"Being A Woman In 2020": Meet Brittini Hines

Womanhood alone is complex and encompasses so many things, from nurture and care to success and independence. Our society thrives on labeling people and drawing boxes around the idea of what they are supposed to be. Women have been working for decades to break those walls and change the narrative around what it means to be a woman. (Hats off to all the women who came before me.) Fast forward to 2020 and the new challenges that arise each month. Couple the changing external circumstances with the internal struggles women face daily, and you should all be shocked there are so many of us gracefully securing bags and maintaining households. With this understanding, I want to talk to you about challenges I’ve personally faced as a blossoming young woman as well as the empowering things I embrace about my own womanhood.

I have the pleasure of being a 24-year-old millennial who gets to explore life through experiences and reality, but also with a strong digital presence. Which means although I haven’t been on this womanhood journey long, I have learned to navigate it with a certain level of caution because my mistakes have the potential to haunt me on black twitter for some time. This pressure alone changes the way I interact and cultivate the relationships in my life. I personally believe one of the hardest challenges women face in 2020 is pressure. In the words of the Queen herself, “I woke up like this, I woke up like this, I’m flawless.” In my experience, many women wake up and aspire to be just that, flawless. You are constantly trying to be the good Christian, the compassionate girlfriend, the supportive daughter, the gracious friend, the life of the party, and if you have kids the thriving mother. That doesn’t scratch the surface for the young woman in college who is designing her future, it doesn’t even give justice to the corporate business woman who is running circles around that office and still be treated less than and it surely doesn’t pour enough into the retired woman who is trying to spread her wisdom while also not losing herself.

As I close, I want to give you a few of my favorite things about being a woman in 2020. The most prominent is my independence and ability to choose each and everyday who I want to be. I have within my power to be a whole boss, big or little. I decide who is worthy of my love and affection. I get to choose who and what gets my energy. Being a woman in 2020 is liberating me to make my own choices. We as women can be what we want, there is no glass ceiling. My next favorite would be the natural nature we have to nurture those in our circle. I love embracing the gentleness of being a woman because I have found in those moments of softness, we possess so much strength. So, as we walk these streets, with or without a mask, I challenge every woman to be your own force of nature. Embrace your power and take back your choices, no one can paint you into a corner you didn’t give the brush to.

For Daily Motivation

© 2020 by John Patrick Adams