II’ve always had big plans for my future. When I was 16, my head was full of ideas and my heart was buzzing with ambition. This was fueled by my parents’ encouragement: nothing was impossible if I worked hard and didn’t give up.
A year earlier, I had been diagnosed with complex regional pain syndrome, a very painful condition, in my feet. The pain started when I was 11, usually after exercise. By the age of thirteen I was in constant pain, and it reached the point where I could no longer walk without assistance. I assumed that once the doctors found out what was wrong, they could give me medicine or surgery and I would get better. But after being referred to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and diagnosed, I discovered there was no cure – it was about dealing with it.
As a teenager you are figuring out who you are, what you want to do for the rest of your life, and I was given an extra challenge. I lived in fear and worried about what the future would bring and whether I would be strong enough to keep fighting for my dreams.
My parents were brilliant. The word “can’t” was erased from my vocabulary. I started to gain more confidence and reached a point where I was very optimistic about looking ahead. It was about what I could do, not what I couldn’t do.
One of those things was archery. I had picked it up around the time of my diagnosis, determined to find a sport I could still participate in. I couldn’t reach the goal to save my life, but the club coaches were full of encouragement. “You have potential,” they told me. I worked hard and put my energy and enthusiasm into it.
But everything changed at a morning meeting during sixth grade. It was led by our headteacher, Dr. Cummings. He talked about an invisible barrier that the girls in that room would face when we entered the workplace. Women, he said, had to face an uphill battle to get promotions and pay increases, and once we reached a certain level, our progress slowed and sometimes even stopped. He called it the “glass ceiling,” the first time I heard the term. It felt like every drop of blood in my body went cold.
I don’t remember what he said next. I’m sure he was trying to set the tone and then inspire us to fight it, but I remember being furious. Why should my gender determine my future?
I decided it wouldn’t hold me back: no matter how many ceilings there were, I would just have to keep pushing through them.
Other parts of the puzzle fell into place. I had never really noticed the lack of female role models before, but now the lack of representation was glaringly obvious – and good luck finding disabled role models. The only one I could mention was Stephen Hawking, and while he was inspiring, his story didn’t really resonate with me. I couldn’t see anyone else like me, and this heightened my fears even more. If others couldn’t break the glass ceiling, why did I think I could? For a long time I worried whether people would actually be able to see me as a person, and the value I had to offer, or whether they would first see my gender, or my crutches, or the wheelchair I sometimes used. Then I just decided that if any barriers, real or perceived, came up, I would bulldoze right through them.
In archery, my whole approach was: if I could get one arrow in the middle, why couldn’t I get them all there? Then it was: why can’t I be part of the healthy team? And: why can’t I shoot as well as the male athletes? I was part of the GB Paralympic archery team and became number 1 in the world. I won gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Paralympic Games, and became the first disabled athlete to represent England – and win gold – in an able-bodied discipline at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Once I became aware of the barriers people face, I could see them everywhere. Archery was no different. Prize money in competitions was higher for men, and there were not as many women in the sport. Many of my training partners were men, and when they were having a bad day, I heard some say they “shot like a girl.”
When I retired, I was determined to do something to empower girls. I gave talks at schools and girls said that their parents thought they should not play sports because they should concentrate on their studies. No boy has ever said that to me. This inspired me to write my latest book, Girls Rule: 50 Women Who Changed the World, which features scientists, spies and pirate leaders. I know from experience that representation is important. We need a space where we can see women succeed, thrive, fail, bounce back, and test the limits of human endurance.
I’ve never forgotten that meeting, and what it feels like to hear that it will be harder for you to achieve this goal. It got me thinking: this is a challenge, but what can we do about it?