This is a man’s world, this is a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl

Oh, you know the lyrics to that classic James Brown song “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World” released in 1986 when I was just six years old. It has been heard in movies and commercials for decades but I think we are just now getting to the point of understanding the power a woman has especially when it comes to business. In 2019 the United States had 12.3 million women-owned businesses.

That is just a few hundred thousand people shy of the population of my home state of Pennsylvania. Of those businesses that were started, 64% of them were started by women of color. That percentage includes everything from Spas to law offices with so many other great businesses in between.

(https://www.fundera.com/resources/women-owned-business-statistics)

With women launching and owning more businesses we change communities, families and the flow of money. Women business owners are using social media to fuel conversations and impact social change in many ways. From feeding the homeless to assisting college students, entrepreneurship provides an avenue for women to go back and grab the hand of another.

Travel back in time with me for a moment.

I think back to my mother and my two God-mothers working at Fabrics to Fashions on Broad Street in Philadelphia. It was during a recent conversation with a childhood friend that I realized…Oh wow, my mom was an entrepreneur. There was never really a discussion about it or any label put on it but that is who they were. Running a fabric store, designing and creating clothes…heck I could have had the original Baby Phat line. Well, that may be taking it a bit far but you get the drift.

Was it easy for them? NO

Were they making it work? HECK YEAH!

Little did I know, they were giving me a vision of what it meant to have my voice heard. They were showing me the power of a woman who stands in her gifts and uses them to build. I don’t know what happened to the store but I watched throughout the years as each of the ladies went on to raise their families and create their own path. That visual stuck with me a lot more than I realized.

Fast forward to 2020 and I see women making this same impact in their home and outside of the home. I didn’t want to be biased so I asked a few women why they believed it was important to have the woman’s voice heard in 2020. The responses were amazing.

Check out why these women in business believe that women’s voices are needed in 2020.

Women need to have their voices heard so that the younger generation has positive female role models to look up to. It is also important for women to have their voices heard so that other women know they are not alone in the battles they are facing

Ashleigh Dixon

LinkedIn 

A woman’s voice needs to be heard because it makes us feel valuable, confident, and strong. I feel like the media always portrays women as not being strong enough to be in any type of leadership position. We are often paid less than we deserve for the same jobs that men get paid so much more for. I think 2020 should be the year of women taking stands and owning whatever it is that they chose to do in their careers. We have to demand the respect we so very much deserve.

Teeynesha Johnson

IG: @sweetdreams_financial
Facebook: Teeynesha Johnson
Linkedin: Teeynesha Johnson

A woman’s voice should be heard because the creator would not have to give her one if it wasn’t intended for her to use it to be heard. With all that we women endure, sacrifice, suffer through, rise above, accomplish, establish, change, face, conquer, accept, understand, learn, and have earned, why stay silent. Our voices reflect our strength and can tell a story that may change and inspire the lives of so many other women. If we would only do with our voice what the creator intended for us to, and that is using our voices to be heard.

Natasha Taylor

editRehabBP

It’s very important that women feel safe and their feelings are validated for a multitude of reasons. The most important one is it helps to confirm and solidify who they are. By providing a place for women to develop who they are so they can practice using their voices by giving life to their thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Often times a lot of women don’t feel this type of stability and it results in others defining their voices for them and these ladies can begin to feel invisible. When this happens they begin to die internally. Their hopes and dreams never materializing which could lead to the tribe of people God assigned to them never benefit from the sound of their voice igniting the fire inside of them.

Tanya DuBose- Smith

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