Consider the estimated 2OO million women alive today who have suffered genital
mutilation. Or the approximately 65O million women and girls worldwide who
were made to marry before they were 18 -years-old. Thousands of women and
girls are murdered by family members in so-called honour killings each year, as a
punishment for exercising their own free will. And when thousands of Sudanese women
took to the streets of Khartoum calling for free elections in their country this summer, the
order went out to ‘break the girls’, leading to scores of alleged rapes by security forces.
None of this is to dismiss or downplay for an instant the terrible abuses against
men and boys – including modern allegations of witchcraft. But looking across
the world, we have to ask, ‘Why is so much energy expended to keep women
in a secondary position?’
Looked at in this light, ‘wicked women’
are just women who are tired of injustice
and abuse. Women who refuse to follow
rules and codes they don’t believe are best
for themselves or their families. Women
who won’t give up on their voice and rights,
even at the risk of death or imprisonment or
rejection by their families and communities.
If that is wickedness, then the world
needs more wicked women.
But it is also true that women don’t
wake up every morning wanting to fight.
We want to be able to be soft and nurturing
and graceful and loving – not everyone is
born to fight. And we don’t have magical
powers. What we do have is the ability to
support one another, and to work with the
many great men who value and respect
women as their equals.
I think of a father who I met the first time
I went to an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, during the rule of the Taliban. He had
been beaten so badly for sending his daughters to school that the whites of his eyes
were yellow from the damage to his liver. I think of a Syrian husband I met whose wife
became paralysed after she was shot in the spine by a sniper. They were living in a
refugee camp, with no possessions and nowhere to go, but I do not think I have ever seen
a more loving couple or devoted husband. And I could not be prouder of my sons for the
men they are becoming, the way they respect their sisters and are respected by them.
Who we are meant to be in life is something we all have to work out for ourselves.
I think we can often go off-track as women, because our instinct is to nurture or to adjust
ourselves to society’s expectations. It can be hard to take the time to ask ourselves
who we truly want to be – not what we think other people will approve of or accept,
but who we really are. But when you listen to yourself, you can make the choice to
step forward and learn and change.
I remember when that moment first came for me. I was in my twenties, meeting
refugees in Sierra Leone during the closing stages of a brutal civil war. I understood
for the first time the level of violence that exists in the world, and the reality of life for
the millions of people affected by conflict and displacement. I discovered my life’s
work and purpose.
I often tell my daughters that the most important thing they can do is to develop
their minds. You can always put on a pretty dress, but it doesn’t matter what you wear
on the outside if your mind isn’t strong. There is nothing more attractive – you might
even say enchanting – than a woman with an independent will and her own opinions.
With love to all the wicked women, and the men who understand them.166
Yours, Angelina
“Had I lived in earlier
times, I could have
been burnt at the stake
many times over for
simply being myself ”