My Silent Cheer Squad

I’m in a place.

A place where I feel like I need a reminder of my “why”.

And yes, it’s Term 3, Week 8. People are tired. Teachers are exhausted. Students are tired. It’s getting closer and closer to the end of the year, and I think everyone is starting to feel it.

Lately, I’ve allowed myself to be hurt by the comments of others. I blame my tiredness. When you’re exhausted, I think your armour just gets a little thinner.

But, at the same time, it has sparked something in me.

A desire to renew my focus.

Why am I a teacher?

Why am I a university tutor?

Why am I working towards becoming a university professor?

Why am I aiming for my PhD?

Deep down, I know my reasons. Of course I do.

But sometimes I think we need to physically put those reasons back in front of ourselves.

This morning, I walked into the large shared office at uni where all of us HDR students live. On the wall beside my desk is this patch where I wrote dates last year and now cannot get them off because, apparently, some whiteboards hold grudges.

So, I made a poster to cover it.

Naturally.

And on that poster, I started putting women I admire.

Then I realised they weren’t just women I admired.

They had become my silent cheer squad.

Women, characters, animals and people who, for completely different reasons, remind me of the person I want to be, the things I value, and why I keep pushing myself forwards.

Plus, if I ever get asked that classic “Who would you invite to dinner?” question, well, I am now extremely prepared.

Want to meet them?

Circe

My favourite mythological goddess.

And John William Waterhouse represents her so perfectly in his paintings. To me, she is unbelievably her.

In Homer’s Odyssey, Circe is a goddess and enchantress, the daughter of the sun god Helios, who lives independently on the island of Aeaea. She is powerful, knowledgeable and skilled in transformation and magic. Yes, she famously turns Odysseus’ men into animals, but she later becomes his adviser, giving him knowledge about the dangers still ahead of him.

There is something I love about a woman in mythology whose power is entirely her own. She is intelligent, feared, independent and more complicated than simply being “good” or “bad”.

But I think there is another reason she resonates with me.

Circe lives apart from everyone else, in her own space, surrounded by the things that are hers. As an introvert, and as someone who genuinely loves my solitude, there is something about that which feels very familiar to me. I love people, I love teaching, and I love the communities I am part of, but I also deeply value being alone. There is something restorative about retreating into your own little world, creating, reading, thinking and simply existing without having to perform for anyone else.

Perhaps that is part of Circe’s appeal to me too.

Power doesn’t always have to be loud.

Sometimes it looks like knowing who you are and being perfectly content in your own company.

I like complicated women.

Joan of Arc

A young woman who stood tall for what she believed in.

A woman who entered an overwhelmingly male world, wore armour, went to war and refused to make herself smaller simply because the world expected something different from her.

She paid the ultimate price for her convictions.

There is something about that absolute determination that I admire.

The Suffragettes and Emmeline Pankhurst

Women who fought for rights that women like me now get to live with.

They protested, organised, disrupted and refused to quietly accept the position society had assigned to them.

Women are still not standing on completely equal ground, but I can study, teach, research, vote, work and chase every ridiculous academic dream I have partly because generations of women before me refused to accept that certain spaces were not meant for us.

I think that deserves a place on my wall.

Hatshepsut

One of ancient Egypt’s most extraordinary female pharaohs.

Do I really need to say much more?

She stepped into a position overwhelmingly associated with men, adopted the full authority and imagery of kingship, and oversaw an enormously prosperous period of Egyptian history.

Quite frankly, that is badass enough for me.

Michelle Obama

A lawyer, writer, mother and First Lady who used her position to build initiatives around things that genuinely mattered.

During her time as First Lady, Michelle Obama championed healthier lives for children through Let’s Move!, supported service members, veterans and their families through Joining Forces, encouraged young people to continue their education through Reach Higher, and helped advocate for girls around the world to access education through Let Girls Learn.

Education, children, women, opportunity.

I think it is fairly obvious why she made my wall.

Anne Boleyn

Firm. Strong. Stubborn.

A woman who knew what she wanted in a court where women’s lives were largely determined by powerful men.

Her story is far more complicated than the neat little version history often gives us, but her relationship with Henry VIII became tangled within one of the most significant religious and political shifts in English history.

So, in one very long and historically complicated chain of events, my Anglican life today has Anne Boleyn somewhere lurking in its family tree.

She died for it, but she certainly left a mark.

Sylvia Plath

A writer. A mother. A woman of woe who wrote and tried so hard.

She reminds me of where I could have been, but she also reminds me of the absolute beauty and power of the written word.

That sometimes words are where we put the things we cannot carry around inside ourselves anymore.

Perhaps that is part of why I write too.

Linda Nochlin

Art history genius.

Academic muse.

And an enormous influence on my own study and the direction I want my PhD work to take.

Her 1971 essay, “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?”, did far more than simply ask where the women were. It challenged the structures, institutions and ideas about “genius” that had helped determine whose art was valued and whose stories were written into art history. Her work helped transform feminist art history and continues to influence scholars today.

Every researcher needs an academic woman on their wall reminding them to keep asking difficult questions.

Linda is mine.

Miss Honey

The teacher I aim to be for my students.

Kind.

Safe.

Gentle.

Someone who sees the child sitting in front of her rather than simply seeing their grades, behaviour or circumstances.

If even one of my cherubs looks back one day and remembers my classroom as somewhere they felt safe, valued and encouraged, then I think I will have done something worthwhile.

Layla

My cat.

She has been there for me for 15 years.

And yes, I know what you’re thinking.

“It’s just a cat.”

No.

Animals love us through every single version of ourselves.

They don’t care about your degrees, your titles, your publications, your job, how productive you were that day or whether somebody made a comment that hurt your feelings.

They just love you.

And if we love them fully, we get that love back.

It is pure love.

So of course she belongs on the wall.

My Grandmother

My grandmother always told me that her own mother stopped her from doing many of the things she wished she could have done.

Perhaps that is why she always encouraged me forwards.

Keep studying.

Keep trying.

Keep going.

I love her.

I miss her.

And I already know that when there are future theses, publications and whatever other ridiculous academic things I manage to produce, she will be acknowledged somewhere within them.

Because she helped put me here.

And then there’s little me.

Right in the centre of the poster is a photograph of me as a child.

And I think she might actually be the most important person on the whole wall despite the fact she is hiding behind another.

Because I reminded myself that I’m doing all of this for her too.

That little girl who dreamed.

Who struggled at school.

Who was bullied.

Who didn’t have many friends, but found them in books, stories, drawing and writing.

Who was told she wouldn’t make it.

Who had her own learning difficulties and had to find different ways to understand the world around her.

She had absolutely no idea where she was going.

And yet, somehow, she grew up.

She became a teacher.

She became a university tutor.

She became a researcher.

She earned two Masters degrees.

And now she is aiming for Doctor.

And Professor.

So, that’s my why.

And strangely, even writing all of this down has made me feel better.

Maybe sometimes our “why” doesn’t need to be some beautifully polished professional statement.

Maybe it can simply be a wall full of women, a fictional teacher, a beloved cat, a grandmother you desperately miss and a photograph of the little girl you once were.

People who remind you to keep going.

People who remind you that others came before you and pushed doors open, questioned things, fought things, survived things, created things and taught you things.

I don’t want to become any of the women on my wall.

I just want to carry a little piece of each of them with me.

And perhaps most importantly, I want to make sure that little girl in the middle gets to see just how far she can go.