Why the world needs more Strong Women, and less Hard Women.

Strength is such a broad and often generic word. He is so strong, she is so strong. Are you talking about a body builder or a cancer survivor? Are you talking about the kid who lost half of his leg, or the sexual abuse victim? Is it mental, is it physical, is it emotional?

I was thinking this morning on my drive to work about some of the women in my life. I've been blessed with a huge pool of female role models, from family members, to supervisors, to coworkers and friends. So many of these women have incredibly admirable qualities, one of the biggest of the bunch is their strength. I've also seen some women who take strength to a whole new zip code. They want to be strong so they become hard. They become unapproachable, cynical, and straight up rude. They go from women who have endured, to women who have calloused.

So, with two words that can sometimes be so similar and sometimes be so opposite, I decided to ask some of my loyal readers what they thought were the differences between hard women and strong women. Of course they didn't disappoint...

Well I feel like a strong woman knows when she is in a vulnerable position and can learn from that experience in order to become stronger or gain strength. A hard woman, I feel, is someone who is not emotionally stable. Someone who puts on a facade of "Im too tough to cry even though I feel like my whole world is crumbling"- Gal, 24

The difference is the way they deal with difficult times and how many of those times they've had to deal with. - Guy, 26

A hard woman to me means cynical, cold, unfeeling. She lets the things in her life build walls around her heart. Strong women still have feelings. They let themselves feel things but they are mature enough to see what they can gain or learn from really tough experiences. - Gal, 25

First off let me say, a strong woman is very sexy. I'm not entirely sure why, but watching a woman confidently -not like a psycho though- put a man in his place cracks me up (insert shit eating grin here). She's classy, very smart, works her tail off. Plus she will rock the bedroom because, well, she knows her man wants it but will make him work for it, otherwise it wouldn't be a challenge. Hard women? To me that sounds like an old landlord of mine. Crazy ass "strong willed independent woman." Asks her husband to do things, then tears him a new one just to do it.Always in control. She's probably incredibly self conscious so she built walls and acted tough, then got angry when those walls kept people out. Strong women are legit, they are true. There isn't a whole made up story or layer of BS to cover up mistakes or heartbreaks. It's awesome. I think it's the confidence and the ability to realize a mistake is just a learning experience. - Guy, 24

So the general consensus is that strong women still feel. Hard women are flat liners.

To be honest, I expected people to interpret the strong woman vs. hard woman in terms of job-related qualities, but was surprised when the descriptions of the differences were personal characteristics. I thought  it was interesting that the four people I asked ALL addressed the question from a place of conflict. This question had no background info attached, so for all four individuals to relate it to how women react in conflict was fascinating to me.

I think it is SO important to encourage women to be strong without being hard. I know far too many millennial women (and women of other generations as well) who are heading down what I believe to be the unhealthier of the strong vs. hard decision. They get their hearts broken, they find conflict in work, or they give up on something and say "I will never let this happen again," when a strong women would say, "how can I learn from this?" By closing yourself off to opportunities because of a bad experience, how will you ever grow?! So you had a crappy boss... The whole industry isn't out to get you. You fell in love and it didn't work out? You're not going to die alone. You gave up on a dream? There's still time.... go get it.

Strong women have so much to offer. They are compassionate but stern. Driven but not obsessed. They are vulnerable but they also know when the pity party is over. A strong woman is aware of her self, but she is also aware of how she treats others. A strong woman teaches, a hard woman dictates. A strong woman strives to understand, a hard woman points the finger. If we become a generation of women that become too hard, we will lose sight of our resilient strength.

Even if you're not a woman reading this, it's important to encourage the women in your life to stay away from the callousness and lean toward the understanding. Learn from your experiences. Let them shape you but not change you. I love the quote by Michelangelo, "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it." This is the perfect analogy for staying strong without becoming hard. You have to make small adjustments in little pieces, but you don't change the material. You don't change yourself, you change the final product.