We have a duty to show up in the world with meaning and purpose and commitment to doing good. And to use any privilege that we have to make positive change and to disrupt oppressive systems.
Meena Harris
When you lift up black women, you lift up entire communities and the entire country.
I guess maybe my method is to take self-care where you can - even if it is something sort of small and it's not a whole routine. It's this idea of resetting, shutting down, stepping away.
Supporting the people in our businesses is what we need to be thinking about. It's a no-brainer. It improves leadership. It improves productivity. It cultivates this entrepreneurship concept and improves retention.
When male allies make space for women, they're not diminishing their own power. Rather, they're enhancing everyone's.
I think the point is that each of us, in our own unique ways, can make a contribution. You don't have to be a full time activist or even run for office. Start small, commit to it, and build on it.
It's a privilege to be able to take care of yourself and not have to be constantly on the treadmill.
This is the whole point of intersectionality - that it cannot only be a single-issue analysis of race and gender, and instead must consider the cumulative impact of various and simultaneous identities that compound the effects of discrimination.
In fact, when I began selling 'Phenomenal Woman' T-shirts on International Women's Day last year, the campaign was supposed to run just through March, for Women's History Month. At the time, I hoped to sell around 500, maybe 1,000 T-shirts in total. We ended up selling 2,500 T-shirts on the first day alone.
Something I've definitely learned from my aunt and my mom is that you've got to keep your eye on the ball. You have to realize that, in some instances, you may need to work twice as hard to get half as much, but you don't stop. You don't stop fighting.
I was taught the value of everyday activism and showing up by my grandma, who wasn't a public official, but was a breast cancer researcher and would mentor students of color in her lab at UC Berkley. She taught me when I was 4 years old what the word boycott meant.
But when we're helping children understand how people from different walks of life can coexist, prioritizing common ground too often obscures or erases uncommon experiences.
It's all too common that when we talk about diversity and inclusion, and gender equity in the workplace, it translates to just white women.
You have to train managers to encourage their teams to be entrepreneurial.
The idea is, we use our platform, community, brand recognition, and other methods to really raise awareness and inspire ordinary people to own bold, important social messages.
Mara Hoffman makes flowy dresses, and a lot of her stuff is geared towards swimwear, like cover ups, but they work well as house dresses, too.
Men can be effective allies by making space and amplifying the voices of women around them. When each of us is an ally in our own sphere of influence - when we embrace the fact that representation is everyone's responsibility, all of the time - we won't have to go to the movies to see a world that's free of toxic masculinity.
I mean, I've been kind of bad at self-care. I struggle with tying my self-care to being more effective and more productive. Especially as an entrepreneur, it's hard not to.
My partner, Nik, is a full-time dad and I am working on Phenomenal full time. Nik was in tech forever, but he decided to take some time to think about his next steps after we had our second child.
While a lot of the issues we raise awareness around are related, we want to use our platform to draw attention to the fact that the impact they have on different communities is often distinct.
We should want children to value difference. Preparing them for a more just world doesn't mean teaching them to aspire to purple. It means helping them learn to celebrate black.
We must continue to raise our voices until there is full accountability, including police reform, as well as justice for us all and not just a privileged few.
The reality is people are busy living their lives. People are taking their kids to school in the morning. People want to go to brunch on Saturdays. And that's OK.
I draw inspiration from people like Dwyane Wade, who I think has become such an incredible leader, especially around and for his daughter Zaya.
While celebrities with large online followings certainly help to spread a campaign message quickly, they don't make an entire movement. I was strategic in obtaining influencer participation, but I also was intentional in finding ways to mobilise organic grassroots support.
Encouraging individual firms to develop forward-leaning policies that address sexual harassment is necessary, but alone such prescriptions are insufficient.
As a consumer, I love nothing more than to find and support women-owned brands - and especially women of color-owned brands.
I know what sexual harassment looks like. I'm also a lawyer by training and am highly aware that these behaviors should have real consequences.
The name Phenomenal Woman was inspired by Maya Angelo, who wrote 'Phenomenal Woman', a favorite poem of mine.
Thinking like an entrepreneur means establishing a core audience of early adopters and constantly experimenting to make your product better and better. If your initial concept is showing promise and early success, keep iterating to refine and evolve your idea.
My grandmother actually was not a lawyer, but it feels like I was surrounded by lawyers.
At the most basic level, if men have institutional power, they have tremendous influence to change those institutions.
In the work I do through the Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, male allyship is a major priority, and we're constantly looking for ways to engage men.
In 2018, according to the Children's Cooperative Book Center at the University of Wisconsin's School of Education, fewer than a third of all children's and young adult books in the United States featured a person of color as a main character.
Like a lot of folks coming out of the 2016 election, I was feeling sort of desperate and helpless in terms of the outcome we were facing.
My grandmother was such an incredible example of living out everyday acts of resistance. I now realize not only how lucky I was to grow up in that environment, but also how unique that was.
I grew up surrounded by these strong, brilliant women who showed me what it meant to show up in the world with purpose and intention.
I always felt like I could participate at the adult table, but I also knew that if you're going to make an argument about something, you better have something good to say.
I think about the notion of progress; sometimes it does feel like two steps forward, one step back. And that just means you can't get complacent.
Kids deserve to be taken seriously. It's just as important to talk to them about women's equality, about fairness. We really have to focus on children early.
Based on census data from 2019, black women are only paid 61 cents to every dollar that a white man makes.
I never wear heels unless I have to, like if I'm speaking at a panel or going to a reception. I'm always in tennis shoes or flats, and I'm definitely someone who does high-low mixing, like wearing Adidas sandals with blazers.
I was lucky to have a bunch of really strong female role models in my family.
I never thought Phenomenal Woman would turn into something big, you know?
My work is myself. That's what makes me feel like I have purpose. It makes me happy and inspired and hopeful - as hard as it may be sometimes.
From the beginning, I conceptualised Phenomenal Woman as a social-impact initiative. I knew that the campaign wasn't really about a cool T-shirt, but rather using the T-shirt to benefit and amplify a cause.
I've always been a creative, entrepreneurial minded person, and I've always been inspired by other creatives, including fashion designers.
Working with different communities and organizations allows us to raise awareness in a nuanced and impactful way, while also giving us broad reach.
You have to give employees a lot of autonomy to think more creatively and out of the box. You need to hire people who are going to understand how to do this responsively and strategically.
One of the challenges mature companies face is evaluating performance and furthering the business.
