A Difficult Woman

Jane Goodall said that, it really doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman, that’s why there are so many of us. Well, 99% of the time, a “difficult woman” is a derogatory term for “an empowered woman “but society doesn’t want to acknowledge it. The qualities of a difficult woman are what makes her to be one of the most hated women in a society. But who is a difficult woman and why does the society, mostly, hate her?

When you think about it, society hates a woman who is human , who wants better for herself and those around her, who demands better treatment, who isn’t afraid to speak up when something doesn’t sit right with her, who breaks out of the social norms designed to pull her down, who thinks for herself and knows what’s good for her. A difficult woman, is an empowered woman.

“Women empowerment includes increasing a woman's sense of self-worth, her decision-making power, her access to opportunities and resources, her power and control over her own life inside and outside the home, and her ability to effect change” -Peace corps on gender equality and women’s empowerment

Catherine Conroy in her article titled "Are We All Difficult Women Now”? She wrote “as a woman, you do not have to go to great lengths to be called difficult. The bar is set low. Stick rigidly to an opinion, foster great ambition, question the status quo, call someone out on bad behavior and there you have it – now you are mouthy, feisty, emotional, thin-skinned”. They will say she is a bit too much or she is something else if they are trying to be nice or subtle, but it all means the same thing, she is difficult.

If you don’t care too much what people think, you risk being called a difficult woman because you’re not staying in your lane or doing what is expected of you-Simon Worrall

Some men hate an empowered woman so much that they stop their wives from working or furthering their education, force them to stop interacting with their friends and sometimes resort to exalting physical force as an attempt to break them or mold them into something they want them to be.

You have heard how some men vow to never marry an educated woman, they would rather marry uneducated woman, because they know that an educated and economically empowered woman is a dangerous woman. It would take a lot of work to tame her and the probability of succeeding is very low.

Sometimes, difficult women are called bad names like whore or Satanist if they are doing well independently because society cannot phantom the fact that women exist and can exist on their own. These difficult women go against what society has taught men and women that a woman cannot function without a man, that a woman is nothing without a man.

One known fact about a difficult woman is that she empowers other women, through her choices, her decisions, she recruits other women to join her in a band of difficult women. Society doesn’t have to break a woman for her to show how strong she is, a woman can be strong or not without having to be broken first.

Don’t be another woman bringing another woman down, let us empower each other. An empowered woman doesn’t bring down another woman for whatever reason.

Here is to difficult women, may we be them, may we know them, may we raise them!