Becoming a Strong Woman: A Youth Collective Project

This month, the Pace e Bene Youth Collective worked together to interview women around the question of, "What experiences in your life led you to become the strong woman that you are today?" They interviewed women from all over the nation, and from all different walks of life. Read on to learn from these inspirational stories.

Cathy’s Essays

Brynna Sherony

When thinking about becoming a strong woman, two experiences that I’ve had stick out. I had amazing strong women as role models growing up, but it was in high school when I was busy becoming my own person that I started to become that strong woman for myself. I was a member of our high school color guard. This was a group of 10 to 30 women, depending on the season, that competed with the marching band in the fall and in our own competitive season in the spring. There is something special that can happen when you become part of an all-female group. I was lucky that my coaches promoted an environment where we built each other up and had zero tolerance for cattiness. We were a team, but also friends. This was one of my first opportunities to become a leader. As our team captain I was challenged to work with different personality types and by teaching younger students, I had a firsthand opportunity to experience different learning styles and how to meet each individuals’ needs. I became physically strong, but my interpersonal skills also became strong: building friendships, working one on one with others, and leading by example.

Another significant experience was working as a residence life coordinator at an all-girls school that had a boarding school program. However, the standard for treating each other with respect and building each other up was not already established in this all-girls environment. It would be a difficult situation for anyone to walk into, but particularly for me, as a people pleaser who takes a lot of things to heart. I became a different kind of strong from my work in residence life. I became someone who could put her foot down and take the backlash that came from teenagers who did not like the answer that I gave them. My ability to roll with the punches was put to the test and I learned to be strong for my students because they needed someone to advocate for them in adult spaces. I always tried to be as honest as possible with them because I recognized that they were on their own way to becoming strong women and I hope that they identified me as an example of what a strong woman could look like.

Natalie Anderson

My exploration of my queer identity started as a way of understanding attraction and gender identity, but it has become so much more. It has been instrumental in making me the person I am today. Queerness necessitates a departure from an accepted way of life, and in this way it has become something revolutionary: it is imagination of a better future and a celebration of the joy that imagination has brought and will continue to bring. It has allowed me personally to take an honest look at what I want in love, in community, in academics, in labor, in art—and to imagine what these might bring to my life if I pursue them authentically. Radical self-love is at the core of queerness, which expands further into how I relate to others as well. I know that so many of my own joyful experiences have only been possible because of the work done by those who came before me. They imagined and then pursued a safer world for queer people, people of color, people with disabilities, and those with other identities who have faced and continue to face barriers to living authentically without fear. They give me strength to uplift and affirm imagination for everyone, to insist on our shared ability to cultivate authentic joy in our futures.

LaTayla’s Essay

Sharmaine Brown, CEO and Founder of Jared’s Heart of Success Inc.

In response to the question “What experiences in your life led you to become the strong woman that you are today?” Sharmaine Brown specified that motherhood as well as the strong values her parents instilled in her shaped her into the person that she is today. During the conversation, Mrs. Brown truly emphasized the impact that becoming a mother had on her. To her, motherhood taught her how to become a nurturer. As a mother, Mrs. Brown also had to adapt and become a strong provider. Further, the experiences she gained as a mother allowed her to develop and hone her natural maternal instincts to care for her children.

In addition to motherhood, Mrs. Brown also articulated that the strong values and responsibilities her parents embedded in her at an early age allowed her to take on life as an adult. Because of her parents’ lessons, Mrs. Brown felt prepared for her entrance into not only motherhood but womanhood as a whole. Overall, the contribution and skills gained from motherhood and strong family values allowed Mrs. Brown to become the strong woman that she is today.

Akasha’s Essays

Ingrid Andersson, midwife

“Thank you for this amazing question. I had to think about it a while before it drove me down to the bedrock that my feet rest on: the power to make meaning. Making meaning is a process of connecting ourselves to ourselves and the world around us (human & more than human). Knowing that I have the power to make meaning allows me to be present for the strongest human experiences (love, pain, loss, mistakes, rejection) and not lose myself in doubt, despair, drugs, depression, dysfunction, etc. The ability to make meaning isn't about authority, competition or success—the strongest human experiences both make AND break us. It's about transformation. I make my deepest meaning and connecting through words (reading, listening, writing, speaking) but also through seeing, singing and dancing. I suppose my sense of strength could be summed up in Art.”

Lailah Shima, poet

“What makes me a strong woman?
It can seem life just happens, difficulties befall us. In retrospect, we don’t know how
we mustered the strength to get through them.
(In my case, a birth defect, intensive medical treatment through childhood, being
bullied; giving birth; my infant son’s death; single-mothering; cancer).
In a sense, we’re strong from the get-go, and life gradually brings more of our
strengths out, as needed.
We’re strong because life supports us absolutely.
We’re strong because we stop denying and withholding our strength. We stop
playing the inherited role of the fragile female held down or saved by men.
We’re strong, because the world needs all of our many strengths, and we’re here to
serve each other.
But, what has made me, in particular, a strong human?
In the face of adversity and opportunity, I have always striven to be authentic. To be a
lighthouse, lit from within, relying on and sharing my light, even when I couldn’t see it.
My spiritual and creative practices empower me to find and embody strength.
Strength to be present, looking in the eye whatever shows up. Strength to see and
release old, self-protective fear patterns. Strength to care for others.
I’ve found strength through connecting with strong, loving, courageous women (and
a few men)— midwives, teachers, healers, friends. Also, my mother, whose strength
I didn’t recognize until I became a mother. Also my daughters, whose strength and
brilliance have astonished me every day of their lives.
Above all, living with two girls (now women), whose lives used to utterly depend on
mine, required and developed strength in me. Single mothering was challenging, and
it was also the most powerful gift possible. Mothering insisted that I choose to be
courageous, offering my strength and vulnerability, even when afraid. Real strength,
my daughters have taught me, is love.”

Jodi Darst

“My being a truly strong woman has come from practicing trusting my intuitive self. 

As a girl I was taught to follow rules and be likable. I lived in a lot of fear. I tried hard to fit in, but I was deeply lonely inside. 

Seeing other women who expressed who they were despite what others thought was a great inspiration to me. I remember when I had my first “out” lesbian teacher, and I was amazed at her courage. She seemed happy and relaxed—not afraid or angry or strange. 

As an adult woman, I find that continually pausing to see what I really feel inside is crucial to my continued strength. Strength often doesn’t come from just saying or doing the first thing I think of. On the contrary, it really comes when I take an extra breath or two, and wonder what else might be possible here? My voice is stronger when it comes from a deep place inside that isn’t so angry and reactive, but is simply clear and true. I meditate daily, and it really helps me to tap into that clear and true place inside, and then to have the calm strength to live from that.”

Amy Baker 

“Spending time with strong women helped me become strong. My grandma and great aunties immigrated to the US from Germany. They didn’t speak a word of English and had very little money when they arrived. They courageously built very happy lives and warm and stable homes. With them I felt safe and loved and joyful, and free to be myself. They taught me to trust myself.

Traveling helped me be a strong woman . . . getting lost and finding my way, observing and connecting with other people and cultures, especially women of other cultures. I took my first trip abroad when I was 15 and lived for a month with a cousin in Germany. In my 20s I went to Gabon, Africa with the Peace Corps, and then lived in Italy for 6 months.   

Dealing with adversity made me a strong woman. I found my way through some extreme bullying, an eating disorder, and depression as a young person. I discovered things to help me heal—writing, music, dance, being in nature—and those things gave me confidence and became life-long supports.”