“We will never be enough, being a woman will never be enough”
I wrote those lines 3 years ago and today these words stick like a lump in my throat and I can’t speak as the hands of the patriarchy try to silence me;
even after we have given all that we are and continue to pour and replenish a world who does not care.
But in March, the world adjusts its male gaze.
Shape shifts predatory eyes, instead reaching to lift and empower, celebrating our very essence.
Our being.
Reminding us of our history, the strength in our solidarity, the power in our voice.
But this March, we marched against the racism and misogyny manifested, and violence against women infiltrated the seams;
always reminding us things are never as they seem though masked in purple ribbons and posts about influential women.
We cannot rest.
Though her voice shook, Meghan Markle spoke with purpose.
Pushing through the pain of racist Rule’d Britainnia,
pushing through the pain of toxic tabloids,
pushing through the pain of being told that you’re less than.
Common for women of colour.
Common for those who don’t follow the grain.
The awaited interview wasn’t surprising, but very telling,
and this country tells Meghan there is no place for her here.
But when she bravely spoke of her own doubts of staying in this place,
the world looked at her and laughed.
Just another Black woman who’s pain be silenced.
Just another Black woman who can’t be anything but hard.
Society looked at her and laughed,
seriously laughed with force and malice.
Forgetting all about the promise
we made to “be kind” after Caroline Flack took her life.
And then came Sarah Everard, bless her soul.
Or rather didn’t come Sarah Everard because she never made it home.
Girl I’m sorry we couldn’t protect you,
and when I say this I don’t mean to take away from what happened, but Sarah, we are you.
We stand for you.
We fight for you.
We understand you and 97% of us feel it too.
That pain of knowing this unequal world will never protect you.
Of knowing that those in power will abuse it to dehumanise and disregard you.
We grieve for you.
Sarah, we are you.
But things come in threes, so maybe we should have readied ourselves.
But nothing could have prepared us for the soul destroying story of 6 Asian women and 2 others shot dead by a white supremacist terrorist.
Shot dead because of fetishisation and discrimination.
Shot dead for simply existing, resisting the stereotypes this world enforces.
Resisting the weight of generational trauma.
We should also have been fighting to stop Asian hate long before the hashtag circulated.
Fighting for all women.
And if this week has taught us anything,
girl I’m sorry to say it,
but it’s that even the 3% aren’t safe.
That the hands of white supremacy, toxic society, corrupt police and entitled men,
will always try to strip us of the very things which make us great.
The very things which threaten them, unsettle them.
And I know this didn’t start with them,
and I wish I could say it would with them.
That it would end here,
that us women would no longer have to live in fear.
I wish.
“We will never be enough. Being a woman will never be enough.”
And sadly for too many, these words are too late to be enough.