What’s a challenge you overcame?

Jazz | Rotorua

Throughout her career Jazz has constantly had her ability doubted because of her sex. 

“Sometimes I do get tired of having to just do that little bit more to prove myself, that little bit more because of my gender. It can be annoying.

I’ve worked in quite a lot of male-dominated industries and still do. So the sexism or the idea that some of the men I work with have in their minds about women and what we’re capable of, it’s probably an obstacle that I still continue to face, but yeah, I don’t think it holds me back.

And I think that sometimes if you just go about it, not pick every battle and beat your chest, but just quietly get on with it and show that you can do it just by doing it, then that changes people’s perspectives of females in whichever job you’re in. Not to say that can’t be challenging in its own right, but sometimes I think it is the best way to go about it.

I think that my daughter probably has a pretty good example of someone who refuses to let gender define what you can and can’t do. Anyway, I don’t know if she’ll even take the same path. I’ve never been very feminine, so I think I was probably always more naturally drawn to like jobs where you’re just out there doing stuff, working hard, that type of thing all the time. She may not be the same way, but she definitely has a very loud voice in what she does or doesn’t think is right. So if I could give her one thing, it’s just that if she finds herself slighted or doesn’t think that something is right, to speak up.

Because as well as that, once you do speak up, you realise how many other people feel the same way.”