The Mama Bear by Chairman Mom

Recently, we hosted an online event about female ambition. (Timely, don’t you think?)

It was a two-and-a-half-hour, wide-ranging conversation about politics at times and about incredibly vulnerable and personal topics at others. One woman joined us who had just left her job after being told to “wait” for her shot over and over again. 

“Wait, it’s not your time yet…” 

“Your time will come…” 

Just about everyone in that call reacted visibly to the story. I never realized how triggering the word “wait” is for ambitious women. “Wait” is a way to pacify women. To talk over them. To take credit for their work. To continue to co-opt their talent, to keep their support, to promise them something that you may never pay them in the future without taking the actual risk of funding them, supporting them, promoting them, or letting them lead.  Read more...

Today’s intro comes from CM contributor Adimika Arthur, a public health expert, hospital executive, and founder of Health Tech for Medicaid (HT4M). It’s adapted from her Instagram post about Kamala Harris’ vice presidential announcement with permission.

Beautiful strong black women
this is our time
We know who we are
We know who we want to be
This is our time

Beautiful strong black women
This is our time
We know where we are going
We know what we can learn
This is our time

Beautiful strong black women
This is our time
We know we are fierce
We know what we can do
This is our time Read more...

Look closely at this picture. 

It’s not me. 

Everyone thinks it is. She has that mom body language you can’t fake. I do that thing with my arm a lot and her expression is very much like one I’d use in that moment. A sort of “sure it’s chaos but it’s my chaos” face. Her kids kinda look the same age as mine and similar enough if you glance. 

Our team has asked me where I was because they don’t recognize my kitchen. People have noted how long Eli’s hair has gotten during the pandemic. Even my boyfriend referred to the ad where “I” am holding Evie and Eli is twirling. My ex-husband—a man I was with since my 20s and who is the father of those children—had to stop and put on his glasses because he didn’t believe me at first when I said, “Look at this photo. It isn’t me.” Read more...

Last month, one of our users suggested we do a virtual book club to discuss Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld. It’s a retelling of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s life if she decided not to marry Bill Clinton. It’s a gripping, fun, and cathartic read in a lot of ways, and we’re going to discuss it at a virtual event at 9pm EST/6pm PST tomorrow night.

But we decided to widen the discussion a bit, for those of you who haven’t read the book, because let’s be honest…Who needs another thing on their to-do list, even as good as this book is?  Read more...

Newsletter editor Lily here.

Recently, my roommate Kaitlyn and I decided to embark on a new endeavor: We’re doing a rewatch of the show Glee.

I haven’t really watched Glee since its original run from 2009 to 2015, and even then, I didn’t pay much attention to the final two seasons. We’re four or five episodes in now, and I hadn’t seen the first season since I was 15 years old. Back then, this show was critically acclaimed, and I remember thinking how edgy and fun it was; I tuned in every week. Read more...

Today’s intro is from our contributor Amanda Munday, who’s the founder and CEO of The Workaround and author of Day Nine: A Postpartum Depression Memoir.

When I was 10 years old, my mother bought me a book about astrology and dreams. I dog-eared it until it was almost circular instead of square, reading about my sun sign for hours (Aries, isn’t it obvious?), evaluating everyone I met against our astrological compatibility.

Then I sort of lost track and moved on to something else. Read more...

As I’ve said before, July was rough. 

March was up and down. April was smooth sailing, I was in the zone on homeschooling, and was enjoying the break from everything. Thank God I maximized all my Marie Kondo’ing then. May was still OK. June was up and down, but man, July was brutal. 

I had created so many healthy habits during this time. Working out, meditating, reading every day, doing a lot of anti-racism work. For the entire pandemic, I’ve been a master of to-do lists. They are just challenging enough to light a fire under me, but also doable if I focus. I was mostly completing my daily lists every day and completing three-quarters of my monthly to-do lists. Read more...

“I gotta go run three more miles, and I only have a small window between the temperature falling and it getting dark,” I explained to Eli as I watched a thermometer, getting ready to run out for an evening jog in the desert last month. It was the last week of the month and every day there’d been pressure to wake up early or spare time in the evening to make this happen. 

“Why do you have to run?” Eli asked. “Why don’t you just Peloton?”

“Because my June challenge is to run or walk 201 miles,” I said. “So Pelotoning doesn’t help.” Read more...

So…a lot of you really want to join a board!

By far our most popular event based on sign-ups this week is theBoardlist’s CEO Shannon Gordon talking about how to get on a board. Your interest in this caught me by surprise, maybe because I sometimes dread my own board meetings, but it’s an important topic. 

Men gain power, wealth, and prestige through boards, while the numbers of women and people of color on boards are staggeringly low. But research also shows that three or more members of an underrepresented group on a board tends to change the entire dynamic of a company or organization. They perform better in terms of profits and revenues, and there is more inclusion and promotion and support of other underrepresented team members. It’s an impactful way for women to gain more money, influence, and prestige and to lift up the next generation of leaders.  Read more...

Today’s intro comes from CM contributor Adimika Arthur, a public health expert, hospital executive, and founder of Health Tech for Medicaid (HT4M). She fiercely advocates for vulnerable populations and loves to help people better understand health equity, healthcare, and health technology through storytelling, connection, and sisterhood.

This past weekend, I did a “cabinet cleansing,” aligning my values with my purchase power and consumer practices. Although I am not a proponent to waste food due to the poverty that is pervasive in this country, I immediately started prepping bags en masse for the food bank. I refuse in good faith to purchase Goya food products, but I donated all my previously purchased items to those who may need to rely on sustenance in any form due to their socioeconomic position. There are millions of people in need and the critical donation of gazillions of canned goods and pounds worth of food to food banks will make a difference, Goya or not.  Read more...