Scarlett Curtis

‘Do you want me to be honest? Because if I was being honest I would say that I’ve lived my whole life being defined by other people. And after twenty-seven years of that it’s pretty easy to forget who you believe you are. When I’m harassed, or threatened, or insulted, or even when I’m made to feel invisible, I can be either or both of those options. As well as a million more.

I’ve learned feminism isn’t a corporate scam to sell more shit to women and profit from girl power. The world needs the reassurance that feminism can create monumental change

My confidence wasn’t shaken until nearly a year after I had launched VLW. I had been having coffee with someone I considered a mentor – an older, white male, who told me in good faith, ‘Be very non-threatening, Alaa; don’t freely give your opinions,’ after I had told him about a heated debate I’d had with a colleague. When I asked what he meant, he elaborated: ‘There are going to be four challenges that you’re going to come across in your career: your background (Libyan), your faith (visibly Muslim), your gender (a woman),’ and then he said with a laugh, ‘the last one you’re lucky – you’ll grow out of it – and that’s your age.’

It was the first time I had felt like it didn’t matter how hard I worked, how much I applied myself, and that in order for me to ‘succeed’ I would have to minimize myself to create comfort for others.

It was the reason I started my own mentorship programme – because, often, we can’t be what we can’t see

I will always be the little girl who grew up believing she could make it to the moon, in a world that still debates whether girls should have an education and whether women should have reproductive rights. A world where little girls believe, from a young age, that boys are naturally more intelligent and capable.

But I also know that if we had more women in the room we could solve a lot more problems.

So, yes, it has taken me years. And it will probably take me a lifetime more. And while my hands still shake sometimes, and my voice falters, one thing I have never been more sure of is that what others see as your weaknesses, challenges or reasons to ‘other’ you, are often the very things that made you work twice as hard, read twice as quickly and try twice as much. The time, the effort, the faith, the work, the background, the age, the gender, the family, the experiences, the choices. All of it. They are what made me capable, what made me determined and what make me a leader,

What I’ve learned is that language is extremely important, and I hope that we can socialize boys and girls into understanding that women’s bodies come in lots of different shapes and sizes. This includes people who identify with a multitude of different gender identities.

15. Forcing her to take it off is not the opposite of forcing her to put it on.

17. It was his idea? Stop giving men so much credit.

Tell him to cry when he is sad, tell him how important it is to talk about his feelings. Tell him it is better to be soft and strong rather than be hard and weak. Never let anyone tell him to ‘stop being a girl’ when he is showing sensitivity.