Let your Creativity Develop - what we can learn from Alice Walker
By Nadia Plamadeala
The concept of in-betweenness is very common to women. When I mention it, even those who never had an experience of migration know what I mean.
Women are often trapped in different concepts, often antithetic.
We see ourselves with our and simultaneously with the male gaze, we jungle between careers, emotional labor and families, we do our best to pair our results to the impostor syndrome. We are often in-between things, trying to do our best while not falling apart.
What can we learn from the women who experienced this feeling before us? A lot. One of the essays that can help us make peace with what we do, make us feel like we are enough and acknowledge our ancestors’ creativity is “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens”, by Alice Walker.
Alice Walker is a feminist activist for African American and lesbian women's rights. She has written essays and works of fiction on gender issues and racism. Her best-known work, the novel “The Color Purple”, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Walker was the first African-American writer to publish a book of essays - “In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose” in 1983. It includes essays she wrote between 1966 and 1982 and published in magazines such as "Ms." and "Essence" where she coined the term "womanism".
Walker belongs to the second wave of feminism. In her essay “In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens” she does a thorough research of the tradition of African American women writers and researchers.
What women often lack are role models, especially in fields that are seen as typically male ones. Using an almost archaeological method of historical research, Walker finds her most important literary model, her precursor, Zora Neale Hurston. Through Hurston and other women, Walker rediscovers matrilineality; a tradition of African American women writers and scholars, promoters of values through which the empowerment of the entire community is achieved.
Walker chooses to see the writers who came before as “mothers” - she wants to see art and creative power in all the oppression and pain history is so full of. Women, especially African-American, poor, lesbian women, couldn’t have “a room of their own” where to create, this is why they often had to turn to a form of creativity that was available to them: creating colorful quilts, gardening, or traditional singing.
Walker doesn’t want to see this kind of creativity as anything lesser than academic writing or fine literature. She doesn’t want to accentuate the history of subjugation and oppression, instead she recognizes the creative force of women who came before her, the way we do with feminists who preceded us today.
Statistics worldwide confirm Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on women and their professional projects. While this is something we have to address collectively as a society, fighting for diversity and inclusion in the workplace, for better welfare and childcare, there is something we can do today.
If you can’t work because you have to take care of your child, if you feel overwhelmed because of the emotional labor no one else in your family is doing, like remembering birthdays, comforting everyone else during lockdowns or preparing dinner for the members of your family who didn’t lose their jobs, you have to acknowledge your creativity.
In a world too focused on achievements, acknowledging your contribution even in smaller things is a feminist act. Your cake decoration matters. Your creative dinner to make sure your child eats some broccoli matters too.
If people tell you gender equality is no longer on the agenda, it’s because they have the privilege of nor actually addressing it. Have the courage to find your Nepantla voice, to notice the smallest change you bring to the world because you do. Don’t push yourself too hard trying to show people that you deserve to be in the workplace while others are doing the bare minimum to be in the same place. Improve your self-esteem, don’t be afraid to get out your precious contribution.
Recognize your perfectionism and fight it for good. In her book “Big Magic'', Liz Gilbert says “Too many women still seem to believe that they are not allowed to put themselves forward at all, until both they and their work are perfect and beyond criticism. Meanwhile, putting forth work that is far from perfect rarely stops men from participating in the global cultural conversation.”
Just remember this when you apply for a job. Remember it when you think about relocating. Self-confidence often matters as well as or even more than your skills. Believe in yourself. If Alice Walker knew you personally, she surely would!