Herstory in Leadership

This blog was previously published by Oasis Community Learning.  

It has now been just over two years since I joined Oasis Community Learning, and I can say with certainty that I am not the same person I was when I arrived. When I first found Oasis, I was broken – I am still not sure how I found the strength to go through the interview process but reading through the blog I was asked to write for Oasis for HerStory month, I know how now. I was broken. Yet, time and time again, I understand growth comes through pain, reflection, discomfort and the difficult work of choosing to remain true to yourself. 

One thing I know to be true as a woman from a global majority background, is that very little is ever simple. I was asked to write a version of my Oasis blog a few months ago for Belonging Effect, but I believe everything happens when it’s meant to. This summer has been another sh**show…  Reflecting on the death of Jason Arday has made me question the idea of representation and what exactly is the purpose of it? When you’re representative of something different to the status quo, why is your life, your human life the thing that is in the balance? 

We’re coming to the end of the summer and I’ve already seen too many reports about Meghan and Harry returning to the UK – and all I can see is a certain demographic of people ready and waiting with their pitchforks. What concerns and saddens me the most is whether Meghan will survive this time… have any lessons been learnt? 

The fact is when we see a reimagined representation of a black man or a reimagined face of feminism, who is truly an intersectional representation of feminism… who does this trigger hate in? Why? Are you racist? Are you sexist? Are you projecting? In order for lessons to be learnt, we need to look inwards. Those that are reading this already do – you wouldn’t be in this space reading this otherwise. We know what the deep work is – many of us have had to dig deep to survive and at times dare to thrive. 

If we base our assertions on the superficial, if I took the racism I have experienced at face value I would have become bitter. If I took the sexism and misogyny at face value, I would’ve lost my self respect and self worth… my peace of mind is what matters – more than anything. 

Peace is a luxury in life. Peace of mind is not hard to come by when you are protected by privilege; when you do not fear for your life because of who you are; when you do not have to fight to be seen or heard as fully human; when you do not have to constantly prove yourself before you are allowed to belong.

Some don’t want you to belong – I have experienced this first hand. And when they’re seeing you blinded their privilege, being careless with your humanity isn’t something they feel guilty for. They have the privilege of not having to see you as a human – you are  a threat to their status quo, to their version of success – how dare you arrive in all your worth and disrupt – unintentionally… when we’re living our values, you will disrupt those that aren’t living through values or ethics – and you highlight that fact. 

Those who have witnessed my growth through education have often reminded me of my resilience, my determination and my kindness. Looking back, I realise I have always been a trauma-informed and trauma-responsive educator, because my own experiences have shaped how I see the world: its people, its systems and its levers of power. My traumas have not made me weaker. They have sharpened my ability to notice, to listen and to recognise humanity in others – and know what feel when I am not safe.

One pattern I have encountered, particularly when moving into leadership, is projection. At times, it can feel dehumanising: as though another person’s fear, insecurity or need for control is placed onto you until you begin to question yourself. Sometimes the intention seems to be to undermine you, to position you as difficult, or to push you out before you have had the chance to grow into your full potential – all while stifling you, tripping you up, keeping your head under water until you stop kicking… if you know, you know these feelings. 

Representation matters deeply, but representation without commitment to the human being can become another kind of harm. The lesson I am taking from Jason Arday’s story is that systems rooted in patriarchy and inequality rarely make space willingly. Jason Arday was a beautiful, gifted black man – he smashed every single stereotype possible in the face of masculinity and academia. 

The truth is Empowered women are not always made to feel safe; global majority women are not always truly represented; too often, they are presented as symbols while their voices, experiences and expertise are not fully valued, or at best used to further enable the status quo covering up the inequity it’s still feeding. That is why so many people learn it is safer to shrink once they “get there”. The idea of safety, that luxury of peace of mind, can feel more expensive the more successful you become. 

This leaves me with a difficult question: are we selling the children we serve false hope if we do not also tell them the truth about the systems they may have to navigate? The idea and image of leadership – has it really changed? We’ve had glimmers of what could be – Jacinda Ardern, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez … yet we have Putin, Trump, Netanyahu … we have global leaders destroying Mother Earth because they’re projecting their perceived power through acts of violence and aggression… the manosphere isn’t anything new – it’s been around since misogyny planted patriarchy into the soul of every system reliant now on capitalism… AI is the new world for patriarchy to keep on flourishing, division to keep breeding and inequity to be the face of perceived progress… it’s all a bit sh** really. 

Throughout my journey, I have carried words that were never mine to hold:

• You’re too small.
• You’re too pretty; if you weren’t so kind, I would not like you.
• You’re not white.
• You’re too emotional.
• You care too much.
• You’re not ready to lead English.
• You need to be more resilient.
• That’s not the normal way.

For the most part, and unfortunately, it has often been women within certain organisations and institutions who have seen me as a threat to their status quo, they exemplified the dangers of internalised misogyny in women who don’t want to see the value of another woman in the same space: I was someone to contain, question, dismiss or damage before I could reach the potential they could already see in me but would not nurture. Some encounters have been inhumane, unkind and, at times, intentionally cruel.

One person seemed to believe her race made her better than me. Another was threatened by what I could become and made it clear she was not there to enable me, but to try to destroy me. One deeply hurt me. One did break me.

When you are not seen as a human being, it is a feeling you recognise. I have known it since I was little. When the world sees you as something less than fully human because you’re a girl, you learn that only you (and your mum’s tenacity) can plant the seeds of your worth. Only you can keep returning to yourself. Only you can decide that survival is not enough, that shrinking is not safety, and that your peace is worth protecting. 

Humanity is what we are. Yet it is sometimes the very thing we fail to recognise in one another. My journey of leadership and growth has taught me that using my voice is not disruption, choosing peace is not weakness, and being true to myself is not optional. It is the foundation of the leader I am still becoming. I never took a child’s feeling of worth and safety for granted when I taught them – I made it very clear to them they were to question me, disagree with me and feel safe to take those risks to enable them to surpass their idea of their own success – and they did. I truly hope, in the age of AI, they are still thinking critically and challenging. As leaders, we should already be questioning, we should already be able to disagree, to challenge… based on our understanding of ourselves and what we think – and that sometimes means you’re going to disagree with yourself if you’re intention is to learn and understand – it doesn’t mean we deny the humanity in each other. 

As we’re moving into another academic year, I am hoping we do not witness another gifted human, who is representative of the re-imagined, lose her power, break and fall. Meghan is one of the role models we look at as part of our Building on Barbie leadership work… and that is another hope… I hope we stop recycling the same argument about the commodification of feminism and only seeing the Barbie doll through the male gaze… look beyond the superficial to what the doll is meant to represent – a woman’s body is a woman’s body – it is hers to make the her life choices from… when you contextualise that with the fact that women’s body were not legally part of any medical research, that marital rape was legal until 1993…. Barbie’s silhouette is a challenge to the patriarchy, it’s a call to arms… in some ways, it was a political statement undermining the power of patriarchy and its influence on gender politics… in the 1950’s… the era of the original ‘trad-wife’ – if you look at the timing of the trad wife trend … it’s a reaction to the Barbie movie dissecting gendered assertions. 

Caroline Flack. Jason Arday. Amy Winehouse…

I truly hope lessons have been learnt and we take care – we take care and see the human before we feel privileged enough to make comments. 

I am starting to see my traumas and lived experience as a gift – the spectrum of human behaviour can be measured in degrees of cruelty and degrees of kindness, motive, perception, and environment all feed into how we choose to behave towards each other. 

I’ve had men tell me I shine too bright – one tried to break me, but it’s been the women who have been relentless in their determination to trip me up, belittle me – try and diminish my talent and undermine my professional worth by finding things to pick on… 

But I believe everything happens for a reason – I hope Jason Arday’s death does bring change, accountability and CARE. 

Reflecting on my two years at Oasis, and navigating certain things this summer, I am grateful for the special, serendipitous moments have manifested. Some becoming forever moments like the my WomenEd chapter coming to life through the Building on Barbie Leadership Project – for now, I feel safe, I feel I am valued and I do feel I belong… 

Intersectional Feminism – this is where hope resides.