Matthew Gates https://mylifeasawomanproject.com 4m 902 #mylifeasawoman
The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
Keep The Network Going
On May 5, 2020, I started a project on Fiverr for this website, in which I often come up with a project each year just for fun. This year, I was going to collect COVID-19 stories, and then it all changed. On Fiverr, I realized the access I had to so many women, and I wondered, if I could contact every woman in the world, what would she have to say? And after contacting over 1500 women, 530 responded with a yes, give or take about 5 women who said yes, but returned an article that I could not decipher or use within the project itself.
The journey was long and tedious, but it was fun. Most of what I write here won’t cover half of the amazement of how this project even came to be, the My Life As A Woman Project Initiative. I want to say it was all glamour and glory, but Murphy’s Law must always come into play. I had my payment methods (credit cards) frozen, I had run into a scammer, and I was even banned from the very platform that made this project possible.
Whatever the case, it was like an unseen force wanted this project to happen. The objective was clear to me: get a story from a woman in every country around the world. Ask them if they know anyone from countries you still need. And keep the network going. Perhaps, I had COVID-19 and the fact that many people were unemployed, looking for work, and hopped on Fiverr, hoping to find work.
I didn’t actually filter these women by “newest only” or anything like that. They were all chosen at random to join Noah Matt’s Ark. The significance of obtaining the stories should be substantial in itself and hopefully the world will understand the message of these women by reading it from the women themselves. The text was translated into or preserved completely in English, as it is one of the universal languages.
These women had the writing assignment of explaining what their lives were about, how they grew up with their families, how their government treats them, their ambitions, failures, and successes. In addition, the women were asked what advice they may have for other women in every country. After all was said and done, I managed to retrieve a at least one story from a woman in every country on the planet Earth. Writing the task now seems very tedious and I do not think I could even muster up the energy to do it again, but when I did, it was the only thing that was on my mind.
Obtaining a story and even hiring translators for the women who were more content and comfortable writing in their own language. Where I could, I urged the women to write in English and even offered to work with her to get her story straight. Several stories did require this, as some women became so emotional writing their stories, that I could not make full sense of everything they were writing about, so I did have to go back and forth with each woman.
My Life As A Woman: World Edition is a book containing hundreds to thousands of hours, about four months of sleepless nights, negotiating deals, and trying to find any woman from a country I had not obtained, to retrieve her story, and ensuring that it was delivered in English, covered the guidelines asked of her, and made complete sense. While I did have a team of about 34 men and women to help me, with two women even helping me to do some proofreading, the majority of the work fell on me, but it was finished.
At first, the project was only supposed to be published on this website. However, during several mishaps including data loss from this website, I decided to permanently make it into something that could never be lost, forgotten, misplaced, or even destroyed to the point where it could never exist. Having turned it into a Kindle book and then eventually a Paperback was something that was very necessary and while I still have to do the work of the marketing, the actual stories are completed.
While nearly 50 books have been printed and currently exist, including 8 books I shipped to the island of Niue, after an agreement for a bulk order to save shipping costs, near New Zealand, there is still so much more work to do to get the stories out there. Just what might so many women have to say and how could it possibly be important? Honestly, while many stories reflect the adventure and journey of many women, all aged from 17 to 90 years old, many of them have a lot of wisdom and advice to give to you, in hopes that in reflecting on their own lives, they may be able to help you in yours.
Please enjoy the My Life As A Woman: World Edition book and own your copy of history today. There is nothing more I can say to get you to just read and absorb this useful information. The stories will last you and your children for a lifetime of entertainment. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I enjoyed putting it together for you. May you experience that magic that I felt when I was personally speaking to and obtaining the stories from all these women.
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