uphill battle

plural uphill battles

1. idiomaticA highly difficult task or problem that requires a great amount of effort and determination.

   “It is an uphill battle,” said Dr. Uzma Syed, an infectious disease specialist in Jericho, N.Y., on Long Island, who for months has been giving vaccine education talks to national and international groups.

   2021 October 11, Jan Hoffman, quoting Uzma Syed, “Boosters Are Complicating Efforts to Persuade the Unvaccinated to Get Shots”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   1 more example

   I would argue that flight attendants had a greater uphill battle in establishing their job as a profession, experience more disorienting time and space patterns, juggle a larger number of sometimes conflicting roles, and have a greater sense of occupational identity than any other group of women workers.

   2007, Drew Whitelegg, Working the Skies, page 25