My Sister / By: Christoffer Nyman

I’m now going to explain what my sister Manny Mattson feels about being a woman. My sister is a very strong person and has faced a lot of challenging situations that might have been easier to complete if being a man. But being a woman has never scared my sister and she has always accomplished her goals.

What does being a woman mean to you?

Being a woman is both easy and difficult, depending on which age you’re in. you have a whole different safety, authority, and self-esteem when you’re forty-five, compared to being in your thirties. At that age you’re most likely getting birth to your kids and that just take the time it does. Unfortunately, a lot of women take over almost all that responsibility, just because it kind of “should be like that”. That means that they have to wait with doing anything else that they want to do in life. It’s hard for me to explain what it truly means of being a woman, but for me it’s all about that it shouldn’t be any difference of being a man. I should have the same rights as a man, and the same salary for the same job as a man. However, there is a physical difference. Many feminists’ draws that line straight and I find that really ridiculous. I can not work in a mine, just because I don’t have the right muscular strengths for it. We can not continue carry on with equality without knowing this. Many feminists actually forget that.

Tell me of an event that challenged you as a woman?

Describe anything that has challenged me? Yes, that’s a lot. Within my work I have no great ambition for taking over any manager position (I have already turned that down twice). It’s more important for me to have god, flexible times and great colleagues. My leisure time is more important.
My big interest is handball, which controls my leisure time and it’s there I put all my time and strength. The challenge of being a woman in one of the greatest sports in Sweden has of course being hard.
I always put up new goals and I will never quit until I have managed them all. I had, for example, decided to take my team to the Swedish Championship final, which I did. When I said yes to take over the district team, I wanted to win the whole Swedish Cup, which we did. Both of the time there has been surprised men around me saying “well done, it can’t be easy doing this job being a woman and all”. That’s not the best thing telling me! But even if I don’t like hearing that it leads me to become more definite to stamp on the men’s territory. I was asked several times if I wanted to be a part of the board of directors for the handball club, before I finally said yes, three years ago. I worked in that committee for two years and started to understood that if I wanted to continue working here, I need to take over the chairman position, so that I can get the club in the direction I want it.. This I did one year ago. I would say that everything is possible if you really want it. You just need to find the courage to stand up and don’t let anyone drive over you. It’s wonderful to be a woman; because it’s almost all the time men you’re going to challenge and that is fun. Feminism is good as long as it doesn’t go exaggeration. Equality is a matter of course.