Last week the majority of the freshman who are studying business were frantically studying and pulling all-nighters in order to succeed on Wednesday’s Econ 2005 Exam. Unfortunately, I was one of those freshman stress eating and needing caffeine in IV form. While at the library one of my male classmates and I were finishing up studying and discussing our majors and what we hoped to do with them. After he had already insulted many of the majors in Pamplin he covered it up with “Oh, I hope you aren’t any of those majors, but there are some joke ones”. My stunned self hesitated too long in order to have a good comeback before he informed me that I would just end up as a “trophy wife, or something” since my marketing major was not finance, accounting or BIT which are the highest paid majors coming out of Pamplin.
I wonder if I was a guy if he would have told me I would be a stay at home dad, or basically tell me my education would result in me not doing anything with my life. I have a huge amount of respect for stay at home parents, my own mother was one until my brother and I were older and no longer needed her assistance as much as before. If in the future my life allows me to be able to stay home with my children then wonderful, who is to judge a woman for making that decision? Being a mother is a full time job in itself. So thank you moms, and especially mine because I would not be where I am today if not for your unwavering love and support.
Here is my very late and lengthy comeback to my male classmate. As women we can do anything and no one should tell us what our future holds or undermine something that we might choose to pursue. There are plenty of powerful and successful women in the business world. To name a few from Forbes Magazine’s article, “The World’s 20 Most Powerful Women In Business”, listed at #1 is Sheryl Sandberg who worked with Facebook for four years as COO, #2 Indra Nooyi who is the CEO and chair of PepsiCo, #3 Irene Rosenfeld who is the CEO and chairman of Kraft, and finally at #4 is Virginia Rometty who was made CEO at IBM making her the first woman ever to lead the century-old tech powerhouse with more than $100 billion in revenue. These women are proof that we have a voice and have the power to break down barriers.
My favorite example is the CEO of Barstool Sports, Erika Nardini. Business Insider wrote an article about her and how she, “beat out 74 men to land her dream job”. I bring up this story because she did not have a fancy major, she worked hard and followed her heart and passions. After graduating with Sociology and Philosophy degrees Nardini moved around from AOL, Fidelity Investments and Microsoft. The article states that Nardini questioned whether she should have focused on stats and econ in school instead but realized that was not for her. Nardini was driven and her passion is what brought her to Barstool, a blogging site whose slogans include “By the common man, for the common man” and “Saturdays Are For The Boys”. Nardini got this job because she was the right person for it, she worked hard and knew what she was good at. Now she is the CEO of an extremely popular and continuously growing media outlet.
In conclusion, women have an unlimited amount of possibilities. Let’s be real, it’s 2018 and if a woman wants to have a career she’ll do it, if she wants to be a stay at home mom she’ll do it, and if she wants to do both you can bet she will work endlessly to make it happen.
Images Sources: