Michele: 

Hello, everybody, thank you for joining us. This is Michele Heyward and KC Atha here again for another DEI Thursday. Today we are talking about women’s equality day, which is actually on August 26. We’re doing it early. Well, because we have other things going on. But we do want to talk about it. And I’m gonna let KC start because she came up with the title and, and why, why she why we have this title and literally talk about women’s equality day. And what what differs about it from white women to underrepresented or women of color, more specifically black women. I’m being very specific. Okay. Mm hmm.

KC: 

Okay, so when Michelle and I get together, we sort of throw out our ideas for what we should or could talk about on Thursday and I threw out a couple. And then Michelle said, what about this women’s equality day on Thursday? And I was like, Oh, yeah, what is that about? I honestly didn’t even know. And it was it’s about women’s suffrage getting approved in 1920. And that’s the actual the actual day. So I figured this out. Michelle, the actual day is on the 18th when it was ratified the 19th amendment. And then the day to commemorate it is August 26. So I figured that out. And then once I realized what women’s equality day was based in, I thought, Oh my gosh, this is problematic, just like celebrating the day that it was ratified was problematic, which is basically to say that women’s equality day is using white women as the default, saying once white women have equality, then that means all women have a quality and if you’ve been paying attention at all, Recently, there’s a lot of information out there talking about how this is not the truth. And so Michelle got me excited about this topic because when I started digging deeper, I thought, Oh, this is connected to the DNI work I do in the workplace. And the way I connected it to Michelle was, I tried to advocate as much as possible in everything that I do partnering with organizations, I tried to say, hey, how do we center the margins? Because if you center the margins, you get all the people in the middle taken care of, and the folks in the margins. And so when I just felt triggered, I would say, by women’s equality day, because I just felt guestlist like we’re not all equal, because of this holiday that’s just basing it on white women’s experience. And then Michelle and I just riff off of well, they base it off of white womens experience for equal pay day, same issues happening and so I think that story of where we started going off into our conversation and excitement to talk about it today. So what do you think? Did I leave anything out? Michelle?

Michele: 

No, no, that was that was so on point. When when we look at a lot of women’s movement, right, it is still very centered around white women. So black women, even though this was ratified in, you know, 1920 August 26 1920, black women were actually the Ku Klux Klan came after them showed up threaten them, and it really kept them away from the polls. So it’s not the same progress for all women, which is why they are separate equal paydays. Last week, I was on talking about black woman’s equal payday. We’ve yet to get to Indigenous women or native women equal payday. We’ve yet to get to Latina equal payday because they are all very different. When you look at how we are impacted. So when you see something Since women asked your quick ask questions, women, you call it marginalized. So the margins right, so we’ll talk a little we’ll we’ll discuss margins in a minute and marginalized. But what does that really look like when you dissect it? And then you go into LGBTQ women who are black, and an intention is and Latina. What does that look like for them? And so you can do it so many different ways. And you’re going to have so much more like, Oh my gosh, I didn’t know I didn’t like their mom’s payday. And you don’t our parents paid and you don’t really understand how men can get paid more wants to become a father. Women get paid less when they become mothers. And so you’re looking at like, wait, that makes no sense. You would think you want to pay both parents so they got an extra mouth to be and it doesn’t work that way. In too many instances. I won’t say 100% but in too many instances, it doesn’t work. That way. So it’s really important when you’re assessing, and you’re looking at celebrations, right? You’re looking at laws, like who did it truly impact in that time in that moment? And who does it impact maybe today? Because for decades, it didn’t for decades, literally black women were definitely not able to easily have access to the to equality and is still not the same, even here today. So we’ve talked about equal pay, we talked about, Hey, there are more women going into STEM I hold up, but there are a decreased number of black women getting engineering degrees, what are you talking about? And so you have to look at it on on several levels when it comes to not just gender, but race, and, and disabilities. So really take into account and really understand who is this who is really winning. And so let’s go back to where you were talking, and you’re talking about no margins. I always say we always say, I’m gonna take I’m gonna take a little bit from Drake and my friends that know me, they’re like, yo, isn’t this trick stuff. So just follow me Started from the bottom now we’re here, if policies truly if you truly want to make change, who are the people that are often overlooked? So they’re out on the margins, or they’re looked down upon. That’s why and they’re not at the bottom to me, but they’re looked down upon. If you start from those spaces, you automatically lift up those people, you automatically start closing gaps. Whereas if you start from the next like, oh, the the people who are the one, you know, getting 100% of the pay or who you build a baseline off of, if we go one level down, you really aren’t closing the gap from people that are 510 and 20. Paid steps behind. So if you go to the people that are 20 steps behind, you’re closing the gap quicker for Everybody that is 10, five and two steps behind, right. But for those that are 20 steps, if you’re only doing it for those that are two steps behind, you aren’t really making monumental moves for those that have been significant left out, marginalized, underrepresented, how whatever terms and phrases you have underestimated is usually what it is and seeing too often as charity, and not as invaluable for what they bring to organizations and truly to the world. So I said all of that, and I didn’t free that i. So, so, so going back to women’s equal pay.
women’s equality day, even when you look at historically who is discuss your women’s equality day, you are only told about white women. So the history needs to reflect the black women who were part of this movement who are part of the change who We’re still left out. For 45 additional years, it was truly 1965, before black women went to the polls, in mass numbers and voted. So I really want you to think about that. And understand where where we are, where we’re trying to go and what these holidays really mean. Because too often they’re looking at white women. But what’s truly the impact of all women, all colors, all genders, family structures, what impact does it have or didn’t have on their lives? And that’s truly where you want to focus in order to know where the change really needs to happen.

KC: 

Yeah, I would agree with that. And I would also say so what I’m hearing from you is saying, look at the history, and we’re definitely getting a single story. So Susan B. Anthony decided with a couple of her homeys to write a book to solidify their place in history, but so then they centered themselves elves naturally in this, you know, really long historical account of women’s suffrage. And they left out and erased a lot of the work that was done by black women, indigenous women, and, and others that are not white and, and it just really does a disservice to all of us who are trying to learn about our national history. So this is really unfair to us that we were taught something with so many holes and gaps. And so I’m going to get out of victimhood and create, and how do I create, I create by the by changing the way we move and share information and history in our understanding. And so, last night after I chatted with Michelle, I was like, man, I better educate myself. I went on YouTube, I was like, I don’t feel like reading anymore today. So I was like, I’ll watch something. PBS had a really wonderful, um, it was kind of long, long ish. And in today’s standard You know, maybe it was 10 to 16 minutes, I don’t know. But it really broke down the the history of women’s suffrage and women’s equality day. So I would just invite you to the first step, I’m really advocating this and as much as I can remember to do, which is always like, the first step is to educate yourself and to recognize where are the gaps and blind spots with me and that started with Casey Eva last night googling on YouTube, like, fill in these gaps. You know, I know why and how to center the margins so that we can all be liberated, but I also want to know concretely, all the ways that the margins were not centered and all the ways that we use proximity to whiteness to as our default, so white males who are sis hetero, there and then however close you are two that identity is basically telling us look at the hip look at who’s he raised. Look at intersectionality. Look at how, who gets to write history. So this is one example one case study women’s equality day to basically explore all of those topics. So when you’re in the workplace, you can use any type of holiday or experience or things that’s happening in the world to tie it back into these really important topics like intersectionality, eraser, etc. So I want to just tie it in. It’s not just for the sake of learning the history and filling the gaps. It’s also for the sake of rewiring our brains as much as possible with every opportunity that happens in our life, because that’s really how I’m excavating and rooting out the anti racism, and that the ignorance really the gaps that allow me to fill it in with stereotypes, that and other social conditioning that is just wrong. So this is how we fortify ourselves to be great leaders that have clarity because we put the mirror up first and Do the work first with ourselves. So that’s it. That’s my big takeaway today. For me personally,

Michele: 

I’m adding one. One thing that we often talk about when it comes to the current day, social change in justice movements. And oftentimes we get asked from white women representatives, whether it’s women in tech groups is a women’s different women’s movements for pay or access to technical roles, you know, career is that well, will the black woman join us will and it was like, we’ve been here, what are you talking about God. And so, if you’re a white woman and you’re in an ally, what I will recommend you do is find these organizations that are already doing the work and join them because you will understand you will start to learn hopefully, what is different about the journey we are on and what is different about the barriers who encountered that we have to overcome. And one of them is you, assuming we’re not part of the movement already when oftentimes we created the movement. We were just overlooked because we had darker skin so, so I encourage you to do that. And one of my one of my friends, she’s a founder of as well. She’s a solo founder of her tech company, Kathleen. Kathleen is like Michelle, I’m, I’m really adamant about doing the work and she has a great she founded a company called buddy, she’s a cancer thriver as a kid, she had cancer, and she literally had the history of women’s equality rights. Up in her ID story chef’s today and should I hold up? No, you need to read this. You need to know who Mary McLeod Bethune is you need to know they went to the college all women’s college she started in Florida. They pay the Ku Klux Klan to say don’t go vote. This is the real history of what women’s equality day is about and these are the women, the black women that were have been left out of the history. And so they taking those stances to educate and bring awareness to the real history of the of these different dates that we observe as far as progress, right and social change really is important as step number one be honest, yeah, one B one a is your own awareness. One B is is sharing the information with others so they they become aware. So keep doing the work, keep taking steps and understand as an ally you will will fail. But the important part is learning from that failure and getting back in and doing it again and again. And again. Okay, that’s all I have Kate Casey and I are happy you could join us whether it’s live on the replay. We will not be on here next week. We are both busy. Yeah. So I’m looking forward to working with seat spot and black girl ventures next week with some startups. So I will be busy with in startup world so I can’t wait to meet some new founders. Yes. All right, everybody. We will see you in September. It was just that it was March for six months and now it’s August. Yep. All right, sounds good Michelle. Alright everybody, we’ll see you next month. Bye.