.
Waking up a few weeks ago, I felt confident in myself as a woman and decided to dress for my comfort and not for the pleasure of other people, especially not men.
Standing naked in front of the mirror I looked at my body. I simply looked at the way my body indented in and out and grinned because this was one of the first times that I could see that there was nothing wrong with my body. My boobs aren’t a G cup and yet they are most definitely not perky. My hip dips are something massively underrepresented in the media and my cellulite and thigh dimples are demonised online. Yet I saw myself for more than what I have been made to believe I am, more than a body that needed to be made smaller, smoother, or perkier. These curves are beautiful, and with that, I decided that I wouldn’t wear a bra out. I didn’t need to change the shape of my breasts for the sake of other people. With the help of one of my favourite outfits, I felt good and checked myself out in the mirror before leaving.
My favourite Paramore album blaring in my headphone and the sun on my face told me that the bounce in my step wasn’t misplaced. I began strolling down the hill to town. Then something shifted, a flicker shocked my body making me sweat. A feeling of utter discomfort and anxiety began to creep in. I tried to push down that feeling in an attempt to get the bounce in my step back, but I felt so exposed and vulnerable, almost as though I had left my house naked.
Continuing my way down, I walked past a man in a high visibility jacket and a hard hat and felt his burning gaze as he followed me with his eyes. I lowered my head, unable to meet these types of men with my gaze and feel myself flushing red with embarrassment. A flame. Trying to shake off the feeling of having been molested with his eyes, I walked on further past a builder and he wolf whistled and kissed his teeth at me. I felt helpless and disgusting.
Don’t feel, push it down.
The following day I dressed myself in a way which I thought would gather less attention, an outfit that my grandmother would approve of. I wore a long-sleeved top and a pair of trousers. Nothing special, nothing remotely bare skinned or provocative. I walked down the same way to town and the same man was there. He did it again. I tried to ignore it and take a deep breath, as I had been conditioned to do. I had almost made it all the way into town without any more harassment until this man honked his horn at me and gawked at me in a sleezy way from his window, at this moment I wanted to scream “what is your problem?” A fury began burning in my chest. I didn’t. In these moments I feel less than a feminist. I don’t feel strong and powerful as the movement may suggest. I feel like a deer in headlights wishing that the ground would swallow me up. I want to disappear, to cry and to be saved. I wish I could break through and feel safe enough to speak out, and shout, and make these men feel as disgusting as I do when they treat me this way, but I don’t know how. I have never been the person to feel comfortable getting visibly angry. And that is what makes me the angriest.
The fire inside me is however undeniably growing. Events line up like houses and the fire spreads just as easily; without getting the fire out we will all burn alive from our suppressed anger. Get angry. Get vocal. Get equal.
Creative Non Fiction Writing at Reading 