Being a Woman

Iowa women discuss why they’re proud to be who they are and the challenges women still face today.

Transcript

It’s amazing how much women can do, even with the influence that men are stronger.

Are you proud to be a woman?

[Montage of girls/women saying yes]

I am super proud to be a woman.

I’m not really sure why, I just like being a girl.

It’s challenging sometimes, but in the end I’m happy to be a woman, yeah.

I am very much so proud to be a woman. I'm proud of what we've accomplished, what we can accomplish.

There was a time when I delivered papers and it was kind of a tomboy that I thought maybe it would be easier to be at guy cause you could be tougher and do more things, but I could do as many things as I want to being a gal too.

Just going off my mom’s background and my background, even if we’re given challenges or obstacles put in our way, we’re always, in some type of way we’re always able to overcome them… even though my mom had a hard time raising us as a black woman in the United States, I mean she’s on welfare, she’s a black woman, she’s poor. She works 9 to 5-type hours. At one point she was working two jobs, she was going through abuse. So all of these things that are put on us, we still find a way to overcome those struggles. I feel like that’s what makes women powerful.

Women have a great deal to offer. Offer their families, offer the country, offer in their workplaces.

I’m also proud to be a woman because I’m going to do great things, and it has nothing to do with my gender. It has everything to do with who I am.

What challenges do women face?

There is obstacles of being a woman. Being a black woman, being a woman in general. If you say that there isn’t, then you’re lying because everybody can see it, you know what I mean. People just ignore it. Because it’s gotten better over the years, like you said, we are able to vote, but just because it’s gotten better doesn’t mean it’s over. It doesn’t mean that we’ve reached full equality.

You have to be twice as good to be considered half as good. So you have to work harder to basically be acknowledged or accomplish the same, not accomplished, but to be acknowledged for accomplishing the same thing.

We undervalue our own experiences and perspectives and abilities. I think just centuries of being told you’re second-class citizens, you sort of get that message and you internalize it. And you don’t believe anything else.

Beyond the actual tangible, women are being paid less, women have a harder time getting jobs, and women have a harder time raising their families because of these expectations placed on them, there’s still this whole societal view of women as their too much or not enough.