Always a woman

I was raised by a feminist mother in a small family of four: my two brothers, my mother, and me. Growing up, I didn’t experience the kind of gender expectations many of my friends had to endure. I wasn’t told to wash the dishes or cook just because I was a girl. Responsibilities in our household were shared equally between siblings. I was never told to stay quiet, to be timid, or to shrink myself simply because I was born with a vagina. I was never told that my future should revolve around marriage instead of education. When my mother named me Amirah, which means princess in Arabic, she meant it.

When I think about it now, I realise how much unlearning my mother had to do to raise me this way. She was the eldest daughter in a family where patriarchy was deeply entrenched. Her brothers were treated better, respected more, and given more freedom. Yet she worked tirelessly and became the first person in her family to enter university, coming from the background of an anak penoreh getah in rural Kelantan. She knew what it meant to grow up in a system where boys were favoured, and women were expected to carry the heavy lifting of the household while sons were allowed to rest. She experienced it herself. And she chose to break that cycle.

But the moment we stepped outside our home, the world reminded me that not everyone believed in the same equality. When we visited extended family, some relatives simply could not fathom my brother washing dishes while I sat watching TV. In their eyes, that was not how gender roles were supposed to work.

When I attended an all-girls secondary school, however, I experienced something different. There were no conversations about how women could not be leaders. No one said that only men could be the head prefect or hold positions of authority. Being in a space filled entirely with girls meant that gender was never the first thing people judged you by, because we were all women.

Yet even then, I was not spared from the realities of being a woman.

I still remember the number of times I was catcalled while walking home from school. I was fifteen years old, wearing a modest school uniform with a hijab that covered my chest and body. And yet men would still shout things at me from passing vehicles. I remember one particular incident during Ramadan when a man at least thirty years older than me catcalled me. Being covered did not protect me. Being young did not protect me either.

Later, when I moved to college in Banting for my International Baccalaureate, it was my first time studying in a mixed-gender environment. That was when conversations about leadership and emotional maturity started to sound very different. I heard people say things like men are “natural leaders” while women are “too emotional.” It was horrifying to realise how deeply those ideas were embedded.

When I moved to the UK to complete my degree, I spent much of my first year exploring student organisations, trying to find spaces where I felt I belonged, spaces where my gender would not define how people perceived me.

In my second year, I joined several organisations. In one of them, I was not in a top executive position, but I genuinely enjoyed the work. Everything was going smoothly until the male president posted a message after our flagship event, thanking members for their contributions. For one particular woman on the team, he wrote something along the lines of:

“I don’t know if this is offensive, but you showed me that women can be competent too.”

When I read that, I was furious.

The fact that he started by saying “I don’t know if this is offensive” meant he knew exactly what he was doing. And the audacity of thinking that telling a woman she had proven women could be competent was a compliment revealed how deeply ingrained his assumptions were. Women have always been competent. The problem has never been women’s abilities. The problem has always been people’s willingness to recognise them.

That experience made me wonder something: perhaps women are only respected when they hold power.

So I tested that idea.

I applied for a top executive role in a large and supposedly “progressive” student organisation in the UK, and I got it. Suddenly, men who previously dismissed me began treating me with respect. We were finally seen as equals, a man with no executive position and a woman with one.

But that respect came at a cost.

Being a woman in a leadership role meant I constantly had to defend other women. Whenever discussions about leadership came up, someone would inevitably describe a female candidate as “emotional.” I remember a conversation the night before OGM where a friend of five years casually said about a female candidate, “I don’t know about her. She’s emotional.”

And once again, I had to challenge that.

Women are not emotional because they are women. If a man behaves the same way, people rarely attribute it to his gender. But when a woman does it, suddenly it becomes proof of a stereotype. At times, I am afraid that my on-the-spectrum traits feed off this stereotype. I am sorry.

The most devastating experience came when a sexual harassment case occurred within the organisation. The perpetrator was someone I had personally interviewed and selected to join the team. It was heartbreaking to realise that someone I trusted, someone I believed I had judged correctly, turned out to be a sexual predator. All the while, I had been very vocal about advocating for women’s safety, yet somehow one predator had slipped past my judgment.

What made the situation even more disturbing was that this individual had been elected to take over my position for the next tenure. Most of the stakeholders I worked with were women. Could I sit there knowing that someone capable of sexual harassment would soon hold a position of power over them? Could I allow him access to more potential victims?

I couldn’t.

But for two months, I had to plead just to be heard.

Despite being in an executive position, the [redacted] repeatedly dismissed my concerns. He insisted that because we were not an official authority, we could only wait for a victim to come forward. But anyone who understands sexual harassment knows how difficult it is for victims to speak up. The shame. The fear of not being believed. The questions people ask: What were you wearing? Were you too friendly? Did you somehow invite it?

Eventually, I investigated informally and discovered that there was indeed a victim.

When the issue finally came to a meeting, instead of acknowledging the seriousness of the situation, the [redacted] accused me of being too passionate about women’s rights, suggesting it clouded my judgment. He said I had acted unprofessionally. All I wanted to do was ensure the safety of the women in the council. Where was that same energy when I had been sidelined for months? When I had to take instructions from someone who didn’t even know the difference between sexual harassment and sexual assault on how to handle a case involving one?

Hearing that from someone I once considered a friend broke my heart. My passion for protecting people was reduced to a personal flaw.

What hurt even more was the silence in the room. No one spoke up while he was being disrespectful. I remember having to explain that I felt strongly about this issue because I myself had experienced something similar. I had to cry in front of 8 people just to be taken seriously. It was another woman in the executive team who finally stepped in to speak on my behalf to say how disrespectful and patronising the [redacted] was. Another woman sent me a reassuring message telling me to take a deep breath.

Why did I have to use the vulnerability I usually reserve only for God, my plead, my sujud, just to be heard by people who were supposed to be my friends? Was knowing me and my values not enough? If you could not respect me as a colleague, did you not have even an ounce of empathy for a friend? The only good thing that came out of that moment was knowing that when things get difficult, it is often women who will have your back.

Eventually, I submitted a conditional resignation letter demanding two out of four things: an apology and the creation of a safeguarding policy for sexual harassment. 

I have always positioned my advocacy through sayang. I believe in changing people through compassion, not force. But in that moment, my executive position gave me something else: leverage. If care could not move people, then accountability and force would. I used the organisation’s reputation to force a conversation that should have happened months earlier. Sometimes, as a woman in leadership, you have to be brave enough to use the power you have.

What always surprises me is that after these confrontations, the apologies always sound the same. They tell me how valuable I am. How much the organisation appreciates me. How much work I have done. But why are you telling me things I already know? I know how hard I work. Anyone who has worked with me knows that when I commit to something, I give my 100 percent, if not my 120 percent. I am not saying this to show off. I am saying this because I know my worth. In every student organisation I have been part of, I leave behind work and systems that are difficult to replicate.

And yet even with all of that, respect only appeared after confrontation.

If someone as outspoken as I can still be disrespected, what happens to women who are quieter or more timid? You can guess the answer.

That experience took a heavy toll on my mental health. I lost a significant amount of weight from stress. I had to come to terms with the fact that someone I trusted was a sexual predator and that a sexual harassment case happened under my watch. At the same time, I had to endure seeing my advocacy dismissed as a personal flaw. During that same period, I even experienced inappropriate comments about my body from a male superior during an event training session.

All of this forced me to confront a painful truth: no matter how hard I work, how competent I am, or what position I hold, there will always be moments when people see me as a woman first and everything else second.

So why am I sharing all of this?

Because every achievement women enjoy today exists because women before us were willing to be loud, angry, and inconvenient. The rights we have today were not handed to us politely. They were fought for by women who refused to stay silent. If we benefit from their work, then we also have a responsibility to continue that work.

Sometimes that means being the angry woman.

What does International Women’s Day mean to me, then?

This day is a reminder that the struggles women face are real, complex, and exhausting. But it is also a reminder of the resilience of women, my mother, who broke generational cycles, the women who stood up for me, and the countless women who continue to lead despite the obstacles placed in front of them.

If you ever have the chance to support a woman in leadership, do it. And if you are in a student organisation and cannot find a woman who will speak up for you, then be that woman.

Being a woman has never been easy; it comes with a lot of hard work. But it has shaped my strength, my voice, and my commitment to stand up for others. 

And that is something I will never apologise for.

- Your angry woman, Milo

Note: 

I understand that many people reading this may be asking why I have not named the individual involved. I want to sincerely apologize if the lack of specific names feels frustrating or concerning. The victim involved did not consent to their evidence being shared publicly. My priority would always be to respect a survivor’s boundaries and safety. At the same time, I also have to be careful not to make public accusations that could create legal risks or harm an ongoing process.

It is never my intention to protect anyone who may have caused harm; in fact, I will always advocate for victims’ safety.

If you believe you may have relevant information about this situation, or if you have had similar experiences and feel comfortable sharing, you are welcome to message me privately on Instagram @amrhble.