The Glass Ceiling

How my cultural background prevented me to fully express who I am and how writing in English freed my expression.

The context

Now that I have gained confidence to write and publish in English, I realize that the French mentality has weighed heavily on my expression, I felt like an outsider. When I use the expression glass ceiling, I am aware that it mainly refers to skin color, gender, social class, disability or sexuality, but can also refer to your accent, your appearance and your cultural background.

What is the glass ceiling

I know partly what it is to be a black woman, my wife is black, and I have seen how humiliating and excruciating, it is, to be reduced to the color of your skin and your gender, despite your intelligence that outsmarts your racist perpetrator’s one. Then you touch the glass ceiling as if you were in a transparent box. It hurts when you hit the invisible glass. My daughter humorously says I am not black but warm brown.

I’m talking here about the cultural context and how you integrate an unconscious attitude, so that others accept you in their cultural context, like you do when you are young and want to please your parents. It then becomes a part of you and you sometimes don’t realize it until very late, or never.

How did I realize this?

I started writing in English, unaware that it was so difficult to have a lively expression in a language that is not your mother tongue. I gained confidence and a certain freedom of expression in writing in Medium, not that there wouldn’t be any in France but because I had an internal and cultural injunction about my legitimacy to express myself. In France, I must stress that freedom of expression depends on language, — especially if you speak Breton, Corsican, Alsacian, Occitan or Basque — , and content.

How did we internalize our illegitimacy to speak?

In Brittany, we speak freely with sincerity and spontaneity. It also depends on Breton countries because Brittany is not a uniform territory. The French injunction has impacted everyone in Brittany. According to it, we have no legitimacy to speak, especially in Gallo ( a Breton roman language) or Breton, or with an accent different from the Parisian accent used by the French media. In Paris, I made people laugh at my spontaneity, despite my standard accent. Ignoring Parisian social codes, I was quickly pigeonholed as a Breton with all the clichés that go with it, including naivety. It wasn’t mean, but I internalized this French injunction to express less spontaneity. Travelling in several Celtic countries (Wales, Scotland, Ireland), I found the same spontaneity as in Brittany with so little social code. It’s still rare to go into a café in Brittany and come out without having had a conversation.

In France, there is an injunction to be compliant as if diversity endangered the country cohesion, hence the propensity to make negative criticisms as soon as someone goes off the rails.

The freedom to speak in English?

In Medium, I started by writing an article on druids. Then I got into the game, writing poems. One day, Simran Kankas asked me to participate in her publication in Medium and everything fell into place. Then I realized that I was getting ideas and liked to put them into shape. My audience and my compensation have been increasing ever since.

I became more and more confident in saying things that I wouldn’t say in French. I feel free now, realizing how I let the French mentality build a glass ceiling in my personal expression. I didn’t dare to be myself.

Since I write in English, I breathe a new air and touch more people, without forgetting of course to talk sometimes about my beloved country, Brittany.