Ordinary Women's Voices

In 2004, I started researching the ways that women thought and felt about themselves. In the beginning, I was just curious. I knew what I thought and felt – and that was a little scary – but, I had no idea how other women felt about being and belonging in the world. I wanted to know how they felt about being in relationships. I wanted to know how they acted and reacted to their husbands or their lovers. I wanted to know how they felt about work. I wanted to know what they did when they were lonely, how they pushed themselves when they felt they couldn’t do another thing. I wanted to know who they cried to or who they rejoiced with. So I began asking them – officially – on the record. Over the course of six months, I interviewed 20 different women. I asked them to describe something of importance in their lives – no leading questions, no preconceptions. The only thing that they were told was that I was researching women’s lives. Oh, I thought it would be so easy. I thought what they would tell me could be fit into nice little boxes and I would write it up and turn it in. Dissertation done – by the distanced researcher. Ha! Well, I can tell you what I found and it is not all that surprising. Women want to be heard. Not just the sound of their voice, but the depth of their words. But it was through the sounds of their voice that I heard the depths of their words. The voices of those first 20 women changed me – forever.