It can take years to find the courage to say what you really think. To speak up in a meeting, to disagree with someone you respect, or to tell people who you truly are. Melinda Gates, who has spent much of her life working to lift up women and girls around the world, believes that finding this kind of voice is one of the surest signs of strength. A woman with a voice, she says, is by definition a strong woman. But she is honest about the other half of the truth too. The search to find that voice can be remarkably difficult. Getting there is rarely simple, because so many quiet pressures push people, and women in particular, to stay silent. The quote holds both ideas at once, the strength and the struggle.
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