Break glass ceilings

For most of us in the first world, we are living in conditions that have made the act of creation so easy — a random snapchat here, a tweet there — it is almost difficult to remember, that just a mere hundred years or so years ago, women were not allowed to vote. Go back a few more hundred years in time, it would be inconceivable for women to publish anything:

any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at.
— Virginia Woolf, A room of one’s own

It is also easy to forget that today, there are parts of the world where there are girls who are denied rights to a basic education or to themselves, a world where there is female genital mutilation and child brides.

I was at an event supporting my friends on a panel discussing the enablement of girls in technology. There was a moment while Adrianna was sharing her story, when it felt surreal looking back at our near-decade old friendship, how far I have personally come along, how long I have been witnessing her journey, and how much she has done to contribute to mine, just by being herself.

I remember reading her blog post about her narrowly escaping a suicide bomb attack in Yemen where she was travelling alone, at the tender age of 23. I overcame my intense fear of the dark to start travelling solo, because I had her story to push my boundaries. Travelling solo opened my own world up immeasurably and I cannot be the person I am without that single leap of courage.

She has inspired me in many more ways than one without even trying, just by living a life she wants. I can attempt to push boundaries today, because she had been and still is pushing hers.

At the same event I was reminded of a speech by shonda rhimes:

How many women had to hit that glass before the first crack appeared? How many cuts did they get, how many bruises? How hard did they have to hit the ceiling? How many women had to hit that glass to ripple it, to send out a thousand hairline fractures? How many women had to hit that glass before the pressure of their effort caused it to evolve from a thick pane of glass into just a thin sheet of splintered ice?

So that when it was my turn to run, it didn’t even look like a ceiling anymore.
– Shonda Rhimes, On Ceilings Made of Glass

If we were more aware of what had to be endured before us, would we still swim in our own careless self-consciousness and self-censorship? I wish more of us would put out more expressions of ourselves into the world, to have the courage to be ourselves, in order to create space for others to put more of themselves out in the world, to have the courage to be themselves.

It is not just about doing the work or supporting each other as peers, but to actually remember that the mere way we choose to live, are real-life walking examples that people around us are modelling upon. Every decision to move towards fear or courage has a ripple effect, are kids out there looking at us break glass ceilings with courage, or build more ceilings and walls for them with fear?

It is now up to us to be passing the torch lighted by ones before us, to the ones who will come after. The privilege and liberty we have now, come as a consequence of countless people putting their lives on the line, for centuries. It is not just about women’s rights, but think about the countless inventions, social movements, laws, that had to happen before we could so frivolously type on the keyboard or release a shutter today?

There are obvious glass ceilings which exist out of inequality — gender, class, race. Then there are invisible barriers that are less defined and yet still damaging and pervasively inhibiting, the ones which stop us from becoming the fullest expressions our selves, the ones constructed out of social norms and judgment, the limiting way we perceive beauty:

Sometimes we don’t realize how much influence cultural icons have on our collective psyches, or how much people around us — online or offline — have the power to shape us, be it consciously or unconsciously. We are the consequence of the people around us, the music we listen to, the films we watch, the writing we read, the culture that surrounds us. We hold power in shaping the people around us too, especially towards the younger generations. Do we think of this responsibility as we make our choices?

People ask me why do I have the courage to write so openly and publicly. It is not courage, but an obligation to the ones who will come after me, because I am keenly aware of the work that had been done before me.

Just for me to even have a choice to contemplate: should I write, or not? They gave me permission to be myself, to feel less alone, to know my inherent quirks are gifts, not weaknesses.

This is what I think of, each time I am confronted with a choice to uncomfortably conform in order to feel an illusionary sense of comfort, or to comfortably just be myself and risk feeling that painful discomfort before true comfort sets in.

Let us break more glass ceilings and invisible barriers. The obvious ones, the unconscious ones, the small and big ones, the ones yet to appear, the seemingly impossible ones. We have made large strides as a collective and we must continue to make them, for humanity to unfold the way it should.

Think of all the work we have benefitted from — whether it was reading Austen, listening to Prince, witnessing Beyoncé or knowing the story of Aung San Suu Kyi that has changed you — our space to be and create is made possible because there have been people among us who consciously sought to push our boundaries, despite the price that has to be paid, and the loneliness that comes along with it.