We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere

I agreed to participate in photoshoots when I was younger that I would advise myself against in retrospect, where my desire to be liked or found attractive overrode that small voice that wanted to say, ‘I’m not OK with this’. Whether it was not wanting to upset the male photographer or letting my ego get caught up in the attention, I hadn’t yet found that part of my brain. Not just the part that could stand up for myself and say I will not participate in an act that feels shameful because it is exposing too much of myself for a stranger’s gaze, but the part that might recognize that what I was participating in was a bigger issue and that by agreeing to do the shoot I was colluding in a far darker message about women and our objectification.

GA

It’s easy to forget how relatively recently women – even in the developed Western hemisphere – won basic legal rights. A hundred years ago, women in the US and UK weren’t allowed to vote and it wasn’t until 1920 and 1928 respectively that women gained voting parity with men. And until the 1990s our husbands could legally rape us. For the bulk of legal history we’ve been treated as inferior and the legacy of centuries of inequality continues to exact its toll on our sense of who we are.

Leading female scientists, politicians and commentators still find that if they speak publicly, their looks and clothes are dissected in ways that simply don’t happen to men, reinforcing the sense that beneath the talk of equality we remain objects to be lusted over, dominated and possessed, rather than equals.

To get a snapshot of the extent to which equality is still resisted take a look at the comments that women who write about equality generate online – threats of sexual assault and even death are commonplace. As a result, whatever strides the world is making towards equality, the mirror we’re reflected back in is distorted and, in turn, can corrupt and limit how we perceive ourselves.

Under cover

Too often we can feel we have to disguise our real physical self to match artificial notions of femininity that have largely been created by men. Whether we’re forcing our feet into heels so high they damage our backs or suppressing what we think or feel in order not to upset our other half, we’re often left feeling worse about ourselves.

The rise of porn has compounded the problem, giving both genders warped perceptions of what is normal. Young men expect girls to look and behave like porn stars, and girls find themselves under pressure to oblige. Plastic surgeons have seen a surge in the number of women seeking labiaplasty – a painful procedure that can permanently damage nerve endings – as women try to conform to damaging cosmetic norms perpetuated by the porn industry to make themselves desirable.

Of course, changing our outside appearance doesn’t get us any nearer to being loved and wanted for who we authentically are. Applying WE’s principles enables us to know our identity from the inside out rather than the outside in. We realize that who we are lies beyond what we do, how we look and what we own.

When you are clear about who you are and who you are not it’s a lot easier to be clearer with the outside world. If you adopt rigorous self-honesty as a way of life, the false-selves and labels that have disguised your true self will gradually start to fall away.

‘Curiosity is our friend that teaches us how to become ourselves.’

ELIZABETH GILBERT

As children we’re all emotionally super-porous. In addition to the messages we receive from our families, peers and society at large, we also absorb our caregivers’ fears, frustrations and beliefs, and mistake them for our own. We start receiving most of them before we’re old enough to be able to scrutinize and reject those that don’t serve us or belong to us. This will especially be the case if you come from a family in which there are secrets or traumatic events. You may not know the facts, but you’ll still absorb the feelings. It’s possible to carry emotions like shame, fear and sadness for decades, even though they have nothing to do with you.

I’ve always lived with a fear of catastrophe and could never define what that ‘terrible’ thing I feared might be. As a girl I’d squirrel away my pocket money so that I’d be ready for whatever it was that was going to happen to us. It was only years later, when I discovered my father’s secret past, that my behaviour made sense and my fear started to evaporate. When my father was a child, he’d fled from the Nazis during the Second World War and, wanting to protect us from anti-Semitism, never told us that he was Jewish. But it turned out he inadvertently left me a different kind of legacy: a sense of impending catastrophe and a fear of saying who I really was.

JN

Genes with memories

The new and fast-evolving field of epigenetics research suggests that trauma can be inherited genetically. In one study, male mice that were taught to fear a smell passed that fear on to their offspring – which in turn would bequeath the same sensitivity to their offspring.

Another study found that baby rats that received insufficient nurturing from their mothers matured to be more prone to disease and anxiety than their well-groomed counterparts, and then passed on that predisposition to their descendants.

We can live our whole lives with a particular sensitivity, fear or trait that doesn’t belong to us – that’s been internalized from the outside world. Now we can start challenging the assumptions we’ve made about ourselves and ask, ‘Is this mine? Do I own this? Is it part of me? Is it serving me?’ or ‘Can I let it go?’

EXERCISE 2: Getting Beneath the Surface

This exercise is to help you discard the ideas about yourself that no longer serve you. Think about the labels you’d use to describe yourself. They might be about your job, how you look, your race, your background, your sexual orientation.

Now think of the messages about yourself that you were given growing up. It doesn’t matter whether they were good or bad – we internalize them when we’re young and impressionable, and as we get older they can be hard to shake.

As a child, were you told you were lazy, smart or a show-off? Were you criticized or praised for how you looked – told you were too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short? Or maybe you were ignored and grew up with the belief that you were worth nothing at all.

Write a list of the ten most prominent messages about yourself that come to your mind – from your past and your present. Look at each label on your list. Really ponder it. Is it true? Does it really represent who you are inside?

Now make sure you are comfortable and have time to sit for a few moments. Close your eyes. Breathe in and out five times, letting your out-breath last for five counts and your in-breath for four. Imagine you are in a boat that is floating far out at sea and that you take the labels you have written and scatter them onto the surface of the ocean. Watch the words floating there, bobbing up and down on the waves. Now imagine diving into the water so you’re beneath them. As you look back up at them, you see that the paper is wet and the writing is starting to smudge so you can no longer read the words.

Dive deeper and look back up again. The paper is dissolving into the ocean and now it is gone. As you swim deeper you find yourself resting on the seabed. It is calm and peaceful and still down here. No turbulence, no waves. Any notion of who you are or are not is just a distant memory left on the surface. Inhale and exhale. You are free. Deep down, beneath the words, beneath the ideas and judgements of yourself and others, you are perfect and whole just as you are. Allow yourself to really embrace what that feels like. To be truly free, to be truly yourself.

When you are ready, slowly float up to the surface and open your eyes.

Take your list and scrunch it up. If you’d like, you can throw it in the trash or even burn it and scatter the ashes. You don’t need those labels any more. Your true self – the part of you that dived into the water – exists beyond and beneath all words. When you reside in her, you will feel utterly safe and loved.

This is a great exercise for when you’re feeling off balance or upset. It’s not necessary to repeat all of it, just imagine yourself diving deep down into your own internal ocean and resting there for a while until you feel restored. You can even add this calming imagery to your daily meditation practice.

Finding ourselves

Now that you have started to shed who and what you are not, the really exciting work of discovering who you really are can begin in earnest.

‘My true identity goes beyond the outer roles I play … there is an Authentic “I” within … a divine spark within the soul.’

SUE MONK KIDD

It’s time to get curious – about yourself. Forget all those messages you may have been given as a girl about not being nosy or not asking too many questions. Give yourself permission to question everything, assume nothing and be ready to be amazed.

In my working life I was dedicated to uncovering the truth in the world around me – first as a barrister, then as an investigative journalist – but it was a whole new journey when I was told to start asking myself the questions that I’d normally throw at others. I realised there were all sorts of truths in my own life I didn’t want to get too honest about for fear of unravelling. Eventually I did, and that’s when I discovered a new level of emotional freedom.

JN

This is not a straightforward, linear process. You’ll find false leads and dead ends. You’ll have surprises and tough choices.

Think of yourself as an archaeologist in your own life. Let curiosity be the tool you dig with. Ask yourself questions as you would someone you were studying. When was the last time you were really happy in your life? Why was that? What music did you love in your teens and do you ever allow yourself to listen to it now? What is your favourite food? What do you hate about your life and what do you love? Write down your answers in your journal.

Sometimes we simply don’t know. We’ve dulled our longings and our wants out of necessity. They’ve become what often feels like a painful luxury. But the truth is they are the nerve endings we need to bring back to life. So listen out for the stirrings of what you love and what you want and then expose and explore them.

There are no rules, and there’s nothing that says what you discover has to be coherent or logical. Whoever said we had to make sense? We are all complex and multifaceted.

Born in the US, I lived in London from the age of two. I naturally spoke with a British accent and felt British but was teased in school for being a ‘Yank’. I wanted to fit in but was confused about where my loyalties lay because my parents were American and I loved the US – where the sun always seemed to shine and I was plied with candy. When I was 11, we moved to Michigan. I was so excited at the prospect of living in the land of milkshakes and hamburgers. But the reality was, I was still the kid with the ‘funny’ accent. I eventually modulated my speech to fit in, but I still felt like the outsider and I deeply missed my other home.

Today, I still feel torn – the UK has my heart and soul, but the US is in my genes. I’ve lived in London again now for 15 years and it is second nature to go back and forth with the accent depending on where I am and to whom I’m speaking. This has confused people along the way and the question of falseness has meant that I’ve had to look at it closely. It would be easy for me to attach a ‘bad’ label to my intentions or to judge myself as being disengenuous, but I’ve come to accept that adapting to my mixed cultural identity has been vital to my well-being, and despite the fact that it’s confusing and awkward sometimes, I have come to own the reality that they are both the authentic me.

GA

You may discover that you’ve abandoned your own desires and even your tastes for those of your family, friends or partner. Maybe it was easier that way or perhaps you never allowed yourself the space to develop your own likes and dislikes to begin with, and it was a relief to have a ready-made set of preferences handed to you. Or perhaps you never allowed yourself the chance to hope for what you really wanted because it seemed impossible to achieve.

Ask yourself: ‘Whose life am I currently living? What would my life look like if I could have anything, be anything, do anything?’

These can be really scary questions to answer truthfully. Don’t censor your answers or limit them with personal considerations. During this early stage, getting to know yourself can feel unsettling, daunting, even frightening. What if you’re overwhelmed by longings and hopes that you suppressed in childhood? What if you discover you’re married to the wrong person or that you hate what you do for a living? Or maybe you worry that you won’t be able to do anything about what you find. Change of this magnitude can feel terrifying, but see if you can start to take small steps to move towards where you want to be. Fears will inevitably surface, and they can at first seem paralysing or overwhelming. Do your best to move through them at your own pace. Trust, just as you would if you were pregnant, that within you is a living, breathing being whom you are absolutely going to love.

Allowing yourself to discover your true longings will reset your internal sat nav. You can’t even begin to get to where you’d love to be if you haven’t yet entered the real destination.

Noticing and naming

‘Seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.’

JANE AUSTEN, EMMA