I remember sitting in the car post-school pick-up blasting Beyoncé’s “Run the World (girls)” with my two daughters in the backseat (ages 7 and 9) when the news came in that Roe vs Wade was being overturned in America.
The shock and disbelief that this protected right, this tenuous but really - in my mind - immutable choice was taken away - made me scream in heartbreak and rage.
I couldn’t help it and in front of my girls, I burst into floods of tears. My daughters, concerned asked me what was wrong, and I told them in vague terms that
Women aren’t always treated equally in the world and it’s upsetting
Once composed, I started thinking about how the conversation I had with my children would have been quite different if I were living inAmerica.
I realised that for most of my American friends, the conversations they would be having with their daughters regarding women’s rights would be more in-depth, the news their children would be seeing for weeks on end, conversations in classrooms, heavy in the air would last because the law, well it was going to last.
And then I started thinking about other conversations I wasn’t going to have to have with my daughters. I didn’t have to talk to them about having a president who brags about sexually assaulting women. Or that there is no federal paid maternity leave and that 25% of women are forced to return to work two weeks after giving birth to support their families.
For a country that throws up anthems like “Run the World?”, the hypocrisy is jarring and non-sensical. And kids feel that, they see irony and know hypocrisy. I love America deeply, it’s my home and where I grew up but I am supremely grateful that living in the UK my daughter’s bodies are not being politicised and that their fundamental right to paid maternity leave is not up for discussion.
On International Women’s Day, I honour the conversations I choose to have with my daughters and the congruency of women’s rights with songs they sing in the car heading home after school.
