Women Building What Comes Next
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
Women’s History Month Reflection from Kamatara, Executive Director of Circles USA
This Women’s History Month, I find myself thinking less about headlines and more about the women I meet every day through Circles, at the national office and across our local communities, from staff to volunteers, from Circle Leaders to board members.
Women who carry more than their share. Women who get up before dawn, work full shifts, help with homework, stretch groceries, make impossible math work, and still show up for their children with love. Women who refuse to quit.
The largest demographic Circles serves is single mothers. And the data tells a story that is as sobering as it is clarifying.
In the United States, women experience poverty at higher rates than men. Worse yet, in 2024, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reported “clear gender differences among single-parent households living below the poverty threshold.” In their FRED blog, the Fed wrote that single moms are twice as likely to experience poverty compared with single dads, adding that the discrepancy can be explained “by gender gaps in labor force participation rates, occupations and income, and sharing of childcare responsibilities.” [Source] For BIPOC single mothers, those numbers are even higher: A 2023 Annie E. Casey Foundation study showed that the highest U.S. rates of poverty “generally occur for the youngest children — under age 5 — kids in single-mother families, children of color, and kids in immigrant families.’ [Source]
But these are not abstract statistics.
These are women navigating systems that often assume two incomes, two adults, and a margin of financial stability that many families simply do not have. Women carrying the full weight of financial provision and caregiving—without the cushion of a second income, without inherited wealth, and often without the societal advantages others may experience. Too often, they are judged without their full story being understood.
And yet, what strikes me most is not the hardship. It is the perseverance.
At Circles, I see women who are building plans. Taking classes. Strengthening credit. Negotiating new jobs. Setting goals to leave poverty behind for good. Creating stability for their children that they themselves may never have experienced.
When surrounded by community, by people who believe in them and stand beside them, single moms can take back authorship of their lives. And in doing so, they are building something larger than personal success. They are building sustainable futures for their families and communities.
This year’s Women’s History Month theme, Leading the Change: Women Shaping a Sustainable Future, recognizes women who are investing in change—not only environmental, but economical and social as well. Sustainability, in its deepest sense, means building systems that can endure across generations.
I see that work happening every day in Circles. It happens when a mother studies after her children are asleep so she can move into a career. It happens when she makes a budget and manages to put money—for the first time, perhaps—into an emergency fund. It happens when she builds social capital by reaching out to her neighbor about carpooling rides to daycare or to a coworker when she needs a reference for a life-changing job application. It happens when communities surround all parents, including single ones,with the relationships and support needed to thrive. These are quiet acts of leadership, but they are powerful ones.
Inspired by the women of Circles, the past five years of my own life have also been about taking back ownership of my life. Like many women, I had internalized expectations to over-perform, to hold everything together, to need to justify [or apologize for] rest, and to be everything to everyone. During my recent sabbatical, I confronted how deeply those expectations had shaped me. I realized how often women are expected to sustain families, careers, and communities, while rarely being encouraged to sustain themselves.
Coming through that season changed me. I learned that self-erasure is not perseverance. Strength does not require silence. And community is not a luxury—it is oxygen.
The women of Circles across the country embody this truth every day. They are not defined by poverty or hardship. They are defined by courage, agency, and a fierce commitment to building better futures for their children.
In many ways, they are doing the work of sustainability at its most fundamental level: strengthening families, stabilizing communities, and rewriting generational narratives.
Women’s History Month often celebrates pioneers and public figures. This year, I want to honor another kind of history-making woman:
The single mother who remembers to ask a neighbor or sibling for help when the weight of it all feels too heavy to carry alone.
The mother who shows up to a parent-teacher conference after a long shift because her child’s education matters.
The working mom who asks for the promotion, the training, or the opportunity—even when self-doubt whispers that she shouldn’t.
The mother who lets her children see both her strength and her vulnerability.
History is not only written in legislatures or boardrooms or big marches. It is written at kitchen tables and in community college classrooms, urgent care waiting rooms, and 12-step meetings.
If we truly believe in thriving communities and lasting opportunity, then we must invest in the mothers already holding so much together while pouring constant care and service into their homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods. That might look like supporting legislation that gives more parents paid family medical leave, affordable childcare, or SNAP benefits. It might look like employers familiarizing themselves with how the Cliff Effect endangers single parent families; the many obstacles women face when returning to the workforce after raising kids; or just how far a single mom’s median annual income of $40,000 stretches at the grocery store [Source].
At Circles, we support single mothers because we know that when women rise, families stabilize; and when families stabilize, communities grow stronger for generations.
This month, I am grateful—for the women who came before us, for the women beside us, and especially for the women in Circles who remind me every day what dignity under pressure looks like.
They are not backing down from the challenges of poverty or parenthood. They are building what comes next. And in their ongoing determination, they are helping shape a more sustainable future for us all.
Building Community to End Poverty for 25+ Years
