Ordinary women, extraordinary resilience
(A 3-minute read)
Yesterday I attended an event at the Southbank Centre during which Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton discussed their newly released book, The Book of Gutsy Women: Favourite Stories of Courage and Resilience, interviewed by Mary Beard. My interest in the book piqued since I had recently worked on a project where we at SAIS Programme together with Hivos Southern Africa aimed to understand the female experience in technology entrepreneurship in Southern Africa. I was curious to learn who the 100 women Rodham Clinton and Clinton had selected for their work were and if any African women had made the cut – but to be honest I was looking for some personal inspiration, too.
Last January, I titled 2019 as the Year of Courage. I knew it was going to be a year of changes and that I needed to dig deep to do things that scared me on my way to professional and personal growth. This Year of Courage manifested in smaller things such as singing plenty of karaoke and even performing a monologue of a piece I wrote (daunting!), but I also needed to make bigger moves. I transitioned from the world of development cooperation into academia, as I ventured into doing a PhD in Design Innovation. I packed up the already settled life in Namibia and relocated to the UK via Finland. After a few tumultuous months, I now find myself in London, and I could benefit from inspiration to take on this new phase in life, like the hundreds of people attending the event last night.
The evening was every bit as inspirational as I was hoping it to be. In a heartfelt and approachable discussion, the three women discussed gender equality and the need for role models. The 100 featured stories represent women from the past and present who have left a legacy (the likes of Dr Maya Angelou) or are in the process of doing so (such as Malala Yousafzai) – and it delighted me to see Wangari Maathai representing African women. I was reminded of the importance of following my "Why" and striving to be resilient in everything I put my mind into.
During the discussion, Mary Beard, author of amongst others Women & Power: A Manifesto and herself (rightfully) featured in the book, raised the important concern of portrayal of the women as perfect, self-sacrificing models who drive change as in they never had a bad day. It was something I had thought about when writing Breaking Barriers - female technology entrepreneurship in Southern Africa. One way to fuel impostor syndrome is to showcase role models as people who never made mistakes on their path to success. Rodham Clinton, an advocate against perfectionism as she put it, acknowledged that while there is no doubt the women experience challenges on their path, it is important to show that what matters is how many times people get back up and try again.
The women themselves are not extraordinary. Their resilience and courage are.
While the question of heroic portrayal is an important one, I think we need to showcase women as we would any genders – by their achievements. What is crucial to remember is that inspiring stories of change are born from the lives of people who are, in essence, ordinary. They are people who feel stressed and who at times even cry when facing adversity. They are people who experience heartbreak like the rest of us, and who battle with ‘darkness’ as Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, called it (what we today would call depression). The women themselves are not extraordinary. Their resilience and courage are.
This resilience can be taught. Fostering an entrepreneurial mindset relates to my PhD research, as I study startup culture as a missing element in the design of entrepreneurship ecosystems. My hypothesis is that if entrepreneurship ecosystems are designed to foster startup culture, more young entrepreneurs build confidence to drive change-making businesses. It remains to be seen what the outcome of the work is, but I will do my best to get up again when I fall.