I have always loved Disney, I mean who doesn’t right? They have been a staple of childhoods around the world spanning decades. This was so evident last year when I took my son to see Disney on Ice. As I glanced around the dim light crowd, I saw more parents crying and cheering on the characters than the kids (most of who looked bored as hell) 😂 I was definitely one of those parents bawling their eyes 🙋🏾♀️
My all time favourite movie is Aladdin, I don’t know why. I think it was a mixture of the classic songs that I would belt out at the top of voice (I mean are you even singing A Whole New World if you’re not singing it with your whole breath?) and the fact that Jasmine was the only Disney princess at the time, and still now unfortunately, that slightly resembled a person I could relate to. A South Asian. So I took it and ran with it.
Many years later when they recreated the movie as a live action, I was actually all for it. It came out around the same time Ezekiel was born and I remember thinking to myself how ironic that the original came out in 1992 (my birth year) and the remake in 2019 (Ezekiel’s birth year).
I absolutely loved the movie and cried the entire way through about the storyline of Jasmine finding her voice. As a woman, a South Asian woman and an eldest daughter in a South Asian household, I. Could. Relate. And then came the song Speechless. And it has defined my life since 2019. It has never left my mind, my heart or my soul. It automatically starts playing whenever I feel threatened or small or overpowered and uncertain, my body knows, It. Is. The. Song. My theme song.
I have always struggled with my voice, being a female in a South Asian household, you’re automatically categorised as secondary. Your value, your worth, your talent, your ability, is secondary to any male family member both in your immediate family and extended family. Growing up, I often heard phrases such as, “you’re just a little girl what do you know?”, “lower your voice”, “girls shouldn’t speak so directly like that”, “you don’t know anything”, “you don’t speak, let your (male) cousins do the talking”, “you think you’re smart?”, “you got an education so you think you’re smart now?”. Even our religious and cultural rituals place an importance on males performing them over a female and a woman on her period is shunned away from places of worship. Amongst so much more.
In my experience, certain freedom and opportunities were given to my male cousins, while I stayed back and watched, because it was “dangerous” for me to be given those same opportunities. I was held back. Growing up, this confused me even more because every eldest daughter in an ethnic family (especially if English is not their first language) knows that you are the family’s spokesperson, administrator, IT specialist, and executive assistant. Before the age of 21, I had spoken to grown ass adults on behalf of my parents, filled out passport applications, school enrolment forms, rental applications and banking forms. I held so much power. My voice created change in the family. My voice allowed us to live in new places, make big purchases, travel to different countries, get an education so how can I suddenly be told I’m powerless? How can I be given an opportunity to have a voice and then be told that I cannot use it? How can I be told to stay speechless? It doesn’t make sense.
This feeling remained with me, still is with me, it’s a part of me, it is me, but it also allowed me to have a moment of realisation that although my physical and verbal voice isn’t being heard in real life, my words still matter and voices can be expressed in many ways including written and that same evening is when I started the single mum blog. The only thing running through my mind was that the voice that was given to me by the people who tried to silence me is soon going to be my greatest gift to the world and my children.
I won’t be silenced
You can’t keep me quiet
Won’t tremble when you try it
All I know is I won’t go speechless…
Here’s the link to the song, let me know how you resonate: