This text references home abuse.
It is onerous to recollect a time when Alex Scott MBE wasn’t a well-known face on our TV screens. The ex-England worldwide is an everyday throughout sports activities media, presenting the likes of BBC Sports activities Persona of the Yr, the BBC’s Olympics protection, and the World Cup (Males’s and Girls’s).
Those that have learn Alex’s guide How (Not) to Be Robust will admire the monumental affect she’s had on soccer, from being the primary feminine pundit to seem on Match of the Day to bravely sporting the OneLove armband through the Males’s World Cup in Qatar.
Having come of age earlier than the beginning of the Girls’s Tremendous League (England’s skilled girls’s soccer league) – when she labored in Arsenal’s laundry room to complement her wages from skilled soccer – Alex has tirelessly fought for ladies’s soccer to be afforded the identical respect as the lads’s sport. However she’s additionally needed to advocate for herself.
In her bestselling memoir, she displays on her expertise of home abuse, writing, “Dwelling in concern day-after-day is a sense I’d not want on my worst enemy,” including that she shared her private expertise as a method of “letting go of the previous with a purpose to dream of the longer term.”
Right here, she speaks with GLAMOUR about how she discovered her voice, what she’s discovered from working with survivors of abuse, and why she’s proud to companion with Refuge to proceed their very important work supporting these impacted by home abuse.
GLAMOUR: Hello Alex! Thanks for talking with GLAMOUR as we speak. Are you able to inform me about why you needed to be an envoy for Refuge?
Alex Scott: Truthfully, when my guide got here out – the place I detailed my upbringing, my life and what I would been by way of with home abuse – I wasn’t desirous about what subsequent or how I might assist or be an envoy for anybody. That wasn’t the case. Throughout my Girls’s Hour interview on BBC Radio 4, I realised that I did not need something from the guide, but when I might use the proceeds to assist anybody else who’s gone by way of what my mum did or what I sort of skilled as a child, I needed to do this.
I bear in mind going away considering, nicely, the place do I look? The place ought to all these proceeds go? I did lots of analysis, and it simply felt proper; one thing inside my intestine advised me that I needed to work with Refuge.
“Two girls every week are killed by a companion or former companion… how are we not screaming about this?”
And the way have you ever discovered working with Refuge up to now?
I went to satisfy all the fellows at Refuge to grasp extra in regards to the work – and it is simply staggering. They have been telling me that two girls every week are killed by their companion or former companion… how are we not screaming about this? Why are we not doing extra and as a lot as we will? It was an eye-opener for me to simply sit round a desk with everybody telling me all of the work that they do and the continued work that we have to do.
Have you ever had many conversations with survivors or victims of home abuse by way of your work with Refuge?
Sure, the quantity of people that come as much as me and message me on social media to share their experiences… They’ve gone by way of the identical feelings; they’re nonetheless coping with trauma and listening to me communicate so overtly has helped them. It is so touching in a method as a result of, like I stated, I did not write the guide even desirous about that; I simply wrote the guide about my experiences. So, to have the ability to join with folks and folks discover a method that has helped them is large.
It is so good to listen to you speaking about folks connecting with you on social media. As a girl within the public eye, you might be uncovered to a facet of social media that lots of girls aren’t. How does that impression your activism and the work you do, particularly round ending violence towards girls and women?