On September 19, the second annual Women: Inspiration and Enterprise Symposium was held in New York, at 82 Mercer in the city’s SoHo neighborhood. Hosted by icons Donna Karan, Arianna Huffington and Sarah Brown, the goal of the symposium is to empower and inspire women to make change in their communities and in themselves.
In several sessions, like “Getting Women off the Sidelines in Business and Public Life – Affecting Real Change” and “The Future of Girls’ Education,” women at the tops of their fields—finance, human rights, fashion, media, you name it—discussed their experiences and what women can do to forge their own experiences within their own fields.
Last year I had the pleasure of attending the conference when the Her Campus Founders were speaking on a panel of young entrepreneurs. I remembered insightful speeches, calls to action, women who were as bold as they were beautiful. It was something I had been proud to be a part of and was happy to return.
There was one panel discussion this time in which I was particularly interested: “What It Means to Be a Woman.” I have been struggling with this concept for a while, curious as to what people think makes women tick versus what actually makes them tick. In magazines touting the latest ways to please your man or get the perfect pout, I lose all sense of pride in my sex. ‘Is that what you have been reduced to?’ I ask. I worry that the beauty of being a woman has been drowning in stereotypes, and that we might never be able to recover it.
However, at the discussion, a group of women—Alina Cho, national correspondent for CNN; Laura Brown, Special Projects Editor of Harper’s Bazaar; Mikki Taylor, Editor at Large for Essence magazine; Reshma Saujani, Deputy Advocate for Special Initiatives at the New York City Office of the Public Advocate, and actress Yaya Da Costa Johnson—moderated by WIE co-founder Dee Poku gave answers that spoke to a different point of view. One of the answers I most liked was that being a woman has a built-in compassion with it that we need to share with each other, and use to raise each other up, because it’s not something we do often enough. It’s very important to have mentors to expand your reach, yes, but it’s also important to have female friends to expand your depth. Helping other women is the difference between making money and creating wealth.
On days like these at the Women: Inspiration and Enterprise Symposium, I feel my faith in women, and even myself, rejuvenated. I am surrounded by what was several times called ‘a tribe’ of women not only seeking change and making plans to have it. There are women honored for making great strides in improving the lives of other women, like the elegant Zainab Salbi, founder of Women for Women International, an organization that helps female survivors of war move toward economic self-suffiency; there are women who are highly successful entrepreneurs like Eva Ho, co-founder of Applied Semantics and Factual.com. These are not women who have sat back and allowed life to happen. Their mere presence is inspiring.
A particularly inspiring session was called “Fearlessness: A Bold Vision for the Next Generation of Women in Media,” where Christina Norman, Executive Editor of The Huffington Post’s BlackVoices moderated a discussion with panelists Hilary Rosen, CNN Contributor and communications specialist; Hanna Rosin of The Atlantic magazine and the Founder/Co-editor of Slate’s DoubleX; Pat Mitchell, President and CEO of the Paley Center for Media; and Lori Leibovich, Executive Women’s Editor of the Huffington Post. They talked about the state of women in the media world, how our sex no longer defines us as much as it used to in terms of what we can and cannot accomplish, jobs we can or cannot hold. I realize how much this resonates in my own life, where I rarely, if ever, think of limits in terms of my sex. I know it wasn’t always like that, and I know I have women like them to thank for that.
After this panel, I take a caffeine break and head downstairs. I begin talking with another young woman, who is contemplating a career change. How do we get what we want, and do we have to compromise? we ask each other. How do we give back when we have trouble giving to ourselves? As we talk, I have another revelation—this is the purpose of the conference: to get us talking, to get us interacting with one another as a means to make change, in ourselves or in the world. Discussion is the catalyst for change.
So it happened, for the second year in a row, that I left WIE utterly inspired. I only hope I’ll be able to attend again next year.