“Let Your Voice Be Heard
‘It bothers me when people say to make it to the top of the tree you have to give up a family.’
‘Fight for the things that you care about But do it in a way that will lead others to join you.’
‘Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.’
—Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
It took five years to write my memoir, A Woman’s Voice Should Be Heard: My Journey from the Convent to the Battle for Women’s Equality. When I first got all the information down, chapter by chapter, after a year, I felt it was a boring autobiography. Who would want to read it?
People had frequently asked me why I joined the convent or why I left it. I thought I knew why I left, but my only answer to why I joined was that God called me. In rereading what I had written, I recognized that there was no glue that held that first bio together.
Then it came to. My life was filled with strong women. From my maternal grandmother, my mother, and my mother’s sister, my Aunt Mary, to my fellow women students in graduate school at the University of Notre Dame, and my mentors in my business life, these women taught me through their example to make sure my voice was heard. I hope that this memoir is a tribute to them.
Writing about myself in the first person reflects a selfishness that I was taught to avoid my whole life. I had to overcome this message from my childhood. Memoirs are the history of an individual that deserve to be read. Histories of women pale in comparison to those of male characters. Stories of the battles for women equality deserve to be heard as lessons from the past. And so I rewrote and rewrote.
I felt validated when Legacy Book Press, a woman-owned publishing company offered to publish the book. The stories of strong women fighting a culture of misogyny will be read now by women of all ages. It is my hope that it will inspire them to let their own voices to be heard. Today’s women’s rights are being attacked as strongly as they have been in the last fifty years since Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Betty Friedan began their crusade. The United States Supreme Court has dragged women back to the days of back alley abortions through the rejection of Roe vs. Wade. Women became objects of sexual abuse by politicians no less prominent than the President of the United States. Women are being degraded. They must not be ignored. I encourage women of all ages to have the courage to speak up: for their rights to protect the control over their own bodies; for their right for an equal position in their religions, Islamic, Christian and Catholic where they are second-class citizens; and for their career choices as mothers, managers, police officers, or writers.
I am excited that women and men are asking for the book. Many men are recognizing how important it is for the women in their lives to be heard especially their daughters and granddaughters. Thank you, gentlemen.
I am scheduled for signings and for talks and readings. I have a blog on my website where I will continue to let women’s voices be heard as well as my own. Go to aggiejordan.com for more input into what is happening with women today. You can buy the book on Amazon or on aggiejordan.com. You can also order a signed copy on my website. Speak out, let your voices be heard.”