‘Everyday’ women stories.
A small tribute to the badass women of my life
This article is my official way of saying “thank you”, “you are awesome”, “I admire you”, “you are a badass” to a few women I know. A kind of tribute to honour “everyday” women, who may not be world famous like Serena Williams, but who are crazy in their own kind of way.
These women have definitely shaped who I am, in one form or another. Even if “shaping” means inspiring me to be who I want to be: a stronger, more open, more generous, fearless person.
To my mother.
My mother is a visionary, at her own scale.
It started before we were born. She wanted to make sure we would be as little discriminated as possible being kids of Cambodian immigrants. She wanted our background to never negatively affect our chances in life. This might seem odd to some people reading this post who are neither immigrants, nor French, nor born in the 80s. And I won’t dwell on that, but she had her reasons I guess. Back in the days, my parents were living in a city outside Paris, in the not so fancy Parisian suburbs. She made sure to choose a clinic in Paris so that our IDs for the rest of our lives would say “born in: Paris, France”.
For a woman who was born in the 50s in the Cambodian countryside, she had intuition about things that no one could have predicted.. like saying no to blood transfusion despite losing lots of blood when giving birth to me. It was 1986 and she had heard about a new “virus” we knew so little about except it was possibly transmissible by blood and had killed a few hundred people in France already… It was a brave decision and probably the right one.
When my brother and I were much older, she again had a hunch and insisted to send us to summer camps abroad so that we learnt English, while my father thought it was ridiculously expensive (it was) and unnecessary. Little did we know she seeded a grain in us that would broaden our horizon, and encourage us to think “larger” i.e. outside the French borders. My brother and I both ended up studying and living in NYC and London respectively. I want to believe that our lives were that tiny bit richer thanks to that — the tiny bit you get from getting out of your comfort zone and starting a life on your own and abroad at age 20.
My father is equally amazing yet I think he handled much fewer verticals than she did. Like so many amazing mothers, she juggled her late-20s till her mid-40s between school drop offs, a full time job, school pick ups, cooking, all the while being a woman who -like others- has friends, diets, takes care of her own mother and siblings, and so on. She made it look so easy, I never realised until now how it was not.
To my dear friend Joyce. Joyce is this lively beautiful person, who often dresses really well and has a big smile on her face. What very few people know is that she is the first one in her family to have gone to higher education. No one at home really told her that getting good marks at the “Baccalaureat” mattered. She went into her French oral exam not even having read the texts (the ones that are set in advance and that you study all year long when you go to a fancy private high school). She had the most loving parents but zero school guidance. Luckily she met those 2-3 people who ended up being instrumental to her education and career, and who told her “you could go to this uni”. “ Why don’t you apply for that masters degree?". She made the most of those tiny pieces of advice. Today she works in a consulting firm and her daily rate is set at €1,000. You could say she is doing better than most of those kids who always had the guidance of their parents or siblings. I am extremely proud of her and of what she has achieved. Most importantly, she has managed to stay true to herself while adapting and evolving in a different world.
To my badass friend Joanna. After being one of the first to quit banking in our grad class, she went on to a new job, only to quit on the very first day as she realised it was similar to the job she had just left. She has been an inspiration to many of our female friends for that decisiveness and ability to drive her career proactively. She has always been one of those women who support and promote other women.
To my strong friend Clemence. She juggled a job and late night visits at the hospital while her dad was dying of cancer. Doing this with a regular job is hard enough, so imagine that she was working anything between 12 to 18 hours a day in one of the toughest M&A firms in Paris. She did this for several months and made it through until her father passed. She had the balls to quit cold when the HR lady told her “It’s been a week now — it’s time to move on", she did not take any BS.
To my kindest friend Charlotte. After building a bubbly life in NYC where she met her American husband and happily lived in Brooklyn, she did not hesitate to leave that freshly found New York life, quit her job, come back to England with her husband and live with her parents in Surrey to be there for them. When her father passed, she decided the best way to honour him was to stay the positive and joyful person she is. Despite having her own place in central London, she commutes 3 hours every day so she can be with her mum through this difficult transition period. She is the bread winner in her household, she cooks, drinks wine, and runs. She supports her husband through his dream career. And she seems always available to help a neighbour, family or a friend in need. She is one of the most generous person I know.
To my brilliant friend Federica. With ties in France and London, and despite being overly educated having graduated from Imperial College and Columbia University, she decided to follow her then fiancé to his family hometown in Atlanta in the US, having no job or connections there. After they cancelled their engagement 3 weeks before the wedding, she moved back to Paris on her own and rebuilt her life. Eventually, she found a flat, a really cool job, a man, and of course, did this with the most supporting friends — the kind you can only have by being a deep example of generosity and openness yourself.
To them. To my other female friends I did not mention. You rock. Thank you.
Ps. I could write an equally long article about my male friends. Maybe I will some day!
