A few months ago, I was asked to speak at an International Women’s Day event today.
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This year’s theme is Be Bold for Change.
At first I wondered ‘Why me?’ I’d never seen myself as bold and if mine is a bold story there would be a hundred such stories in the room.
But boldness can take many forms and I thought about the years following my train accident when I was eleven; I spent a lot of time living in my eleven to eighteen year old head while writing All Stations to Waterfall.
That young Fay started off spirited and grew more feisty as the years went on; I spoke my mind, I was undaunted my negative predictions of my future bestowed by experts, I dared to believe in myself when others didn’t.
I was fuelled by hopes and dreams and a reckless spirit.
When I sat down a few weeks ago to write a talk for today I pulled out a thesaurus and read the entry for ‘bold’:
bold> adjective
- Bold adventurers: daring,intrepid, brave, courageous, valiant, valorous, fearless, dauntless, audacious, daredevil; adventurous, heroic, plucky, spirited, confident, assured.
- Don’t be so bold in public: impudent, insolent, impertinent, brazen, brash, disrespectful, presumptuous, forward.
I was struck by a gendered difference. Why is this still so strong?
There’s a long history of boldness used as a positive for men and a pejorative for women and it’s hard to shake off.
Words powerfully shape our lived experience - meaning is filtered through them and our actions are informed by those meanings.
How often do women second guess themselves before acting, wondering ‘Will I be seen as presumptuous?’ or similar.
It’s time for women to claim heroism and bravery.
It starts inside us and between us - with the support of other women - by using the positive and the pejorative forms of ‘bold’ free of gendered stereotypes.
