What am I made for?
My first day of uni I chose my outfit carefully. I wore my pink pedal pushers and a t-shirt with little flowers. I had a 60’s headband and a vintage pair of shoes I’d painted purple in my mum’s kitchen. I was ready to take on the world.
When I was invited to come and share my views on women, poverty and equality with the International Centre for Research on Women and the United Nations Foundation there was a chance that I might get to speak to the US Congress. Quickly, I was bundled in to a clothes shop and dressed by my peers. My pink vintage clothes were replaced by a black and green outfit that did look fabulous - but wasn’t me. Off I went to New York, full of my ideas and other peoples clothes.
For women, how we look matters just as much (if not more) than how we think. What we wear is considered as a reflection of our abilities and our intellect. How feminine we present ourselves has been read as a sign of our ability to think, lead, debate and be brave. Feminine is weak. A power suit is brave.
Except I don’t like power suits.
I know this because I tried to wear one for a while. It made me miserable. It also didn’t make me get taken any more seriously than I had been when I was wearing my pink vintage clothes. Actually, I think that I was listened to more when I was wearing what made me feel comfortable than when I was wearing what made others feel more comfortable. I like pink.
By the time I was 21 I was burnt out, had stopped speaking in public and walked right away from the leadership and politics that had made my heart sing. I didn’t look like a leader. I didn’t look like a thinker. Everything in the world was telling me that I wasn’t enough - so I just stopped. I walked away to a life where I was waiting to go and have babies so that I could stop working and just be happy with my failed attempts to lead and enjoy the craft projects that I never seemed to have time for anymore. I like sewing and knitting.
I turned to technology as a last resort. I wanted to work on something I didn’t care about at all, in a world where I could go and have a family and live a happy life away from the public view of female leaders whose life was under the microscope. There among the world of men I wore black corporate wear and tried to just fit in. Except I couldn’t do it. I am not capable of dumbing myself down to make myself more palatable to those that might find women in leadership a new thing. I wasn’t made to fit in.
I applied for a role in the Office for Women as my escape plan. I was desperate to leave Adelaide and I just wanted something to tide me through until I’d saved enough money to get out. The job was advertised for 6 months which was perfect - just enough time to see me through until I was ready to run away. As a last minute thought I brought with me a package of campaign material I had created as a student leader. It was a packet of material that reminded me of what I could do once upon a time, but I had stepped so far away from that reality that I almost felt ashamed to bring it. I wasn’t made for that I thought. Not really.
There in the Office for Women I started to come back to life. The friendly, kind, colourful vintage-dress wearing leadership that I was greeted with was like a warm kiss back to life. I didn’t know that there were leaders like that in our world. Strong women who danced to their own drums, being kind and powerful at the same time. Leaders who cared more about what I thought than about how I dressed. Leaders who were unapologetically women - and some of the smartest and bravest ones I have ever met. They were making a world I wanted. A world for us all to just be; however we are made.
The process for getting my voice back has been slow, writing slower. My first public speech in nearly a decade was on ‘why Barbie is a feminist’ - a bold choice for someone who was holding a management role in our powerful women’s movement. I suggested that Barbie, like all of us, might be neither good nor bad. That perhaps Barbie sits somewhere in the space between.
I’m beginning to understand what happened to my voice and the speed in which I can explain it is picking up pace. The Barbie movie will be released this week and from the early hints we have it is clear to me that I’m not the only woman my age that has experienced some form of questioning. Who were we meant to be in a world that told us that we could be anything that we dreamed - but that also laughed at Barbie? How were we supposed to be in a world that wanted us to not care about what we wore - but that also told us that what we were wearing was wrong? That what we were wearing wasn’t powerful or smart? That being kind wasn’t the way in which to lead?
I once heard a smart, senior political woman comment about a young political woman wearing an amazing ball gown - to a ball - that she must be a bimbo. She was at a ball - was she supposed to wear a power suit? Must have missed that on the invitation. I wasn’t surprised a few years later when that ball gown wearing young woman was in The Sydney Morning Herald, calling out a culture of sexual harassment inside of politics and being brave enough to be one of the very first women to go public on an issue that was probably not in her personal career interest, but was in the greater interest of all women and our democracy. ‘What was she wearing’ they ask when women are sexually assaulted? What was she wearing when you presumed she was a bimbo I ask? What does it matter what she wears?
“They aren’t listening to me” I said to one of the women I worked with. “Of course they’re not” she said. “Have you seen what you are wearing? It’s not right that I’m saying this, but it’s what is happening to you”. She was right. I was too female. I was too casually dressed. I wasn’t wearing something that symbolised power - even though I was wearing something society told me that I needed to wear as a woman at work.
This song has been released in the lead up to the Barbie movie release. I feel seen and like there is an explanation for what happened to me - for what happened to so many of us. How I lost my voice. Perhaps we all did?
What am I made for is a question I’ve asked myself so many times. Am I enough? Am I smart? Am I capable? Should I just go and have children and run away from a world that isn’t ready for me yet? A world that wants me to be something that I’m not? I tried that. It made me miserable.
I’m a smart woman who loves pink vintage dresses and I try to be kind. I’m no pushover. I’m willing and able to stand up for myself and others. Over time I’ve learned what I’m made for, to find for myself the strength in what many others have passed off as weakness.
What am I made for?
I have my voice back. I have my writing back. I gave a speech last year, the first in another decade. I needed a powerful outfit to deliver a powerful message. One to inspire. I took myself off to choose an outfit that made me feel powerful and smart.
“I want the most feminine dress you can find. One that is vintage”.
I chose the one covered in pink roses. I’ll wear what I want. The contents of my mind are just as smart, no matter what my clothes are made of.
I know what I’m made for.
