Just Because I’m Screaming, Doesn’t Mean Anyone Hears Me
It’s been two weeks since the United State of Women Summit. That’s right: we, women, had a summit and it was inspiring and emotional, but what’s next?
When I arrived at the summit, held at the D.C. convention center, there were women lined up around the block waiting to get in. I’ve never seen anything like it and neither had my taxi driver. He asked what was going on. Why all the women? I told him that we were getting a summit of our own, where women are rallying together, celebrating what we’ve achieved, and making plans to keep moving forward. I knew this was the credo of the summit, but I still didn’t know how we would actually make it all happen.
I practically jumped out of his moving taxi to get in line with the other 5,000 women attending the summit. As we got off the escalator, we were greeted by bagels and coffee (no ban on bread here), and the opening words of Vice President Biden. He dove right in with insightful and inspirational remarks on stopping sexual violence against women, reminding us that:
“Ultimately, we have to give women and girls a greater voice, but that’s not enough. They have to be assured that their voices will be heard.”
The lingering question was then, how can we assure women that their voices are being heard?
PYPO was there producing the official summit podcast (soon to be released) and I put my pretty on along with our Editor-in-Chief, Elizabeth Thorp, and the trailblazing women who spoke at the summit: including Lilly Ledbetter — Champion of the Movement for Equal Pay, Valerie Jarrett — a Senior Advisor to the President of the United States, Jennifer Welter — the first female NFL coach, Miki Agrawal — CEO of the groundbreaking period-absorbing THINX panties, and Peace Corps Director — Carolyn Hessler-Radelet.
Patricia Arquette and I laughed about how it isn’t enough for women to be “hot.” Our issues have to be “hot,” too.
Fortunately, our issues are on-fucking-fire, ladies. Do you feel it in your lady balls? I do!
While it became easier to identify the issues — the summit was organized into six pillars: Economic Empowerment, Violence Against Women, Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Leadership & Civic Engagement, Educational Opportunity, Violence Against Women — there was one question I couldn’t get out of my mind.
How will we keep the spirit of the summit alive after it is over?
It was easy to be confident about the progress we had made at the summit that day. Less easy to be confident about the days to come. I was moved to tears again and again, but also empowered to go do something actionable, like launching PYPO. As our friends at The Girl’s Lounge say, if you can’t see her, you can’t be her.
I don’t know about you, but I want my daughter to be her and I want my sons to be with her.
Have I mentioned I run a startup? Much like the summit, running a startup like PYPO is both exhilarating and exhausting. Some days I want to hide in the bathtub like the character on Silicon Valley. I need a Jared to bring me hope and a shot of tequila — even false hope will do (but not cheap tequila). Sometimes we need false hope to get through the next 12 hours without giving up before real hope walks through the door. I think women’s issues are similar. We need to get out of the bathtub and get shit done. We need to bring our friends hope, coffee, tequila or whatever we need to just keep moving forward.
And moving forward can be very hard to do. Like a lot of women, I’m a single parent to three hostile, dependent, pre-teens and like State Farm, I am always there for them to tell me they love me and hate me at the same time. Well, I love and hate a lot of things, but there is only love for this journey — love mixed with fear and excitement. Every. Single. Day.
I’ve been in the TV and film business for over 20 years and have worked my way up the ranks; and even as I’ve worked my way from production assistant to producer and director, I find that most of the world, is still a man’s world (big surprise).
I have Sheryl Sandberg to thank for saying we should laugh our way to equality and lean in together. I’ve leaned in, and I’ve fallen over, but I’ve always gotten back up, found a sturdier chair, and leaned in again. Thank you, Arianna Huffington for telling me I need to sleep more — yes I do. And Susan Lyne and Built By Girls — you are really getting shit done (they just announced a partnership with Let Girls Learn).
The summit came to an end with a discussion between The First Lady Michelle Obama and Oprah — and no one compares to them. Michelle inspires the world and Oprah makes us believe in ourselves. By the end of it, I was convinced we were all getting new cars and new futures.
We women have been in boxes way too long. Boxes that tell us what our limits are, both personally and professionally. I say fuck you and your box.
We are stronger together and no one keeps baby in a box. Or the corner or the back of the boardroom. Those glass slippers are uncomfortable and this ain’t your fairy godmother talking. Sure, someday your prince may come, but he might also leave.
The summit was great but it’s not great enough if it was only one day. It needs to be every day. Stay mad, stay motivated, stay concerned. We need to stay on this with undying urgency. We need to mobilize. Mobilize like the men who formed a human chain to save a drowning dog, captured in a video that has been viewed over 10 million times.
Where is our video of women forming a human chain to help other women from drowning? Bet that video would be viewed over 35 million times.
I’ll admit that I cried several times at the summit. Sometimes the issues seemed so inexhaustible and the stories so moving, that my emotions were all over the place. Those emotions continued all day. This week, PYPO is all about emotional incontinence. We laugh and cry; often at the same time. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t brilliant — in fact, it might just prove it — so I say let’s be emotionally incontinent, let’s be brilliant, let’s keep the community thriving, and the movement expanding — together.
So here we are, on Medium at PYPO, where we not only voice our opinions every week, but also make them heard.
I’m asking you, do you want to be heard?
For more stories like this, check out our new PYPO Medium publication.
