Coming into this world is always accompanied by a scream. Your mum screams, your dad screams. You get slapped on the bum and you scream too. Then you repeat syllables that make some kind of sense like mama, dada, wee wee. Eventually you repeat words, and words turn into sentences. You can speak. A lot of us speak. But not many people in this world have found their voice.
By finding your voice I mean to have beliefs, and morals system, and that you can formulate what your view of what the world is. Everyone is on their own journey of discovering the previously mentioned voice. Some have already found it. Some just started to look for it. Some don’t even realise that one exists. But like the first scream that comes out of you, you want to be heard. Especially women, as our voices have always been silenced in the public and political sphere. Starting from Penelope in Odyssey, Lavinia in Titus Andronicus, going to Emily Davison, and lastly but I am sure not the last, Greta Gerwig.
However, we can see a shift. Our voices are slowly being heard, and our stories are finally being told, and they are being told by women, which is another treat. We live in world where Lizzo is becoming the voice of our generation, and I AM NOT MAD AT IT. We want equality of genders and races. We want to be body positive. We want the world without prejudice. Slowly but steadily there are platforms for us to speak at, and we are taking the power back! We are putting a stop to the patriarchy. We are walking up that ladder, and are smashing the glass ceiling to a million and seven pieces so there is nothing left but liberation from the prejudice, and learnt behaviour.
Us scouse birds, and all the adopted scouse girls (including myself) can speak and be heard at the Wicked Women sessions. Last Wednesday our door opened to Liverpool’s first black Lord Mayor Anna Rothery. She came in with a lion on her chest! The power just oozed from her. She sits down, and ask us what do we want from her. I like that. She is straight to the point there is no time to waste. She has places to be, and jobs to get done. We want to hear her story because she is a great inspiration. For women in leadership, for mums, and nans, for sisters, and daughters. To everyone that listens to her story. She laughs and says that she is not an inspiration, but can tell us a thing or two. She stands up from the chair to tell the story because it needs to come straight from the gut. It can’t be squashed down.
She is our local gal, raised in Toxteth. She experienced quite a bit when she was growing up. At the end of the day growing up isn’t easy anyway. Your hormones are having a rave in your body, you get acne, no one can understand your feelings. Life already seems to be a burden, and you are only a teenager! But imagine having all this havoc happening in your head whilst you hear the Toxteth Riots happening just outside your window.
Anna growing up suffered from really bad epilepsy attacks, which resulted in her going to a school where she studied with much more vulnerable children. From a very young age she overheard the teachers say that ‘there won’t be anything out of this girl.’ She told us that her glass ceiling was made out of concrete, she couldn’t even see through it. At the time that she was growing up there were no role models that represented her in pop culture, or even in Liverpool. But she always found her strength in her mother. Who raised four children on her own, after her dad had died when she was a child. As a bread winner her mum was working as a taxi operator, but she has noticed that actually taxi drivers earned more, and she had a car. So she asked if she could do it. She was refused time after time. But she knew that she could do it as well as anyone else. She didn’t give up, and she finally achieved her goal. Her mother’s persistence is engraved in the Lord Mayor. She always spoke for the people in more vulnerable position than herself, she gave them the voice. The voice that she at that time couldn’t find for herself. Eventually she found it in education. She was hungry for knowledge and for change. Slowly but steadily she chiselled her ceiling bit by bit and started seeing the sun
rays coming through. Now we have a great wicked woman leading the ship of change.
And although we live in the times of liberation, and the taboos about gender, sexuality, and racism are slowly being broken apart. We also live in the world of chaos, anger, and fear that resulted in Brexit. We stare at the Technicolor screens, and are being fed social media propaganda of what life should really look like. But in fact it is all a mirage powered to make you feel insecure so that you scroll a bit more, and buy a 12 month Netflix subscription. But it is 2020 now. New decade, in a new millennium. We are entering the roaring twenties. We are at the brink of the revolution. So go and experience life. Read everything that lands in your hand. Go and travel to Asia, or to Devon. Love, and make art! GO AND FIND YOUR VOICE. See what is happening in your local community, and grow from it. Because at the end of the day our children will be the product of our environment. And if you are in the position of leadership whether you are male or female do not be a gatekeeper. Give others a chance. Let’s do this together! Because there is not point of being a head of the game, when there is no one with you. On your own you can go faster, but together we can go further.