by Emma Webb
Emma has accumulated many ‘hats’ on her journey through life. Athlete, nurse, parent, entrepreneur, journalist, writer, podcaster, fitness instructor to name a few. Since 2021, she has added activist, women’s coach, social justice creator and survivor support mentor to her list.
“Of all my roles, second only to parenting, the latter perhaps are where I can now do most good.”
The one hat she wishes more than anything in her life she did not own is victim. Within British Gymnastics she endured life altering abuse for almost eight years of her childhood at the hands of married Olympians, her gymnastics coaches, both of them handed multiple awards of recognition by the National Governing Body, who now dissociate from the shameful pair, one of who was finally jailed along with his brother in 2008.
“This one hat”, she explains, “the first in my collection, arrived just after I turned five, and casts a shadow the length of my lifetime.”
She was left with deep scars including a life threatening inpatient battle to overcome anorexia and the cruel life sentence that is CPTSD.
“That chapter of my life from five years old was forced upon me”, she recalls, “it came with an associated life membership to that inescapable club no human would ever choose to belong to. Survivors of childhood sexual abuse. One that a conservative estimate reveals at least twenty percent of British children from the 1970’s and 80’s belong to. A club I now work alongside in some of the most important and rewarding work of my career."
“It felt like I had come home, the first time I sat with another survivor from my story. I could finally let go. It was awful obviously, yet incredible at the same time. We were no longer alone with our pain and through our work have navigated re directing the shame away from us and back on to all responsible. Slowly we have grown to understand and embrace the incredible but long silenced collective global power that is the female survivor community and its many allies.”
In her upcoming book ‘Historic?’ Emma exposes the degrees of corruption and injustice that sit at the heart of her story and examines the extremes of cult like behaviours, internalised misogyny and patriarchy behind why. She reveals the victim shaming that to this day she and her fellow gymnast survivors are subjected to for daring to speak out over a year ago and how this remains mostly British Gymnastics members shame. Sick comments fly from the mouths and fingers of BG coaches even today, including most recently an Olympian coach, along with the perpetrators handful of other lifelong friends in the sport. It begs belief that child abuse and specifically grooming and paedophilia is still so played down by so many inside the sport. Emma shares video upon video of the ‘Old Guard’ of BG holding annual ceremonies where a former BG CEO and Chairman records and shares in shameful posterity hours of footage as they honour abusive coaches with bizarre made up awards, enter each other into what they call their ‘Hall of Fame’ and dismiss the Whyte Review as completely untrue.
But as Anne Whyte’s scathing three million pound investigation confirmed in 2022, shocking levels of abuse and mistreatment in the sport have continued unchecked and ignored.
“I have since 2021 anyway, no longer felt alone. I have incredible women around and behind me who do not let me give up. In turn I hold up many more. The sculptor Kristen Visbal was right when she said that her ‘Fearless Girl’ sculpture makes a powerful symbol for all female survivors of child abuse as they attempt to redefine justice where there has been none and demand change.”
Emma has discovered that success in working towards any element of recovery lies in excellent trauma informed psychotherapeutic support and embracing the incredible global community of survivors.
“This little statue has become an iconic beacon of hope for millions of women worldwide, nowhere more so perhaps than for those bravely speaking out as they seek their own versions of social justice for the life altering torture they have survived.”
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