Every year, when we cel­e­brate In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, we see the me­dia high­light­ing suc­cess­ful women; women who are break­ing glass ceil­ings and im­pact­ing de­vel­op­ment in T&T.

We cel­e­brate them, ac­knowl­edge their con­tri­bu­tions and ho­n­our their ser­vice. It is tru­ly won­der­ful to see how much women have pro­gressed and con­tribute to­wards our na­tion, and I love that we cel­e­brate them.

At the same time, I al­so think that In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day is not on­ly to cel­e­brate the vis­i­ble and ac­com­plished women; it should al­so make us see the women whose labour, pain, grief, dis­abil­i­ty, pover­ty and sur­vival of­ten go un­no­ticed. And so, I want to fo­cus on the women who do not get suf­fi­cient at­ten­tion, the ones who are bare­ly men­tioned. Just for a lit­tle bit, I want to tell their sto­ries.

There is a home­less woman who can be seen reg­u­lar­ly be­tween Mara­bel­la and San Fer­nan­do. She walks the road bare­foot. Some­times she is ful­ly dressed, oth­er times she is half naked.

One day she came up to my car and asked for $10 to buy some­thing to eat. She spoke per­fect stan­dard Eng­lish; not cre­ole, not bro­ken. I gave it to her, and she asked if she could get ten more, if I was go­ing home, and if I had chil­dren.

From the way she used her lan­guage and the con­ver­sa­tion I had with her; it was clear that she was ed­u­cat­ed and some un­for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances led to her liv­ing on the streets. Most peo­ple would look at her and say, “she’s a mad la­dy,” try to avoid her and go their way. Most peo­ple prob­a­bly see her but don’t re­al­ly no­tice her.

Then there is the woman who goes to work every day with her hair neat­ly done and her clothes pressed, and no one knows what she en­dured be­fore she left home that morn­ing. She an­swers emails, greets cus­tomers, at­tends meet­ings and keeps her com­po­sure. But there is a deep fear in­side her. She knows that she is go­ing home to a hus­band who trips for every lit­tle thing, who con­stant­ly be­rates her and men­tal­ly abus­es her.

Most peo­ple think she is qui­et, re­served or some­times un­friend­ly. They find it is too much work to talk to her and to get to know her. But they don’t know that she is bare­ly sur­viv­ing. They don’t know what she has to put up with when she reach­es home, how she is scared all the time be­cause she is liv­ing in a home filled with con­trol, threats or hu­mil­i­a­tion.

There is the sin­gle moth­er in deep South who sells by the road­side dur­ing the week and in the mar­ket on week­ends. She has to do what­ev­er she can to feed her two chil­dren. Her day starts be­fore sun­rise. She packs their lunch kits with what­ev­er she can man­age. She is con­stant­ly wor­ry­ing about how she will pay the rent, buy gro­ceries, find mon­ey to pay school trans­port. She knows that one un­ex­pect­ed bill could throw off every­thing. By morn­ing she is out in the heat, stand­ing for hours, sell­ing pro­duce, snacks or small items, smil­ing at cus­tomers and stretch­ing every dol­lar to make it work.

Peo­ple see her “mak­ing mon­ey” but they do not see the meals she skips so the chil­dren can eat, the ex­haus­tion she push­es through, or her tears when the chil­dren are asleep at night.

Why do these women be­come in­vis­i­ble? Some­times it’s be­cause their lives make us un­com­fort­able. It’s eas­i­er to cel­e­brate suc­cess than to face the re­al­i­ties of pover­ty, grief, abuse, men­tal ill­ness, dis­abil­i­ty, or aban­don­ment. It is eas­i­er to ap­plaud women when they are pol­ished and thriv­ing than to stand be­side them when they are hurt­ing, dis­placed, or sim­ply try­ing to sur­vive.

Al­so, of course, the women who are suc­cess­ful al­so have ac­cess to me­dia cov­er­age, so it is ex­pect­ed that they are vis­i­ble. The thing is, In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day is not on­ly about achieve­ment. It is al­so about en­durance and if it is to tru­ly mean some­thing, then we must make space for all women.

So how do we cel­e­brate these women? We cel­e­brate them by sup­port­ing them in what­ev­er way they may need. Maybe it is mak­ing sure that the one who lives on the street has a place to sleep at night and a meal dur­ing the day.

Maybe it is mak­ing sure that the women in abu­sive sit­u­a­tions know that they will be sup­port­ed if they leave that re­la­tion­ship, that they can go to a space where they are safe and out of harm. Maybe it means mak­ing sure that the sin­gle moth­er or the griev­ing wid­ow has ac­cess to care pack­ages, coun­selling ser­vices and oth­er sup­port sys­tems.

As we cel­e­brate In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, let us think about how we can make these women seen and sup­port­ed.

Let us re­mem­ber that a so­ci­ety re­veals its true val­ues not on­ly by how it cel­e­brates its most ac­com­plished women, but by how it treats women who are strug­gling, griev­ing, dis­abled, poor, dis­placed or mar­gin­alised.

To tru­ly ho­n­our women, we can cel­e­brate the ones in the spot­light but we al­so have to pro­tect, sup­port, and stand be­side the women who are liv­ing in the shad­ows.

Hap­py In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, T&T.