The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Had to Learn Was How Much I’m Worth
Celebrating the bodies we’re in
Worthiness is something I believe every woman on earth struggles with.
I like to think I’m a member of the last generation — the last cohort of women who were so brutally mis-educated via the media and social norms about what was expected of us and for us.
I came of age in the 90’s, surrounded by heroin chic and female celebrities being weighed during interviews on television. It was the era of the supermodel, the exaltation of unattainable beauty, when eating disorders were popularised, and even Princesses didn’t get their happy ending.
It took me a long time to push back against ‘paler is better’ and to embrace my big hair and the brown skin my mum referred to as ‘olive’, perhaps hoping I’d be seen as of Mediterranean descent rather than African.
Being of mixed heritage can often leave you feeling like you have to embrace one side over the other, but when at times it can feel like you belong truly to neither. I remember the startling feeling I’d sometimes get when I caught my reflection in a shop window and be surprised at the person it revealed. It was a surprise laced with disappointment.
But push back I did.