A moment that changed me: outraged at the glass ceiling, I became a gold-medal-winning athlete
I’ve always had big plans for my future. At 16, my head was filled with ideas and my heart was brimming with ambition. This was fuelled 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 13, I was in pain all the time, and it reached the point where I couldn’t walk unaided. I assumed that once doctors could figure out what was wrong, they’d be able to give me some medication or an operation, and I’d get better. But after I was referred to Great Ormond Street children’s hospital, and diagnosed, I learned that there was no cure – it was about managing it.
As a teenager, you’re figuring out who you are, what you want to do for the rest of your life, and I had this additional challenge thrown into the mix. I lived in fear, worrying about what the future would hold and whether I would be strong enough to keep fighting for my dreams.
My parents were brilliant. The word “can’t” was chopped out of my vocabulary. I started to gain more confidence, and reached a point where I was looking forward really optimistically. It was all about what I could do, not what I couldn’t.
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 take part in. I couldn’t hit the target to save my life, but the club coaches were full of encouragement. “You have potential,” they told me. I worked hard, pouring my energy and enthusiasm into it.
‘I was determined to do something to empower girls’ … Danielle Brown at the Commonwealth Games in 2010. Photograph: Michael Steele/Getty Images
But everything shifted one morning assembly during sixth form. It was led by our headteacher, Dr Cummings. He spoke of an invisible barrier that the girls in that room would face when we entered the workplace. Women, he said, had to fight an uphill battle to get promotions and pay rises, and once we reached a certain level our progression slowed, sometimes even stopped. He called it the “glass ceiling”, the first time I’d heard the term. It felt like every drop of blood in my body went cold.
I don’t remember what he said after that. I’m sure he was trying to set the scene and then inspire us to fight it, but I just remember feeling furious. Why should my gender define my future?
I resolved that it wasn’t going to stop me: no matter how many ceilings there were, I would just have to keep pushing through.
Other parts of the puzzle fell into place. I’d 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 name 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 magnified my fears even more. If others couldn’t break through the glass ceiling, then what made me think I could? I spent a long time worrying whether people would actually be able to see me as a person, and the value I had to offer, or whether they’d see my gender, or my crutches or the wheelchair I sometimes used, first. Then I just decided that when barriers, real or perceived, came up, I’d try to bulldoze straight through.
In archery, my whole approach was: if I could get one arrow in the middle, why can’t I get them all there? Then, it was: why can’t I make the able-bodied squad? And: why can’t I shoot as well as the male athletes? I made the GB Paralympic archery team, and became the world No 1. At the Paralympics in 2008 and 2012, I won gold medals, and I became the first disabled athlete to represent England – and win gold – in an able-bodied discipline at the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
Once I was made 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 weren’t as many women in the sport. A lot of my training partners were men, and if they were having a bad day, I would hear some say they were “shooting like a girl”.
When I retired from the sport, I was determined to do something to empower girls. I would give talks in schools, and girls would say that their parents didn’t think they should do sport, because they needed to focus on their studies. Not one 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 matters. We need a space where we can see women succeeding, thriving, failing, bouncing back, and testing the limits of human endurance.
I have never forgotten that assembly, and how it feels to be told that you will find it harder to achieve. It spurred me on to think: this is a challenge, but what can we do about it?
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