Daniela Negrette, Author at Creative Circle

Companies are now jumping on the sustainability bandwagon in troves — a trend that is expected to continue in 2021. According to a study done by Xerox, the number of American businesses with formal eco-sustainable programs in place is up 54%. Consumers are demanding green initiatives — and they have become hip to “greenwashing.” Cambridge Dictionary says greenwashing makes “people believe that your company is doing more to protect the environment than it really is.” Misleading people has layered consequences — it doesn’t further sustainable design or the circular economy, environmental problems stay the same (or worsen), and it misdirects well-intentioned consumers down the wrong path.

Research shows that most consumers (of all ages) believe it is vital for companies to implement sustainability programs, according to Nielsen. And they are beginning to demand green initiatives.

There’s new motivation to get into the green groove. Companies shied away from sustainability in the past, partly because the return on investment was difficult to quantify. For years, brand managers complained that consumers said they would buy eco products but did not actually put their money where they said they would. And this was used as justification for not making moves towards greater sustainability.

But a recent study by NYU’s Stern Center for Sustainable Business looked at sales of sustainable products from 2013 to 2018 and found that this is not true. In more than 90% of CPG categories, products marketed as sustainable grew faster than their conventional counterparts, accounting for 16% of the market in 2018, up from 14.3% in 2013, or about $114 billion in sales. And about 50% of CPG growth in that timeframe came from sustainability-marketed products. The tide has begun to turn: Consumers are increasingly voting with their dollars (and euros, yen, and more) against “unsustainable” brands.

In honor of Earth Day, let’s take a look at six companies making BIG things happen with their sustainability initiatives.

Hermès

French luxury house Hermès unveiled a new luxury vegan leather that will be used to craft some of its storied accessories. Partnering with California-based start-up MycoWorks, they developed a sustainable leather alternative made from…mushrooms! The fungi-derived material, known as Sylvania, is on the vanguard of a new generation of biotech materials. It will make its debut on an eco-friendly version of Hermès’ classic Victoria bag.

Three years in the making, Sylvania is fashioned from MycoWork’s patented Fine Mycellium technology. To produce the material, the company grows mycelium — the vegetative part of fungus that consists of fine white filaments — in a way that emulates leather by creating an interlocking cellular structure that gives the material the strength and durability of cow skin. Sylvania will be produced in MycoWork’s California facility, then shipped to the Hermès ateliers in France, where artisans will tan and finish the mushroom-based leather before crafting it into sought-after luxury goods. The inaugural Sylvania Victoria bag is slated to hit stores by the end of the year.

Apple

The tech giant’s operations run on entirely renewable energy — and everything about its products, from raw materials to packaging, is designed to have minimal environmental impact. The production assembly sites for Apple products are certified as Zero Waste to Landfill, and the company has decreased average product energy use by 70% in the last ten years. Apple’s supply partners have banded together with the company and have worked together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 466,000 metric tons — equal to 100,000 cars being off the road for an entire year. All of which is significant, but the company’s sustainability measures go beyond mindfulness in the production process. Here’s why this matters: in 2016, 49 million tons of electronics waste was thrown away worldwide — roughly the equivalent of 4,500 Eiffel Towers. And by 2021, that number will grow to more than 57 million tons.

In the United States alone, consumers get rid of millions of pounds of tech products every year, but only 20% of that is properly recycled. The other 80% ends up clogging landfills and leaching toxic chemicals and waste, which is why Apple is also invested in its robust recycling program, which compensates consumers for trading in their old devices. These efforts can (and will) substantially lessen the number of tech products in landfills and the overall environmental footprint of the industry at large.

Capsula Mondi

Your carbon footprint doesn’t rest in peace when you R.I.P.

Cemeteries are a grave business indeed, beyond what lies six feet under. Every year, four million acres of hardwood forest are cut down for the production of caskets, and the wood, synthetic cushioning, and metal used in hermetically-sealed traditional coffins, along with the concrete around reinforced graves, continues to litter the land. Add to this that cemetery lawns are synthetically fertilized and perpetually being watered and the idea of returning to the earth quickly evaporates.

But two Italian artists, Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel, have envisioned another way — the Capsula Mundi. This egg-shaped, organic burial pod allows your body to become the “seed” of a new tree when you die. The deceased’s body is placed into the biodegradable pod in a fetal position and is then buried. A tree, or the seed of a tree, is planted above — the person being buried can choose what kind of tree they want planted before they pass. The pod germinates and grows into a tree, a living memorial to the person that has passed — a much more beautiful, ecologically minded tribute than a concrete slab. Citelli and Bretzel hope that their organic pods will transform the grey stone landscape of cemeteries into verdant memorial forests of the future one day.

Adidas

The future of footwear is here — say hello to the Adidas Futurecraft Loop. As one of the first consumer products designed for a circular lifecycle, this experimental shoe could be the start of a major shift in how Adidas does business.

In 2015, the sportswear juggernaut partnered with Parley for Oceans, an environmental organization, to turn marine pollution into footwear with these 100% recyclable performance running shoes. Once worn out, these sneakers can be returned to Adidas, which will reuse the materials to manufacture a new pair. In 2019 they produced 11 million pairs of kicks with upcycled ocean plastic, intercepting plastic waste on beaches, remote islands, and coastal communities. Consider that the apparel industry is the second-largest polluter in the world, the Futurecraft Loop represents a giant leap toward truly sustainable fashion.

“When you wear out this product, you give it back to us. And we recycle it,” shared Tanyaradzwa Sahanga, materials engineer at Adidas. “We can take that recycled output, those ground bits of shoe, and put them into new shoes again.” No, the Loop process is not 1:1 yet — one old shoe does not yet equal one new one, but Adidas hopes to reach the ideal of 1:1 product circularity in the coming years.

The broader commercial release is targeted for summer 2021 — the first running shoe made to be re-made!

Walmart

Until 2005, Walmart was the archetypal BIG corporation: 6,600 stores, 1.8 million employees, $312 billion of revenue — and a lousy sustainability record. In terms of environmental impact, Walmart used more electricity than Namibia and its truck fleet, the second largest in the country, traveled one billion miles a year. The company’s outsize environmental impact had not gone unnoticed — up to 8% of former shoppers had stopped shopping at the store. But in 2005, the CEO, Lee Scott, announced an ambitious plan to recraft Walmart as a sustainable business. Lee hoped that in joining the fight against climate change, he could make smart, eco-friendly decisions that also made economic sense.

The first thing Walmart did was cut fuel usage for its truck fleet to lower carbon emissions and fuel costs. By 2015, Walmart had overshot its goal of eliminating 20 million metric tons of greenhouse emissions. Instead, it eliminated 28.2 million metric tons — the equivalent of taking 5.9 million cars off the road, saving the company over $1 billion each year.

Sixteen years later, Walmart is a sustainability leader in the retail space. It is the lead company in the United States for on-site solar capacity and installations. 29% of its operations are powered by renewable energy, including wind and solar, 80% of waste materials are diverted from landfills and incineration globally, and its suppliers have avoided producing 230 million metric tons of carbon emissions. They have set forth the laudable goal of powering 50% of their operations with renewable energy sources by 2025 — and given how much they pivoted in terms of sustainability, we suspect they will succeed.

Green Toys

Sometimes it’s all in a name — Green Toys does an excellent job of summing up the company’s leading value proposition.

For the past 50 years, much of the profit in the toy industry was derived by the disposable nature of the business. As plastic became increasingly part of our design eco-system, toys became less and less sustainable — inexpensive items quickly tossed aside when fads changed. But things are changing. The toy industry is realizing that it needs to step into the eco-sphere in a big way.

“Sustainability is becoming much more important both to this generation of parents and retailers,” said Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of The Toy Association, which hosts the annual New York Toy Fair.

California-based Green Toys has been making toy boats, cars, and trucks, from 100% recycled milk jugs for more than a decade, growing from a small startup to a key player in the industry — moving from specialty toy stores to deals with big-box behemoths like Target. Their playthings are living proof that milk jugs — yes, the same kind as you might have in your refrigerator and recycling bin — can come back to life as toys in your playroom.

Kids get to see their sustainability efforts in action, and parents can feel good about putting their money where their values are.

All of Green Toys’ non-toxic products are phthalate and BPA free and are 100% made in the United States, eradicating the carbon emissions that would accrue if they produced their goods overseas. They are raising awareness about sustainability while delivering good-looking, safe products. What better way to encourage environmental change than through goods the little people in our lives play with every day?

About the author.
An award-winning creator and digital health, wellness, and lifestyle content strategist—Karina writes, produces, and edits compelling content across multiple platforms—including articles, video, interactive tools, and documentary film. Her work has been featured on MSN Lifestyle, Apartment Therapy, Goop, Psycom, Yahoo News, Pregnancy & Newborn, Eat This Not That, thirdAGE, and Remedy Health Media digital properties and has spanned insight pieces on psychedelic toad medicine to forecasting the future of work to why sustainability needs to become more sustainable.

In the midst of economic hardship for the working class and a climate emergency, the last place any usable good should go is a landfill. Donations are a great way to connect with your community, give back, and earn write–offs for your taxable income (although not every organization offers tax receipts). They also can extend the life of your purchases so that other people and the planet can both benefit as less refuse winds up in the ocean and underground. While this piece will focus on office supplies, you can also use a lot of these resources to find places that accept all sorts of donations or goods to recycle.

Please note: While donations and recycling are great options, the BEST way to reduce waste is to REDUCE our consumption.

Donate

Salvation Army
The good old Salvation Army can handle a variety of pickups for a range of good like furniture, appliances, and clothing.

Savers
Savers partners with a range of non-profits (including some of the ones on this list) by paying them for the donated products and then selling them in their thrift stores. They accept books, electronics, small furniture and appliances, clothes and more.

Habitat for Humanity
Your local ReStore will happily take items that can be resold to raise funds for builds. This is a great option if you have leftover building materials after a renovation or build out.

Human IT
Human IT accepts most electronics, and office and warehouse equipment. They have a nationwide pick-up and delivery network and repair, refurbish, and repurpose all donations when necessary. They also provide discounted internet access and digital literacy training.

Computers with Causes
Computers with Causes allows you to donate computers, scanners, routers, and other electronics. They repair and refurbish the donations so that they can help their national network of organizations.

Local Schools
You can use this nifty resource to find schools in your area in need of supplies like pens, art supplies, or organizational materials.

Vietnam Veterans of America
You can support veterans across the US by donating your furniture and other supplies to the Vietnam Veterans of America. With networks in over 30 states, they can more likely than not pick up your items, too.

The Freecycle Network
You can use The Freecycle Network to offer up anything that may be of use to someone else. It’s like a Craigslist where people can post what they need, you can post what you have to give, and make the connections to get these items redistributed.

Donate by Location

New York
Donate NYC is an online directory that will connect you with organizations that will accept anything you’d like to donate. You can search by the kinds of items and see locations all around the city to select the cause you’d like to support.

San Francisco
Scrap takes a variety of materials from textiles to office supplies and breathes new life into them through art, while financial donations support a range of creative programming.

Los Angeles
LA Shares takes donated furniture and supplies from local businesses and redistributes them free of charge to local non-profits.

Chicago
The WasteShed in Chicago has a similar mission to SF’s Scrap, taking office supplies and art supplies and repurposing them for art projects. If they can’t take what you have to give, they’ll do their best to redirect you to an organization that can.

Washington, DC
Zero Waste DC provides a list of resources specific to the DC area for all your donation and recycling needs.

Philadelphia
The Career Wardrobe resells business attire at a discount, so if you’ve been looking for a place for your tired blazers to find new life, this is the place. They also may take office supplies from time to time.

Miami
In the Greater Miami area, Miami Rescue Mission will take all sorts of office supplies and other items either in their offices or to sell in their thrift stores. They serve the unhoused population in Miami and are an extremely kind group of people. (I dropped a few boxes of excess office supplies to them last year and it was so easy.)

Toronto
I haven’t forgotten about our Canada-based readers! The Toronto Wildlife Centre accepts a range of office supplies and electronics. Specifics are in their wishlist.

Austin
Another haven for the arts, Austin Creative Reuse will take most office supplies with some exceptions that are outlined on their website. They are currently accepting donations by appointment only.

Phoenix
AZ Central has a list of resources of places to donate your used goods in Phoenix. You can also give travel relief directly to the Navajo Nation through the Phoenix Indian Center.

Develop Africa
Develop Africa helps 87 schools in Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leon, and Tanzania supply their classrooms with a range of supplies necessary for an effective classroom experience.

Pens for Kids
Founded in Switzerland, Pens for Kids coordinates the delivery of pens and other school supplies to their liaisons in Africa that distribute them to school–age children. You can send directly to Africa or to the coordination center in Switzerland.

Recycle

Not everything is fit to be donated. If it can’t be reused or donated, we can find ways to recycle these goods. Recycling doesn’t have to be a hassle, either; if your office building or city doesn’t have a way to recycle paper, you can hire some outside help. Plenty of companies offer bulk recycling for larger corporations that produce a lot of paper waste. Here are some other options for your recycling search.

Earth 911
You can use a nifty search tool like Earth 911 to find places where you can recycle everything from paper to batteries and everything in between. Many of these places will offer pick up services for a large enough load.

TerraCycle
TerraCycle is an amazing resource for finding free, national recycling programs for a range of hard-to–recycle products. From toothpaste and coffee pods to stationery and Solo cups, you can find a program for almost anything you’d prefer to recycle instead of throw away.

Recycle by City
If you’re located in Austin, Chicago, Flagstaff, Houston, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Sedona or West Hollywood, Recycle by City can help you find the right facilities to recycle all sorts of supplies and goods.

Go forth and de-clutter knowing you’re doing so more responsibly. Spring cleaning never felt so good.

About the author.
Alessandra is the mentor, educator, and writer behind Boneseed, a private practice devoted to deep self-inquiry through a range of physical, energetic, and mental modalities. She has over 500 hours of yoga, mentorship, and facilitation training and can be found slinging knowledge on her website, newsletter, and @bone.seed.

Murasaki Shikibu (973 or 978–1014 or 1031) is the penname of a Japanese writer and Imperial lady-in-waiting, best known for penning The Tales of Genji, which is considered the oldest completed novel in the world. Her true identity remains unknown although there have been speculations that she may have been Fujiwara no Kaoriko.

Queen Nanny of the Maroons (1686–1755) remains a bit of a legend, as most knowledge of her comes from oral history. She was born in Ghana and lead the Jamaican Maroons in guerrilla warfare against the British. In 1975 she was declared a national hero. Her troops excelled in long-range communication and camouflage, giving them an advantage over the British in addition to their innovations in guerrilla warfare. Nanny and her Maroons won their freedom and a parcel of land in a time where slavery remained common.

Anne Bonny (1697–1733) and Mary Read (1685–1721) were the most famous lady pirates of the Caribbean. Born in Ireland and England, respectively, Bonny and Read were likely lovers, in addition to Bonny’s marriage to the notorious Jack Calico. All three were captured after stealing a Nassau ship. Calico was executed immediately, Read died in prison, and Bonny’s death remains a mystery.

Mary Ellen Pleasant (1814–1904) was an entrepreneur and abolitionist who owned several businesses and financed the freedom of hundreds of slaves and won several civil rights victories after the civil war. Often passing for white, Pleasant used her light skin tone to her advantage in business, amassing a hefty fortune before declaring herself as a Black woman and using her means to support well known abolitionist John Brown who was also her friend and lover. When he was hanged, a letter of hers was found on him, although no one suspected her. Pleasant came clean before her death, admitting to donating $900,000 in today’s dollars to Brown’s abolitionist pursuits. She additionally worked on the Underground Railroad and sued over streetcar segregation. She has been called the “Mother of Human Rights in California.”

Sarah Winnemucca (1844–1891) wrote the first known memoir by a Native American woman, Life Among the Paiutes: Their Wrongs and Claims (1883). Hailing from the Northern Paiute tribe, Winnemucca, also known as Thocmentony meaning “Shell Flower,” she worked as a teacher and interpreter, and played pivotal roles in wartime. With her command of the English language, she often served as a mediator between her tribe and Anglo-Americans, and advocated for the sovereignty of her people, particularly after their move to the Yakama Reservation, which has been described as a concentration camp. Her writing has been a key tool for modern historians and sociologists. While her social activism was a prominent part of her legacy, she has also been criticized for helping the US military.

Madam CJ Walker (1867–1919) is the first female self-made millionaire in America according to the Guinness Book of World Records. After a childhood spent on a cotton plantation, Walker amassed her fortune through a line of cosmetics and hair products specifically marketed to Black women. As the brand grew, Madam CJ Walker Manufacturing Company trained nearly 20,000 women as sales agents and eventually started selling abroad in Central America and the Caribbean. Walker was also known as an activist and philanthropist, establishing a YMCA in Indianapolis’s Black community, and eventually moved to New York where her activism grew — particularly when she joined the executive committee that organized the Silent Protest Parade which drew a crowd of over 8,000 to protest the East St. Louis race riots. Her daughter, A’Lelia Walker (1885 – 1931) was an openly bisexual patron of the arts in Harlem, who traveled to Paris and spent time with Josephine Baker, who you’ll learn more about later.

Yosano Akiko (1878–1942) wrote controversial tanka poetry and stood strong as an anti-war pacifist and feminist in late Meiji Japan. She completed an estimated 20–50,000 poems and gave birth to 13 children. Her feminist stances deviated from her Japanese contemporaries with regards to financial independence and motherhood. While many Japanese women advocated for government assistance for mothers, Akiko argued that dependence on the government is equivalent to dependence on a man in an essay titled “Women’s Complete Freedom.” She also wrote about the importance of women having identity beyond motherhood. In her later years into the Taisho period, her commentary took a turn to the right in support of war against China and the US.

Marjorie Stoneman Douglas (1890–1998) saved the Florida Everglades. While working as a journalist, she wrote The Everglades: River of Grass (1947) which brought national attention to the importance of the swampland and prevented it from being used for land development. She was also a suffrage advocate and served as a charter member of the ACLU. Douglas had been recognized for her work with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Clinton and an award in her name through the National Parks Association. She was also inducted into various halls of fame. She continued her work as a conservationist until her death at 108.

Maria Orosa e Ylagan (1892–1945) developed nutrient–dense food products like Soyalac and Darak in the Philippines, as well as banana ketchup. In addition to her work as a pharmaceutical chemist, Orosa was a humanitarian and war heroine. Her canning techniques and food inventions saved hundreds of lives and aided guerrilla warriors fighting the Japanese during World War II. One of her goals was to help develop food self-sufficiency in the Philippines. She died of shrapnel wounds in Manila after contributing over 700 recipes and to the war effort. She is recognized by the Philippines and the American Red Cross for her invaluable knowledge and innovations.

Chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti (1900–1978) played a pivotal role in the Nigerian independence movement as an educator, political campaigner, suffragist, and activist. She was the first female student admitted to the Abeokuta Grammar School and worked promote literacy among lower income women. Ransome-Kuti also established the Abeokuta Woman’s Union while fighting for women’s rights and better government representation. She believed in socialist principals and caught the attention of the British and US who feared her communist connections, although her passport was eventually restored. She became president of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom in 1963 and received several honors and awards for her activism—including the honor of membership to the Order of Nigeria and the Lenin Peace Prize.

Josephine Baker (1906–1975) collected intelligence about the Nazis and their collaborators while performing in Paris. She smuggled her information to the British with invisible ink on sheet music. She was also the first Black woman to star in a major motion picture, Siren of the Tropics (1927). Born in the US, she renounced her citizenship and became a French national. She rose to fame with her erotic dances and stage shows, often accompanied by her signature banana costume and her pet cheetah, Chiquita. Yes, a cheetah, that would sometimes escape to the dismay of her musicians. Hemingway called her “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw” and Picasso painted her. She used her celebrity to serve as an “honorable correspondent” during the German occupation of France, for which she received the highest medals and honors. Baker went on to support the Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s. She spoke at the March on Washington and was approached by Coretta Scott King after her husband’s death to replace him as the leader of the movement, which she declined.

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) authored Silent Spring, which resulted in a nationwide ban of certain pesticides, including DDT, in the United States. The book also inspired the grassroots environmental movement that led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. While her initial research focused on marine biology with the bestsellers The Sea Around Us and Under the Sea Wind, her study and advocacy of environmental conservation played a pivotal role in bringing attention to the damage humanity was causing the planet it inhabits. She was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter. The surviving letters she exchanged with lifelong partner, Dorothy Freeman, have been published since her death.

Chien-Shiun Wu (1912–1997) made significant contributions to nuclear and particle physics and worked on the Manhattan Project, developing the process for separating uranium. Sometimes known as the “First Lady of Physics,” the Chinese-American experimental physicist is best known for the Wu experiment which figured out something about the conservation of parity which may mean something to you if you studied physics, but I never did. While her role in the discovery was mentioned in the 1957 Nobel Prize in physics acceptance speech, the prize was not awarded to her but rather the physicists who originated the idea of parity nonconservation. Wu was honored in 1978 with the inaugural Wolf Prize.

Ludmilla Pavilchenko (1916–1974) accumulated 309 confirmed kills as a Soviet sniper during World War II. Nicknamed “Lady Death,” she is the most lethal female sniper in recorded history. In 1942, she was injured by a mortar shell and spent the rest of the war training snipers and touring allied nations to secure a second front against Nazi Germany. At an assembly in Chicago, after reporters failed to take her seriously, she famously stated, “Gentlemen, I am 25 years old and I have killed 309 fascist invaders by now. Don’t you think, gentlemen, that you have been hiding behind my back for too long?” She received the Gold Star hero of the Soviet Union, and the Order of Lenin twice.

Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) was the first African woman and environmentalist to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. She studied in the U.S. and eventually earned a Doctorate in Philosophy at the University of Nairobi, becoming the first woman in east and central Africa to do so. She founded the Green Belt Movement in 1977, a non-profit which enabled women to replant devastated areas with trees, and promoted both women’s rights and environmental conservation. She fiercely protested government attempts to privatize public lands and was arrested more than once for it. She was later elected to parliament before winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She went on to work on waste-reduction programs and served on the Eminent Advisory Board of AWEPA until her death.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943–Present) discovered the first radio pulsars, “one of the most significant scientific achievements of the 20th century.” The astrophysicist hails from Northern Ireland and made her discovery as a postgrad in 1967 which has become an extremely useful tool for astronomers because of the ways they emit electromagnetic radiation. (Or something. Again, not something I have studied.) Her thesis advisor, Anthony Hewish, was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery in 1974. While many criticized her omission, she has said herself that the omission was justified because of her status as an undergrad. Regardless, she has gone on to serve as president of the Royal Astronomy Society and was awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2018.

Marsha P Johnson (1945–1992) and Sylvia Rivera (1951–2002) were prominent figures in the fight for gay and trans liberation and co-founders of the radical activist group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR). Orphaned by her father’s abandonment and mother’s suicide, Rivera was living on the streets by age 11 and forced into child prostitution until she was taken in by the local drag community. Johnson, on the other hand, remained closeted within her religious family until she moved to New York and started performing as a drag queen. Both saw their gender as something varied and fluid, not necessarily landing on “womanhood” specifically. During the Stonewall Riots, Johnson threw “the shot glass that was heard around the world,” while Rivera was uptown despite claiming to have been there. Regardless, the two founded STAR, an organization for homeless queer youth. When Johnson’s body was found in the Hudson River, Rivera and Johnson’s other friends insisted that Johnson was not suicidal when police jumped to rule out foul play. Rivera’s activism only strengthened after her friend’s murder, solidifying the transgender movement that continues to this day.

Judith Heumann (1947–Present) became the first wheelchair user to teach in New York City after winning Heumann v. Board of Education of the City of New York in 1970. She has since made immense strides for the disabled community with a range of non-profits, NGOs, and the government. She contributed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and lead the 504 sit-in, the longest federal building sit-in, which convinced Joseph Califano to sign the 504 section of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973—adding significant civil rights protection to citizens with disabilities. She served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, with the World Bank Group as their first Advisory on Disability and Development, and most recently as a senior Fellow at the Ford Foundation.

Maya Lin (1959–Present) designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial after submitting her design in a public design competition while still an undergraduate at Yale University. The contest was blind, so the judges were unaware of her race, as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, or her gender. Once revealed, she and her work faced controversy, but ultimately persevered and remains a landmark in Washington DC—ranked 10 in a 2010 poll of America’s Favorite Architecture. She has since created many installations, often with a focus on nature, like her 2010 interactive memorial “What Is Missing?” which laments the loss of biodiversity across the globe. President Barack Obama awarded her with the National Medal of the Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Lin has four honorary doctorates and is represented by the Pace Gallery.

Claudia Paz y Paz (1966–Present) became the first female Attorney General of Guatemala in 2010. She made unprecedented strides in criminal justice and human rights, including the prosecution of Efrain Ríos Montt for genocide, whose name you might recognize because Rigoberta Menchú advocated for his trial. She aggressively prosecuted organized criminals and human rights violators, making her the first law enforcement official to bring justice to civil rights abusers in Guatemala. In spite of the threats to her life, Paz y Paz sought justice in an unjust world, and actually succeeded. Forbes named her one of the “five most powerful women in the world” in 2012, and she was a leading candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013. Now, she serves as a member of the Justice Leadership Initiative, and a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Ali Stroker (1987–Present) played Anna in Deaf West’s revival of Spring Awakening and Ado Annie Caries in the 2018 revival on Oklahoma! for which she won the Tony for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Spring Awakening, which incorporates deaf actors, made her the first Broadway performer to use a wheelchair for mobility on stage, while Oklahoma! made her the first one to win a Tony. Stroker is a co-chair of Women Who Care, supporting cerebral palsy, a founding member of anti-bullying campaign, Be More Heroic, and has traveled to South Africa to partner with ARTS InsideOut—holding theater classes for women and children affected by AIDS. She is openly bisexual, a founding director of ATTENTION Theater, and at 33, has plenty more road ahead to trod.

Photo Credit: Allan Warren, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Most widely known as the Catwoman to Adam West’s Batman, the originator of the beloved holiday tune, “Santa Baby,” and to a lesser extent for voicing Yzma in The Emperor’s New Groove, Kitt’s life and legacy extend far beyond these notable marks on popular culture.

A Southern Outcast

Born in 1927 to a Black and Cherokee mother on a plantation in South Carolina, Eartha Kitt never learned the identity of her father, who likely raped her mother. It was said he was the son of the plantation owner, but all her attempts to verify his identity were inconclusive. She only learned her true birth date (January 17 instead of what she always put down, January 26) 10 years before her death.

As a child, she was handed off to various relatives by whom she was often abused. In one interview, she describes being tied to a tree and sexually assaulted by teenagers, in addition to the abuse she experienced at home. After her mother died, which Kitt believed was murder, she was sent to live with an aunt in New York.

In her teens, she won a full scholarship to a dance company she auditioned for on a lark and tumbled her way into show business as a dancer. Her first big acting role was as Helen of Troy opposite Orson Welles in his rendition of Doctor Faustus, during which time he famously dubbed her “the most interesting woman in the world.”

The Most Interesting Woman in the World

Known for her distinctive vocals, Eartha had a wave of hits throughout the 50s including “I Want to Be Evil,” “C’est Is Bon,” “Monotonous,” “Love for Sale,” and the holiday favorite, “Santa Baby”. Kitt spoke in English, French, German, and Dutch, but additionally sang in Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.

In a 1993 interview on The Whoopi Goldberg Show, Kitt discussed the colorism she experienced in her childhood that followed her throughout her career. As a child, she wasn’t quite white or Black enough to be accepted by her peers. Later, when she starred in Anna Lucasta in 1958 opposite Sammy Davis, Jr., hundreds of theaters refused to show the film because she looked too light on screen opposite the darker skinned Davis.

She also shared how as a dancer in an all-Black troupe, she had to use the back door and go in through the kitchens, but once she started performing on her own, her contracts declared she would waltz in through the lobby.

Kitt thrilled audiences in successful run at the Persian Room, but her agents chided her for being “too sophisticated” for the Apollo Theater and asked her to change her act before moving on to another theater show. Kitt took this as an insult, particularly toward Black audiences. She didn’t change a thing, and her three shows a week turned to five as audiences lined the block to see her.

After years of successful singing and stage work, Kitt pounced onto television screens in a role that seemed to be written for her despite not originating it. She became the third — and most beloved — Catwoman in the Adam West-led Batman series in 1967. While she only appeared in a handful of episodes, they were some of the most memorable of the series.

In Defense of the Children of America

The following year, Lady Bird Johnson invited Kitt and 49 other women to a luncheon at the White House meant to discuss the question “Why is there so much juvenile delinquency in America?” and explore how women could contribute to a solution. Kitt was working with a group known as Rebels with a Cause and spent her life working with “inner city kids,” eventually founding Kittsville Youth Foundation, which continues to operate under the direction of Wanda-Lee Evans.

At the First Lady’s insistence, Eartha attended the luncheon that would terminate her ability to perform in the United States for a decade. President Lyndon B Johnson appeared as a surprise guest and new audio of the conference found at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas in 2000 revealed the following change between Kitt and the president:

Kitt: “Mr. President, you asked about delinquency around the United States which we are all interested in and that’s why we’re here today. But what do we do about delinquent parents? The parents who have to go to work for instance who can’t spend the time with their children that they should. This is, I think, our main problem. What do we do with the children then, when the parents are off work?”

LBJ: “Well, that social security bill we just passed this year sets up millions and millions of dollars for day care centers… that’s one step we’ve taken. And that comes from… that’s approved by a bunch of men who are really not the best judges of how to handle children otherwise. I think that’d be a very good questions for you to ask yourself, and the women here, and you all tell them what you think.”

Later, Lady Bird finally did ask for her thoughts, and I’ll let her words speak for themselves.

“The children of America are not rebelling for no reason. They are not hippies for no reason at all. We don’t have what we have on Sunset Blvd. for no reason. They are rebelling against something. There are so many things burning the people of this country, particularly mothers. They feel they are going to raise sons — and I know what it’s like, and you have children of your own, Mrs. Johnson — we raise children and send them to war…

You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed. No wonder the kid’s rebel and take pot.”

She explained how many young men saw delinquency as a way out of being sent off to war, and that America should be focused on fighting for itself, inside its borders. After her respectful and insightful commentary was reframed as a disrespectful outburst, things changed for Kitt. The car that was supposed to take her back to her hotel disappeared, and within weeks, so did her job opportunities.

LBJ called the FBI and demanded they find something on her. When they came back with confirmation that she was an upstanding citizen, he called upon the CIA, who began collecting interviews and information for a dossier. For venues and producers, the choice became pass over Eartha Kitt, or have the CIA knocking on your door. They overwhelmingly chose the former, and opportunities dried up in the US. The pain of being cast out for exercising her right of free speech in her beloved country was a wound she carried the rest of her life.

For over a decade after the “White House incident,” Kitt focused her sights elsewhere, performing in Europe and Asia, where jobs were more plentiful away. Years later, Kitt was cast as Carlotta in the West End production of Follies where she sang the showstopper, “I’m Still Here,” a phrase that rang especially true through Kitt’s performance.

I’m Still Here

The tides turned again for Kitt in 1978 when she was invited not only back to the White House by Jimmy Carter, but to star in Timbuktu!, an all-Black resetting of Kismet that takes place in 1361 Mali. Her opening number, “In the Beginning, Woman” presented her on a human platter to an adoring audience as she proclaimed, “I’m Here,” in a triumphant homecoming. In a later interview on a show called Speaking Freely, her voice carries the weight of emotion, explaining how she knew she was home when, “the audience gave me a standing ovation before I could even open my mouth.” This performance presented her first Tony nomination. Later that year, Jimmy Carter invited her to the White House and officially welcomed her home.

Her career started building momentum with a series of acting (and voice-over) and singing performances, including disco hit “Where Is My Man?” and this banger of a tune, “I Don’t Care” in the mid 80s. She made appearances on range of shows from The Nanny to Jeopardy! and appeared at many benefits to support HIV/AIDS organizations.

She also kept speaking up about systematic racism and injustice, and advocated for keeping industry within the United States: “We have billions of dollars to go to the Gulf, why don’t we have billions for the people on the streets? For the boys who went to war and fought for this country? Maybe I am bitter. I thought we had freedom.” In that same interview with Whoopi Goldberg, she dispels the myth of the “welfare queen” that started gaining traction in the Reagan era:

“We don’t want to be on welfare. We want jobs. I have dignity and respect for myself and this is what I feel about every one of us in the United States as well as the rest of the world, but if you’re going to pay people to stay poor, why not stay poor? And if the job only pays as much as the welfare, you have to pay taxes on the job, but you don’t have to pay taxes not on the welfare.”

Sadly, her words still ring true today in the midst of COVID relief and unemployment spikes.

Life Begins at 70

In her Speaking Freely interview, she exclaimed, “At 70, life has just begun… I’ve had more fun being Eartha Kitt I think than anybody else has had being themselves, whoever they have become.” She also advocated for the importance of education, speaking up, and kindness: “Speak out and do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

Life was abundant for Kitt in her 70s when she made regular appearances on The RuPaul Show, declaring “I don’t have a secret, I just do what comes naturally. I was born this way, darling,” in her seductive purr. She also earned her second Tony Nomination for her role as Dolores in La Chiusa’s The Wild Party.

In the early 2000s, she found a new audience in a younger generation as the voice of Yzma in The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) and later The Emperor’s New School for which she won two Daytime Emmys. She also appeared in Holes (2003), and various other children’s shows as a voice actress.

Kitt died on Christmas Day in 2008, succumbing to a battle with colon cancer, but not without a fight. According to her daughter, Kitt Shapiro, who worked with her mother throughout her life, she died “screaming at the top of her lungs,” leaving her life the way she lived it.

The Legend Lives On

Years after her death, her iconic performances and interviews still make the rounds of social media, particularly this interview where she cackles at the thought of compromising for a man. She reframes the idea of a relationship for the almost incredulous male interviewer: “I fall in love with myself, and I want someone to share it with me.” When asked if that has ever happened, she replied, “many times, in many different ways.”

Kitt attributed her success to her hunger, both literal and figurative, and her practical, almost zen-like attitude toward life.

“Life is not problematical but we make it problematical because we listen to other people and we don’t listen to ourselves. For instance, we buy a lot of junk that we know we don’t need. We clutter up our lives with insignificant things that have no value at all but when we start to think about how simple life is and how simply It should be lived then we begin to realize; I have no problem. I don’t have a real problem. Problem is something you make. Life is something you live.”

Her legacy continues through the countless performers she has influenced, the Kitsville organization, and the trail she blazed for women of color — and champions of justice and decency everywhere.

Image Source: Wikipedia

If you thought all great painters were men, you are not alone. Artemesia Gentileschi was relatively unknown by modern culture until the late 20th century when feminist art historian Linda Nochlin sashayed her into public recognition with an article titled, “What Have There Been No Great Woman Artists?” Nochlin explored the institutions that have kept women artists from historical recognition, using Gentileschi as one of her prime examples—whose art, despite her signature and style, had been attributed to other artists until the 19th ccentury. She also pioneered several exhibits that displayed many of her paintings all at once for the first time in history.

The Birth of an Artist

Artemesia was born in 1593 to Orazio Gentileschi, a Tuscan painter renowned in his own right and a contemporary of the great Caravaggio. Sometimes written about as a Renaissance painter, Artemesia Gentileschi’s style and lineage more appropriately exhibits the Baroque style with dramatic shadows and use of chiaroscuro—much like Caravaggio who influenced both her and her father. She and her two brothers grew up in her father’s workshop, although she was the only child to exhibit talent with a paintbrush. Orazio claimed she “had no peer” by age 12.

Her first known solo painting is Susanna and the Elders (1610) which she completed at 17. Unlike her male counterparts who tended to glorify rape and objectification, Artemesia places the Biblical woman center stage and shows a raw anguish, rather than flowery flattery. As a recent New Yorker article declares, “With this painting, and with many other works that followed, Artemisia claimed women’s resistance of sexual oppression as a legitimate subject of art.”

The content of Artemesia’s artwork sadly hit close to home, Her father’s colleague, Agostino Tassi, raped Artemesia when her father was away. Although she tried to fight him off and call for help, Tassi easily overpowered her and andsthe Gentileschis’ tenant and Artemesia’s friend, Tuzia ignored her cries. The details of what happened next have differed over the years, but the most common current understanding tells of Tassi promising to marry Artemesia after the rape, her agreeing to further sexual relations on that condition, and him later reneging on that promise. A common practice in Italy at that time was to marry rape survivors to their abusers as a way to restore dignity and reputation. When Tassi didn’t hold his end of the bargain, her father pursued legal action to force him to marry his daughter.

The Trial

It turned out Tassi was already married and also planned on having his wife murdered. Great guy. During the trial, Artemesia was inspected by midwives to prove her virginity had been taken. She was also tortured with thumbscrews to verify the accuracy of her testimony. Artemesia spoke of the indignity to her family and name, rather than a personal violation. Now, whether or not that was what was required of her for testimony or a reflection of her true feelings is another story.

For all Artemesia’s strife, Tassi was exiled from Rome for one year, although the sentence was never enforced. This disappointing outcome for a rape trial is all too familiar for many women—which makes Artemesia an appealing icon for modern feminists and the #metoo movement.

Catharsis, Retribution, Triumph

After the trial, Artemesia completed one of her most famous paintings, Judith Slaying Holofernes (1614-18) and its companion Judith and her Maidservant (1613-14). Historians say that in this depiction of a Biblical story, she used Tassi’s likeness for Holofernes and her own for Judith. Caravaggio similarly interpreted Judith beheading Holofernes, but his interpretation featured the protagonist, Judith, holding the head at arm’s length—hardly a posture that implies she could successfully sever the skull from the man’s body. As a woman, Artemesia had a more acute knowledge of the female form than her male counterparts. Comparing her Danae with her father’s shows a similar superiority with composing a more realistic female form.

Cultural dissection of Artemesia both surrounding her rape and her artistic ability abounds. While she was made a two-dimensional trauma survivor that simply painted as catharsis for the wrongs done to her, modern scholars have developed a more complex view of a woman who certainly included her rapist’s face in paintings, but channeled other influences into her painting like motherhood, ecstasy, erotic passion, grief and despair (only one daughter made it to adulthood), shame, ambition, and pride. In Artemisia Gentileschi and Feminism in Early Modern Europe, renowned historian Mary D Garrand explains:

“It is important to remember that this is art, not psychotherapy. The pictorial revenge that Artemisia took on her rapist was not a defensive psychological reaction by a female victim, but might be better understood as poetic justice — a playful, imaginative expression of retribution she was due.”

Ensuing Freedom + Artistic Flourishing

Soon after the trial, Artemesia married and moved to Florence where she became the first woman accepted into the Accademia di Arte del Disegno, the academy known for its association with Renaissance rockstars Michaelangelo and Cellini. While there, she became friendly with Galileo Gallelli, among other notable artists and intellectuals. As a married woman, she now had social freedoms that were denied her in her father’s house.

The marriage gave her children and freedom, but the pair separated 10 years later. Artemesia left Florence for Naples, Rome again, and beyond—following lucrative commissions, including a few for the Medicis. Her paintings centered a range of Biblical and historical figures including Mary Magdalene, Esther, Bathsheba, David, Cleopatra, Lot and his daughters, Salome, and John the Baptist.

In 1638, she travelled to England to partner with her father on a commission for the Queen’s House, Triumph of Peace and the Arts. While there, she completed one of her most lauded works for Charles I, Self Portrait as And Allegory of Painting (1638-39). While there are records of her still accepting commissions in 1654, it is speculated that she died during a plague that swept through Naples in 1656.

Artemesia has been the subjects of books, novels, film, and essays. She was given a seat at Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party, among the likes of one of her favorite subjects Judith, Hindu goddess Kali, Elizabeth I, Sacajawea, Sojourner Truth, and Georgia O’Keeffe.

What do you do professionally?

I would call myself a multimedia designer — it encompasses the various ways I create best. I am primarily a front-end web developer and graphic designer and take photos, edit videos that I shoot, and create print material.

Where are you from?

I’m currently based in the BX and have lived in NYC most of my life. My family is from the Philippines; I moved to NYC when I was 5. Grew up on 19th Street on the East Side, in Gramercy Park, and growing up in Manhattan actually informs my design work regarding style and direction. Hip hop, sneaker culture (even though I’m not a sneakerhead), skateboard culture — all were part of my coming of age. I used to hang out with the skater at the cube at Astor Place. Street style has always been embedded in the clothes I wear and the music I listen to, imbuing my personal aesthetic with a gritty minimalism.

What is your origin story—how did you come to do what you do?

I worked as a make-up artist for five years, starting while I was in college. I was doing Comic-Con, concierge Halloween programs and thought I would do special effects make-up for movies — but things took a different turn.

I found my way into design by helping several fashion start-ups with their e-commerce. I began updating websites, editing the lookbook photos, and realized that I loved the design part and working with images. When I started moving towards doing more design, I was creating catalogs and look books in PowerPoint. It was the time before I knew Photoshop, haha.

I began taking free classes at the New York Public Library for photoshop and front-end coding. Incredibly, the library offers all these fabulous resources. Through these library classes, I connected with a free coding boot camp in Long Island City called Coalition for Queens at that time, but it is now called Pursuit.

Can you tell me a bit more about Pursuit?

It’s an NYC-funded tech incubator that selects several students to take classes with them for free. I did night classes with them while working full-time during the day with fashion start-ups. I would go from the Garment District in Midtown Manhattan to LIC and be in class until 9pm. They assigned us in-depth projects that we had to complete. I was learning JavaScript and other coding languages at the time. I would do these assignments for two hours every night after I came home from class. It was a life-changing experience — albeit an intense one. Pursuit’s primary focus was to encourage women, and in particular, women of color, to engage the world of tech — and I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from them.

What happened after those classes?

To be honest, I didn’t think I was developed enough to apply for a web dev job; the job descriptions felt very intimidating. I wasn’t very good at solving the functional part yet but felt more in command of CSS and HTML. Animation and web design felt like a better fit, so I segued into that end of the tech and design space and began building my portfolio.”

Artwork by Cindy Recile

Are you more in the world of tech or design?

I am a graphic designer but also do front-end development and web design. I code the styling for websites using HTML and CSS.

At this point, I actually see these coding languages as more an extension of design than coding proper. I think designers today need to know CSS and HTML to successfully design in digital-first spaces.

What’s the difference between web dev and web design?

I consider CSS and HTML as really an extension of design, not even front-end development at this point, but it’s not back-end structure. To use a house as an example, HTML and CSS are the bricks or facade, but not the plumbing or electrical, which I see as back-end.

What has it been like to navigate the world of tech and design as a woman — and as a woman of color in particular?

To be fair, I haven’t interviewed for a fully tech-based job. It can be intimidating. But the engineer teams I have to deliver my front-end development work to are often comprised of almost all men. White-dominated. Male-dominated. And that can create distance and space for feeling like I have to step higher to reach the same playing field.

What kind of companies do you work with?

I am currently working for two real estate companies, a financial event company, and an online publication, the Ladders. I do a lot of digital and print for billboards and sides of buildings, create marketing collateral like promotional flyers, and do a lot of web-based work, primarily in WordPress and Squarespace.

What’s a day in your life like?

I’m a morning person. I like to start working early. I often tackle emails first because I typically see various clients on-site later in the day. Part of my job is capturing photos for real estate listings. I take the photos, shoot videos, edit the images, and use them as marketing collateral. I’m usually running around Queens, going to all these commercial listings.

Artwork by Cindy Recile

How long have you been a part of Creative Circle?

I just started working with Creative Circle in 2020 but have been part of the vibrant Creative Circle community for the last couple of years. I’ve gotten some of my most exciting work through them.

What are your biggest challenges doing what you do?

Clients often know what they don’t want, but not necessarily what they do. So, there’s a fair amount of testing out the waters to get a sense of what might make sense. I ask them to show me inspiration. I find myself playing design psychologist. I’ve learned how to really listen to better understand client needs and pain points. Listening is a profound skill, and intuiting moods is key. I have to read the room, which can be one of the biggest challenges, particularly as we are not meeting in person. Things get lost in emails and calls.

Also, prioritizing my work can sometimes be a challenge. I went full-time freelance just before COVID in February 2020. Learning how to manage my projects and deadlines is something I’m getting more adept at, but it requires careful attention as I add more clients.

How long do your gigs tend to last?

Most of my work is client-based and recurring, though I have a few one-off jobs that are more gig-oriented, like social media marketing projects.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before you started?

I wanted to be in design all those years I was working in e-commerce but wasn’t sure how to get “started.” I would tell the younger me that it’s okay to not have a perfect plan or a resume with the ideal experience. Sometimes you have to find a connection and make your own work. You have to start somewhere. I am primarily self-taught, don’t overlook the grand treasure trove that is YouTube. I learned how to do everything I do through YouTube.

Artwork by Cindy Recile

Who (or what) inspires your work?

I take my inspiration from moving through the city, which is how I discovered Colossal Media, an NYC-based company comprised of old-school graffiti artists who have evolved into an artistic consortium who really inspire me. They create incredible murals in Bushwick. I love seeing the social impact that their murals can have, the way they give tone and vibrant texture to a block when the world is veering so much towards digital.

In what ways do you see your work evolving over the next year? Any projects that you’re working on that you’re really excited about?

The next big thing for me is going to be 3D design — I’m excited to dig in and expand my dimensions.

In 1995, Hillary Clinton famously championed global gender equality at a United Nations Conference in Beijing: “Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.” And by some measures, we have made strides in the last 25 years. But by others, it seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same. At that conference, the No Ceilings: The Full Participation Report, produced in partnership with the Gates Foundation, was presented — and one of the hallmarks of the report was highlighting that the United States is the only industrialized nation to not have a mandated paid maternal leave, along with the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Suriname, and Tonga.

You’d think that perhaps this might have changed since then, but we are still sans mandated paid parental leave in 2021. “Labor policies that facilitate or hinder working adults’ ability to balance jobs and caregiving have a tremendous impact on women,” the report states. “Paid maternal leave supports women’s continued employment, job stability, and longer-term wage growth.”

Let’s talk some quick $ and sense

Women are not paid the same as their male peers.
In tech, the median male makes 61% more than the median female, and minority women fare even worse concerning the gender pay gap. Studies peg the discrepancy for women in computer or math-related fields as earning 80 cents to the dollar a man makes from doing the same job—and it adds up: $317 per weekly paycheck or $16,484 per year.

Women are awarded far less equity.
Women in tech don’t just earn less than their male counterparts in $ and ¢, but in shares as well, according to a study released by software platform Carta. Findings showed that overall, men own 91 percent of employee and founder equity in Silicon Valley, leaving women a meager 9 percent.

Motherhood penalty and the fatherhood bonus.
When it comes to kids, moms lose 4 percent of their hourly earnings on average for every child they have, while men make 6 percent more. As you might imagine, this kind of wage gap leads to significant income loss for women — especially since, as of 2017, 41 percent of mothers were the sole or primary breadwinner for their families.

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall?
At this rate, barring legislative action, like an Equal Rights Amendment, it will take another 99.5 years to close the gender gap globally, according to the 2020 Global Gender Gap Report, an annual report released by the World Economic Forum. And we just don’t have that kind of time. For women, and frankly, the overall success of business and culture, we need to grease the wheels of change.

Let’s look at how far we have come through the lens of three different job titles to help trace the arc: Software Developer, Web Developer, and Marketing Research Analyst.

SOFTWARE DEVELOPER

Women in tech — are we breaking through the glass ceiling, or are we banging our heads? Frankly, it’s sometimes hard to tell. Another International Women’s Day has come and gone in a flurry of feel good Instagram posts, but the conversation around whether inroads are being made remains. Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the percentage of women software developers has barely budged despite all the efforts, growing from 19% in 2011 to 19.4% in 2020. The saving grace is that the market itself has grown 57% in that timeframe, which means the total number of female software developers has gone from 198,360 to 365,302.

In the United States, women hold just 25% of the overall jobs in computing and leave the tech sector at twice the rate as men. Just close to 5% occupy leadership positions—and these numbers shrink even further when looking at women of color. Black and Latina women held only 6.2% and 5.9% respectively in 2020. But there is light breaking through the clouds.

Collective action has helped call attention to inequity. 20,000 Google employees staged a walkout in 2018 to protest the company’s payouts to execs accused of sexual harassment, along with Google’s policy of forced arbitration. And it caused a ripple effect throughout the tech industry. Google nixed its policy of forced arbitration, with AirBnB and Facebook swiftly following suit. But to effect lasting change, execs need to chart a real path forward that considers the cultural change required to make a workplace truly more inclusive. The good news? Inclusivity benefits the bottom line.

WEB DEVELOPERS

It’s important to remember that the digital landscape is a built environment. Developers create the websites we visit and code our cyber experiences. As more businesses move to be digital-first, having women at the forefront of curating our digital journeys is critical. We don’t want the digital world to become one designed by only men. The numbers, however, paint a story of stasis. The field has experienced just a small amount of overall growth, with the total number of web developers numbering 182,000 in 2011, growing to only 193,000 in 2019. The percentage of women-identified web developers increased from 38.6% to 41.4% in that same timeframe, which in real number terms means that there are just 9,650 more in 2019 than in 2011. Phew.

Tech folks in web dev distinguish between front-end, back-end, and full-stack development. Here’s what that means: front-end developers are those who design and implement what you see in your web browser, while back-end developers do the programming behind the scenes. And full-stack developers, well, they do it all. Once upon a time, the distinction between front and back-end development was less rigid. In the first decade of the web, every developer had to be full-stack, but web work became more specialized over time. By 2010, the profession had begun to stratify, with developers who had computer science degrees (mostly men) sashaying into back-end roles while more auto-didactic coders and designers stepped into the front.

Tropes emerged. Back-end developers sometimes attribute front-end prowess less to technical skill and more to some web juju comprised of feeling, rather than logic-ing — a mastery, if you will, of the “soft” things that women are “supposed to” excel at. Of course, this thinking in and of itself is fallacious — nothing in the land of computers is any more or less logical than something else. All this erroneous thinking has succeeded in feminizing a subfield of web development and by proxy, masculinizing another. Prestige and labor scarcity dance a tight capital tango, and all too often, masculinity is seizing the prestige.

Underrepresentation of women in tech is a titanic liability for the industry. Why? Because diversity = profitability. Diverse companies tend to report higher growth, perform better, be more innovative, and have an amplified competitive edge. It’s not just about equity; parity is also good for the bottom line. Companies like 23andMe, Pinterest, and Slack are helping lead the way towards true inclusivity that extends into the management and executive levels — we need more businesses to join them.

MARKET RESEARCH ANALYSTS + MARKETING SPECIALISTS

Market research — or data-driven consumer insights — is a STEM field whose purpose is to uncover insights and explore consumer desires and needs. And, as you might suspect, this mathematically oriented career was once dominated by men. But here, the numbers tell a more uplifting story. As data analytics becomes a more prominent part of marketing, women have comprised a growing segment of this space. In 2011, there were 117,875 female market research analysts, but that number leapfrogged to 256,668 in 2020. Here’s why this matters so much: women now drive the world economy. Globally, they controlled about $24 trillion in consumer spending in 2020, up from $20 trillion in 2018. To paint a more vivid picture, in aggregate, women represent a growth market bigger than China and India combined — actually more than twice as big.

Given the numbers, it’s clear that ignoring women comes at a costly peril. And yet, many companies do just that. Part of the challenge comes from who is doing the research. When experts examine what a market needs and wants, the researchers must reflect those they are studying, lest unconscious biases creep in and distort the data.

Companies have a lot to learn about selling to women.
Despite remarkable strides in market power and social position that have been made in the last 100 years, women are routinely undervalued in the marketplace and underestimated in the workplace. With too many claims on their time, it’s often a circus of juggling work, family, and home — made all the more acute by the pandemic. Few companies are heeding the need to create time-saving products or services that speak to women’s lived experiences and needs. Expanding the number of women who run the underlying research that shapes which products make it to market mean more on-target consumer insights. All of which brings us to…

HOW WE CAN ALL HELP TO REDUCE THE GENDER GAP

There are many ways to help reduce the gender gap; here’s a simple one we can all do: amplify women’s voices.

Get out your megaphones. A critical component of championing women at work is equalizing voices. Interrupting, mansplaining, and having others take credit for their ideas are all serious problems that women experience in the workplace. During the Obama administration, female Whitehouse staffers, after having to muscle their way into meetings and vying to be heard, developed the amplification strategy to lift and strengthen one another’s voices. Frustrated by their male peers garnering more attention and seeing their idea take flight more quickly, women in the Obama administration initiated an echoing support technique they dubbed “amplification.”

What began as women supporting women grew into female staffers acknowledging each other’s contributions, which gave way to more of them being consulted in discussions and growing parity with men concerning who sat in the president’s inner circle.

While amplification developed in the White House, this technique can be put to great use in any workplace by both men and women. Role-play these sample statements, shared by DreamHost, to get a sense of how to amplify:

As ____ said, we can improve in this area by ____.
____’s idea of ____ could be the solution to ____.
I want to emphasize what _____ said. It really demonstrated how _____.
I really appreciate your comment, ____. Your idea could really help us ____.

Mentoring is another highly effective way to amplify women’s voices. Sharing knowledge, connections, and shortcuts is a powerful way to facilitate someone having their ideas heard. Every business needs more good ideas from diverse sources, help give them voice.