Somewhere out there, there is a little girl sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce in front of a too-close TV screen. A curly pig-tailed head of ambitious dreams and eyes of marvel and wonder. That little girl looks a lot like you, and a lot like me.
Every Women’s Month, we celebrate women who shattered glass ceilings and achieved historic milestones, and these achievements are never just personal. They expand the confines of what it is possible to dream and achieve for a generation of women and girls restrained by society’s dull expectations. These stories contribute to the deconstruction of harmful stereotypes and fuel the wondrous aspirations of young girls, just as you and I once were. This importance is not lost on me – one small step for woman, one giant leap for womankind!
But somewhere along the way, lost between replacing the pig-tailed dreams by a rushed pony-tail and a slice of dry toast before work, another impossible standard emerged. What happens when excellence becomes the only acceptable standard worthy of recognition? As children, we are encouraged to dream beyond our limits. As we grow older, those limits become harder to dream away. Not everyone will become an Olympic champion or a Nobel laureate. But maybe, it is okay to not be the first, or the youngest, or the best. Most of us will be good, competent, and reliable in whichever field we should choose. Ordinary people.
Shouldn’t that be enough? Women’s achievements are still too often framed as exceptional because they are women’s achievements. A man can simply be successful; his gender, coupled with his race or age for added virality, is rarely the headline.
With the men’s FIFA World Cup making its rounds this year, ask yourself: how many “ordinary” female athletes can you name? Athletes that have not made any radical statements, become tokenised, or been acknowledged as the first in their race or youngest in their field? Compare that to the countless male professionals who are widely recognised for being competently successful in the same career.
Do not get me wrong – the celebration of trailblazers is necessary. Progress has always depended on people willing to push against impossible odds. But if those are the only women we celebrate, we risk sending another message entirely: that recognition must be earned through extraordinary and exceptional achievements.
Equality cannot only belong to exceptional women. And quite frankly, I do not want to be exceptional. I do not want to be an exception. I want to be one of many. Real progress is not a world where little girls dream of becoming extraordinary. It is one where she no longer has to be.
The most radical thing we can do is finally make room for women to be ordinary. Because ordinary has always been enough for everyone else. This Women’s Month, I encourage you to embrace the ordinary.
Visual: Mpho Makwela
