When the World Doesn’t See You

On recognition arriving decades after the work

Some people are recognised early. And some—often women—wait decades before the world catches up. 

Think of Emily Dickinson. She wrote nearly 1,800 poems, most unpublished in her lifetime. It wasn’t until after her death that the world finally read what she’d been quietly crafting in her bedroom.

Or Anna Mary Robertson Moses—better known as Grandma Moses. She didn’t start painting seriously until her late 70s, after arthritis ended her embroidery. By her 80s, her folk paintings were in museums worldwide.

There’s also Toni Morrison, who published her first novel at 39, but didn’t win the Nobel Prize in Literature until she was 62. And Mary Delany, who created her famous paper “mosaics” of flowers in her 70s, now held at the British Museum.

The pattern is clear: women’s work has too often been overlooked, delayed, or ignored. Sometimes it’s bias. Sometimes it’s sexism. Sometimes we’re simply invisible. 

In my mother’s life

time, married women had to quit their jobs. That’s right—married women weren’t allowed to work. Sit with that for a moment. Often, behind every impressive man is an equally impressive woman—quietly brilliant, holding everything together, making it possible for him to shine, while she pursued her own passions in the background.

The takeaway: the world may never give you the recognition you want. You have to give that to yourself. If you know, deep down, that your work has value, beauty, and meaning, then chances are it holds that same value for others. Maybe the more important thing is putting the work that matters to you out into the world, rather than worrying about what people think of it.