Ringing on their own bells
Dear future hubster,
somebody once asked me "what radicalised you?"and of course that question carries a lot of value judgement already, because it implies that I'm somehow more radical than... the average? the acceptable? the expected? And the answer to that leading question is either that life radicalised me, mine and that of others, what I've seen and how that aligned with or differed from what I'd believed to be true, or, maybe, that my beliefs are neither radical nor naïve, and wanting to live in a world where everybody can be safe and healthy and happy shouldn't be a utopia to be laughed at. I'm far from being the first or only one to think and say that there is nothing radical in believing that people shouldn't starve or freeze or work themselves to death, and that nobody's life should be considered expendable.
What the question and the person was alluding to is probably more along the lines of "What made you so vocal about so many things?". And well, first of all, I'm really not that vocal. I'm the living room lecture with a glass of wine in hand type, and I will probably lecture about women standing in line for bathrooms, or introverts being generally perceived as something to be fixed, how grammatically genderless languages can still be sexist, or the parallels between Frodo and Jon Snow and Katniss being accidental leaders - and to people who either already agree with me, or are at least entertained. Or pretend to be listening but really are looking at my legs. Preaching to the somewhat converted, if you like.
But what I heard the question imply is also - or rather - that "you are a very opinionated woman". And that, dear future hubster, is not only never a compliment, it's not even a neutral statement. Any opinionated woman is already categorised as a too opinionated one. She might be seen as cute or angry, occasionally endearing, but her points - and herself - are rarely taken into serious consideration.
And with that the question also meant that the person wanted to find out what shaped me into that opinionated woman, with the thinly veiled hope that finding the root will offer the possibility of toning me down.
The answer to the profound if not necessarily very original question - what shaped you into the person you are today - is equally unoriginal yet potentionally profound. A great many things have shaped me, and much more importantly, a great many people.
It might be dramatic to say that a series of extraordinary women raised me, but to say that they influenced me doesn't seem to do them justice. A series of women, unknowingly role modelling, existing through the struggles of their own lives. Not all of them would have been called radical in their time, but opinionated they were. In my family, close and extended, in the schools I went to, teachers and classmates alike, in any job I ever had and any place I ever lived, there have been women who made me reconsider what I knew, who taught me things, who inspired me, who opened up new perspectives. Some I felt intimidated by, many I was jealous of, many I looked up to, some I didn't notice or take seriously at first, and some showed me what I didn't want to do or be.
Yeah yeah I know everybody is shaped by the people they meet - told you I was the mildly entertaining living room lecture type, nothing revolutionary to see here.
And of course I've done (and still) do a whole lot of things to impress men (my first half marathon, hello), or to prove them wrong (oh the thrill I get from hearing "You can't do that!" and knowing that I damn well can). And there have been men who truly inspired me, who left a mark on my life - if occasionally a painful one.
But when I think back at that question, "what radicalised you", the pattern is clear. A long line and a loose community of badass women who keep reminding me that I want to be one when I grow up, who keep showing me how to, and who also somehow believe that I already am.
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