Angry angry angry. Megha, Asifa and Hila are angry. They know it is one of the things that drives them all for very different reasons.

Sharing that anger will be crucial to leading the new generation.

Not for them the usual patronising put down, women shouldn't be angry, dont be so emotional.

But they are being strategic with their anger.

This is the second episode capturing the zeitgeist as the 24 women set off on the expedition to “find an approach to leadership that resonates with women” all women of all ages.

Julia Middleton 0:01

Julia Middleton 5:05

Megha, what is it that you absolutely love about India?

Megha 5:10

Oh that is a hard question to be asking today. It's very selfish. It's that I feel at home. I think there are versions of me from five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago that would have said, I love the diversity. I love that diversity is constitutionally enshrined, but I'm not sure we believe any of that.

Julia Middleton 5:32

So that sort of implies that you've fallen out of love. Why?

Megha 5:37

Because it doesn't feel like home to everyone, and it should.

Julia Middleton 5:40

So what's happened?

Megha 5:41

There is no longer a veiling of the political agenda that the incumbent government has against people, against Muslim people and against people of lower castes. And those things are no longer hidden and are no longer secret and are being Yeah, people are being prosecuted in the open mainstream media that the newspapers that I used to read growing up, I no longer feel like I can trust. So in fact, I'm reading the news this morning, when you read three different versions of the same story, you can almost tell who's been bought out, you know, so while India still for now feels like home to me, that's because on paper I'm Hindu, on paper I belong to an upper caste. So it's easy for me to say that. Governments don't ask about sexuality, right? So I'm not yet going to be prosecuted from a census perspective. And if anything, it'll only be because I say something vocally against them. But people like me, and people not like me, who have grown up here and only ever known it here and have passports and documents. And even if they don't, have lives are being made to feel like it is no longer safe and no longer home. And yeah, that's why I'm falling out of love.

Julia Middleton 6:52

So would you call yourself part of an angry generation?

Megha 6:57

I don't know if the rest of the generation has capacity for anger. I know many of us do. But I think generationally, I see far more young Indians, prioritising making themselves comfortable, which often includes leaving.

Julia Middleton 7:12

So what are your choices?

Megha 7:14

I have the choice to leave. I know, I don't want to make that choice. So I know where I want to be physically. I think the options are, be quiet and be comfortable. Or do what you can be a bit loud, but you don't know what the consequences of that might be. I know which I'm going to pick, I just don't know how it's going to manifest.

Julia Middleton 7:33

And what's the prospect of success?

Megha 7:35

Feels quite low at the moment. I think it feels now like a game of how many individuals how many neighbourhoods? How many households Can you protect or support, rather than changing something on the national scale? Because it feels like this game has been in motion for decades and decades before we even knew that it was right. Yeah, so I think changing something on a macro level, it's not looking promising. Doing something in pockets. There's always hope for that.

Julia Middleton 8:03

The word inclusive, bandies around everywhere. Is it a big enough word anymore?

Megha 8:08

No. It feels, so corporate, feels so dirty. It's insufficiently radical for the problems that we now face.

Julia Middleton 8:14

Explain.

Megha 8:15

Inclusive now feels like, you know, companies changing the logos into rainbow colours In June, and whatever, issuing public statements when there are school shootings in the US. It's not sufficiently embracing. It's not pulling people into the fold. It feels a bit like a public facing taglines. And it doesn't put any onus on the people who are already included.

Julia Middleton 8:43

Soyou may not be an angry generation. But there's a lot of angry young women in India?

Megha 8:48

Because we're taught to be afraid from such a young age, you're taught to be scared when you're walking on the streets, you're taught to be afraid even in your own home. I was talking to somebody recently, who apparently gets told that when her elder brother is at home, she can't wear shorts at home, when she's got to wear tracks even to bed to house. I don't know why, you know, and these are, of course, very sort of trivial bougie examples, but I think, yeah, we're policed and we are policed not in an equal way in a hypocritical and unjust fashion. And different women are given different amounts of protection based on their social and economic standing.

Julia Middleton 9:29

Yes,

How many?

I have been to six camp in Iraq, Greece, and Germany. And, like since 2014, to 2019, I was in refugee camps.

Every refugee camp you've been to, makes you start your education again.

Actually we don't have official score, that even though if we, if we go to school in refugee camps, they wouldn't recognise this certificate as someone who has studied a normal school or have been in a normal school. So it's just kind of a wasting time is like just, you think that you're doing something great, you go to school with the other students like normal student, but it's not like that, actually. For example, I've been schooled in Greece, but I haven't gotten a certificate from Greek school because of my language barrier. Because of the short time I've been there was just about two years. And when I came to Germany, I had my certificate from Iraq, and I translated, they recognise it. But I was in eighth grade. And I had to repeat that two years of ninth grade and 10th grade because they didn't kind of believe that the Iraqi system is good enough to be in high school. So we are getting to a long process of finishing school. This also is bringing the mental health issues, bringing other kinds of obstacles that we face every time we are we it's easy for us to repeat these classes, educationally. Because we have already studied about this subject. It's very easy, but it's so hard to start in a place that you see, this is not what I'm gonna do. It's not I don't deserve to do this, I can do better, I need to go faster, and you don't have you have nothing, like you're in a hole and you want to go out of this hole and is not nothing's happening.

It must be very, because how many languages do you speak?

I speak for language. My mother language is Kurmanji, Yazidis speak Kurmanji, Kurdish and I speak Arabic. Then I come to Greece, where I learn English, and a little of Greek and then I come to Germany I learned German. So it's not a choice that I choose to learn these language is kind of that I have, I was forced to, I had to just communicate and just to have an a little kind of a chance to get to know the community, to get to know the society and also to let them to know who I am. I had to flee my home. It's because of conflict because of war, and I explained what happened to me and my community in specially. And it's always not our choice. If you like you, if you ask me to leave that, like small, tiny village that haven't seen anything, I would never say yes, I will come to Europe and live freely I don't want ever life. I really, I was happy there even though I had a had seen thing. But it's not our choice always to learn all these languages to try to fit in this society to have new friends, to have new family, to have new home, a home. So it's not our choice. And even, it's very, very hard to even start from zero, because it's very difficult and very complicated. And it's just, it's not about, like how fast you learn a language, how fast, how not you like kind of, you don't see the front is always something that you're missing, you don't feel that they are warmly welcoming you. So it's always kind of a distance, you don't see that. But you feel that inside, that you will never be a part of this society, even though if you did all the steps, and all the things that they required to be a part of the society.

How do you balance the sense that on one side, you are expected and no doubt you say it to yourself, I am lucky. I'm fortunate. I'm healthy, I've made it through and all those things. But balance that also with the sense of the injustice, about having your life completely put on hold for years and years and years.

This is a very good question, actually. And I really struggle with this. Because when when I was in Iraq as well, because I don't, I don't know if you know about Yazidi and the genocide that happened 2014. And so many of my friends and also two off my cousins have been kidnapped by ISIS, and they were like, in captivity for five years. But I luckily survived with my family. And I haven't been kept in captivity. And whenever I was thinking that I, like I survied from a genocide and have seen so many things. And I like trying to, I was like, I was always claiming that I was exaggerating how emotional and how, how I have been suffered to this genocide. And I was comparing myself to the others, to my cousins, and my friends that have been kidnapped, have been raped, beaten, so and I was this I have seen nothing. I have seen nothing, I'm so lucky I, I didn't lost my father, I didn't lose my two sister, and didn't lost any of my brothers. And I was comparing myself, I was lucky, I was killing myself that I am the luckiest person in on earth because I haven't seen what most of my friends have seen and have been through. And I've been holding myself, I was comparing myself to others. But when, like now right now, I also realised, because I was always thinking when I get to Germany, I will be free, I will make it, if I made it to Germany, I will be so kind of mentally and physically free and happy and safe. But it's not like that. At this point, I realised. I also have been through so many things. I don't have to face the same things that they have been facing and they are still facing but it is the things that I was a child, I was just 13 when I left home, and I have never been a child. I have never kind of lived the chances are that most of the children are leaving.

Do you ever let yourself become angry?

Yes. Yes so many times so many times. What make me angry most of the time is that is that how I was like how I naively, I was naive to think about that, I was the only one and just it was our country and our society that treat women differently. I was thinking this oh well. I get somewhere. When I get somewhere like free, I can share freely and I only hope, my only hope was to get somewhere where I can share and I can do, and I can talk about woman when, when nobody will, like judge me or, like make fun of me or like, just shut like to say, okay, don't speak or. But when I come when they come to Europe, and I saw the word that I was I was dreaming of like women are free in, it sucked. And it's not just in my society, it is not just in one country is not just in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Germany, it's all is everywhere that try to control woman, try to just, I don't know, it's really making me sick and angry. And I really, I was kind of very naive to think it's just my society, right? Like, right now the United States about abortion is so crazy. And it's really made me crazy when we, when we repeat the history that we're when we just go backward, instead of going forward, kind of, it's hard to explain how the process are going on. You're just looking at just can't do anything is also about like womans rights and also about kind of war that happened in Iraq. Yeah, we couldn't stop that. And now it's happening in Ukraine. So it's something that we see. And people are suffering. And we have, like, normal people are also like, I have been through and I can't do anything, I don't have any power. And this makes me angry. This makes me very sad that I kind of feel that I have nothing in my hand to help or to do.

When I said to you, you know, what you want in leaders? The biggest word that you kept me coming back to was respect, that word. That word is something I think you yearn for.

What respect is for me, is for me, very important, because I've kind of the person that have been through, and I can feel all the refugees and especially women and girls, they've been in kind of very close minded society, they've, they survived a war and they come to these refugee camps and stuck for years. And although they have been through this all experience, they are trying to do better, they are trying and they are doing better. And they are going through that. But most of the time, we don't get that respect. And we get that word like Oh, I'm so sorry for you because you have been through this. I don't like that. I don't like anyone when I talk about my story to give me this reaction. Don't be sorry about me, do something about what they when they tell you their story, do something about you, you kind of serve yourself. Like say, okay, that is so much as she went through so much. And she's trying and she told me her story. So I need to do something that show her that I really care, like volunteer, helping other refugees, helping other woman, share their story, share their art work, or anything that you can you kind of show your love and kindness.

Would you call yourself the angry generation?

Yes, I would. Like a super super angry generation.

Can you see what I mean, about Asifa? Thank you, Asifa. Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing that. I think we can all feel the passion that emanates from you, and respect it enormously. Next is Hila. I wont introduce Hila, i'll let her introduce herself. Hila, talk to us.

I feel like the climate crisis has been dumped on our generation or my generation of women. It feels very much like a generational shift, where The climate crisis has definitely been present in everyone's lives throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century. But I think now, young women especially are feeling like it's taken over our entire life, whether that's, if we choose to have kids or not, or what products we're buying, what jobs we're going into, what industries we're going into, and it's become a burden because young women no longer have a choice on where they want their lives to go. And I'm an older sister, and I see how young woman's relation to the climate crisis is very much like being an older sister to the world, where older sisters get a lot of issues, put honours and a lot of people's problems and we become the world's therapist. It's quite damaging. And it causes a lot of climate anxiety, which I've observed talking to young people from across the world, some people as young as 12. And they'll talk to me and they'll say, Yeah, I know, like, we know all the solutions, but what can we actually do as a young person, I feel like I don't have agency over the world. And that's where I think we really see the intersection between climate activism and feminism and inequality worldwide, because this burden is placed on us. And yet women still don't really have the agency to have an impact in a way that I think that we shouldn't be able to if it's been put on our shoulders. Feminism has definitely changed, the world has definitely become more equal, but it's not equal in the right way. You know, young people now have a seat at the table, we have people like Greta Thunberg, being given a platform to speak. But the table itself needs to change the system needs to change, because there's no point as getting to the table, if almost to fill, fill a quota or say, Oh, look, we're listening to young people, we're listening to young women. If those words, if what young women are saying and young people are saying isn't being taken into account. And it's almost turned into a show, I think there was a big phase of in the beginning of the pandemic, when we saw social media platforms, like Tik Tok really gained popularity. And there was a caricature on there of something called a disco girl. And the disco girl would always be like, Oh, we should not use plastic straws and save the turtles. And it became a joke. Everyone wasn't imitating them. And I think it's really sad that we see these things that are such important issues. But they only become important issues when they're coming out of right mouth. And if they're coming out of a young woman's mouth, then it's an interpreted in a completely different way, you're seen as angry, you're seen as bossy, you're seen as a social justice warrior as a negative thing, with negative connotations. Why should caring about the environment be seen as a bad thing? Or why is that the first thing that we jumped to? I think, ultimately, with the climate crisis, you know, there's been so many studies that say that women or impoverished women specifically will be the ones that will feel the effects of climate change the most. And yet, no matter what you do, you almost feel powerless because of your position in the world. And going back to that idea of having a seat at the table, it's almost like someone's pulled up a chair for you, if you've sat at the table. Now you can witness going, what's going on, you can see it happening right in front of your eyes, or the dominoes that toppling or the things that you can't control, but no one's asked you to speak yet, you're just sitting there silently, almost like you've got a piece of tape on your mouth. It's almost like you're speaking into like, a little, I don't know, like mask or something like you're speaking into nothing. Everyone's nodding and agreeing, but they're not going to do anything about it. You know, we saw that COP 26 what so many people had such high hopes for we had activist being there. Take Action Global, the organisation I work for, you know, we were there in a live stream, we had young people from across the world speaking in sharing their ideas for the climate solution. And yet a lot of people, myself included, were so disappointed by COP 26. Because it felt like none of that mattered. And I think that what's really sad about all of this is everyone knows what the issue is. And everyone knows how to change it, it's just the people that who have that choice, which young women don't, are not making that change, and they're not making that choice.

Just come back to that thing that you said before about children, and choosing whether to have children or not.

For me, speaking from personal experience, like ever since I was little, I was like, Oh, my goal in life is to be a mother. You know, I was like the kid he was always playing with, like the baby Annabelle dolls. And yeah, I just I was fascinated with the idea of being a mother. And as I got older, like 14-15, and I was friends with a lot of people who were feminists and very active in the women's rights movement and stuff like that. And when I expressed that idea, they were like, Oh, that's not very feminist view, which I completely disagree with. I think feminism is about a woman's choice and agency in the world. And if a woman chooses to want to be a mother as her main thing, then that they should be allowed to do that. But in the last couple years, as I've seen the effects of climate change become even more drastic and affecting my own life. I realised that I didn't have that choice anymore. Like I know, as the world sounds as it is now I don't think that it's ethical to bring a child into the world.

I think we can all hear the the anger in your voice. How do you think that anger will frame how your generation will want to be led and will lead.

Yeah, I think that anger is extremely important in any movement that you're creating. But I think as a generation, it's about redesigning how we're using that anger. Because I think in the past, in movements that have been successful movements that haven't been successful, anger is always a very important tool. But I think that when we're working towards these long term goals, we have to see anger as an emotion as the driving force behind it. It's like the gas that you put in the car rather than the car itself. And I think that what is so special about the expedition is if we can create something that is leading with compassion, and leading in a new way, with anger is that driving force, but not necessarily the end product? I think that we could create something really special.

You are arguably a generation that is that is the first one that is facing a fixed deadline. I mean, you could argue that my generation always had the option of kicking things into the long grass. And indeed, that's one of the great problems. But Your generation has a fixed deadline, don't you? You've got 30 years in which to solve this and probably less, how will that affect your leadership?

I think it will definitely affect our leadership. Because I think what's quite unique about how my generation tackles issues, and I think this is probably to do with social media as well is that the urgency plays out in everyone gets held accountable, right, like within a couple of seconds of something going on in the world. There's 101 Instagram posts about it or people reposting about it and so the access to information, whether you want it or not, is very much there. And I think in that sense, leaders are being more pressured to act because as my generation gets to voting age, you know that these people are not going to let go of it. I think that we've had to witness a lot of faffing about. And I'm not sure that when people my age, get to those positions of power. That will be as much faffing about number one, because we won't have the time to faff about. And, two, because we've seen that that doesn't work. And I think that as a generation, we're very good at seeing through that and seeing through the smoke and mirrors and getting to the root of the problem and realising that what we need right now is action. We don't need talk.

So Hila, tell us what you want to shout from the rooftops.

Young women are facing this on our own, we're in the middle of the tornado. But we need you, young, other young women women across generations to stand behind us and use your voices as well, to help amplify us. We've got that seat at the table. But we need generations of women as well to be behind us holding that seat down and making sure that we stay in place. I think together, we can be that microphone that will rip the tape off young woman's mouth and allow us to speak.

Thank you, Megha. Thank you, Asifa. And thank you Hila. What does this tell me about an approach to leadership that resonates with women? I think that inclusive is not a word that's fit for purpose. That's a very powerful thought. And worth thinking through. That young women are demanding an urgency from their leaders. And though they're asking for authenticity and depth, they also want urgency and speed. And that's a difficult balancing act. I think Asifa's expression, don't say you're sorry, show me respect. Even if the shape of my life has not been the same as yours, that will ring in my head for some time. I think Hilla's demand for support from other women of her own generation and for women across the generations to really back these brave young women. And then maybe the last one that came through to me is a sense of share our anger, don't make any effort to sanitise it, share our anger. Otherwise, you make no sense to me as a leader. I've always believed that mentoring should not be one way it should be two way and preferably mentoring, where the age difference is at least 10, even better, 20 years apart, where one woman mentors, the other and the other woman mentors, the first. It's got to be the way to go. I look forward to talking to you again on the next podcast, which will again be a zeitgeist podcast, and this one will be on the hunger games.

Thank you for listening to the podcast. We would love you to follow the expedition and provide your own stories and perspectives. You can do this by subscribing to this podcast and joining the Women Emerging group on LinkedIn where you can have your say.