Hannah Diviney on imposter syndrome, owning your body and other facets of womankind

On International Women’s Day, the advocate dubbed “The Voice of Now” by Marie Claire magazine - and first female disabled actor to portray a sex scene on Australian television - reflects on a year of exploring her expanding sense of womanhood.

International Women’s Day. A day of pink, corporate cupcakes and saying “all the right things” about gender equality and equity. It’s a day I have mixed feelings about, at least in the way it exists now - in its hyper-commercialised form. I have issues with the fact that most of the events marking it are fancy breakfasts that exclude anyone who parents from attending. Not to mention the issue of the cost of a ticket to a table with a white linen tablecloth and barely any food on it might be the same as a week’s worth of groceries. Never mind the fact that often, all the women whose stories we uphold and who are in these rooms of celebration look the same.

We haven’t quite managed to marry the idea that true equity can’t exist without diversity.

I much prefer thinking about existing as a woman on this day, in the spirit of its humble beginnings. International Women’s Day began as an American protest when 15,000 women marched through the streets of New York demanding better pay, fairer working conditions and the right to vote, all the way back in 1908. It was 1910 before things went international and 1975 before the UN got involved.

As someone who often exists on the margins of society, the idea of protest, revolution and not waiting for permission to ask for the changes you think the world needs certainly appeals to me. In fact, this last year, I’ve used these things a lot. Onscreen, I became the first disabled woman in the country to do a sex scene, publicly planting the flag for disabled women in conversations around sex, intimacy and pleasure. Offscreen, I fostered global conversations around ableist language and why representation matters.

The past twelve months have been a whirlwind - and they’ve taught me so much about womanhood and my own experiences of it.

I now know what it means to do things that terrify me in spite of the imposter syndrome that rages in my brain at all times. Something I suspect women across the board struggle with. I now understand what people mean when they tell you to have “the confidence of a mediocre white man”. What it looks like to own your body, your sexuality and to field messages from strangers trying to hit on you.

I know what it means to be the face of something bigger than yourself, but to also have every conceivable opinion that could ever exist thrown at you like a dagger, in a way that I think feels and seems exclusively primed for women.

Somewhere, somehow, little by little over the last year and with all the secret projects I’m juggling now (which I can’t wait to share with all of you, when the time comes) I’ve found myself appearing in my own head as less of a girl and more of a woman. I can’t wait to continue discovering who that woman is meant to be, and how she will impact the world around her.